I Let You Go

by Clare Mackintosh

  We cross the Severn Bridge, and I look down at the swirling mass of bilge-grey water that is the Bristol Channel. The coach is quietly anonymous, and here no one is reading the Bristol Post. No one is talking about Jacob. I lean back into my seat. I’m exhausted but I don’t dare close my eyes. When I sleep I’m assaulted by the sights and sounds of the accident; by the knowledge that had I been just a few minutes earlier, it would never have happened.

  The Greyhound coach is going to Swansea, and I steal a glance around to see the company I’m keeping. They are students, in the main, plugged into music and engrossed in magazines. A woman my age is reading through papers and making neat notes in the margins. It seems ludicrous that I’ve never been to Wales, but now I’m glad I have no connection here. It is the perfect place for a new beginning.

  I’m the last to get off, and I wait at the bus station until the coach has left, the adrenalin of my departure a distant memory. Now that I’ve made it as far as Swansea, I have no idea where to go. A man is slumped on the pavement; he looks up and mumbles something incoherent, and I back away. I can’t stay here, and I don’t know where I’m going, so I start walking. I play a game with myself: I’ll take the next left, no matter where it goes; the second right; straight ahead at the first crossroads. I don’t read the road signs, taking instead the smallest road offered at each junction, the least-travelled option. I feel light-headed – almost hysterical. What am I doing? Where am I going? I wonder if this is what it’s like to lose one’s mind, and then I realise I don’t care. It doesn’t matter any more.

  I walk for miles, leaving Swansea far behind. I hug the hedgerow when cars pass, which they do with decreasing frequency now that the evening is drawing in. My holdall is slung on to my back, like a rucksack, and the straps carve grooves into my shoulders, but my pace is steady and I don’t stop. All I can hear is my breathing, and I begin to feel calmer. I don’t let myself think about what has happened, or where I’m going, I just walk. I pull my phone from my pocket and, without looking to see how many missed calls it shows, I drop it into the ditch beside me, where it splashes into the pooled water. It is the last piece connecting me to my past, and almost immediately I feel freer.

  My feet start to ache and I know that, if I were to stop, and lie down here by the side of the road, I would never get up. I slow down, and as I do so, I hear a car behind me. I step on to the grass verge and turn away from the road as it passes, but instead of disappearing round the corner, it slows to a halt about five metres in front of me. There is a faint hiss from the brakes, and a smell of exhaust. Blood pounds in my ears, and without thinking I turn and run, my bag banging against my spine. I run clumsily, my blistered feet rubbing against my boots, and sweat trickles down my back and between my breasts. I can’t hear the car, and when I look over my shoulder, the movement almost unbalancing me, it has gone.

  I stand foolishly in the empty road. I’m so tired, and so hungry I can’t think straight. I wonder even if there was a car at all, or whether I have projected on to this silent road the sound of rubber on tarmac because it is all I hear in my head.

  Darkness descends. I know I’m near the coast now: I can taste salt on my lips, and hear the sound of the waves hitting the shore. The sign reads ‘Penfach’ and it’s so quiet I feel as though I’m trespassing as I walk through the village, glancing up at the drawn curtains keeping out the chill of the winter evening. The light from the moon is flat and white, making everything seem two-dimensional and stretching my shadow out in front of me until I’m walking far taller than I feel. I walk through the town until I can look down on to the bay, where cliffs encircle a stretch of sand as though protecting it. I pick my way down a winding path, but the shadows are deceptive and I feel the panic of empty space before my foot slides on the shale and I cry out. Unbalanced by my makeshift rucksack, I lose my balance, and bump, roll and slide my way down the rest of the path. Damp sand crunches beneath me, and I take a breath, waiting for something to hurt. But I am fine. I wonder briefly if I have become immune to physical pain: if the human body is not designed to handle both physical and emotional hurt. My hand still throbs, but at a distance, as though it belongs to someone else.

  I have a sudden urge to feel something. Anything. I take off my shoes in spite of the cold and feel the grains of sand pressing against the soles of my feet. The sky is inky blue and free of clouds, and the moon sits full and heavy above the sea, its twin reflected in shimmering slices below. Not home. That is the most important thing. It doesn’t feel like home. I wrap myself in my coat and sit on my bag, my back pressed into the hard rock, to wait.

  When morning comes, I realise I must have slept; snatches of exhaustion broken by the crash of waves as they move up the shore. I stretch painful, frozen limbs and stand to watch the vivid orange blush spread across the skyline. Despite the light there’s no warmth in the sun, and I’m shivering. This has not been a well-thought-out plan.

  The narrow path is easier to negotiate in daylight, and I see now that the cliffs are not – as I had thought – deserted. A low building sits half a mile away, squat and utilitarian, next to neat rows of static caravans. It’s as good a place to start as any other.

  ‘Good morning,’ I say, and my voice sounds small and high in the relative warmth of the caravan park shop. ‘I’m looking for somewhere to stay.’

  ‘Here on holiday, are you?’ The woman’s ample bosom is resting on a copy of Take a Break magazine. ‘Funny time of year for it.’ A smile takes the sting out of her words, and I try to smile back, but my face doesn’t respond.

  ‘I’m hoping to move here,’ I manage. I realise I must look wild: unwashed and unkempt. My teeth are chattering and I begin to shake violently, the cold seeming to reach deep into my bones.

  ‘Ah, well then,’ the woman says cheerily, seemingly unperturbed by my appearance, ‘you’ll be looking for somewhere to rent, then? Only we’re closed till the end of the season, see? Just the shop open till March. So it’s Iestyn Jones you want – him with the cottage along the way. I’ll ring him, shall I? How about a nice cup of tea first? It’s bitter out, and you look half-frozen.’

  She shepherds me on to a stool behind the counter, and disappears into the next room, continuing a stream of chatter above the sound of a boiling kettle.

  ‘I’m Bethan Morgan,’ she says. ‘I run this place – that’s Penfach Caravan Park – and my husband Glynn keeps the farm going.’ She pops her head round the door and smiles at me. ‘Well, that’s the idea, anyway, although farming’s no easy business nowadays, I can tell you. Oh! I was going to ring Iestyn, wasn’t I?’

  Bethan doesn’t pause for an answer, vanishing for a few minutes while I chew at my bottom lip. I try to think of responses to the questions she will ask, once we’re sitting here with our mugs of tea, and the balloon in my chest grows bigger and tighter.

  But when Bethan returns, she doesn’t ask me anything. Not when did I arrive, or what made me choose Penfach, or even where have I come from. She simply passes me a chipped mug full of sweet tea, then wedges herself into her own chair. She wears so many different clothes it’s impossible to see what shape she is, but the arms of her chair dig into soft flesh in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable. She is in her forties, I guess, with a smooth, round face which makes her look younger, and long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She wears lace-up boots beneath a long black skirt and several T-shirts, over which she has pulled an ankle-length cardigan that trails on the dusty floor as she sits. Behind her, a burnt-out incense stick has left a line of ash on the windowsill, and a lingering smell of sweet spice in the air. There is tinsel taped to the old-fashioned till on the counter.

  ‘Iestyn’s on his way up,’ she says. She has placed a third mug of tea on the counter next to her, so I assume Iestyn – whoever he is – is only a few minutes away.

  ‘Who is Iestyn?’ I ask. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake, coming here where everybody knows everybody. I should have headed for a city, somewhere more a
nonymous.

  ‘He owns a farm down the road,’ Bethan says. ‘It’s the other side of Penfach, but he’s got goats up on the hillside here, and along the coastal path.’ She waves an arm in the direction of the sea. ‘We’ll be neighbours, you and I, if you take his place – but it’s no palace.’ Bethan laughs, and I can’t help but smile. Her straight-forwardness reminds me of Eve, although I suspect my neat, slim sister would be horrified by the comparison.

  ‘I don’t need much,’ I tell her.

  ‘He’s not one for small talk, Iestyn,’ Bethan tells me, as though I might find this disappointing, ‘but he’s a nice enough man. He keeps his sheep up here next to ours,’ she gestures vaguely inland, ‘and like the rest of us he needs a few more strings to his bow. What do they call it? Diversification?’ Bethan gives a derisive snort. ‘Anyway, Iestyn has a holiday house in the village, and Blaen Cedi: a cottage up the way.’

  ‘And that’s the one you think I’ll want to take?

  ‘If you do, you’ll be the first in a while.’ The man’s voice makes me start, and I turn round to see a slightly built figure standing in the doorway.

  ‘It’s not that bad!’ chides Bethan. ‘Now drink your tea and then take the lady up to see it.’

  Iestyn has a face so brown and lined that his eyes almost disappear into it. His clothes are hidden beneath dark-blue overalls, dusty and with finger wipes of grease across each thigh. He slurps his tea through a white moustache yellowed with nicotine, and eyes me appraisingly. ‘Blaen Cedi is too far from the road for most people,’ he says, in a thick accent I struggle to decipher. ‘They don’t want to carry their bags that far, see?’

  ‘Can I look at it?’ I stand up, wanting this unwanted, abandoned cottage to be the answer.

  Iestyn continues drinking, swilling each mouthful around his teeth before swallowing it. Finally he lets out a satisfied sigh and walks out of the room. I look at Bethan.

  ‘What did I say? A man of few words.’ She laughs. ‘Go on with you – he won’t wait.’

  ‘Thank you for the tea.’

  ‘My pleasure. You come and see me, once you’re settled in down the road.’

  I make the promise automatically, although I know I won’t keep it, and hurry outside, where I find Iestyn sitting astride a quad bike, filthy with encrusted mud.

  I take a step back. He surely doesn’t expect me to get on behind him? A man I’ve known for less than five minutes?

  ‘Only way of getting around,’ he shouts over the engine noise.

  My head is reeling. I try to balance my practical need to see this house with the primitive fear that is rooting my feet to the ground.

  ‘On you get, then, if you’re coming.’

  I make my feet move forward and sit gingerly behind him astride the bike. There’s no handle in front of me and I can’t bring myself to put my arms around Iestyn, so I hang on to my seat as he turns the throttle and the bike shoots off across the bumpy coastal path. The bay stretches out alongside us, the tide now fully in and crashing against the cliffs, but as we draw level with the path running up from the beach, Iestyn turns the quad bike away from the sea. He shouts something over his shoulder and gestures for me to look inland. We bounce over uneven terrain and I search for what I hope will be my new home.

  Bethan described it as a cottage, but Blaen Cedi is little more than a shepherd’s hut. Once painted white, the render has long since abandoned its battle with the elements, leaving the house a dirty grey. The large wooden door looks out of proportion with the two tiny windows that peer out from beneath the eaves, and a skylight tells me there must be a second floor, although there hardly seems room for it. I can see why Iestyn has struggled to market it as a holiday let. The most creative of property agents would have a hard time playing down the damp inching up the walls outside, or the slipped slate tiles on the roof.

  While Iestyn unlocks the door, I stand with my back to the cottage and look towards the coast. I had thought I might see the caravan park from here, but the path has dropped down from the coast, leaving us in a shallow dip that hides the horizon from us. Neither can I see the bay, although I can hear the sea crashing against the rocks, three beats between each wave. Gulls wheel overhead, their cries like kittens, mewling in the fading light, and I shiver involuntarily, wanting suddenly to be inside.

  The ground floor is barely twelve feet long; an uneven wooden table separating the living space from where the galley kitchen squats beneath a great oak beam.

  Upstairs, the space is split between the bedroom and a tiny bathroom with a half-sized tub. The mirror is spotted with age; the mottled crazing distorting my face. I have the pale complexion common to redheads, but the poor lighting makes my skin seem even more translucent, starkly white against the dark-red hair that falls past my shoulders. I go back downstairs, to find Iestyn stacking wood next to the fire. He finishes the pile and crosses the room to stand against the range.

  ‘She’s a bit temperamental, so she is,’ he says. He pulls open the warming drawer with a bang that makes me jump.

  ‘Can I take the cottage?’ I say. ‘Please?’ There is a note of desperation in my voice, and I wonder what he must make of me.

  Iestyn eyes me suspiciously. ‘You can pay, can you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say firmly, although I have no idea how long my savings will last, or what I will do when they run out.

  He is unconvinced. ‘Do you have a job?’

  I think of my studio with its carpet of clay. The pain in my hand is no longer as intense, but I have so little sensation in my fingers I’m frightened I won’t be able to work. If I am no longer a sculptor, what am I?

  ‘I’m an artist,’ I say eventually.

  Iestyn grunts as though that explains everything.

  We settle on a rent which, though ridiculously low, will soon race through the money I have been putting aside. But the tiny stone cottage is mine for the next few months, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I have found somewhere.

  Iestyn scrawls a mobile number on the back of a receipt he pulls from his pocket. ‘Drop this month’s rent into Bethan’s, if you like.’ He nods to me and strides out to the quad bike, starting it up with a roar.

  I watch him leave, then I lock the door and drag across the stubborn bolt. Despite the winter sun, I run upstairs to draw the bedroom curtains, shutting the bathroom window, which has been left ajar. Downstairs, the drapes stick on the metal curtain pole as if unused to being closed, and I tug at them, releasing a cloud of dust from their folds. The windows rattle in the wind and the curtains do little to stop the icy chill that creeps around the loose-fitting frames.

  I sit on the sofa and listen to the sound of my own breathing. I can’t hear the sea, but the plaintive call of a lone gull sounds like a baby crying, and I put my hands over my ears.

  Exhaustion overtakes me and I curl up in a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees, and pressing my face against the rough denim of my jeans. Although I know it’s coming, the wave of emotion engulfs me, bursting from me with such force I can barely breathe. The grief I feel is so physical it seems impossible that I am still living; that my heart continues to beat when it has been wrenched apart. I want to fix an image of him in my head, but all I can see when I close my eyes is his body, still and lifeless in my arms. I let him go, and I will never forgive myself for that.

  5

  ‘Have you got time for a chat about the hit-and-run, boss?’ Stumpy stuck his head round Ray’s door, Kate hovering behind him.

  Ray looked up. Over the last three months the investigation had gradually been scaled back, making way for other, more pressing jobs. Ray still went over the actions a couple of times a week with Stumpy and his team, but the calls had dried up, and there had been no fresh intelligence in weeks.

  ‘Sure.’

  They came in and sat down. ‘We can’t get hold of Jacob’s mother,’ Stumpy said, getting straight to the point.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that. Her p
hone’s dead and the house is empty. She’s disappeared.’

  Ray looked at Stumpy and then at Kate, who was looking uncomfortable. ‘Please tell me that’s a joke.’

  ‘If it is, we don’t know what the punchline is,’ Kate said.

  ‘She’s our only witness!’ Ray exploded. ‘Not to mention the victim’s mother! How on earth could you lose her?’

  Kate flushed, and he forced himself to calm down.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened.’

  Kate looked at Stumpy, who nodded for her to explain. ‘After the press conference we didn’t have much to do with her,’ she said. ‘We had her statement and she’d been debriefed, so we left her in the hands of the Family Liaison Officer.’

  ‘Who was the FLO?’ Ray asked.

  ‘PC Diana Heath,’ Kate said, after a pause, ‘from Roads Policing.’

  Ray made a note in his blue daybook and waited for Kate to continue.

  ‘Diana went round the other day to see how Jacob’s mum was doing, only to find the house empty. She’d cleared off.’

  ‘What do the neighbours say?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Kate. ‘She didn’t know any of them well enough to leave a forwarding address, and no one saw her go. It’s like she’s vanished into thin air.’

  She glanced at Stumpy, and Ray narrowed his eyes. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  There was a pause before Stumpy spoke.

  ‘Apparently there was a bit of backlash on a local web-forum – someone stirring up trouble, suggesting she was an unfit mother, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Anything libellous?’

  ‘Potentially. It’s all been deleted now, but I’ve asked ICT to try and retrieve the cached files. That’s not all, though, boss. By all accounts, when she was interviewed by uniform immediately after the accident, they might have pushed a bit too hard. Been a bit insensitive. It seems Jacob’s mum thought we held her responsible, and consequently decided we wouldn’t be making much effort to find the driver.’