The Last to Know by Jo Furniss

Author:Jo Furniss [Furniss, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

By the time Ellie got off a Skype call with her sister, the bath was full. She ran the hot tap a little more before getting in. As she sat with her knees steaming, she studied Cassie’s postcards from Perth, pinned to a board propped beside the bath. Wish you were here! one said. Don’t we all, Ellie thought. The sea, the sand, the sun. Some comical creature that lives on an island. A quokka. Ellie pitied the quokka. Doomed to live and die in glorious isolation. It should have made the leap to the larger island when it had the chance. Ellie poured Epsom salts into the water. Then she let herself drift, imagining she was in the ocean. Cassie would correct her: The ocean is cold. It doesn’t taste like Epsom salts. It’s full of predators. Whatever. The chance of visiting her sister in Perth was no more than a dream, so it might as well be a lovely dream. Right now, Ellie would take jellyfish over the pinheads. At least jellyfish back up their threats with genuine venom.

Her eyes fixed on the ocean. More shades of blue than colors in the rainbow. But not a soul in the sky, the sea, the sand. Why don’t postcards have people in them? Is it because other people inevitably ruin paradise? But Ellie ached for that deserted beach—a physical yearning—as another person might long for sex or booze. She imagined walking miles of hot sand and then swimming back across the bay. She hauled herself up to a sitting position, as graceful as a jellyfish, and dolloped thickening shampoo on her hair.

Why do I crave time alone and simultaneously feel lonely?

Her phone rang, muffled inside a pile of clothes. She hauled herself away from paradise and returned a missed call from Broken Arrow.

DI Bryan Harrow greeted her at Hurtwood Police Station with a mug of coffee and a pile of pictures. In return, she handed him the Kenny Bale file, which she’d picked up from storage on her way to the incident room.

“Were you turning in for the night?” Harrow asked. “Only you smell—” He stopped, rubbing his eyes. He looked knackered.

“What?”

“Fragrant.” Now he looked knackered and also embarrassed. “Coconut or something. Sorry, it’s just I feel like I’ve been awake and wearing this suit for about a month. Anyway, thanks for coming in tonight. I was heading home myself when I got a call from the techies.”

Ellie sipped the coffee and winced at the sweetness. But she downed it, finding she was getting more used to it with each mouthful.

“This disc—” he said, but his phone rang. He answered and responded in a series of hums while flicking his wedding ring with his thumbnail. What would one of those television police psychologists make of his tic? Ellie thought. Does it mean his wife is on the line? Is he riven with guilt for telling another woman she’s fragrant? Did he only notice the fragrance because he misses his wife? Ellie had never worked with DI Harrow.

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