Chapters (49)
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Also by Graham Hurley
- LIMELIGHT
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- AFTERWARDS
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Bill is gazing along the beach. ‘Beth called me half an hour ago. God knows how, but she managed to get along to the site of the fall. The police are there now. They wanted a firm ID.’
‘And?’
‘It’s Christianne.’
I nod, say nothing. There are a million questions we all need to ask but here and now doesn’t feel right. The jumble of sandstone rock and gravel at the foot of the cliff is maybe half a mile away, and I count at least a dozen high-vis jackets in attendance. The lifeboat is still holding station offshore and I’m guessing that Christianne’s shrouded remains will end up on board. Better a dignified recovery, I think, than four men struggling with a stretcher through hundreds of oglers.
As we watch, I catch the bright flare of a camera flash, then another.
‘They’re treating it as a crime scene,’ Bill murmurs. ‘As I imagine they might.’
‘So …?’ I’m trying to work out what might have happened, but I leave the question unvoiced. Bill, as ever, can read my mind.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I truly have no idea. Someone obviously buried her.’
‘McFaul?’
‘That would be a reasonable guess.’
‘By himself?’
‘I doubt it. He’s a remarkable man, but even he has his limits.’
‘But you think that’s why he disappeared? Fled?’
Bill takes a little step to his left, trying to shield me from the wind. A brief smile ghosts across his face.
‘That would imply he saw the fall coming.’ He puts his arms around me again. ‘Which would be truly astonishing, even by his standards.’
TWENTY-SIX
Evelyn is glued to the TV when I finally make it up to her bungalow. The white shroud has disappeared into a grey body bag and four paramedics in bulky suits are manhandling it through the shallows towards the waiting lifeboat. The process looks beyond awkward, despite the calm sea, and the bearers are up to their chests in the wavelets before the job is done. I watch the lifeboat back slowly seawards and pivot on its axis before the water, still pink, churns at its stern and the boat heads for the open sea. Christianne afloat at last, I think. But not quite in the way we all thought.
‘Bill says they’ll be doing a post-mortem.’ I’m still watching the TV.
‘I’m sure he’s right.’