‘I think so.’

Libby rubbed at her forehead. ‘Stabbing Dad was the best thing he’s ever done, I just wish he’d killed him.’

‘Me too,’ Ellie said.

Libby laughed at that. She stopped and nodded at the fence to their left. ‘This is my place over the other side.’

‘OK.’

‘So what now?’ Libby said.

Ellie should take Libby to the police and report it, but it wasn’t as simple as that. She’d have to explain how she knew, then she’d have to tell them about Sam. It didn’t help Libby that the stabbing was tied to the abuse. But how else to do it? Libby could go to the police station herself but she already said that was a non-starter and Ellie could see her point. Tell her mum? Maybe Ellie should speak to Alison, but that had the same problem as talking to the police, she would have to explain how she was involved, give Sam up.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ she said.

Libby snorted. ‘You’re the worst knight in shining armour ever.’

‘I need some time.’

‘In the meantime I’m just supposed to sit tight at home?’

‘For now.’

‘And when Dad gets out of hospital?’

Ellie held Libby by the arms, it was supposed to be reassuring. ‘It’ll all be sorted long before then, I promise.’

‘I wish I could believe you.’

‘You can.’

Libby sighed and began to climb the fence at the back of her garden. She spoke to Ellie over her shoulder with a weary resignation.

‘Just look after my brother, OK?’

23

It was almost like none of it had happened. Ellie stood in her kitchen like a normal wife and mother, making green tea and wiping the surfaces. Ben was sitting at the table staring at his phone. He always had a screen in his face, ever since Logan, the twenty-first-century addiction afflicting him in his grief, his search for answers.

Ellie dunked her teabag, squeezed it out with a spoon then dropped it in the bin. She needed this time, the quiet, familiar order, to work everything out. Libby was back at home. She’d been on the phone to Sam, apparently she was reported absent by the school, but they didn’t have Alison’s mobile number, so the automated system left three messages on their home phone. Alison was out at work so Libby erased the messages when she got in. Not exactly a foolproof system.

Sam was back in the Porpoise. Ellie had come straight home after leaving Libby, packed up some more food then jogged along to the warehouse. Dropped off the provisions, handed him the key to the cabin padlock and told him to wait until the sun went down before heading over to the boat, baseball cap down. Part of her wanted to stay with him, keep him close, her maternal instinct kicking in, but she needed time and space alone to think.

Sam had texted an hour ago to say he was on the boat. She liked that he trusted her now. She missed that. But she imagined him on his own, lonely in that cramped berth at the bow of the boat, the rattle of masts and rigging keeping him awake, that and the worry. At least he didn’t seem suicidal any more.

She wondered about that. Every case was different, she knew from her research after Logan jumped, you couldn’t generalise about suicides and suicide attempts. Some were cries for help, some were spur of the moment things, some were well planned out. Some were the culmination of years struggling with serious mental illness. People who survived all reacted differently too. Weeping with grief that they hadn’t managed to end it all, or overwhelmed with relief that their momentary lapse hadn’t been successful, realising they had so much to live for. Some found God, some went deeper into a hole, some just walked away seemingly unscathed.

How would Sam be? It was less than two days since she found him on the bridge. But since then he seemed to have pulled himself together, mainly because of Libby. What had he been thinking, trying to kill himself, when he had a little sister who loved him, who needed him around to look after her? But ‘what was he thinking’ was the stupidest question of all, it presumed a rationality that doesn’t exist in the mind of someone contemplating killing themselves.

For a while Ellie buried herself in facts, essays, reports and books that looked at suicide from every side – the social aspect, the cultural angle, the mental-health issues, the reaction of others. But none of it meant anything really, none of it explained away the bare, monstrous fact that her son was no longer around, that he wasn’t sleeping in till lunchtime at weekends, hogging the shower at inopportune moments, being sarcastic to her and Ben in a comfortable, familiar way, taking a pretend huff over not being allowed out until he’d done homework or chores around the house.

Ellie thought about Libby, what she’d gone through. If anyone had the right to feel suicidal it was her. Ellie’s insides itched at the thought of what Jack had been doing to her. How could anyone do that to any young girl, let alone his own daughter? It was beyond comprehension. Was it just evil, did such a thing really exist? Was it about power? How did a grown man get to the place in his life where making his daughter suck his dick was something to even consider? She wanted to speak to Jack. It was too easy just to brand him a monster, dehumanise him, that’s what the liberal in her was thinking. But another, deeper part of Ellie’s psyche wanted to destroy him, make him pay for what he’d done.

And what about Alison? Ellie realised she’d been skirting round Alison, leaving her until last in her thoughts. Libby said she’d tried to bring it up with her mum, but Alison had sidestepped it. Could that be true? Did Alison not know anything, or did she suspect in her darkest mind, but refuse to confront it? How could you live with someone half your life and not know they were capable of something like that. Or maybe Alison knew too well what her husband was capable of, maybe that was the problem. Maybe she was scared.

Ellie looked at Ben. How could you live with someone for twenty years and not even know them? She and Ben had seemed like soul mates, whatever that meant, for so long, but Logan, their foundation together, had been destroyed. What did they have in the aftermath of that, did they even know each other now?

‘You’re in a dwam.’

Ben was looking at her. He was right, ‘dwam’ was the exact word, she’d been daydreaming, but not the pleasant kind. She smiled apologetically.

Ben put his phone down and got up, walked over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and she was relieved that she didn’t flinch like yesterday. Instead she let him rub at the knots and strains, realising how tense her body was. She used to do yoga, before Logan. She used to do a lot of things before that day, none of it made sense now. Her body was a mess of tight muscles and saggy skin, her flesh covered in ink, her joints achy, as if she was already old. Her son’s suicide had turned her into an old woman overnight. Not a widow, something much worse.

She put her tea down and turned to face Ben. Put a hand to his cheek, felt the stubble, pushed two fingers through the grey hair at his temple, looked in his eyes. She always got annoyed in books when people saw things in each other’s eyes – recognition, despair, understanding, all that. They were just eyes, the eyes of the man she still loved.

‘Are you OK?’ she said. ‘After today on the boat, I mean.’

He laughed and placed a small kiss on her lips. ‘I’m fine. Is that what you were worried about?’

‘A little.’

He shook his head. ‘I love you.’

She smiled, looked into those eyes again. ‘I love you, too.’

24

She looked at the water below. Forty-five metres roughly, depending on the tide. The light today was diffuse, high cloud cover making everything matt and dull. There were no sharp sunbeams bouncing off the water, meaning she could get some sense of the depths below, a feel for the swell of the waves.