Abri was unique, people said. And early speculation was that there must have been some extraordinary geological fault running through the island. Certainly, whatever the true cause might turn out to be, it seemed likely that Robin’s mother’s instinctive presumption that the disaster had been triggered by the volume of people on the island could be proven absolutely right.
Seventeen
The only excuse I had for my behaviour over the next few months was that I was also in deep shock. I went into a kind of denial, I suppose. Once the funerals were all over the one obsession which preoccupied me was when Robin and I could decently rearrange our wedding. In spite of, or maybe it was because of all that had happened, I could think of little except marrying him.
I lay awake in bed at night reliving my wretched wrecked wedding day and imagining what may have been, what should have been. It was indecent really to allow the true horror of the Abri Island disaster to be over-shadowed, or even in any way challenged, by personal disappointment.
At the end of April Robin went ahead and moved into the Clifton house as planned. I stayed on at the flat for a couple of weeks, wondering if perhaps we would heal better apart, but, predictably, I needed to be with him. He said that he wanted me at the house with him, that it was our house, but there was of course no longer any joy about setting up our first proper home together, and he showed little interest in my presence when I finally completed the sale of my flat and moved in with him. He reacted in the way which I by now knew was typical of him when he was distressed. He withdrew into himself. He was quite capable of going for days without hardly speaking to me at all, and spent many of his evenings sitting in front of the TV mindlessly channel surfing or endlessly playing backgammon on his laptop computer.
I understood his anguish, of course, because I shared it. I too had lost friends and family on Abri. I too had witnessed horror beyond my wildest imaginings. But Robin seemed to have no conception of that. He was obsessed with his own misery.
He was a man of paradox though. It was only at night when he was alone with me that he allowed himself to sink to the depths of despair. He went back to work three weeks after the disaster, immersing himself in his new property business, and seemed quite able to deal with the day-to-day routine. I tried to do the same, returning to The Job about a week later. There was little point in moping around at home, I thought. However, I did not succeed in the way Robin appeared to. I told myself that it was different for me, that Robin’s new business was an impersonal affair involving balance sheets and men in suits, whereas mine was centred around people’s sadnesses and tragedies. All of which I had experienced quite enough of myself lately.
Whatever the reasons, and for the first time in my life, I really was not able to cope. Perhaps surprisingly under the circumstances, I had immediately been put back in charge of the Stephen Jeffries case which remained unresolved. Maybe if I had been working on something with which I was not so emotionally involved it would have been all right, maybe my state of mind might even have been improved by having to concentrate on matters apart from Robin and what had happened on Abri. As it was, within a couple of weeks of being back at Kingswood, everything just became too much for me. Looking through a file of photographs of Stephen Jeffries for the umpteenth time one evening, I started to see accusation in his trusting eyes and suddenly realised that tears were running down my face. This case had got to me long before the Abri disaster and now my emotions were completely out of control. The tears turned into great heaving sobs. I was sitting at my desk with my office door propped open as usual. No doubt the officers in the open-plan area outside were riveted by my display — I didn’t even notice. Eventually I became aware that Peter Mellor, only just back at work himself following the disaster and with his arm still in a sling, was at my side and that my office door was closed.
He put his one good arm around me and held me close, something he would never have dreamed of doing before the terrible experience of Abri. We were both haunted by what we had been through. It was bound to be worse for Robin and me, in terms of guilt if nothing else, but everyone who had been there that day was going to be tormented by it for the rest of their lives. It was a bond between all of us, and as I sobbed convulsively against Peter Mellor’s shoulder I realised that at least he understood. At a glance he seemed so remarkably unaffected by his own ordeal, but I knew this could not really be so.
It was a long time before I managed to stop crying completely. Mellor drew away then and sat down opposite me as I dried my tears.
‘I’d take an early cut, boss, if I were you,’ he said mildly.
I nodded. There was nothing much to say. I picked up my coat and left for home, red-eyed but just about in control again and looking straight ahead as I walked through the big office ignoring the curious stares. I think Mellor and I both knew at that moment that I was in no fit state to run a missing child operation. Chief Superintendent Titmuss, I found out the next day when I was summoned to Portishead, appeared to agree — ironically one of the very few things we had ever agreed on.
It was on a suitably grey Wednesday morning that what passed for my career was finally put on hold. I was taken permanently off the Stephen Jeffries case, on the grounds that I was carrying too much emotional baggage. It was also made fairly clear to me, albeit tactfully, that my seniors would really prefer me to remain at home for a bit. The news was broken by Titmuss, in, for him, an unusually sympathetic manner.
‘The stress you have been under would have broken a lot of people, Rose,’ he said. ‘And it is to your credit that you have coped as well as you have. However I don’t think it would be right for us to allow you to carry the burden of such an emotive case right now. Upon reflection, I think it was too much to have expected you to be able to do so. I’m sure Occupational Health could help out.’ He paused, studying me carefully. ‘And there’s always Goring,’ he continued.
Occupational Health had access to a team of professional counsellors who specialised in sorting out the psychological problems of stressed-out police officers. And when Titmuss mentioned Goring he was referring to the convalescent home at Goring-on-Thames.
Titmuss’s manner was hesitant, even perhaps slightly apprehensive. He was probably waiting for me to show anger and outrage, something I had usually been fairly quick to do in my career whenever I felt under any kind of threat. After all, if not quite suggesting that I was off my trolley, the boss was telling me clearly enough that he considered that I needed professional help, and furthermore indicating that he didn’t want me on his team in any capacity in the state I was in.
I merely shook my head, and said mildly enough: ‘I’d rather sort it out myself, sir.’
‘Then why don’t you take some leave, as much as you like?’ suggested Titmuss, with a slightly weary sigh.
I realised he was still expecting a fight. He had yet to realise that there was none left in me — that was the problem. I had always been seriously ambitious and highly protective of my territory. Before the Abri disaster I would have fought tooth and nail, as Titmuss well knew. On this occasion I made some kind of token protest but the truth was that I knew I couldn’t carry on as I was. The only thing which hurt a bit was the relief in Peter Mellor’s eyes when he learned that I was no longer going to be in charge of investigating Stephen Jeffries’ disappearance.
Apart from that, although it seems extraordinary now, my first and most major reaction was that there would be one less distraction preventing me from concentrating 100 per cent on Robin. I was aware of him becoming emotionally more and more distant towards me as the days passed. This did not help my fragile state of mind, but it failed to affect my feelings for him, my aims or my desires one jot. I simply determined that we must both come through our terrible ordeal together, and ultimately grow close again — just as we had been before. It really was the only thing that mattered any more.