Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(60)


“Thanks, love,” she said.

“Now he hates me,” said Kate.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“It’s easier for you. You can follow him upstairs and talk to him.”

Glenda smiled at her.

“I know, love. Why don’t you try and phone him later?”

Kate nodded. Glenda put her finger to her lips and then pressed it against the camera.



It was the first occasion in a long time that Jake had got upset with Kate. She had been right, of course, but it played on her mind as she fried herself some eggs. When she put them on hot buttered toast and came through to the living room, the sun was just sinking down over the sea.

Summer sunsets always filled her with positivity, but as the nights drew in, they made Kate feel gloomy and lonely. She looked down at the food she’d made but wasn’t hungry. She came back into the kitchen and chucked it away. She looked up out of the side window and saw Myra on her way down to the beach, hunched over, her white-blonde hair blown flat by the wind, trying to light a cigarette.

Kate put her plate in the sink and hurried out of the back door.

“Myra! You got a minute?” she shouted, following her down the sandy cliff.

“Hello, stranger,” she said. “I missed you at the last two AA meetings.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry to me. It’s your sobriety.”

“Things have got crazy; can we talk? Can you open up the shop? I need a wet suit,” asked Kate.

“Sure, I’ll grab the keys,” said Myra.

The inside of the surf shop smelled musty, and the long windows looking out over the sea had been boarded up now the season was over. Myra turned on the fluorescent strip lights, which flickered on, lighting up the interior. At the front, a row of shelves stocked tinned and dried goods, camping stoves, bottled gas, and a few small tents.

Myra led Kate to the surf portion at the back, where racks of wet suits hung with flippers, snorkels, and some faded cardboard adverts for surf gear—handsome, muscled men standing with lithe, bikini-clad babes. The wind moaned around the building.

“How tall is Jake?” asked Myra, sorting through a rack of kids’ wet suits with her glowing cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth. “He was below my shoulder the last time he was here at Easter.”

She pulled out a small black-and-blue wet suit with a Rip Curl logo on the back.

“I saw him last month and he was up to my shoulder,” said Kate.

Myra held it up to Kate.

“Has he got fat? Some kids balloon when they hit puberty. When I hit fourteen, I got very fat and bossy,” said Myra.

“He’s not fat.”

“There are other colors if you want to take a look,” said Myra. She lit up a fresh cigarette with the end of the old and stubbed it out on the grubby concrete floor. Kate searched through the rack. “You can’t say fat anymore. One woman who came in over the summer came in with a little girl who was a right porker. I said to her, the sea is lovely and warm, and she’s well insulated. Save yourself a few quid on wet suit hire.”

“You didn’t!”

“I didn’t shout it out. I took the mother to one side; still you’d think I declared World War Three!”

“This one; he loves green,” said Kate, pulling out a suit with what looked like a pattern of green paint splashes.

“When is he coming?”

“Half term, in twelve days. I just wanted to send him a picture of it.”

“Take it, love,” said Myra, putting the other suit back.

“How much?”

“What do you think? Nothing.”

“Thanks.”

“Kate,” she said, putting her hand on her arm. “Don’t miss another meeting. Okay?”

“It’s this case I’m working on.”

“Nothing is as important as your sobriety. You see this empty wet suit? It will still be empty in twelve days if you fall off the wagon. Your mother won’t let him near you if you start drinking,” said Myra.

“I know. Is it always going to be this hard? Sobriety.”

Myra nodded.

“I’ve got twenty-three years’ sobriety on you. I still go to meetings and see my sponsor. But I’m alive.”





31

Kate sent Jake a text message with a picture of the wet suit, but she didn’t hear anything back all evening. Just as she was about to go to bed, she got a phone call from an unlisted number.

“Kate, hello. It’s Dr. Baxter at Great Barwell.”

“I was just going to bed,” said Kate.

Meredith Baxter was Peter Conway’s consultant psychiatrist at Great Barwell. She was a little “new age” for Kate’s liking. She always spoke about Peter as a “patient,” not a prisoner. She’d phoned Kate two years ago wanting to connect Kate and Jake with Peter Conway, saying it would be good for his healing process. The last time Kate had spoken to her, she’d used colorful language and told Meredith where to go.

“I’m going to be in London tomorrow. I’d like to meet you,” she said.

“Why?” asked Kate.

“It’s about Peter and Jake.”

“I told you before, he is not having contact with Jake . . .”

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