‘You’re right about that.’ They both stood looking at Ronan for another few moments. ‘Are you on holiday? Where are you staying?’
‘A cottage over that way.’ Alex waved her hand in the vague direction of the cottage. She didn’t want to be too specific in case Louise knew of the Devonshires’ place. Unlikely, but it was better not to take any chances. ‘It’s a beautiful spot, this.’
Louise looked around. ‘It is.’ Then she looked at her watch and groaned. ‘God, lunchtime’s almost over and I’ve got to get this one home, and then get back to school.’ She bent down and clipped the lead onto Ronan. ‘Can’t be late. I’ll bring the wrath of the heads on my shoulders. They don’t like us to be a minute over time. If they could have a clocking in and out machine, they would.’
‘Two heads?’
‘One for the girls and one for the boys. The Farrars. A dastardly double act. But don’t tell anyone I said that, will you?’
Alex smiled. ‘Of course not.’
Louise hesitated. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again? Are you up from London? I miss the city. This place can be quite lonely sometimes.’ There was a vulnerability on her face that struck a chord with Alex.
‘That would be great. I’d like that.’ And Alex found that she meant it.
‘Okay. I’ll be here with Ronan tomorrow over lunch. I’m not on dinner hall duty this week, thank God.’
‘Lovely. I’ll try to make it.’
She watched as Louise strode across the sand to the slope that would take her up to the path above. At the top she stopped, looked round and waved at Alex. Alex waved back.
The long evenings, that’s what Alex loved about the month of June. She tried not to think that in not much more than two weeks’ time it would be the longest day and then the evenings would start to draw in. But for now the light was soft and the air balmy. She was glad she had been able to eat her solitary dinner outside on the terrace.
But now she was feeling restless.
She had tried and failed to raise Gus on FaceTime.
What was he doing and why hadn’t he answered his phone? This is where she could start to get worried and think about corrupt policemen and drugs mules. But Gus was sensible, she told herself. He’d had to grow up fast and had become quite streetwise these last couple of years in London. She had to trust him. And the ferry from Dover to Calais wasn’t exactly the drugs route to the west. But where the hell was he? Please God this hare-brained idea about trying to find Steve was just that. An idea.
She washed up her plate and cup and left them to dry on the drainer. How pathetic they looked. Then she prowled round the house, picked a couple of books off the bookshelf in the sitting room: a thriller with a lurid cover and a Terry Pratchett novel. Who read what? she wondered. She opened a couple of drawers in the desk in the corner of the room but found them empty with the exception of a few drawing pins and paper clips. She went upstairs and into the second bedroom. Like the main bedroom, it was simply furnished: a double bed with an iron bedstead, a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. In the corner was an antique washstand – Victorian, maybe – with a white roses washbowl and pitcher. But the photograph in a silver frame on top of the chest of drawers was what drew her eye. She picked it up. Elena, standing on the beach below with her arm around Cat, laughing; her long hair whipped around her face by the wind; looking as though she hadn’t got a care in the world. When was it taken? How could she go from a girl who looked as though she loved life to one who threw herself off a cliff?
‘She was a clever girl. And resilient,’ Cat had told her in that dull, defeated voice as they sat in Elena’s bedroom. ‘She had depression and anorexia after her father died.’
‘How did he die?’ Alex was ashamed that she didn’t know. And hadn’t bothered to find out.
‘Asthma attack. Elena found him. Her illnesses were a way of controlling her grief, they told us. But she beat it. She’s – she was – strong. I know she was strong. She told me she never wanted to go back to that dark place. Never ever. She started making plans. She wanted to go to Art college, you know.’ She smiled. ‘She was good enough, too. She wanted to paint. She wanted to sculpt. She wanted to design. She could have had the world at her feet.’ She put her head in her hands and began to weep. After a few moments she lifted her head up. Her face was crumpled with grief. ‘She was doing well at school – and then I married Mark.’
‘Did she like Mark?’
She frowned. ‘Not much. I was hoping the Christmas skiing holiday would be a chance to bond. He’d been the one to persuade me to send her away to school, said it would be better for her and for my career.’
‘And what did Elena think about that?’
‘She seemed okay, at first. But I knew she hated it. I would have tense calls or abrupt texts. Then, in the summer term, the term before she died, she sounded, I don’t know, happier I guess. More settled.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know. I was so pleased she seemed to be settling in that I simply accepted it. I didn’t bother to find out. I didn’t bother to try and get to know my daughter.’ She looked around the room. ‘And now, this is all I know of her. Cuddly toys, boy bands she’d grown out of, and a dubious taste in literature.’
‘Cat,’ said Alex, ‘I will find out what happened. I will get to the truth, though you may find you won’t like it.’
Cat grabbed her hand. ‘The truth. That’s all I want.’
Alex hoped to God it was. She knew how much the truth could hurt.
Putting the photo frame down, she crossed to the window and looked out over the sea to the endless horizon, suddenly realizing what it was she was feeling. Lonely, that’s what it was. Her son was halfway across the world, okay, maybe an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like; her sister was in a mental institution; her parents were old and frail and didn’t want to know: there was no one in the world who cared where she was or what she was doing. Except Bud, maybe. He had always looked out for her and took her on as a freelancer at The Post when she’d fled Suffolk for London two years ago. She’d gone from writing profiles about the good, the bad, and the dangerous, to more investigative stuff: she had that instinct; the ability to nibble away at a story looking at all the angles: digging into its core. She hadn’t had time to feel lonely, to seek out companionship, someone she could talk over the day with.
Not to say she hadn’t had offers, but sharing a bed with another journalist was not for her: too much shop talk. No, she preferred brief encounters, a bit of fun, bit of a laugh then goodbye before anybody got hurt. At least, that was the theory. Didn’t always work. One brief encounter had produced Gus, so that was a bonus. But two not-so-brief encounters had brought her nothing but heartache. The most recent had been with someone she thought she could love, and had even begun to trust: he’d moved in, got to know her son. But he had betrayed her. Since then, she had kept dalliances short and sweet.
Moved in. Getting to know her son. And the two of them had got on. Very well. What had Gus said about finding his father? That a friend was helping.
A friend.
Bloody buggering hell. Malone.