On top of that, the hours were long, and, thanks to a shortage of officers, were getting longer; the pay was good but not that good considering the risks to our safety on a daily basis, and, for me, dealing with murders and other serious crimes had recently begun to lose its appeal.
Especially after I was injured – fortunately not seriously – while carrying out an arrest.
I hadn’t mentioned it to Lucy because I knew she would make a big deal about it, and besides, I’m the sort of person who keeps things close to my chest. Most of the time.
But it did give me pause, I’ll admit.
Which was another reason for this holiday. Apart from wanting to spend fourteen, hopefully sunny, summer days with my best friend, I wanted to take some time out to consider my options.
I wasn’t sure what I might do if I left the police. It wasn’t as if I had a natural talent for anything, unlike Lucy, whose wedding dress designs were exquisite.
She’d wanted to pursue a career in bridal wear design, preferably in a specialist fashion house, or an upmarket bridal boutique in London. Instead, after uni, she’d joined her mum who ran a bridal shop in the Bentall Shopping Centre in Kingston upon Thames. Soon after, they expanded the business online and they were so busy that Lucy had little time to create her own designs.
That was another plus point for her move to Fairlight Bay.
She’d already told me that was what she wanted, but as she helped her mum run the bridal shop, along with the online business, I assumed it would be a while before she actually made a move. How wrong was I?
The day she returned from her holiday in February, she discussed it with her mum, and with her stepdad, Chris, and they’d agreed they would find a way forward.
After Sam’s first visit to Kingston upon Thames, to formally meet Lucy’s parents, a decision had been made. Her mum would continue to run the shop, along with some help from Chris, and, if necessary, employ another sales assistant. Lucy would move in with Sam and run the online side of the business from his surprisingly bijou house (judging by the photos Lucy showed me) in Fairlight Bay, and she would focus more of her time working on her own designs.
The very next day, she’d put her own house on the market.
I wasn’t quite as happy about that, but I made the most of the time we had left together.
Listen to me! I’msooooodramatic. Anyone would think she had moved to the Moon. In fact, Fairlight Bay was just over sixty miles away from Kingston on Thames, so hardly the end of the earth. It took me a little under two hours to get here today – and fifteen minutes of that was down to me missing the turn off for Midwinter Lane and having to drive back and forth six times until I finally spotted it. The sea mist had made it very hard to see the signpost, and the lane was extremely narrow.
I actually breathed in as I drove up it, and I think I only breathed out when I saw the turn off for the tarmacked, allocated car parking area, as if that could have made a difference. The rest of the lane was far too narrow for cars and was little more than a cart track.
Lucy was waiting for me when I arrived. We’d agreed this was where we would meet, and Lucy had emailed me precise directions.
It was wonderful to see her again, and fantastic to see her so happy. When I’d pulled up beside her, we’d both leapt from our cars, screamed with delight, and then sobbed for a good ten minutes while we hugged one another as if we’d been apart for years and not merely a few weeks.
It was a shame about the view though because I had been looking forward to seeing the sea. Right now, all I could see through the misty haze, was a couple of metres of tarmac.
The weather had been fine when I’d left my home in Kingston upon Thames, this morning, but as soon as I’d turned off the motorway, at the signpost for Fairlight Bay, I’d driven into this weird fog.
Luckily for me, I’m not superstitious. I’d have seen it as some sort of bad omen, if I were. But Lucy had told me about the mists that swept in from the sea, so I knew it must be that, and that it would clear, eventually. I wasn’t convinced it would do so before the afternoon though.
It had made the last part of my journey rather tiring. Staring through a dense fog, when I wasn’t sure where I was going, had given me a bit of a headache, and my eyes were tired from peering out for the signposts Lucy had told me about. Particularly that last one. Whoever was in charge of signposts should definitely make that one larger. Especially as Lucy had said that these sea mists were a regular thing in Fairlight Bay.
That’s why I’d missed the turn off for Midwinter Lane and if I hadn’t been driving at a snail’s pace, I might still be looking for it now. And, although it was the last week in June, the mist made it feel as if it could still be February.
I’d genuinely meant to visit sooner, but, well, life got in the way and, as Lucy was regularly coming back to Kingston upon Thames to see her mum, both for personal and business reasons, it was easier than me trying to get down to see her. Working shifts didn’t help, and whenever I had some free time, Lucy and Sam had other things on.
They’d both come to Kingston on Thames lots of times since Lucy moved. The sale of her house took a couple of months, but she’d been so keen to start her new life with Sam that the moment she got an offer, her bags were packed and she was gone. That was at the end of April.
They’d told me I was welcome to visit them, in Fairlight Bay, at any time, but the last thing I wanted was to be in their way, or be a third wheel, or something. So I’d waited until I could take some of my annual leave, and I’d booked to stay two weeks in Far Cottage, on Midwinter Lane. The same cottage where Lucy had spent her week in February. This was the first time I’d managed to come down to see them.
When I told Lucy I was coming, she’d said I should stay with them, but as I mentioned, Sam’s house was small, and, as Lucy had frequently told me, they had a very active sex life. I suppose all new lovers did. Anyway, I thought it was best to give them their space.
I told her I wanted to have some time alone, and I joked that, as Far Cottage had brought her good luck in her love life, staying there might do the same for me.
And let’s be honest, my love life could do with some help lately.
Although, unlike Lucy, who had always wanted to have a husband (and in her mind that had preferably meant Sam) kids, and some family pets, I was happy with someone who was reasonably good in bed, had a sense of humour, would take the rubbish out for me from time to time, and would actually phone me when he said he would. Marriage and all that stuff wasn’t high on my list of ‘must-haves’.
‘Oooh!’ Lucy had said, and I could almost see her brain ticking over as she grinned at me via the screen of her laptop that day. ‘Sam’s got some single friends. Elliot, for one. He’s the guy who does Sam’s photoshoots, and he’s gorgeous.’
