I Let You Go

Kate Evans walks into the office of Detective Inspector Ray Stevens at Bristol’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to tell him of a new case in Fishponds, in which a five-year-old boy was killed. He asks if she can stay late: “They exchanged half-smiles in mutual acknowledgment of the adrenaline rush it always felt so wrong to enjoy when something so horrific had happened” (8). Ray Stevens asks Sergeant Jake Owen, or Stumpy, to get on Intelligence to find out if any information has come in. Then he takes Kate to the crime scene, where police are processing the scene.

Inside, Jacob’s distraught mother, Anya, sits. Asking sergeant Brian to brief Kate, Ray asks the mother some questions and finds that she could not see inside the car and did not see its number plate. When Kate returns, the younger officer is clearly upset by the facts of the case. She notes that the father never wanted anything to do with Jacob, so the dead boy was all his mother had. She asks, “What sort of bastard kills a five-year-old boy, then drives off?” (15). He says they’ll find out. 

This chapter presents the first person viewpoint of Jenna Gray. Following the death of the boy, she can’t stop seeing the accident: “I wish it had been me the car hit” (17). She is at home having tea with Ian Peterson, her husband. He, talking of the news, is frustrated by her reactions.

After waking up, Jenna goes to her garden studio, where all her work in clay lies in ruins. She spies a statue of a woman, part of a series of ten women she made for a shop. They are based on people she knew, and this one is based on herself. She realizes it is broken in two; she hurls the pieces against the wall, and they shatter.

She packs a bag with clothes, her laptop, and a wooden box of memories. She opens the box and finds a picture of her, holding her boy at birth. She says, “It had all been so rushed, so frightening, so unlike the books I had devoured during my pregnancy, but the love I had to offer never faltered” (21).

As she gets on a bus, everyone is talking about the accident and how horrible it was. The police have no leads. A woman sitting next to her talks to her about it, and when the woman asks, “What kind of mother allows a child that age to cross a road on his own?” (22), Jenna sobs. She wants to tell the woman that it’s a thousand times worse than what she thinks.

Back at Bristol CID, Kate and Ray have a conversation after hours. It’s been a week with no leads, and Kate is still working on the case. He offers to make them a cup of tea as he helps. He tells her he believes they will find the driver. He has filed a “Crimewatch” appeal. They share personal stories about Ray’s ex-cop wife, Mags Stevens, and his two kids, Tom and Lucy, as well as Kate’s chef boyfriend. When Ray gives her dating advice, she thanks him and calls him “Dad.”

At home, Mags is watching the news about the boy on TV. Ray tells her they have no leads, and she offers some advice. He just wants a beer, some TV, and sleep. He promises her they will get the driver, thinking he will keep additional details to himself because he knows the involvement of a child upsets her.

The following day at the office, Ray looks at his picture of the victim, hanging up where he can see it. He remembers how Mags once visited the office, and he had been annoyed by it. She had said, “You can take the girl out of the police, but you’ll never take the police out of the girl” (31). She then asked about another victim’s picture he had up and moved it away from a picture of the two of them together.

Stumpy and his team arrive for a briefing. They go over the facts of the case. The mother claims the man sped up when he hit Jacob, and she was hurt too. They found some plastic casing and glass from a Volvo fog light, but the rain made it impossible to find any tire marks. They discuss the progress of the case, but no witnesses have been found, either. “Although no one voiced it, they were all thinking of what Christmas would be like for Jacob’s mother this year” (38). 

The novel returns to Jenna’s perspective. She doesn’t know where she is headed, but the sea draws her. She gets off the bus in Swansea, Wales, and then walks for miles. A car behind her slows and stops, and she panics. The car leaves. She hears waves and sees a sign for the village of Penfach. She falls along the path, but “[wonders] briefly if I have become immune to physical pain: if the human body is not designed to handle both physical and emotional hurt” (42). She is glad to be “not home.” She sleeps.

She walks into a shop and asks if there is someplace she can stay. The woman there, Bethan Morgan, says Iestyn Jones has a cottage called Blaen Cedi and offers her a cup of tea. She says they will be neighbors if she takes the cottage. Iestyn arrives; she rides behind him on his quad bike to see the place. It is more of a hut: “The most creative of property agents would have a hard time playing down the damp inching up the walls outside, or the slipped slate tiles on the roof” (47).

She asks to take it. He wants to know if she has a job, and she says she is an artist. They settle on rent. She curls up in her new place and emotion overtakes her. “I let him go, and I will never forgive myself for that” (49). 

Three months after the accident, the investigation has been scaled back. Stumpy reports that the boy’s mother has gone missing. He states that the family liaison officer, Diana Heath, stopped by her home to find the woman missing and the house empty. Stumpy says there had been backlash from a local web forum, saying she was an unfit mother. Also, the mother might have been afraid the police thought her responsible. Ray tells Stumpy to check with the school and her doctor’s office. 

Kate says her car investigation isn’t panning out, and Brian and Pat are coming up with nothing much on closed circuit cameras either, although one car appears in several of them. Ray is disappointed, and says he’ll meet the others at the pub after meeting with the superintendent.

Ray finally gets to the Nag’s Head pub and envies his co-workers’ ability to switch off. He tells them Brian and Pat have been taken off the investigation. Kate is upset, but Ray says, “We’re not giving up” (54). He’s still working on the fog lights, and Kate offers to ask at the Royal Infirmary.

His wife calls him and he leaves; he has forgotten an appointment with the school that was set two weeks ago. Tom is having issues settling into school, and Mags is reproachful when he arrives home. The school suggests seeing how Tom is doing after a few months and then meeting again. Ray promises to be there.