The Trawlerman, стр. 47

Thirty-four

There was a large bouquet of flowers lying on the kitchen work surface. Zoë must have been at home when they had been delivered, but she had not thought to put them in water because she didn’t really approve of cut flowers.

There was a note: Sorry to hear you’re not well. Get well soon. It was signed, 2 Men with beards, one without.

Zoë had called a doctor, and had also called Jill; Jill had called DI McAdam. On Tuesday McAdam had signed her off light duties for another week. If she wasn’t mad already, she would be soon.

The week dragged. Instead of going to the Visitor Centre to do volunteer work, Zoë hung around the house, offering cups of herb tea at regular intervals.

‘You don’t have to watch me,’ said Alex. ‘I’m not going to do anything stupid.’

‘I know that.’

‘I hate being looked after,’ she said.

‘Obviously I have figured that out, too.’

On the Wednesday, after she’d divided the bouquet into two bunches, Alex put one on the living-room mantelpiece, and wrapped the second in polythene.

‘Where are you going with them?’ Zoë asked, when she was halfway out of the door.

Alex knocked on the door of Bill’s house, and when no one answered, she let herself in with the spare key. The house was tidy, as it always was. He was a neat man. The bed was made and unslept in. She checked the fridge for anything that might have gone off, but it was empty. Arranging the flowers in a glass jug, she put them on the table by the back window and sat on one of the chairs for a while, looking out at the view, where she knew he often sat.

‘We could go for a bike ride together or something?’ Zoë suggested.

That afternoon they rode together out through the marshes and had hummus sandwiches in a field on the banks of Puddledock Sewer, by St Thomas à Becket Church. Alex pointed to a red car that had pulled up on the narrow road, a couple of hundred metres away. ‘Do you recognise that car?’

‘Why? Should I?’

‘I thought I’d seen it before somewhere.’

The driver seemed to be looking out of the window towards them, but when Alex stood, the driver moved on, driving slowly at first, but then, passing the farmhouse where the church key was kept, it roared loudly up the road.

‘What, Mum?’

Alex sat down again.

The August days seemed too long and shapeless. Jill called every day, but Alex could tell she was distracted, weighed down by work that was too involved and complex to explain to someone who wasn’t part of it any more. The local free newspaper had a headline on page 5: Concerns Over Mentally Ill Ex-Soldier. Residents in Littlestone had complained about the homeless man who had been spotted living rough in the area. Before the arrest he had been anonymous. People knew who Bob Glass was now. He was an ex-murder suspect.

On Thursday Alex began trawling the internet, looking for another car to replace her Yaris. ‘I’m feeling much better, honestly, love,’ she told her daughter.

‘Is it OK if I go out? I’ll only be a couple of hours?’

‘Of course.’ Alex kissed her. ‘Where you going?’

Zoë hesitated a second before she said, ‘Nowhere special.’ Alex watched her cycling away, tatty backpack on her shoulders. As she watched, the red Post Office van approached in the opposite direction. It parked at the end of the row of houses. Alex emerged from her front door in time to see a woman in a pale-blue top and shorts walking towards her carrying a single large brown envelope. ‘Saves me trying to push it through your letter box,’ the postwoman said.

Inside, she opened it. A bundle of photocopied pages with a single handwritten one on top: Our secret. PS hope you’re feeling better. It was signed, Colin.

On the Friday Zoë said, ‘What if I was to go to the Wildlife Centre on Saturday? I’d be there all day.’

‘Great,’ said Alex. ‘You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?’ It had been excruciating watching her hanging around the house all week to keep an eye on her. Her daughter was like a caged bird.

Zoë was already gone when Alex woke on Saturday morning. There was a note on the fridge: Call me if you need ANYTHING!!! Z x.

Terry Neill texted at around midday after she’d showered, when she was out strolling along the high tide line:

What about dinner tonight?

She sat down on the beach and called him back. ‘I’m sorry, Terry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’m really up for any of this.’

It was curious how disappointed he sounded. ‘No, no. I understand.’

They stayed on the phone talking for a while. He asked if anything had set her back. She told him about her car, and the panic attack on Monday. ‘I thought I was better than I was. It’s kind of dawning on me . . .’

‘The cracks run deep sometimes,’ he said. ‘But you’re doing the right thing. You have to stick with it.’

‘And how are you doing?’ she asked, when she realised uncomfortably they had spent minutes just talking about her.

She could hear a sigh in his voice when he said, ‘Now they’re saying they think that Ayman killed Mary. Is that right?’

‘That must be hard to hear.’

‘It is true, then?’

‘I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure . . . but it’s likely. He seems to have planned it all.’

‘He was a very methodical man. I don’t know how to feel about that. I thought he was a good person. I can’t imagine what was going through his head. I feel it’s my fault. I feel I let him down very badly.’

She turned towards the land. When you were close to the waterline,