Jay, a woman with a new identity is now living in the seaside village of Oxhope. It hasn’t yet been revealed why she’s there, or what happened in her past that has meant she had to start a new life, but she’s beginning to settle into it. She’s begun to make friends, including two women similar in age to her, called Emma and Gemma. Jay and Emma unexpectedly and very shockingly find the body of a murdered woman, and are intensively questioned by the police. Jay didn’t know, Kari, the poor victim, but had seen her at a music festival at the local pub where she had seemed very interested in a local band, Off With Her Head. Spooked by the events, Jay tries to come to grips with her anxieties through her work, and through running.
Plat plat plat, one foot in front of the other; it had become a routine to run each day but she went out at different times. Trying to vary her routine, not to be predictable, or just because it suited her? Jay didn’t think about such questions. The tide was out and she was running along the beach on the dry firm sand between where it was still wet, and where the dunes rose. She would go as far as the pill box, loop round it then up over the dunes and back across the water meadow.
Plat plat plat – and she suddenly ran straight into another jogger coming round the pill box from the other direction.
She had been trained for unexpected encounters, but fortunately he had his head down, and her swinging arm, her hand fashioned into a fist, caught him on his shoulder, caught him off balance and he reeled away and fell backwards landing in a shallow pool of seawater.
“Ed! Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”
Her friend lay flat on his back, dazed and startled.
“Sorry, Jay!” he was apologising as he struggled to sit up. “I was trying to beat my record, had my head down and wasn’t looking where I was going!”
She held out her hand and pulled him to his feet, laughing now, trying not to sound hysterical with relief.
They stood trying to catch their breath, and there was that slight awkwardness between people who normally see each other somewhere else, fully clothed, and with easy to reach conversation.
“How far are you going?” he asked. “I usually run once round the pillbox, then cut back across the meadow.”
This was a new route, and Jay unexpectedly suggested she ran with him to find another way back to the village. She surprised herself at the idea, but Ed seemed pleased, and they circled the old relic from the war and then set off up and over the dune, and down into a lush field of grass.
Ed was able to keep up a conversation, but she struggled to do more than gasp about a brief reply. He ran slightly faster than her, but she was determined to keep up the pace.
“At low tide there’s a ford here across the river, but luckily there’s also a footbridge – unless you want to jump!”
The bridge would be fine, she panted. Which river was it? she asked.
“The Ox, of course,” he replied, “You mentioned it goes past your back garden!”
Yes, yes it did, and it also flowed past Kari’s garden too.
Lois Elsden 