Gone to Earth E-Book

Jane Jesmond

• Herausgeber: Verve Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: A Jen Shaw Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Seitenzahl: 457

Beschreibung

** From the acclaimed author of On the Edge and Cut Adrift comes the third and final instalment in the action-packed, 'pulse-pounding' Jen Shaw series **

Still reeling from a life-threatening experience on the coast of Calais, daredevil climber Jen Shaw finds herself in Glasgow for a funeral, devastated with grief and in search of answers.

As her dogged determination propels her closer to the criminal underworld than ever before, Jen and her family become the target of some dangerous and powerful people with links to the heart of Glasgow's Police Force.

In the absence of anyone she can truly trust, Jen has no option but to rely on her own instincts and everything she's learnt from her close bond with police officer Nick Crawford for survival. Even if it means going undercover herself and disappearing into the city's dark underbelly.

Gone to Earth is a fast-paced, atmospheric read with an utterly compelling, morally complex life-or-death plot. Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Sharon Bolton and Ann Cleeves.

'Climber Jen is once again a very relatable, strong protagonist, and the novel moves swiftly, with tight storyline and clever plotting. Captivated me from the first page. A fast-moving, clever book with wicked twists I never saw coming. Highly recommend!' - D.E. WHITE, author of Blindsided

'In Jen Shaw, the thrill-seeking climber, Jane has created a truly compelling character that draws you inexorably into the story. Jane's writing is full of tension, twists and surprises, and she tackles the murky theme of people-trafficking with courage and sensitivity' - SUSANNA BEARD, author of The Perfect Neighbour

'Gone to Earth explores contemporary issues with compassion and empathy. A thriller full of twists and turns and a climbing detective, with her feet on the ground, steering the reader to a gripping conclusion' - NICKY DOWNES, author of Her Perfect Girl

'An exciting, at times terrifying, conclusion to Jesmond's Jen Shaw trilogy. Fast-paced, perfectly plotted and agonisingly pertinent to our times' - ANNE COATES, author of the Hannah Weybridge series

PRAISE FOR JANE JESMOND

'An original voice in crime fiction' - SUNDAY TIMES

'Jesmond's thriller incorporates a very likeable protagonist and a really twisty plot with a thought-provoking moral dilemma' - MAIL ON SUNDAY

'A poignant, heart-rending read' - WOMAN'S OWN

'Jesmond's delineation of her characters as people with plausible flaws and hot tempers adds depth and complexity to a story that might wear its sentiments on its sleeves, yet which is trimly steered and freighted with contemporary resonance' - TIMES

'A well-crafted thriller that keeps you hooked from the start. Fans of The Girl On The Train will love it' - LOVE READING

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR GONE TO EARTH

‘A fast-moving, clever book with wicked twists I never saw coming. Highly recommend!’ – D.E. White, author of Blindsided

‘Gone to Earth explores contemporary issues with compassion and empathy. A thriller full of twists and turns and a climbing detective, with her feet on the ground, steering the reader to a gripping conclusion’ – Nicky Downes, author of Her Perfect Girl

‘Jesmond’s writing is full of tension, twists and surprises, and she tackles the murky theme of people-trafficking with courage and sensitivity’ – Susanna Beard, author of The Perfect Neighbour

‘Fast-paced, perfectly plotted and agonisingly pertinent to our times’ – Anne Coates, author of Murder in the Lady Chapel

PRAISE FOR JANE JESMOND

‘Riveting… Jesmond’s first novel marked her out as an original voice in crime fiction, and the new book shows how the conventions of the genre can be used to reveal a personal tragedy’ –Sunday Times (A Best Crime Novel of 2023)

‘Jesmond’s delineation of her characters as people with plausible flaws and hot tempers adds depth and complexity to a story that might wear its sentiments on its sleeves, yet which is trimly steered and freighted with contemporary resonance’ – Times (Thriller Book of the Month)

‘Finding a new voice with something compelling to say in the crime writing field can be difficult. Thankfully there are people out there trying to deliver a twist on the genre, and Jane Jesmond is one of them’ – On Yorkshire Magazine

‘This amazing debut novel from Jane Jesmond will give you all the thrills you’ve been looking for and keep you gripped from the get-go… We feel as though we have walked into the dark and stormy moors where this story takes place’ – Female First

‘A gripping premise, a well-executed plot and an evocative Cornish setting’ – NB Magazine

‘The thriller world has gained a compelling and seriously talented voice’ – Hannah Mary McKinnon

‘Gritty, gripping, knotty, intense – this is going to be HUGE’ – Fiona Erskine

‘A beautifully atmospheric story that grips you from the start! Jesmond cleverly weaves a tale of intrigue and suspense – a talented new crime fiction writer. One to watch!’ – Louise Mumford

For Oliver, for lots of reasons, and because he lives in Glasgow

PROLOGUE

Two months ago.

The English Channel off the north coast of France.

A moonless night and a calm sea. A smuggler’s night, they called it. Not that modern day smugglers needed the dark, Basset thought. Even in daylight the gendarmes were rarely quick enough to stop them launching their overloaded vessels.

He steered the boat towards the beach, eyes searching the shoreline for the torch he’d told the Englishman to wave. Two flashes every thirty seconds, he’d said. There’d been nothing for at least three minutes.

Maybe it had been a mistake to use the English youngster to help. Basset would have preferred to co-opt someone from one of the migrant gangs. Someone strong and silent. But he needed to dump the man out at sea immediately. While he was still alive so, if the body was ever found, his death would look like another migrant drowning. The Englishman had been handy. Already up to his neck in this and heading back to Glasgow tomorrow anyway, his work completed.

Finally two flashes from the shore. Basset motored in as close as possible, dropped the anchor, then followed it into the sea himself and waded ashore.

They manoeuvred the unconscious body through the shallow waves and into the boat. Then sailed into the Channel. The Englishman had given up asking stupid questions and was silent, crouched shivering on the deck next to the motionless man. The weight of the water stuck the clothes to his scrawny body and he’d stopped fiddling with the studs and chains that adorned his nose. Basset smiled. The youngster was smart enough, and mouthy enough when it came to technology, but faced with real life and its messy problems he was useless.

‘Ca suffit,’ Basset muttered when they were far enough out. ‘We put him in here.’

He stopped the engine and lurched over to squat by the unconscious man. Waves sloshed against the boat making movement difficult. He cut the cord tying his feet and hands together and removed the rough gag he’d shoved into his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ the youngster asked. A hint of panic brought his face to life.

‘It needs to look like an accidental drowning. Dieu le sait there are many in this part of the sea.’

‘Got it. Don’t want the feds to get interested.’

‘Feds?’

‘Pigs. Police. What do you call them, Pierre?’

‘La Gendarmerie Nationale.’

It riled Basset to hear his first name on the little chieur’s lips. But the instructions from Glasgow had been very clear. Ronnie was only to be trusted so far and he’d only be there for a couple of days, so no full name and Basset was to use a hired car rather than his own. He wished yet again he’d told the youngster to call him Monsieur rather than Pierre.

‘Who is he?’ Ronnie jerked his head towards the unconscious man.

‘Policier infiltré. I don’t know the word in English.’

In all honesty Basset wasn’t sure if the man was but the whispers about undercover British police infiltrating the smuggling gangs were more and more frequent and he couldn’t afford to take any risks. Not with their operation so close to launching. Not with the prospect of real money finally in sight.

Heaving the body out of the boat was easy enough. It fell with a satisfying deep-noted splash as the boat rocked from side to side. The immersion in icy water half-woke the man. He tossed his head around and made feeble gestures with his arms as he sank. A few seconds later he surfaced. Now fully awake. His eyes fixed on the boat and he shot his arms out of the water, seized the gunwale and began to hoist himself in. The hull dipped towards the water. Basset picked up the anchor and smashed it into his hands. And again and again until the man let go and slipped back into the sea.

Basset started up the engine and headed away, aware of the youngster looking back.

‘How long will he survive?’ Ronnie asked suddenly.

‘An hour perhaps. Probably less. The water is very cold and his hands are damaged.’

‘He started swimming as soon as we left.’

Basset didn’t bother to reply. They were ten kilometres from the coast. He would never reach shore. At least not alive.

The man swam in the direction the boat had gone. He guessed the coast must be that way. But after a while, he stopped and went back to simply keeping himself afloat and concentrating on breathing in between the waves washing over him. He thought he’d last longer that way because his only hope was a passing boat. The cold seeped into his muscles and fogged his brain but still he forced his limbs to move through water that was becoming thicker and thicker.

Some time later the moon rose and cast a cold light over the inky sea. The man no longer felt chilled but then he hadn’t felt anything for a while. He knew his limbs were still working because his face stayed mainly above water. Enough to breathe from time to time. The moonlight revealed what he should have realised earlier. Waves rose and fell around him. He managed to rise to the top of the smaller ones but the larger ones defeated his muscles’ fading strength and submerged him. Not that it mattered any more. All that mattered was that they hid him from all but the tallest boats. No one was going to find him. No one had ever been going to find him. This was the end of his story and he was never going to know how everybody else’s finished.

One

Cornwall. Two months later.

My phone rang as I waited in the queue at Asda in St Austell. The summer season had begun and, for once, the sun shone here in Cornwall. The supermarket rang with the chatter of sandy children, sticky with the residue of salt water and sweets, clutching buckets, spades and plastic fishing nets that would rip the moment they snagged against a rock. Parents watched on, too lazy from the warmth to do much more than smile.

My first thought was to leave my phone unanswered. It wouldn’t be urgent. Neither Rania nor Aya, the orphaned children of an old Libyan friend of Ma’s who now lived with us, had appointments in the next few days with the array of doctors, social workers and counsellors who were supposed to be helping them recover from the trauma of their mother’s death and flight from Libya. So, if the call was another change to the timing of one of these, it could wait.

I hoped it wasn’t because it would piss Ma off even more. The horror of the crossing from Libya to Europe in a sinking migrant boat had stopped Aya speaking for months and she’d only recently started talking again. Just a word here and there. But her recovery was fragile and she needed each day to be the same. To get up at the same time, eat the same breakfast, see the same faces, go for the same walk to the lighthouse and so on. It would have been funny to watch my impulsive, new-agey mother stick to a rigid schedule if I didn’t think some of her free spirit had been extinguished by the awfulness of the last few months.

‘Her phone’s ringing.’ The small boy sitting in the trolley in front of me waved the lolly he was sucking in my direction. His mother smiled. He opened his mouth to tell me, revealing teeth startlingly white against his purple-stained tongue. I pulled a face at him as the ringing stopped and he giggled.

It could be my brother Kit calling. He’d left Cornwall and gone to London with his wife and daughter almost as soon as Ma and I had returned with the girls. He’d gone for work, although he’d felt bad about leaving us. He didn’t need to. Someone had to earn money and he was paying rent for my flat, even though I’d told him he could stay there for nothing. I knew he was sending Ma money too.

A collective sigh rippled down the queue as the cashier explained to a man who’d forgotten to weigh his carrots that he’d have to go and do it himself.

My phone rang again. This time I pulled it out of my bag. I might as well answer. I wasn’t going to be reaching the checkout any time soon.

It was a Spanish number.

The noise of people chatting and trolleys rattling disappeared. A wild hope pierced my thoughts as sharp and painful as a shard of glass.

Nick?

Was it Nick?

I abandoned my trolley and headed for the exit. But my phone had stopped ringing by the time I got outside.

No message.

It didn’t matter. I had the number. I could call back. Just needed a moment. A few seconds to collect the thoughts ricocheting around my head.

You fool!

You might not have a moment.

This could be a call Nick had snatched from a moment of safety. A few seconds in the middle of whatever undercover mission he was on.

I called back. And then I glued the phone to my ear and screwed my eyes tight shut. Only the heat bouncing off the tarmac and the smell of diesel reminded me of where I was.

It went straight to voicemail and a male voice fired rapid Spanish at me.

Shit, shit, shit.

He’d called someone else. Why hadn’t I answered straightaway?

I went to my car. I’d go back later and buy the fish fingers and oven chips that were the only things Aya would eat for supper and the harissa paste Rania daubed her meals with and the pearl barley Ma ground to make flour for dumplings for her. Aya had turned her back on any food that reminded her of Libya but Rania couldn’t get enough of it.

I drove to the church and walked through the scattering of graves to the back where I sat on a bench provided in memory of someone loved and lost. It was the only place I could think of that wouldn’t be overrun with tourists. Should I try the number again? If Nick was still undercover somewhere, was I risking his safety?

Except the phone number was Spanish. Surely that meant he was home. Back in Alajar, the little Andalusian village he lived in.

But still I hesitated.

My gaze ran over the gravestones. Most so old that hidden movements underground had shifted them so they leaned at random angles.

My phone rang again. A Spanish number. The same number.

I answered it. My voice croaked a hello.

‘Jen?’

‘Yes.’ And in case I wasn’t clear. ‘This is Jen. You’re speaking to Jen.’

But as the words tumbled out of my mouth, I knew it wasn’t him. It had taken a few seconds for my brain to register the voice. It wasn’t Nick’s.

‘Jen.’ The voice was slow.

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Angel.’

Angel. One of Nick’s Spanish cousins and his closest friend. I remembered the last time I’d seen him. In the bar he ran in Alajar, sitting at the counter doing his accounts, the half-moon glasses he was wearing incongruous with his shaved head and tattooed arms.

‘Angel. Have you got any news?’

Silence. I wondered if I’d spoken too quickly. Angel’s English was very good but it was difficult when you couldn’t see the person speaking.

‘Do you have news? News from… your cousin?’

Some fear for Nick stopped me from saying his name on an open phone line.

‘Yes. I am sorry. I am very sorry.’

I knew what was coming before he said it as though the thought behind the words travelled faster than the actual words themselves. Like the lag between where a plane is in the sky and where the roar comes from.

‘Jen. Nico is dead.’

Two

I dumped the shopping on the kitchen table. The one in Tregonna’s old and battered kitchen, the only part of the house Kit hadn’t renovated. Rania looked up from the coloured threads and beads she was intertwining.

‘I made another bracelet.’

Ma had bought a kit for making so-called friendship bracelets in a charity shop in St Austell. Rania loved making them. I suspected she’d have loved some friends to give them to, as well. We had to do something about that. It wasn’t normal for a thirteen-year-old to be so alone.

I smiled.

She waved her hand still clutching the bracelet towards the shopping.

‘You bought the pearl barley?’

I nodded.

‘Fantastic. Morwenna and I are going to make bazin. We’re going to practise until it tastes like my grandmother’s.’

I managed to nod. My brain had been blank since I’d spoken to Angel. Blank while I’d redone the shopping and driven home. Finally a thought now flickered into life. Rania’s top was grubby. Her dark hair needed a good brush. And there were more holes in her jeans than material.

‘I shall make you a bracelet.’ Her bony face lit up.

I knew I should show some enthusiasm but numbness blanketed me.

Ma came in through the back. With Aya. Both of them were clutching loose bunches of wild flowers that swished and swayed in a gust of wind curling in through the open door. Ma’s dress, equally flowery, wrapped itself round her legs and her long, wavy hair blew over her face. She spat it away. Aya giggled.

The three of us stared at her, waiting to see if there would be more. There wasn’t. The little girl pushed the door shut, handed her flowers to Ma, then took off her backpack and hung it on the low peg I’d put up at the right height for a six-year-old. Exactly as she did every day. Each action measured and precise.

The psychologist had told Ma we shouldn’t put any pressure on Aya to talk. In fact, we should go out of our way to make it easy for her to function without speaking. It was working. She said little but her presence became more solid every day.

Normally Ma chattered away on Aya’s behalf when they came back from their daily walk to the lighthouse, after a stop in a small cove where Aya lost herself for an hour or so playing in the sand and pools. Today she was quiet.

‘And what did you do today, Morwenna?’ Rania said, puzzled by Ma’s unusual silence.

Something had happened, I thought, as Ma now told Rania how she and Aya had seen cormorants diving for fish, how Gregory, the retired lighthouse keeper, had made tea for Ma and how he’d bought the chocolate biscuits Aya liked, and how Aya had eaten two of them and drawn a picture of the sea for him. But a streak of some unconnected emotion ran under her words.

‘Supper in half an hour, Aya,’ she said. ‘You can watch Scooby.’

Aya trotted after Ma into the little room beyond the kitchen that had been colonised since we returned with toys and games. Something was definitely up. Ma rarely parked Aya in front of the television.

She came back in.

‘Is something wrong, Morwenna?’ Rania had noticed. But she was hyper-alert to any sign of disruption in her life. The skin over her sharp nose and cheekbones looked more stretched than normal. I wished she wasn’t so skinny.

‘Not at all.’

Ma sat down at the kitchen table and started sorting through the pile of wildflowers as I put the shopping away.

‘I shall press them,’ she said. ‘And make pictures with them. The craft shop in St Austell told me they sell really well.’ She looked up at me.

I realised I hadn’t spoken since I got back.

‘Good idea,’ I managed to say.

We had supper. Fish fingers and chips for Aya. Last night’s stew, jazzed up with bzaar, a Libyan spice mix, for the rest of us. Only Rania ate it.

Afterwards Ma put Aya to bed and Rania disappeared into the back room to plait more bracelets.

‘Is something wrong?’ I asked when Ma came back down.

‘No. Yes.’

She sat at the table and sorted the wildflowers into colours while I washed up.

‘Which is it?’

She sighed but, for once, came straight to the point.

‘Mr Penrose rang while you were shopping. Your father’s solicitors have been in touch.’

Mr Penrose was Ma’s solicitor. We were locked in a family battle over Tregonna, the vast house we lived in. Ma loved it. It was her home, her refuge and the place she’d brought us up in when Pa had walked out on her. But it still belonged to Pa and he wanted to sell it. Ultimately he was going to win. It was just a question of how much he’d have to give Ma in recompense.

‘Your father has made a very good offer. Half of the money from Tregonna after the mortgage has been paid off and sales costs and so on. Mr Penrose says it’s more than a court would give me and he advises me to accept it.’

Really it was good news. Ma would have plenty of money for a house and maybe some left over. But the thought of trying to find Ma somewhere to live on top of everything else was overwhelming.

‘We knew it was going to happen at some point,’ I said.

‘I could do without it now.’

‘It won’t sell quickly, Ma. We’ve got time. Who’d want to buy it?’

‘Lots of people according to Mr Penrose. He thinks developers will snap it up and convert it into flats. Apparently that’s what everybody wants, especially in a setting like this.’

I suspected Mr Penrose was right and I was wrong. There were new developments mushrooming along the coast.

‘It will mean more disruption for Rania and Aya,’ Ma said.

‘We’ll deal with it.’ I tried to sound comforting and strong but the thought of the weeks and months ahead was depressing. It would be like trudging up a low gradient slope of a vast mountain, endlessly placing one foot in front of the other but knowing it was going to take forever to reach the top.

‘We’ll deal with it,’ I said again.

‘Aya is doing better.’ Ma spoke as if she hadn’t heard me. ‘I can feel the words just waiting to pop out of her. It’s Rania I’m concerned about. She can’t sleep. She says she wakes up in the night and her head is full of thoughts that stop her from sleeping again.’

Rania and Aya had both slept huge amounts when we’d first got to Tregonna. As had I. It wasn’t surprising that, now the initial exhaustion had passed, Rania was struggling.

‘Doesn’t it worry you that she never talks about her mother? It’s always her grandmother.’

‘She’ll find her own way through. There’s no fixed pathway for voyaging through your grief.’

Ma was right but I still wondered if we should be doing something.

‘I said she should come and wake me to share her thoughts,’ Ma added. ‘But she hasn’t so far.’

‘She doesn’t like to wake you.’

‘I’m not asleep. I have my own thoughts that keep me awake. There’s not enough time for them during the day.’

That was probably true. Her skin had the crumpled and chalky look of someone who was very tired.

‘I think of Peter,’ she said quietly. ‘I try not to but he worms his way into my head. I got up last night and made jam. There was some rhubarb in the old kitchen garden. Anything was better than lying there wondering if I’d killed him.’

‘Ma!’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it? If he’d never met me, he would still be teaching English on Malta.’ Ma seized a handful of flowers and wound them into a thick rope round her fingers.

She was right. Peter had been her lover on Malta but when someone had betrayed us to the people-smugglers, it had looked as though it was Peter. I’d reported him to Nick’s boss and shortly afterwards Peter had died in a convenient accident. Too convenient, I’d thought at the time, and I still did. But I had no way of knowing for sure if Nick’s department had arranged his death to protect Nick.

It was only afterwards I’d learned someone else could have betrayed us. Ma knew too. And both of us were struggling to come to terms with what had happened. I thought we never would. In fact, I hoped we never would.

‘It would be easier if I knew he’d sold us down the river,’ Ma said. ‘Then I could harden my heart and spit in his face when he walks into my head.’

‘We’ll never know. Not for sure.’

She twisted the flowers tighter. My words lingered in the air.

There was so much we’d never know. So much I didn’t know. I began to wonder how Nick had died. Why hadn’t I asked Angel? Why had I just listened to what he said and then let him go?

‘What is it, Jen?’

I didn’t have any words. There was a curious emptiness inside me. And around me. The water in the sink was hot but I couldn’t feel it. Someone else’s hands were bathed in it. Someone else wiped the grease from the plates and piled them up to drain.

‘Is it Nick?’

I don’t believe in the crap that Ma loves – the mystic stuff, the crystals, the aligning yourself with forces of positive energy and cosmic unity – but sometimes I think she is a witch.

She took silence as her answer.

‘I felt he was in great danger,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘Great danger.’

I stared out of the window at the wall of one of the outhouses that littered the grounds. Ivy had dug its way into the joints. I should pull it out. Except its tendrils might be the only things holding the wall up.

‘Jen,’ Ma said.

I’d leave the ivy alone. It would be a real pain if the wall did come down. That particular shed was one of the few whose roof was intact and we’d need somewhere to keep the bike Ma wanted to get for Rania. Because a bike would give Rania a bit of freedom. And there wasn’t room for one in the corridor by the back door.

I felt her hand on my shoulder and smelt the lavender essential oil she used all the time now. Good for grief, she said. Good for loss and stress.

The bricks and ivy blurred. A buzzing filled my ears.

Ma made me sit down.

Words arrived.

‘Nick is dead.’

And the relief of saying it.

‘Oh, Jen.’ She dragged her chair round and put her arms round me. I felt the first stirrings of sorrow churn my gut. ‘How?’

How? I didn’t know.

‘I don’t know.’

‘His job, I suppose?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’

She waited.

‘Angel phoned me. His cousin in Spain. His best friend, really.’

She waited some more.

‘He told me Nick was dead. I think he said, drowned. But I don’t remember.’

She tightened her arms round me.

‘He wanted me to go to the funeral with him.’

‘When is it?’

‘In a couple of days. I told him I couldn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of all this.’ I waved a hand round the kitchen. ‘Looking after the girls and taking them to their appointments and dealing with Tregonna and the solicitors. And…’

‘And what? I can cope for a couple of days.’

‘Because…’

Because nothing had ever been sure between me and Nick. We’d had a short time together in Alajar which had ended in a bitter argument when he’d left to go undercover. We’d met again on Malta, both caught up in the same people-smuggling gang, and I hadn’t trusted him. Until the end.

And now he was dead and I wasn’t even sure how. There was so much I didn’t know. I wanted to know. I needed to know.

‘I have to call Angel,’ I said.

Three

Nick’s funeral took place in Scotland. Not Spain as I’d assumed. In Helensburgh, a small town stretched along the banks of the Firth of Clyde near Glasgow. It was where Nick’s Scottish family lived and where Nick had been brought up.

It was a part of his life I knew nothing about. Nick had never seemed keen to talk about it.

Angel met me at Glasgow Airport. I barely recognised him. Partly because he was wearing a sharp suit that hid his tattooed arms but mainly because he looked shrunken and grey. Nothing like the confident and slightly fearsome master of the bar he ran in Alajar. If it hadn’t been for his shaven head, I might have walked past him.

It took him a couple of looks to recognise me, too. I’d borrowed Ma’s least flouncy dress, a navy blue linen thing with big pockets and an irritatingly tight collar. He flung his arms around me, which was a surprise. For a few minutes, I could have been in the bar as the doughy sweet smell of churros undercut by traces of beer rose from his clothes. I wanted to cry. But I didn’t.

He did, though. He told me his plane had got in a few hours before mine and he’d hired a car while he waited. And tears rolled down his face as he spoke. We should go. Helensburgh wasn’t far from the airport but we didn’t have a lot of time before the funeral started.

‘How did he die?’ I asked as we hurried towards the car park.

‘He drowned but that is all I know. Duncan, his cousin, phoned me. To tell me. To ask me to come to the funeral.’

‘His cousin?’

‘From his father. His father was Scottish although his mother was Spanish. You knew that, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

But that was all I did know about his family.

We reached the car and I snatched a look at Angel’s face. He’d stopped weeping. It was fixed and grim, now.

‘When did you last see him?’ I asked.

‘When you did,’ he said. ‘That night in the bar when you and Nico argued and he left to go undercover again.’

Angel didn’t know I’d met up with Nick on Malta.

‘I know some things,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you as you drive.’

He manoeuvred out of the car park, muttering under his breath in Spanish. What should I tell him? Everything, really. Nothing could harm Nick now he was dead, and, besides, he’d trusted Angel.

I told him how I’d come across Nick in Malta while Ma and I had been trying to stop Rania and Aya being sent back to Libya after their mother died in a fire at the refugee camp. How Rania had fallen into the hands of child-traffickers and Nick, despite the danger of giving himself away, had helped to rescue her.

And for a moment, I was transported back to the last time I’d seen him. On a beach in Calais, as I lay half-stunned in a pool of icy water, surrounded by darkness and confusion, hearing gunshots break through the noise of waves crashing onto the rocky shore and the low thrum of a boat waiting for the refugees to wade out and clamber aboard for the final stage of their journey to the UK.

‘He left on the boat with the other refugees,’ I said. ‘But when it landed in the UK he wasn’t on it.’

Neither were Leila and Yasmiin, the two young women refugees who’d also helped Rania to escape.

‘I think maybe the smugglers killed him because he helped Rania. I think they suspected him. Life is very cheap to men like that.’

In my darkest moments I was tormented by images of all three of them in the inky black water, Nick, Leila and Yasmiin, rising and falling with the swell and desperately trying to keep their heads above the waves. How long would they have survived?

I looked over at Angel. His face was as grey as the sky.

‘I shouldn’t have asked him for help. It was too dangerous.’

‘Nico would not have let danger stop him from helping an innocent child.’

I thought it was more complicated.

‘You shouldn’t blame yourself,’ Angel added.

But I did.

Except if I could go back in time and never ask Nick to help, I wouldn’t. Not if it meant sacrificing Rania.

‘I saw the man who bought Rania,’ I said. ‘While I was waiting at the lighthouse near Calais for night to come so I could run along the beach in the dark to meet her. I saw him hand over money for her.’

I hadn’t realised what I was watching until later and the memory was seared onto my brain. A large and untidy man with bouffant white hair disturbed by the wind.

If I ever saw him again, I’d kill him.

‘I spent a lot of time not trusting Nick,’ I said. ‘I should have known him better.’

It was the closest I could get to apologising to him.

‘He was, I think, very good at his job.’ Angel voice was quiet. ‘It didn’t make him easy to trust.’

‘I have to know what happened, Angel. If Nick’s death was because of me. Where did they find his body?’

‘Duncan didn’t say. Drowned. That was all he said. Drowned. But we didn’t talk for long. I was too…’

He broke off and started muttering to himself in Spanish once more. Sharp and passionate words full of pain. Some I understood. Amigo. Hermano, which I thought meant brother. But I didn’t need to know the vocabulary to understand Angel’s grief. The tears rolled down his cheeks again although his gaze was still fixed on the road ahead.

Despite the weeping, his driving was sure and deft. Just like Nick. Angel’s hands on the steering wheel here. Nick’s hands on the steering wheel in Alajar. Nick’s hands holding me the night in the mountains when we’d gone to look at the stars and hadn’t come back until morning. They all blurred into one.

Being with Angel had stripped the skin from my feelings. I swallowed and forced myself to concentrate on the here and now.

The road left Glasgow and the motorway and buildings behind. Trees on our right hid the hills that stretched into the clouds and to our left the River Clyde had widened to an estuary. A few specks I thought were raptors wheeled over the waters.

The crematorium was on a quiet stretch of road with a view across the Clyde to distant fields, one minute glinting in the sunshine and the next broken up by the scudding clouds. It was a beautiful sight. Half an hour’s drive from Glasgow and it felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere.

A dark-suited man approached us as we drove up to the cemetery building. He bent down to speak to Angel through his open window.

‘For Jamie Kincaid?’ he said.

I opened my mouth to say no as Angel said yes.

‘Plenty of parking down there.’

‘Jamie Kincaid?’ I said as Angel drove into a parking space and switched the engine off.

‘Yes,’ Angel said. ‘Did you not know?’

‘No, Angel. I did not.’

He’d called himself Nick Crawford when I’d first met him in Cornwall. In Malta, he’d been Brahim but I’d known that was an assumed name. In Alajar, they called him Nico. Nico Carrasco. I’d assumed that was his real name.

‘He was Jamie Nicholas Carrasco Kincaid,’ Angel said. He stumbled over the Jamie. ‘Jamie is pronounced Himay in Spanish. When he was young, Nico hated it because it sounded so different. So he used his second name when he came to Alajar every summer. Carrasco was his mother’s family name and Kincaid his father’s.’

Nick Crawford.

Nico Carrasco.

Jamie Kincaid.

I’d been calling him the wrong name all this time. I hadn’t really known Nick at all, had I?

‘To me, he will always be Nico. Mi hermano Nico.’

I envied Angel. He was so sure of his relationship with Nick.

The feeling of not knowing Nick persisted as Angel and I took our places in the almost empty chapel. It was light, airy and quiet. Every shuffle or cough cracked the silence. They should have had music. Nick loved music. Or at least the Nick I knew in Alajar did.

The coffin arrived and I understood why the chapel was half-empty. It was carried and escorted by a horde of policemen, who waited in the aisle until it was placed on a covered stand, then filed into the rows of chairs.

The family followed and took their places in the front row. I caught a glimpse of an older woman, her face buried in a handkerchief, clutching the arm of a younger man with blond hair damped and flattened over his skull, but my eyes were fixed on the simple wooden coffin sitting alone in the front.

Nick. It was Nick.

Memories poured in. I saw Nick the first time I’d met him. On the road leading down from the lighthouse near Tregonna, when he’d got out of his car in the middle of a storm and let me drive it home.

I remembered our hands stretched out on the wall of the ramparts in Mdina, nearly touching, as he warned me of the danger Ma was facing.

And, once again, the night in the mountains above Alajar, when we stared at the star-filled night and talked about the universe shifting around us and I’d felt as though I was on the prow of a ship travelling through space with him.

It was hard to hold onto those memories as the service progressed. This was Jamie Kincaid’s funeral and, as I listened to the celebrant, I realised Jamie Kincaid was a stranger.

Jamie Kincaid had been born in Helensburgh. To a Scottish father and a Spanish mother. His parents had both died while he was a child. His mother from cancer when he was six and his father, from unspecified causes, when he was sixteen but his extended family in Scotland and Spain had rallied round and Jamie had been a happy child despite these tragedies.

He’d done well at school, studied modern languages at London University but afterwards he’d gone into the police because he was fixed on following the family tradition. The celebrant read a short piece from one of his tutors at the Scottish Police College. Jamie had been an outstanding student. Academically gifted but also understanding and compassionate. There was little else said about his career and nothing about how he’d found his way into undercover work.

I’d always wanted to know about Nick but not like this.

The eulogy tailed away into platitudes about a young life cut short, so much promise etc etc. And then the coffin gave a little jerk, the curtains at the head of the platform it lay on parted, and it slid on some hidden conveyor belt through the opening until it disappeared and the curtains closed again.

And that was that. Jamie Kincaid’s funeral service was over. Jamie Kincaid’s life was over.

The family filed out but I wasn’t ready to. Neither it seemed was Angel. We both sat and stared at where the coffin had been, as people slowly rose and followed the family out.

‘Fiona,’ Angel said suddenly. ‘I was trying to remember Nico’s family. One of his aunts is called Fiona. I think she is Duncan’s mother. I remember now. Nico spent every summer in Alajar. At first he came with his mother but when she died, his father sent him and the Carrascos collected him at Malaga airport. Senora Carrasco talked of nothing but his arrival for weeks before. And when his father died, he came and lived with them. We were sixteen. His aunt came with him then. I think she wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing, moving to a little village in a remote part of Andalusia.’

‘And was he?’

Angel smiled and tears came to his eyes again. ‘I think so. I think there were no reminders in Alajar of his father’s death and he wanted to forget. He never spoke of it.’

‘How did his father die? They skated over it in the eulogy.’

‘Skated?’

‘They didn’t say much about it.’

Angel cast a quick look around but the chapel was empty now.

‘I only know a little. His body was found in a Glasgow canal. He was beaten and stabbed. They never found out who did it but everyone suspected it was a…’

‘Gang? Organised crime?’

‘I think so. Nico said his father had suspected someone in the police of being involved with criminals.’

‘It happens.’

‘In Spain too. Everywhere.’

‘Excuse me.’

The man with the flat blond hair stood at the end of the row of chairs. He’d come in from outside where the wind had ruffled the very ends into curls.

‘I’m afraid the next service is going to start soon. It’s a bit like a conveyor belt here.’

Angel looked confused.

‘We need to leave, Angel,’ I said. ‘The next funeral will be here soon.’

‘You are Angel?’

He pronounced his name ankle but Angel understood.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Duncan. Jamie’s cousin. We spoke on the phone. So glad you could come.’

He held out a hand and Angel shook it awkwardly. Duncan turned to me.

‘Jen Shaw,’ I said. ‘I’m… I was a friend of… Jamie’s from Spain.’

I stared into his face, some part of me willing him to have heard my name before. For Nick to have mentioned me. But no flicker of recognition broke his heavy features.

Now that he was close the family resemblance was clear. Neither he nor Nick was tall and both were solidly built. Each had a confidence in their bodies as though they knew they’d work when needed. I suspected Duncan’s hair curled like Nick’s did when it wasn’t slicked down. Duncan’s was blond though and his skin had the pallor of the typical Scot whereas Nick’s had been light brown. Duncan looked like Nick’s ghost. A Nick who’d lost all the colour and energy that made his dark eyes glow and his mouth twitch with laughter. A faded copy.

Two dark-suited men appeared at the door.

‘We need to go.’

‘Angel and I know very little about his death?’ It was a statement but it came out as a question. ‘Could you… tell us how he died?’

Duncan looked unsure.

‘Not here,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s happening now but if you could find some time for us.’

‘I have questions, too,’ Angel said. ‘Practical things. I look after Nico’s house in Alajar. What is to happen to it? And to his car?’

Duncan frowned then sighed.

‘Aye, right. We should talk. We’re going back to my mam’s. Just the family and a few friends. Come too.’

We went back to the cars, through groups of policemen chatting to each other. I scoured their faces. Nick’s boss who I’d met a couple of times wasn’t here but maybe there were others who’d worked in his department.

‘Are the police all local?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Duncan said and pressed his lips into a tight line.

Four

We followed Duncan’s car to a house on the outskirts of Helensburgh. An imposing granite building with wide steps leading up to a front door framed by white pillars and pediments. Duncan waited for us at the top.

‘My mam has the flat on the first floor,’ he said.

A large white sitting room looked out over the sea but it was barely visible through the people crowding in. Mainly family and friends, I thought, although a few police uniforms were visible. The noise of chat engulfed me as Duncan took us over to the two older women we’d seen in the cemetery and introduced us. They were Fiona, Duncan’s mother, and her sister, Margaret. They sat together on one of the large squashy sofas and clutched each other’s hands.

‘Duncan, get them a drink.’ Fiona patted the sofa next to her and we dutifully sat down. ‘Angel, what would you like?’ She gave Angel’s name its correct pronunciation.

‘Tea is good,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Same for me.’

‘I remember you, Angel,’ she said. Her eyes were red and puffy and she dabbed them constantly with a handkerchief. ‘You rode over on a battered bike to see Jamie, five minutes after we arrived. When my brother died and I took him to Spain.’

Her face disappeared into her hands as a bout of weeping overcame her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually as the storm calmed. ‘It’s all such a waste. The family wiped out.’ She picked up a framed photo from the coffee table. ‘My brother’s wedding day.’ Tears threatened to overwhelm her again. ‘It was a beautiful day. And they were so in love.’

I barely looked at the photo, just enough to get an impression of a host of men in kilts and women in floral frocks. The bridegroom and bride were kissing so their faces were hidden. It was very hot in the room and the noise and emotion were suffocating.

‘I still can’t believe Jamie is dead. He was such a livewire as a child. He was happy, wasn’t he, Margaret?’

Her sister nodded.

‘Despite everything.’ She picked up another photo. ‘Look at him smiling here.’ It was a photo of Nick and Duncan, both in police uniform, grinning at each other. So Duncan was a police officer too. ‘That was at their graduation. I was so pleased that they went to college together. Now I wish Jamie’d done anything but follow in his father’s footsteps. Why? Why Jamie? I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.’

She buried her face in her hands. A tall man in a police uniform, his hair a curious shade of grey flecked with faded auburn, came over and put his hand on her shoulder, then bent over her and said something. I stood.

‘Have my seat,’ I said.

This was pointless. I couldn’t ask his aunts how Nick had died and the heat and noise were making me feel sick. I shook my head slightly at Angel and slipped out of the room. It was cooler in the corridor. The front door had been left open and a faint draught swirled in.

A police officer with a neat red beard and slightly less neat moustache came out of the kitchen, holding the door open for Duncan who was carrying a tray of tea and whisky.

‘Are you OK?’ Duncan asked when he saw me. ‘You’re very white. You should sit down? I’ll turf someone out of a chair for you.’

‘I’m better here where there’s some air.’

‘A glass of water?’

I nodded.

‘I’ll get it,’ the bearded police officer with Duncan said. ‘You give everybody their drinks.’

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ Duncan said.

I drank the water slowly when the police officer returned and felt a little better.

‘Thank you. It’s been a long day. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘Xander. Short for Alexander. Never liked the name.’

‘Jen. Short for Jenifry. Not keen on mine either.’

He seemed happy to wait here with me unless he was being polite. It was hard to tell. His face gave little away. He was younger than I’d thought he was. His beard added a few years to his age. I wondered how well he’d known Jamie Kincaid.

‘I didn’t think police were allowed to have beards,’ I said.

‘Sorry.’ He was so much taller than me that he had to stoop to catch my words.

I said it again and he smiled.

‘Provided they’re tidy and don’t obscure your mouth we are. I have Scottish skin,’ he added. ‘It burns even on a cloudy day. The beard helps.’

I wondered if he’d known Nick well.

‘Did you know Jamie from work?’

‘Not really. My dad did. Jamie had already been, er… seconded to London when I joined up.’

I understood that to London was as close as he was going to get to talking about Nick’s role in the police.

‘Not many of us knew him really, but he was still a brother officer,’ he said. ‘That’s why we came to the funeral.’

I tried another question.

‘Did any of his colleagues come up from London?’

‘Aye.’

‘Who?’

‘Ach, they’ve gone already. Strange crowd.’

I gave up. He knew nothing. We watched as Duncan handed out drinks to the sea of people. Most took the whisky rather than tea. Even Nick’s aunts were knocking it back. I sipped some more of my water.

Nick’s aunt Margaret stood up suddenly and came out.

‘People need refills,’ she said. ‘Better to put the bottles out.’

She scurried away and came back a few seconds later clutching two bottles of whisky. She offered me some but I shook my head. ‘You’re drinking water,’ she said to Xander.

‘I’m driving my parents home.’

‘Aye, right, you’re a good boy. Your dad is taking it bad.’

She patted his cheek and he winced, his skin blotching red. She plunged back into the room where she filled up her own glass and Fiona’s, and put the bottles on the coffee table. Everyone helped themselves.

Xander sighed.

‘I guess I’m here for a while,’ he said. ‘I came with my parents. My dad was a good friend of Jamie’s dad. They trained together and he’s stayed close to the family.’

He pointed out the older man, also in police uniform, the one with greying red hair who’d taken my seat next to Nick’s aunts. His back was turned to us so I couldn’t see his face but the height and the breadth of his shoulders marked him out as Xander’s father. He was a powerful-looking man as was Xander.

‘Dad said Jamie was a chip off the old block.’

The roar of chatter grew even louder.

‘Dad told me Jamie had drowned,’ Xander said. There was a query in his voice.

‘That’s what I heard.’ I wondered what else Xander might know. ‘Did he tell you where?’

‘France, I think. I’m sure someone said Calais.’

This wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

‘And Nick… Jamie’s colleagues from London, did they tell you anything about his death?’

‘Nick?’

‘Jamie, I mean. He was Nico in Spain.’

‘Not really.’ He hesitated. ‘They hinted he might have gone off-brief, though.’

‘Off-brief? What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know really.’ His pale skin flushed again. ‘I was wondering if you did.’

‘No.’

I thought I did. I thought Nick’s colleagues were referring to the help he’d given me. And I couldn’t help myself. Tears pricked my eyes and a couple spilled out. I wiped them quickly and looked away from Xander.

‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ he asked after a while.

‘No. Cornwall.’

‘But you knew Jamie from Spain?’

‘Yes. But not well. Not well at all.’ The anger I felt every time I realised how true this was flickered in my voice and Xander stopped asking questions.

Angel looked over at me. He was an island of stillness in the talking and gesticulating horde around him. I didn’t want to talk about Nick any more so I waved for him to come over and join us.

‘It is very loud,’ he said. ‘Not at all like in Spain.’

‘What do you do in Spain?’ Xander asked. I guessed he was glad to change the subject too.

‘We bury the body. Then a few days later all the friends and family meet for a rosario. Where we share memories of the… dead person. But it is a quiet thing. Not full of noise like this. Noise and anger. The aunt is very angry.’

‘Fiona?’

‘Yes.’

He was right. Her face was red and contorted and the man Xander had pointed out as his father seemed to be the recipient of her fury.

‘It’s the whisky,’ Xander said. ‘A Scottish failing.’

‘Nico didn’t like whisky,’ Angel said.

‘Nico?’

‘Jamie. He didn’t even like the smell of it. And after today, I don’t think I will ever drink it again.’

There wasn’t anything we could say to that so we stood in silence staring at the people. Nothing could express how weird and horrible today felt.

Fiona’s voice, her words indistinguishable, rose above the din. Her face was tight with anger as she spat words at Xander’s father. Behind him, a slim woman with a bob of polished, black hair and a beautifully cut grey linen dress watched with no expression. I guessed she was Xander’s mother. They weren’t at all alike but she shot him a cool glance and gave him a barely noticeable shake of her head. He stood a little straighter and his hands whitened on the glass he was holding.

Xander’s father stood up abruptly and headed towards us. I was startled. Angel looked grief-stricken and grim but this man was consumed by his emotion. It scored deep lines into his loose and open-pored skin and dragged down the curve of his mouth. I realised it wasn’t grief. It looked more like anger.

‘We’re away,’ he muttered to Xander as he pushed past us. His wife stopped, though, and shook her head as Xander started to ask what had happened. Some unspoken communication passed between them.

Xander gave me a quick smile and followed her outside.

Duncan came out holding an empty tray. ‘Did they leave?’

‘You mean Xander and his parents?’

‘Yes.’

I nodded.

He swore under his breath.

‘Mam just let rip at him. At Xander’s father, I mean. Sandy. He encouraged Jamie to go into the police so she’s decided it’s all his fault. But she’s lashing out at everyone.’

Angel looked confused. I wasn’t sure if he was struggling to follow Duncan’s choice of words or if he was as bewildered as I was by all these complicated emotions.

‘But you’re a police officer, too.’

‘Mam isn’t thinking very straight. She accused him of pulling a few strings to make sure his own son got a safe and cushy job while encouraging Jamie to go into danger.’

‘Xander? What does he do?’

‘Cybercrime. Look, it’s quieter in the kitchen. Let’s go and talk in there.’

‘What is cybercrime?’ Angel asked.

‘Anything that happens on line or with computers. Identity theft, internet scams, phishing and so on.’

It sounded very dull.

‘Ach, it’s the fastest growing form of crime,’ Duncan said as we went into the kitchen. He nodded at a woman washing glasses in the sink and gestured for us to sit at a table in a small alcove at the rear of the room. We carried on a stupid conversation about cybercrime while he made tea and waited for the woman to leave. I only half-listened as Duncan droned on about the dark web and how criminals used it in the same way that we used the normal web. Apparently it was much bigger than I’d thought – if I’d ever thought about it, which I hadn’t.

Duncan handed us our tea. I took a cautious sip of mine and gagged. It was very strong, very milky and very sweet. Finally, the woman finished drying the glasses and left.

I cut straight to the chase before someone else interrupted us.

‘How did Nick… Jamie die?’ I asked. ‘We both know what he did. His job, I mean. So you can tell us everything.’

Angel nodded.

‘No point in secrecy now,’ Duncan said. ‘Jamie was on an assignment in France. He drowned. His body was found in a fishing net in the Channel, in French waters. He’d been dead for a long time. They identified him from dental records and informed us. I went over and brought him back. Mam didn’t want him to come home alone. And neither did I.’

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

‘Is that all his department told you? That he drowned.’

‘Aye.’

‘You said he’d been in the water a long time. Did they say how long exactly?’

Duncan fixed his eyes on me. They were the same deep grey as Nick’s. ‘I didn’t ask. I knew he must have died on some operation. What does it matter when it happened?’

It did matter. I needed to know if Nick had died on the boat. If he hadn’t, there was at least a chance his death was nothing to do with me.

I looked at Angel. I’d run out of things to ask.

‘Where was his body?’

‘In an undertakers in Calais. They organised all the transport home.’

‘So he wasn’t at a police station?’