a bootlace that had come undone. ‘I’ll head off now and check for a dump, though I doubt if I’ll find one.’
He was dressed for work: jeans, jumper and an anorak she had bought for him some years previously. Everything about him was familiar yet strange, as if his time spent in the Oasis and the time before, when he was lost to them, had changed him in ways she would never be able to fathom.
The last time they spoke he told her something she had never known about him. His gambling began when he was eighteen and had been triggered by the discovery that his father had not died in a mining accident. His mother, the woman he trusted more that anyone, had lied to him. Nor could she tell him who had fathered him. How many hours of therapy and soul-searching had it taken to link his addiction to trauma, disappointment, disillusionment, grief, loss? Was that to be the pattern of his life? He wrestled with that question every day.
Their marriage might have stood a chance had she agreed to share in his rehabilitation. Anger had blinded her to the possibility of a future with him and exploring the complexities of his gambling addiction had not interested her. Would it have healed them? It was too late now, she thought, as she drove back to Hyland Hall. She had forged a new path for herself. It was strewn with obstacles but they were of her own making and she would walk its craggy surface alone.
When she brought Jack up his morning medication, his breakfast was untouched, apart from a few sips of tea. The rug looked bare without the sprawl of the old dog across it. His bedside radio was tuned to Southern Stream FM as usual. The familiar voice of Gavin Darcy, his favourite presenter, was reporting on an event that had taken place at the Clonmoore community centre. Jack had no interest in tuning into national or global news stations.
‘I lived my working life on a rolling news cycle,’ he told her once. ‘Economics and politics turn the wheels of finance and I always needed to be ahead of the next surge. Now, I’ve discovered I don’t have to turn the dial. Just listen local and the same wars are played out across the airwaves.’
Luke texted to say the estate had been searched and they had found nothing to foul the crisp morning air. She stood by Jack’s bedroom window and watched him enter the cab of the crane. The frost was beginning to melt. Droplets glistened on the black branches and the sheen of silver still covered the backyard.
‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she said but Jack had closed his eyes and appeared not to hear her. The clanking reverberations of the crane reached her as Charlie came into view from behind the barn. He looked upwards as the yellow arm of the crane clutched a section of metal and lifted it from the frame. What followed seemed to happen in slow motion yet Sophy was conscious of how it would end when she saw a section from one of the blackened walls sway. For an instant the wall remained poised then with a sudden force that tore a cry from her, it fell. The shriek it made as it hit the ground where Charlie had been standing could be clearly heard. She was unaware that she had cried out or that Jack had left his bed until he stumbled to her side. His bony fingers gripped the window ledge as he watched Luke jump down from the cab.
Instantly, she was on her phone to the emergency services while trying to move Jack away from the window at the same time.
‘Go back to bed. Everything’s okay… I’m going down to check. Stay in bed,’ she pleaded. Her mind was already racing across the paddock but she could not leave him until he was safe.
‘Save my friend.’ His voice trembled as he lay down and pressed his face into the pillow.
Luke was struggling to lift the section of wall from Charlie when she reached him. Unable to budge it, he yelled at her to move away. He returned to the cab of the crane. He began to work the joysticks and slowly, agonisingly, the wall moved upwards and was laid to one side. She knelt beside Charlie and forced back a sob. No need to search for his pulse or harbour any false hope. Luke had jumped