Okeke looked down at her notepad. ‘So you separated eighteen months ago?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Remind me how it happened?’

  ‘You mean how I discovered it was going on?’

  Okeke nodded.

  ‘It was quite by accident. We were both at work.’

  Okeke flipped back a couple of pages. ‘That’s the office you had on the High Street. In Rye was it?’

  ‘Yes. I was at my desk; he was at his. It was a quiet morning – no appointments, no walk-in queries. He went out to grab a coffee from the Costa down the road. I got up to put a letter for him to sign in his in-tray. My hand nudged the mouse, the screen flicked on… and there it was…’ She stopped for a moment, steadying her voice and clenching her lips together tightly.

  ‘I know this isn’t easy…’

  ‘No. Look, I’m fine.’ She sucked in a deep breath, then continued. ‘I saw a pornographic image. A selfie. At first I just thought he was just being a dirty sod, downloading a bit of porn at work, filling in some boring time with, you know, that kind of thing. But then a message pinged up on his screen.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘What do you think… Gerry? That’s what it said. And that’s when I realised he wasn’t just surfing porn but chatting someone up.’

  Okeke nodded sympathetically. ‘My man would lose his balls if I caught him doing that.’

  ‘I clicked on the message… which, of course, took me to the chat they’d been having all that morning…’ She laughed bitterly. ‘And there was me thinking he’d been typing up another investment report for someone.’ She looked at Okeke, her eyes glistening. ‘They’d been exchanging messages for weeks. Talking about getting together, talking about me.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Oh…’ She shook her head, as the threatened tears started to fall. ‘That he found me unattractive. Uninteresting. A dried-up old prune, I think was the phrase he used.’ She dabbed at her face. ‘That’s the second bloody time I’ve done this. I don’t constantly cry about this, you know. I’ve honestly moved on from that bastard…’

  ‘But it still hurts,’ said Okeke gently. ‘The betrayal.’

  ‘Exactly. I was hurt, and I was conned.’

  Their marriage had had another dimension to it. They were business partners as well. Twice the damage done.

  ‘I’m not a weak woman, you know?’ said Jo.

  ‘Nor do you come across that way,’ said Okeke. ‘Having a cry about it – that’s not weakness. That’s how we vent, right? Men smack their fists into punch bags and laundry baskets. We do this.’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘So, go on… When he came back from his trip to Costa, what happened then?’

  ‘We had a big shouting match right there in our office, in full view of the High Street. People walking past and looking in at us. If I hadn’t been so angry and upset, I’d have been mortified at the idea of us screaming like that in full view of everyone.’ She rummaged around in her sleeve for a tissue and dabbed at her cheeks. ‘I left the office. I went home. I packed a bag and left.’

  ‘You moved out?’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘And afterwards?’ asked Okeke.

  ‘There was no afterwards. That’s the thing. He didn’t try and call me to explain himself, to apologise. He didn’t ask me to come back. I reckon he was rubbing his hands with glee. Like, “well, that was easy.” I ended up calling him a week later. And he never answered. Eventually he sent me a text saying it was all over. That he’d found someone else. He said he was going to put together a document in which we’d agree the terms of the separation and our divorce.’

  ‘And then you didn’t hear from him. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. The divorce papers never came through. I left him voicemails and emails – he ignored them all. So last October I got a solicitor to write to him, several times over a couple of months. Gerald ignored her too.’

  ‘And so you eventually went round to see him?’ Okeke prompted.

  ‘That’s right. It’s still officially our house. It was locked up – he’d changed the locks, so I couldn’t get in. I could see he wasn’t there. There was post built up in the hallway. I panicked that he could have disappeared with the money, and then I drove to the marina to find our yacht was missing.’

  ‘And that’s when you called the police to register a missing person?’

  She nodded. ‘And now he’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘That’s not confirmed, Jo. And I really can’t comment further on the investigation yet. We’re still gathering information.’

  ‘The local paper said the boat had probably been swamped by migrants. That he’d encountered one of those overloaded little boats and that things got out of hand.’

  ‘Well, that’s the press for you, Jo. They’ll write anything that sells papers.’

  ‘Quite. It’s utter, utter rubbish. There’s no way that’s true.’

  Okeke looked at her; Jo seemed very certain. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He hated them. Migrants. Said they were all vermin. They’re the last people Gerald would have stopped to help.’

  Boyd eventually received an email from Chief Superintendent Hatcher saying that she had a slot available to chat with him the next morning. He’d been very careful not to include mention of Nix’s missing computer in his message, just that he wanted to update her on progress in the case so far.

  That way, when he asked her about it directly, he’d get an unrehearsed answer.

  He hung on in the office, waiting to hear back from either Minter or Okeke, but come five o’clock he decided that he could get their updates tomorrow morning. He grabbed his jacket and anorak, and threw a cursory nod to O’Neal and Warren, who were both clearly waiting for him to go so that they could clock off too.

  He walked back home through misty rain that didn’t even have the decency to form proper drops. By the time he got back it was fully dark and six o’clock.

  26

  Emma met him at the front door. ‘I thought we could try some pub grub tonight. What do you think?’

  She had her coat on already and Ozzie was on a lead – good to go. Boyd realised his ever-patient daughter must have been going a little stir-crazy, stuck at home all day with their uncertain rescue dog. She wasn’t ready to walk Ozzie on her own because she had no idea how he’d react if he saw another dog.

  After the fifty-minute walk back from work, Boyd had rather fancied lighting a fire in the grate, putting his feet up, pouring a glass of red and watching the flames dance while Emma watched her way through the early evening soaps.

  But seeing her now, standing there in the hallway, lead in one hand, car keys in the other, coat on and a desperate beseeching expression on her face… he just couldn’t bring himself to say no.

  ‘Lovely. You got a particular pub in mind?’

  ‘Yup. Just down the hill. I’ll drive, though,’ she said quickly. ‘Save you walking any more. Your legs must be knackered with all this exercise!’ She held out a hand through the open door. ‘Anyway, I think it’s starting to rain.’

  Emma parked the car in Pelham Place – the town’s main seafront car park. The crazy golf course beside it looked rather forlorn in the spitting rain. A man and his two small kids were on the last hole and looked keen to get this dumb idea over and done with.

  They walked Ozzie along the beach, past the deserted Flamingo arcade, all the way up to the Rock-a-Nore breakwater wall. Emma wanted Ozzie to go to the toilet before taking him into the pub.

  ‘So this pub takes dogs in, then?’

  ‘Yes, I checked on Tripadvisor, Dad – dog’s welcome. Dog poo… not.’

  Ozzie delivered, and Emma bagged it up and dropped the package into a bin. ‘Finally.’

  She led them into George Street. Okeke had been right, Boyd mused: George Street did look a little like something J. K. Rowling might have dreamt up – a mixture of black wooden and white-washed wattle buildings that tilted precariously towards each other across the narrow street, almost as though they were leaning into a whispered conversation, mixed with the faded grandeur of the Edwardian stone and Victorian brick. The street lamps were on, forgotten Christmas lights drooped across the narrow pedestrian-only cobbled road, glisteninglike junk jewellery. Either side of them, old pubs and revamped vodka bars jostled for attention alongside antique stores and knick-knack boutiques, all spilling their warm light across the cobbles in a come-hither invitation to passers-by.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said appreciatively, puffing out a cloud of breath as Ozzie snuffled at a ball of discarded chip paper at his feet.

  ‘You’ll love this pub, Dad. It’s got character.’

  She led him to a place called Ye Olde Pump House with an old doorway so low he had to duck to get through. Inside, the warm fug immediately hit them and Boyd quickly shed his coat.

  A jukebox was playing the WaterBoys – ‘The Whole of the Moon’ – the fireplace was crackling with freshly poked, turned logs and the whole place reeked, very pleasantly, of wood smoke and varnish.

  Emma spoke to a young man behind the bar who replied, ‘Anywhere you like. I’ll just get you some menus.’

  They found a quiet alcove at the front beside a lead-lined bay window that looked out onto the street. Boyd sat down on a threadbare red velvet bench. Ozzie remained on all fours, staring at him.

  ‘This your first pub, eh, boy?’

  Ozzie’s eyes flicked sideways to Emma for advice on how to respond. ‘Probably,’ she replied for him. ‘He’s spent most of his life tied up in sheds and backyards, though he did live on the streets for a bit, so you never know.’

  She’d told her dad all this before. She’d read out Ozzie’s backstory from the Spaniel Aid website. There’d been something about him being kept in a garage for two years before being adopted and rejected a number of times. He’d had no chip in him, so they had no real idea of his age; it was all guesswork.

  ‘That’s so sad, isn’t it?’ she’d said at the time. ‘The vet thinks he’s about nine, and we’ll never know what he’s experienced in all those years.’

  Ozzie finally seemed to understand he wasn’t going to be invited to sit up at the table with his new family and instead curled up beneath it and let out a sigh.

  The young barman came over with menus and cutlery ,and set them out on the table. ‘Chef’s special tonight is –’ he started, then stopped mid-sentence as he stared at Boyd’s face. ‘Ohmygod!’ He grinned beneath a floppy black fringe. ‘You’re the guy!’

  ‘The guy?’

  ‘The guy!’

  This exchange was beginning to sound like a crap version of Breaking Bad.

  The young man laughed. ‘The bleeped copper?’

  Boyd looked around the pub – the general idea, in the force, was to be discreet about your job. Luckily it was virtually empty.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the lad. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? The guy who got swear-bleeped by BBC Southeast?’

  Emma snorted with laughter. ‘Yup. That’s him.’

  The barman glanced at the dressing over Boyd’s ear. ‘What happened to you, then?’

  ‘I had a fight with a lawnmower,’ Boyd deadpanned.

  The young man grinned and winked. ‘Lawn Enforcement, eh?’

  Boyd couldn’t help a chuckle. To be fair, the lad was quick and funny. Still, he was bloody starving. And he knew exactly what he wanted.

  Boyd ordered cod and chips. The bastard seagull buggering off with his lunch had left him feeling cheated. But, he was out of luck again. The young man came back five minutes later and apologetically reported that they’d been let down by their usual supplier today. Boyd wondered whether the same bloody bird was somehow to blame. He ordered a cheeseburger instead and settled back.

  ‘I don’t think I actually thanked you properly yet, Ems,’ he said after the young man had deposited their drinks in front of them.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘All the help. Getting us down here.’

  ‘Pfft,’ she replied.

  ‘And for the last two years,’ he added.

  She frowned as though it was a stupid conversation for them to be having. ‘I think we both needed to get out of the old house. It wasn’t good for either of us there.’

  ‘I could have been more helpful, though.’

  She shook her head, her frown deepening. ‘No. You couldn’t.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘You were broken, Dad.’

  ‘And so were you.’

  ‘But you saw it. You spoke to Mum –’ She stopped, sipped again. Then continued: ‘I didn’t have to process that on top of everything. You needed me to step up… or we’d both be back there still.’

  She was right. Without her, they wouldn’t have moved forward at all. Putting the London house on the market, finding a buyer and then the new house in Hastings had taken eighteen months. Much of that time Boyd had been barely able to function. She’d done all the thinking and doing for him.

  ‘Anyway, it’s all sorted now,’ she said with a smile. ‘We’re here. And I love it already.’

  Boyd returned her smile. Stay positive. ‘So, what’s so good? What do you love about it?’

  ‘Err… not having to take the Tube to work every day. Having a view of the sea. Having room for a dog… and places to walk him. The ambience at this end of town, the quirkiness… everything really!’

  Emma had left behind school friends she’d known since reception, as well as a boyfriend – although Boyd suspected she’d been looking for an exit there for some time – and she’d only just begun to build a social life that took advantage of the best bits of London living: the music venues, wine bars.

  Boyd couldn’t help but ask, ‘It’s not too, I dunno, too quiet for you, though?’

  ‘You’re kidding? It’s what I need. All that constant –’ she shook her head as she tried to pluck the right word from it – ‘city. The noise. The hassle. The cost. The shitty manners.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And those red-eye shifts were awful.’ Emma had spent the last year working in a hotel, doing the kind of work and hours that most Brits turned their noses up at.

  She was being sincere, he could tell; she wasn’t just saying what she thought he wanted to hear. After what had happened to her mother and brother, followed by practically a whole year of Covid lockdown and having to deal with him on top of that, London probably didn’t have a whole load of great memories for her.

  Still, Emma was young. Only twenty-two. University and her design degree had been put on indefinite hold after what had happened. Her independence had been postponed for over two years now because – and she’d never admit this, not to him, anyway – she was too afraid to leave her broken father at home on his own.

  And all the while she was shouldering her own burden of grief.

  Boyd desperately wanted her gone – that sounded bad. Gone, for all the right reasons. Gone – to begin her university degree, to capture her life in snatched selfies on a Facebook page, to hear her night-out stories in hasty, noisy phone calls home. He didn’t want her stuck in a creaking old Edwardian half-a-mansion overlooking a crusty old fishing town. Although, he admitted, he’d miss her so much.

  ‘I know you worry about me, Dad,’ Emma continued. ‘That I’m missing out on things and that I’m just here for you. Well, I’m not. I’m here for me too. I can’t… I couldn’t face leaving home. Not last year.’

  ‘What about now?’

  She shrugged. ‘Now?’ It took her a few moments to come up with an answer. ‘I think I’m in a better place now. I think you are too.’

  He nodded. ‘A better place. Though, that’s a pretty low bar to jump.’ He smiled ruefully.

  She smiled back. ‘Onwards and upwards, eh?’

  ‘Onwards and upwards,’ he echoed, raising his glass. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘university?’

  ‘I dunno, maybe, at some point. I was thinking of getting a job soon. You know, once we’ve sorted the house out and made it look a little less gloomy.’

  ‘Well, you know, we’ve got spare money,’ said Boyd. ‘There’s no need for a student loan. You could –’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad. Maybe I’m not quite ready to think long term yet. A job will do me just fine for now.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Not policing, thank you.’ She absently reached down and stroked Ozzie’s rump. ‘Maybe in something like hotel management. I’ve got London-based five-star experience. I’ve got decent A-level grades. I’ll get a decent reference from the Wharton.’

  ‘It’s mostly grubby bedsits down here.’

  ‘No, there’s hotels too, Dad. It’s a town that’s slowly coming back. The whole staycation thing is exploding. I’ll get a job in the next month. No probs.’

  Boyd felt an overpowering urge to reach out and hug her tightly right there in the pub. You, Emma, are the most level-headed, most resilient person I’ve ever known, he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t. She tended to cringe every time he tried to praise her. Daddy’s Little Princess syndrome didn’t sit too well with her. She was every bit the strong woman Julia was and a probably a little bit more.

  ‘A big-city girl like me?’ She grinned with a dash of casual bravado. ‘I’ll do just fine here, Dad.’

  He suspected she’d do fine anywhere.

  The barman came back with their meals. He set them down on the table and asked if they needed anything else.

  ‘We’re good, thanks,’ said Boyd.

  Instead of turning and heading back to whatever task he had next, the young man lingered. Boyd looked up at him. ‘Can I help you?’

  He pulled his phone out of his back pocket. ‘Look… uh… Do you mind if I grab a selfie?’

  ‘What?’

  The barman shrugged. ‘You’re kind of, like, a local celebrity, mate. Sort of a Hastings meme. You’re the Bleeped Copper.’ He tapped his iPhone screen. ‘Can I?’

  Boyd waved him away in horror, while Emma laughed.

  ‘No, you bloody can’t!’

  27