31 Days of Autumn (41 page)

‘I think we’re quid pro quo, how about we call
it even?’ he replied. ‘That boy of yours will make a fine soldier one day. He
was brave and followed every order I gave him.’

‘He’s
never
joining the military, I
couldn’t bear to worry about him even more than I already do. Poor Mrs. Smith,
I don’t know how she does it, knowing you’re putting yourself in danger every
day. It must break her heart to see you like this. You’re a mess, James.’ I
felt tears streaming down my face again.

‘Me?’ he chuckled, patting my hand. ‘You should
see the other guy. Does Mr. Davenport know where you are?’

‘No,’ I whispered, feeling guilty. It was one
thing being mad with him, quite another to disappear without letting him know
where I was.

‘I’ll call a nurse for a wheelchair to take you
back,’ James advised, wincing as he reached for his alert button. I reached out
and grabbed his hand.

‘Please don’t. I can walk back, unlike you.
Will your leg heal?’

‘I’ll be in traction for a while, but Mr.
Davenport had the top specialist operate on me. I’ll be right as rain before
you know it. How’s your leg?’

‘Much better, now that I’m being treated. I’ll
have a scar but I’m lucky, all things considered.’ I jumped when I heard my
name being roared by Dan. ‘O shit, he’s come looking for me.’ I looked back at
James with a grimace.

‘Go, you know how he worries and don’t be too
hard on him.’

‘Can I come and see you again tomorrow?’ I
asked, squeezing his hand.

‘I’d like that. Best Master Oliver doesn’t see
me like this though.’

‘Agreed, he’d be so upset. Thank you, James,
for … for
everything
. I’ll be forever in your debt.’

‘Ellie!’ Dan yelled, his voice getting closer.

‘He’ll give some poor old lady a heart attack
if he keeps shouting like that. Quick, because I don’t want a mouthful from him
either,’ he ordered. I kissed him again and made my way to the door, taking a
deep breath before I opened it and stepped out into the corridor to see a furious-looking
Dan stalking up the corridor towards me. I tried to focus on James’s advice. He
was so wise and knew how to handle Dan, and he was right. If Dan hadn’t done
what he had, the three of us would likely have been dead. Regardless of my
anger at him for not running it past me first, I couldn’t dispute that he’d
saved our lives.

‘Ellie, what the hell?’ he shot, his eyes
narrowing with anger as he approached me. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind.’

‘I needed some space, someone to offload on,’ I
replied, dropping my head so I didn’t have to look at him. Even when he was mad
with me, one look at his handsome face and those green eyes with gold flecks
swayed me.

‘You can talk to James and not to me?’ he
asked, his voice full of pain at the thought of it.

‘You made me angry and I didn’t want a shouting
match with you. Then when I started having a panic attack, I needed someone who
made me feel safe, Dan.’

‘Now you don’t feel safe with me either?’

‘That’s not what I meant, don’t twist my
words.’

‘No twisting needed, Ellie. You made a
statement and it was a straight line all the way to the conclusion. Is this
because I didn’t find you sooner? Are you blaming me for what happened to you?’

‘No!’ I shot back, looking up at him. I
grimaced to see the look on his face. He was really hurt. ‘Dan, please. I’m
tired, I’m weak, and I’m hungry. You’re not responsible for what happened, but
it doesn’t mean that I’ve forgiven you for what you did to Oliver. Right now
though, I don’t want a deep, emotional discussion. I want just to lie down.’

‘Let me carry you back to bed, you shouldn’t be
up yet.’

‘Dan!’ My protests fell on deaf ears, and it
wasn’t like I was in a position to fight him off when he lifted me off the
ground, put me over his shoulder, then grabbed my stand and started heading
back towards the lift. I just hung there, limply, neither of us saying anything
as he escorted me back to our room and carefully deposited me on my bed.

‘Ellie, I know you’re angry at me, but you
can’t bottle up what happened to you, however scary it may be to confront it.
I’m your husband. If anyone’s going to help you, it’s damn well going to be me.
What if you were on your own with the children and suddenly broke down when it
all hit you? I’m not risking any of you again and if that means me being the
bad guy here, forcing you to confront whatever you faced in that bunker, that’s
what I’m going to bloody do.’ He was getting angry, his voice had increased
several decibels, and there was a familiar flash of annoyance in his eyes. I
felt my bottom lip wobbling as I looked at him. I’d never been so angry with
him before, but needed him so much at the same time. ‘Tell me how I can help?’
he sighed.

‘Hold me,’ I whispered. ‘Just hold me, I need
to feel safe again.’

‘Ellie.’ He kicked off his shoes and climbed
onto my bed, pulling me into his arms as I began to sob, my chest rattling
between each gasp for air. ‘Talk to me,’ Dan urged when I finally stopped
crying.

‘I’d really just like some fresh air. Is there
any way I can go and sit in the garden for a while?’

‘It’s cold out,’ he sighed, disappointment
showing all over his face as I struggled out of his embrace.

‘I’ll dress warmly.’

‘You’re too weak to walk,’ he protested.

‘I’ll go in a wheelchair,’ I countered,
determined not to be overridden on this.

‘I see your stubborn side hasn’t been
affected,’ he observed as he got out of bed. ‘As you wish.’

‘I need the nurse to come and remove my drips
so I can put on a jumper,’ I reminded him.

‘I’ll send one in.’

He disappeared and I checked my iPad
immediately, a weight being lifted off my shoulders to see pictures of the
children in Hamleys, then one of them tucking into their afternoon tea. Oliver
and Jonas had brown moustaches from their hot chocolates. It made me smile and
clutch my chest. I was missing them so much. I managed to get changed into my
jeans and warm sheepskin boots that Brooke had taken to be dry-cleaned. The
nurse detached me so that I could put on my jumper and when Dan returned with
the wheelchair with its tall silver stand attached, she hooked me back up and
transferred the bags of antibiotics and fluid from the bed stand to the
wheelchair, then helped me into it and tucked a blanket around me.

‘Half an hour, then back to bed,’ she warned
Dan as he gripped the handles.

‘I can’t wait to get back to work where I can
boss people around,’ he sighed, making her smile.

We stayed silent as we headed down in the lift
and Dan wheeled me out of the rear double doors and down the ramp to the small
square walled garden. I took some deep breaths, grateful to have real fresh air
in my lungs again after days of recycled air. It was such a tranquil place. It
had been done up like a Japanese tea garden with bamboos, water, coy fish, and
bonsai trees. Dan positioned me on a small bridge overlooking the pool with the
fish and put the brakes on the wheelchair, kissing the top of my head as he
did.

‘I’ll go and see if I can find a chair to sit
with you.’

‘Actually,’ I hesitated, knowing I was likely
to hurt him with my next comment. ‘I’d like to sit on my own for a while, if
that’s ok.’

‘That wasn’t a question, Ellie,’ he replied,
picking up on my tone.

‘No,’ I confirmed. ‘I was trying to be polite.
I’d really just like a bit of time alone. I’m perfectly safe here.’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, you keep
pushing me away,’ he sighed.

‘It’s not you, it’s me. I’m not trying to make
you feel bad, but I need … I need some space.
Please
,’ I pleaded,
looking down at my tangled fingers in my lap, not wanting to see the look of
hurt that I knew would be on his face again.

‘You can’t shut me out forever, Ellie,’ he
warned. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes and that’s it.’

I looked up as I heard him walking away and
watched him glance back over his shoulder as he passed through the doors. What
was wrong with me? I could share with James, but not my own husband? I looked
back down at the fish staring up at me as they flexed their mouths in hope of
some food and watched their tails swishing back and forth in the water. Right
now I’d love to be one of those fish. Brightly-coloured and beautiful, carefree
with the only concern being when their next meal was due. I’d give anything to
feel that free again. I may not be down in that bunker anymore, but with each minute
that passed today, I felt like everything was closing in on me, suffocating me.
I may as well be back there.

Two weeks
later ~ Friday 9
^th
October

Ellie

I sat at my dressing table,
putting in a pair of my diamond and emerald earrings from Dan, and stared at my
face in the mirror, wondering if I should reconsider my decision not to wear
anything but waterproof mascara. We were due to leave soon for Jenny’s funeral.
It was going to be a closed-casket service. It was bad enough to picture the
damage the bullet did to her face as it happened, I didn’t want to see her in
person like that again. While Dean had insisted on seeing her the day her body
was delivered to the morgue, Dan had told me that he’d convinced her parents
not to, that they needed to remember her as she was, the beautiful, strong, and
brave woman who put her life on the line for others every day. She didn’t
deserve to have gone like that, to not even have been given the chance to fight
for her life, but to be shot from behind while she kneeled there on that
plastic sheet, totally defenceless… I shook my head as I fought back tears. I
hadn’t expected to go the day without, but neither had I expected to be so
close to tears this early in the day.

It seemed
that even the National Park hadn’t been aware of that bunker. How our
kidnappers were would never be solved now, but using Dan’s offer of high-resolution
imaging equipment, the police had sent specialist teams out to scour the
woodland around the cottages, as well as a helicopter to scan from above and
point out anything else that looked out of the ordinary. It had found something
in the bottom of a deep gulley, inaccessible by road. I shuddered as I thought
of it. Three metal barrels piled up, as if they’d just been rolled over the
edge of the steep bank above. Three barrels containing three bodies, or rather
what was left of them. The police told us that the barrels had been filled with
acid to obliterate the contents. They’d advised it was going to be extremely
difficult to identify any of those remains now.

Jenny’s
murder had been bad enough to witness, to deal with, but to be so disrespectful
to those other victims, to shove them in those tin cans, pour that liquid on
them, and then roll them down there, made me feel sick. Money, it was all about
money. They valued it over a human being’s life and dignity, and that I wasn’t
sure I’d ever get my head around. I’d tried to console myself with the thought
that at least Jenny had been returned to us, that we could lay her to rest,
that we could all have some closure, a place to go in the future to be with
her. To have not been able to bury her would have been so hard for everyone. I
stood up as I saw Dan enter the room in the reflection of the mirror. He was
looking how I felt, I knew that this was going to be hard for him, too. He felt
responsible. I felt responsible. Even poor James felt responsible. There was
more than enough guilt going around to last a lifetime.

‘You look
nice,’ Dan nodded. I didn’t reply, I knew he didn’t know what to say.
Acknowledging comments on my outfit was something I was going to have to get
used to today. I remembered the pointless comments and questions I had at my
parents’ funeral. No one knew what to say to make you feel better, so they came
out with the most inane things because there was nothing that they could say to
take away the pain. It was true that words spoke volumes, unless you were
grieving, then they had no meaning at all. They were like white noise in the
background. I adjusted the thin black belt around my knee-length black dress,
making sure the buckle was in the centre. It shouldn’t really matter, but it
felt important. Jenny was so particular, her military training had a part in
that, she’d have adjusted it for me if she’d have been standing here now.
‘Ready?’

‘Yes,’ I
said quietly, wanting to say no, but not wanting to seem pissy with him. It
wasn’t his fault. He was just trying to be supportive, but right now I felt
more alone than ever. I could feel myself retreating, needing space, which
wasn’t like me at all. I’d always needed someone, I’d never been happy being
alone. Even in that bunker after James and Oliver left, I’d had company, albeit
dead.

I grabbed my
black clutch bag and let him steer me down to the front door with his hand in
the small of my back. Magda was looking after the children at Daniel and
Luiza’s, where they’d been overnight. My parents-in-law wanted to come to the
funeral, which was only natural. Jenny had been a part of our family, looking
after their grandchildren for them. Andy was sitting in the driver’s seat, a
stoic look on his face matching Chris’s, as Dan helped me up and shut my door.
No one spoke a word from the house to the church near to where Jenny’s parents
lived. Dan had taken my hand and nudged his fingers between mine, but for the
first time since I’d met him, I felt nothing. All I felt was a sense of loss,
pain, and anger.

We pulled up
and I got a disapproving glare from all three men as I opened the car door and
slid out before Andy had even had a chance to pull on the handbrake. Andy had
deliberately chosen to leave at the last possible minute, anticipating a media
frenzy, and he wasn’t wrong. Within seconds, I was circled by them, questions
being fired at me, flashbulbs going off in my face. I held my bag up to shield
my eyes, put my head down, and kept walking. I could hear Andy and Dan berating
the photographers as they tried to push through and get to me. I needed to see
Dean, it weighed so heavily on me that he’d purchased that ring, organised a
romantic weekend away, and had no idea what her answer would have been, let
alone how she really felt about him. I hoped that he’d know in his heart, but I
needed to tell him that I’d heard how she felt and the word “yes” from her own
lips. I sincerely hoped that it would give him some consolation and not make
matters worse. When I broke free of the press, I ran up the steps into the
church and stood for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the relative darkness,
then spotted Dean sitting on the second row on the far right, next to James in
his wheelchair. I skirted the back row and quickly walked up the edge of the
church to where they were.

‘Mrs.
Davenport.’ Dean jumped to his feet as soon as he spotted me.

‘You’ll have
to forgive me for not standing, Mrs. Davenport,’ James added, giving me a
gentle smile. I leaned down and kissed his cheek, thankful that his facial
bruises were fading. He was starting to look like himself again.

‘I know that
you would if you could, James. It’s good to see you out of the hospital at
last. Please could I borrow Dean for a moment?’

‘Of course,’
he nodded, spinning his chair to the side, being careful not to bash his
elevated plaster-casted leg on anything, and allowing Dean to walk out.

‘Is
everything alright, Mrs. Davenport?’ Dean frowned as I pulled him behind a
large stone pillar.

‘I want to
tell you something, but I’m not sure if it will make today even harder for
you.’

‘About
Jenny?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I
nodded. ‘If you prefer, I can tell you another day, but I think it’s important
that you know, she’d have wanted you to know.’

‘Tell me,’
he replied, a waiver in his voice. I took his hand and placed an object in it,
my eyes filling with tears as he looked down at it, then up at me, astonished.

‘She told me
that she hadn’t told you yet, she was going to on your weekend away, she also
told me something else.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and leaned in to whisper
in his ear. It was private, between him and Jenny, no one else. ‘She would have
said yes, Dean. We discussed your trip and joked about you proposing, but I saw
her face light up. We talked about the future, about how she saw herself
getting married to you, giving up looking after my children to have ones of her
own with you. She loved you, as much as you loved her. I thought you ought to
know that.’

‘She really
said that?’ he choked. I straightened and gave him a sad smile.

‘She really
did and I’m so sorry that was taken from you. I hope I didn’t make things worse
today by telling you.’

‘I’m not
sure anything could make today worse, Mrs. Davenport.’

‘Please call
me Ellie, and if there’s anything I can do, if there’s anything you need, any
questions that you have that are unanswered, I’m here.’

‘Actually,
there is something that you can do for me, but it’s asking a lot.’ He frowned
as he looked at me.

‘Ask away.’

‘I’d ask
James, but he’s obviously not in a fit state to come and I’ll understand if you
can’t, or if you don’t want to, but … I wanted someone who knew where, …. I
want ….’ he broke off and shook his head.

‘You want to
go to the bunker and see exactly where she died,’ I said quietly, finishing the
question he was finding so hard to vocalise and feeling a shiver run down my
spine at the thought of it. The police had sent in a forensic team to process
the bodies of Bravo and Delta and photograph all of the evidence, even though
there was no one left to prosecute, then they’d cleaned it up, in case the park
decided to use it for anything in the future.

‘I’m sorry,
it’s asking too much,’ he said quickly, reading the look of horror on my face.
‘I’ll go alone, I’m leaving to stay with a friend in Australia for a while
tomorrow, so I wanted to see it for myself before I leave.’

‘Dean, I …’
I took a few quick, sharp breaths as my heart and my head argued. I’d been
having daily sessions with the private therapist at the hospital and he’d said
going back might help me to deal, but I hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Not
today, of all days.

‘It was
stupid of me to ask, I’m sorry if I upset you.’

‘Ellie, I’m
sorry to interrupt, but we need to take our seats,’ came Dan’s voice behind me.

‘I’ll say
goodbye before I go,’ Dean smiled, squeezing my arm. I nodded, wondering how he
seemed so together right now.

‘It’s good
to see you again, Dean, I’m just sorry it’s here,’ Dan added. I watched an
exchange take place between them with a simple nod. Men seemed to have emotions
so simplified, one line and a nod at a funeral would never be enough between
two women, not two women who were friends, like Dean and Dan were. Dan grasped
my elbow and steered me away, back down the side of the church. ‘Don’t
ever
run off like that again,’ he scolded me with a disapproving glare. ‘I’m cutting
you some slack because of why we’re here and what you’ve just been through, but
I won’t tolerate you doing that in the future, not when I’m still a target for
anyone looking for a payout. I can’t go through the last few weeks again. Are
we clear?’

‘Yes,’ I
whispered, hanging my head in shame. I was making things worse for him, but it
was so hard trying to take care of myself at the moment, let alone thinking of
everyone else’s feelings.

‘Good, now
let’s go and sit down, Brooke and Molly have saved us a place next to them.’

I tried to
avoid the looks of everyone craning their necks to see me as we walked up the
aisle. I slid in next to Brooke and immediately reached for her hand. She put
her head on my shoulder and sniffed as she wiped her nose. The service was a
blur, I didn’t really hear anything that was said as I sat looking at her
coffin and her parents crying. I was finding it hard enough, I couldn’t imagine
how I’d feel if that was Oliver, Jonas, or Eva I was saying goodbye to. It was
a parent’s worst nightmare, having to say goodbye to a child. I tried to
rummage for a tissue in my clutch bag with one hand, as tears streamed down my
face. Dan handed me one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs instead, which I
accepted gratefully.

I chose to
stand by James as we watched her coffin being lowered into the family plot. It
just felt important that in her last moments here, just like her last moments
of life, the three of us were together again. I held his hand as she
disappeared, squeezing it tightly as I saw a few tears roll down his face. I’d
never seen him cry before. Not in the bunker, not during the service when I
kept looking over at him. Most women cried at anything, funny, happy, or sad, but
not men. Maybe his tears were a sign that he was accepting her loss, whereas
mine were still tears of denial. I looked over at Dean. His face was pale, his
lips pressed together tightly as Andy stood with his hand on his shoulder. But
Dean wasn’t crying either. Maybe he couldn’t, or wouldn’t until he faced the
place where he really lost her. If it was going to help him, and he needed me
there, then I had to do it, for Jenny. She’d have done it for me. I turned to
face Dan and he raised his eyebrows as he looked down at me.

‘I have to
do something. It’s not something that I want to do, but it’s something that I
need to do, for my friend.’

‘You’re
going back there with Dean?’ he asked, looking surprised.

‘How did you
know?’

‘He asked
Andy to fly him there, Andy told me last night. Why do I get the feeling that
you’re going to argue about me coming too?’ he frowned.