Perhaps it was just her imagination, but things felt different today. She passed the usual familiar plots: the ones adorned with flowers; the one with the old whiskey bottle; the grave with the stuffed toys resting against the stone. On the surface, they looked the same as always, but it felt like she was seeing them with fresh eyes this morning. The bottle had been there for a long time, and whoever had left it—presumably an old drinking buddy—had not returned since. The vibrant flowers seemed less like gestures of grief than of gratitude and love. And as sad as the child’s toys were, there was at least a kind of acknowledgment in their presence. Better they were here, surely, than gathering dust in some small, untouched bedroom maintained like a museum.
And all of that spoke a basic truth to her. In the past, she had thought of coming here as visiting her father, but she realized now that had never been the case. Her father was gone. Graveyards might have housed the dead below the ground, but what lay above was always for the living; they were the places where people came to deal with the break between what their lives had once been and what they now were. All the times she had come here, she had only really been visiting herself, and her relationship with the past.
And how she did that was up to her to decide.
She reached her father’s grave. That solid, dependable square of granite, with its careful lack of emotion.
“Hi, Dad,” she said. “I know you said you didn’t want me to talk to you, or any of that nonsense, but I’m afraid that’s tough. Because I miss you.”
There was no response from the stone, of course, and the cemetery around her remained silent. But the relief she felt was so overwhelming that she actually started to laugh. It turned into tears halfway through, and she put her hand to her nose.
“Oh fuck. But I do, you know. I miss you. And I’m sorry I didn’t turn out to be like you, but I guess that’s tough as well. Because the thing is, I think you’d be proud of me anyway.”
She paused.
“Yeah, I really think you would.”
That was enough for now. She stood there for a time, crying. Following another of her father’s instructions, she had never allowed herself to do that here before. But, as with everything else, she figured he would understand. Maybe he would even have quietly nodded his approval. Because he had raised his daughter to be strong, hadn’t he? To stand on her own two feet and make her own decisions rather than taking orders. If she wanted to cry, she would. Her choice.
In the same way, the answer to what kind of police officer she had turned out to be did not need to be judged against the kind her father had been. She was the kind she was. And if that was sometimes too involved, too haunted, too unable to box things up and keep the work separate from her life—so fucking be it.
But it felt like even that had changed, at least a little. It was nearly a week since the events in Gritten, and she had had the nightmare only once, two days after helping Paul escape from the woods. The dream had been superficially the same as always, but it too had felt different. She had been standing in the darkness, knowing someone was lost nearby, but this time she had recognized the dream for what it was, and the realization had calmed her.
Apparently, you could do anything you wanted in a lucid dream. But rather than attempting to create anything elaborate, Amanda had simply started walking in the blackness. She had never done that before. And while she had no idea if she was heading in the right direction, at least she was moving.
The nightmare hadn’t returned since.
She looked down at her father’s grave.
“I’ll only do this once,” she said. “I promise.”
She balanced the flowers she’d brought with her against the headstone, then turned around and went to work.
* * *
But not to Featherbank.
Instead, close to midday, she drove through the idyllic countryside surrounding Gritten, and then into the gray, beaten-down heart of its center. She passed the hotel she had stayed in last week, then pulled into the parking lot of the pub Paul had brought her to the first time they’d met. Inside, she found him sitting in the same seat as then. He looked different, though. His hair was cut neatly, and he was wearing a smart black suit. There was a half-finished beer on the table in front of him. She got herself a wine and joined him, making a show of checking her watch.
“Should you really be drinking yet?” she said.
“Absolutely. I’m not a fan of public speaking.”
“You’re a lecturer, for God’s sake.”
“I know. For now, at least.” He gestured at the beer. “And you didn’t even buy me a drink.”
She smiled. It was strange, given the bare handful of times they’d met, that she felt as relaxed in his company as she did. Perhaps it was simply a case of being bonded by events, but she liked him. Or, at least, she liked him well enough not to want to press him about everything that had really happened here in Gritten.
On one level, that was simple enough—messy in its own way, but still relatively straightforward. Forensics had tied Dean Price to the murders of William Roberts and Eileen and James Dawson. Bereft at the killing of his son, it seemed that Price had set out to discover the truth about Charlie Crabtree’s disappearance. To solve the problem in his own way. Amanda knew a little more about Price’s history in the army now: the things he had done; the dishonorable discharge; the way he’d struggled to find a purpose once back in civilian life. His son Michael had helped to provide that. When he lost that, something inside him had snapped.
Price’s body had been found deep in the woods the morning after he abducted Paul. While chasing him through the trees, Price had twisted an ankle. It appeared he had then attempted to move farther away between the trees, before eventually giving up hope of escape. Amanda had seen photographs of the scene officers discovered after the sun rose that next morning. A man like Price was never going to allow himself to be captured. He had been found sitting on the ground, his back against the base of a tree, his wrists cut, and the undergrowth around him soaked with blood.
Case closed.
Except there were so many questions that still lingered. She still didn’t know why Carl Dawson had returned to Gritten, or what he and Paul had really spoken about in the old playground that day. And Dean Price’s methods certainly did not fit with the marks that had been left on Paul’s mother’s door, or the doll that had been delivered to the house. And while the CC666 account had been traced to James Dawson’s computer, she didn’t understand why he would have sent the messages he had, or how he’d had a photo of Charlie Crabtree’s dream diary.
All of which meant she was quite sure there was something else going on here that she was missing. But neither Carl nor Paul were prepared to discuss it. They had kept their silences, leaving her with pieces of a mystery she couldn’t fit into place.
But which perhaps, she decided as she sipped her wine now, did not necessarily matter. After all, she had answers to the questions she needed. And while she was not her father, she had a feeling that whatever was being hidden from her here was something that might be better for everyone’s sake to leave alone.
“Why did you want to meet me today?” Paul said.
“Moral support,” she said. “Didn’t you know? Once you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them forever.”