Johnny bought a pre-owned thirty-four-foot 2004 Sealine S34 from a dealer in Windermere, and she was a beauty. He’d chosen luxury and performance and Kelly had been surprised that he’d gone for something so glamorous. She was thankful for the interior, which consisted of wooden decking and full wraparound covers. It had a tiny kitchen, shower and toilet, and bed. They’d been aboard for a week.
They stopped when they needed food or a restaurant meal, but the only other reason to shore up was for a swim. Otherwise, they powered gently up and down the lake at ten knots, which was the limit on Ullswater. They saw few vessels, and when they did, the captains were usually known personally to either Johnny or Kelly, and they waved and shouted greetings. Occasionally they’d go ashore for a pint, but more often, they’d stock up on wine for the boat. They were barely eight miles from their houses, but it didn’t matter; they could have been in Alaska and it wouldn’t have made a difference.
It was a peace they hadn’t known for months, not since a weekend away in a hotel in Windermere. Josie had finally relented and gone to see her mother.
‘How you doing?’ Johnny asked Kelly regularly. It was a question without answer and he knew it, but it was his way of checking in and telling her that he cared.
Every day was different. Sometimes she remembered all the positive and joyful things about her mother, and she’d smile to herself, recalling a joke they’d shared or something they’d agreed on. Other days were hell, and she was consumed with regret and grief. Johnny counselled her on the process of mourning; it was, he told her, a journey.
‘No it’s not, it’s a fucking cliché,’ Kelly raged and Johnny let her. Anger was all part of the journey.
Occasionally, Kelly behaved like a child and used her fingers to denote speech marks as she analysed herself and regurgitated long words used by shrinks who dealt with loss. She’d learned to throw them out in answer to probing questions from concerned friends and relatives. ‘Self-preservative numbness’ was one of her favourites, and she laboured over the words with exaggeration if she was feeling particularly frustrated: a signal to Johnny that something intense was on its way. Usually an outburst – a kick, a slammed door or an expletive in response to a well-meaning question – was all that was needed to move on, but now and again Kelly went quiet, and Johnny knew that was a bad sign. It was easier when she shouted or told him to go fuck himself. He could argue, challenge her, refuse to leave, and all the other things you did for the person you loved. It drove Kelly nuts, but he persevered.
It was worth it.
Her moods wouldn’t level out for perhaps a year, possibly two; that was what all the experts said. Kelly said she didn’t give a flying fuck what the experts said, and Johnny said he knew she didn’t.
A few psychos whom Kelly had put away over the years wrote sympathy cards, and it caused her to fly into thunderous strops. Johnny encouraged it. He gave her stuff to punch, he let her push him overboard, and he even wrestled her. Most of the time, it ended in laughter or tears, and that was the whole point.
‘How the hell do they get my address?’ she screamed at him.
‘It’s not difficult if you want it badly enough. People leave digital footprints everywhere.’
She hoped that she never heard from Tony Blackman. No one had ever prosecuted a single individual for the drug-related indirect murder of three separate minors, and it had been tried at the Old Bailey as a ground-breaking case. Every day of the seven-week trial, the courtroom and public gallery were full to bursting as lawyers, barristers and QCs alike listened to how the case was tried. Kelly knew they had him on gross negligence manslaughter if it fell through, but she needn’t have worried.
They won. He got life, with a minimum of thirty-three years, for causing the deaths of Jenna Fraser, Jake Trent and Faith Shaw. Kelly had given evidence and she was the only witness Blackman had looked at. On the drugs charges, he’d received four sentences totalling seventy-three years. On top of his stretch for the murder of Belinda Rawlinson, he’d never see freedom again. Sadie and Luke both got suspended sentences, but their nightmares would be punishment enough. The screams of a terrified girl alone in the forest, knowing that her friends had left her there at the mercy of her attacker, would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Kelly sat on the bow of the yacht. The lake was utterly calm and disarming. She peered into the depths below. As far as she could see, it could have gone down for thousands of metres, hiding secrets no one would ever find. It mesmerised her. Johnny handled the controls and watched her. The early spring sun caught the fire in her hair and it shone orange and red, reflecting her fire. They were sailing to the Peak’s Bay Hotel to meet Ted. Kelly had taken her mother there for dinner on the night that she first suspected her parentage. It was almost a year ago now.
The plan had been to scatter Mum’s ashes near Dad’s in the hotel garden, under a rhododendron bush. But Kelly couldn’t bring herself to do it. She also couldn’t face telling Nikki why. The urn sat in a case in her bedroom, and she’d avoided Nikki’s questions and demands to hold a ceremony and choose a resting place.
They approached the wooden jetty that led to the prestigious hotel and spotted Ted waiting for them on the shoreline with a member of staff. He smiled. Kelly waved, and Johnny manoeuvred the boat expertly towards the landing. He switched off the engine and tethered his new pride and joy, and they both jumped off. Ted approached and embraced his daughter, then shook hands with Johnny.
‘I like the name,’ he said.
They all looked towards the boat and admired the newly sprayed title, in blue, on the stern.
Wendy, it read.