‘How’s Hannah?’ I asked as, having placed another log on the fire, she made to leave the room.
‘Sleeping,’ she said, brushing non-existent dust from her trousers. ‘Little mite’s exhausted. But she’s okay. She got the same treatment you did – bar the brandy.’
‘She was . . . pretty shocked by what she saw.’
Kathleen’s face was briefly grim. ‘Not a sight I’d wish on anyone,’ she said, ‘but we did what we could. They freed a whale, you know, by the Hillman place. And they’re still going. What that net would have taken if the boys hadn’t spotted it . . .’
I saw again that murky water, those floating bodies, and tried, as I had for the past hours, to push it all away. I wondered whether Liza was still out there, launching herself into those wild seas to destroy the nets.
‘Kathleen,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m so sorry—’
But she cut me off. ‘You need rest,’ she said firmly. ‘Really. Burrow down and get some sleep.’ And, finally, weary to my bones, I obeyed.
When I heard the noise I could not be sure whether I had been asleep for hours or minutes. Years of London living had made me alert to any unexpected nocturnal sound, and I propped myself on an elbow in my bed, blinking into the dark, still spinning in the strange space between dreams and reality.
For a moment I couldn’t remember where I was, and then the dying red embers of the fire reminded me. I sat upright, the layers of bedclothes dropping from me, my eyes adjusting to the dark.
Someone was standing by my bed.
‘Wha—’
Liza McCullen leaned forward and placed a finger on my lips. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she murmured.
I wondered, briefly, whether I was still dreaming. I could hardly make out her silhouette in the blackened room. But my dreams had been fitful and horrifying; full of choking water and the bodies of the lost. Here, in the warm darkness, I could smell the sea on her, feel the faint grittiness of the salt on her skin as her hand met mine. And then, as she moved closer, I could feel her breath, the shocking, numbing softness of her lips on mine.
‘Liza,’ I said, but could not be sure whether her name was flooding my thoughts or I had spoken it aloud. Liza.
She slid wordlessly into the bed beside me, her limbs still chilled and damp from the night air. Her fingers traced my face, rested briefly on the bruises wrought by Greg, then wound themselves into my hair. She kissed me with a ferocity that incapacitated me. I felt her delicate weight on me, the sudden cool of her skin against mine as she pulled her shirt over her head, heard the distant crackle of flames. Then, my thoughts jumbling, I stopped her. I took her face in my hands, trying to see her, trying to gauge what storm I was entering now. ‘Liza,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’
She paused above me. I could sense, rather than see, that she was looking at me. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for bringing my daughter back to me.’
She was electric. It was as if every fibre of her pulsed with energy, as if she was some force of nature undammed, a genie let out of a bottle. For weeks I had imagined this, had thought of myself making tender love to this sad girl, kissing away her melancholy. But here, wrapped round me, was someone I had not anticipated: she was greedy, encompassing, alive. Her body was as lithe as that of an eel, and she moved against me as relentlessly as waves. The ease with which she gave herself up to me was humbling. Is this a thank-you? I wanted to ask, in my few remaining moments of lucidity. A reaction to the shock of the evening? Somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory I recalled Kathleen’s words: that Liza took the death of sea creatures hard. ‘And then, twice a year, that poor fool thinks he’s got a chance.’ I made to speak, and then, as Liza’s lips melted into me, as her skin warmed and then burnt fiercely against mine, and I finally felt heat grow within me, I was incapable of speech, or of thinking anything at all.
When I woke, the bed was empty. Even before I was awake enough to think with any clarity, I realised I had known that would be the case. I blinked hard in the dawn light, allowing the events of the previous night to seep slowly into me.
She had let me in. I had looked into those iridescent eyes and I had seen into her soul. And when she had let me in, she had allowed me to be the man I had always wanted to be with her, the man I had waited all my life to become. Strong, certain, filled with passion – not some pale imitation of love. Someone who could protect her, cherish her, bring her joy through sheer force of will. I felt as if I had aged twenty years. I felt like a boy. I felt I could demolish buildings with my bare hands.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, and I pushed myself upright, I was unsure whether to feel elation at what I had been given or melancholy that it had already been taken from me.
I had been so sure that I would wake alone that it was several minutes before I saw that I was not the only person in the room. Liza was sitting in the leather chair, which she had pulled towards the window. She was in her jeans, and her knees were pulled up to her chin, her arms wrapped round them. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter past five.
I gazed at her, wanting to watch her for ever, knowing that when she guessed I was awake I would have to hide that fact. I felt an unexpected pang of empathy with Greg: I, too, knew now what it was like to love someone unreachable.
‘Good morning,’ I said quietly. Please don’t pull back too far, I told her silently. Please don’t make it obvious that you regret this.
She turned slowly. Her eyes met mine, and I observed that wherever her thoughts were they were far from me. How could that be, I wondered, when I felt as if her body was etched on my own? That her blood now ran through my veins?
‘Mike,’ she said, ‘you say you know about publicity.’
I stumbled mentally, trying to keep up. ‘Uh-huh,’ I said.
‘What if someone who had done something really bad owned up to it? Something nobody had known about. That would generate publicity, wouldn’t it?’
I ran a hand through my hair. ‘Sorry,’ I began. ‘I don’t follow . . .’
‘I’ll tell you how Letty died,’ she said, her voice soft, but as clear as a bell, ‘and you can tell me who that will save.’
Nineteen
Liza
Nitrazepam – Mogadon, by its commercial name. Forty-two pills in a bottle. Pills to help me sleep. Perfectly legitimate, perfectly understandable, given my history of post-natal depression and the stresses of bringing up a young family. The doctor had been happy to give them to me. In fact, he had paid little attention, so gratified was he to be confronted by someone to whose problems there was a simple solution. He had known me for some time. Had seen me through a pregnancy. He knew my mother-in-law, the baby’s father, where I came from. ‘I need to get some proper sleep,’ I said. ‘Just for a little while. I know I’ll be able to cope better.’