The Detective's Daughter

49

Saturday, 22 January 2011

They were waiting for a break in traffic on the A259, Stella drumming on the steering wheel. They would not get to London until the late evening. She groaned as the headlights travelling down the hill from Seaford dazzled her.

‘All right my side,’ Jack said helpfully, leaning back against the headrest to give Stella a clear view. A vehicle slowed, its left indicator flashing.

Stella let the other car swing on to the lane and then accelerated out. Jack glimpsed the car – a bulky four-by-four – as it swept away up to Bishopstone.

Stella’s phone rang in her rucksack.

‘Would you answer that?’ she rapped. ‘Unzip the side compartment,’ she added as Jack’s hand fluttered over the many pockets. Eventually he pressed the phone to Stella’s ear, which was not what she had intended.

‘Are you driving?’

Jackie’s voice was too upbeat. Something was wrong. Stella’s hands tightened on the wheel. She had never taken time off from work before and was about to pay for it.

‘Yes.’ Stella did not want to say where she was or who with. Nor did she want to lie to Jackie. ‘It’s Saturday. Why are you working?’

‘Can you stop? Are you sitting down?’

‘No and ye-es.’ The headlights lit a barn at a bend in the road; it was a fairy-tale house coated in marzipan. ‘Put it on hands free,’ Stella mouthed to Jack. He had another unlit cigarette in his mouth.

‘It’s Paul. I know you don’t want him mentioned.’ Jackie’s voice boomed over the speakers. ‘The police have rung. They’ve pulled him out of the river.’

A footbridge curving over the road ahead was a silver rainbow.

‘Stella, I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the nice policeman said that Paul has drowned.’