Monday, 20 April
Three weeks after he was rushed into hospital in an ambulance, Cathbad leaves in a wheelchair to a rapturous round of applause from the ICU staff. Cathbad is embarrassed about the wheelchair – he’s perfectly able to walk – but is told that this is hospital policy. He’s overwhelmed too that the doctors and nurses are actually cheering him. ‘It’s a success for us all,’ Abbas told him, ‘when someone who was so sick goes home again.’ Cathbad thanks Abbas by the main doors, pressing his hands together in a namaste although he would love to be able to give the nurse a hug. Abbas bows back, eyes smiling behind his mask. Cathbad remembers looking into those same eyes during the many hours when he couldn’t speak and was scared that his next breath would be his last. ‘Keep going’ – that was the message Abbas sent him silently. Cathbad also has a confused memory of Nelson saying, ‘You’re not dead yet, Cathbad.’ Was this an actual memory of the night on the marshes or did Nelson visit Cathbad in a dream? He doesn’t know but he hopes to find out one day.
A week earlier Boris Johnson also left hospital. He credited two nurses, Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal, with saving his life. ‘They kept vigil,’ he said, ‘when things could have gone either way.’ Hearing this, Cathbad experienced a rare feeling of kinship with the Prime Minister.
Judy drives him home. Cathbad thinks that the sky has never looked so high and blue. When he sees the sea, sparkling away like a tourist poster, he almost cries again. He’s always prided himself on being in touch with his emotions but, in recovery, he’s found himself laughing and weeping at the smallest things. Yesterday, Abbas told him a joke about David Beckham that almost killed him.
The tears flow again when they reach the house and Cathbad sees his neighbours lining the road: Steve and Richard, Jill and Barney, Vikram and Elsa, Donna, Sue and Dorothy. Across the porch is a banner saying, ‘Welcome home, Dad’. Ruth and Kate are standing by the gate, waving madly, and Maddie, Michael and Miranda are in the doorway. As Cathbad approaches, wiping his eyes, they run towards him, but Thing is too fast for the humans. He flings himself on Cathbad, almost knocking him to the ground. Cathbad remembers the day he first met the dog, at his friend Pendragon’s cottage on Pendle Hill, when the bull terrier’s exuberant welcome had succeeded in flooring him.
‘It’s all right, Thing. I’m home now.’
Judy pulls Thing away and Cathbad is embracing his children, a scrum of love and relief and tears.
When they pause for breath, Cathbad turns to Ruth, who is still keeping her socially approved distance. She and Kate are both smiling and suddenly seem radiantly alike.
‘It’s wonderful that you’re home,’ says Ruth.
‘I prayed for you,’ says Kate.
‘Thank you, Hecate,’ says Cathbad. ‘It helped. A lot.’
‘Go into the house,’ says Ruth, ‘and carry on getting better.’
Cathbad raises his hand and it seems that even the seagulls, high above, are welcoming him home in raucous chorus.
Ruth and Kate drive home still elated by the hero’s return. Kate talks excitedly about Cathbad. ‘Do you think it’s a miracle, Mum?’ Ruth doesn’t feel qualified to judge but she’s glad Kate is happy when she’s had so many disappointments recently. It’s become clear over the last few weeks that the Year 6 trip is not going to happen. ‘We hope to have the children in school for a week in June,’ said Mrs Obuya, ‘and we’ll have some socially-distanced celebrations.’ But it’s not the same as a trip or a disco or a prom. Ruth finds Kate’s stoic acceptance of this almost heartbreaking.
But Kate does have the excitement of a new aunt and, as they near the little cottages, they see Zoe in the garden. She has cleared the ground and has sown seeds with witchy names like salvia, scabious and zinnia. Sunflowers are growing in pots and Zoe is busy preparing hanging baskets for the summer. Derek and Flint are watching with interest from their respective doorsteps. They need no government directive to maintain social distancing.
Zoe has gone back to work, physically none the worse for her ordeal, but she’s told Ruth that she’s having nightmares about the underground room and Hugh Baxter’s soft voice urging suicide. Ruth finds it both stressful and touching to be receiving confidences of this kind. Is this what it means to be a sister? Simon has never confided in her and most of her friends have families of their own. Now Ruth has gained another close family member. It’s rather a responsibility.
Ruth told Simon of Zoe’s existence via Zoom. It was another one of those occasions where the discussion would have been easier face to face. Ruth looked at her brother’s baffled face on the screen and wished she had been able to give him a hug, or at least a hearty pat on the back. It’s been a hard time for Simon. Covid turned out not to be a government conspiracy and he’s locked down at home with his wife and adult sons. No wonder he looks greyer than when Ruth last saw him.
‘Mum had a daughter,’ he kept repeating. ‘Before I was born.’
Ruth was glad when Cathy appeared beside Simon. ‘These things happen,’ she said briskly.
‘You’ll like Zoe,’ Ruth assured Simon who, foregrounded against his record collection and abandoned teenage acoustic guitar, suddenly looked rather pathetic.
‘Does Dad know?’
‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘I think we should tell him later. When we can see him in person.’
She has no idea when that will be.
Zoe comes over to meet them, her hands dark with earth. ‘How was Cathbad? Everyone at the surgery is so happy that he’s out of hospital.’
‘He looked a bit frail but he was obviously delighted to be home,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s got nine lives, but I think this has used up one of them.’
‘My time-travelling cat has got ninety-nine lives,’ says Kate.
‘Have you written any more?’ asks Zoe. Ruth listens to Kate telling her aunt about Whittaker’s latest adventures. It takes her mind off the fact that Nelson is, probably at this very moment, being reunited with his wife.
Nelson has taken the day off work but now he wishes he hadn’t. The time seems to pass so slowly in the silent cul-de-sac. He can’t stop thinking about Cathbad coming home from hospital, about Ruth and Katie, about the team back at the station.
Hugh Baxter has been charged with unlawful imprisonment but he’s pleading memory loss and incipient dementia. Nelson has an awful feeling that he’ll get away with it all. There’s no evidence that Hugh persuaded Samantha, Avril and Karen to kill themselves. His fingerprints were on the handle of Avril’s bedroom but Hugh is sharp enough to say that they got there on one of his many visits to the house. ‘We were friends,’ he tells Tanya, ‘I loved Avril.’ Nelson, watching on the video link, isn’t convinced for a moment.
Hugh can’t deny trapping Zoe in the room below the information centre but he is saying that he was confused and didn’t know what he was doing. Against this is the fact that he visited Zoe several times, bringing food and pills and urging her to put an end to her life. He had obviously planned the whole thing, discovering the underground room when he was working as a volunteer in the shop. Kindly Hugh, with his interest in local history. Who would have thought that, not content with telling visitors the story of the Grey Lady, he seemed determined to re-enact it?
Zoe will be a good witness for the prosecution although Nelson knows that she’s worried about the earlier case being resurrected. ‘I don’t think I can quite face being the angel of death again,’ she said, with a brave attempt at a smile. Ruth will be a witness to the fact that she found Zoe in the cellar and was locked in by Hugh herself. Nelson doesn’t know why Hugh went to such extreme lengths with Zoe. He obviously knew her through the surgery. Did he know about the Dawn Stainton case too? Is this why he targeted her? Nelson has wondered if Hugh was the elderly man in the waiting room when he visited the surgery to enquire after Zoe. At the time, he had seemed a harmless, anonymous presence. The mask had helped too.
Leah is back at work, helping Nelson through the latest interactive nightmare devised by Jo, something called Teams. Leah is still living at the refuge but hopes to get her own place soon. Nelson is trying to force through several initiatives about domestic violence. If Jo is surprised at this sudden interest in community policing, she doesn’t say so. On the other hand, she hasn’t stopped reminding Nelson that it could be time to retire. ‘After the shooting last year and whatever happened at Tombland, you deserve a rest.’ Jo clearly hasn’t bought the story about Nelson tripping over and banging his head. ‘I’m fine,’ Nelson told her, ‘never better.’
Joe McMahon is transferring to Birmingham. Nelson mentally sends the university his best wishes and hopes that Joe will not feel the need to keep in touch. Eileen has gone home. She sent Nelson a postcard thanking him for his help and saying that she hoped to be back in Norfolk next year. Eileen, like Nelson’s mother, is clearly a fan of postcards. This one, rather tactlessly, showed an artist’s impression of the Grey Lady, midway through a wall.
Laura is in the kitchen, preparing a welcome-home meal. Bruno is with Nelson, restlessly pacing the parquet floor, toenails clicking. Suddenly the dog’s ears seem to become even more pointed. He barks and goes to the door. Nelson can’t hear anything, but he knows that the dog has sensed something, a change in the space-time continuum perhaps. Minutes later, Michelle’s car pulls into the drive. After a day of waiting, suddenly Nelson is not ready. Bruno whimpers excitedly but Nelson waits in the sitting room until the very last moment, until he hears Michelle’s key in the lock and Georgie’s shout of ‘My Doggy!’ Or maybe it’s ‘My Daddy’. Nelson’s not sure. He comes into the hall and swings his son into the air. At least this bit is easy, he thinks. It’s never been difficult to summon his love for his children.
Laura is hugging her mother. ‘I’m so glad you’re back. We’ve missed you so much.’ Nelson meets Michelle’s eyes. She looks tired from the drive, but he’s struck, once again, by her beauty. Surely, she’s more beautiful now, at fifty-one, than she was at twenty-one when he first saw her in the Blackpool rock shop. Laura envelops George in a hug. Bruno runs up and down the stairs in a frenzy of welcome.
‘Hallo, love,’ says Nelson.
‘Hallo, Harry,’ says Michelle.
Nelson kisses her cheek and they get through the next few minutes somehow, talking about the drive and the children, against a background of Bruno’s barks and George’s squeals of joy.
It’s only later that Michelle says, ‘Harry, we need to talk.’