In common with everyone else Peter knew the history behind my relationship with Robin. He also knew that there was still a feeling of dissatisfaction down at the Devon and Cornwall over the way the Natasha Felks’ investigation had ended in limbo. I was well aware that the news that Robin Davey and I were to marry was probably already fuelling better gossip at nicks throughout the South West than had been enjoyed since the wife of a one-time Chief Constable had left him for a young Detective Sergeant twenty years her junior.
For myself I was so besotted and so caught up with all that was happening in my life that I further feared I may be neglecting my work. In some kind of perverse compensation for this I drove myself harder than ever, turning up at my desk earlier and earlier and putting in longer and longer hours. The relatively brief times away from the nick I spent either sleeping or making love. There was time for nothing else any more. During the four days a week that Robin was away on Abri Island I slept. When he was with me at Harbour Court our hunger for each other was such that we seemed to make love almost ceaselessly. But I was starting to leave for work sometimes as early as 5 a.m., and I often did not return until nine or ten at night. And although, unlike Simon, Robin never criticised my timekeeping nor the obsessive way I had of throwing myself into the job, he did tell me frequently that he didn’t know how I could go on like it, and that I was driving myself too hard.
I knew he was right, and did not really need him nor Peter Mellor nor anyone else to point out the error of my ways. Long hours are no substitute for total concentration. By the beginning of December Stephen Jeffries had been missing for three long months. The case was terribly serious now. I was consumed with guilt about the mistakes that I may already have made and the mistakes I feared I was still making. I drove my team as hard as I was driving myself. Anyone not in the office by 8.00 a.m. at the latest could expect a call from me at home or on their mobile. I demanded 101 per cent commitment from them, fully aware that, in spite of the hours spent at my desk, I was no longer really capable of that kind of commitment myself to anything or anyone except Robin Davey.
Certainly I had no time to worry about what may or may not have happened to Natasha Felks, I told myself. And while the Stephen Jeffries investigation haunted me, it was as if I lived merely for the little time I managed to spend with Robin. That was my only relief.
In practical terms we did everything we possibly could to find young Stephen, dead or alive. We combed every expanse of wasteland within miles of the Jeffries’ home and sent divers into every likely expanse of water. We did not find the body we were dreading, thank God, but neither did we find anything to take our investigations further. I interviewed Richard Jeffries over and over again. So did Mellor and just about everyone else. We got nowhere, and I still found it hard to believe that the man could be guilty and remain so plausible.
Nobody can work for ever without a break. But I was close to collapse before I gave in. Robin desperately wanted to take me to Abri. I had already realised that if I really wanted to marry the man, and by God I did, then I would have to overcome the qualms I still had about the island, but I continued to put off a visit there for as long as possible. I felt haunted by the place.
It was more than a month after our lunch with Robin’s mother at Northgate Farm when I finally allowed myself to be persuaded to take a weekend off. And I still didn’t really want to go back to Abri.
‘About bloody time too,’ said Peter Mellor.
Titmuss merely grunted. Our relationship had sunk to the level when if he could not find anything to actively criticise in my conduct then he appeared to prefer to remain silent.
I was past caring about Titmuss. I cared intensely about Stephen Jeffries, but I also knew that my tormented obsessive approach to his case was probably no longer helping. And so on the evening of the second Friday in December, in the kind of blustery weather you would expect at that time of year — I returned at last to the island which had already played such a fateful part in my life. We travelled by chartered helicopter, Robin’s usual form of transport there, which was also available to guests at an extra charge and in case of bad weather.
The pilot was a jovial black man called Eddie Brown whom Robin knew well from countless journeys between Abri and the mainland, and with whom he obviously had an easy rapport.
Somehow I had barely been aware during my previous visit just how romantic Abri was, but then, I had not been engaged to Robin Davey. This time, although I was aware that my palms were sweating as the helicopter touched down, I became engulfed by the romance of the place from the moment Robin and I began to walk together along the winding cliff-top path which led to Highpoint.
I had wondered what Mrs Cotley’s reaction to the news of our engagement would be, but I need not have been concerned. If she thought it was all indecently soon after Natasha’s death, then, in common with Robin’s family, she gave no sign, but merely congratulated the pair of us warmly and proceeded to fuss over us greatly. As soon as we had finished the meal she predictably insisted on serving us, we retired eagerly to bed. Robin had coolly told Mrs Cotley that we would not be needing the guest room she had prepared and it had been quite entertaining to watch her try not to show her disapproval. There was, however, absolutely no chance of Robin and I missing an opportunity to sleep together — and we both pretended not to notice the housekeeper’s pointed glance at the kitchen clock when we eventually emerged at noon the next day.
We tucked into coffee and eggs and Robin kept kicking me under the table. I felt a bit like a naughty schoolgirl. It was a good feeling.
Our lovemaking, in Robin’s home for the first time, had been perhaps even more fervent than usual. My body, at least, was content. It had been a little strange at first to return to the big double bed in which I had recovered from my ordeal on the Pencil and to share it now with the owner of Abri Island. But I made myself not think about either my experience on that dreadful rock or what happened to Natasha Felks there. And certainly with Robin’s ardent attentions to cope with, that was not too difficult a task. This man was everything I had ever dreamed of — passionate, charming, amusing and kind.
It was almost too good to be true. But it was true. And during that weekend, although the Stephen Jeffries case lurked at the back of my mind for much of the time, I started to feel truly happy and secure in my personal life at last.
On the Sunday afternoon Robin suggested that we walk along the east coast to a sheltered spot, surrounded now by rhododendron bushes, where a granite monument to great-great-great-great-grandfather Ernest John, the first Davey to own Abri, had been erected.
The wind was blowing a gale as usual, but here we were protected and the sun was shining quite warmly for December. Robin took off his coat and lay it on the ground for us, then he produced a silver hip flask.
‘Brandy,’ he said. ‘I wanted us to come here to raise a toast to the past and future of Abri.’
He sounded very solemn. I sensed that he had brought me to the monument for something more than that. For reasons that I could not quite explain, I felt very uneasy.
There was only a little brandy in the flask and we finished it off. Then he stood up and walked over to the monument. He remained looking at it for several seconds before turning back to me.
‘It’s time I told you something,’ he said abruptly. ‘I am leasing Abri to a Japanese consortium who are going to build a luxury holiday development. The deal is nearly done. I will no longer run the island although it will be part of the agreement that I’ll keep Highpoint House.’