From where they were sitting on Everton View they could see the city laid out below them as it tumbled down from the Victorian terraces and warehouses to the modern steel and glass towers that lay at the shore of the dark grey strip of the river. To the left you could see Paddy’s Wigwam, the Catholic cathedral, and then slightly to the right, linked by Hope Street, the towering gothic splendour of the Anglican cathedral. Erasmus loved this spot; it felt like the city belonged to him in this place.
‘Rebecca says hello. She thinks you’re a real hero.’
He laughed and looked back towards the river.
‘We got lucky.’
‘We did, didn’t we?’
‘If Wayne hadn’t called Babak things could have been very different.’
Somewhere out on the Mersey he could hear the sound of a buoy’s bell distantly clanging, warning sailors of the hidden hazards of the channels.
‘You know they’re catching salmon in the Mersey these days. It’s not like it used to be.’
Karen smiled.
‘You wouldn’t eat them though, would you?’
There was silence between them for a second.
‘I felt so ashamed about what I did when I was a teenager. We did torture poor Alison. But, and this isn’t an excuse, it just feels like it was a different person. If I could go back in time I would tell that stupid, insecure, mixed-up girl that the other girls felt like that too, that I didn’t need to pick on someone else to make myself feel better. Do you understand what I mean? It’s like someone else did it? Like it wasn’t me at all, just a version of me, unformed, unsure, but most of all frightened.’
Erasmus nodded. He was thinking of Afghanistan and the faces of dead friends. Even now the memories of their faces were fading and the deeds he had committed seemed like memories of an old nightmare. But mostly he was thinking about Cat.
‘They still haven’t found the body yet,’ he said. ‘They followed the blood trail, it led down to the Mersey.’
‘If she went in there they will never find her.’
Erasmus thought that was true. The current ran strong and swiftly to the Irish Sea and then onwards into the shipping lines that led to the new world. He didn’t think they would find her.
The silence descended again.
Karen stood up.
‘I’ve got to go. Rebecca gets home from school in an hour.’
He looked up at her and felt the yearning and the insurmountable gulf at the same time. What she had done to Alison, not telling him, and his thing with Cat. It was just too much water pushing them further away. He could see that she felt the same.
‘Sure. It was good to catch up.’
‘I’ll see you around, Erasmus,’ there was a catch in her voice.
‘See you around.’
He watched her go. A minute passed and then Erasmus lit a cigarette. He looked out over the Mersey again, breathing in the salty air. A flurry of wind carried some stinging, metallic particles and the deep, fleshy smell of the grain in off the docks.
He pulled out his phone. There was a message on there from Abby. He read it again for the fourth time that day and smiled. It was all he needed at the moment. Sometimes you didn’t need to go back: ‘Sorry I missed all your calls. I love you, Daddy. Call me tonight! :-)Xxx’
It was going dark now and The Three Graces laid long dark shadows over the steel grey Mersey. Erasmus stood up and pulled the collar of his jacket up against the cold. The buoy’s bell rang again somewhere unseen out in the river.
It was time to go.