The Lake. Sheena Lambert

       ONE

       Friday, 26th September 1975

      ‘Frank. Phone call.’

      Somewhere between asleep and awake, Frank heard the words barked from behind his bedroom door. It took a second or two before he could open his eyes. Sunlight streamed through the unlined curtains as if they were hardly there at all. The digital clock by the bed flashed 00:00. Frank groped for the wristwatch lying next to it and squinted at it instead. Twenty-five past nine. Who the hell could be calling him? He tried his best not to disturb Rose as he got up from the bed and went out into the hall.

      The receiver was cold in his hand. ‘Hello?’

      ‘Frank? Is that you?’ The lilt in the voice did little to soften its booming depth.

      Frank stood a little straighter. ‘Yes. Inspector Carter?’

      ‘Yes. Look Frank, I know you have the weekend off, but, well, something’s come up.’

      Ah Jesus.

      ‘It’s a body. And Jason’s away. And Eddie … well, I’d just rather you went down there, Frank.’

      He pressed his fingers into his eyes. ‘Down where, sir?’

      ‘Crumm. The local guard is on his own there. The doc will be down later today. Hopefully.’

      ‘Hopefully?’

      ‘Well, there’s been another incident in Cork. And this thing in Crumm; it looks like it might only be a bog body. He might have to prioritize Cork. He might not get to Crumm until the morning.’

      ‘Tomorrow morning?’

      ‘Yeah. You’d better pack for the weekend.’

      Frank rubbed his castigated eyes again. Rose was going to kill him.

      The phone was silent for a moment. ‘So when can you get here? I’ll have the file ready for you.’

      ‘Right. Okay.’ It was freezing in the hall, even though the weather had been warm for weeks. Frank wished he had put on a T-shirt. ‘I’ll be in by eleven.’

      ‘Okay. Thanks Frank.’

      ‘Sure, sir. No problem.’

      Frank was so intent on shutting the door soundlessly that he forgot about the warped floorboard just inside the threshold. Rose’s eyes opened, although her head didn’t stir from the pillow.

      ‘What was that about?’

      ‘I thought you were asleep.’ Frank pulled down the covers and vaulted back into bed, shivering. ‘That bloody hall feels like ten below.’

      ‘The phone.’ Rose’s tone was barely tempered by the pillow half covering her mouth.

      Frank turned his head to face her. ‘It was work.’ He waited a second. He knew he wouldn’t have to elaborate.

      ‘Ah Jesus, Frank.’ Rose suddenly seemed very awake; her head propped up on one elbow, her apparent disbelief glowering down on him and his pillow. ‘Tell me you’re not going in?’

      ‘Worse, I’m afraid.’ Frank was conscious that the disappointment of this conversation was going to be predominantly one-sided. He turned his head on the pillow and wondered briefly what that meant. Yellowed paint was peeling from a patch of ceiling above their heads. ‘I have to go to Crumm. Overnight.’ He looked at her again. ‘I should be back tomorrow.’

      ‘Should be?’ She spoke quickly, but then seemed to check herself. A moment passed before she sat up and swung her legs out of the bed. A stripe across the middle of her back was paler than the rest of her skin. Frank thought it strange that he had never noticed it before. She reached down to the end of the bed and lifted a black T-shirt from where it been discarded, not long after they had come in the previous night.

      ‘You know you promised.’ She pulled the T-shirt over her head. ‘This weekend. You promised that you would really look.’

      She turned and glanced at him, briefly, over her shoulder, before standing up and pulling at her jeans that were lolling over a chair. Frank exhaled and rolled his eyes to the ceiling; throwing his arm up and over his head to touch the buttoned, velour headboard. This seemed to have the effect of speeding her up.

      ‘What can I do, Rose?’ He sat up in the bed. ‘It’s work. You know how it is. If I want to get on, I have to do these things.’

      ‘They own you.’

      ‘Yes, they do.’ Frank nodded manically. ‘For the moment, they do.’

      Rose stopped dressing, and stood at the foot of the bed, staring at him. Frank stared back. She would own him too if she had her way. She pulled a band from the pocket of her jeans and twisted it into her hair. But then her face clouded with a sadness he couldn’t bear to see. He patted the bed beside him, and she sat.

      ‘Look,’ he lifted his hand to her neck. ‘I will get a place. Of my own. And you may paint it whatever colour you desire. And I will designate a drawer in my bedroom for your sole use. And we will have some privacy.’

      She looked up from twisting a loosened blanket thread through her fingers. ‘And then what?’

      Frank paused. Then he would almost be thirty, and then it would be ridiculous not to ask her to marry him, and then he would be tied down forever to a life and a person he wasn’t convinced he really loved. ‘And then we’ll see,’ he said.