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‘Don’t let the theatrical camp fool you. He’s got a good commercial head on him.’ Rob tasted the homemade ketchup he was stirring and nodded, satisfied. ‘Mind you, he should have a rabies shot the way he goes after some of the contestants.’
‘You a fan?’ Shona raised her eyebrows.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.’ Rob smiled diplomatically.
While Becca was upstairs finishing some homework, accompanied by the pounding rap of Stormzy, Shona quickly showered and changed into jeans and a sweater. Returning to the kitchen, she noted a bottle of chilled white wine, already half drunk, had appeared on the table, along with a glass of apple juice for Becca. When they were all settled with full plates in front of them Rob asked them both about their day. Becca responded with grunts and shrugs but her general mood suggested things hadn’t gone too badly. ‘I know better than to ask you for details,’ he said to Shona. ‘For operational reasons.’ There was an edge of sarcasm in his words.
In the early years of their relationship they’d both agreed their jobs stopped at the front door of their home. She’d talk about cases only in the broadest terms. Rob’s banking deals, when discussed at any length, quickly became an abstract string of numbers that Shona found a curiously impersonal way to spend your working day. But now Rob had no corporate life, no colleagues to confide in or grumble about the boss with. He was his own boss and could order his day in any way he pleased. She envied him the freedom. But it was a lonely sort of freedom, and perhaps a factor in his recent behaviour, the source of the restlessness and dissatisfaction she sensed below the surface of their life together.
‘Actually, I need to ask your advice about something,’ she began. He was surprised, but she could see his interest was piqued. ‘Managing rivalry in your team.’ She stopped short of detailing DCs Kate Irving and Ravi Sarwar’s worst excesses. But Kate’s constant sniping and Ravi’s baiting of his colleague was having an impact. She didn’t want to lose either; something needed to be done. She could give them a good talking to, but perhaps there was another way?
Rob barked a short, mirthless laugh and topped up his wine glass, draining the bottle. ‘In banking you don’t so much manage your team as keep them at bay with a pointy stick. It’s like swimming with sharks, they’ll gobble you up if you turn your back for a second. Want to keep them happy? Throw them a live victim and stand back while they try to tear each other apart.’ He took a large gulp from his glass. Then, pinching the stem, he rotated it between finger and thumb, frowning at the swirling contents, lost in dark and unhappy remembrance.
‘You must be so glad to be out of it.’ Asking him had been a miscalculation. In a bid to change the subject, she said. ‘So, what did you get up to today? Do anything special?’
‘Don’t do that,’ he snapped at her.
‘Do what?’
‘Question me like a suspect. I know you think I swan around all day wasting my time, but I’ve been busy.’
‘No point in lying to Mum. She’ll always bust you,’ Becca joked, but seeing the expression on her father’s face, quickly slid from the table and deposited her empty plate into the kitchen sink. Mumbling something about more homework, she fled upstairs to her room and slammed the door. Shona glared at Rob.
‘What?’ he shot back, draining his glass. ‘You think I’m gambling, but I’m not.’
Shona started to deny it, but he cut her off. ‘It’s all right for you,’ he continued. ‘If you’re not at work you’re down at your precious lifeboat. I spent an hour picking her up from school, then when we’re nearly home I had to go back because she’s left a course book there. Barely got a thank you. I spend half my time covering for you.’
‘You’re not covering for me,’ she snapped. ‘The school run is your job because you can fit it in around the guests. The B&B was your idea and I supported you when you left the bank.’
‘I knew you’d throw that in my face.’
‘I’m not.’ She paused. She’d had a long day and couldn’t face an argument. ‘It’s just when I run out the door,
for the lifeboat or the job, I need to know you’ll take up the slack at home. That’s what we agreed.’ She smiled and placed her hand on his arm, but he shook it off.
‘But you never wanted to move here.’
‘Not this again.’ She stared at him, puzzled by this sudden squall in the middle of a perfect evening. They’d bought their salary-stretching Camden basement flat as honeymooners, for its tiny outdoor space. For Sundays spent reading papers in the garden. For gastro pub lunches and browsing second-hand furniture in Camden Market. When Becca arrived, Rob had just landed a big bonus, so they bought the flat upstairs and knocked through. Growing up, Shona would only have entered a house like that as the cleaner. Though this house, High Pines, was beautiful, it had been chosen for its B&B potential. For Shona, it would never be quite the home their Camden maisonette had been. She had her own reasons for leaving London, but the fact remained that this had been Rob’s plan. ‘I could see you were miserable in London. I wanted what was best for you and Becca. We’re happy now, aren’t we? It’s working out? I love it here.’ She felt her resentment at his petulant, ungrateful behaviour spring up like a cold draught. ‘You can’t blame me for making a go of it.’
He frowned at his empty wine glass. ‘Becca hates her school, you know. I think she’s being bullied.’
‘She’s not said anything to me.’
‘Well now you’re here, why don’t you question her for a change?’ He got up, unsteady, nudging the table as he did so. The empty wine bottle toppled over and spun like a rudderless ship across the polished pine surface. Shona put out a hand to catch it, but it skipped over the edge and smashed on the tiled floor. ‘Rob, wait…’ The jagged glass nicked her finger as she bent to pick it up. She swore as she gingerly walked to the cabinet with the first aid box, sucking the wound and unwrapping a plaster. In the hall, she heard Rob’s footsteps and the front door slam.
Shona stared at the wreckage of the dinner table. How did that happen? Her husband’s Jekyll and Hyde outbursts were always a sign of stress. She knew money was tight, the B&B business had narrow profit margins, but every time she asked him about it he said it was just the teething trouble of any new business and things were fine. Before Rob’s mother died she’d recall her son as Wee Bobby, the golden child. Never cried, always a joy. But somewhere a switch had been flicked that couldn’t be unflicked. Shona wished she could go back and fix whatever it was that would trigger these self-destructive bursts. Not change him as such, just adjust the levels, like those on his expensive Naim sound system that, until a few months ago, had squatted in the corner of their sitting room. Rob said he’d sold it because he preferred his iPhone since he rarely had a chance to sit down, but perhaps bookings were slipping. There was certainly something he wasn’t telling her.
But mostly the outbursts just left her tired and wrung out. If Rob was right and Becca was being bullied, she wanted to know. She heard the front door again and from the kitchen window she saw her daughter slipping her red waterproof coat round her shoulders and heading down the path after her father. A fairy tale image rose up in her mind, but there were no wolves or woodcutters, no treacherous grandma’s house for Becca to find refuge in. That was why they’d moved here. They wouldn’t let Becca into the Royal Arms, Rob’s most likely destination, so she would probably end up with Tommy at the lifeboat station. Shona would catch up with her there. Once she’d cleared up.
* * *
The lifeboat station was in the main street, converted from a pair of one-and-a-half storey white-washed Victorian fisherman’s cottages. The boat hall took up half the ground floor and stretched all the way up to the rafters. On its high walls engraved boards detailing past rescues were flanked by photographs of the lifeboat and framed black and white cuttings from old newspapers. At the back was the closed-off crew changing space. The boat hall was overlooked on one side by a mezzanine level, its rail hung with airing immersion suits like the skinned pelts of marine creatures. This area, which sat above the ground floor shop and had a dormer window overlooking the firth, functioned as chart and radio room, a training space and as a lounge. With its kettle, fridge and biscuit tin it was a favourite spot for the crew to relax between shouts. This was where Shona found Tommy McCall, taking apart an ancient marine compass, the enamelled face and wooden case spread out on the crew room table. There was no sign of Becca.
‘Any news on the lassie in the water? That Cumbria copper lived up to expectations?’
‘Don’t like the Cumbria police, do you? Anything to do with that ticking-off you got for speeding on the M6 last month? You were lucky not to get fined.’ Shona pulled out a chair and sat down opposite.
‘No, it’s not. I don’t hate the police.’ Tommy indicated the teapot and Shona poured herself a cup, topping up Tommy’s mug in the process. ‘I don’t mind you, do I?’ he continued, ‘though you’re one of the lifeboat family now. Couldnae do without you. Callum’s come on leaps and bounds since you joined us. I heard what you said to him. Doesn’t get any easier, does it?’
