The Red Shore, page 14
When he’d stopped crying, Eden took him up to bed.
Eden was learning to dread this time. Finn didn’t seem capable of going to sleep without his mother, without her telling him a story. He lay there, red-eyed, staring at Eden.
‘Why don’t you tell me a story?’ Finn demanded.
He switched off the bedside light, leaving the landing door open. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Just try,’ whined Finn.
Eden racked his brain, trying to think of a story he knew well enough to tell. He wondered how Apple had managed this when there had never been stories when they were children.
Finn rolled over onto his side, eyes still wide.
‘OK. There were once four children. Their names were… Lucy, Edmund… I can’t remember the other two.’
‘Is this a true story?’
‘No. When I was a child, we travelled everywhere.’
‘Was that with my mum?’
‘Yes. She was there too. We were living in this van. Not a camper van, just an ordinary van. Me and your sister slept in the back of it. Mum and Dad used to stay in a bell tent. We stayed in this campsite once in Portugal and this woman there felt sorry for me, I think. Your sister was older than me. I think she coped better. I was lonely. The woman read me this book once, but I can’t remember all the names properly.’
‘Make them up, then.’
‘OK. There were once four children. Their names were Lucy, Edmund… John and Jane. And they were sent away for the holidays to stay with some relation in the countryside who lived in a big house. I think he was a professor or something, and he wasn’t interested in looking after children, so they were free to play all day in the house. Anyway. One of them – I think it was Lucy – found this old wardrobe. I think they were playing hide-and-seek – and when she opened the door and went inside to hide it was snowing.’
‘It was snowing? In the wardrobe?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
Eden had stopped talking. He was thinking about the old Fiat van that he and Apple had used to sleep in, on an old mattress that lay in the back.
‘What happened next?’
Eden racked his brains. ‘I’m afraid I don’t really remember.’
Finn rolled over so that Eden could no longer see if his eyes were open or not. After a few minutes, Eden stood and crept slowly out of the room. ‘Don’t forget about my bag,’ said Finn, still wide-awake.
Twenty-Seven
On Sunday the rain came back. A low grey drizzle descended and an east wind chilled the air. On clear days, you could see from here all the way up to Dartmoor, Eden realised. On days like this, the world seemed to close in. Beyond the bridge across the river, the world turned hazy and grey. The beach, which had been full on Saturday, was silent. The red sand turned darker. The darkness below Finn’s pale eyes was deeper too. Eden was not sure if the boy had slept at all last night.
Bisi called back while they were having a fried breakfast, Finn pushing mushrooms and tomatoes around his plate without much enthusiasm. ‘OK. I’ve sorted it,’ she announced. ‘There will be someone at the school at eleven today to get you the worksheets that Finn was given on Thursday. Why don’t you come around to mine for a meal afterwards? A bit of lunch?’
‘Still checking up on me?’
‘Always working, Eden. You should know that by now.’
Eden and Finn left the house at twenty to eleven, walking along the boardwalk to the car park at the end of the spit, where Eden had left his Audi.
He spotted the unmarked police car easily. It was two rows away, but as they walked past it Eden could tell it wasn’t a civilian model from the matrix display on the back shelf. The man inside, watching something on his phone, was unmistakably a plain-clothes officer.
As he pulled out of the car park Eden saw it start up, following him at an approved distance.
Outside the school, Eden parked on the zigzag lines. ‘I’ll be a minute,’ he told Finn. The school gate was locked when he got there, but there was an intercom. ‘I’ll come and let you in,’ said a woman’s voice.
Eden was surprised to see that the woman coming out to see him was Jackie, the mother who had helped him hunt for Finn on Friday. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I volunteer here. I’m planning on becoming a teaching assistant next year, now Sheena is old enough to cope with it. So I have keys and I only live down the road. Miss Killick lives in Torquay, so she asked me if I could come in. And she wanted to know how Finn is.’
Finn was sitting in the car, watching them. ‘They found his mother’s body yesterday,’ he said. ‘He’s getting used to it, I suppose.’
‘Jesus. Poor boy.’
‘I never got a chance to thank you for helping me last week,’ said Eden. ‘By the time I’d finished talking to the police you’d gone.’
‘I’m just glad he turned up unharmed,’ said Jackie, unpadlocking the gate to let him in. ‘This way.’ She led him across the tarmac. Shoulder at the swing door to push it open, she said. ‘Miss Killick is totally distraught. I think that’s half the reason she wanted me to do this. She’s embarrassed. She knows what a huge mistake she made. Ofsted are going to kill them for this. It’s a shame, because it’s a great school.’
He followed Jackie down a wide corridor whose walls were covered in pictures of fish and dolphins. Each drawing had a child’s name written in big letters underneath. He paused to try and see if there was anything Finn had drawn.
‘Good, aren’t they? I love looking at them. Year 4 is doing a project on the sea.’
Finn was Year 5. There wouldn’t be a picture by him here, Eden realised, but he spotted one of a man on a blue boat with a red cabin. It was very carefully coloured in. The man had fair hair, a blue shirt and a big smile on his face. Underneath was written: ‘MY DAD BY SHEENA.’
Eden pointed. ‘This must be your daughter’s?’
The boat had what looked like a fishing net behind it crammed with fish. Jackie, who was almost at the classroom door, came back and stood next to him. ‘Yes.’ She smiled proudly.
‘She’s good.’
‘Obviously I think she’s a genius.’ She disappeared into Miss Killick’s classroom and by the time he joined her she was standing at a table at the back of the classroom, leafing through a tray of papers. ‘She said it was in here – yes. Is this it? “Abstract noun poem. Choose one of the abstract nouns below and write a poem about it.”’ She held up a sheet.
‘I think so.’
‘OK. Is that all?’
‘Do you help Sheena, when she has homework like this?’
‘If she asks for help, yes. If she doesn’t, I leave her to it.’
He read out the nouns: ‘“Hope, anger, love, illness, happiness, war, fear.” Jesus,’ he said. ‘Pray to God he doesn’t ask for help.’
‘I know.’ At the gate, after he had thanked her, she said, ‘Look after yourself, will you? You look worried.’
* * *
He drove on up the lane afterwards, to the track where Sheena had found the action figure. ‘This is where the lady let me have a wee.’
‘I thought so. Do you remember anything else about the car, or about her?’
‘No.’
There were remains of blue and white tape tied to a hawthorn. Eden was relieved to see it. It meant that local police had searched the place properly, at least.
When he drove back into the lane heading away from Teignmouth, the police car that had been surveilling them had turned and was facing them, expecting to be following Eden back down the hill.
It had to reverse backwards for about thirty metres to find a spot where it was wide enough for both cars to pass. Eden gave the driver a little wave.
The police car followed them all the way up to the moor, down twisting lanes, and over cattle grids. They dipped into valleys and rose again onto hills covered in green bracken, slowing for sheep that scattered off the tarmac at the sight of the car.
Bisi’s house still looked improbable. In daylight he noticed how the window frames needed painting and how some of the slates on the roof had cracked and needed fixing.
‘You got your homework?’ said Bisi, opening the big wooden front door.
‘Yes,’ said Finn. ‘I have to write a poem.’
Bisi leaned down and kissed Finn on the head and ushered him inside. ‘That’s nice. Peter is out with the twins. They’re traipsing all over the moor. It’s Ten Tors next weekend so they’re doing a practice hike. I told them to be back by now so they could meet Finn again.’
‘Ten Tors?’
They followed her into the kitchen. ‘You not heard of it? I hadn’t either until I came down here. It’s a bloody nightmare weekend, if you ask me. You know what a tor is? Those lumps of stone on top of the hills out there. It’s a giant hike they do, from tor to tor. The kicker is it’s only teenagers who do it. The shortest route is about 35 miles. My kids are doing the 45-mile hike. It takes two days, usually in pouring rain.’
‘I thought you were in Child Protection.’
She laughed. ‘They say they love it. The girls take after my husband, not bloody me. Here he is now.’
She pointed out of the sash window where their silver Subaru was pulling in, splashing in the puddles.
Bisi was pouring tea into a huge pot when the two girls pushed through the door in muddy hiking gear and went to hug their mother.
‘Get off me,’ pleaded Bisi. ‘You’re filthy and you smell. You remember Finn.’
‘We need cake,’ one of the girls pleaded.
‘You need a shower,’ answered Bisi.
‘Hello Finn.’
He smiled up at them. Peter walked in carrying a heavy-looking backpack.
‘Go. Wash.’ Bisi ordered the girls away.
She had cooked a vegan stew with mashed potatoes. The six of them sat around the kitchen table and ate it while Peter pushed dishes aside to unfold Ordnance Survey maps.
‘Eden isn’t interested,’ said Bisi.
‘Of course he is,’ replied Peter. He traced his finger over the route the girls – and thousands of others – would be taking next weekend.
‘All these kids on the moor.’ Peter beamed. ‘It’s a beautiful thing.’
‘Sometimes people die,’ said one of the twins.
‘That hasn’t happened for years,’ said her dad.
‘Shut up now, Peter,’ ordered Bisi. ‘You’re boring our guests.’
Peter took no notice. He looked over at Finn. ‘I bet you’d like to do it, Finn, when you’re big enough.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Finn.
The girls laughed, delighted. The meal was loud, messy and chaotic. The food had too much salt in it and the leeks were still hard and inedible. Bisi was a terrible cook.
Eden looked at the big map spread out in front of him, the dark brown of the high moor, the pale contours that wound close together. ‘If there are thousands of people doing it, isn’t it awfully crowded?’
‘No,’ said one of the twins. ‘There are loads of different routes. They work it out so everyone’s spread out.’
At one point Eden glanced at Finn, who was sitting in his chair talking to one of the twins. He was smiling. This was family life, Eden realised. Finn loved it.
He called Sweet when they were back home. ‘I’m happy to tell you where I am and where I’m going,’ said Eden. ‘You don’t need to waste your resources on surveillance.’
‘You just can’t get the staff these days,’ tutted Sweet. ‘To be fair, we’re as interested in keeping the boy safe as we are in knowing what you’re up to. It’s just a friendly eye, for your own safety, understand?’
Eden took the reassurance with a pinch of salt. ‘So. What did you find on the boat that’s made you so interested in me all of a sudden?’
‘You know I’m not going to tell you that, Eden.’ He heard a woman’s voice in the background. ‘Look after yourself, Eden. Look after the boy. Keep your head down.’ Sweet ended the call.
* * *
That afternoon Eden sat with Finn at the living room table as he did his homework. ‘“Choose one of the abstract nouns below and write a poem about it.” Which word are you going to choose?’ Eden asked Finn. He watched Finn scan the words, weighing up each one.
‘What about hope?’
Finn shook his head. Eden had met him exactly a week ago. He felt like he didn’t know him at all.
He looked at the photograph of Finn on the wall in his school uniform. ‘Love?’
Another shake of the head. ‘Anger,’ Finn decided.
‘OK,’ said Eden. ‘Bold choice. Who took that photo of you in your school uniform?’
‘Mum did.’
‘On her phone?’
‘She didn’t have a camera on her phone.’
‘Of course she didn’t,’ said Eden. She didn’t trust modern technology. ‘So how did she take this photograph?’
‘On her camera.’
He thought of the USB lead he had found in the drawer. He hadn’t seen a camera anywhere in the house.
Twenty-Eight
Finn sat at the table, curling his arm around the paper so Eden couldn’t see what he was doing. He worked for about ten minutes, occasionally looking up and chewing thoughtfully on his lip. ‘Finished,’ he declared, and put down his pen.
‘That didn’t take long.’
‘No.’
‘Can I see it?’ asked Eden.
Finn turned the paper over. ‘No.’
‘OK. Fair.’
At around four-thirty that afternoon, Molly returned. Again, Finn ran to her and gave her an enormous hug. She was carrying a plastic bag full of clothes. ‘I’ll just change in the bathroom, if that’s OK?’
‘Not really. No.’
‘Your sister used to let me,’ she said, moving past him, up the stairs. When she came down she was wearing running shorts and her hair was jammed into her baseball cap.
At the door, he could see the other women, similarly dressed, preparing the boat in the grey drizzle, carrying down the oars easily.
‘Is that a gig?’
‘No. Gigs are the big ones,’ said Finn.
‘Is that right?’ Eden said.
‘Gigs were pilot boats,’ continued Finn, as if repeating something his mother had once told him.
‘OK.’
Molly grinned. ‘That’s a seine boat. Originally it would have been a net fishing boat. They were designed to carry the weight of a catch. Gigs were made for speed. When a ship appeared off the harbour here, the local lads would race to be the first one there in the gigs to offer their services as pilots. It’s always been a tricky bit of water here, because of the current and the sandbanks. Every now and then, a ship still attempts to come in on their own without a pilot and they usually get stuck somewhere on The Salty – that’s the sandbank in the middle. You can’t see it now because it’s submerged. Whenever that happens, everyone turns out on the beach to have a good giggle. Anyway. That’s what gigs were for.’
‘Are you giving me a lesson here, you two?’
‘Yes,’ said Finn earnestly.
‘See that one – the one we’re going to go out on?’ Molly pointed at the white boat the women were preparing. ‘That boat there is fibreglass, but it’s moulded on a wooden seine boat built for this river by a local family. The family used to live in the house right next door to you.’ She pointed to the north side of the house. ‘That’s what this place was. It was a workplace. Look over there.’ She pointed out of the window to a rusty piece of machinery on the stone quay. ‘That was the winch the guy who lived next door used. Still there. My dad was a boat builder too, and my granddad. That’s why I ended up with the bloody boatyard. There used to be a big old shipyard where those hideous flats are now.’ She pointed further down towards the estuary mouth. ‘Used to be known all over the world. They used to build classic sailing boats, lifeboats, motor launches and all that stuff and send them everywhere. Beautiful boats. Really beautiful ones. My granddad used to work there. There was a lot of fishing here, too, back in the day. Numbers crashed, quotas changed. And the docks are struggling for work because no one wants to use small ships any more. There’s a couple of boats do whelks and lobster pots these days and that’s about it. Looks pretty enough, but round here a lot of people are just holding on.’
‘Like my sister was?’
‘Yep. Like your sister was.’ Molly nodded, then trotted down the beach and joined the others pulling the seine boat down to the water, while Finn and Eden stood at the door watching. When it was mostly in the water, Molly got in with the others and grabbed her oar, just before the last woman in pushed it off.
‘Did you used to watch your mum doing this?’ Eden asked Finn.
‘Yes, I did.’
The four long oars began to work together, digging in the water, and the boat moved off fast to the mouth of the estuary, disappearing out to sea.
An hour later, when Molly came back, soaked to the skin, she asked if she could shower – ‘Apple used to let me.’
Before he stood aside to let her up the stairs, Eden said, ‘Something I wanted to ask. What was the name of the garage Apple took her car to?’
On Monday morning, as Eden was getting ready to take Finn to school, a young man in cargo pants and a sweatshirt knocked at the door, holding a blue backpack.
‘Bisi sent me,’ the man told Eden. ‘I work with her. She thought Finn might want this to replace the stolen one. She put a packed lunch in there.’
‘Did she?’ Eden had already made cheese sandwiches with vegan cheese, bought from a local deli.
‘There’s a drink in there too.’
‘Right,’ Eden said. He hadn’t thought of a drink.
He watched as Finn searched through the bag. There was a chocolate bar as well. Nice touch. Finn took the folded piece of paper he’d written the poem on, put it into the bag, then zipped it up, without letting Eden see.
He dropped Finn off, keeping an eye out for Jackie, but she wasn’t there. Pam and her son deliberately steered a path clear of him, which he was grateful for.
