you tell me? About the body?’
‘We’ve been over this already.’
‘I know. But think of me as an idiot. I need to hear it several times to understand. Tell me again in small words, David. Why?’ I know this is difficult for him. But it is surely more difficult for me.
He answers. ‘As I said, because it’s not the sort of thing you chat about on a romantic date, is it? Oh, my wife is dead but the body is trapped in a mine, shall we have another drink?’
‘Hmm.’
Maybe he has a point, yet I still feel angry. Or perhaps unnerved. Now it is in my head I can’t get rid of the mental image. The gruesome idea of a body, preserved in icy minewater. Mouth and eyes open, suspended in lightless clarity, and staring into the silence of the drowned corridors, under the rocks of Morvellan.
David is very silent. I can sense his restrained impatience, along with his eagerness to calm me. He is a husband, but he also has a busy job, and he wants to get back to work. But I have more questions.
‘Were you worried that I might not move here? Into Carnhallow, if I knew they never found her?’
A pause. ‘No. Not really.’
‘Not really?’
‘Well, perhaps. Maybe there was a slight reluctance. It’s not something I like to dwell on. I want to forget all that, I want us to be us. I love you, Rachel, and I hope and believe you are in love with me. I didn’t want the tragedies of the past to have any bearing on our future.’
For the first time this morning I feel a twinge of sympathy for him. Possibly I am overdoing it. After all, he lost a wife, and he has a grieving son. And what would I have done in his situation?
‘I do kind of understand,’ I say. ‘And I love you, David. You know that, you surely know that. But—’
‘Look, hold on, I’m sorry, darling – I have to take this call.’
The moment I am coming to terms with all this, the agitation returns. David has put me on hold. For the second time this morning.
I tried calling him last night after I discovered the truth about Nina, but his secretary patiently told me he was in some endless, mega-important meeting, until 10 p.m. Then he simply turned his phone off without responding to my many messages. He does that sometimes when he is tired. And normally I don’t mind: his job is hard, if well rewarded, and the hours are insane.
Last night, I minded. I was shaking with fury as I kept reaching voicemail. Answer. The. Phone. This morning he finally picked up. And he has been dealing with me ever since, like a store manager with a furious customer.
As I wait for him to come back on line, I gaze at that view. It seems less appealing today.
My husband returns. ‘Hi, sorry, that damn guy from Standard Chartered, they’ve got some crisis, he wouldn’t let me go.’
‘Great, so glad you’ve got more important people to talk to. More important things than this.’
His sigh is heartfelt. ‘Darling, what can I say? I totally messed up, I know I messed up. But I did it for the best reasons—’
‘Serious?’
‘Truly. I’ve never deliberately deceived anyone.’
I want to believe him, I want to understand. This is the man I love. Yet now there are secrets.
He continues, his voice smooth, ‘To be perfectly honest, I also presumed you might know much of it already. Nina’s death was in the papers.’
‘But I don’t read the bloody papers! Novels, yes. Papers never.’
I am nearly shouting. I must stop. I can see a pensioner with a cinnamon whirl on her plate, looking at me through the glass walls. Nodding, as if she knows what’s going on.
‘Rachel?’
I lower my voice. ‘People my age don’t read newspapers, David. You must get that, no? And I had no idea who you were till I met you at that gallery. You might be a famous Cornish family. But, I’m from Plumstead. Sarf London. And I read Snapchat. Or Twitter.’
‘OK.’ He sounds genuinely mortified. ‘Again, I’m truly sorry. If you want to know the brutal details, it’s probably all online now, you can still find it.’
I let him hang on, for a second. Then, ‘I know. I printed everything out, last night. The pages are in my bag, right here.’
A pause. ‘You did? So why are you cross-examining me, like this?’
‘Because I wanted to hear your explanation first. Give you a chance. Hear your evidence.’
He allows himself a small, mournful laugh. ‘Well, now you’ve heard my evidence, Justice Daly. May I please step down from the witness box?’
David is trying to charm me. Some part of me wants to be charmed. I reckon I am prepared to let him go, after he has answered one last important question. ‘Why is there a grave, David? If there is no body, why a grave?’
His answer is calm, and his voice is sad. ‘Because we had to give Jamie some closure. He was so bitterly confused, Rachel, he still is sometimes, as we know. His mother hadn’t just died, her body had disappeared, been spirited away. He was bewildered. Kept asking where she’d gone, when Mummy was coming back. We had to have a funeral anyway, so why not have a grave? A place for her son to come and mourn.’
‘But,’ I feel prurient, yet I have to know. ‘What’s in the grave?’
‘The coat. The last thing she wore, that coat with her blood, from the mine. Read the report, from the inquest. And also a few of her favourite things. Books. Jewellery. You know.’
He has fairly and candidly answered my questions. I sit back. Half relieved, half creeped out. A body. Under the house, in the tunnels that stretch under the sea. But how many bodies are already down there, how many drowned miners? Why should another be any different?
‘Look, David, I know I’ve been pretty hard on you, it’s like, well – it was a shock. That’s all.’
‘I understand entirely,’ he says. ‘I only wish you hadn’t found out this way. How is Jamie, anyway?’
‘He’s all right, I think, he calmed down after that outburst. He seemed fine this morning. Quiet, but fine. I drove him to football practice. Cassie’s picking him up.’
‘He is getting used to you, Rachel. He is. But, as I say, he’s still confused. Look, I have to go. We can speak later.’
We say our goodbyes, and I slip the phone in my pocket.
A sea wind from Marazion, laced with the tang of salt, ruffles the printed pages as I take them out of my bag and set them on the table. There is a lot of information: I googled and printed for an hour.
Nina Kerthen’s death was, as David said, definitely a news story. It even got as far as some national papers for a day
