When they’d met she’d been a lawyer for the Campaign for Racial Equality, picking through the London housing benefit system, trying to help families get a home. She’d always thought that if she immersed herself in that world, a world of poverty, crime and abuse, she’d be untainted by it — be able to just walk away at the end of a day’s work. By the time she met Shaw — on his first placement from the Met College at Hendon — she’d realized she was wrong. The sceptical, logical, forensic mind she’d trained so well was being coloured with cynicism. She always recalled something a judge had said in chambers. ‘To the jaundiced eye, Miss Braithwaite, everything is yellow.’ And that’s how her world looked: tainted. So they’d planned this: to live away from the city, outside Shaw’s urban manor, and for Fran to have a childhood. Their daughter could do with her life what she wanted. but first they’d give her this: a wide sky and a beach.
Shaw looked out to sea, nothing in front of him and the world behind him. Lena pulled on a pair of Boden shorts. Shaw recognized the patterned material because Surf! sold the range. ‘Good day?’ he asked.
She thought about that. Lena’s attitude to the business was fiercely practical. This wasn’t a hobby, it was what she did, and it made her independent.‘?1,400 in the shop. I had Jon and Carole in the cafe and they took?550. Most of that was ice cream and coffee. A good day — up there in the top ten for turnover. Profits? Decent.’ Lena sat on the stoop steps, stretched her legs out and curled her toes into the sand: cold now the sun was gone. ‘You?’ she asked, a ritual invitation to talk about his day. Just the basics. If she wanted more, she’d ask again. There was no point Shaw hiding his life from his family.
Shaw told her about the death of Marianne Osbourne. The dynamic tension in their relationship sprang from his decision as to when to stop telling her about it. Shaw believed in the police, he thought they made people’s lives better. And he knew that Lena thought the same way. So most nights he told her what he’d done at work. Then they moved on. He outlined the case in two hundred words then stood, preparing to set out and join Fran at the edge of the motionless sea.
‘So this woman, Marianne, was on the beach at East Hills? Alone?’ said Lena. The moon was up now and she tilted her face to it as if it was the sun, so that the light gave her face an architectural quality.
‘Yeah.’ Shaw thought about that, sitting beside her. ‘Well, she said she hadn’t planned to be alone. Her friend just hadn’t turned up at the quay. And she may have met someone out there. But she said she was alone. I got George to read through her statement — the one she made at St James’ the day they took them off the island. She was sixteen, out of school, doing a course at the college, selling cosmetics door-to-door.’
‘Takes guts,’ said Lena, ‘at sixteen. Think back, how you’d feel, having to walk up strangers’ paths and just knock. That is a cold call.’
Shaw stopped, realizing that he hadn’t thought about Marianne Osbourne as a businesswoman: capable, competent, just like Lena, perhaps. His wife was right: it did take guts, a maturity as well, to work alone. Had a dream sustained her, as it did Lena?
His wife was shaking her head. ‘I’d have gone to the main beach — given the island a miss.’ She examined her toes, easily reaching to touch them. ‘Mind you, maybe there was someone she fancied on the boat? That would be perfect — she’d be alone, but she had a reason she was alone, ’coz her friend had let her down. Good opening line. .’
‘In the statement she said she got there early,’ said Shaw. ‘Got herself a ticket because she didn’t want to miss out. It was a perfect day. She didn’t want to waste it if the friend didn’t turn up, and there was a crowd there already. And she liked East Hills more than the other beaches. She had a picnic, the lot. Anyway, she went. Says she sunbathed at the south end of the beach till lunch — had a swim just before — then read her book.’ Shaw slipped a notebook out of his pocket. ‘George says they took an inventory when they evacuated the island of what everyone had. This is Marianne’s. .’ He handed her the notebook with the list. Towel. Bag. Bottle of made-up orange squash. Sandwich box — Tupperware, empty. One apple. Shell of a boiled egg in greaseproof paper. A yogurt carton — empty. One spoon. Radio. Paperback. Sun-tan oil. Lipstick. Vanity mirror. Eyeliner, Tissues, Daily Express. TV Times. Purse: eight pounds fifty-six pence in cash. Membership card for West Anglia College Students’ Union. What’s On leaflet for The Empire, King’s Lynn. ATM debit card — NatWest. Membership Card: Docking Lido.
Clothes: shorts, pants, T-shirt — Wham! sandals.
‘What’s missing?’ asked Shaw, not knowing if anything was missing.
Out on the sands Fran had corralled the Chinese lantern and was walking it back towards the house. The thought crossed Shaw’s mind that she was growing up an only child, and what would that do to her? They didn’t want another child; they felt comfortable, close-knit and intimate. But was it fair? Lena had siblings — two brothers, a sister. Being part of that family, embedded in it, was important. Why deny Fran that life?
‘You said she went swimming?’ she asked. ‘So where’s her costume?’
Shaw checked back: no costume. She’d come well prepared for the day — so she had one. A mistake on the list? Was it rolled in the towel and they didn’t unfurl it? Maybe.
‘Did they talk to the friend — the one that was supposed to turn up?’ Lena turned towards him, suddenly sure of herself. ‘Because that’s what’s odd, isn’t it? She’s brought her own food, like, one yogurt. Her own sandwiches. One boiled egg. But she said she always went with the friend — the girlfriend. You wouldn’t do that — you’d share. Like, this time I do the sweet stuff, you do the sarnies. That kind of thing. Food’s part of the fun, not fuel.’ Pleased with herself, she turned back to look at the sea.
‘Alright, why would you leave the kiss on a window?’ asked Shaw. He’d painted that image for her already — the image he couldn’t forget, the two lips forming a perfect bow.
Lena stiffened, knowing they were close to crossing the line, that they were going deeper into his world and he wanted her to follow.
‘It’s for her. A goodbye,’ said Lena, thinking it through.
‘A lover?’ asked Shaw. He studied her face.
‘A lover,’ she said, pulling a jumper on, letting her foot touch his in the sand.
‘Because?’
‘It’s for him, isn’t it? Because she’s dead. It helps him avoid the guilt.’ She stood, shivering slightly now the day’s heat was flooding out of the sand into the cloudless night. She took his hand, pulling him to his feet.
‘So she was dead already, and he’s outside the window, and he knows she’s dead, so he puts the last kiss on the glass?’
She took his face in her hands: ‘Yes. Now that’s it. Enough. Let’s eat.’
While the pasta cooked Shaw took a tennis ball and bounced it off the sidewall of the shop. Each night he did this 200 times — often more. Continuous practice developed innate skills which helped him to catch a moving object with 2D vision. As so often with the human brain it could develop astounding talents when faced with the challenge of operating normally despite disability. One trick he was working on was to move his head rhythmically side-to-side just a few inches — much in the way that a pigeon would — so that his one eye got two views of the moving ball, the brain putting them together as it would with two eyes, to create a 3D picture. He did it 300 times, dropping it twice, then went to his office and booted up the iMac. He used Skype to contact The Ark — the West Norfolk’s forensic lab. The screen flicked into life. Dr Kazimierz loomed then disappeared, and Shaw heard a chair being dragged into place. Shaw stood and closed the door. When he got back to the screen he could see the empty lab. The roof of the old chapel was original — carved beams, and the thin lancet windows were green-stained glass. On the far wall was a single carved angel, its hands over its eyes, as if in grief.