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At a nearby table, three men in salopettes cluster around a nautical chart. By the window, two coastguard officials scowl at the incoming weather. Fishermen in stained bib overalls queue to get their flasks filled at the bar. At other tables, sailors pull on wet-weather gear. This place has the feel of a coastal militia preparing for an invading aggressor.
Abraham watches Lucy weave through the crowd to the bar. So focused are the volunteers on their plans that her presence hardly registers. Digging out his phone, he heads to a quieter corner. So many things he needs to do. What began as a standard coastguard search and rescue has evolved into something far more complex. Daniel Locke had no good reason to take Fin out of school. The teacher and receptionist saw nothing to suggest he was acting under duress, nor that he was fearful for his son’s safety. And while there’s no firm evidence he took the boy on the boat, Fin Locke is still missing. Now Billie Locke, too.
I love him, Lucy had said of her husband.He loves me too.
But not enough, it seems, to tell her where he was going, or what he was planning to do.
Abraham needs to speak to the control room back in Barnstaple. He also needs to call Middlemoor, the force HQ. He wants a forensics team examining theLazy Susan; a cell-tower analysis of Billie and Daniel Locke’s phones. And he needs to find Daniel’s car.
The coastguard is running the offshore search, but Abraham intends to flood the accessible areas of coastline with police officers. If, by God’s grace, Fin or Billie have washed up alive, they’ll be half frozen. Unthinkable to survive the sea, merely to die of hypothermia on some deserted beach. He’s still compiling his to-do list when Lucy Locke climbs on to an empty table and calls loudly for silence.
EIGHT
1
Last time Lucy was in the Drift Net, she was trying to find Daniel. Seventy minutes later, she’s lost her whole family.
However deeply she tries to breathe, she can’t seem to fill her lungs. She’s still holding Snig, Fin’s security blanket. Just now, in the police car, she pressed it to her face and inhaled. She’d hoped it would strengthen her. But Snig’s almondy smell –Fin’ssmell – nearly stopped her heart.
Bee is waiting behind the bar. Her eyes, under her bubblegum-pink hair, are huge. She looks like she’s standing too close to a car crash and can’t tear herself away.
‘Listen,’ Lucy tells her. ‘I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t know how this ends. But I need to be out there looking, for as long as I possibly can. You’ve got to keep this place running, Bee, OK? It has to be a hub – somewhere people can come for information, somewhere those who’ve been searching can recharge. Close the tills. Don’t charge for anything. I want everyone talking about Billie and Fin, about Daniel. We have to make them famous until they’re found.’
Bee glances at her boyfriend. ‘We’ve got this, Luce, I swear it. We’ll make this place an HQ. Tommo’s a pretty good artist. He can run up some posters, put them on the windows.’
‘Count on it,’ Tommo says. ‘We can print off some flyers, too. I’m just sorry this is happening. I’m guessing he knew this storm was coming. You have any idea why he’d sail those kids straight into it?’
‘Daniel wouldn’t have risked their safety without good reason.’
Tommo nods, but he looks unconvinced. And the more Lucy repeats her mantra – Daniel the caring father, Daniel the responsible parent – the more desperate it sounds.
Please, Daniel.
Give me a sign. Something. Anything.
Bee squeezes Lucy’s arm. ‘Dude, I’m not sure what else to say. But I know in my heart this’ll end well.’
Lucy’s eyes fall to her friend’s T-shirt, its rainbow unicorn and accompanying legend:I DON’T BELIEVE IN YOU EITHER. She turns from the bar, surveys the crowd. She knows what she has to do, but that doesn’t make it any easier. All her life, she’s had a terror of public speaking. Considering the situation, she’d expected her phobia to melt away. Instead, her terror has magnified. It’s a vacuum in her throat. A fizz of acid in her blood.
As she goes to the only empty table, the bell above the front entrance jangles. A blast of cold air rolls in. She can’t look, can’t acknowledge that her audience has just grown larger. She thinks of the TV truck jammed in the high street – the sharp-looking woman in purple cashmere who could only have been a reporter.
Lucy pulls a chair from the table.
Where are you, Daniel? Why haven’t you confided in me?
She climbs on to the chair. Blood rushes from her head. The room seesaws. She twists Snig in her fists. From the chair she steps on to the table.
Heads are turning now. The chatter is starting to die. Lucy’s mouth is drier than ashes. In the far corner, she notices DI Abraham Rose. The crag-faced detective looks out of place here, a crusader knight forced into an ill-fitting suit. His eyes, as he watches her, are unfathomable.
Lucy’s stomach grips. She thinks of her children and again it’s a mistake. Her eyes burn. The room fragments. She hears herself clearing her throat.
A memory comes to her from six weeks ago – a fortnight before Billie’s eighteenth. She’s in her bathroom at home, searching the cabinets for Benylin as Fin’s coughing echoes along the hall.
All his life he’s been prone to chest infections, throat infections, anything going around. She’d always imagined her boy would be an athlete and outdoor adventurer, just like her. But the adventures Fin likes best are those he keeps on his bookcase or captures in his telescope. Even his football-card collection doesn’t stem from an interest in sport but from a desire to befriend other boys.
So many times Lucy’s tried to toughen him physically: surfing, canoeing, canyoning. Fin’s tackled everything she’s thrown at him without a word of protest, but none of it has improved his resilience. She loves her star-gazing, card-sorting little bookworm even more fiercely as a result.
Lucy finds the Benylin bottle and closes the bathroom cabinet. Back in Fin’s room, she spoons red medicine into his mouth and kisses his forehead.