Page 102

“NO,” I SAY. “IT CAN’T be you.”

It’s some sick joke. It has to be. It doesn’t make any sense. Jake was messed up, a druggie. He stole Dad’s tractor. He went off the rails. There’s no way he’s just turned up like this—a policeman of all things.

But it is him. Even though his face is thinner, older. Underneath it all I can see the boy from the photos in the albums. I should know. I’ve stared at them enough times, up in my room, trying to remember him as he was, trying to imagine what he’d be like now.

Now I know.

I also know, after last night, that no one is what they seem.

“Eddie,” he says, his voice thick. I can see tears bright in his eyes. “I can’t believe it. I know it’s stupid... I know how much time has passed. But in my head you’re still that little blond boy. Splashing about in your paddling pool. You really bloody loved that paddling pool.”

He covers his eyes and I see him take a deep, shuddering breath. Then he coughs, squares his shoulders. I see him pull himself together. “I’m sorry. I’ve thought about this so much. But I somehow can’t can’t get my head round you standing in front of me like this, a grown man. And they’re saying you’re a hero, Eddie. My baby brother! I heard what you did. How you saved people last night. Look... I know it isn’t my place. I know I don’t have any right saying this, after all this time. But I’m so proud of you.”

“No,” I say, quickly. “I’m not a hero.”

“But—”

“I’m not.”

“OK.” He nods, like he’s going to let it go for now. “Look. I—can imagine you have a lot of questions.”

I’m feeling so many things all at once, have so many things to ask, that I don’t know where to start. “But—But where have you been?” I say. “I thought you were in prison... maybe even—” I can’t say it: dead. “But, but... look at you. You’re fine.” It comes out angry. Well, I am angry. If he’s fine, what was it all for?

“Oh Eddie,” he says. “I’m not fine. I’m better than I was. You could say that, I suppose. I was in a very bad way back then. After what I did to Mum and Dad. After Dad chucking me out. But that wasn’t all of it. Something really bad happened, Eddie. There was no way I could come back here after it. Not just like that.”

“I know,” I say. “I know about the woman who died.”

The color leaves his face. “How?” he whispers.

“She told me.” I point across the lawns to where Bella sits having her head patched up by a paramedic. She’s staring back at us. No: she’s staring at Jake.

“So she came,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “I didn’t know if she would. After all this time. I wondered how she’d coped, whether it had affected her like it affected me. See, I had to find a way to live with myself. This job, it’s been good for me. Solving murders. It was like... penance, I suppose. I specialize in cold cases, Eddie. Uncovering the truth in crimes that have gone unsolved for a long time. Seeking justice.” As though he’s still speaking to himself, he says, “Maybe I should have known this was the only way it could end.”

He runs a hand across the short bristles of his hair, looks at the ground. He’s breathing fast, chest rising and falling. Finally he seems to steel himself. He looks straight at me, meets my eyes. “I’ve seen it myself. I know the chances of bringing a charge in a case like this, fifteen years later, are almost zero. Mud doesn’t stick to these sorts of people. They have the best lawyers, high-level connections. This... belief in their own invincibility. It’s like they inherit that along with all the rest.”

He grimaces. “They threatened me back then—threatened our family. But there was this stupid irony about my job literally being about solving murders, for God’s sake—and never being able to do anything about a killing I witnessed with my own eyes.” His voice changes now. Harsher, angrier. “I knew I couldn’t let her get away with it—” Then he breaks off, looks over my shoulder. I turn to see Bella Springfield standing a few feet away.

“Jake?”

He nods. Clears his throat. “Hi,” he says. “It’s been a while.” If he’s going for light-hearted it doesn’t work. I wonder if the two of them are remembering the last time they saw each other. Two terrified teenagers.

For a moment they simply stare at each other. Then Bella closes her eyes and sighs, like she’s just understood something.

“It was you,” she says, looking at him again. “Wasn’t it? You sent me that clipping. You brought me back here.”

He nods. “You knew what they’d done with the body. I’m sorry I never replied to your text, back then. I was in a pretty bad way... But I always regretted it: not doing anything, not saying anything. Especially after I became a policeman, especially when my job became about solving cold cases. Then she waltzed back here, like none of it had happened, whitewashing this place, the past. Coming after Mum and Dad’s land. She started making claims on it, via the local council. It’s literally there on the website. Alleging it’s really hers. So I found you.”

Now he points in the other direction and I turn to see where Owen Dacre sits with his head in his hands. His face is hidden, but he looks utterly broken. “He was the first one I contacted,” Jake says. “The first one I brought back here, before you. It seems so cruel in a way. But I couldn’t bear the thought of all those years he spent, thinking his mum had just upped and left him.”

“Oh... God,” Bella says, staring. “I feel so stupid. How did I not see? It’s him, of course it is. I see it now. But I only ever knew him as Shrimp. I suppose it was the clothes, the name.” She grimaces. “And the fact that he married her—”

Jake shakes his head. “When you open up the past like this... it can have repercussions you never imagined. I never thought he’d conceal from her who he was. I still thought perhaps there’d be some way to reach out, to tell him about what happened. But then he fell for her, so quickly. That was when I realized I needed more. When I brought you in.”

Bella just shakes her head, looking lost for words. Then she says: “But you didn’t know I’d come. You didn’t know any of us would.”

Jake nods. “Of course I didn’t. But I did what I could to set something in motion. I didn’t know exactly what would happen but I thought something might. See, that’s what you do with a cold case. You return to your main witnesses, you bring back the key players. You do everything you can. Pull at every thread. Try all the angles. Turn it all inside out again.” He frowns. “I’m not sure I could have foreseen all of this, though. I...” He trails off.

“What?” Bella prompts.

He snatches a look over his shoulder, toward his police colleagues. Lowers his voice. “I shouldn’t tell you this. It could get me struck off. But perhaps it doesn’t matter now. There’s a body, at the bottom of the cliffs... We have to wait for a formal ID but it’s her, I know it is.”

I hear Bella’s sharp intake of breath.

“It was the Birds,” Jake says. “Old Graham Tate swears he saw them. There was a black feather in her hand.”

“She’s dead?” I swallow, because it’s like something’s stuck in my throat. “Are you saying... are you saying Francesca Meadows is dead?”

“Yes.” Jake nods. Then he looks at me more closely. “Eddie? Are you OK?”

His voice seems a very long way away. Because suddenly it’s like I’m not really here. I’m back there. Last night...