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Prologue
Twenty years earlier
Nikki stood at the top of the steps. They were precarious at the best of times, let alone in a high wind with the rain almost horizontal, driving little needles straight onto her eyelids. The television and radio had been rife with severe weather warnings all day. No one with any sense was out in it. You’d have to be mad. Maybe she was? She sometimes thought so. But she hadn’t seen him for over a week, what with one thing and another, so here she was, scrambling down, her sneakers slipping on the wet stones, the shale at the edges providing no purchase, nothing to cling on to but a few scrubby branches of gorse.
When she’d left town earlier, the waves were coming up over the harbour wall, hurling themselves over the railings in a spectacular display of petulance. The wind careened around the winding streets as if hunting someone down, relentless and unforgiving, letting out a high-pitched moan. Speedwell was battening down its hatches, shops shutting early, sandbags in doorways, cars moving away from the edge of the quay. Everyone knew the drill. No one ignored the warnings.
People often mistook August for a month of glorious sunshine and high temperatures, but it could bring the worst storms, sudden and unexpected. No doubt tomorrow, it would be as if nothing had happened. The sun would come out and the sea would be tranquil and nonchalant. The tourists would emerge, eager to make up for a day spent indoors on jigsaws and holiday paperbacks. The tills would ring merrily again: postcards and fudge and ice creams.
But for today, the storm raged on.
At the bottom, she jumped onto the sand. The sea was a murky, bruised blue, swirling and surging at random. It didn’t seem to know where it wanted to go, as dangerous and unpredictable as a drunk at throwing-out time. She put up a hand to wipe her face. It was impossible to know what was rain, what was salt spray and what was her tears. When had she started to cry again? She mustn’t. She had to hold it together, or he would take her in his arms and kiss those tears away and her resolution would crumble.
She’d made up her mind. It was the solution with the least collateral damage. He wouldn’t be able to argue with her logic. Sometimes in life you had to make a sacrifice. You had to do the noble thing.
She took in a gulp of air to try to calm herself, pressing her body against the cliff as she edged along towards the rocks that formed their hiding place. She knew the shoreline like the back of her hand, even though it changed with every turn of the tide, every phase of the moon, the sand and the rocks shifting and morphing, the colours melting into each other. She knew its smell, that hit of briny, brackish air like opening an oyster. The feel of the sand that branded the soles of your feet in the midday summer sun but would be cold and hard as iron if she stepped on it now. The noise of the waves: now a menacing boom, but on a warm night they would whisper gently as you drifted off to sleep. She tried not to think about the fact that this was the last time she would see him like this.
In secret.
On their secret beach.
1
Now
A spectacular position with unrivalled panoramic views, it said on the details. This former coastguard’s cottage on the rugged coast of North Cornwall would make the perfect clifftop retreat.
Living in a small town had its advantages, especially if you knew the right people. When her friend Joel told her the house of her dreams was about to come on the market, Nikki was the first in line. She watched as Joel fished the keys out of the pocket of his waxed coat and aimed for the lock, shutting one eye then booting the bottom of the door with a well-aimed kick that made her wince.
‘Stuck again,’ he said. ‘You should replace it with a UPVC one. It’s the salt.’
No way, thought Nikki privately. That wouldn’t suit the cottage at all. Built of a soft grey stone, it was identical to its three adjoining neighbours, with a slate roof, a porch in the middle and four sash windows. Above the door was a window light with ‘Number Four’ written in black and gold cursive.
All the door needed was a bit of sanding and a lick of paint, she thought. Perhaps royal blue, rather than its current dingy white. They went through the porch with its wooden benches – perfect for tucking boots and shoes underneath – and stepped straight inside a large room. All the furniture had gone and the carpet was curling at the edges. Nikki was itching to pull it up, for she could see there were pine floorboards underneath.
‘It was all re-wired backalong,’ Joel told her, snapping on a light. ‘And the owner’s family had central heating put in for him a few years ago.’
The smell of damp suggested they hadn’t bothered to put it on since he’d passed. It wouldn’t take much to warm the place by lighting a crackling fire in the inglenook fireplace. Nikki was trying not to smile. It was everything she dreamed it would be, even if it was half the size of her current house. She didn’t need so much space anymore. She didn’t need to be walking distance from the school. The advantages of an empty nest. And she already had a buyer lined up. Joel had a hot box of people wanting to buy property in Speedwell. She was good to go.
Through an archway was a small dining area at the foot of the stairs and through that was the kitchen. Eek. Fifty shades of brown. Beige lino, fake-mahogany units, fawn tiles, paint the colour of burnt porridge. There was a very old under-the-counter fridge and an electric hob with spiral burners, the kind you’d have lit your cigarette on back in the day. But Nikki wasn’t fazed. There was an Everhot range that just needed going over with a tub of Astonish. And from the window, beyond the wall at the bottom of the garden, all she could see was miles and miles of pewter ocean, shifting and shimmering. Who cared about grotty old kitchen units when you had that view?
She had to have it.
She told herself she mustn’t get too excited. This house would be catnip to second-homers. The asking price was just a lure to get people in through the door.
‘Handy toilet.’ At the back of the kitchen, Joel clicked the latch of a tongue-and-groove door to reveal a pink loo with no seat. The smell suggested the owner’s aim hadn’t been terribly accurate.
‘That’ll have to come out,’ said Nikki. ‘It’ll make a perfect larder.’
She imagined it lined with wooden shelves with all her groceries in perfect rows.
Joel shut the door with a smile. ‘Shall we see upstairs?’
They headed up the narrow wooden staircase. There were two double rooms, one single and a bathroom with an avocado suite.
‘I’ll let you have a look around,’ said Joel, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his emails.
In the back bedroom, Nikki pressed her forehead against the window. From up here, the view was even more spectacular, a silver carpet leading to infinity. Her gaze drifted down to the garden. An untouched tangle of grass and brambles, an empty washing line drooping across the middle. A dry-stone wall marked the boundary, and behind that, across a swathe of scrub, the steps she’d been down so many times. At the bottom, surrounded by towering rocks, was a beach made from millions and millions of crushed shells, known to the locals as Devil’s Cove. To Nikki and her friends, as teenagers, it was known as the secret beach. From time to time, winter storms caused a landslide and the steps crumbled away, to be gradually reformed. You needed nerve and stamina to go down, but it was worth it.
