here just to prove a point.’ He shook his head.
‘You are talking nonsense. I’m here aren’t I? And I have every intention of staying the full year.’
‘But then what?’
‘I’ll go travelling. There is a whole world outside of Ottercombe Bay, but you probably hadn’t noticed because you have your head so far up your own arse!’
‘And you running away again was precisely what Reg was trying to avoid. He’s given you an opportunity most people would jump at. But you’re just too stubborn to see it or even try.’ Max stretched out his arms, folded them behind his head and raised an eyebrow as if in challenge.
‘Travelling opens you up to a world of possibilities and experiences and—’
‘It’s still running away.’
Daisy was fuming. ‘I have neither the patience nor the crayons to explain this to you.’ She downed the rest of her wine, slammed down her glass and stormed out.
Daisy sat on the headland, her face pointed out to sea but she wasn’t really looking at the view and she certainly wasn’t seeing anything. Her hand was resting near her throat where her mother’s locket used to sit. Her aunt had offered her one of her necklaces to wear but it wasn’t just the feel of the jewellery against her skin she was missing. She missed the connection she felt to her mother, the reassurance she had when she touched it. She knew people wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t a lucky talisman: to Daisy it was her connection with the past.
Losing the locket had given her a renewed desire to know more about her mother’s death, but she didn’t know where to start on a case the police closed eighteen years ago. She wished she’d done more investigating when she still had the locket – she was convinced it held the key.
She lay back on the grass, the sun warming her skin, and stared up at the wispy clouds drifting aimlessly above her. She watched the shapes slowly change. She remembered lying in the exact same place trying to see pictures in the clouds as a child – at moments like this it didn’t feel that long ago. She wondered how different her life would be if her mother hadn’t died. It was likely they would all still be living in Ottercombe Bay and she would never have travelled further than Exeter … or maybe she was doing her parents a disservice; perhaps as a strong unit of three they would have seen the world together – she couldn’t be sure.
She knew if she wanted to search deeper into her mother’s death she probably needed to call her father but that was always a difficult subject to broach with him. It would need careful planning, rather than rushing in – something she was famous for. She puffed out a breath. She had come up here to calm down and it had worked.
The row with Max in the pub had escalated quickly. Now she was thinking more rationally she knew some of what he had said was right, even if she hadn’t wanted to hear it. Great Uncle Reg had always looked out for Daisy, so she knew he only had good intentions when he had left her the old railway building and his forcing her to stay in Ottercombe Bay in order to inherit it was his attempt to get her to put down some roots. But when you had been nomadic for such a long time, it wasn’t that simple.
When her mother had died, her father had been devastated and the local rumours of how she might have died tortured him until he had packed up their things, flung them in the back of their old car and left the bay, taking Daisy with him. They rarely made it to a year in one place so she spent her formative years travelling around the UK. It didn’t take long for it to feel completely normal. They only ever came back to the bay for two weeks’ holiday each summer. That was all her father could cope with.
Daisy sat up and looked around. She watched the painted sky lighting up the horizon as the last drop of sunlight dissolved silently into the sea. The vibrant colours were reflected on the cliffs, giving the bay an ethereal glow – nature’s light show was beautiful. There wasn’t a lot to dislike about Ottercombe Bay. It was busy in the summer – the tourist trade was both a blessing and a curse. The tourists overran the place in high season but the locals needed that income to get them through the stark winter months.
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