Page 93

Blink, and five years zip past. Happier times now. Healthier ones, too, for their precious boy. They’re in the water, all four of them, swimming beside theLazy Susan, anchored just off Mortis Point. A splash, sunlight glimmering on grey, and suddenly they’re no longer four but nine.
‘Mum!’ Billie shrieks.
But there’s no fear in her daughter’s voice, only joy. Around them, five bottlenose dolphins snail up and down. They click and they whistle and Billie laughs with glee; and Lucy sees, immediately, what her daughter will one day become – how her life will be shaped by her love of the sea.
‘Dolph!’ Fin shouts. ‘Dolph!Dolph!’
His cetacean audience nods as if it understands.
Blink, and they’re barbecuing again – Penleith Beach, that day from the photograph on Daniel’s desk. Blink, and Lucy’s making love to him as Atlantic wind blows through their bedroom windows and dries the sweat on their skin.
Blink, and it’s a week ago. Daniel’s standing at the breakfast bar, showing her something on his laptop. There’s money missing from the business and a sizeable number of assets. Obvious enough who’s the culprit, but so far there’s no way of proving it. Worse, a handful of supplier invoices haven’t been added to the system. There’s not enough money left to honour them.
Blink, and she’s standing in Nick Povey’s hallway, staring at a boxwood tree hurled through his front door. Daniel stands in the wreckage. He doesn’t say anything, just stares – at her bare feet, her towel-damp hair, her unbuttoned rugby shirt bearing his friend’s name.
When Lucy drops her head, she notices blood pulsing from her right foot in time with her heart. Glancing behind her, she sees a line of scarlet footprints retreating through slivers of glass.
Daniel steps over the boxwood, passing Nick without a word. Gentle as snow, he lifts Lucy in his arms and carries her from the house.
Outside, rain crackles off their heads. Within seconds they’re soaked. Daniel’s Volvo is parked behind her Citroën. He opens the passenger door and lowers her on to the seat. From the boot he grabs a flashlight and first-aid kit. Kneeling in running water, he removes the shard of glass from her foot and carefully binds the wound.
‘Like the first time we met,’ Lucy says, crying.
‘Consider the favour returned.’
Already, her guilt is a cold stone. Daniel’s tenderness sharpens it. ‘I’m so sorry. I’d never have—’
He shakes his head. ‘I know why you went. What you were trying to do.’
They drive home. And Lucy knows they stillhavea home. Whether in this house or somewhere else.
Blink, and it’s Friday lunchtime. Lucy’s in the study, examining Daniel’s balance sheet, working out how to save him and claw back whatever Nick stole. On the desk is a stack of correspondence that has sat there far too long. In it, she finds something that doesn’t make sense: communications from two insurance companies about policies takenout in her name. She doesn’t recognize them and when she phones, she doesn’t recognize the account through which they’ve been paid.
Blink, and she’s onHuntsman’s Daughter, watching the helicopter winch Daniel from the sea. Blink, and she’s crouching beside Billie on Penleith Beach, her daughter no longer a force of nature powered by an incredible beating heart but an empty vessel; cold flesh and grey skin and—
Blink, and she’s back in the car with Noemie, throat creaking as she tries to suck down air. Too dangerous to keep thinking. Too painful to let her mind roam free. She counts road signs. Then she counts cars. They’re in Okehampton, turning east. Thirty minutes later they’re in Exeter. They park by the railway line and cross the bridge.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ Noemie says.
Lucy can’t speak.
Blink, and she’s outside the prison’s red-brick entrance. Blink, and she’s stuffing her belongings into a clear plastic bag. Blink, and she’s through security, into the visiting hall.
Blink, and there’s Daniel, climbing to his feet.
THIRTY-TWO
1
Gone is the man Lucy thought she knew. Because what rises from the table is hardly a man at all. Daniel looks like a taxidermy project gone wrong, a waxwork figure left too long in the midday sun.
Around her, the visiting hall rotates like a fairground ride. All Lucy can hear is the thump of her pulse, the roar of her blood. She wants to scream; feels, if she does, she might not stop.
Somehow she starts moving again, one leaden foot in front of the other. And then she’s at the table. For two days she carefully constructed a fantasy, deceiving herself that Billie and Fin were alive. So much truth she had to bury while building it, so many voices she had to ignore. And yet if she held her breath and didn’t look too closely, the edifice managed to endure.
Sunday morning, on Penleith Beach, it all came crashing down. She wonders if there’s anything left to be destroyed.
One step and Daniel’s closed the gap between them. Lucy’s so frightened of being touched that a tear spills down her cheek. His head moves close to hers, his lips angled towards her ear. She can smell him, can hear him breathing.