Too Much Sky - Prologue

She ignored it at first. There were so many seals washed up and hollowed out at this time of the year and it had that shape, sucked into the bank of pebbles, the black-grey mass like a small volcanic mistake. She didn't think about the smell, not then, less salt and sea – earthier and sweeter and closer to the living.

As she approached she cut down and ran along the tidal wash, this was not unusual – the ground was firmer this far down and the going was easier on shins and calves. The last thing she wanted so early in the new year was an injury again. Further on she noticed a more recent cliff collapse and followed a dog's footprints as far as they would go up and then a skid and fall or jump back down. Out to sea she tried to count the wind turbines which weren't turning – something she could chat idly to people in the shop about. The older ladies didn't like idle wind-turbines. If they had to destroy a coastal view they should at least be working – and they were today, even though there was no wind here on the shore to speak of.

She could see John further along the shore in his usual position half a mile ahead, casting out and then sinking back into his den of waxy sweat and strong coffee. Behind him were the tractors waiting to pull the boats from the waters edge when they came back with the catch. In four and a half minutes she would reach him and he would pretend to be surprised. Usually she looked forward to it, her half-way point and she would rest and they would talk. She would ask about his son; if he'd had any luck that morning – in turn he'd ask after her Dad (even though she knew they didn't get on), how things were going with the shop, if the plumbing was sorted out now. These quiet questions and their quiet answers and behind the vast sky and the wide seas.

She couldn't shake the feeling of dread. In her mind it would have been easier to carry on, go the long way around. Get home, use a phone – anonymously. See if she could find a way to climb the sandstone cliff – even swim out, she thought of that too. She thought of all of this, even as she turned and followed her own trail back along the shore and concentrated only on the slap her feet made on the sandy shale. She thought about ordering stock and about David for the first time that day. That prick David. But it wasn't working.

She reached the place her footprints rose suddenly and followed, over one bank and then another, climbing and slipping up the slope, noticing a half-smashed fishing crate worn smooth she hadn't seen before. Later, when everyone had left and she was alone in the flat, this was the part she played over, these last few steps, the trail and coloured cloth salt-dried by the sun – torn. The carcass bleached, bone-white, a rip across the centre and the endless drone of flies, heavier as she moved closer. She couldn't understand why a child's leg would be attached to a seal. There was a sock and a shoe with the laces tied. Then she saw the top of another leg buried in the shale.

She retched and vomited then, and when she was able, started screaming for help.