I didn’t know where I stood with looking after Mia tonight. Should I phone the police – only that would get Cara into trouble. Should I contact the school for advice? I only had theold head’s number, who was now on a cruise somewhere, if I remembered correctly.
I’d already sent Cara a text message and tried to call her twice, the calls going straight through to voicemail. The text was showing as unread, so everything pointed to her not being available.
What if she was hurt or injured somewhere? Only Mia had said Cara was going away so it was planned.
At which point did I phone the police?
Cara was a daughter of the village, just as Heidi was, and Mia. The town looked after its own, which was a reason Joel had wanted us to live here, even though he’d offered to move to wherever I wanted to be, but that would’ve been like taking his essence away, even if it was living near the sea that stole him from us in the end.
Heidi’s idea of going to the Puffin Bay Inn was a good one. The town knew Cara, even if she kept herself to herself more often than she mixed, but there would be someone there I could take advice from, and it would keep the girls occupied too.
“Do you still want fish and chips at Puffin Inn?” I leaned against the wall, watching the two girls. They were colouring the same picture, although it was Mia giving the instructions rather than my bossy daughter for a change.
Heidi looked up. “Yes, please. Can we have ice cream for afters?”
I nodded, no bribery about eating all her dinner because that wasn’t how we worked. “We can. We can play on the beach too, but when we get back you’re both having baths.” Heidi was at the age where baths were a chore sent from the devil.
Her face fell and she looked grumpy.
“I like having a bath.” Mia’s voice was quiet. “It makes me feel warm afterwards.”
I didn’t want to find out why she didn’t feel warm normally. I suspected that Cara was short of money a lot of the time so didn’t put the heating on.
“Do you have a bath at home?” My daughter went there instead, sheer curiosity oozing out of her.
Mia shook her head. “It’s broken. I have a wash in the sink.” She didn’t smile.
I took a deep breath, feeling utterly out of my depth. “You can have a bath tonight and we have bubble bath too and a cosy dressing gown you can have for afterwards.”
Judging by Mia’s expression, it was the right thing to say. Her face brightened with a fragile smile, one of her front teeth missing already.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her fingers clutching the crayon she was using.
“It’s more than okay. I’ve let your mum know you’re with me so she doesn’t worry.” If she was worried. She must be – I couldn’t think what it’d be like if I left Heidi like that.
Her face fell, eyes looking away from me.
“Mia, did your mum say where she was going?”
Mia shook her head, still not looking at me. “Can I really have ice cream?”
“Of course.” My heart panged for her. No more questions for now.
TWO
Cassian
My father taught me that the quickest way to settle into a new place was to go to the local pub and sit at the bar with a pint. By the time you’d ordered your second, at least three people would’ve spoken to you, and today had proved him right.
He was a straightforward man who’d worked in factories for most of his life, living the same routine for nearly forty years. Up early, get the paper, have breakfast, go to work, home by half four, dinner at quarter to six before a trip to the pub for a game of darts or crib, or to watch a crown green bowling game. It’d been a simple, straightforward life that’d ended too soon and too quickly when he’d been killed by a drunk driver on his way home one night. He hadn’t suffered. Death had been instantaneous and quick.
The grief had been none of those things.
It was my first week in a new job as headteacher of the small community school serving Puffin Bay and three other smalltowns nearby, and my first week of living there in the house let to the headteacher as part of the package.
It was the house that had made the job a no brainer to accept. My marriage had ended rather savagely, my soon to be ex-wife was caught having an affair with my boss, the headteacher of the school where I was deputy. She was also a teacher at the school, which made the whole thing really fucking shitty and far too messy to stick around and make something from it. The head had been married as well, so the gossip was alive and flourishing with salacious details, and I came to a fast conclusion that I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t good at sharing to start with, so finding the two of them on the backseat of the car hadn’t been the calmest of scenarios. The gossip about the head teacher ending up in hospital hadn’t been entirely mythical.
The job in Puffin Bay had come up due to the sudden retirement of the head who’d been there for a gazillion or so years, and the governors wanted a quick start. Somehow, despite still being an emotional wreck, I’d been the successful candidate and was now here living next to the sea where everyone really did know your name, but they thankfully didn’t know my ex.
