Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(38)

‘I would be bad at my job if I didn’t ask questions, Toby, but I am on your side.’ She smiled. Toby smiled guardedly back.

‘What do you do together, you and Lauren, on a night out? Cinema? Meals out?’

‘Yes, occasionally.’

‘You used to play the saxophone, you said?’

‘Yes. I love all sorts of music. Lauren listens to the current affairs programmes on the radio. I usually put my earphones in and put on one of my playlists.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking: you and Lauren seem quite different?’

‘Yes, I suppose we are.’

‘What made you think – she’s the one for me?’

‘I’m not sure really.’

‘Come on – there must be one thing that comes straight into your mind when you think of when you realized you were in love with Lauren?’

‘I suppose I saw security in her.’

‘And Samuel?’

‘I never wanted kids. I wanted us to have years of travelling, of having fun together. I thought there was so much we had to learn about one another and I was looking forward to shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world and just being us. But then Samuel came along – only now that this has happened do I realize how much I’ve grown to love him.’

‘You will feel like it’s your fault—’

‘Lauren blames me completely and she’s right to.’

Jeanie looked across at Toby. ‘But, if someone was determined to take Samuel, they would have found a way.’

‘Not with Lauren, they wouldn’t have. Lauren’s the one with the balls. She’d kill anyone who tried to touch Samuel.’





Chapter 17


Carter and Willis watched the low circling helicopter above them as they waited to pull out of the layby. It flew away towards the cliffs. Movement in the side mirror caught Willis’s eye; she reached across to stop Carter from pulling out. ‘Guv, someone just crossed over the road behind us. They went through the gate opposite.’

‘Man or woman?’

‘I couldn’t tell, they were quick.’

‘Where does it lead?’

‘There’s a sign that says it leads to Garra Cove.’ Willis looked at her map. ‘It leads along the coastal path to the old mine.’

‘Let’s take a look.’

They left the car parked up behind the hedge in the layby and crossed the road. A narrow path had been cut through trees and shrubs left to grow wild and twisted in the Atlantic gales. After a few minutes the path opened up to scrubby heath and gorse bushes appeared as they neared the cliff edge. The path split in two as it descended towards the cove and carried on over the cliffs above it. They could hear the roar of the waves as the sea smashed into the cliff face below them, where a cavernous split in the rocks allowed water to funnel and rise. They felt spray from the waves. Below them the sea was a foaming cauldron.

‘You want to take a look along the cliff top, Eb?’ Carter battled against the noise. ‘I’ll take a look at the cove.’

Willis took off and had disappeared over the top of the grassy slope, strewn with granite boulders. He saw her buffeted by the wind as she hit the rise and disappeared over the other side.

Carter took a few steps towards the cliff edge and the start of the rocky steep descent towards the cove beneath. He looked back along the path and down towards the cliff edge and the rocky ledges below, where resilient shrubs clung to a minute amount of top soil, their bare roots woven into the rocks. As he stood watching, the sea grew and swelled and it roared angry and surged so high that he was knocked backwards with the energy and the spray. Just as he was finding his balance, he felt a huge push in his back. He felt his breath escape in a roar as his back banged against the hard rock and he was pushed over the edge.

Willis turned her head to listen again. She had heard a sound that she knew didn’t belong. The wind and the waves were as loud as jets screaming overhead. Over the roar of the ocean she thought she heard someone shout.

Carter felt his stomach lurch as he fell, then he felt the water hit his face and heard the sharp crack of a branch. He didn’t dare open his eyes for a few seconds. He stayed still, hardly daring to breathe, waiting to feel the pain hit him, waiting to die.

‘Guv, give me your hand.’

Willis lay on her stomach and reached down to him. Carter looked up at her and then back down at his feet as he felt the bush give beneath him. He was sitting half on and half off a straggly shrub, which had taken root in the cliff, on a shelf less than a foot wide. He looked further down towards the churning ocean throwing up fifteen-foot waves to come within a few inches of his feet.

‘Guv?’

He looked back up. Willis nodded at him as if to say – it’s now or never.

He got onto one foot and knee and then he reached up for her hand.

‘Go for it. I can take your weight,’ said Willis.

Carter looked at her face. He knew if there was one person who could do it, it was Willis. He knew she would come over the cliff with him rather than let him go. He felt the sea crash into him as the waves grew higher, gathering momentum as the tide rose, and he knew he had no choice.

‘You can do it, guv, climb over me.’

Carter looked above him at the cliff face between him and the edge. He looked back at the ocean, each set of waves higher than the last.