CHAPTER 21
Pat woke early, annoyed by the events of the previous night.
She’d left as soon as she could after the encounter with Derek and Fi in the utility room, brushing past the usual party detritus and Prichard draped like a parody of himself on that ghastly white leather sofa.
‘Imagine,’ he was saying to the room as she left, ‘the Marquis de Sade with a safe word and a signed contract. Fifty Shades-type depravity sounds like corporate team-building, hahaha.’ Which Goodreads review had he got that from?
The image of Derek waving a bottle of Chardonnay like it was a weapon, delivering half-formed threats with a swagger he clearly thought was intimidating, kept circling back.
It was just pathetic. And exhausting. He was, she suspected, one of those men who only ever felt solid when someone else was shrinking.
The kind who mistook volume for authority and discomfort for power. Probably a straightforward bully.
The psychology was familiar: brittle pride, hair-trigger temper, a compulsive need to assert control the moment it felt even slightly in question.
Underneath all that noise, there was probably something soft and shivering: fear of irrelevance, of humiliation, of not being as important as he told himself he was.
And possibly of being found out. As a murderer, or just as a pathetic little man.
Time would probably tell. She exhaled through her nose and muttered, ‘Grow up,’ to no one in particular.
Sometimes she didn’t really fancy a morning swim, but today she needed it.
She was buzzing with an angry energy that she wanted to wash off in the waves.
She zipped up her dryrobe, grabbed her picker plus a bin bag and marched out of the house, over the cattle grid and straight to the lay-by to deal with the tosser.
It wasn’t quite slaying a dragon, but it was at least a small achievement, a little win, a victory at the start of the day.
She walked briskly up to the bin and stared at the ground.
But there was nothing there. Where was the Mars bar wrapper?
She turned and looked at the verge. Maybe it had been caught by the wind.
Behind the bin? Inside the bin, even? Had the tosser finally made the toss?
She looked inside the bin. The wrapper wasn’t there.
Pat was confused. Was the tosser dead? He was supposed to survive Armageddon along with the cockroaches.
She was surprised to find it disconcerting.
Perhaps she was having an imaginary relationship with the tosser of the Mars bar wrappers.
She carried on up the hill past Dorna’s orange sign and reached the top of the steps just as the sun broke through and the light danced like diamonds on the crest of the waves.
She stopped to take in the view. It really was beautiful.
She walked slowly down the steps, inhaling the cold sea air, clearing her lungs, listening to the crunch of the pebbles, the hiss and sigh of the sea.
She felt better already. Her shoulders were less tense, lowered away from her ear lobes.
She sat down in her dryrobe and pulled down her leggings, snaking her hips a little as she pulled on her black swimming costume.
Old woman? What a prize shit Derek was. Old woman?
What age was he? Late twenties? Early thirties?
Younger than Henry. He was borderline Gen Z, and while she tried not to generalise, there was a certain self-referential intensity about his age group, as if the world had only just started paying attention when they arrived.
Pat sighed. She wanted to avoid confrontation with him from now on, at least until he was brought to justice.
She exhaled loudly and then walked towards the waves, looking up and down the shoreline. The beach was empty. The light was incredible. It was that pure white light that you only got in the morning, clean and clear, before the world had woken up.
As she swam, she ran the conversations she’d had with Derek through her head again.
He had seemed – or at least acted – sad that his friend had died, that was true.
But in reality it was the money that had got his attention.
Fi had obviously told him who Pat was. He’d had no idea at the beginning of the evening, when he was flirting and flashing his eyes and his smile.
It was only later that the penny dropped.
Walking out of the sea, Pat wrapped herself in her thick, warm coat and looked up at the old lighthouse basking in the early-morning sun.
So if it wasn’t Derek who had met Henry at the Airbnb, then who the hell was the man who had arrived to collect him at 5 p.m.?
Grace, the landlady, hadn’t noticed the colour of his hair, and Derek’s hair was really striking.
Maybe he’d been backlit so she couldn’t tell.
The car park was beginning to fill up by the time Pat walked up the steps to the top of the cliff.
There were already a few tourists standing too near the edge for her liking, smiling and taking their selfies.
She was on the verge of telling them to step away from the precipice, to watch out for erosion, but somehow she didn’t have the energy.
She walked back across the Downs, her hands in her pockets, deep in thought.
If Dorna had an alibi and Derek really was otherwise engaged, then what were her options? Who else was still in the frame?
As she crossed the lane and walked down the track towards her cottage, Malcolm’s golden Aston Martin crawled up alongside her. He lowered the window.
‘Nice day for it,’ he said. Pat must have looked confused. ‘For a swim.’
‘It was,’ she smiled. ‘Back so soon?’
‘I thought I’d surprise Fi,’ he said. ‘I took an earlier flight.’
‘Oh good. I’m sure she’ll be delighted.’
He waved as his car purred off, and Pat paused by the cattle grid, imagining the scene back at the house: the bedroom door creaking open, Malcolm walking in with a fresh cafetière and mugs, only to be confronted by the unmistakable tangle of Fi and Derek mid-thrust, the beast with two backs in full motion.
She suspected Malcolm had meant it in principle when he said he didn’t mind the fling.
But principles had a way of buckling under the weight of sweaty reality.
She could just see him now, standing awkwardly on the threshold, blinking, the tray still in his hands, unsure whether to retreat, clear his throat or ask if anyone took sugar.
As she wandered through her garden gate, still imagining the scenes unfolding next door, she stopped in her tracks.
Why was the door to the shepherd’s hut swinging in the breeze?
Surely she had locked it last night after her final Zoom session?
She would most certainly have shut it at least. She felt oddly trepidatious about approaching the wooden steps as the door swung backwards and forwards, slamming against the frame in the wind.
It was unnerving. A few sheets of paper flew out in front of her and spiralled in the air.
The wind gusted again, and more and more pages were sent soaring.
She ran inside and quickly shut the door.
Someone had been in there. Her papers were in a mess.
Her metal cabinet was wide open, and the intruder had worked their way through the files, chucking the ones they were not interested in on the floor, while others were open on the desk.
Was there one missing? Who knew? She leafed through the cabinet.
It was hard to be sure with the mess and the sheets of paper everywhere, but it looked as though Henry’s file was gone.
It could be a coincidence. But it was unlikely.
Something crunched underfoot. She looked down.
Her parched spider-plant pot had been smashed on the floor.
They were in a hurry, she thought, bending down to pick up the pieces.
It was difficult to break a pot on a wooden floor unless it had been pushed off the desk with some force.
She was suddenly struck by a terrible thought.
Maybe she had disturbed them. Maybe they’d been watching her, waiting for her to go for her swim before they broke into the place.
She felt sick and scared, and Pat did not usually scare easily.
Her first thought was to call the police. But the idea of DS Stevens’ neat bun and her banal questions and her achingly slow brain wandering around the place filled her with dread, and she was not sure she had enough stale biscuits to entertain PC Footer for more than twenty minutes.
She called Sue. Sue was busy, but she stopped her work calls as soon as she heard about the break-in.
‘It’s very odd,’ she said. ‘Why would someone want to steal someone else’s file. What’s in there?’
‘It’s different for each client. Normally it’s just the basics, but sometimes I might add a small progress report. It depends.’
‘What was in Henry’s report?’
‘Quite a bit, actually, but only because he liked to talk a lot.’
‘That’s worrying. Are you all right?’
‘I’m a bit shaken up. It’s an odd feeling being broken into, it’s a violation. Oh God, WHY didn’t I abide by the governing body’s code of ethics and keep everything in code?’
‘They would’ve stolen all the files then,’ said Sue. ‘You’d be even more violated.’
‘I might have done something unwise last night. I told Henry’s so-called boyfriend, who is now the lover of the next-door neighbour, that the money had gone.’
‘It’s probably him who broke in, then, looking for a file about the money. Look, don’t you think you should book into a hotel for a bit?’
‘Don’t tell me, there’s a lovely B&B down the road.’ Pat’s laugh was hollow. She scratched the back of her neck. She was on edge, that was for sure.