I need to buy a pregnancy test when I get back to Looe. If I am carrying a new life, I feel a duty to protect it with all that I have. From now on, I’m not taking any risks. One thing I love more than anything is my children and I know I have enough love in my heart for another. I choke up as I think of Damien and the fact that he’s not here.
The squawks send a tingle down my spine and with eyes still closed, I feel a presence behind me, like the whoosh of a breeze. The seagulls get louder as do the cries. Whoever did this to my baby sister will come for me and my baby. I should message Damien but this isn’t something that should be revealed in a message and I haven’t confirmed it yet. No, the secret is mine, for now. A crunch in the leaves behind me has me opening my eyes and too scared to turn. Just a slight nudge forward and I’d be over the edge; dead.
Shaking, I eventually turn but there is nothing but a crow feeding on what looks like a dead mouse lying on a patch of earth. The shiny innards spill out. Holding my hand over my mouth, I run to the car and lock it as soon as I get in. A few moments pass and I get the image of the mouse out of my head. A gull crashes into my windscreen and I flinch. I have to get away from here. The landscape is open but all I feel is overwhelming suffocation. I double-check that I’m in reverse and drive out of that car park as fast as I can. Away from the crow, the seagulls and the ill feelings that the place is giving me.
THIRTY-FIVE
KATE
As soon as I enter the Smuggler, several people turn their heads but I ignore them. My dad has ordered me curry and chips. The girls have already eaten and he is just tucking into what looks like a wedge of chocolate fudge cake.
‘How did you get on?’ Rosie and Millie are sitting a little away from us in the window seat where they have a pack of colourful cards spread out on the table. ‘I haven’t let them out of my sight.’
‘I spoke to Archie. All he kept saying was red hat and he went on about a baby crying in the sea. I’m a few years too late. He can’t tell me what he knows.’ Tears drizzle down my face as I shove a curry-covered chip into my mouth. My emotions were all over the place when I was pregnant with both of the girls, that’s how I know for sure. On a normal day, I’d be able to have this conversation without snivelling in the pub while still ramming food into my mouth.
‘I’m sorry, love. You do know that the chances of finding out exactly what happened are slim. It was such a long time ago.’
I nod. He’s right but in my heart I refuse to believe that. In fact, I believe more than ever that I’m on the brink of revealing everything. Cody will have to give up his secrets and the ice-cream seller is going to tell me what she knows. I check my watch. As soon as my dad and the girls are settled after lunch, I’ll head over there. At least I don’t need to lie to my dad, not like I did to Damien. I swallow the food in my mouth and take a long swig of lemonade.
‘Thank you.’
He awkwardly presses his lips together to smile.
With that, I wolf down the rest of my food and enjoy it like it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. When we leave here, I’ll need to pop back to the cottage. Not wanting to waste any time after returning from The Brambles, I rushed straight over to the pub. What I need to do is check the parking space where I saw the car. If there’s a patch of fairly fresh oil, I’ll know that the same car was following me today.
The man who was falling over drunk the last time I was here enters the pub with a baby in a pushchair.
‘Kyle, want a drink?’ a man asks.
‘No, I’m on babysitting duty. Looking after this little dot. The wife and daughter have not long gone to Plymouth on a shopping expedition so I’m on grandad duty.’
‘She’s a sweetheart that little baby is and so are Mary and Rachel. You’re a lucky man.’
‘I know I am. Family is everything, aren’t they, chick?’ He strokes the baby’s cheek and she gurgles, then he offers up a dummy to her mouth. As the man rubs his hands in front of the fire, I can’t help gazing at the baby. If I’m right, I’ll have another baby in several months’ time. Her pinched little face with red scratch marks is all that I see as the rest of her body is wrapped in a hood and a blanket. My two often scratched their faces and they kept pulling their scratch mitts off. I wish I didn’t see Jess every time I saw a baby.
Placing my cutlery on my empty plate, I take a deep breath and feel heartburn brewing up inside me. The dummy in the baby’s mouth bobs up and down as she drifts off to sleep. Jess used to do that. Guilt washes over me again. I swallow down the guilt of that day. It’s easy to blame my dad but I need to face up to what I did. Shaking that thought away, I wonder what Jess would be like now, if she’d been alive. We might all be on holiday together. Jess might be married or she might have children and my dad would never have had a twenty-five-year battle with alcohol addiction. That in turn made my mum unhappy, it ruined my childhood. We have all suffered. Rosie and Millie have been robbed of an aunty and it’s my fault. I started it.
‘I see Jess every time I look at a baby. It never gets easier.’
‘Mummy, will you play pairs with us. Grandad got us some cards with fruits on them.’ Millie looks up at me, doe-like. How can I refuse her simple request?
‘We popped into one shop. I held their hands the whole time.’
‘Of course I will, sweetie.’ I shuffle my chair a bit closer to them and join in for ten minutes. The least I can give them is a bit of my time after being so vacant.
‘Is Daddy coming back when he’s done his work?’ Millie places a card down.
‘I don’t know. We’ll see.’
‘Are the police coming back?’ Rosie asks as she picks up all the cards, ready to lay them all out, face down again.
I shake my head and smile. ‘I don’t think so but if they do, it’s okay.’
‘Why did they come?’
‘Someone had an accident on the beach yesterday and I was there. They’re just asking what people saw.’
‘What kind of accident? Did they die?’ Rosie won’t stop questioning me and I feel a little guilty about lying but I don’t want her to worry about me. My girls are too young to process the truth; that someone attacked me and left me for dead.
