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As Clemmie draws near to the lodges, she kills the engine, slotting the oars into their housings and rowing silently through the water toward the docks. She makes out the lumpen outline of Rhys’s body, and for a second, she thinks he’s alone. She curses Glynis, but then she realizes there are two shapes, one cradling the other. Clemmie is at once torn apart by Glynis’s grief and terrified Rhys has made a recovery—is, even now, telling his mother what Clemmie has done. But as she brings the boat inexpertly alongside the dock, she sees that he’s in the same position she left him in, his mouth open and blood obscuring his features. Foam flecks his mouth. She reaches for his wrist, ostensibly to pull him closer to the boat, but really to see if—
Clemmie lets out a breath. He’s dead. And she can’t let herself wonder whether she killed him or Glynis did, and now that it’s done, does it even matter? Rhys is dead.
“Help me get him in the boat,” Clemmie says. “I can’t manage on my own.” She’s struggling to make her limbs comply, the cold enveloping her so completely, she can’t remember what it is to feel warm. Together, the two women heave Rhys into the hull of the boat.
As they leave The Shore behind, Clemmie rummages in the locker beside her and throws a life jacket to Glynis. “Put that on.” She doesn’t know if Glynis can swim, and she can’t risk the woman falling in. There’s a short length of rope in the locker, and she throws that too. “Tie the trophy to his ankle.”
“This is wrong. We have to go to the police. I’ll explain—”
“They’ll put you in prison, Glynis!” Clemmie shouts, the wind whipping the words from her mouth. She holds Glynis’s gaze until the older woman looks away, defeated, and begins knotting the rope.
If there’s no body, thinks Clemmie, trying to still her whirring mind, there’s no evidence. She doesn’t know how much they’ve already left—fingerprints, fibers, DNA—and how much of that will be washed away, and she’s panicking now about what they’ve left at the Lloyds’ lodge. Has Glynis done enough? Did Clemmie leave anything incriminating at the scene, anything that can’t be explained away?
“It’s done.” Glynis’s voice breaks. She cradles her son’s head against her chest.
Clemmie kills the engine. She nods. Moves to Rhys’s body and grips both his wrists. “Take his feet.”
Glynis looks at her, her eyes pleading.
“Prison,” Clemmie says. “A life sentence—you’ll die behind bars. Is that what you want?”
“I could explain, tell them it was an accident.”
“And what about me? I didn’t ask to be dragged into this. I’m here to protect you.”
“I know and I’m grateful, I really am, but—”
“What will happen to Caleb when they lock me up? I got him back on the right side of the tracks, but do you think he’ll stay there with a mother in prison? If you won’t do this for me, do it for Caleb.”
The clouds shift, and for a second, moonlight illuminates the boat. Glynis looks at Rhys’s corpse. She takes his legs.
“After three,” Clemmie says. “One, two, three—”
Above the village, the sky lights up in reds and blues, electric rain pouring down onto the water. A rocket shoots for the moon, then explodes in a cascade of silver.
And Rhys Lloyd plunges into the lake.
Sixty
January 9
Ffion
“I need to go and check something out,” Ffion says after they’ve returned Clemmie to her cell to wait for the duty solicitor.
“Check what out?” Leo holds open the door, and they leave the custody block.
“Just stuff.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“One of us needs to be here when Clemmie’s ready to go back into interview.” She flashes a smile. “Anyway, I’m the Lone Ranger, remember?”
For once, the Triumph eats up the miles between Chester and Cwm Coed all too quickly. Soon, Ffion is dropping down toward the serpentine glimmer of silver in the valley. She pauses by the turnoff for The Shore, the huge letters seeming more of a warning now than an invitation. What will become of them all? Of the five owners, only Dee Huxley’s life is unchanged by what’s happened, and Ffion wonders what the old lady has made of it all.
But Ffion isn’t going to The Shore today. She drives on, into Cwm Coed and down the high street, where last night’s blizzard has left sludgy snow on the sides of the road. She parks the car and feels the familiar sense of dread as she walks toward Glynis Lloyd’s shop.
It takes a while for Glynis to open the door. When she does, she steps back in silent invitation, and Ffion doesn’t want to go inside, but they can’t have this conversation on the doorstep.
