Almost a Crime (109 page)

didn’t tell anybody.’

Louise hesitated. Then she said, ‘No, I don’t believe

you.’

‘That’s fine. You’ll just have to trust me. Tell you what — here’s my mobile. Ring Sandy. Ask him if he knows where you are.’

Louise looked at her, looked at the phone; hesitated just

for a minute, staring at the numbers. Just long enough.

Octavia reached forward, grabbed Minty, who woke with a

start, began to scream.

She’d thought she could get out; but Louise was quicker.

She moved between her and the door and then reached,

not for Minty, but one of the candles that lay on the table,

next to a still-burning nightlight, and lit it from the small

flame. And with the other hand, she reached behind her,

locked the door.

‘Give her to me,’ she said. ‘Now, Octavia.’

‘Louise, no. Look, try to think properly. How can you

possibly keep her? The police know you’ve got her, you

can’t stay here for long, the locals will know you’re here; if

you run away with her, you’ll get caught. I’m so so sorry

for you, I understand why you want her, but—’

‘I don’t want you to be sorry for me, Octavia, and you

don’t understand. You don’t understand how much it hurts,

all the time, losing Juliet. You don’t understand how happy

I was with Tom, being pregnant with his baby, how much

it hurt to lose it. You don’t understand what it was like,

watching Mummy die. You don’t understand how much I wanted to die. Don’t patronise me, telling me you

understand, because you don’t. You don’t understand any

of it.’

‘No, perhaps I don’t,’ said Octavia quietly. ‘You’re right.

But I am sorry for you, so sorry. And whatever you’ve done

to me, I still care about you. Very much.’ She wasn’t trying

to be clever, to out-manoeuvre Louise any more; she meant

every word. She saw Louise’s expression soften just a little,

grow less wary. ‘You can’t just forget fifteen years of

friendship like we had. I can’t, and I don’t think you can

either.’

Louise’s eyes filled suddenly with tears. ‘Well,’ she said,

her voice quite different, ‘well, I suppose …’ and Octavia

thought in that moment, she was going to do it, talk her

round, felt a surge of confidence.

And then Minty wailed again, and instinctively she drew

her more closely to her. Louise saw that, saw it as a threat

and her face changed again, become harder, cunning. ‘Give

her to me,’ she said. ‘If you don’t, I’ll just set fire to the

caravan. With all of us in it. I could, you know. I could. I’d

rather do that than lose her now.’ She held the candle flame

near one of the old curtains.

Octavia felt very calm suddenly; time was moving very

slowly. She was able to think, to recognise that Louise was

indeed quite capable in that moment of doing what she said,

that she was extremely dangerous. The curtains were tinder

dry: they would go up in a trice. And then the sleeping

bags, heaped on the bunk under one of the windows; they

would catch. There was a lot of wood in the rest of the

caravan — the table, two wooden stools; it might take a

while to catch, but it was potentially lethal.

But if Louise had Minty …

‘All right,’ she said, her voice amazingly steady, ‘all right,

Louise. You take her.’

Minty didn’t want to be taken; she screamed, tried to

cling to her.

‘Go on, darling,’ said Octavia quietly, soothingly, amazed at herself that she could do it, stay so calm. ‘It’s all right, go to Louise. Here, Louise, take her.’

Louise took Minty, held her tight. She blew the candle

out. ‘Right. Now get out.’

‘I’m going.’

‘And don’t come back. And don’t bring anyone back. If

you do, I’ll burn the place down with me and Minty in it. I

mean it.’

‘I won’t,’ said Octavia. ‘I won’t bring anyone back.’

‘Leave the phone.’

‘I’m leaving it.’

‘And don’t go to the farm.’

‘I won’t go to the farm.’

‘Go on. Get out.’

Octavia got out.

Minty was screaming; she had been screaming ever since

Louise had taken her from her mother, and quite a long

time seemed to have passed. The metal walls of the caravan

made her screams louder, it echoed with them; Louise tried

again and again to comfort her, soothe her, but she

screamed on. It was a dreadful noise, so insistent it hurt. It

was like the night before, only much worse, the noise

boring into her head. For twenty minutes, half an hour now

the noise had been going on; Louise began to feel

desperate. What was she going to do? Perhaps she should

take her outside for a bit, for a walk. Just round the field.

But she didn’t dare. Not yet. Octavia had gone, had

climbed over the gate, she had watched her, had disappeared

up the track; but if she did come back, if anyone

came, and she and Minty weren’t in the caravan, she

wouldn’t be able to use her threat.

‘Shush, Minty, please,’ she said, and then louder, ‘Please!

Minty, please, please stop it.’

Minty’s face was scarlet, her curls stuck to her head. She

felt very hot. It was beginning to be frightening. Louise

tried to give her a drink from a beaker, tipping it into the

screaming mouth; Minty spat it out. She was growing rigid

in her fear and her misery; less human, just a stiff, boardlike little body and two thrashing flailing arms, two kicking legs.

Louise couldn’t hold her, couldn’t even try to cuddle her

any more. In the end she put her down in the cot; Minty

lay there, still rigid, screaming, red faced, sweaty. Louise

looked at her, almost afraid.

She tried the drink again, tried giving it to her as she lay

in her cot; Minty turned her head away from it, pushing it

away, screaming more loudly still. This was awful. If she

wouldn’t drink, she’d get dehydrated, she’d be ill.

She hadn’t thought of that, of Minty being ill. How

could she take her to a doctor, get her made better?

She tried to pick her up again, and Minty went rigid

again, throwing her head back now, her body arched

against Louise. Louise paced up and down the caravan,

fighting down the panic, telling herself it couldn’t last for

ever, Minty would tire in the end. She looked out of the

window, at the still-grey morning, the swirling mist; some

crows had settled on the cattle trough, seemed to be staring

at her. It was nightmarish. She looked down at Minty and

saw her face was almost blue, veins bulging on the sides of

her small forehead. It was a horrible sight. Louise felt a rush

of pure, liquid panic, ran over to the cot, half dropped her

into it; the shock made Minty silent, suddenly. Horribly

silent.

Louise stared at her; she lay there very still. Very very

still.

‘No,’ she shouted, ‘no, Minty, no.’ Minty stared up at

her, not moving at all, her blue eyes absolutely blank.

Louise burst into tears herself.

Octavia could never remember afterwards walking across

the field, climbing over the gate; she would have sworn

under oath she hadn’t moved. But she must have done,

because she was on the other side of the gate, sitting with

her head buried in her arms, hoping Louise couldn’t see

her, trying desperately to think what to do, horrified at

herself for her own arrogance, for thinking she could handle something so dangerous, so lethal, all by herself, without help or advice of any kind, when she heard Louise’s voice,

loud, violent, raw with terror, getting nearer to her, calling

to someone, anyone, for help; and as she stood up, she saw

Louise stumbling alone across the field, without Minty, her

face white, working, her eyes huge and dark with terror,

and when she saw Octavia, she ran over to her, grabbed her

arm, and said, ‘Please, please come, Octavia, I think I’ve

done something terrible to Minty. I think she’s dead.’

‘It’s down here,’ said Charles. ‘I only came here once,

always hated it, hated camping of any sort, so uncomfortable,

but - ah. Here it is. Plenty Lane. There’s the farm.

Now, as I recall - yes, turn left here. Down this track. The

caravan’s beyond that field there. In the corner.’

Tom could just make it out; the mist was quite thick, and

much of it anyway was hidden by the hill. ‘But where’s

Octavia’s car? God, I hope this hasn’t been a wild goose

chase.’

‘Probably on the other lane,’ said Charles, ‘it runs past

the farm. But that’s Anna’s car. There, look. Just a

minute …’ He got out, walked down the track, peered inside. He came back, couldn’t quite look Tom in the face.

‘Yes. There’s a baby seat in it. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.’

He looked much older suddenly. Older and frail. He had

clearly been hoping desperately that this had all been a

mistake, that Octavia had been wrong, that Louise was

somewhere else, far away, that Minty, if she had been

abducted, had been abducted by someone else.

‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘yes, it seems she’s here. With

Minty.’

Tom was too exhausted, too afraid, to be tactful or

reassuring. He pulled the car into the gateway, climbed

over it, started running across the field. His legs felt rather odd, a bit numb; he was surprised any part of him was functioning at all.

He could see it now, the caravan; it was more of an

orchard than a field that it was in, full of apple trees and

sheep. Very old, very battered looking, collapsed slightly on

to one wheel, but perfectly functional.

A few sheep nosed round the caravan; there was a water

trough just behind it, and a very rusty hayrack tucked to

one side, the land side, where it was sheltered from the sea.

Clearly, it had become part of their lifestyle.

It was the most beautiful place; he was astonished to find

himself able to notice it, the field halfway down a small

valley, with a wood below it, tipping on downwards,

edging the sloping cliffs, and through the tops of the trees,

he could see the sea, glittering now in the early sun,

breaking through the mist.

As the mist cleared, so did the silence; he could hear dogs

barking at the farm, the sheep bleating foolishly as he

approached them, some cows mooing in the distance, the

crying of the gulls, waves breaking on the shore far below

him. He could even hear Charles, panting behind him. But

from the caravan there came no sound at all.

It was eerie, sinister. Weren’t they there? After all this?

They had to be, surely. Even if Octavia wasn’t, Louise must

be. Louise and Minty.

Tom went up the caravan steps and knocked on the

door. Very quietly, very gently. There was no answer. He

waited, knocked again; then opened the door very carefully.

Louise

was sitting on a bunk bed, very pale and still,

staring at the floor, and Octavia had one arm round her.

The other encased a filthy but remarkably cheerful-looking

Minty, who was sitting on her mother’s lap, munching her

way through what appeared to be an entire packet of

chocolate biscuits.

Minty was the first to smile.

‘Dada,’ she said, holding out a chocolatey fist.

‘That was Tom,’ said Marianne, putting down the phone.

Tears streamed down her face. ‘They’re safe, all of them.’

‘And Minty?’

‘Minty’s absolutely fine.’

‘Thank God,’ said Zoe and burst into tears.

‘Now poor Octavia has to hear about her father,’ said

Romilly and started to cry too.

Nico looked at them all. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘this might be

my cue to exit. Just for now.’

Octavia had occasionally contemplated the death of her

father. Far, far into the future, of course, but none the less

inevitable. How she would feel, what she would do, how

she would be able to bear it?

In the event, and at first at any rate, she felt almost

nothing. She was too exhausted, too drained, too overwhelmingly

thankful to have Minty back. She listened to

Tom as he told her what had happened, nodding as he

reassured her that Felix had still been insisting she was not

bothered, that her not being there was exactly what he

wanted. She said, politely, how wonderful that Marianne at

least had been there, agreed dutifully that it was the best

possible way for him to go, that it would have been far

more dreadful if he had been ill, asked where he was now,

and whether she would be able to see him. And then having

endured the rigours of a brief press conference and

witnessing the arrest of a totally silent, oddly still Louise - “, slept all the way back to London, curled up on the back seat beside Minty, holding her small hand.

When they got back to the house the tumultuous demands

of the twins held back any emotions she might have

experienced. There was also the gauntlet to be run of a

handful of journalists on the doorstep; Tom told them to go

away, that they’d said all they were going to that morning in Cornwall, but they were reluctant to accept that, had to be pushed aside while they carried Minty in and the

flashbulbs went. That was quite distressing. Octavia sat with all three children in the kitchen, while Minty ate an enormous lunch of fishfingers and peas and sweetcorn in