The Coldest Blood

‘I stayed here once,’ said Dryden, dropping down on to his haunches so that he could check the neck brace under Laura’s chin. His wife’s brown eyes swam slightly, and he noted again that they were unusually bright, each reflecting the harsh cold sunlight that flooded in through the foyer’s plate-glass windows.

Out at sea waves broke on a distant sandbank the colour of ash, and in mid-channel a red buoy heaved on the swell. On the beach a line of snow marked the extent of high tide.

‘I’m sorry – I don’t recognize…’

Dryden laughed. ‘You’re forgiven. It was in 1974. I was still in short trousers. I’m surprised the old place is still here…’

The eyebrows, thinly pencilled, arched. ‘It isn’t the old place. We’ve invested a lot over the years. New markets now – although it’s still very popular in the summer months – especially in the school holidays. But the rest of the year we don’t take children.’

She seemed excessively pleased with this arrangement and her eyes wandered to the plaque on the wall which indicated that the Dolphin Spa – as it was now called – had been awarded four stars by the English Tourist Board. They watched as an elderly man swaddled in a fluffy bathrobe shuffled across the foyer towards the plate-glass doors to the indoor swimming pool. As they closed behind him a waft of damp, scented air billowed out. One part of the foyer had been converted into an internet café, and three of the latest Apple Macs sat on crisp white desktops. A middle-aged woman in walking gear tapped at one while sipping a small espresso.

‘In winter it’s mainly the health spa market now. And nature lovers, of course…’

Dryden’s eyes widened.

‘Oh no,’ the hand wandering to the throat. ‘Not those kind of nature lovers. Birds, the marsh flowers, the seals out on the point.’ She let a hand touch her breast, briefly outlining the upward curve. ‘There’s a conference hall as well – seats three hundred. So there’s trade all year now.’

As if on cue they heard the distant patter of polite applause.

‘Estate agents,’ she said with a smile straight out of the brochure. Dryden wondered how often she visited her husband in jail. If she dressed like that she’d cause a riot.

He’d found the details for the Dolphin Spa online. The camp had six purpose-built chalets designed with wheelchair access and a bathroom modified for those with mobility problems. They could all double up as ordinary chalets in the height of the season but this was one new ‘market’ Ruth Connor had tactfully avoided mentioning. Extras included a physiotherapist who visited daily, and a hoist at the pool for those unable to descend the steps. That, and a 24-hour chalet-monitoring service had helped bump up the cost, which more than handsomely reflected the facilities and had made Dryden choke. He disengaged the brake on Laura’s wheelchair and turned towards the doors. Ruth Connor grabbed a padded fleece and led the way.

Outside, despite the sunshine, the wind was bitter. Dryden re-zipped Laura into a thermal one-piece suit. Her face was slightly blushed with the cold, and one eye was watering as the wind blew in from the north, but she looked more alive than Dryden could remember since the crash six years earlier.

‘That’s the buoy we used to swim out to,’ he said, pointing.

Ruth Connor nodded, before realizing that Dryden had been talking to his wife. ‘The huts were over there…’ He pointed west, beyond the new indoor swimming pool and the leisure complex which had supplanted the old prefab offices. A white van, emblazoned with a blue dolphin, pulled up and a posse of chambermaids alighted, giggling.

A mobile trilled and Ruth Connor located it efficiently in her tracksuit pocket. She registered the number. ‘Oh. Will you excuse me? One minute.’ She took a few steps away, colour flooding back into her face as she listened to a crackling voice.

‘Good. Good. That’s wonderful, love. It’s what I want and it’s best…’ She stepped away a few more feet and Dryden lost the thread of the conversation. It sounded like she was talking to a child, the tone vaguely patronizing, the concern intense.

He cupped a hand under Laura’s chin. ‘I loved this place, right from the start,’ he said, kneeling down so he could speak into her ear. ‘When we drove into the car park that first morning I could see the sea. It was high tide, and all the children were crammed into the last few yards of dry sand, and they’d run – you know – back and forth with the waves as they swept in, and we had the windows open in the car so I could hear the sound. There’s nothing like it, the sound of a beach in summer.’

Ruth Connor walked back into earshot as she finished the call. ‘Now, will you do that for me?’ she said, then smiled at the reply and cut the mobile off, the face instantly realigning itself for business.