tumour in his chest was growing to a size that would cut off his breath. The room seemed close. Soon the air would be used up.
What he needed was escape. Like always, his father would have said. His father: a man who rewrote history to suit whatever purpose the moment demanded. But there was no history to this moment. There was only getting through the now.
He rose. He went along the corridors to the equipment room, where he'd earlier gone himself and where he'd taken DI Hannaford. This time, though, he didn't approach the row of long cupboards where the climbing equipment was stored. Rather, he went through the room to a smaller one, where a storage cupboard the size of a large wardrobe had a padlock hanging from a hasp. He possessed the only key to this lock, and he used it now. When he swung it open, the scent of old rubber was strong. It had been more than twenty years, he thought. Before Kerra's birth, even. Likely the thing would fall apart.
But it didn't. He was in the wet suit before he had a clear thought as to why he was in it, shoulders to ankles in neoprene, pulling the zip up his back by its cord, one hard tug and the rest was easy. No corrosion because he'd always taken care of his kit.
-Come on, come on, let's bloody get home, " his mates would say to him. -Don't be such a wanker, Kerne. We're freezing our arses out here."
But there was a hosepipe available, and he'd used it to rinse the saltwater off. Then he did the same when he got his kit home. Surfing kits were expensive and he had no intention of needing to purchase another because saltwater had corroded and rotted the one he owned. So he washed the wet suit thoroughly - its boots, gloves, and hood as well - and he washed the board. His mates hooted and called him a poofter, but he would not be moved from his intentions.
In that and in everything else, he thought now. He felt cursed by his own determination.
The board was in the cupboard as well. He eased it out and examined it. Not a ding anywhere, the deck still waxed. A real antique by the standards of today, but perfectly suitable for what he intended. Whatever that was, because he didn't quite know. He just wanted to be out of the hotel.
He scooped up boots, gloves, and hood. He tucked the surfboard under his arm.
The equipment room had a door that led to the terrace and from there to the still empty swimming pool. A concrete stairway at the far end of the pool area took one up to the promontory for which the old hotel had been named, and a path along the edge of this promontory followed the curve of St. Mevan Beach. A line of beach huts were tucked into the cliff here, not the standard huts which were generally freestanding, but rather a joined rank of them, looking like a long and low-slung stable with narrow blue doors.
Ben followed this route, breathing in the cold salt air and listening to the crash of the waves. He paused above the beach huts to don his neoprene hood, but the boots and gloves he would pull on when he got to the edge of the water.
He looked out at the sea. The tide was high, so the reefs were covered, and the reefs would keep the waves consistent. From this distance five feet seemed their size, with swells coming from the south. They were breaking right, with an offshore wind. Had it been daylight - even dawn or dusk - conditions would be considered good, even at this time of year when the water would be as cold as a witch's heart.
No one surfed at night. There were too many dangers, from sharks to reefs to rips. But this wasn't so much about surfing as it was about remembering, and while Ben didn't want to remember, talking to his father was forcing him to do so. It was either that or remaining within the Promontory King George Hotel, and that he could not do.
He descended the steps to the beach. There were no lights here, but tall streetlamps that followed the path along the promontory above shed at least some illumination onto the rocks and sand. He picked his way through hunks of slate and sandstone boulders, clitter from the