The morning sun warmed the back of Caroline’s neck as she clasped Mark’s hand, the shingle of Thorpeness Beach crunching underfoot as they walked. Her sons ran on ahead, making the most of trying to play football on the uneven surface, and loving every minute of it.
‘This is what you call a Sunday morning,’ Mark said, smiling. ‘I can’t believe how calm it is. I thought it’d be windy on the coast.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ Caroline replied. ‘I bet this beach’ll be rammed within a couple of hours, though.’
‘I was thinking we could take the opportunity to head down to Aldeburgh. There’ll be more for the boys to do there. Especially if the beaches are going to be packed.’
Caroline smiled at Mark. ‘Sounds lovely.’ For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt truly relaxed. Moving from London to Rutland had been intended to give them all a clean break, and the irony wasn’t lost on her that it was only now, on a beach in Suffolk, that she felt that sense of inner peace.
‘You seem much happier,’ Mark said, as if reading her thoughts. It’d become clear to her over the past months that she was a far more open book than she’d realised. And where she’d felt the need to close off and keep things to herself, the impression she gave others had been far worse than the open and honest truth.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘It feels like we’ve come a long way recently.’
‘One hundred and twenty-eight miles. And I felt every single one of them.’
‘I did say I was happy to share the driving.’
‘And you also said I was a terrible backseat driver.’
‘That’s because you are,’ Caroline replied, laughing.
‘Then you’ll just have to deal with me moaning about the journey, won’t you? It’s been worth every second, though. Just look at the place. How can you not have your breath taken away by a view like that?’
She’d noticed how much brighter Mark had seemed recently, too. There’d been some dark days after the death of his mother, but she sensed he’d been able to move on in the months that followed.
She wondered if, up until then, he’d felt in limbo, caught between their new life in Rutland and the tie of his mother still being in London. Her own health issues and need to throw herself head-first into work hadn’t helped, either, but both of those worries had since disappeared into the background.
Being clear of cancer had lifted a huge weight from her shoulders, and the relative lack of drama at work meant she’d been able to focus more on family life. Although Rutland wasn’t historically famed as a centre for violent crimes, it’d experienced a run of major cases that had kept her and her small team working well beyond their means for far too long.
The whole point in moving to Rutland had been for the family to have a fresh start, and for her to work for a police force that wasn’t constantly besieged by a deluge of major crimes and chronic underfunding. After years with the Met, she’d certainly seen the appeal of working for a small, rural force in an area with a low crime rate.
Fortunately, it was looking like the run of major incidents they’d had to deal with had just been a flash in the pan. Like any police officer, Caroline would never dare use the word ‘quiet’ when talking about work, but there was no denying that recent months had been far more relaxed than the ones that came before.
It had meant the world to be able to work reasonable hours without worrying about being called out in the middle of the night. She’d had more time to spend with Mark and the boys, and she’d very quickly seen how that quality time had had such a positive effect on them all. Now, she just needed to keep that going.
‘Boys, how do you fancy a little trip out today?’ she called.
‘Huh?’ Archie yelled back, without even looking in her direction.
‘I think you mean “pardon”. And if you try to stay within a few miles of us, you might actually hear what I’m saying.’
Archie hoofed the ball back in his parents’ direction, before he and his brother raced to be the first to reach it.
‘I was asking if you fancied a little trip out to Aldeburgh today. It’s meant to have the best fish and chips in the country.’
‘I love fish and chips!’ Archie shrieked.
‘And a Martello tower,’ Mark added.
‘What’s that?’
‘Kind of like a castle, I guess.’
‘I love castles!’
‘Fish and chips and castles it is, then. Although I think there’s probably one other thing we should do before we head off. I have it on good authority there’s a little place up the road here that does rather good ice cream…’
‘I love ice cream!’
‘Well we’d better get a move on then, hadn’t we?’ Mark replied, stealing the football with a cheeky toe punt and running off with it, his sons chasing after him with shrieks of delight.
Caroline turned and looked back at the sea, watching as the waves rolled in and washed the shingle before retreating again. She closed her eyes as she listened to it mingling with the sound of the gulls and her own children’s ecstasy, and, for the first time in a long time, she felt that all was right with the world.