“Dillon,” I said. “I’m sorry, honey. Look, there’s one of your blue shells. And there’s your stick with the seaweed.”
“Pink sells,” said Dillon, with a catch in his throat.
“Beautiful pink shells,” I said. “I love them.”
“Take them up to the house then,” said Gus. “Ice-pops all round.” Ruby and Dillon looked from him to me and then at each other, and then they took off. I sank back onto my heels. Useless bitch, useless bitch, stupid evil useless bitch.
“What are you saying?” Gus said.
“Nothing.” At least not out loud. At least, I didn’t mean to. Useless bitch was just another little trick, like the head squeeze. And it was helping. I was talking myself down again. I had made Dillon cry. But I hadn’t hurt him, and I hadn’t run away. He’d get an ice-pop and forget all about it.
“D’you find anything out?” I asked Gus, and that worked too. He forgot all about me.
“She left about three o’clock,” he said. “Through the yard. Nobody saw her, but a couple of them heard the car. And one of the shepherds saw it on the track.”
“So Dillon wasn’t on his own that long, really,” I said. “Especially not if he was sleeping.” That was the kind of thing Caroline with the couch used to say. So reasonable, so understanding, never judgmental. It meant there was nothing to brace against, and half an hour with her left you spinning. But Gus was fine with it. He only nodded.
“That’s good to know, right enough,” he said. “But taking the quiet way out, avoiding running into people… it definitely looks like suicide.”
“I suppose,” I agreed. “But it’s the note that does it.”
“I’ve thought of something to tell them about the note,” Gus said. “Listen to this: she ran away.”
“Without her purse?”
“Just listen. No, not running away like that. She snapped and drove off. But then she cooled down, came to her senses, and she was coming back again; only while she was turning the car, it went off the road.”
“Snapped,” I echoed. He nodded. “Because she was scared maybe.”
“Scared, depressed, desperate-”
“No,” I cut him off. “I mean really scared.”
“Why the hell would I tell them that,” he said evenly. “They’d end up thinking it was me that scared her.”
“I was thinking about the foreign guy,” I said. “He scared me. And if he doesn’t work on the farm, why’s he hanging around? He might know something.”
“It’s a caravan site, Jessie. There’s always folk hanging around. Did he actually talk to you?”
“Gus, he did more than that. I tried to tell you last night. He came to the door when you were out. In a hell of a state. Looking for Becky.”
And again he had turned to stone.
“Gus?”
“Someone came to the door?”
“Yeah, but only because he knew you were out. He must have been watching the place. So here’s what I’m thinking.” He had sort of jolted halfway through what I had said. It was hard to make sense of what floored him and what he could take in his stride. “I’m thinking he was the guy. He’s Becky’s boyfr-well, he’s the guy, right? And so he must know something. And he might easily have frightened her into running away.”
“No,” he said. He put his hands up to either side of his head, and I could tell he was pressing hard from the way his hands were shaking, like he wanted to burst his own skull open to stop his brain from having to let it in. I knew all about that, knew better than to stop him too. “No,” he said again. “She didn’t run away with another man, and she didn’t run away and kill herself. It didn’t happen. I don’t care who he is, and I don’t want you to talk about him.”
It was like he’d forgotten there was anything else apart from getting the story straight and not hurting the kids. Like he’d completely forgotten the quite important bit of what actually happened. Then I caught myself. Right. Like, who’s never done that? When you know damn well what happened but you just can’t let it be true? As if to show me I was right, he let his hands drop and then he let his face fall, mouth open, eyes half-closed.
“Oh Christ,” he said. “What’s the point? A note, leaving her purse, depression, leaving the baby. No way it’s ever going down as anything except suicide, is there?”
“They don’t know she left the baby,” I reminded him. “But no.” I put out a hand and squeezed his arm. “I’ll tell the cops I think it was an accident,” I said. “If they ask me.”
“Thanks,” he said. He was smoothing the pebbles and shells with the toe of his boot. My heart picked up a pace thinking what he might uncover, and I looked away.
“Can I ask you something?” I said. His face did that thing, the sudden cloud, or as if a membrane had come down over it, like a veil. “Why didn’t you tell me to go out the right way this morning?”
The cloud thickened. His face looked carved from wood. “I’m sorry the farm guys gave you grief,” he said. “They’re kind of bolshy.”
“I’m not… You’ve misund-I’m not giving you a hard time,” I said. “I’m really just asking. You didn’t tell me I’d missed my turn last night and you didn’t tell me to go a different way this morning. Seems weird, that’s all.”
“I didn’t want to criticise you,” he said. “When you were being so good to us all.”
“Criticise,” I repeated. Trying to see it from wherever he was looking.
“Aye, tell you you’d missed the turn.”
“Why the hell would I think that was criticising?”
He said nothing.
“Gus?”
“Becky did,” he said at last, “and you shouldn’t speak ill… ”
“Gus,” I said. “Listen. I know old habits die hard, but you don’t need to walk on your eyelashes round me.”
He kept his head down. “I know,” he said. “It’s just a habit. I could tell right away it was different with you.” Then he looked up, and the blaze in his eyes was enough to make my breath catch.
I thought the same thing again as I had before. If he was just a guy and we were just here on a beach. Then I got hold of myself. You need to turn the key in that lock and throw it away, Jessie, I told myself. You can watch and see where it lands, but you need to throw it a good bit off and leave it there.
He stood and went inside the cottage. I followed him. In the kitchen Ruby had dragged a chair to the door of the fridge to reach the freezer bit on the top. Gus sank down onto it.
“You don’t really think it might have been an accident, do you?” he said. “You think it’s cut and dried, same as the cops will.”
“Not quite,” I said. “I think there’s something… off. I wonder if she told her friend anything that would help. What was her name?”
“Ros,” said Gus. “Something off like what?”
I shrugged.
“Cos I’d give anything to not have the kids think she left them,” Gus said. I smiled at him. What I was thinking was if he was on Columbo, at least you’d know he hadn’t killed her. Killers on Columbo are always tying themselves in knots to make everyone think it’s anything but murder. And getting angry with Columbo, and not looking upset enough. Think they’d learn.
He was certainly upset. He looked worse than I’d seen him yet.
“So,” I said. “What sort of sculpture do you do? Where’s your studio?”
And he grinned like a kid that’s been given a puppy. Pure delight. Not the least wee bit like the guy I’d been looking at five seconds ago, never mind someone whose wife had died yesterday.
“Once the kids are in bed for their nap,” he said. “After their dinner. The monitor reaches fine to the workshop.”
It looked like I was invited for lunch then. Good thing Dot mucked her shift up. I was free to stay.