فصل 74

74

JULES

I left Lena tucked up in her mother’s bed in the morning, still sound asleep. I wrote her a note, saying I’d meet her at the police station at eleven for her to give her statement. There were things I needed to do first, conversations best had between adults. I had to think like a parent now, like a mother. I had to protect her, to keep her from any further harm.

I drove to the station, stopping halfway to ring Erin to warn her I’d be coming in. I wanted to make sure that it was Erin I spoke to, and I had to make sure that we could speak alone.

“Why isn’t he the one who gets shoved off a fucking cliff?” Lena had been talking about Sean Townsend last night. It had all come out, how Sean had fallen in love with Nel and—Lena thought—Nel a bit in love with Sean. It had ended a while back—Nel had said things had “run their course,” although Lena didn’t quite believe her. In any case, Helen must have found out, she must have taken revenge. Then it was my turn to be outraged: why hadn’t Lena said anything before? He was in charge of the investigation into Nel’s death; it was completely inappropriate.

“He loved her,” Lena said. “Doesn’t that make him a good person, that he tried to find out what happened to her?”

“But, Lena, don’t you see . . . ?”

“He’s a good person, Julia. How could I say anything? It would have got him into trouble, and he doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good man.”

• • •

ERIN DIDN’T ANSWER HER PHONE, so I left a message and drove on to the station. I parked outside and called again, but again there was no answer, so I decided to wait for her. Half an hour went by and I decided to go in anyway. If Sean was there, I’d make an excuse. I’d pretend I thought that Lena’s statement had been scheduled for nine, not eleven. I’d think of something.

As it turned out, he wasn’t there. Neither of them was. The man on the desk told me DI Townsend was in Newcastle for the day, and that he wasn’t entirely sure of the whereabouts of DS Morgan, but he had no doubt she’d be in any minute.

I went back to my car. I took your bracelet out of my pocket—I’d put it into a plastic bag to protect it. To protect whatever was on it. The chances of there being a fingerprint or some DNA trapped within its links were slim, but slim was something. Slim was a possibility. Slim was a shot at an answer. Nickie said you were dead because you found out something about Patrick Townsend; Lena said you were dead because you fell in love with Sean and he with you, and Helen Townsend, jealous, vengeful Helen, would not stand for that. No matter which way I turned, I saw Townsends.

Metaphorically. Literally, I saw Nickie Sage, looming large in the rearview mirror. She was shuffling across the car park, achingly slowly, her face pink under a big floppy hat. She reached the back of my car and leaned against it, and I could hear her laboured breathing through the open window.

“Nickie.” I got out of the car. “Are you all right?” She didn’t respond. “Nickie?” Up close, she looked like she might be on her last legs.

“I need a lift,” she gasped. “Been on my feet for hours.”

I helped her into the car. Her clothes were soaked with sweat. “Where on earth have you been, Nickie? What have you been doing?”

“Walking,” she wheezed. “Up by the Wards’ cottage. Listening to the river.”

“You do realize that the river runs right past your own front door, don’t you?”

She shook her head. “Not the same river. You think it’s all the same, but it changes. It has a different spirit up there. Sometimes you need to travel to hear its voice.”

I turned left just before the bridge towards the square. “Up here, yes?” She nodded, still gulping for air. “Perhaps you should get someone to give you a lift next time you feel like travelling.”

She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. “You volunteering? I didn’t imagine you’d be sticking around.”

We sat in the car for a bit when we reached her flat. I didn’t have the heart to make her get out and walk upstairs straightaway, so instead I listened while she told me why I should stay in Beckford, why it would be good for Lena to stay by the water, why I’d never hear my sister’s voice if I left.

“I don’t believe in all that stuff, Nickie,” I said.

“Of course you do,” she said crossly.

“OK.” I wasn’t going to argue. “So. You were up by the Wards’ cottage? That’s the place where Erin Morgan is staying, right? You didn’t see her, did you?”

“I did. She’d been out running around somewhere. Then she was running off somewhere else, probably to bark up the wrong tree. Banging on about Helen Townsend, when I told her it wasn’t Helen she should be bothering with. No one listens to me. Lauren, I said, not Helen. But no one ever listens.”

She gave me the Townsends’ address. The address and a warning: “If the old man thinks you know something, he’ll hurt you. You’ve got to be smart.” I didn’t tell her about the bracelet, or that it was she, not Erin, who was barking up the wrong tree.