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Eighteen

The traffic and the ferry times meant that it was close to three hours after the phone call when I finally parked by the side of a road on the northeast of the island.

The whole journey, there had been a white-hot sense of urgency inside me, and one that burned more brightly with every passing mile. For some reason, it felt vitally important that I was there when they brought my father’s body up from the rocks where it had washed ashore. On one level, I knew that made no sense at all. But even though I understood he was already gone, it still felt possible that I might miss him, and relief flooded through me when I arrived and found that I had not.

The road here curled along the cliff edge, the land open to the right before the world dropped away. A section of the terrain there had been cordoned off by the police and rescue services, but there was less of an official presence than I had anticipated. A single police car and ambulance were parked, along with a couple of unmarked vehicles. A handful of officers were standing around. A helicopter murmured in the sky overhead.

I stared out through the windscreen. A man was standing at the back of one of the cars with coils of yellow rope laid out on the grass nearby. Closer to the cliff edge, metal rings had been hammered into the ground, and more cords of rope were looped through them, pulled taut against the lip of stone by the weight below. My father’s body had been spotted by boat, but the rocks meant the vessel itself couldn’t get close enough to retrieve it. On this stretch of the coastline, it was almost always easier and safer to send a rescue team down from above.

I got out of the car.

Fleming was standing close to the edge, staring off into the distance with his arms folded impatiently; his body language suggested this was just another instance of my father making life difficult for him. A small crowd had assembled outside of the cordon, the people waiting quietly and respectfully. News traveled fast on the island. It didn’t surprise me that a handful of its older residents had gathered here to witness my father’s return.

I spotted Craig Aspinall among them. He caught my eye, and for a moment seemed about to nod or raise a hand in acknowledgment. But then he stopped himself. Faltered. Looked away again.

I understood. What was there to say?

There was woodland behind me, but the cliff edge itself was exposed, and the cold wind numbed my face as I leaned against the car. There was the hum of the helicopter high above, the soft sound of lowered voices, the background rush of the sea below. The conversations mingled to form their own quiet, strange language, and the effect was soporific. Within a minute, I felt vaguely hypnotized.

I stared at the loops of metal.

The tightness of the ropes.

I tried not to imagine what state my father’s body would be in by now, but it was impossible. The sea was cold here, and that would have preserved him a little, but not entirely. And of course there was the damage he had taken from the initial fall. The Reach was a much higher point on the island than this, and the rocks at its base were slicker and sharper than the ones here. The water might have kept hold of my father all this time, but it hadn’t been the sea itself that killed him.

Despite myself, I pictured him falling through the air, the churning world below arriving like a punch you only have a fraction of a second to see coming. The distance must have seemed vast from the top of the cliff, looking down. And yet the speed of the fall must have shocked him.

Detached.

Calm.

My gaze moved to Fleming.

It didn’t seem right to me that—however briefly—he would be in charge of my father’s body. But there was no escaping it. I forced myself instead to think about the volunteers who were bringing him up. They were good men and women by definition. Whatever the state of his body, they would be carrying him up the cliff face with the care and respect he deserved, wrapped and bundled on a stretcher.

The image brought back a memory.

It was from my first year at university, one of the last few occasions when I’d returned to the island for the holidays. Back then, my father and I were still retreating to our separate rooms and keeping the doors between us closed. One evening, late on, I was lying in bed, listening to the thud of my father’s punches echoing up from the floor below.

But then there had been a much louder thud that made the whole house shake.

And then nothing.

I remained lying on the bed for a moment, my heart beating hard, and then made my way downstairs. The door to my father’s room was closed. I tapped on it hesitantly.

“Dad?”

No response.

After waiting a few seconds longer, I turned the handle and pushed the door gently open. The main light was off, the room illuminated only by the glow of the computer screen on the desk. There were empty bottles next to it, and a half-finished pint glass of wine beside them.

My father was lying on his side beneath the punch bag, which was still swinging ever so softly in the otherwise still air of the room.

There should have been panic at the sight of him—and perhaps for a second there even was. But it went away quickly. You are detached , I told myself. You are calm. It was a mantra I’d spent the last year training myself to repeat at times of stress. Things couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t let them. That aside, my subconscious had already recognized that my father was snoring, and any fear was replaced quickly by sadness and embarrassment for him.

He wouldn’t want me to see him like this.

I walked over slowly and crouched down. He still had the gloves on his fists, and the first thing I did was unlace them: one hand and then the other, pulling the leather away. There was blood beneath the skin between his knuckles. His fingers were bare, I noticed. After my mother left, he’d continued to wear his wedding ring. I didn’t know when he’d decided to take it off, or why, or where it might have been now.

“Let’s get you into bed, Dad,” I said quietly.

It wasn’t so bad. The same thing had actually happened a couple of times when I was younger, and on those occasions I’d struggled to lift him. But I was stronger now, and perhaps he was lighter. I managed to maneuver him in a half shuffle across to the bed, and then lay him down on his side.

Once I had, I looked back at the desk behind me. The computer was open on a website of some kind. The shelves above were empty aside from two box files at one end. They looked new, and I stared at them for a moment. But then I felt my father stirring beside me, and I looked down at him instead.

“Robbie?” he said. “Was that you?”

The name brought a shiver.

“No,” I said. “Robbie’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.”

“But I am,” he said. “Wish I was better.”

I waited with him until he fell asleep. He kept repeating that phrase— wish I was better —over and over, the words gradually becoming quieter and more incoherent. A mantra of his own. I knew my own feelings about that day only too well, even if I had begun to keep them hidden. But perhaps that was the first time I understood how much it haunted my father too. And as I sat with him, it felt like every awful thing that had happened to us stemmed from our encounter with the Pied Piper that day. As though the man was a rack that had pulled the bones of my family’s life apart until they snapped.

“Hey,” Sarah said.

I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed her in the small crowd that had already gathered, or been aware of her arriving afterward, but she was standing beside me now.

“Hey,” I said.

I pulled my jacket around me against the cold, and she rubbed my arm in support. I appreciated that, and also her being here, but I also found myself glancing across at Fleming. He had his back to us right now, standing close to the edge and leaning down on his knees to peer over. But then a whistle came from below, and Fleming called something down, and I put any concerns I had about what he might think to one side. Because the implication was clear enough.

My father’s body was coming up.

I turned to Sarah.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For being here.”

“Fuck’s sake, you idiot, you don’t need to thank me.” She gave my arm a squeeze, then let go and hugged herself against the wind. “I’m glad I can be here to support you. But I’d be here anyway. Like I said, your father was always good to me.”

A couple of the other officers had joined Fleming now. They were shackling themselves onto the metal loops, readying themselves to reach down and help lift the weight of the stretchered remains up onto the cliff edge.

Sarah glanced at me.

“You okay?”

“I’m detached,” I said. “I’m calm.”

“What?”

“I’m okay.”

“Really? You look like shit.”

“Thanks. I’m not sleeping all that well. ”

“Or eating all that well, I’m guessing.” She hesitated. “I’m actually meaning all this in a sympathetic way.”

“Noted.”

But now that she’d mentioned it, I realized how hungry I was. I’d left the house that morning without breakfast, impatient to get to the mainland and find Rose Saunders, and had been running pretty much on coffee vapors ever since. There was a feeling of faintness right now that wasn’t entirely down to the events of the day, or the situation unfolding in front of me. Whatever else I did, I needed to start taking better care of myself.

But first things first.

For another minute, nothing happened, but then the activity at the cliff edge ratcheted up a notch. My view of what was happening was partially blocked by the backs of Fleming and his officers, but it was obvious from their body language that the moment was close. The two men shackled to the loops were leaning over, ropes clenched in their gloved fists. I saw them beginning to strain with effort as they pulled the weight below them upward.

I closed my eyes.

“Steady.”

Fleming’s voice drifting over.

Then:

“Okay. Good.”

I left it a few more seconds before opening my eyes. My father’s remains were on the cliff edge now: a vaguely human shape sealed inside a black bag on a stretcher, surrounded by coils of rope on the ground. As the officers stepped away, I couldn’t decide whether his body looked larger or smaller than I had expected it to be. There was something diminished about it, but at the same time it seemed to fill the world.

Fleming crouched down beside the stretcher. I heard the quiet sound of a zip being undone.

I felt Sarah’s hand on my arm again.

“It’s okay not to be here,” she said. “You do know that, right?”

“No. ”

Fleming tilted his head, still crouched down on his haunches and staring into the open bag. Then he knelt down properly and moved the lining, examining the remains more closely. He stayed like that for what seemed like an age. Then he rubbed the back of his hand over his jawline, lost in thought.

“Jesus,” one of the other officers said quietly.

Finally, Fleming stood up and turned around. His gaze moved steadily over the crowd until it reached and settled on me, and then he saw Sarah standing beside me and his face went blank. Fuck you , I thought. I stared back and, after a few seconds, he looked away again. But he raised his hand slightly in my direction. Summoning me.

I walked across to the cordon, leaving Sarah behind me. Fleming met me at the tape. He didn’t look at me though. Instead, he stared over my shoulder, his jaw clenched.

“Liam?” I prompted.

“It’s not him,” he said.

“What?”

He turned to me suddenly, eyes full of anger.

“What do you mean what ?” he said. “Are you deaf? It’s not your father. The body’s been in the water awhile, but nowhere near long enough. And it’s a much younger guy.”

I stared at him. But he was looking over my shoulder again now.

“And apart from anything else,” he said, “he’s wearing a wedding ring.”