“Everything OK?” I ask and Cara gives the sort of exaggerated nod I recognize from Jakey. It means Susan is probably not OK, far from it, but I remind myself Cara is an adult. I don’t have the time or energy to lecture her now. It’s coming up to 8:30 p.m. and I want to get to the Bull—I can’t risk missing Robbie.

“If it’s all right with you, I think I’m going to stay here,” Cara says.

“That’s no problem,” I say, nodding.

In fact I’m relieved she’s not going to put up a fight. There’s no way I was going to let her come with me. Perhaps her encounter with Tony has made her more risk averse, more rational, which is no bad thing.

“Just stay in here with the door locked, try to relax.”

“Yeah, I will. Just make sure you get a photo of him, OK? Pretend you’re on a video call or something, take a photo, send it to me, and then I can make sure it’s the same bloke.”

I wave my phone at her and nod to show that I know what I’m doing.

“Call me if you need me, all right? I’ll just be down the road, and don’t forget to lock this door,” I say as I open the door to the hall.

She salutes me.

“Good luck, Uncle Jon.”

I shut the door and wait for a moment, until I hear the lock slide closed. Good. It makes me feel braver, knowing she’s safe. I walk quickly away from the pub in the warm evening as though trying to outpace any doubts. I pause by a walker’s signpost just after the pub parking lot. The arrow pointing to the left catches my eye. I hadn’t mentioned anything to Cara; I knew we were close, but not this close. The sign says PORT RAYNOR BEACH; the place where Danny died is just a mile away. Port Raynor lighthouse, one of the few still operational in Cornwall, two miles. I’m relieved Cara didn’t see the sign. I know she’d want to go to the beach if she had. Aware Cara could be watching from the window, confused as to why I’ve paused here, I start walking again. But with each step I feel my courage wane and I have the vertiginous feeling that I’m walking away from life as I know it, that everything is about to change.

19

Cara

It’s only when I feel the lock slide in the door and I am alone that I feel my whole body release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I sit on the edge of the bed and try to shuffle my thoughts into some kind of order. Everything Jon said in the car about Meg, about what she was doing to Grace, was mad, completely insane, but I know now that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not true. Intellectually, I think he’s right, but I won’t believe it, can’t believe it in my heart, until I hear it from Grace herself. I remember Charlie, how his leathery face twisted in anger—“She’s sick!” Was his shaky finger pointing at his daughter, Meg, not Grace like I’d assumed? I remember how Grace used to slump lower in her wheelchair when Meg was close, how she seemed to become sicker, more fragile. A pain flames in the middle of my forehead. Every thought, every memory feels like a tiny sharp hammer inside my head and the sharpest hammer of all, the one I know I won’t be able to answer or understand for a long time to come, is why didn’t Grace tell me what was happening to her?