Chapter 38
BIRDY
I can’t wait for Carter to catch up with this latest development. A body being found on your first day in a new job is never a good start. I hurry out of The Smuggler’s Inn and am about to climb onto my scooter.
“No need for that,” says Carter. “It will be quicker to walk.”
I reluctantly follow him, already worried about how much time has passed since the body was discovered, how much evidence might have already been compromised, and how many people might have seen things they should not have seen.
“Were you questioning Maddy just now?” Carter asks.
“Would it be a problem if I was?”
“She’s my sister, not a suspect.”
I find his reaction interesting but park that thought for now.
The sky has turned dark and inky, and the wind kisses my cheeks as the impending storm settles over Hope Falls.
It’s noticeably colder than it was earlier and a dew-like mist coats my skin as we walk along the harbor wall.
Carter—with his freakishly long legs—walks considerably faster than I do, and I soon get warm practically running to keep up with him.
I’m not as fit as I used to be. Going to the gym has been the last thing on my list of things to do since I found out I was dying.
It’s hard to live in the moment when you know all your best moments are behind you.
I follow Carter onto a narrow coast path winding through sandbanks covered in long grass, wondering how much bloody farther we need to go.
“Are you sure it wouldn’t be faster to drive?”
“Why? Worried about getting your shoes dirty?” he says over his shoulder.
Sarcastic little shit.
“You’ll go far one day, Carter. And when you do I hope you stay there.”
“The beach is only accessible on foot, I’m afraid,” he reminds me, and I’m about to make another witty comeback when I trip on a rock.
Carter catches me before I fall, then holds me a little longer than necessary.
I am not imagining the chemistry between us but I am choosing to ignore it.
I’m forty. And now that I know he’s only twenty-eight, I feel like Mrs. Robinson.
“Thank you,” I say, when he finally lets go.
“No problem,” he replies, his cheeks blushing like I suspect mine are too.
The coast path winds its way around a corner, so that when I look back, Hope Falls can no longer be seen.
As though it has vanished or was never there.
All that is visible from this part of the path are the ocean and the cliffs, including the section that Eden Fox may or may not have jumped from.
We are traveling in the opposite direction, away from where she would have jumped, but the tides are a law unto themselves, and I suppose it is possible they might have carried her this far.
“How much further?” I ask.
“Just over this next hill,” Carter says as we approach a part of the path that looks so steep this hill ought to be reclassified as a mountain.
But the view when we reach the top is stunning.
Forgotten memories of being here as a child ripple through my mind.
A vast white sandy bay stretches in front of us, surrounded by a turquoise-colored sea.
I pause for a moment, trying to get my breath back.
I can see what looks like the wreck of a small wooden fishing boat, broken bits of wood scattered on the sand.
Eventually nature always takes back what she loans us.
And what we steal. It’s only ever a matter of time.
“Blackwater Bay, isn’t she stunning,” Carter says, waiting for me. “Do you need a minute to catch your breath?”
“Not at all. I’m fine,” I lie.
“Okay,” he says, but walks a little more slowly and stays by my side.
“This concealed cove used to be used for smuggling. A hundred years ago, boats carrying stolen goods would sail to this spot, hidden out of sight from the village. Whatever they were carrying—gold, guns, alcohol, money—would be carried through the sand dunes under the cover of darkness to The Smuggler’s Inn.
There are stories about secret tunnels in the cliffs that lead from the pub all the way up the hill to Spyglass. ”
“Ever find any when you were a kid?”
“What?”
“Tunnels.”
“No, but not for lack of trying,” he says.
I’m not sure I believe him.
“They were just made-up stories that local people told for fun.”
Doesn’t sound like my kind of fun.
In fact, I’ve thought of a new slogan for the place:
Hope Falls—Where Fun Comes to Die.
We start heading downhill into the bay and as we turn a corner I spot a woman in the distance standing over what I’m guessing is the body.
She’s on the other side of the beach. Carter runs ahead down the uneven coast path—which has crumbled away completely in places—and I can feel myself eroding too, getting closer to oblivion.
I do my best to keep up with him, while also doing my best not to slip or trip or break my bloody neck.
He reaches the woman long before I do, and they appear to be whispering when I finally catch up.
“This is Diana Harris. She found the body,” Carter says. The name immediately rings a bell. The art gallery owner who likes a spoonful of her dead husband’s ashes in her tea. Allegedly. And one of the last people to see Eden Fox before she disappeared.
My first impressions of Diana Harris having read the transcript of Carter’s interview don’t quite match the woman I am now meeting in real life.
I imagined her to be middle-aged, tall, thin, heavily made-up, well-groomed, and well-dressed.
In reality, she is shorter than me—which is saying something—looks like she has a healthy appetite, and is makeup free.
She is still wearing a swimming cap on her head, Crocs on her feet, and what looks like a fancy dressing gown with the word DRYROBE on the front.
“I was swimming, like I do every day after lunch. I didn’t see the body until I got out of the water.
Must have washed up on the shore when I was in the sea.
Strange though, because the tide is going out,” she says, her words rushing out of her like they couldn’t wait to escape.
She glances at the body, which is lying face down a few meters away, and I follow her stare.
It’s clearly a woman, but without getting closer and rolling her over it isn’t possible to identify her from here.
“Sorry I moved her, I know I shouldn’t have. ”
“Then why did you?”
“I was just trying to help—I have a certificate in first aid—but she’s a bit beyond that. Aren’t you going to ask me if it’s her? Eden Fox? Because I honestly can’t tell and I doubt you’ll be able to either.”
What an odd thing to say.
If it is Eden, she’s only been in the water for a few hours.
Her body shouldn’t have decomposed so badly that nobody would recognize her.
I ask Carter to take a witness statement, and to do it farther away from the body, while I take a closer look.
I should really wait for the forensics team to arrive but my curiosity gets the better of me.
I gently roll the body over and take a step back.
Time stops, rewinds, and I am a little girl again, standing on the beach staring at the body of my dead mother. For a second it is her face that I see.
But it is not my mother.
The woman’s skin has a grayish tinge to it and her long blond hair is plastered to her head.
Her feet are bare, but the rest of her is clothed, fairly nondescript blue jeans and a T-shirt.
Her hair is the same color and length as the missing woman’s, and she looks roughly the same height, but her face is unrecognizable because she doesn’t have one.
All that remains is a broken and bloody mess of skin and bone.
I search for any ID or a phone inside her pockets but find nothing.
“I think her head must have hit the rocks when she jumped,” says Mrs. Harris from a few feet away, shouting to be heard over the roar of the ocean.
“Smashed her skull to bits. I rolled her over to stop the seagulls eating what was left of her face. I doubt you’ll even be able to identify her with dental records, I can’t see any teeth left, can you? ”
Carter comes to stand by my side and looks down at the body. Then he turns around, doubles over, and vomits on the sand. I leave him to pull himself together while I walk Mrs. Harris away from the scene and ask her a few more questions.
“You said you come to Blackwater Bay to swim at the same time every day. Do you normally see anyone else here?”
She shakes her head. “Not at this time of year, except for the Day of the Dead. There is a torchlit procession that starts in the village and ends here in Blackwater Bay on the first of November every year. Then we burn a boat on the beach, there’s a big bonfire, everyone throws their torches on top.
It’s always a great night, so there are a lot of people on this beach then, but otherwise not a soul. ”
I remember the annual celebration from when I was a child.
The costumes, the torches, the boat on fire, the fireworks.
Mum would let me stay up late and take me every year.
The festival and the parade were just a thing everyone in the village went to.
I never gave much thought to why we did it.
It was just something that I took for granted and thought was normal, until I moved away.
“Why burn a boat?” I ask, unable to remember the reason but soon regretting the question.
“Because in 1878 a ship called Serendipity ran aground in this bay. It was thought to be a smuggler’s ship,” she continues.
“But the ship was found abandoned and nobody ever came to claim it. When the locals investigated the empty boat they found a table set for dinner. The candles were all lit, the food on the plates was still warm but untouched, and there was wine in the goblets. It was as though the whole crew were about to sit down for a meal but then vanished,” she says, staring at me intensely. “Hope Falls is full of lost souls…”
I think about my mother again.
“And the festival is our way of making sure they aren’t forgotten. But most days at this time of year the beach is the same as it was back in 1878. Empty.”
“And was that the case today? Or can you remember seeing anyone?” I ask.
She frowns as though it might be a difficult question, looks at Carter still bent over double in the distance, then back at me. “Yes. Him.”