Ash & Bone

4

At first, Elder had wondered if he would ever get used to the weather in this part of Cornwall. Mostly, like a delinquent five-year-old, it was unable to make up its mind five minutes at a time. Sunshine followed by fierce lashings of near-horizontal rain and then sunshine again, and through it all, sun and rain, the near-inevitable wind. 'Keeps you on your toes,' the locals said when he complained. When they said anything at all.

Then, one late, dark afternoon towards the end of October, he realised there'd been three days solid in which the fog had rolled in off the Atlantic, met and mingled with the mist veiling down off the hills, and never lifted, pressing down an immovable grey, and through it the rain had continued to fall, harsh and unyielding, and he had barely noticed.

Sitting in the deep corner of the kitchen, illuminated by a single bulb, he had read steadily – Priestley currently, a threadbare edition of The Good Companions - rising occasionally to make tea or switch on the radio for the sound of a voice other than his own. Sometimes, setting Priestley aside, he closed his eyes and listened to one of the few pieces of music he possessed, a cassette of some

string quartets he had picked up at the local village bring-and-buy. Local meant a good two miles across fields by hedge and stile.

He had moved home twice since early summer, when the owner of the place he'd rented for close on two years had decided to put it up for sale. First, and briefly, he took a third-floor flat in a tall Victorian house in Penzance, with views across the harbour towards St Michael's Mount. It was not a success. Small, scarcely metropolitan, Penzance was yet enough of a town to remind him of what he'd willingly left behind: Lincoln, Leeds, Mansfield, Nottingham. After that, he had gone back across the peninsula to where he was now, a former farm labourer's cottage between moor and sea.

The downstairs was warmed by an oil-fired stove, which heated the water when it had a mind, and on which Elder gradually retaught himself to cook. Nothing spectacular: stews, casseroles, pasta, fish. What was the point of living so close to the sea if you didn't eat fish? Mackerel, red mullet, megrim, sea bass, lemon sole, occasionally shark. His favourite, mackerel, was, providentially, the cheapest by far.

The walls of the room in which Elder slept were bare stone save for one section on which plaster had been unevenly slapped. A second, smaller room held clothes he now rarely wore, boxes and bags, dribs and drabs of a life he scarcely chose to recognise. At some stage a bathroom had been added to the rear: the toilet seat rocked precariously when touched, the fitments bought cheaply at second- or third-hand; the bath itself, below its wide old-fashioned taps, was ringed with generations of overlapping reddish stains.

A short distance along a narrow lane was the farm to which the cottage had formerly belonged, now dilapidated and abandoned. Sacking at the windows, rough hasps and padlocks at the doors. Some story Elder had part-overheard, a family feud that had turned son against father, father against son. Other farmers pastured their cattle on the fields, paying dues. Stray walkers aside, Elder scarce saw a soul from one week's end to the next.

It suited him down to the ground.

Three years now since his marriage to Joanne had imploded and he had retired from the Nottinghamshire Force, off with his tail between his legs, almost as far west as it was possible to go. More than a year since his daughter Katherine had been abducted by Adam Keach. Abducted, raped and almost killed. Katherine, sixteen.

What happened to her, Frank, it's your fault. You nearly killed her. You. Not him.

Joanne's words.

Because you had to get involved, you couldn't let things be. You always knew better than anybody else, that's why.

Of course, he had dreams.

But none so bad as Katherine's.

You'll get over this, Frank. You'll come to terms, find a way. But Katherine, she never will.

In the spring, before the trial, she had come to visit him, Katherine. They had talked, walked, sat drinking wine. In the night, he had been woken by her screams.

'These dreams,' she'd said, 'they will go, won't they? I mean, with time.'

'Yes,' Elder had replied. 'Yes, I'm sure they will.'

He had lied.

Wanting to protect her, he'd lied.

Now she refused to speak to him, broke the connection at the sound of his voice. Changed the number of her mobile. Didn't, wouldn't write.

Your fault, Frank…

Well, of course, in a way it was true.

Adam Keach had killed another girl, a young woman, Emma Harrison, only weeks before taking Katherine. Elder had been back working for the Major Crime Unit at the time, a civilian consultant attached to the investigation. Found fit to stand trial and hoping for a lighter sentence, Keach had pleaded guilty and Elder had breathed relief. It saved Katherine from going into the dock and giving evidence, being cross-examined.

In the matter of abduction and serious sexual assault, the judge handed down ten years. For the murder of Emma Harrison, life.

'Life doesn't mean life though, does it?' Katherine had said. 'Not any more.'

It was just about the last conversation they had had.

The Notts. Force had contacted him since about another case in which they considered Elder's experience and expertise might be of use.

'After Keach,' Elder had said, 'I'd've thought you'd've had all the help out of me you'd want.'

'Don't come down so hard on yourself, Frank,' the senior officer had replied. 'You're the one as caught him. Brought him in. Saved your lass's life.'

Elder had been polite but firm. Retirement suited him fine.

'You'll go crazy down there, Frank. End up topping yourself, like as not.'

Elder had thanked him for the thought and set down the phone.

The day had begun with a faint mist across the hills and then a soft rain that scarcely seemed to dampen the ground. By noon it was bright and clear, with only a scattering of off-white clouds strung out across the sky to the west. Elder stuffed his book down into one pocket of his waterproof coat, an apple and a wedge of cheese into the other, and set out towards the coast path at River Cove, just short of Towednack Head. For thirty minutes or so he sat on a boulder opposite Seal Island, eating his bit of lunch and alternately reading or gazing out at the water tumbling up, then falling back. Usually there were seals, stretched out on the rocks or swimming near the shore, rounded heads fast disappearing as they dived for fish, but not today.

Walking back he noticed the bracken facing up the moor had turned an almost uniform rusted brown, patched through here and there with yellow-flowering gorse. Late autumn and the nights drawing ever closer in.

He had only time to pull off his coat and unlace his boots before the phone startled him.

'Hello?'

'Frank?'

'Yes.'

'It's Joanne.'

He knew: you didn't live with someone for twenty years without recognising each turn and intonation of her voice, even the breath drawn before speaking, the weight of a pause.

'What's wrong?' Elder said.

'Does it have to be something wrong?'

'Probably.'

The breath there, head turning aside. A glass of wine? A cigarette?

'It's Katherine,' Joanne said.

Of course it was. The adrenalin had started to pulse in his veins. 'What about her?' he said.

'It's difficult.'

'Just tell me.'

Another pause. Longer.

'I'm worried. Worried about her. The way she's been behaving lately.'

'Behaving? How? What do you mean?'

'Oh, staying out late, getting drunk. Not coming home till three or four in the morning. Not coming home at all.'

'You've spoken to her?'

'Frank, she's seventeen…'

'I know how old she is.'

'I say anything, she tells me to mind my own business.'

'And Martyn?'

'Martyn's got nothing to do with this.'

Elder sighed. 'She won't talk to me, you know that.'

'She's your daughter, Frank.'

As if he'd forgotten.

'When she stays out,' Elder said, 'd'you know where?'

'She's seeing someone, I know that. I think sometimes she stays there.'

'You think?'

'Frank, I just don't know.'

He sighed again. 'All right, I'll come up. Tomorrow. The day after. I'll get the train.'

'Thank you, Frank.'

She's your daughter.

He set down the receiver, walked to the window and stared out. Mist plaiting itself between blackened filaments of hedge. The coming dark. Images of what Adam Keach had done to Katherine kept forcing themselves under the edges of his mind and he struggled to will them away.

When she had been seven, possibly eight, one of the last times she let him walk her all the way to school, right up to the gates – London it would have been, Shepherd's Bush, green school cardigan, grey pleated skirt, green tights, black shoes he'd shined the night before, book bag in her hand – he'd ducked his head towards her and she'd thrown up an arm – 'Don't kiss me now!' – and run towards her friends. Shutting him out.

Not coming home till three or four in the morning. Not coming home at all.

Seventeen.

Stupid, he felt, standing there. Stupid, helpless and old.

The bottle of Jameson's was in the drawer.

It wouldn't help, he knew that, but what else was he supposed to do?