having to retrace the path back to her past. She’d been seeing Poulter for six years, other doctors too, sitting in this same chair, in this same building, letting them into her life as she tried to reclaim a sense of who she might once have been. Now she was going to have to do it all over again. Garrick seemed decent, ingenuous, just like they all did, so sometimes she’d guide them back to that day herself, let them wade around in the shallow waters and ask her questions she knew she could deflect. On those days, she liked coming here, even looked forward to it, because, while she recognized they were being paid to treat her, she found the fact that someone was interested in her, faked or not, oddly comforting .
But then some days she’d slip up or say something without thinking, and suddenly they’d manoeuvred past her defences and she was back beside the pond; and all she could see were arms thrashing around, above the surface of the water, clawing at air, tiny fingers desperately trying to find her as the dome of his head disappeared beneath for good .
And there was nothing she could do .
Before she realized, tears had filled her eyes, and as she looked over at Garrick, she saw a moment of pity pass across his face .
‘I couldn’t save him,’ she said softly .
‘Was Bear a replacement for Lucas?’
She didn’t reply .
Garrick came forward. ‘Was Bear how you tried to forget him?’
Slowly, she started nodding – and then the words began to fall from her lips again. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, my baby; goodbye, my beautiful baby boy.’
9
The next morning, I found a note in the kitchen from Annabel telling me she’d braved the rain and gone for a run. I admired her discipline, especially as I’d already told her I had a treadmill in the garage. After brewing some coffee and making some toast, I grabbed the DVD marked ‘Footage of the house’ that Craw had left in Franks’s file for me, and took it through to the living room. The fire was on, and rain was tapping against the windows.
The video started with an establishing shot of the Frankses’ place, filmed from about a hundred feet away. It looked like it was autumn, which meant Craw must have filmed it recently, perhaps when she’d made up her mind about bringing the case to me: copper-coloured trees swayed gently beyond the A-frame roof of the house, and the fields around it were dotted with piles of golden leaves, mulched by rain. As she started to move the camera, wind crackled in the microphone, and for the first time I got a clear idea of how isolated the Frankses’ house was. It sat midway down a slope: to the left of the house, the incline continued, up towards a tor which was marked with a pile of huge boulders; to its right, the slope fell away like a breaking wave, eventually meeting up with Postbridge. The rooftops of the village – marks of charcoal in the distance – were the only civilization for miles. The rest was fields: segmented further down into the squares I’d seen in the photographs; a rolling carpet of bracken and yellow-specked heather further up.
There were two cars at the house. One, a Mini Cooper – presumably Craw’s – was parked on the grass about fifty feet from the front veranda; a second, Leonard and Ellie’s Audi A3, was parked at the side of the house, under the plastic canopy. The dried mud track running from the house down to the village started close to Craw’s Mini and continued in a straight line across the moorland, carved out of it by years of use, before kinking right and following a treeline down to Postbridge. The trees, beginning to thin out, must have basically fenced the house in during the summer: fully covered, it would have been like a natural wall, preventing anyone beyond them from even knowing the house was there.
A couple of seconds later, the camera cut to a shot of the rear of the house, not visible in the photographs Craw had provided. Here, I could see the
But then some days she’d slip up or say something without thinking, and suddenly they’d manoeuvred past her defences and she was back beside the pond; and all she could see were arms thrashing around, above the surface of the water, clawing at air, tiny fingers desperately trying to find her as the dome of his head disappeared beneath for good .
And there was nothing she could do .
Before she realized, tears had filled her eyes, and as she looked over at Garrick, she saw a moment of pity pass across his face .
‘I couldn’t save him,’ she said softly .
‘Was Bear a replacement for Lucas?’
She didn’t reply .
Garrick came forward. ‘Was Bear how you tried to forget him?’
Slowly, she started nodding – and then the words began to fall from her lips again. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, my baby; goodbye, my beautiful baby boy.’
9
The next morning, I found a note in the kitchen from Annabel telling me she’d braved the rain and gone for a run. I admired her discipline, especially as I’d already told her I had a treadmill in the garage. After brewing some coffee and making some toast, I grabbed the DVD marked ‘Footage of the house’ that Craw had left in Franks’s file for me, and took it through to the living room. The fire was on, and rain was tapping against the windows.
The video started with an establishing shot of the Frankses’ place, filmed from about a hundred feet away. It looked like it was autumn, which meant Craw must have filmed it recently, perhaps when she’d made up her mind about bringing the case to me: copper-coloured trees swayed gently beyond the A-frame roof of the house, and the fields around it were dotted with piles of golden leaves, mulched by rain. As she started to move the camera, wind crackled in the microphone, and for the first time I got a clear idea of how isolated the Frankses’ house was. It sat midway down a slope: to the left of the house, the incline continued, up towards a tor which was marked with a pile of huge boulders; to its right, the slope fell away like a breaking wave, eventually meeting up with Postbridge. The rooftops of the village – marks of charcoal in the distance – were the only civilization for miles. The rest was fields: segmented further down into the squares I’d seen in the photographs; a rolling carpet of bracken and yellow-specked heather further up.
There were two cars at the house. One, a Mini Cooper – presumably Craw’s – was parked on the grass about fifty feet from the front veranda; a second, Leonard and Ellie’s Audi A3, was parked at the side of the house, under the plastic canopy. The dried mud track running from the house down to the village started close to Craw’s Mini and continued in a straight line across the moorland, carved out of it by years of use, before kinking right and following a treeline down to Postbridge. The trees, beginning to thin out, must have basically fenced the house in during the summer: fully covered, it would have been like a natural wall, preventing anyone beyond them from even knowing the house was there.
A couple of seconds later, the camera cut to a shot of the rear of the house, not visible in the photographs Craw had provided. Here, I could see the
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