That was his way. I have to remember that he was kind and generous, that he cared deeply about those around him. I remember the way his voice changed when he told me about his daughter, the one who went missing when she was a child, and the way he kept swallowing while he spoke, as if there was a lump in his throat. He told me about Skye, who had moved to France in her twenties and cut all contact a couple of years ago. My heart went out to him, then, at the pain in his eyes as he spoke of his lost daughters. One by force, one by choice.
‘What do you think happened to Saffy?’ I asked him, our hands clasped tightly together.
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t say, Ellie. But it was my fault. It’s all my fault.’
It wasn’t his fault, I told him, cupping his face in my hands. Children went missing every day, it was a sad, horrible fact. Children go missing and die and leave their parents bereft. I still remember the day my son died, the cancer eating him from the inside, and my heart still aches for him. Richard had turned his back for a moment, for only a moment, and Saffy was gone, never to be seen again. He wept as I held him, and I felt my love for him grow in that moment.
Poor Richard. Poor Saffy. And, yes, poor Fearne too. You never get over the loss of a child, I know that as much as anyone, and in a strange way I felt lucky that my son had been taken by leukaemia, an enemy we could see and fight, not a stranger on a beach, not the ghost who plucked Saffy from the shore and disappeared into thin air.
5
The Deceased
Richard Asquith lies in the chapel of rest, his face serene, his hands folded over his chest. Fiona sits beside him, her right hand fiddling with the rings on her left hand. Her engagement ring flashes in the light and her hands still, one folded over the other on her lap. Her back is ramrod straight, her body held perfectly still as she stares down at the face of her husband. The room is quiet, the funeral director having left to give her a few moments with him, this man to whom she was married for so many years. Fiona needs more than a few moments to say what she wants to say. She needs to go back three weeks, to the day Richard died, to stop him from getting into that car. Death is an easy escape for him, she thinks, staring down at her husband. Too easy.
‘How could you?’ she hisses, her voice too loud in the silence. ‘How could you do this to me?’ But she knows the answer. Richard never loved her, not like he loved Fearne, his first wife. She knows that he only married her because of the children, because it was the honourable thing to do, and because Fearne had just thrown him out. She knows she was the second choice, and that, in the years since, he’d strayed more times than she could count. The latest fling was the longest, and Fiona could see the writing on the wall. He was going to leave her. He was going to walk out on the life they had built together, on his two sons and his grandchild. Tobias might have forgiven him in time; her youngest son has a kind heart, and always wants to see the best in people. But she knows Felix would never have spoken to him again, and neither would she. No, Fiona would not have let him get away with disgracing her like that, tearing her from the life she loves, selling the house from under her like he had with Fearne. Over her dead body. Or his.
Yes, she’d known all about his plans with her. He was going to sell the house and buy that monstrosity near Porthtowan. He was going to walk out on her, leaving her penniless and unable to explain to her sons, to her friends, what had happened to bring her so low. She has no family to take her in like Fearne did, nowhere to run and nowhere to hide while he disgraced her entirely. It had been bad enough when Richard was visiting the same haunts with his new woman, her hanging off his arm and on his every word, just as Fiona had once done.
It hurts to remember those days. The early days of bliss, when she was still secret and exciting. She had known Richard through his brother, Peter, who briefly lived with James when they were younger, but she hadn’t really taken notice of him until he moved back from Scotland and set up his business. Wealth suited Richard, that much was true. Though his parents had worked hard, Richard and his brother had grown up poor, and they had both learned very different lessons from it. Peter learned that he was better off accepting his lot; Richard learned to strive for more. And so Fiona noticed him, the shining star at a dinner party with mutual friends, Richard still young and fresh enough to be amazed at what his new lifestyle could give him.
She’d loved him, once. He didn’t believe it by the end, but she had loved him with every fibre of her being. And though she’d known it was wrong, she had tried her best to take him from Fearne, to be the jewel in the crown of his new life. And it had worked, for a time. Despite his proclamations, and his apparent inability to use contraception, Richard was never a family man. Small children irritated him, the daily grind of cooking and cleaning and laundry bored him. He was like a puppy, always looking for the next exciting thing, and, every time, he would find it.
Fiona watches her husband, half-wishing he would come back to life so she can kill him again.
Richard’s son, Tobias, comes next, a tissue gripped in one hand. He’s too soft, Richard always said, he needs to toughen up. He’s not like Felix, a proper boy always running around and fighting and climbing. Toby preferred to play indoors, making up games with his stuffed animals, and one Christmas when he asked for a doll, Richard didn’t speak to him for a week.
Toby remembers this, his fists clenching by his side. He thinks of his mother’s grief, and how he wishes he could take it away. He thinks of Felix and wonders if he will cope with the business alone, and whether he will stop trying to be so much like their father now. He thinks of his sister, travelling from France to attend their father’s funeral, and wonders what she will be like. She is ten years older than Toby, and, according to her Instagram, lives with her girlfriend in Brittany. He wonders what their father would have thought about having a gay child, and smiles.
He thinks of Lexi, of how good she is. Too good for this family. She has been holding the fort at work since his father died, fielding all calls, quietly taking care of the business he and his brother now own. He wishes he could take her away, her and Leo, to save her from the toxicity. But she is bound to them now, and he can’t think of a way to untangle her. For all her faults, his mother loves her grandson, and besides, Toby knows that it was his father who was the problem. He wonders if they can begin to rebuild their lives, build a family they can be proud of, without Richard’s overbearing presence hanging over them. But it’s too late for that now. Too much water under the bridge.
Toby will miss his father, he supposes. He will miss flipping him the bird as he boards a plane for Australia, his trust fund raided, the ties that bind him to this place and this family severed forever. He regrets that he will miss out on that.
6
The Daughter
We step off the ferry together, rucksacks thrown over our shoulders, hair tangled and eyes watering. We find the hire car and I slide in behind the wheel, trying to remember to drive on the left-hand side of the road.
Fleur turns to me in the passenger seat and places a hand on my arm. ‘We are going to our lodging,’ she says, and I smile at the old-fashioned word. I can almost see the checklist in her mind. This is how she keeps herself – and me – on track, with a clear plan of what will happen on any given day. ‘Where we will shower and find something to eat. Je meurs de faim!’