For the next ten minutes, my mind was half taken away from Gully’s disappearance, giving Amelie details about the photographs and who’d been in them, which I was allowed to say. I’d actually stayed over in the palace too, which had been an experience I wasn’t going to forget ever.
By the time I was working up to a full panic again, there was banging at my door, enough to compete with the thunder that was back again.
I hung up on Amelie and ran to the door, finding a drenched Finn, Roe and Freya standing there.
That was when I burst into tears.
Freya’s arms went straight round me, soothing me with soft words and possible explanations.
Finn gave us a minute before chiming in. “Is his phone here?”
I shook my head.
“So he was planning to be out. None of us are on call but has he taken his pager with him?” He looked around the hallway. “Where does Gully keep his pager when he’s not got it on him?”
The crew used a pager rather than their phones when they were on call. They had to be within five minutes of the lifeboat station and sober, a week’s worth of training at the centre inPoole ensuring they were fully trained, as well as weekly training sessions which Gully never missed.
“It’s next to his bed.” I headed up the stairs to our bedroom, Finn following me.
There was no pager there.
Finn nodded. “He knew the phones might go down. Okay. We can page him. He’s gone on foot somewhere too. Roe!” He yelled for his brother who had just entered the room.
“You hollered.”
“I didn’t know you were that close. Where would Gully go that was local in an emergency?”
Roe frowned for a second and then his face lit up. “Mavis’. She wasn’t at the Inn, was she?”
Finn shook his head. “She wasn’t. We mentioned going to check on her just before Iris called. And if Mavis had an emergency she’d - ”
“Call Gully. Let’s get to Mavis’. Ready?”
Finn nodded, taking out his pager and typing something on it. “Iris, stay here with Freya. When we’ve found Gully, one of us will stay with him and the other will come back here to let you know what’s going on. Do not go out to look for him.” He stared at his sister-in-law who was in the bedroom too. “Frey, keep Iris here.”
Freya smiled, looking completely unperplexed. “Not a problem. I think tea and toast is needed and she can sneak me a peak of some photos.”
I sat down on the bed, worry now infiltrated with relief because Finn and Roe were there and they would find Gully.
Visions of him lying at the bottom of the path near Ivy’s Arch haunted my mind and I must’ve said something out loud, because Freya sat down next to me, shaking her head.
“Let’s be logical about this. Mavis isn’t at the Inn, which is unusual. Gully’s not here or at the pub either. Gully would beMavis’ first person to call if she was unwell. I bet he’s with her. If he’s there, he’ll have run to her house, which is nowhere near Elderwood Sound.” She used the name of the bay where Ivy’s Arch was. When the tide was out, there were miles of beach exposed where curlews and oyster catchers would congregate. “He’d have reason to go in that direction.”
I nodded, believing her because I knew she was right.
“Okay. I need the gossip that you can tell me about your trip to Scotland. Have you got any photos you’re allowed to show me?”
I appreciated the distraction and could pull myself together enough to show her the photos I’d been approved to share privately. There were pictures of the palace and the grounds and some of the people who worked there. The photos of the royals that’d been my client weren’t for viewing by anyone until they were signed off to be released.
Freya was zooming into parts of the garden and cooing over the plants she saw growing there when I heard the front door open and feet pounding into the kitchen where we’d relocated to.
Gully stopped still, staring at me, looking utterly drenched, panic and relief webbed across every muscle and tendon.
I leapt out of my seat and ran into his arms, cross with my bump for the first time because it stopped me from pressing as close as I wanted to him.
His arms wrapped around me and it was then that I sobbed, relief pouring out, my body racked with the tears.
“Shhhh,” he murmured. “I’m fine, I’m safe, you don’t need to worry.” He held me tighter. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got home.”
