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  ‘You can’t make a man love you,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Can’t you? I think you can. What you can’t do is give up on something precious. You’ve got to try and keep on trying, however much you cock up.’

  Another silence. Jessica looked up with a dazzling smile. ‘Don’t worry about me, Sarah love. I’ll think about something else and talk about something else, try it another way. I can’t let him lose me again, that’s all. Still, I was stupid.’

  She jumped up and prowled round the kitchen. A shot of caffeine had Jessica back to normal, high-spirited, angry, sad, communicative in bursts, hyperactive and ever-helpful.

  ‘Sarah, I can’t bear the idea of you not being happy in a place like this. I thought you had the perfect life. God, do you remember that dinner party when we first met? Awful. You got me out of there before that poor man killed me. First time I came here. I was awful. Sorry.’

  ‘One of the more entertaining evenings I can ever remember,’ Sarah said. ‘Only we didn’t get much to eat.’

  Then they were grinning, then giggling loudly and uncontrollably: two women who knew what it was like to make fools of themselves. A couple of anarchists in the church of ego worship.

  ‘You poured soup over a man’s head,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve always meant to ask you, just what was the final provocation to waste all that food after you’d gone to the trouble of cooking it?’

  ‘Don’t know. I was sorry for it afterwards. It wasn’t that he kept changing his mind about what he wanted, it was because he was a bully, and he made his wife cry in the kitchen and he wanted his guests to be miserable and envious. The food would have been wasted anyway. I said sorry to her. I sent flowers.’

  ‘My God, you’re magnificent when you’re angry,’ Sarah said in a breathy, adulatory voice.

  ‘Am I? Good. Maybe anger does it. I’ll try it out more.’

  ‘Oh, no, don’t.’

  Jessica was standing centre stage, first messing up her hair until it was a wild mass hanging halfway over her face, planting one hand with her customised blue-painted nails onto one generous, thrusting hip, shaking her other fist at an enemy, crossing her eyes, making herself into a parody of fury and laughing at herself. Prancing and stabbing like a demented prima donna and still giggling.

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘Terrifying,’ Sarah said, laughing with her. ‘Not for wimps.’ Jessica sat down and ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back into place.

  ‘It’s worse when it’s genuine. It’s what you do when you really are a wimp. My mother said I should have been an actress, hysterical roles only. She was probably right. I don’t know how to stop it.’

  ‘Maybe you should go back and see your mum. Take a break. Maybe you should write it all down and think about it. Where does she live?’

  The sombre mood came back. Jessica stared into the middle distance, fixing her eyes at a colourful plate hung on the wall.

  ‘She lives in a lovely place, the loveliest place in the world. Home. I can’t go back, though. Not yet, not until I’ve proved myself. Why does everything take such a long time? I need to go back with him and maybe then they’d see the sense of me. Can’t go back until I’m a good daughter and make things right for all I did wrong. All that fucking anger for nothing. I’d love to go home, but I can’t.’

  She turned her huge troubled eyes on Sarah, smiled slowly.

  ‘Change of subject, OK? I hate people who talk about themselves all the time. So, Miss Fortune, if you don’t feel easy here, where would you like to live?’

  Distraction. Sarah spoke slowly, willing to distract and be distracted, allowing herself to dream. Thinking of how much she would like to be a million miles from here, somewhere where the smell of fire was only woodsmoke. Her home had been sabotaged and her ease with it never recovered, but the dream had predated the damage by years and years.

  ‘A cottage in a village close by the sea. With honeysuckle round the door and places to walk. Cliffs and sea and feeling safe. Without any noise except weather. I’ve dreamed of it all my life. I’ve always loved the sea. Always thought that when I’d got enough money I’d give it a go.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I was taken to the sea for the first time when I was five, longed for it ever since.’

  ‘I don’t believe it! Yes, I do. When can you go? I can do something for you, Sarah, really I can. What time is it?’

  Jessica leapt to her feet, was up and pacing round, striding out of the kitchen with her mobile held close to her ear, speaking staccato, softly for her, persuading, getting them to call back, trying another number, talking, texting, mainly talking, walking away down the long corridor of Sarah’s apartment, her voice fading away and coming back. You’re sure? Fine. Yes.

  She detoured to the bathroom: Sarah could just about hear her, still talking, Jessica who could do three things at once before collapsing into grief. Then she strode back into the kitchen with clean hands, scrubbed face and a look of triumph.

  ‘You can go next week,’ she said. ‘Honest, you can. You can do what you like, Sarah. We can make things happen. Try it. It’ll work if you believe it. My mother owns it: you don’t have to meet her, all done through an agent, but it would be nice if you did. Maybe you could tell her I’m not as bad as I’m painted. Maybe you could tell her . . . Oh, nothing.’ She snorted into a handkerchief. ‘Maybe not. Just go and try the dream, why not? If you want to go, it’s there, it’s perfect for you. Not a bad little cottage. The agent says yes. Just go and pay, it’s empty.’

  ‘Don’t you speak to your mother?’

  Jessica shook her head violently.

  ‘No. I write to her sometimes. She doesn’t write back. She’s ashamed of me and ashamed of being a widow.’

  ‘It’s a good idea, writing letters. Makes you focus. Better than e-mail.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  Then her face crumpled. ‘Why doesn’t he love me? Why? When did he stop? What did I do? All I did was find him. He loves me.’

  Toxic grief.

  Scene Three

  Six a.m. and darkness still going on. What to do with this silly big bitch before anyone saw? Drag her down to the road; make it look like an accident. Well, it was an accident, surely, if only an accident waiting to happen to an animal of such suicidal daftness that she could be described as a creature who had been asking to be killed from the moment of birth. Her hairy hide was full of buckshot, enough to kill smaller game, but not her although she was mortally wounded, snarling and snapping, defying rescue or pity with her bloodshot eyes, her coat soaking wet from where she had dragged herself down the hillside through the damp grass, flanks heaving, unable to move much further; but it might take her a while to die even if she could still bite and he thought he should let her bite his hand and die defiant.

  He studied her for a moment, admiring her for snarling rather than whimpering. Then he walked round her, sensing her struggling to move her head to follow him with her desperate eyes. He put his boot on her head, gently, leant over, judged the angle and stabbed her in the neck with his hunting knife, twice, to be sure of it. When she was finally still, he lifted the hind legs and began to drag her towards the road through the gap in the hedge. She was surprisingly light for all her size as if most of her bulk was in her hair. The road surface was warmer to lie on than wet grass. All sorts of animals migrated there for early-morning warmth, offering themselves for roadkill. He laid her out across the carriageway. There, good girl, nothing hurts any more, the first car will hit you and explain it all. Hope it’s a posh one and you do it damage. Good girl.

  He was halfway over the fields with his air rifle and knife before a white van sped round the corner and slewed to a halt with the wheels inches from the body.

  Someone had nicknamed that bitch ‘Jess’.

  Not a good start to the day.

  The man halfway over the fields thought he would so much rather fish than hunt. Fish blood was cleaner, somehow, although i
t was just as red.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The backbone of the village consisted of one long narrow street, twisting and turning downhill towards the sea and at first it looked as if that was all there was. A lane of different-shaped, differently styled houses either on the road or standing back politely behind competitive front gardens. Turnings off or turnings on led away from the main thoroughfare. The gradient down to the coast was gradual until the last turn, where the road wrenched round to a short steep hill, with a glimpse of the sea through the trees from a car window before the route went inland again. Flat coast became cliffs in a mammoth upheaval reflected in the contours of the road itself since one side was lower than the other. The street was entirely devoid of any views except the next bend. Even the sea was a hidden feature to any but those with the houses boasting an outlook in the higher reaches of the turnings off and on. A place for privacy, with the last conspicuous signpost announcing its presence at least a mile away on the main road. Turn right for Pennyvale and nowhere else, because at Pennyvale the road ran out.

  That was the secret of the place, Sarah thought, looking down at it from halfway up the cliff path. You could never see the whole of it from any given point. From here she could see tantalising glimpses and part of the twisty street. It had no obvious centre, no flat communal place, and although it had veins and arteries leading somewhere and a single lane, marked unsuitable for heavy traffic, leading to the next town, it had developed and eclipsed in a random way that left no throbbing geographical heart, apart from the three shops. You would see even less in summer than in winter from up here, because of the trees. For a place so close to the sea it was impossibly verdant, much more at home with the green hinterland, turning its back on the waves as if it did not need them. Those who lived here ate more meat than fish.

  On the coastal path, on her now traditional morning walk that took a different route each time, Sarah was thinking of village concerns and wondering how much the geography of the place affected the attitudes of the inhabitants or how much choice it left them. The location was smug and snug because apart from the two rows of houses right next to the shore and the ribbon of dwellings leading away south they were safely uphill from the sea and sheltered in the lee of the cliffs. They could grow almost anything in their gardens and they were not isolated as long as their cars functioned and they could get away. It would have been different without at least one car per household; then they would have treasured their village hall, the street would be thronged and the church more than useful ornament. They would have been far more open to inspection if they had not been able to close their doors, order in their own entertainment and drive away from home. The parking of cars, the disposal of cars, the manoeuvring of cars in a main road built for nothing more than horses seemed to be the greatest source of conflict. From her vantage point up here Sarah could see two shiny motor cars in a stand-off, refusing to give way to each other. Doors slammed; there were distant voices. The slow progress of the rubbish-collection lorry three mornings a week caused mayhem, goods deliveries in large white vans were troublesome and anyone moving house could block the artery for a whole day. Moving house seemed to happen often; it was either a local hobby or an obsession and as the place was otherwise perfect in a picture-book kind of way Sarah wondered why. She had no intention of moving away herself yet – she had scarcely arrived – but she had been there long enough to notice that houses changed ownership frequently, or maybe that was only now in the springtime of the year.

  Going to church on the Sunday before last had been one of many novelties. Sarah could not remember when she had last been to church apart from the occasion of a wedding where the marriage had not lasted a year despite the ceremonial blessing. It had seemed like a good idea to go to church here in order to prove a certain willingness to integrate – although she only wanted integration on her own terms. Sunday service had proved to be an invigorating experience because of the eccentricity and uncertainty of the vicar. Any vigour and colour in the chilly Victorian church of St Bartholomew was provided solely by the vicar’s robes and his evident enjoyment of them; he was clearly a priest who made a sartorial effort on duty. He conducted a mercifully short morning service with a deal of panache and waving of arms, addressing his remarks and his readings to the small children who were encouraged to monopolise the front row and lead the ragged singing. Andrew Sullivan had a fine voice and an almost comical enthusiasm for conducting this orchestra and their unruly overexcitement had been a pleasure to see. Don’t worry about the words, he whispered to them; just make a noise. They did: a big shrill echoey din.

  It was somewhere to park them for an hour on a Sunday morning, she thought with a cynicism which could have been unfair, while noting that the rest of those present were old. The vicar was at ease with the children, camping up the proceedings like a pantomime dame for their benefit, but otherwise seemed painfully shy with the rest of his small congregation as he exhorted them to return to the vicarage for a cup of coffee if they wished. It was such a humble, halfhearted invitation that Sarah wondered if he really meant it or if he was merely being diffident to save himself the humiliation of refusals. She herself had got as far as the open front door of the vicarage, turned into the hideous hallway, and then turned back abruptly after she had peeked into the receiving room at the front of the house. There was something pathetic in seeing a man on the youthful cusp of middle age fiddling anxiously with teacups in a gloomy room occupied by a sole visitor who was criticising the way he ran the service. Can we have proper hymns? and him saying, No, Mrs Hurly: if there are children we simply have tunes. Sarah had backtracked without being observed, regretted it later. An opportunity lost, but she had been seized with shyness and the elegant woman visitor had reeked of irritable loneliness and it was not the right time. Yes, she wanted to meet the woman, but preferably alongside others in a less depressing room and as for the vicar, she thought he was a kind, well-meaning soul whose best would never be good enough, even when he smiled, which he might not have done sufficiently often. That was a shame, because it transformed him. Perhaps he was like herself, not belonging – as if anyone truly belonged here.

  The squat church at the turn of the hill was not going to introduce her to anyone else she wanted to know, except him, perhaps, and that was because of a particularly delicious moment during the service when he had lost his place in the Bible because of the pages sticking together in the middle of his reading a crucial piece about Charity. He was not charity is nothing but a tinkling cymbal . . . and then the vicar’s whispered Oh BUGGER had reverberated around the church as loud as a bell, leaving the children giggling and their elders pretending not to have heard.

  Sarah was sitting with her back against the signpost that directed walkers towards the cliffs, admiring what she could observe of this secretive idyll and ignoring the spectacular sea view straight ahead. Perhaps it was wasted on her simply because, like the rest of them on a Friday morning, she was far more interested in the bustle of humanity than she was in the inspiration afforded by landscapes or seascapes devoid of people. She had never understood Wordsworth, nor anyone to whom Nature was a primary source of solace; it could be secondary, but primary, no: a backdrop to humanity, that was all, a vivid reminder of how small one was and how arrogant was the attempt to control the uncontrollable. Flowers were pretty, and green was green and the sea was the most perfect view of all but it still did not compare with a crowd of interesting faces. There was nothing motherly about Nature. She took a last glimpse to see if she could identify the rooftop of her own tiny house, at least a hundred yards uphill on one of the veins that led away from the artery of the main street. Just. It had a red-tiled roof, but then so did most of the rest. Then she turned her face towards the sea and opened the post.

  Sarah had been in her new, old house for less than a month and still came out of doors every morning to open the post. She had secured a six-month rental on this particular house through an introduction hurriedly m
ade through her friend Jessica Hurly. Jessica’s mother owned the house: there was a rental vacancy and it had all happened very fast. She had been handed the keys by Mrs Hurly’s agent, and had yet to meet her landlady, although she knew her by sight because Mrs Hurly had been the discontented woman in the vicarage living room, haranguing the poor vicar about the service. She was a woman who complained a lot, the sign of an empty life. Approach with caution, and only as a stranger, Jessica had said. She’s a very unhappy woman. I’ve given her plenty of cause. I’m trying to make it right in my own way, but I can’t, yet. Mummy stopped laughing a long time ago, but she used to laugh.

  Jessica had not elaborated, clammed up, said it would wait and Sarah could find out only if she wanted, never mind. There was plenty enough time to creep up on Mrs Hurly in a sideways motion, at the hairdresser’s, perhaps, or better still, encourage Mrs Hurly to approach her. It was clear from conversations in the butcher’s and from that single sighting in the vicarage that Mrs Hurly required deference, at least. Too much else to do.

  Sarah thought of Jessica increasingly often, wondering what her friend had let her in for, because it was only Jessica’s love of the place that had led her here, via the route of the fulfilment of her own dreams of living in a cottage with honeysuckle and roses round the door. A place that did not smell of an old, malicious fire and made her feel free to breathe.

  Almost none of the post was addressed to her, which made it all the more interesting. The mysterious previous occupant had failed to have his mail redirected and had left no forwarding address. She would have been happy to oblige and forward it all for as long as it took, but since she was denied such an opportunity to be helpful she regarded his post as hers to open and examine by right. He had practically invited her to do it.