All the Way to the Sea

First published in Great Britain in 2023 byThe Book Guild LtdUnit E2 Airfield Business Park,Harrison Road, Market Harborough,Leicestershire. LE16 7ULTel: 0116 2792299www.bookguild.co.ukEmail: [email protected]: @bookguild Copyright © 2023 Stuart Blackburn The right of Stuart Blackburn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This work is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead. ISBN 978 1915853 332 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ContentsOneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEightNineTenElevenTwelveThirteenFourteenFifteenSixteenSeventeenEighteenNineteenTwentyTwenty-OneTwenty-TwoTwenty-ThreeTwenty-FourAuthor’s Note OneShe sat on the back porch, waiting. Everyone called it a porch, though it was only a raised deck projecting out from the kitchen and fitted underneath with a lattice screen of white-painted wood. The newspaper lay at her feet, open to the horse-racing form with her circled bets. Lifting her head, she caught a whiff of wet grass warmed by the rising heat. It was a sweet smell, the surge of life in early summer. Bumblebees, butterflies, dragonflies, and a young girl running across the lawn in a white dress, arms pumping and pigtails streaming.Summer was not just the most important part of the year for her. It was the year itself, with an aftermath lasting until Christmas and a prelude called spring. That summer had begun, like all the others, with Memorial Day. Flags held in the heat and a procession around the Commons, followed by a patriotic speech and her vigil at the plaque on the wall. But the rest of the summer would now be different. No Sunday lunches at the club and no croquet games on the lawn. She would not attend the Fourth of July parade, the family clambake in August would be called off and she would not go to the Fisherman’s Ball in September. She would do none of those things. Not without Robert.Despite those disruptions, she told herself that the deeper rhythms of her summer were unbroken. She would still grow her roses and nothing would stop her from displaying at the annual flower show. She would read her books and take her walks. And then, with any luck, Elizabeth would come.Opening her eyes, she scanned the mowed lawn, stretching from the barn on the right to the tool shed on the left. The grass was smooth and bursting with colour, the way Robert liked it. ‘As close to a putting green as you can get,’ he said to his friends, few of whom ever visited the farm.Six metal hoops had been driven into the ground to form a double-diamond shape, with a single wooden peg in the centre. Red and white croquet balls and mallets lay stacked against the side of the shed. He’d tried to teach her, but it didn’t work. She didn’t like rules, he said. That wasn’t true, but she couldn’t explain it to him.The shed’s sun-blistered door looked shut, but it should have a lock. She made a mental note to tell Manuel. Her eyes slid to the rose beds at the back of the lawn, beyond which the grass grew high and gave way to fields of hay and corn. She located the gap between the beds, where the path began. Almost invisible at that point, it widened as it wound down through the fields. In mid-summer, when the corn stalks leaned in and touched their tips, it was like walking through a tunnel. She knew every twist and turn of that half mile, through the fields, past the pond, into the sand dunes and onto the beach. And from the porch, in that early morning stillness, she saw it all, all the way to the sea.Listening hard, she heard the hushed roar. It was always there, just enough to define the silence. It’s been twenty years, she thought, or nearly that. Quiet, too quiet. No one within shouting distance. And stone walls everywhere.*Two men crunched unheard up the gravel path towards the front door. One stopped, while the other mounted the single step to the porch. It was the size of a telephone box, enclosed by slatted side panels and a high roof with fretwork on the overhang. Honeysuckle vines swarmed everywhere, twisting in and out of the slats and up onto the roof. Blown by the overnight storm, sticky yellow blossoms lay scattered on the step and damp ground.The man on the porch hitched up his trousers and adjusted his belt. He hunted for a knocker, frowned and was about to rap with his fist when he noticed a button half-hidden by the honeysuckle. Grunting, he pushed hard and stepped back onto the gravel.‘Morning, Mrs Shaw. I’m Chief Rawson, here in town. And this is Captain O’Connell from Portsmouth Barracks.’The heavy-set Rawson gestured to the man behind him. Both had taken off their caps and held them at their waist.‘Have you found him?’ she asked, clutching her thin cardigan at the neck.‘We don’t know, ma’am. May we come in?’They followed her through a barren hallway and towards a living room dominated by a gaping stone fireplace. Porcelain figurines lined the mantlepiece and the flanking bookshelves stretched to the ceiling. A grandfather clock, with a large gold face and black Roman numerals, ticked away in a corner. Light flooded in through the high window facing the road. She stood with her back to the other window, which overlooked the lawn, casting herself in shadow.While O’Connell stopped at the doorway, Rawson advanced to the centre and rested a hand on the back of a sofa. He shifted his weight and cleared his throat.‘You see, Mrs Shaw,