The Red Shore, page 3
‘Eden Driscoll?’
He turned. Detective Sergeant Sweet was in his forties, a tall, big-bellied, broad-shouldered man who filled the alleyway. ‘I’m so very sorry for your… situation,’ he said awkwardly. Behind the police officer, peering around his bulk, was a woman. She was younger, with bleached Afro hair, blue dungarees, a bright green T-shirt and scuffed red Kickers.
‘Anything?’ Eden looked at Sweet.
‘Oh, yeah.’ The older man looked awkward. ‘Unfortunately not. No news. The coastguard resumed the aerial search at sunrise but nothing so far.’
The woman behind Sweet pushed past, hand extended. ‘Bisi Smith,’ she said. ‘From Devon County Council Child Protection.’ Bisi had the look of someone auditioning to be a children’s TV presenter. ‘You must be devastated.’
‘First thing is,’ said Sweet, ‘do we have your permission to enter the house?’
‘My permission?’
Bisi stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry. This must be very confusing for you. Your nephew, Finn, is with an emergency foster family right now. We’d like to get him some of his clothes, and some toys maybe. Things he feels familiar with.’
‘And we need your permission for entry,’ said Sweet.
He should have known this. Even if Sweet was an officer, he couldn’t just go barging into a property without asking. ‘Finn?’ His brain seemed to be a beat behind everything that was happening. ‘That’s the boy?’
‘Your nephew.’ Bisi looked at him as if she was trying to figure out why he wouldn’t know that already.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Finn.’
‘May we enter?’ Sweet asked again.
‘Yes. Go ahead.’
Sweet stepped forward and reached behind a downpipe to the right of the back door, pulled out a Yale key and slotted it into the lock. The policeman in Eden scolded his sister for being so careless. They had always been so different.
‘You knew it was there?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Sweet. ‘Already found it.’ He led them through the grubby kitchen into a tiny but cluttered living room, pictures, postcards and notes tacked haphazardly to the walls, which had been painted a hippy-ish maroon. A pair of glass doors on the far side dominated the room; they seemed to open straight onto sand outside.
The house appeared to have been built right on the beach. The sand wasn’t pale, like the beaches he knew. It was a dark, brownish red.
‘You probably want a minute to…’ Sweet said hesitantly. ‘You know. To yourself.’
The view through the glass doors was remarkable. A broad curve of estuary, thronged with moored boats. There was a piece of paper taped to the door. The afternoon light shone through it so Eden could read the message in reverse, in big red handwritten letters:
Take your rubbish home
PLASTIC KILLS
He tried the handle. The UPVC door was locked. He turned the key and opened the door.
The air smelled of salt and seaweed. He stepped outside onto the sand. In front of him was a large circle of water: the docks to the right, the bridge ahead, some houses on the opposite bank. He took a couple of steps towards the water, then looked back.
His sister’s was part of a terrace of cottages built above the high-tide line, painted in chintzy pinks and blues and yellows. He realised he was standing on a spit of sand that seemed to extend from the higher ground behind the docks, right out to the mouth of the estuary. To the left there were thick-walled stone warehouses. To the right, more houses that gave way to a jumbled line of beach huts that decreased in size and eccentricity as they neared the end of the spit.
The tide was in, leaving only a few yards of sand in front of the house. What remained was crammed with small boats pulled up out of the water. Beyond, yachts and trawlers bobbed in a fast current. To Eden, the water seemed dangerously close.
‘Tea, Mr Driscoll?’
The police officer was calling him. He went back inside.
‘I’m putting the kettle on,’ said Sweet from the kitchen.
‘Long drive?’ asked Bisi.
‘Long enough.’
‘Oh, dear God.’ It was Sweet’s voice again. ‘There only seems to be oat milk.’
‘Is there coffee?’ Eden asked.
‘No…there’s every kind of herbal though. Lemon and ginseng. Elderflower.’
‘How did you know how to find me?’ Eden raised his voice so Sweet could hear him.
‘Social workers tracked you down,’ said Sweet. The sound of cupboard doors opening. ‘Oh, dear lord. Turmeric chai.’
Standing beside him in the living room, Bisi spoke softly. ‘We were looking for relations, obviously. We worked out the name of Apple’s mum and dad, saw she had one brother. Not many Eden Driscolls around. Police tracked down a phone number in your name. Obviously if we’d had time, we’d have looked for an address book in here.’ She looked around.
‘It wouldn’t have helped if you’d found one,’ said Eden.
‘Why?’ Bisi looked puzzled.
Sergeant Sweet appeared around the door, interrupting before Eden could answer. ‘I’ll just go out and fetch a coffee from the pub, then. Only be a minute.’ He paused. ‘One thing first though.’
‘What?’ said Eden.
‘Bit sensitive, I know. But if you’re taking a look around, if you find anything like a note, you will pass it on, won’t you?’
‘A note?’
‘Explaining your sister’s state of mind,’ said the sergeant.
Bisi was glaring at Sweet. Eden blinked. ‘You think she killed herself?’
‘Well,’ said the older man, wrinkling his nose as he stood in the doorway. ‘Don’t want to sound insensitive, but obviously, you know… it’s a possibility.’
Four
‘Sorry about that,’ said the social worker. ‘Lovely man, but not the greatest social skills.’
‘I know a lot of coppers like that.’
‘Me too,’ said Bisi.
He was finding small talk difficult. ‘You a local?’
‘Do I look like a local?’ She laughed. ‘From London. Like you.’ So she had read up on him.
On the sand below them, the man he had seen earlier was tugging a canvas cover off a small boat of some kind. Eden twisted a key in the door and pulled it open. The air smelled of salt.
‘The best view, isn’t it?’
He turned.
‘I would love to live in a house like this,’ the social worker said. ‘This view. I expect your sister must love it too.’
Present tense. She was more tactful than the copper, at least. He would hate to live in this house. Too small. Too old. He liked the rectangular modernity of his London apartment.
‘I’m sure your nephew will be glad to see you.’
Eden looked at her. ‘Will he?’
‘A friendly face,’ she said.
Eden had been driving all morning. He was feeling disoriented. ‘Actually, I have never met him,’ he said. ‘In fact, I didn’t even know he existed until this morning.’
‘Oh.’ The social worker pursed her lips. ‘Oh,’ she said again. ‘Well. That complicates matters a little.’
Suddenly exhausted by everything, Eden stepped back and flopped down on a small couch that faced the open door. To the door’s right was a small shelf with a couple of books; propped next to them was a painting of the Hindu god Ganesh, surrounded by half-burned candles. The small, messy room was the exact opposite of his modern, white-walled London apartment. ‘You were hoping I would be able to take Finn off your hands without a fuss,’ he said.
‘God. I hope we’re not as brutal as that.’ Bisi propped herself on the arm of a low armchair opposite him. ‘But obviously in your line of work you would know the score. It’s an awful situation. Fortunately, as I told you, we found a carer for him last night. I mean, Mrs Sullivan’s great, but it’s not ideal. We were hoping there was a relative – somewhere safe he could go.’
‘He was on the boat on his own?’
‘Yes.’
‘How awful.’ Eden gazed down at his trainers. ‘The truth of the matter is, I haven’t seen my sister in a very long time.’ He looked up, meeting Bisi’s eye. ‘Apple and me… we were not close. What about the boy’s father?’
Bisi pursed her lips, then said, ‘That’s a bit of an issue. No record of him. Nothing on the birth certificate. We’ll continue to look, obviously.’ She watched him sympathetically. ‘Do you mind if I ask you why you were not close with your sister?’
He knew now why she was taking such an interest in the details of his life. It was what social workers did. They had to assess the situation.
‘Long story,’ said Eden, gazing past her through the glass. ‘My sister and I, we grew up in an abusive situation. Not sexual abuse – just a kind of neglect, really. I ran away. My sister chose to stay. She was the oldest. The more responsible one, I suppose. I don’t think she ever forgave me for leaving.’
‘It was just the two of you – and your parents?’
Eden nodded slowly. ‘Our father died. I left not long after that. And then our mother went a while back.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Above Ganesh were more of Finn’s drawings. A pirate ship with a space rocket flying over it. A picture of a pig with a speech bubble coming out of its mouth that said, for no apparent reason, ‘Kingsize Fart’.
Though he found his sister’s clutter annoying, as a police officer who had been involved a great deal with domestic abuse, he always thought it was a good sign when you walked into a house full of children’s drawings. The houses where you didn’t see that always put him on alert. This made him a tiny bit happier. His sister had obviously been a much better mother than theirs had been.
‘Finn must have other relations,’ Eden said. ‘I mean, I can’t be the only one.’
‘I’m sure he must.’ Bisi nodded. ‘We’ll keep looking, and you never know.’
She obviously hoped so too. In just a couple of minutes he had demonstrated that he was not her ideal candidate to look after Finn.
Sweet returned with three takeaway coffees.
‘I’d better go and pick up some of his belongings. He’ll be happier in his own clothes,’ said Bisi, standing. ‘I’ll leave you two to talk.’ She took her paper cup and disappeared with it up a steep, narrow staircase.
‘Find anything?’ demanded Sweet.
Eden shook his head. He looked around the small living room. Among the mess of images and notices tacked to the walls hung a badly framed hippy-ish painting of a naked woman, pregnant, with a flame rising above her head. To its right was a school photograph of Finn in a white shirt, a big grin on his face. With shock, Eden recognised the photo Apple had pinned next to it.
In it, Apple and Eden were sitting on a rocky Mediterranean wall, their mother and father standing on either side of them. Mum, shyly squinting at the camera in the sunlight. Dad, bare-chested and tanned, his expression fierce. Eden had no photographs of himself as a boy.
The boy, Finn, looked so much like him. Maybe his sister had thought the same, and had deliberately pinned up the two images close together. He must have been about the same age as Finn when it was taken.
‘How long was he alone for?’ He pointed at the school photograph.
Sweet gave him a professionally sympathetic look. ‘We don’t know. He’s not been that keen to talk about any of it. Understandably.’
‘And he was locked in his cabin?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Maybe that makes sense when you’re on a sailing boat with a young child. To keep him out of harm’s way. Was she an experienced sailor?’
‘The boat used to belong to my parents. I had no idea she still had it. You see, we haven’t spoken for years.’
Sweet took the lid off his cup and blew on his coffee. ‘That’s not exactly what our social worker wanted to hear.’
‘Imagine being on the boat on your own. Did he know his mother was gone?’
Sweet nodded. ‘He was locked in the cabin crying when they found him. He’d been banging on the door, apparently. He’s in a lot of shock, poor bloody kid. We were hoping you’d be able to help us communicate with him.’
A large white gull landed on the sand just outside the window, head cocked slightly to one side. It seemed to be peering in at them with its little black eye.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eden said. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be a lot of use to you.’
‘The search for her is still on-going,’ Sweet tried to reassure him. ‘There may be a chance.’ A kindly meant platitude.
The gull turned its head, looking at them with its other eye.
Eden took a sip from his coffee. It tasted thin and milky. ‘What do you think happened?’ he asked, looking down at the floor and noticing grains of dark sand in the cracks in the wood. He imagined a barefoot boy walking in from the beach.
Sweet said, ‘She doesn’t seem to have been wearing a harness. And it seems she may not have been wearing a life jacket, either.’
He nodded. ‘And so you assume it was deliberate. That she jumped in the water knowing what she was doing?’
Sweet looked at him for a second and said, ‘I mean. She might have just fallen overboard by accident, mightn’t she? But… it’s what people reckon. She wasn’t always that well, if you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I don’t, no,’ said Eden, irritated by the other officer’s fumbling attempts at tact. ‘You mean you think she was mentally ill?’
Sweet looked at his feet. ‘I suppose. She had a few issues.’
‘Did she?’
‘We took her into custody once or twice. Nothing bad,’ he added hastily. ‘Just, you know… minor public-order stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Nothing really. And I’ll need to take a toothbrush and maybe a hairbrush if there is one, if that’s OK?’
Eden understood. The simplest and most reliable way to confirm the identity of a body, if they found one, was through DNA. Drowned people never looked pretty.
Just then Bisi reappeared, making her way down the stairs with two black carrier bags. She paused on the bottom step. ‘Well, then. Would you like to meet your nephew?’
Five
Bisi from Child Protection parked her little car on a steep street outside a red-brick terraced house.
‘Ready?’ asked Bisi, hand on the door handle.
‘You do understand that I have to be at work tomorrow? In London.’
‘You do want to meet him, though, don’t you?’ said Bisi. ‘He’s your nephew.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course I do.’
Bisi rang the bell. The front door was shiny and red, right at the pavement’s edge. The woman who opened it was in her late fifties, wide, wearing a yellow top. Bisi greeted her warmly. They would have worked together a lot, guessed Eden: a child social worker and an emergency carer. ‘This is the boy’s uncle Eden,’ explained Bisi. ‘Though apparently they’ve never actually met before.’
‘Oh,’ said the woman – Mrs Sullivan. She eyed him up too, just as Bisi had earlier. ‘Well, you’d better come in. Finn is in the garden.’ She led them into a kitchen, where her husband was standing at the open back door watching a small dark-haired child kicking a football.
Eden looked out to the sunlit garden. The football was attached to the boy’s ankle with a length of elastic. When he kicked it, the ball came back and he kicked it again, over and over, with no particular grace or skill.
Mr Sullivan called out to him, ‘Try kicking it with the side of your foot, not just your toe. That’s the way footballers do it.’
The boy ignored him, continuing to kick the ball with the front of his foot.
‘How was last night?’ asked Bisi.
‘He had a nightmare,’ said Mrs Sullivan, who was already filling a kettle. ‘When I got to him he was standing up by the door, calling for his mum, poor little man. Cried a bit. He didn’t sleep much, I don’t think.’
At the sound of their voices, the boy turned. His pale face showed the darkness around his eyes. They were light blue, exactly like his sister’s. Finn glanced at the adults with hostility, then turned away to kick the ball again.
‘He’s been doing it for half an hour,’ Mr Sullivan informed them, without looking back at them.
‘Finn?’ called Mrs Sullivan. ‘Come in, love. We have someone special we want you to meet.’
The thump of shoe against ball continued.
‘Finn?’ Bisi stood up, went outside and approached the boy, putting her arm around his shoulders. She leant down and spoke to him, her voice low, then returned to the kitchen.
The boy kicked the football a few more times then stopped and walked slowly to the kitchen doorway, football still tethered to his leg. Mr Sullivan stood back to let him come in.
‘Finn,’ said Bisi, ‘I want you to meet your uncle Eden. Your mum’s brother. He’s come a long way to say hello to you.’
‘Hello, Finn,’ said Eden gently. ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’
The boy nodded, but made no attempt to approach him, or answer him, or change his furious expression.
‘I’m sorry we’ve not met before.’
Finn looked at him then addressed Bisi, ‘How do I know he’s my uncle?’
‘Well, because he is,’ she answered. ‘He’s your mother’s brother.’
‘Who says?’ Finn turned and went back outside, dragging the ball behind him.
‘Your teacher, Miss Killick, sends her love,’ Bisi called after him. ‘She says she’s hoping you’ll be back in school soon.’
Finn appeared not to hear. Kicked the ball a little harder.
‘I’m sorry, Eden,’ said Bisi. ‘He’s in shock, obviously. His world has just turned upside down.’
‘Yes. It has.’
‘Can we talk, Angela?’ Bisi asked Mrs Sullivan. They left Finn kicking the ball and went to the front room, Mr Sullivan following with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits.
Eden sat on a large L-shaped sofa in front of a TV screen. Tucked to one side was a plastic storage box full of toy cars, dolls and children’s books.
‘No surprise he’s acting up a bit,’ said Mrs Sullivan. ‘Any child would be. His mum leaving him on his own.’
