Finders Keepers (45 page)

Steven didn’t raise one back. He watched the medics help Jonas into an ambulance and hoped that it crashed on the way to hospital.

Then he followed DS Rice to a car that still smelled of hot brakes.

THEIR HOMECOMINGS WERE
just as they’d expected – and more.

Jess Took was clamped between her mother and her father so tight that she wondered how they could ever be prised apart. Rachel stood nearby – her smile and talons fixed – and wondered the same thing.

Pete Knox’s parents put on a united front and their neighbours threw a street party to welcome him home, with bunting and cakes. The council even agreed to close the road so that they wouldn’t all be mown down during the celebrations. Pete only managed half a cupcake and a sip of Coke before he began to feel queasy. It would take a while.

His mother followed him around like a mitten on a string, and his father watched her with a look on his face that suggested he could not forget what she’d said back in that early-morning car park, however hard he tried. Mercifully, Pete didn’t notice that right then. He was just happy to be home.

Maisie and Kylie were submerged in love and protection, and never took the bus to school again.

A few days after their return, the driver Ken Beard sat in his car outside their homes and shook so badly that he couldn’t do what he’d gone there for. Finally it was his daughter Karen and her boyfriend – whose name was simply Mark, despite the mascara – who encouraged him up the paths and knocked on the doors for him, so that he could beg the girls’ forgiveness in person.

They and their families were in forgiving moods, and would be for a long time to come.

Steven was bruised from all the hugging, Lettie cried and laughed for days, Uncle Jude bought him an Xbox still in its original packaging, and Nan kept saying, ‘I
told
you he’d be back!’ when she hadn’t at all.

Davey hugged him and almost cried, but then called him a wanker instead, which meant a lot, coming from him.

Physically Steven bounced back quickly. It took a few weeks to learn to eat right again, but that was hardly a chore. Mentally, he was … fine.

That surprised even him.

Sure, the smell of the bathroom disinfectant had the power to turn his stomach, and he often caught himself touching his own neck – feeling for the collar he’d worn for so long. But still, when DS Rice explained that Victim Support was arranging for all the children to see a psychologist to help them over the trauma, Steven politely declined.

He had survived, hadn’t he? The past was the past and surviving it was the important thing. Now he had the rest of his life to live, and more important things to think about.

Some more important than others …

Em had not hooked up with Lewis or Lalo; she had waited for Steven.

‘I would have waited for ever,’ she told him fiercely, as they lay dizzy and breathless after their first time.

Steven held her close. He was a man now, but he felt like the same boy – only much happier. He wondered whether Lewis
would
guess he’d had sex and he hoped not. The only witnesses he needed to this moment were the silent ones gazing down at them from his walls. Uncle Billy, Angelina Jolie and the Liverpool first eleven.

‘For ever is a long, long time,’ he said carefully.

‘Good,’ said Em. ‘Then we’ll spend it together.’

The next day they walked up the hill to continue rebuilding their lives and the Suzuki, only to find that Ronnie and Dougie had finished the bike for him, and that all Steven had to do was turn the key and kick it over.

He would never have to walk past Rose Cottage again.

The newspapers and TV were all over the children – particularly Steven, who had cheated death twice before he was old enough to drink. Marcie Meyrick came to the door four times – each time with a higher offer. On the final visit, she actually cried.

Much to Davey’s annoyance, his brother had no interest in getting free money, so he sold his own story to a rival reporter from the
Star
. It appeared under the headline
MY BROTHER THE NUT MAGNET
. Davey spent £115 of the proceeds on a new skateboard for Steven, and felt cleansed. And the next time he and Shane went up to Springer Farm, they took with them a can of black paint and obliterated
Mr PEach is a COCK
from the farmhouse wall.

They pretty much stopped going there after that, although for many years afterwards Davey would think about the blackened rafters, the dark chimney, and the box of gay junk that Shane hadn’t wanted.

There was, of course, no homecoming to celebrate for David Peach. While the other children were being returned to their families, he watched Channel 4 Racing with DI Reynolds by his side. For some reason, the man who’d led the investigation had chosen to allow his sergeant to bask in the sunshine of the TV cameras and the grateful parents, while
they
worked their way
through
a bottle of Glenfiddich and pretended to give a shit about who won the 3.45 from Doncaster.

DI Reynolds was no drinker and almost choked on the first shot. But by the fourth he’d got the hang of it.

So they sat and got more and more slumped and slurred – surrounded by a bright sea of flowers and teddy bears that countless well-wishers had left on the doorstep of the little blue house where Charlie had lived …

For a while after his son’s funeral David Peach did think of moving away, but finally he stayed among friends.

Among those he now counted John Took, who wasn’t half the prick he used to be.

*

Jonas was the only person who was truly surprised by his homecoming.

After three days in hospital he took a taxi home. He arrived at Rose Cottage as the sun dipped below the moor, and found Elizabeth Rice on his doorstep with a bottle of Rioja.

‘The hospital called. Said you’d discharged yourself.’

‘I had things to do.’

‘DI Reynolds wants a chat tomorrow morning.’

‘But not tonight,’ he said.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Not tonight.’

They went inside and shared the wine at the kitchen table, where Mrs Paddon had left a vegetarian stew and a yellow Post-it note:

45 mins at 140 (Centigrade, Jonas!)

Jonas peeled off the note and rolled it into a tight tube between his fingers as they talked.

Actually
she
talked. He just listened, but he did it well enough.

They took the bottle into the living room in an action replay that she knew in her loins was going to have a different result this time.

They stood at the window and, as they watched the coming night turn the Exmoor sky as green as the sea, she kissed him properly.

For a moment there was a rush of hunger between them – then he stepped away awkwardly and looked at the rising moon.

‘It’s getting dark,’ he said.

Rice nodded and felt like a fool. An unwanted fool.

From the mantel Lucy Holly watched her, trowel in hand, smiling in a place that was always warm.

‘Where’s that little gold letter knife you had here?’ she said dully.

Jonas turned and looked at her, silhouetted against the oceanic sky, with the moon on one shoulder and Venus at the other.

‘I don’t remember,’ he shrugged.

As Rice left Rose Cottage, Mrs Paddon opened her front door. ‘I told you you were wasting your time,’ she said.

Rice bit her lip.

But only as far as the gate. Then she turned. ‘Why don’t you just piss off, you nosey old bitch?’

Mrs Paddon closed her door quietly and Rice cried all the way back to the Red Lion.

*

Elizabeth Rice woke hours later because she was cold, and she was cold because the window was open.

She closed it and looked across the haphazard roofs below, and then up at the moon – a brilliant coin with dove-grey oceans. If she’d had a book, she could have read by this light alone, but her books were packed away now in the small bag by
the
bedroom door, awaiting tomorrow’s departure. Instead, she held up her hand and looked at the lines criss-crossing her silver palm. She wondered whether her future really could be written in those lines, like music in the grooves of an old 45. She wondered what tunes they might play. Love songs or bitter country heartbreakers.

Rice sighed and dropped her hand, and rested her forehead against the cold glass.

The letter knife was on the window-sill.

She flinched as if burned. She failed to breathe.

She stepped gingerly away from the window, and went quickly into the bathroom – coming back with a few sheets of tissue paper. With that, she picked up the little gold dagger with the engraved handle.

By the light of the moon she could read
A Gift from Weston-super-Mare
.

Even though the window was now closed, Elizabeth Rice started to shiver.

JONAS SHOULD HAVE
been in Shipcott at the debrief with DI Reynolds, but instead he was walking across the vast flat sands of Weston-super-Mare beach, eating an ice cream.

He’d left his shoes and socks under the ice-cream van; he didn’t think anyone would take them. Not until the van left for the night, at least – but that particular night was hours away.

It was another spectacular day, and he had to eat fast to keep the vanilla from rolling down his knuckles.

There were plenty of holidaymakers, but the beach was so wide, and they were all so close to the ice-cream van, that it seemed deserted.

He approached the new pier. The old one of his dreams had burned down, surrounded by water. He looked around as he passed between the pilings, even though he would not find Lucy here.

He knew that now.

The thought didn’t make him sad. How could he be sad on a
day
like this? The sun was hot, the sand was cool, the ice cream was sweet, and he’d kept his promise.

He had saved the boy.

Not Charlie, sadly, but the boy that was himself.

People hurt children. Of course they did. That was the truth. But it was also true that children escaped, they recovered and they survived. Steven Lamb was proof of that twice over. Until Bob Coffin had shown him, Jonas had had no idea how
resilient
children were. How resilient
he
finally was.

Lucy had been right to want children and he had been wrong to prevent her. Jonas could see that now. But he knew she would forgive him; he had been a different person then. Now he felt complete. He had never felt so
whole
.

Jonas reached the water’s edge and the flat waves cooled his bare feet. The wet sand shifted slightly under his toes as the outgoing tide tried to suck the beach back into the ocean. He couldn’t help smiling, and excited butterflies filled his stomach.

He finished his ice cream, then leaned down to rinse his hands in the sea, before straightening up and squinting into the blue. Steep Holm island seemed very close, although it was miles away – high in the water and brilliant green in the sunshine. He’d never been there, but he’d heard it was covered in wild peonies. He’d like to see that some time. On the horizon was the hazy grey stripe of Wales.

Jonas stretched like a dog in the sun, and felt calm settle warmly into his bones.

Everything was going to be fine. Elizabeth Rice was smart; she would discover that the blood on the handle of the knife was not Lucy’s.

Jonas hoped that Steven would learn of it somehow, and know that he had told him the truth about that.

There were other truths about himself that were more disturbing, and Bob Coffin on the winch had finally convinced him of those too.

Jonas took off his uniform, folding each item and leaving them in a neat pile. He looked around before removing his trousers, but there was nobody close by. They slipped off easily because of the missing button that he’d never got around to sewing back on.

A button was like a wife. They both held things together. He’d lost a button and he’d lost a wife. But at least he knew where to find one of them.

Wearing only his shorts, Jonas walked into the cold water until it covered his scars, and then he started to swim.

It was years since he’d swum in the ocean. It was easier than he’d remembered; the salt was his friend. He headed for Steep Holm, even though he wasn’t planning to swim there. It gave him something to point at. He didn’t want to go round in embarrassing circles like a broken motor-boat.

The further he went, the happier he got. He swam freestyle, breathing under his right arm, the way they’d been taught at school. Sometimes it worked and sometimes he got a noseful of brine. But he felt strong, and he felt clean and he felt
whole
, and nothing was going to stop him. Not ever.