She wanders over to the easel where her painting of Stretch sits half finished. Behind it, on the mirror, she’s stuck up a collection of photos of her and Rob from their first few weeks down in Cornwall together, when he was working from here. She leans forward and looks at him, the man she loves: emerging from the waves with a surfboard, teasing her by a rock pool with a crab in his hands, standing on the harbour wall at sunset drinking Provence rosé.
These photos all look like Rob, a reminder of those first few weeks here. She was still in considerable discomfort then, but the pain was lessened by the ease of her new life. She and Jake used to say that they didn’t want a lot of money, just enough to make things run a bit more smoothly. That’s how it feels with Rob. He hasn’t let his ridiculous wealth change him. They go to the village pub for dinner – coconut vegetable curry for her, cod and chips for him. There just isn’t that flinch any more when the bill arrives. And she doesn’t worry that the car will break down.
A recent photo of Rob sitting at the harbour café catches her eye. She remembers when she took it. He was grinning at someone using the ‘perv-oculars’ to scan the suntanned bodies on the beach below. She looks more closely at the picture, grateful to be able to study Rob’s handsome face without feeling strange. And then she notices someone in the background, standing in the coffee queue. It’s the same man who sat next to her yesterday, before her swim. And he’s staring at the camera. At her.
The front doorbell rings.
30
Silas
‘Hello, stranger,’ Silas says, holding out the bunch of carnations. It’s good to see Kate again.
‘You bastard,’ Kate manages to say, visibly shocked as she takes the flowers.
Silas should have warned her. He tenses his foot, ready to insert it into the doorway in case she slams the door in their faces. She looks well though: healthy, barely recognisable from the woman he last saw in hospital, bandaged and full of tubes. Her long brown hair’s up, shaved at the nape. Edgy, stylish. She must have struggled to conform when she was working for the police.
‘It’s OK, we’re not here to ask you back,’ he says, palms held up in front of him. ‘We just want to show you one picture, that’s all.’
‘A long way to come for one picture,’ Kate says, still holding her ground on the doorstep.
‘One picture’s often all it takes – as you know.’
‘Has this got anything to do with the court case?’ Kate asks.
‘Can we come in?’ Silas peers past Kate into the airy hall, which looks bigger than his entire flat in Old Swindon. ‘Please?’
‘Don’t give up the day job,’ Kate says to Strover. She looks dismissively at the carnations and turns to walk into the house, leaving the door barely open behind her.
Strover raises her eyebrows at Silas as they follow Kate in. They’ve had warmer welcomes.
‘Sorry about the phone calls,’ Strover says, but Kate ignores her.
‘You look well,’ Silas says, keen to change the subject. ‘Really well.’
They walk through the hall, past large modern artworks on the walls, and into the kitchen, where Silas sits down in the sunshine. He wants to settle the mood as soon as possible, dissipate her understandable anger with familiar banter. The three of them used to be close colleagues. A good team. The accident ended all that. He knows she still blames him, the police, for causing her to fall asleep at the wheel, for working her too hard.
‘I’m getting there,’ Kate says, dropping the carnations in the sink and running some water.
Silas looks around the kitchen, nodding at Strover to sit down too. They’re indoors but might as well be outside. The place feels almost tropical, like an outstation of the nearby Eden Project. He took Conor there once, years ago, when he was a young boy. It wasn’t a success. Conor thought it was a zoo and cried all the way round when he was told there weren’t any monkeys in the rainforest dome.
‘This is Bex, by the way,’ Kate says, turning to smile at a woman who has just walked into the room. Her hair is wet. ‘My friend from Wiltshire.’
‘Preston, actually,’ Bex says.
‘Nice to meet you, Bex,’ Silas says, standing up to shake her hand. He wasn’t expecting Kate to have company. ‘You mind if we talk to your friend in private?’
‘OK,’ Bex says hesitantly, glancing at Kate for approval.
‘Nothing personal,’ he adds. He didn’t mean to sound so formal or abrupt.
Bex turns to Kate. ‘You alright wi’that?’ she asks.
Her Lancashire accent suddenly seems to have grown stronger, more assertive. Silas likes Lancashire, used to stay at a great pub in the Forest of Bowland when he wanted to spoil Mel. Cask ales and kippers.
‘It’s fine,’ Kate says.
‘I’ll take Stretch for a walk then,’ Bex says, picking up a tiny dog from a cushion in the corner. Silas hadn’t even noticed it. He’s put bigger things in a bread roll.
They all watch in awkward silence as Bex strides through to the hall, fastens a lead on the dog and closes the front door a little too loudly behind her.
‘You didn’t say goodbye,’ Silas says, turning back to Kate. ‘Didn’t let us know you were leaving the hospital – leaving Wiltshire.’
He’s in danger of sounding like a jilted lover, but it upset him when she left without saying anything. They’d spent a lot of time together, working through hundreds of hours of CCTV footage, standing in cold crowds, and he’d visited her regularly in hospital, to interview her about the crash and because he was concerned for her. The whole unit was.
‘It was a difficult time,’ Kate says. ‘New beginnings, clean break.’
‘Of course.’ Silas pauses, takes in the view again down to the sea. He’d like to retire to somewhere like this, maybe more traditional bricks and mortar, an old coastguard’s cottage overlooking the harbour. He could keep a small boat, enjoy a spot of mackerel fishing. ‘We just want your help.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ Kate says.
‘One photo, that’s all.’
‘Does this have something to do with the fire last night?’ Kate asks.
‘You know about that?’
‘Jake rang,’ she says.
‘I didn’t think you two were in touch.’
‘We’re not.’ She glances away, embarrassed.
Strover raises her eyebrows in disapproval at him. She’s right. He hasn’t come all this way to discuss Kate’s love life. It’s why Silas likes working with Strover. She keeps him in check, brings something to the table that he never can, not even after the amount of time he’s spent in nail bars.
‘What’s the photo?’ Kate asks.
Silas turns to Strover, who pulls out a folder from her bag.
‘The night of the accident,’ Strover begins, ‘when you were driving home—’
‘I really don’t remember anything about it,’ Kate says, interrupting her and glancing at Silas. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’
‘It’s OK,’ Silas says, sensing her alarm, her reluctance to revisit the accident. For the first month in hospital she wasn’t able to talk about it at all. Even when she was well enough, she couldn’t tell them anything useful. ‘Something new’s come to light, that’s all.’