This was monumentally shite. All her notes and contacts were on her phone and laptop. Yes, she’d engaged her brain at some point and ensured everything was backed up in the cloud, but it was going to be a time-consuming pain dealing with it all. She’d need to pick up new devices. Find some new clothes.
The sound of a car behind her was so unexpected that she nearly missed her opportunity to flag it down. She stood in the middle of the road waving manically. The car, a beige Rover which had seen better days, wasn’t exactly going fast and the driver stopped alongside her. A woman in her sixties wound the window down and stared at her. With straggly hair plastered to her head and drenched clothing, Mattie figured that she must look a sight. “Please can you ring the police?” she asked through chattering teeth. “My car was stolen while I was in the toilet.”
“No phone,” said the woman.
“No phone?” Who left home without a phone?
The woman appeared to size her up and then nodded at the passenger seat. “Get in before you catch your death. I’ll drive you into town.”
“Thank you so much.” Mattie got into the car before the woman had a chance to change her mind. “I’m so sorry, I’m going to make your car wet,” she said as water dripped off her face and clothes on to the seat.
“Don’t worry about it. At least you don’t stink, unlike Mini and Maxi back there.” The driver gestured at two Labradoodles barking from the sectioned-off hatchback.
Mattie sniffed. Yep, at least there was that. The woman drove off, driving at barely faster than jogging speed. Mattie caught sight of the time. Fuck. She was over an hour late. “Can you drive any faster?”
The woman snorted. “Not unless you want me to crash or get nicked for speeding. There’s a twenty-mile-an-hour limit up here.”
That would be one way of getting a message to Nell, but Mattie managed to suppress herself from saying it out loud. So, all her stuff had been nicked, she was chilled to the bone, the woman she loved had yet another reason to walk away from her. Oh, and she stank of wet dog. So much for hope.
Chapter 37
Where are you, Mattie?” Nell mumbled the words under her breath as she stared out of the window of the cafe where they’d agreed to meet. The street was gloomy and quiet, the squally weather putting people off from venturing outside unless they really had to. She drained her second latte, having already finished the cinnamon bun she’d eaten as comfort food. Mattie was more than an hour late now. Nell’s stomach twisted uncomfortably as her overthinking mind toyed with her. Traffic delays? Probably. Car crash? She could go back to the office and check traffic and accident bulletins. It would put her mind at rest but what if—Don’t go there.
Outside, she bowed her head against the wind and rain. A sudden wave of weariness washed over her. She’d pumped herself up for seeing Mattie again, for laying everything on the table, not just about her feelings but the abuse stuff as well. Now she had to fight an urge to sink to the ground and cry, all of which was very unlike her. She squinted at the car park over by the quay. What was going on there? Two police cars with their blue lights flashing were parked next to the sea wall, and a small group of people huddled together like penguins fending off the fierce cold.
Professional curiosity won out against the desire to get back to the warmth of the office, and she cut across the puddle-strewn tarmac. DC Oliver was peering over the mangled remains of the metal barrier that stood between the edge of the sea wall and the sloping, rocky drop to the water five metres below.
“What have you got?” she called out to him.
“Car crashed through the railings into the water, ma’am,” he said.
Fear rocketed through Nell, and it was a struggle to rein it in. Mattie was a safe driver, a sensible one. But could...could the car be hers? The car park was reasonably close to the cafe. Adrenaline spiked through her system, making her heart beat rapidly. She peered over the sea wall. Huge chunks of rock, purposely put there as part of the town’s sea defences, spread out before her. The back end of a silver VW Golf poked out of the water, but the rest of it was wedged at a precarious angle on the rocks and completely submerged by the sea. What brand of car did Mattie drive? “Casualties?” She barely managed to force out the single word.
“We haven’t been able to get down there yet. The underwater search team is on its way. Number plate ID shows the car is registered to a woman living at a London address.” Oliver scanned his notebook. “Matilda Elliott.”
No. No. No. She stared down at the mangled wreckage. The earth began to spin wildly off its axis.
“Ma’am?”
Nell turned and realised Oliver was staring at her curiously. “Not Mattie. It can’t be Mattie,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs.
“Is everything all right, ma’am?”
Her Mattie, trapped in that car, trying in vain to free herself in the bone-chillingly cold water.
“Ma’am, I think you should sit down.”
Her leaden legs gave way, and warmth drained from her. Someone led her to a bench. Someone else wrapped a foil blanket around her shoulders. Noise and movement went on around her, but it was impossible to tune into any of it. Her hand trembled and her legs shook as her world caved in on itself.Mattie, Mattie, Mattie.
A gentle hand fell on her shoulder, and she startled at the touch. She looked up to see Oliver again.
“There’s someone here to see you,” he said.
She didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone unless it was Mattie. And that wasn’t going to happen ever again.
“Nell?”
She snapped her head around at that voice. Now she was imagining things. An apparition in shiny silver repeated her name. “Mattie?”
