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‘Halfway makes sense.’
The idea excited her. It would be an adventure. Besides, all eyes would be upon them if he came to Speedwell. She wouldn’t be able to relax. On the edge of Dartmoor, she would be unlikely to see anyone she knew well. She could meet whoever she liked, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be reported back.
‘How about next Friday? Something to look forward to at the end of the week.’
‘Perfect. I’ll book us a table somewhere and let you know.’
She had a date. And it had been so easy. Everything was easy, with Ralph. She prayed it would be when they met in real life. Perhaps an online relationship was a bit of an illusion, and reality would be different? But if she didn’t try, she’d never know. And what was the worst that could happen? She’d lose the price of a pub lunch.
‘I suppose I should let you go now,’ Ralph said, interrupting her thoughts.
‘Would you play something for me?’ She couldn’t believe her boldness. Two overtures in one evening. ‘Something dreamy to send me to sleep.’
‘Well.’ He seemed to be giving it some thought. ‘Let me call you back in a moment, then. I’ll have to take you into the living room.’
‘OK.’
He rang off. She lay there, smiling. How romantic it would be, to be serenaded from afar. She imagined him, moving through his flat, heading for a piano in the corner of the room, pulling out a stool, leafing through his music.
A few minutes later, he rang again.
‘OK. I’m going to get no prizes for originality, but this is gorgeous. Debussy’s Rêverie. I guarantee you will float off to sleep with a smile on your face. Ready?’
‘I am.’
She waited for a few seconds, then a delicate arpeggio began, to be joined by other notes dancing around it. She imagined the gentle touch of his fingers as he moved up and down the keys, perhaps with his eyes closed as hers were, perhaps swaying in time. Her breathing slowed and her mind drifted. A sense of calm settled upon her; a peace she hadn’t felt since William had gone.
This music was for her. Just for her.
35
When her pager went off early the next morning, Nikki came to with a groan. Truly, what were the chances of getting a shout at six o’clock in the morning?
She jumped out of bed. The morning was one of those pearly, misty ones, delicately pretty, the sea a cool pale grey beneath a matching sky. The sun might burn through later, or a thicker mist might roll in, obscuring everything for the rest of the day. Either way, for now it was chilly. She pulled on her Uggs and ran outside to the van in her pyjamas.
At the station, she was one of the first to arrive.
‘It’s a dog,’ Eddie told her. ‘Early morning walker. It’s gone over the cliff about two miles round the headland.’
This was a surprisingly common occurrence. The team took canine crises as seriously as they took human ones, and came to their aid without question. Nikki pulled on her kit as quickly as she could, grateful for its weight and warmth, and was on board the inshore lifeboat less than quarter of an hour after her pager had gone off. She loved the adrenaline and the sense of purpose, all her earlier annoyance at her pager vanishing as they launched.
The morning air was cool and damp on her skin as they headed out of the harbour and hugged the cliffs along the coast. Minutes later they passed beneath the house she’d just left and she looked up for a moment, wondering if Adam was awake yet, wondering if he’d look out of his window and see her passing. Wondering just what that moment of closeness had meant in the car. A squiggle of pleasure zipped through her at the memory.
‘OK, we’ve got some more info coming through,’ Eddie told her. He was on the radio. ‘We’re looking for a Vizsla. A wire-haired Vizsla.’
Nikki froze. A wire-haired Vizsla? They weren’t that common. Could it be Gatsby? She knew, from her swim with Jess, that Adam sometimes got up early to walk him. And Gatsby was a city dog, not all that used to the coast. He could easily have misjudged the cliff path and fallen. She looked up to the top of the cliff, then started to scan the rocks beneath as they reached the area where the fall was supposed to have happened, peering into crevasses and gullies and inlets. It was tricky to get close, because of the rocks just underneath the surface of the water as the tide started coming in, but they were in the best boat for the job.
And then she saw a bundle of fur, slumped on a flat piece of rock just above the shoreline. The cliffs soared more than twenty feet above that, so he must have taken quite a drop. She recognised him by the turquoise of the collar.
‘It’s Gatsby,’ she told the others. ‘My neighbour’s dog. At least he knows me.’
Ed drove the boat into the deep ravine between the cliffs, getting as near as he could, so Nikki and Dan could get out and start climbing over the rocks. Nikki’s heart was racing as she scrambled over the slippery surface, praying Gatsby wasn’t too badly injured; that he might have bounced and rolled as he fell, not landed too awkwardly. As they reached him, he stared at her, looking sorry for himself.
‘Hey, boy,’ she said, pulling on a pair of protective gloves. Even though he knew her, fear might make him hostile. ‘What have you done to yourself? It’s OK. We’ve come to get you.’
There was no blood, no obvious injury, but he was shaking. Probably through shock, and the stress, but she knew it could also be an internal injury and at this point only a vet would be able to assess him. They needed to get him there as quickly as possible. She fed him a couple of the treats she’d brought in her pocket to calm him and gain his trust as Dan attached the oars of the boat to the ambulance pouch to make a makeshift stretcher. Gatsby nuzzled at her hand for comfort, and she murmured reassurance. She wondered where Adam was. He must have had to run back along the coast path to make the emergency call. There was no signal here, she knew that.
‘It’s OK, baby. I’ve got you,’ she murmured.
