Page 104 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

Eventually, almost without realising it, she finds herself right at the very edge of town, outside Lowell’s. Essie wouldn’t be back here, would she? Hiding out? Of course not.

She’s about to turn round, when Lowell sees the car and comes out into the garden.

‘It’s been a very busy day, with one thing and another,’ he says to her.

‘Is Essie here?’ she says, desperate, and he shakes his head, then, when she bursts into tears, he pulls her towards him and hugs her tightly.

Even in the depths of her misery and pain she takes comfort, so much comfort from his broad presence, his reassuring arms, the pencil-sharpening scent of his sweater. Part of her wants to stay there forever. But she can’t.

‘I’ve lost her,’ she says, trying not to sob.

Then Lowell says the best thing he possibly could.

‘I know where she is.’

*

He leads her inside. Verity looks up and smiles to see her. ‘Essie’s mum!’

‘I’m Janey, too,’ says Janey, but she smiles back at her as she signs it. ‘Has she been here?’

Verity nods and beams. ‘She came to say goodbye and talk to Daddy. When is she coming back?’

Janey looks at Lowell, wiping her eyes, confused. ‘She came back here?’

He nods.

‘Is she in trouble?’ signs Verity.

Janey starts to sign ‘no’ but then realises she has no idea if that is true or not. This is trouble, alright.

‘I don’t know,’ she manages finally. ‘I just want to talk to her.’

‘Nobody is allowed to be mean to Essie,’ signs Verity. ‘She’s the best.’

Janey lifts her hands then drops them again. Then she raises them again. ‘I believe she is too.’

Lowell shuffles his feet a little. Then he tells her. And then she goes ballistic.

41

Essie is, it turns out, right. Police Scotland are wildly overstretched. Tris is already in custody, being interviewed by the lead detective, and finding, for possibly the first time in his life, someone he cannot charm with his money, good looks and connections; in fact, quite the opposite. Detective Sergeant Nisha Malik has met a few people like Tris in her time, and she doesn’t care how expensive the jacket is that he’s wearing; her world is divided into radges, neds and bawbags, and this one is a bawbag.

Tris’s expensive lawyer, who looks exactly like him except a lot fuller and redder in the face, keeps trying to get him to shut up while also feeling distinctly queasy, partly because of the amount of port he drank at the Malt Whisky Society last night, and partly because he recommended more than a few people to Tris’s incredibly successful wealth fund himself, and they are all going to be out for blood.

There is a uniform on the front door of the office, stopping people from going in, but the other police on the job are still at Moray Place, trying to get Connor to stop crying for long enough to put his shoes on.

There is nobody on the back door.

*

Inside, the office is deserted and there is yellow tape on the office door. Yellow tape stating in absolutely no uncertain termsthat this is a crime scene. That, by entering it, Essie will be entering said crime scene. She wonders if there is CCTV anywhere. Then she remembers that Tris has been committing massive fraud for years. The absolute last thing he would want is CCTV around the place.

Okay. She doesn’t have long. They’ll be back, or she’ll make a noise. Or she’ll just lose her nerve.

She squats under the tape, and dashes towards the first pile of papers.

*

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