The Trawlerman, стр. 20
‘If that’s true, it’s hard to see how someone can fix that by just talking.’
‘Would you prefer us to go in with knives?’
‘See, Mum?’ said Zoë, clearly warming to Terry a little.
‘I could show you the photographs some time, if you’d like.’
‘Is that a kind of intellectual’s Netflix and chill?’ asked Alex. ‘Come up and see my etchings?’
Terry laughed and held up his palms. ‘I can think of more exciting dates than that, if you like.’
‘Were we talking about dates?’ Alex said, a little frostily. ‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’
Alex reached out and took his plate. ‘We need to get back,’ she said.
‘Mum. He was still eating.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Terry. ‘I should probably go.’
‘Why were you like that?’ Zoë demanded when he’d left them with his half-drunk bottle of wine.
‘Like what?’ Alex poured water onto the coals and felt the warmth of the steam on her face.
‘He was asking you out.’
‘I am aware of that.’ Alex made a face. ‘Not my type at all. Anyway, I thought it was you who didn’t like him.’
‘You never go out with anyone.’
‘You’re a one to talk.’
‘I’m seventeen, Mum.’
‘When I was your age I was hanging out with boys all the time.’
‘And you’re my role model?’
Alex sighed; examined her daughter, hair matted with salt. ‘Fair point.’
As she tidied up the picnic, Alex heard her phone buzz again in her bag. It would be Jill. ‘I don’t know. There’s something off about him,’ she said.
‘You think that about everybody right now.’
‘I met him today, and then he just happens to turn up when we’re at the beach?’
‘Because he lives just over there, Mum. You sure there’s not something off about you, just like he was saying?’
‘He’s just one of those men who asks women out all the time.’
‘How do you know? You always think the worst of everyone.’
Zoë had always been exasperating; she had an answer for everything. ‘I’m a police officer. We see the worst of everyone.’
Finally Alex took the phone out of the bag. Three messages all saying the same thing:
Call me!!!!!
Fourteen
‘How did you actually know that?’ demanded Jill.
Alex had waited until they were back home from the beach and standing in the kitchen, stepping sand onto the clean floor, and then she had called Jill back.
‘Know what?’ But Jill’s phone had been cut off by the time she answered.
She dialled again. It took a minute to connect.
‘Phone connection is ultra-shit out here,’ said Jill. ‘Let me try and find a better signal.’
Alex heard her walking over gravel. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at the house.’ She didn’t have to explain which house. ‘You said to call you if Mrs Younis died at around seven minutes past ten.’
Zoë had removed the swimming towels from the beach bag and put them on the kitchen counter.
‘Her pacemaker stopped at just after four minutes past. I mean . . . that’s a bit too close for comfort. Is that, like, a fluky guess?’
‘The strangest thing,’ said Alex. ‘I can’t say.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t say? Don’t be like that, Alex.’
Alex checked the clock on the cooker. It was half past nine. ‘What are you doing still in that house?’
‘I’m not even sure myself now. Just came back. I wanted a second look.’
‘You wanted to be there at the time the murder happened.’
‘Yeah. I don’t know if I’ll learn anything from it, but it seemed worth a try. Nothing else is making any sense. The whole thing is nuts. Tell me, for God’s sake. What made you say seven minutes past ten?’
Alex watched Zoë unwrapping the beach towels carefully. ‘I’Il be there in fifteen minutes.’
‘No way, Alex. You’re not coming here. Just tell me why you said that particular time. Because it’s pretty much the exact same time she was—’
The call broke up for a second.
‘Are you there on your own?’
‘Tell me what you know, Alex.’
Buried safely in the middle of the towels was one of the starfish Zoë had found. Zoë picked it up and held it between finger and thumb.
‘It might just be a coincidence,’ said Alex.
‘I thought you didn’t believe in coincidence.’
‘True. But I don’t believe in souls, either.’
‘What the hell are you on about?’
‘I’ll tell you.’ But the connection had dropped again. ‘Jill? . . . Can you hear me?’ The silence changed to a long tone. Redial went straight to voicemail.
She picked up her car keys again and noticed that Zoë had fetched a magnifying glass and was peering at the dead starfish. She watched her daughter put down the magnifier, open the kitchen drawer and pull out the kitchen scissors, putting them next to the dead starfish on a chopping board.
‘No, Zoë,’ said Alex, taking the scissors off her on her way out of the door. ‘Definitely not.’
Alex parked outside the open gates. The house was dark; no lights were on, inside or out. Jill’s Fiat was in the driveway, but she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Jill?’
As Alex stepped out of the car, the lock screen on her phone told her it was two minutes past ten. She approached the house. ‘Where are you?’ she called, louder this time.
Two metres from the front door, she was blinded by a security light blasting on. Blinking, she stepped up and knocked. ‘Jill?’
The door was locked.
She turned. To her right, the garage was lit up. Jill’s car was parked in front of it and beyond the car was the small dense copse that had grown up between the house and the neighbouring field.
A flicker of light in the wood caught her eye.
‘Jill? That you?’
She called Jill’s number. It rang unanswered.
From the darkness of the copse came the unmistakable crack of a dry stick.
‘Hello?’
She walked forwards towards the trees, listening for any other sign of movement.
It could have been a deer or a badger that she had heard, she thought. A