Dangerous Affection

Prologue

Edited

She knows it’s her. She knows this before they even pull her tiny body out of the oily black water.

Dread squirms in her stomach and she wills herself not to vomit at the side of the quay.

Not here. Not in front of all these people.

Someone drapes a scratchy pale blue blanket around her shoulders. Someone else presses a plastic cup of hot tea into her hand.

But neither kindness stops her from shaking, or brings back what she has lost.

There are concerned, hushed whispers all around. The sounds blend into one swishing echo in her ears, like dry leaves swirling against asphalt on a breezy autumn day.

She holds her breath against the ripe smell of the water, closes her eyes against the rawness of the hopeless dread that hangs above them all.

‘Why don’t you wait inside, love?’ a policewoman says softly. ‘There’s no sense in standing here in the cold. It might be a while and… you don’t need to see her the moment they find her. Not like this.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Her voice sounds cracked and hard, a brittle shell that tries in vain to protect the soft belly of her agony. She plants her feet a little further apart in an effort to stabilise her trembling legs and says, ‘I have to be here when she comes out. I’m her mother.’

The policewoman nods and takes a step back, merging back into the small crowd of concerned onlookers.

Mercifully, there are no rubberneckers here, no jackals. They’re all people who can and want to help. Police, medics, the underwater search divers, the quayside staff… Their faces are full of the same dread too. Just diluted.

But there is also a tangible anticipation in the air. A drowned child is undeniably tragic, but is nevertheless a major event in this sleepy seaside town where graffiti on the pier is the most high-profile criminal act that’s occurred in the last few months.

She knows the people here will go home at the end of the day. With drawn, troubled expressions, they’ll tell their families, over food, about this terrible, terrible tragedy. They will frighten their children with this example of what the water can do if you take risks.

In a day or so, they’ll accept a drink on the house in the local pub with the feature bar that overlooks the quayside.

They’ll hang their heads on the street when there’s another pat on the back for the awful job they’ve endured.

Some of them will dream about the web of burgeoning blue veins that almost pop through the child’s skin as they pull her from the water. Her bulging eyes and swollen, distended tongue will visit some of them for many nights to come.

But at some point, perhaps not too long afterwards, they will tell themselves: Enough.

They’ll recite silent prayers of thanks that their own children are intact and they will begin to forget. This terrible day and the dead child will become a story to recount on suitable occasions. A sadness they feel that is sometimes allowed to air in order to warn others.

And, in time, they will get on with their lives once again.

She starts as raised voices sound. People surge forward around her.

The police officer appears next to her again, lays a comforting hand on her upper arm.

A shout. Water splashing as they pull something small out of the terrible wetness.

A collective groan of grief.

She drops the cup of tea. Scalding drops of liquid pepper her hands and body and she is grateful that it helps her to focus.

She recognises the soft hair that she used to brush until it shone. Now it sticks to her bony shoulders like thin, wet ropes. The fragile hands splayed like limp starfish. And her rosebud lips, the perfect Cupid’s bow too impossibly pale against the sickly bluish-white pallor of that ten-year-old face.

Yes, she tells herself. This is the broken body of her poor dead daughter.