‘Hmm. It’s hard to describe. I guess what I mean is that there are shadows here too. Take my mum. You know you found that box at the beach house, with the letters inside?’
‘Oh, yeah!’ Fee picked up the paper bag from Maude’s bakery and looked inside. She took out an iced doughnut and started to eat it ravenously. ‘What was that all about?’
‘Well, as I think I explained, Mum had me when she was a teenager. She didn’t want to get pregnant, let’s just say. She was attacked.’ Mara raised an eyebrow.
‘You mean…?’ Ellie was horrified.
‘Yeah. Anyway, I never knew, and I still don’t know the details other than what she wrote in a diary at the time. I found that in the beach house when she died and left it to me. I didn’t know who did it. Who my biological father was. Or is.’
‘And those letters have that information?’ Ellie probed.
‘They do.’
‘Oh, my goodness. Who was it, then?’
‘It was a friend of the family. His name was Alton Robb.’
‘Do you know him? Does he still live here?’ Fee gasped.
‘I don’t know him, no. But there is a Robb family in the village. They’re one of the ones that go back generations. I’ve done some subtle asking around, and Alton Robb passed away a year ago. He wasn’t that old, but he had early onset dementia, apparently.’ Mara exhaled a long breath.
‘That was your father,’ Ellie wheezed, then coughed. ‘Sorry.’
‘Technically, yes. He was my biological father. And a rapist,’ Mara snapped.
‘Wow. That’s… difficult,’ Fee said, quietly. ‘I’m so sorry, Mara.’
‘I didn’t mean to sound angry with you. I mean, I am angry. But with him. With them.’
‘Oh, no.’ Ellie breathed. ‘He was here the whole time.’
‘He was.’ Mara stared at the TV for a moment, which Fee had muted. On the screen, an advert showed a man ecstatically mopping a kitchen floor. ‘It’s messed up. And, in a weird way, it feels like the beach house catching fire and me finding that out are somehow connected. Like, do I want to continue to live in a village where I know Alton’s family still lives? Did they know what he did? I don’t know.’
‘Yes, I can see why you’d wonder about that. And it must feel weird.’ Fee shivered.
‘Yeah. I don’t know what to do about the beach house. We’ll restore it, but then I might finally sell it. I was going to originally, and then Brian and I fell in love and we decided to keep it. A lot of that was for sentimental reasons; about the time we spent there together when we first met. But now… we might move out of the village. Sell up, make a new start somewhere else. St Ives, maybe.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mara.’ Ellie reached for her hand. ‘I just feel like we could have done something. But I don’t know what.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything!’ Mara patted her hand. ‘Really and truly. I’m just so relieved everyone is still alive. It looks bad for Darren Chivers, though, let me tell you. That low-life scum.’ Mara’s eyes narrowed. ‘I hope they throw away the key. It’s bad enough what he did to my house, but Mark told me all about what he’s done to poor Jamey and the kids. Men like that don’t deserve mercy.’
‘Is Jamey okay?’ Fee asked.
‘She’s okay physically, Mark says. Bit of a mess otherwise, as you can imagine, but he’s looking after her and the kids. He asked after you.’ Mara tapped Ellie on the knee. ‘I told him to come and see you, but he was being shy about it. He said he thought you had enough to deal with. I told him to get over himself.’
‘Oh.’ Ellie wheezed under her oxygen mask. ‘Please tell me he’s not coming. I look like crap.’
‘You are so vain.’ Fee tried to laugh, but it came out as a choked noise.
‘I’m serious. I feel and look like hell. I do not want gentlemen visitors.’ Ellie accepted a can of fizzy fruit juice from Mara.
‘Fair enough. But you should text him, in that case. He’s worried about you,’ Mara chided. ‘We all are.’
‘I was supposed to go out with Rowland.’ Ellie drank from her can carefully. The bubbles made her cough, so she put it down. ‘Has he been in? While I was asleep?’
‘No, but I don’t think many people have yet. The nurse said people have left loads of messages and phoned to check up on us. Probably want to leave us in peace a bit.’ Fee took a sip of water and groaned. ‘Agh. My chest is so sore,’
‘I should text him.’ Ellie picked up her phone and pressed the button: thankfully, the screen lit up. It still had some charge, and she could see lots of texts and message notifications. Two texts were from Rowland, all in capitals:
