Marina didn’t know how she would have coped if Tiff hadn’t gone with her to the police station to report that Nate had been found. As she wasn’t reporting him for committing a crime, the police could do nothing but take enough details to alert the South African police to conduct a welfare check on the person suspected of being Nate. They confirmed he was perfectly within his rights to go off and live his life elsewhere, so long as he wasn’t doing it to commit a crime.
On the journey home from the police station, familiar sights like St Michael’s Mount seemed alien. She felt as if she couldn’t even take a rock or a stone for granted, and every time she looked, she feared it might not be there. She knew she was still in shock and tried to tell herself that it was OK to feel this sense of total disorientation. No one could help because no one had ever been through a remotely similar experience.
Back at the cottage, Tiff put a mug of tea in front of her that she didn’t really want. ‘This is the hardest part,’ she said. ‘I’ll not say it’s going to get easier but you’ve taken the first step. How are you doing?’
‘Part of me wants to pretend he’s still dead. I spent so many days, months and years wishing he’d come back and now he could, I don’t want him to. I need to know why but I don’t want to know why.’
‘That’s understandable, my love.’
‘I also can’t stop thinking about Lachlan. I know it isn’t his fault. I can understand and forgive him for checking out the message, and I realise now that even if he hadn’t, one day there might have been a slip-up or Nate might have decided to come back anyway … But I can’t cope with a new relationship at the moment. I feel as if I’ve crawled to the top of a mountain and been knocked back down again. This time, not because Nate’s dead, but because he’s been found.’
Tiff patted her hand. ‘No wonder you’re at sixes and sevens after such a betrayal.’
‘Yes. And I know Lachlan’s a good man, but I’m not sure I can believe in anyone ever again.’
‘You will,’ she said firmly.
‘Do you think so?’
‘One day …’ Tiff murmured. ‘Give yourself time.’
A short time later, Tiff left her to her thoughts while she popped down to her office in town. Life had to go on, Marina realised, but alone in the cottage, with all its associations, many of them now tainted, she felt the walls were closing in on her. Even the waves crashing on the beach below and the gulls’ cries added to her melancholy, rather than soothing her as they usually did.
She had to get out of the house, so she walked along the coastal path. Even though it was a sunny day, she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up, feeling like a fugitive herself. She rested on the cliff a little way below the lookout station, a few hundred yards away on one of the narrow paths that had been formed by walkers exploring a collapse of the cliff from years before. It was now thick with gorse and bracken, but no amount of warning signs prevented people from using it to reach the beach below.
The watchers on shift – Trevor and Doreen – could probably see her. In fact, if they were doing their job correctly, they would see her, but they were good people and they’d take her excuse that she had personal reasons for not going on shift at face value.
She kept walking and then sat for a while at a bench above the station, and the cove, looking down at the place where she’d last seen Nate. She’d watched him launch on that Saturday morning and had then gone home to do the washing, clean the cottage and do some marking.
She’d expected him home after lunch and he’d never come back.
It was still almost impossible to believe that he was now thousands of miles away living a different life.
By now he’d know that she knew he was alive. He must do, the South African police would surely have been in touch?
Was he shocked when they called him? Would he try to deny it? Who would he tell? His partner already knew or had guessed … what about any friends he had?
Did he have any conscience at all about it? A shred of guilt? Would he try to contact her by phone or email – or even return to the UK? She presumed he was within his rights to return.
At least she didn’t have to tell his cousins and uncle. The local police had said they’d do that.
So now she had this brief window before the news got out, as it surely would. Tiff had been cruel to be kind in warning her and she’d discussed it with Lachlan too. The calls from the press, the reporters and cameras would land at any moment.
She’d had to tell her boss at work, in case they hounded her colleagues, and she knew she’d also have to tell her fellow Wave Watchers, the neighbours, Dirk, Troy and Evie … all of whom she could rely on. Beyond that close circle, she realised that her most private, personal agony was about to become public property and she couldn’t do a thing about it.
She got home to find Tiff back and waiting in the window, watching for her. She had the door open before Marina reached the step and practically hauled her inside. ‘Brace yourself,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it’s started.’
Tiff had warned her it would be bad, but she must have sugared the pill, because Marina was horrified at the intense interest in her life over the next week or so. Her own story was soon due to appear in the Post, but before it did, there was a piece from Nate’s girlfriend. She was bemoaning how he’d lied to her and betrayed her and insisting she’d no idea that Marina existed.
Reporters knocked on neighbours’ doors – though no one told them anything – waited outside for her and took photos of the cottage, of Lachlan and of Tiff. The press delved into everything, raking it over endlessly. It trended on social media, made the local news, the national radio and was even discussed on a lunchtime talk show. Marina tried to keep away from the Internet as much as she could but it was impossible to avoid all the coverage.
Tiff had brokered a deal with the Post, a rival newspaper to her previous employer, and managed to negotiate an increase in the fee.
‘I don’t want a fee,’ Marina protested, but Tiff had insisted.
‘You’re having one, you should take it. I’ll have mine and I’ll give it to the Wave Watchers. And Porthmellow Lifeboat Station,’ she added with a wry smile.
‘I never thought of that. We need the station roof repairing before winter sets in.’
‘Then use it,’ Tiff said firmly. ‘If you can extract even the smallest bit of good out of this horrendous experience, you should take it. Now is the time to play dirty, my love, even if it goes against every scrap of your nature.’
Marina no longer knew what her ‘nature’ truly was. She’d been through so many emotions lately, some of them involving a lot of hate and anger, and that had scared her. ‘Has Nate said anything about me publicly in the press?’ she asked.
‘Not yet, but he must be under enormous pressure to give his story,’ Tiff said. ‘Unless his lawyers have told him to keep his mouth shut while he’s still under investigation by the police …’ She peered at Marina. ‘Do you want to speak to him?’
‘No! I never want to hear from him again. I don’t know what I’d say if I did.’ There was a knock on the door. ‘Will they ever stop?’
‘Eventually. You’d better hope for some major political turmoil.’
‘That’s not likely to happen, is it?’ Marina said, dragging up a scrap of grim humour from the depths.
Tiff patted her arm. ‘That’s the spirit. The attention will fizzle out, I promise. Now all you need to do is decide if you want to contact Nate …’
‘Easy then,’ Marina murmured, wondering if the nightmare would ever end.