And then from his father’s rucksack, the brown bread sandwiches, carefully cut; the Thermos flask. The book of birds; of grasses; of wild flowers: neatly annotated, ticked.
Cordon watched now as a little egret — see, he remembered — tugged something from between the pebbles back of the water’s edge and flew away. Were there moments, he wondered, when his son, off in Australia, looked up suddenly from whatever he was doing, startled by a memory of something they had done together, father and son, something they had shared?
He shook his head.
Argued, they’d done that. Little else.
Families, it was what they did. Fought, argued, walked out, walked away, tried to keep in touch and failed. Maxine Carlin had gone up to London to see her daughter, prompted by some unnecessary fear, and, not finding her, on her way home, unused to the busy thrust of the London Underground in the rush hour, had fallen under a train and been killed.
Clear as that.
The inquest, the inquiry had found nothing suspicious: accidental death. Her daughter had thrown black earth on to her coffin and walked away.
People wanted help or they didn’t.
Friendship the same.
Love, even.
He kicked the toe of his shoe against the hardness of the rock, and, rising, set his back to the sea and took the slower, more winding path back down towards the old chapel that had long been converted to a cattle byre and now sat in partial disrepair. Away to the left, descending, he could see the tall chimney of the Kenidjack arsenic works, which in Victorian times had provided a compound that, when mixed with chalk and vinegar, women, anxious to lighten their complexion, had not only rubbed into their arms and faces but eaten.
He’d learned that from his father, of course, that and the fact that before antibiotics, another compound of arsenic had been used for curing syphilis. When it wasn’t being used as poison.
A bit of good and bad in everything.
What his father had believed.
He had just made it to where his car was parked when his mobile rang. Not a number he recognised.
‘Look, I’m not sure if I should be phoning you …’ Clifford Carlin’s voice was troubled, shaky. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Letitia — she came here after the funeral …’
‘Tell me what’s happened.’
‘Nothing. Nothing, just … ever since she got here … she’s been, I don’t know, worried. Frightened, even.’
‘What of?’
‘That’s it, she won’t say. Not clearly, not exactly. But there have been these calls to the house. And people, she says, driving past, hanging round.’
‘You’ve seen them? These people?’
‘No, no, not really. But she’s not making it up, I’m certain. She’s scared. And if you know Letitia, you know she doesn’t scare easily.’
‘What about the police? If she’s in some kind of danger.’
‘She won’t. She said no. No police.’
‘You phoned me.’
‘Like I said, I didn’t know what else to do.’
A Land Rover backed into the space alongside him and Cordon moved away, down towards the stone wall that marked the car park off from the land that tumbled down towards the sea.
‘Are you still there?’ Carlin asked.
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘The thing is, Letitia, I don’t even think it’s herself she’s most frightened for. It’s the boy.’
The line went dead, leaving Cordon staring out across limitless water.
What boy? he asked himself. What boy?
28
He was three years old. Rising four. He stood close to his mother, face fast against her hip, one hand clinging to the strands that were unravelling from the borrowed jumper she was wearing. Her father’s jumper. The boy’s grandfather. A lick of dark hair hung loose across his forehead; his brown eyes wide with uncertainty and fear.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Letitia’s greeting.
The child flinched at the anger in his mother’s voice and clung tighter, closer to tears.
Cordon said nothing.
Off to one side, Clifford Carlin shuffled his feet.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You stupid interfering bastard.’ Pushing the boy away, she lunged at her father and raked her nails across his cheek.
‘Christ, Letitia!’
‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ As he turned from her, she pummelled his back with her fists.
‘Mum! No, Mum, no. Don’t. Don’t.’
The boy tried to pull her away and she flung out a hand and caught him in the face and for an instant he stopped dead, as if in shock, then screamed.
‘Oh, Jesus! Now see — see what you’ve done? The pair of you?’
There was blood at the corner of her son’s mouth, starting to trickle down his chin and on to his neck.
‘See what you’ve made me fucking do?’
‘Letitia, listen …’
‘Here, sweetheart, here. It’s all right.’ Pulling a tissue from her pocket, she dabbed it at the boy’s face. ‘It’s nothing, really. Just a little cut. There, look. It’s already stopped.’ Crouching, she hugged him to her. ‘I’m sorry. Mummy’s sorry.’
The two men looked at one another and Clifford Carlin shook his head. A few moments later, without saying anything more, he left the room.
The boy was sobbing now, but quietly, face pressed against his mother’s chest.
‘Letitia …’
‘I told him …’ She spoke to Cordon without yet turning to look at him. ‘I told him, this stuff that’s happening, don’t say anything, not to anyone. It’ll sort itself out. Leave it be. Say anything to anyone, anyone at all, it’ll only make things worse.’
‘He was worried.’
‘Of course he was fucking worried. I’m worried. Worried sick. A sight more now you’re here.’
‘Maybe I can help.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes, why not? Try, anyway.’
‘Try?’ She laughed. ‘Fuckin’ try?’
She stood to face him.
‘Sir Lancelot, now, is it? Knights of the Round fucking Table?’ She shook her head. ‘Okay, here we are, me and the kid, in need of rescue maybe and what do we get?’ She laughed, ragged and deep. ‘That bloke with a broken lance on some old nag. I saw a film about him once. That’s you, Cordon, about as much use as a tit in a trance.’
Cordon drew a slow breath and continued to stand where he was, the boy peeking out at him from behind his mother’s arm, only looking away when Cordon smiled.
