‘But why were you crying?’ asked her daughter. ‘Some of the oysters were lost in the storm. I love the oysters. I cried at Christmas, didn’t I, when we read about the Walrus and the Carpenter.’
Her daughter watched her in the half‐light. ‘That was pretend.’
‘I’m not so sure, young lady.’
She turned out the light, waited a second, then padded swiftly down the stairs. In the room behind the kitchen she sat down at her desk, punched a number into the handset of the phone. He’d said not to call, but she couldn’t wait. She listened to the ringing tone, as her eyes filled with tears again.
*
His daughter was coughing. A winter cold. He’d caught her paddling that weekend, the blood just beneath the skin as blue as the inside of a mussel shell.
He rolled out of bed and pulled on his boxers. Walking the corridor, he checked the window latches, then the front door, double‐checking the latch. Had he left the cooker on? He’d boiled pasta on the gas ring. But the kitchen was cold, no flame on the hob. He checked the red light by the shower too. Nothing.
His daughter coughed again. So he went down the corridor, the sand gritty on the wooden floor, and looked in through the open door. She was coughing in her sleep now, metronomic, both hands held before her mouth.
Closing the door behind him he bottled up the sound. The chair in which he used to sit and read to Francesca was gone, so he sat on the floor, his back to the bookcase.
4.30 a.m.
He’d see her through until dawn. He hadn’t done that for a long time; she’d been three, four perhaps, and he’d hoarded the sleepless nights, when exhaustion made him think so clearly, away from the distractions of the day.
Hydra waiting for the tide to turn. He imagined the father cutting his daughter’s hair. A mirror in front of them perhaps. Did they both hear the footsteps together? The first, above their heads, as James’s killers came aboard?
Thursday, 12 February
Burnham Market lay tucked up in the snowy hills of north Norfolk, the rooftops as white and crisp as on any Christmas card. In the police station Shaw and Valentine waited for Sarah Baker‐Sibley’s Alfa Romeo to pull into the car park. Jillie Baker‐Sibley, it appeared, held the key to what had happened that night on board the Hydra. But the leading question now, as Sarah Baker‐Sibley was led into the interview room, was where was she?
‘I asked for your daughter to attend for interview,’ said Shaw, adjusting the dressing on his eye.
A PC brought tea. Sarah Baker‐Sibley sat at a table, knocking out a menthol cigarette from a fresh pack. She looked around, her shoulders rolling slightly in the chill air. Through the window she saw a fox break cover in the high hillside above the town, running over the bare furrowed earth, suddenly clear against the snow.
Shaw sensed that the elaborate display of insouciance was a mask. Her face was puffy and she kept trying to rearrange her mouth, trying to hide an emotion very close to fear.
‘She’s on a sleepover. Clara’s – her best friend. A house at South Creake. I’ve phoned and left a message.
Valentine pulled up a chair, the legs scraping on the bare wooden floor. He’d spent three years at Burnham Market and had taken hundreds of dreary statements in this room. The stench of institutional cleaning hung about the place, the only decoration a Day‐Glo poster in yellow for Neighbourhood Watch, a burglar in black slipping through an open window, and a no‐smoking sign nailed to the door. Being back made him realize just how much he’d hated those ten lost years. ‘Can I have the address, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ he asked, taking a note. He told Shaw he’d organize a squad car to check it out, leaving the door open when he went.
Shaw leant against the single heavy iron radiator which cracked and thudded with the strain of the hot water dribbling through clogged pipes. ‘You don’t mind?’ asked Shaw, nodding at the tape. ‘And you don’t want a solicitor? Only, the last time we spoke…’
She shook her head and lit the menthol cigarette. Shaw pointed to the no‐smoking sign.
‘Jesus.’ She stubbed it out in a saucer that had been left on the table.
‘Did you tell your daughter she was expected for interview?’
‘Yes, yes of course I told her. What’s this about?’ she said, checking her watch. ‘I open at ten. Sharp. I’ve said all I’m saying about Colin Narr, so, as my daughter would say, Inspector Shaw, let’s not even go there.’
Shaw stood, switched a shell from his trouser pocket
‘Have you any idea why the Hydra is moored at Morston Creek, Mrs Baker‐Sibley?’ he asked.
Valentine had come back and he watched her face as she heard the question. She managed to construct an expression of mild curiosity.
‘I have no idea. My husband’s movements are of no significance to me, Detective Inspector.’
‘You said you were divorced, I think?’
‘Did I? Good, that’s right. Legally, emotionally, spiritually, and – until you informed me otherwise – geographically. My husband lives on Kythera, a Greek island. He has a flat in the City, as I think I told you only yesterday. My happiness soars with every mile that stretches between us.’
‘And Jillie?’
‘What about Jillie?’ The chin came out, the eyes hardening protectively.
‘When does she see her father?’
‘My husband is not allowed to see his daughter. There’s a court order to that effect.’ She touched the damp dogend in the saucer. ‘My husband killed our first child, you see, so he’s not getting another chance.’
Snow fell against the window and the silence was so deep Shaw thought he could hear the muffled impact of the flakes.
‘How?’ asked Valentine, taking Route One.
‘James always wanted a boy, someone he could leave
‘Thomas was none of those things. But that didn’t stop James. He took him to Greece, on the Hydra. They camped on the mainland, a few miles across the strait, and James taught him how to sail the little wooden dinghy she carried. Then he sent him out to sea one day. Thomas was thirteen – Jillie’s age. This was three years ago. Jillie was with me at our villa. James told Thomas he had to make the crossing. A halcyon day – that’s what the Greeks call it. Hardly any wind. Thomas got hot and decided to go for a swim. He just jumped in. He’d never been on his own before, so he didn’t think. There was no way back onto the boat, you see, and he couldn’t climb the sides.’
She sipped the tea, the cup steady.
‘I found the body. It was extraordinary, actually, because the boat, when they found it, was ten miles along the coast but his body had floated back to our house. We had a stretch of beach and I saw something from the house – I was by the phone waiting for news, James was out in the Hydra, searching the coast. I waded in. It was summer, so the body had begun to decompose. I didn’t know it was him – not for a certainty – until I was a few feet away. It’s not something I’m going to forget. And it’s something Jillie can’t forget. I didn’t see her but she followed me into the water.
‘I burnt the dinghy after the Greek police had finished the inquiry. There were scratch marks all round it, cutting into the wood.’