The Survivors, стр. 91
Kieran’s thumb stopped against an image. The nagging feeling was back. The subtle, slippery one that had plagued him yesterday at the beach and last night as he spoke to George Barlin. The one that had woken him. The same one, he realised now, that had hovered almost imperceptibly in the early morning dark of the kitchen as he’d joined Verity at the table.
Kieran almost had it. For a single moment, he had almost caught it as he sat there on the beach. What was it? He made himself concentrate. Verity at the table. The photo of Finn and Toby and the Nautilus Black. That felt close somehow. What was it about those photos? Variations he had seen so many times over the years. Similar, but not the same.
And, all of a sudden, there it was.
Kieran stood up abruptly, startling Audrey.
‘Sorry,’ he said as her face crumpled. ‘Sorry.’
He picked her up and held her in his arms. He rocked her gently as the thought that had been bothering him – the fluid, flowing pull at the edge of his consciousness – grew solid and took shape. At last, Kieran could grasp it and examine it, as he stood on the beach and looked out at the ocean, a realisation dawning with the light.
Chapter 36
Kieran stopped on the back verandah just long enough to brush the sand off himself and Audrey. He let them into the hallway, hurrying now, but paused at the bedroom door. He looked in. Mia’s side of the bed was already empty, the covers thrown back.
In the kitchen, Verity’s coffee mug was rinsed and drying on the rack and the door to his parents’ room was shut. Kieran stood in the hall, debating. From the bathroom opposite he could hear the sound of the shower running. He knocked on the door and waited. When there was no answer, he checked the time and tried again. The water continued to run.
Kieran looked at Audrey. ‘All right, little one.’ He took her back through to the bedroom and laid her carefully in her cot. ‘I’ve got to go, but someone will be out soon. Shout if you need anything.’
Audrey looked very much like she was planning to do exactly that as Kieran scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table. He grabbed his shirt and shoes from the hall and pulled the back door closed behind him.
He went the beach way, which had always been the fastest. There was no movement around Fisherman’s Cottage now, but the house still had a different feel as he passed. A dull emptiness. Bronte’s window, where Kieran could picture her standing as she listened for noises in the night, was blank. The foreshore was bare now. Someone had removed the decaying flowers from near the shallows where her body had been found. The sea had washed clean any sign she had ever been there.
Kieran walked on, past the marina where he could make out the Nautilus Blue in the dock. He slowed his pace, wondering what would happen to the business when word spread about Gabby’s bag having been found on board the near-namesake boat. The Norwegians might not care, but the locals would.
Kieran turned and kept moving, towards town, past the police station. He thought about Sergeant Renn, and his promise to have those painful and long overdue conversations with two families today, and Kieran very nearly stopped. He spent a minute in silent debate and then, checking the time, pressed on.
The lure of caffeine had attracted a few early risers through the doors of the Surf and Turf that morning at least. Kieran could see Lyn through the window, carrying a tray. There was no sign of Julian or Liam. No Olivia either, although he hadn’t expected to see her. Kieran remembered the strain on her face in the Surf and Turf the night before last and wondered whether she’d woken up that morning at her mother’s house or at Ash’s place. Kieran guessed it depended where she felt more secure. Anywhere was probably better than the hollow loneliness of Fisherman’s Cottage now.
Kieran continued on, not slowing outside George Barlin’s house this time. In daylight, the garden looked even worse than it had at night. Kieran glanced at the windows, but he could see no movement inside. The niggling sensation started up again, but Kieran knew now what it had been trying to tell him. What had George said, as he’d leaned against his own fence the night before, his expression hard to read in the dark?
The writing’s on the wall.
Kieran did not stop until he reached the top of the cliff path. There, he paused at the lookout, leaning against the safety rail as he had so many times before, feeling the wind rushing over the sea and rocks. There was no-one in sight.
Below, the ocean was large and empty, all the way to the perfect horizon. He leaned over, craning his neck. The beach below was a thin strip, small enough that Kieran immediately felt uneasy. Out to sea, the waves lapped high against The Survivors. All around him, the birds bristled and flapped.
Kieran looked out at the water, to the spot where he had last seen Finn. The guilt was still there, like a scar, but now it felt different. What Kieran had always believed, and what had really happened that day, were not one and the same. He understood that, even if he hadn’t quite accepted it yet. Still, he repeated it to himself silently, turning the information over and over in his mind. What it had meant then, what it meant now.
Kieran stepped past the barrier and started to make his way down. At the bottom of the cliff, the water was washing up high over the sand and he checked the time again. The tide was coming in. But it was not there yet.
Kieran ignored the South Cave, where