‘I want to go outside, on to the beach.’
I glanced through the window. ‘I’m sure we could set up a chair for you on the sand—’ I began, before her flailing hand silenced me.
‘No. Not here. I want to go to the place where they found me that night.’
Every pair of eyes in the room telegraphed the same worried expression.
‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea, sweetheart,’ Mum said.
‘Ineedto go there,’ Amelia insisted. Her eyes went to mine and the distress in them felt like a laser slicing into me. ‘Please, Lexi.’
I nodded, not bothering to check with anyone else.
‘I’ll get the car,’ Nick said.
‘I’ve some folding chairs I can throw in the back,’ Tom said, following Nick from the room.
I knew Mum was torn, but even she could see how important this was to Amelia. ‘You’ll need to wrap up warm,’ she said, all the fight knocked out of her.
Amelia took her hand, saying with a wheezy laugh, ‘Wouldn’t want to catch a cold, would I?’
While Mum raced around, filling Thermos flasks and hunting down even more blankets, Amelia leant on my arm to sit up.
‘She’s going to bundle me up like an Egyptian mummy,’ she said, slipping her hand into mine. It was cold. Almost icy. I knew what that meant.
‘You’ll need gloves.’
‘And a hat,’ Amelia added. ‘In fact, there’s one in my room that I bought ages ago and never found the courage to wear.’
I followed her instructions and found the hat where she’d said I would. I carried the canary-yellow felt beret with its enormous fluffy pompom down the stairs, unable to hide my amusement as I passed it to my usually conservatively dressed sister. She took it with a smile and placed it on her head. I adjusted it, setting it at a rakish angle.
‘How do I look?’ she asked, her hand going to the out-of-character headwear.
‘Jaunty,’ I declared.
She gave a small satisfied nod. ‘Exactly the look I was hoping for.’
*
We piled into Nick’s Range Rover and drove down the sandy lane towards our destination. For a group who had talked continually for the last few hours, we were all strangely silent. With a small thump of the tyres, Nick swung the car off the lane and on to the sand.
‘I’ll go as far as I can, but I don’t want to get us stuck on the mudflats.’
Mum was staring determinedly out of the window and I only knew she was crying by the trembling of her shoulders. I went to reach for her hand, but Amelia beat me to it.
‘Everything’s going to be okay, Mum, it really is,’ she reassured her.
Something strange had happened to my sister on the journey to the spot where she’d been found. Yes, she was growing weaker, noticeably so, but there was a new strength and an expression of calm on her face that hadn’t been there before.
Nick drew the car to a stop with a regretful shake of his head. ‘This is as far as I dare go.’ I’d already felt the damp sand hungrily sucking on our tyres and trusted his knowledge of the local beaches.
Tom and Nick set up the motley collection of folding chairs, then we all stood back as Nick carried Amelia from the car and set her down in the sturdiest of them.
Mum took the seat to Amelia’s right and I the one to her left. By unspoken agreement, we seemed to know that the time for talking had passed. The gulls swooped low overhead and their cries sounded mournful, as if they knew why we were there and were sorry.
Nick took up a position behind my chair with his hand resting lightly on my shoulder, a silent confirmation of his support.
‘Do you think we should go back?’ Mum asked after less than ten minutes. Her face was a mask of panic and despair.
