She could almost hear the train at this moment, so vivid was the memory of that time and that place. It rumbled and roared. It gushed and it thundered. It took her relentlessly into her future and even now she was on it, escaping her past.
When the first of the water hit her, she understood that what she’d been hearing was the tide. She realised then what that siren had meant. This was the tidal bore coming, coming as fast as a horse could gallop. And while the water meant that she would soon be free of the scour that held her fast, she understood that there were things from which she would never be free.
She thought of how thankful she was that she would not suffocate in the sand, as she had feared she might. As the first of the water crashed against her body, she understood also that she would not drown. For one did not drown in water such as this. One merely lay back and fell asleep.
11 NOVEMBER
ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA
There had been nothing, really, that could be done. All of them had known it. All of them had pretended otherwise. The Coast Guard went out into the fog, taking the route from Walney Island into Lancaster Sound. But it was miles from there into Morecambe Bay and miles farther into the channel of the River Kent. She could have been anywhere, and this was something that everyone had known as well. If it had been the tidal bore alone, there might have been a chance — slight though it was — that she could be found. But with the tidal bore conjoining the fog, the situation had been without hope from the very first. They did not find her.
The RNLI had attempted to help as well, once there was enough water for them to set out. But they hadn’t got far before they knew that it was a body they would be looking for. With this the case, for them to remain out in the fog ran the risk of there being more bodies to find at the end of the day, and to compound the tragedy was foolish. Only the Guide to the Sands could assist, they reported to Lynley upon their return to land, for the Guide’s job in a situation such as this was to speculate on the probable places that a body would wash up. His job was to help them find the body as quickly as possible because if they did not find it when the fog lifted, there was a very good chance they would not find it at all. The water would wash it away, and the sand would bury it. Some things out in Morecambe Bay were never found and some things lay buried for one hundred years. It was the nature of the place, the Guide to the Sands told them.
Lynley and Deborah had gone into Arnside House at last, after hours upon hours of stoking the bonfire, even after the point when the tidal bore had surged into and then filled the channel and all of them knew there was not a single hope left. But Nicholas wouldn’t leave the fire, so they continued to feed it with him, even as they cast worried looks upon his devastated face. He wasn’t ready to stop until evening, when exhaustion had combined with knowledge and the dawning of grief to rob him of the desire to continue. Then he’d stumbled towards the house, and Lynley and Deborah had followed him as the people of Arnside village parted to let them pass and their words of sympathy had matched the looks of sorrow on their faces.
Inside the house, Lynley had phoned Bernard Fairclough. He reported only the barest of facts: that his son’s wife was missing and probably drowned out in Morecambe Bay. Apparently out for a walk, Lynley told them, and caught up in the tidal bore.
“We’ll be there at once,” Bernard Fairclough had said. “Tell Nicholas we’re on our way.”
“They’ll want to know if I’m going to use now,” Nicholas said numbly when Lynley relayed his father’s message. “Well, who wouldn’t worry that I might, with my history, eh?” He went on to say that he would not see them. Or anyone else, if it came to that.
So Lynley had waited and when Nicholas’s parents arrived, he gave them the information. And he himself decided that his part in all this was not to betray Alatea. He would hold her secrets in his heart. He would take her secrets to his grave. He knew that Deborah would do the same.
It was too late by then to begin the journey back to London, so he and Deborah had returned to the Crow and Eagle, booked two rooms, had a largely silent dinner, and had gone to bed. In the morning, when he could bear to talk, he phoned New Scotland Yard. There were, he saw, seven messages on his mobile phone. He didn’t listen to any of them. He rang Barbara Havers instead.
He told her briefly what had happened. She was silent except for the occasional, “Oh damn” and “Oh hell, sir.” He told her that they would need to get word to Alatea’s family in Argentina. Could Barbara find the graduate student once again and make the necessary phone call? Yes, she could, she told him. She was that bloody sorry about the way things had worked out, as well.
Havers said, “How are you, sir? You don’t sound good. Anything else I c’n do at this end?”
“Tell the superintendent that I was detained in Cumbria,” he said. “I’ll be on my way in an hour or two.”
“Anything else I should tell her?” Havers asked. “Want me to let her know what’s happened?”
Lynley considered this only briefly before he made his decision. “Best to let things lie as they are,” he said.
She said, “Right,” and rang off.
Lynley knew he could trust her to do as he’d asked, and it occurred to him, then, that he’d not thought at all about ringing Isabelle. Either on the previous night or this morning upon waking from a very bad sleep, he’d not considered her.
Deborah was waiting for him when he descended the stairs into reception at the Crow and Eagle. She was very ill looking. Her eyes grew bright with tears when she saw him, and she cleared her throat roughly to keep them from falling.
She was sitting on a wooden bench opposite the reception desk. He sat next to her and put his arm round her shoulders. She sagged into him, and he kissed the side of her head. She reached for his other hand and held it, and he felt the change in both of their bodies as they began to breathe as one.
He said, “Don’t think what you’re thinking.”
“How can I not?”
“I’m not sure. But I know that you mustn’t.”
“Tommy, she would never have gone out into the bay if I hadn’t been pursuing this whole mad surrogate mother business. And that had nothing to do with Ian Cresswell’s death, which you and Simon knew all along. I’m at fault.”
“Deb darling, secrets and silence caused all of this. Lies caused this. Not you.”
“You’re being very kind.”
“I’m being truthful. It was what Alatea couldn’t bear to tell him about herself that took her onto the sands. It was that information that took her to Lancaster in the first place. You can’t make her secrets and her death your fault because they’re not, and that’s how it is.”
Deborah said nothing for a moment. Her head was bent and she seemed to be studying the toes of her black leather boots. She finally murmured, “But there’re things one
He thought about this, about everything that remained and would remain forever unspoken between them. He replied with, “And who knows that better than we two?” and when he loosened his arm from her shoulders, she looked at him. He smiled at her fondly. “London?” he said.
“London,” she replied.
ARNSIDE
