Her Perfect Family(8)

His wife’s crying now and he reaches out to put his arms around her shoulders as she feels in her pocket for a tissue.

‘And nothing more’s come to mind since we spoke yesterday?’ DI Sanders is watching him closely again. She’s a strange woman. Intense. It feels as if she has some kind of laser vision. Some instinct that is both promising in terms of the investigation. And personally dangerous.

He thinks of Canada. He thinks of the phone calls he made secretly late last night and wonders if the inspector will have his phone records examined. Damn. How the hell will he explain himself?

‘No. Nothing.’





CHAPTER 4

THE DAUGHTER – NOW

She sleeps most of the time and is grateful for the calm. But even in sleep, she hears the sea whispering and knows that it’s waiting for her.

Each time she wakes, she is somehow not in the real world at all but instead beside the ocean. There’s only the colour blue – the soft blue of the sky and the deeper, brighter blue of the sea. She can feel the breeze on her face and the salt in the spray with the echo of each rolling wave – yes, whispering.

Sshhhh.

Always she is right at the water’s edge so that she can feel the lapping of the waves. Sometimes she’s up to her ankles in the water and sometimes up to her knees but she’s always dressed and so never ventures out to swim.

The first time all this happened, she thought she was truly awake. Now she knows this is not the case. It’s happened over and over, as if on a loop. Just a different and special kind of dreaming from which the only escape is more sleep.

She opens her eyes right now and there it is, same scene as always. Blue sky. Blue sea . . . whispering.

Today she just stands in the water and lets it lap around her legs. Oddly, one leg is warm and the other is very cold. She looks down but can see only seaweed, floating on the surface. Next she waits for the objects to float by. Every time in every dream, there are strange objects that float by – like clues in some game she doesn’t yet understand.

Mostly they are things from her home and from her life – as if they are shipwrecked with her here by this beach. A bottle of perfume. The brush from her dressing table. Today there is the mortar board from the ceremony in the cathedral. She watches it, bobbing up and down in the current, just out of reach. She remembers now that she was worried this would happen – that it would fall from her head. She straightens her back and remembers walking very upright with everyone clapping. And then she saw her mother’s puzzled expression. Yes. She looked down at her dress. Is that when the mortar board fell off?

She watches the board move closer and stretches out her hand. She wonders if she’s supposed to collect these objects? Is that it? Some kind of test? Trying to find the pieces of some puzzle. If she collects all the objects in these dreams, maybe she can go home? Is that it?

But her feet are buried too deep in the sand and she cannot move them. She tries harder, stretching out further, but it’s no good. The mortar board floats past and she feels that she is going to cry.

Next the direction of the waves seems to change and the mortar board’s floating even further away. She tries to call out but still she’s mute; her voice gone. She moves her lips but there’s no sound beyond the whispering of the waves.

Shhh. She’s listening. I know she’s listening . . .

What was that? She turns her head. She was so very sure she heard a voice. A voice she knows . . .

She keeps very still and listens but there’s silence now. It is too late. The mortar board drifts further and further away and she’s so very tired again.

She closes her eyes and is somehow moving through the water and the clouds and the blue of the sky all at the same time. And now the strangest thing. She can smell her favourite perfume – all around her.

And as she drifts or flies or floats, she suddenly feels this wetness on her forehead.

Like the spray from the sea. But no; it isn’t spray.

She holds her body very, very still.

We’re here, darling girl . . .

It feels like a kiss – this touch to her forehead.

Yes.

She’s crying again.

This feels just like a kiss.





CHAPTER 5


THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR


Matthew checks his diary on his phone. Blank. Good. He moves from his desk through the door that connects to the adjoining flat and turns on the coffee machine. He sighs as he watches the light flashing red, knowing it will be a while before it signals the correct temperature.

Once upon a time he was more patient; he would tell anyone who would listen that good coffee was always worth waiting for. Now? As a parent and the owner of a growing business, his life’s unrecognisable. A see-saw of different worries. He either has too much work or not enough. When business is hectic, he worries about balancing it with family life. When work’s slow, he worries about paying the bills. The upshot is he worries more and sleeps less.

And he’s not so good at waiting . . .

He glances around the small kitchen and thinks back to the time he lived in this flat right alongside his office. That different version of Matthew before he met Sally. Before the gift and the puzzle that is their lovely Amelie.

He slumps on to the stool at the breakfast bar, willing the light on the machine to hurry up. At last there’s a little buzz as the colour blinks from red to green. He presses the button for a double espresso as his phone rings – the display confirming DI Melanie Sanders. Again.