I don’t know where he is. I’m too frightened to turn around in case I see him behind me so instead I hold my breath, gather my courage, and force myself to look up, over the edge of the boulder. My veins jolt as soon as I see him. He’s looking out at the sea, his back towards me, wearing an oversized coat, the hood over his head. He starts to walk across the sand, towards the darker side of the beach, towards me. He walks carefully, with a slight limp. He looks smaller, much smaller than I remember. The wind picks up from the sea and a gust almost pulls his hood back. I see a flash of short, spiky light hair, before a hand rises to put the hood back in place. But it’s too late, I know what I’ve seen. The lighthouse searches the cove, flashes over us both. I move out onto the sand, my cold limbs oiled with adrenaline. I keep my eyes fixed on her, terrified that if I blink or turn away she’ll vanish again. Like me, she’s keeping to the shadows like she shouldn’t be here. I call her name loud and clear in the night:

“Grace!”

6th June 2019

Raynor Beach

The night it happened, Tony carried me into an old caravan, Mum’s blood still on his face. It left a stain on one of the stars on my dress. He didn’t say a word, just left me in the filthy, empty bathroom, the tiny bathroom suite the color of well-stewed tea. He came back with a sleeping bag. The next few days were a blur. I was in shock from that night and still in withdrawal from the drugs. When I opened my eyes, everything around me vibrated, but it was worse when they were closed—that’s when Mum would come for me, her face crumpled and bloodied. But in my dreams she’d give me the drugs I now craved. Sometimes I heard low voices, hands changed me out of my clothes, cleaned the wound in my stomach. The caravan shook with weather and footsteps. I don’t know how long it took, but at last the fog started to lift from my mind and when I woke the bathroom door was open.

They’d changed me into leggings and a blue hoodie that smelled like deodorant. I wondered who had worn it before me. There was a bandage on my stomach. I tried to walk, my legs like chewing gum, but slowly I made my way out of my bathroom cell. They were both there, Tony and his brother Robbie, the one with the tattoo. Tony had told me about him. Mum’s red box was open and empty in front of them on the plastic table. I couldn’t look at Tony without seeing Mum and he didn’t look at me. I stood in the middle of the room and Robbie pointed at the empty box and said, “It’s not enough.”

I knew where to take them. She’d been stealing for as long as I could remember. She told me she stole to pay for the drugs I needed but now I think it gave her a thrill. And she was good at it. She stole from friends’ houses, from old people in nursing homes, and hospitals. Apart from that GP office in Plymouth where Mum worked for a little while, no one ever suspected her. Even if they did, no one would ever dare accuse her. The whole of Summervale would turn against anyone who uttered a single word against Cornwall’s most adored mum. Just ask that reporter, Jon Katrin.