out Jacob’s tin and pass it to PC Evans. He opens it and looks inside, his expression giving nothing away.
‘What I did want to show you was this,’ I say, pulling out the envelope with the cash inside. ‘There’s five hundred pounds here. To be honest, I’ve no idea where it came from, or what Jacob is doing with it.’
I hand it to PC Evans, swapping it for the tin. He looks through the money, asking whether Jacob had a job, or savings, or whether there’s anyone who may have given him this sum of money. Nick and I share what we’d discussed, and the officer notes it down.
There are a few further formalities to go through, including the police conducting a brief search of the hut. They snap on blue plastic gloves, and move through the small space looking in the drawers and cupboards that I have already turned out.
‘If you don’t mind,’ PC Evans says a few minutes later, as he climbs down the ladder from the mezzanine, his knees creaking, ‘we’d like to take Jacob’s toothbrush with us.’ I must look surprised by the request, as he elaborates, ‘It’s just procedure. For his DNA.’
A flash of horror passes across Nick’s face as he, like me, realizes why the police require this. I fetch the toothbrush, looking away as PC Evans takes out a clear plastic bag to seal it within.
PC Roam requests a photo of Jacob. Nick takes out his phone and shows them a selection of shots. The police choose one, and Nick emails the image straight over to them. It’s a recent picture of Jacob wading in from the sea. His dark hair is pushed back from his face, and his skin glows in the way that it does after a day in the sunshine. He looks handsome in the photo, and I like it too, because he looks young. Not seventeen. Fresh-faced and innocent.
As they are closing up their notebooks, getting to their feet, PC Roam asks, ‘Can you think of anyone who may have a grudge against him? Anyone who has ever threatened him, or would have a particular interest in him?’
The questions catch me off guard, and I open my mouth, but can’t think of what I intended to say.
It is Nick who steps forward. ‘No. Absolutely not. No one would want to hurt him.’
PC Roam looks at me for a moment and I wonder what she sees.
Then she nods.
Both officers thank us for our time and tell us they’ll be in touch.
I stand in the doorway of the beach hut, watching as the police walk away.
Nick folds his arms across his chest. ‘That seemed to go okay.’
‘Yes,’ I agree. In the hour the police have been here, I’ve only had to lie to them twice.
Sarah never used to lie. Not to me, anyway. There was a time when we told each other everything. There were no secrets between us – it was what made us work. Maybe that’s what it means to have a best friend – someone you can be wholeheartedly and unashamedly honest with. You can lay yourself bare to them – and they will love you, no matter what. That’s how it felt for us.
I wonder when we stopped sharing everything. There wasn’t a specific event, not that I remember, anyway. I suppose it’s natural that over time allegiances shift. When we were younger, there was a large, clear space in our lives reserved solely for each other. But then other people moved into our worlds – a lover for me, a husband for Sarah, our children – and the space we’d carved for each other began to reshape, shrink, like a withering balloon that loses air so slowly that you don’t notice until it is hanging limp, lifeless, a deflated reminder that the celebration is over.
Summer 2000
Sarah’s fingers were gripped around the rope barrier, her head tilted forward, peering past the stream of people flooding through the arrivals gate.
I hesitated: it’d been eighteen months since she’d dropped me at the airport – and so much had changed. She looked different from the Sarah I’d left behind; this new Sarah was more sophisticated, with a sleek haircut that feathered around her face, sunglasses pushed on top of her head. Her skin was tanned and smooth and she was wearing an empire-line blue dress that flowed over her pregnant stomach.
I felt my fingers lightly brush the swell of my own stomach.
Yes, so much had changed.
When Sarah spotted me, she beamed, ducking under the barrier, hurrying towards me, squealing.
We held tight to each other, our pregnant stomachs adding a strange awkwardness to the embrace, as if we couldn’t quite get close enough. ‘You’re here! You’re here!’ she kept on saying. Her hands moved to my bump, clutching it. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, her voice choked with emotion. ‘We’re both having babies!’
Standing back on home soil, it suddenly felt very real. ‘We’re going to be mothers!’ We hugged again.
‘God, I missed you,’ Sarah said. When I stepped back, she took my hand, turning me in a circle. ‘Look at you, beautiful girl!’
My long skirt flowed around my ankles, and my hair had grown almost to my waist. My skin had tanned to a deep mahogany, the pregnancy bringing out a cluster of freckles across the bridge of my nose.
‘I thought I’d never get you back. Nick and I were planning how we’d hunt you down.’
Nick and I. It felt painfully fresh, like the sting of soap on newly shaved skin.
I caught sight of Sarah’s engagement ring glittering on her slim hand. I screwed my eyes up in mock bedazzlement. ‘Check out that diamond!’
‘I know!’ she beamed, waggling her fingers.
On the drive home, we talked non-stop. I was relieved that there was no lull in conversation, no awkward pauses – we snapped back into our old rhythm as if I’d never been away.
‘Tell me about Cubbie,’ she said, one hand on the steering wheel, the other squeezing my knee.
‘We met in Nepal. He’s from Norway. God, Sarah, he was beautiful. Truly the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He had thick blond hair that he wore long, and this lovely regal nose – straight and long and perfect.’
‘Good genes, then.’
‘Here’s hoping! Three days, though – that was all we spent together. We were staying in the same homestead. After that he travelled north, and I headed south.’
‘You let him go?’
‘I didn’t know then. It was only a couple of months later that I began to suspect I was pregnant. We’d not swapped numbers, or addresses – nothing. I don’t even know his second name. Is that awful? I travelled back to the homestead to track him down, and left messages on the pin-boards of hostels asking if anyone knew of him, but I couldn’t find him.’ I’d agonized over Cubbie, unsettled
