Page 83 of The Last Party

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“Thirty. She’s a p—” Seren remembers Caleb’s comment about the police. “Proper bitch,” she says instead, which is unfair. Ffion’s pretty grumpy, and she pokes her nose where it’s not wanted, but that’s just because she’s old.

Caleb puts his hand on the grass in front of him, his fingers touching Seren’s. “So it’s you and your mum, then? Like me.”

Seren’s breathing’s gone shallow and her blood feels all fizzy. If he kisses her, she decides, she’ll kiss him back. Maybe.

“Come on.” Caleb jumps up and stretches down a hand. “I’ll show you around The Shore. You can hang out with me and the twins.”

Seren feels a buzz of excitement.

Something big is going to happen this year. She can feel it.

Thirty-One

January 7

Ffion

As a kid, Ffion went to the lake all the time. What else was there to do in a town the size of Cwm Coed? She remembers wondering why the grown-ups never swam, then reaching adulthood herself and realizing she’d gone weeks without getting her feet wet.

Now, the lake is where she comes to think. Where she comes to de-stress or untangle a knotty problem at work or at home. She has an office—a cupboard-sized room at the top of a community police station—but she rarely uses it. Instead, she works in her car, parked, looking down on a valley, or here, by the side of Llyn Drych.

The lake was where Ffion came when she realized she was going to leave Huw. She walked along the water’s edge, the pebbles slipping beneath her feet, as she grappled with how to tell her husband their marriage was over.

She needs the lake today.

This morning, Leo had sent her a message.

I know Lloyd called you the day he died.

Ffion had switched off her phone. She’d driven into the mountains, blind with panic and unable to think what to do. All morning, she’d fought with her conscience, with the past, with what would happen if she were to tell the truth.

At noon, Ffion drove back down to the lake. Now, she stands next to the Triumph and shrugs off her coat. With the exception of the annual New Year’s Day swim—which hardly counts, they’re in and out so fast—she hasn’t swum in the winter for years. She remembers the sting of the cold, but—more than that—she remembers the high. The sharp mental clarity. That’s what she needs.

Ffion leaves her clothes in a neat pile on top of her boots and picks her way across the shore. The sky is white with snow clouds, and the wind whistles down from the mountain to swirl around the valley. Her toes find the water between the stones and curl up in complaint, numb before she’s even reached the lake proper. Christ, it’s cold. Feet. Ankles. Calves. Knees. Thighs—God, thighs!Big breath in, then exhale and—

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

You have to stay in till it stops hurting. Get out too early and you’re just cold. Stay till the endorphins kick in, though, and you get a head rush like nothing else in the world. Better than booze, better than drugs. Better than the brush with razor blades Ffion had at fifteen, feeling as though the darkness would swallow her whole.

She swims breaststroke, counting the seconds in her head. Five minutes is three hundred seconds; ten minutes is six hundred. Any longer is dangerous—she’s not used to swimming in these temperatures.

Is that a hundred and sixty-five or a hundred and fifty-six? She starts again. Her brain’s foggy, but it’s beginning to happen: she’s feeling the buzz. Her arms and legs tingle, and slowly, where there was cold, there is now warmth. Heat spreads through her body, giving strength to her limbs and making her laugh out loud.

Ffion reaches the first buoy and turns around. As she heads back to shore, her stroke stronger now and her breathing steady, she sees Leo. He’s standing by her car, his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat, watching her.

She saw a different side to him yesterday. When he’d opened up about his son, about leaving him alone, everything had made sense. The way Leo allows himself to be spoken to, the way he is accepting Harris being taken away. Even the way Leo lives: in that bland, lifeless flat. The man treats his life like a punishment.

He waits by the edge of the water. She’ll have to stay here until he leaves, she thinks for one single, absurd moment. Or swim along the shore and get out in the trees, run home…

In your swimsuit?

You’re a police officer. You work together. Pull yourself together, Ffion Morgan!

Ffion slows down, but the rush is passing and the cold returning, dragging her legs down through the water. There’s nowhere else to go.

Getting out is agony. Ffion’s feet are blocks of ice, cut to ribbons on the stones and so numb they could belong to someone else. Her teeth chatter violently, her head spinning so fast she has to put out a hand to steady herself.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Leo says, but he’s not angry, the way he was when he found out about Huw, about the CCTV.


Tags: Clare Mackintosh Mystery