Almost a Crime (104 page)

policemen had said, ‘But we have to treat every piece of

information very seriously.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Octavia had said. She was sitting in the

room where they had had lunch, twisting a handkerchief

backwards and forwards in her hands; she looked dreadful.

Tom felt rather sick. ‘Octavia?’ he said gently. ‘I have to

talk to you, I have something to tell you.’

‘What is it? is there any news? Have they — is she—’

‘No. This is nothing to do with Minty. This is to do with

your father.’

‘Daddy?’ She sounded stupefied. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s — well, he’s had a heart attack.’

She stared at him; seemed not to have understood. ‘A

heart attack?’

‘Yes. But he’s alive. In fact, he’s doing well. Well enough

to say he doesn’t want you to know, doesn’t want you to be

worried.’ God, he hoped it was true.

‘He can’t have,’ she said. ‘He can’t be ill. Not today. It’s

impossible!’

‘Octavia, I’m afraid he is.’

She stared at him, a flush rising in her face. The

expression in her eyes was suddenly angry. ‘Well, it’s just

not fair,’ she said, her voice raw with rage. ‘It’s awful,

terrible. What am I supposed to do? Leave here, go rushing

back to London, forget about Minty? I can’t, it’s absolutely

impossible, you’ll just have to tell them, Tom, say of course

I can’t come, they can’t expect it.’

‘Octavia, no one’s expecting anything. That’s the whole

point, they—’

‘Yes, they are. Of course they are. They all will — expect

me to be there, just like that. It’s too bad of them. I just

don’t understand — don’t — oh, God, Tom. ‘And then she started crying, quite quietly at first, then increasingly loudly, until she was screaming, raging at him, at her father, the

doctors. He tried at first to comfort her, to hold her, but she

pushed him away, stood there, crying, arms hanging at her

sides, fists clenched. And then she suddenly stopped. ‘I’m

sorry,’ she said, hauling herself back under control. ‘So

sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I understand.’

‘Is he in hospital?’

‘Yes. Would you like to speak to the doctor yourself? Or

the sister in charge?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, I would. Please.’ She wiped her eyes,

blew her nose. ‘I can’t go up there,’ she said, ‘I really can’t.’

‘Of course you can’t. I told you. He doesn’t want you to,

doesn’t want you worried. On your big day.’ He was struck

rather forcibly by the irony of this, but she didn’t appear to

notice.

‘It’s so like him,’ she said rather vaguely, ‘thinking of me,

not wanting the day spoilt. Oh, God.’ She almost smiled

suddenly. ‘Imagine if it wasn’t, Tom. Imagine if we were all

going home, now, all of us, Minty and the twins, all

together, singing in the car, saying what fun it had been,

saying what a success…’ She started to cry again. ‘Oh,

Tom, I can’t bear it, any of it, I just can’t. And now

Daddy…’

He put his arms round her then, held her, stroked her

hair, made the sort of noises he made to the children when

they were crying.

She stayed there for a long time; then pulled away from

him. ‘I’d better phone the hospital,’ she said, quite calm

suddenly, ‘speak to them. Find out how bad it is.’

‘Yes. Here’s the number, here’s my phone.’

‘I really think,’ she said slowly, when she had finished, handing it back to him, ‘I really think it sounds as if he’s all

right. As all right as he could be. That was the sister, she

was very helpful. I — I sort of explained. Said we had a crisis

with one of the children, couldn’t get back yet. She said he

was stable, that he was responding to the treatment, that he

was very strong. She wasn’t giving any guarantees, but - I

mean, normally of course I’d want to rush back and be with

him, but I just can’t, Tom. I can’t leave here, not yet. I feel

we’d be abandoning Minty. I know it’s mad, but — this was

the last place she was, and she might — well, you never

know. Louise might just be keeping her here for a while,

then planning to give her back to us. I want to stay. The

police are here, and until we know she’s somewhere else for

certain, I think we should stay.’

‘Suppose Louise tries to contact us, at home?’ he said.

‘Isn’t that possible?’

‘Well, if she does, Caroline can tell us. She’ll be back

very soon.’ She looked at her watch. ‘God, it’s half past six.’

‘Yes, but the other children, they’re so upset. Don’t you

think … ?’

‘Look, you go,’ she said finally. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea.

They’ll be fine with you. I’ll stay here. For now. For a

while.’

‘I thought you said you — you wanted to be with me,’ he

said quietly.

‘I did. I do. But you’re right, the children are horribly

upset. They need one of us. You go, then — no, perhaps

not.’ She managed a half smile. ‘I was going to say you

could go and see my father.’

‘I don’t think that would do him any good at all,’ he said

and managed to smile back at her.

‘But you will go home?’

‘Yes, I’ll go. I wish you’d come too.’

‘No. No, I want to stay a bit longer at least. Just —just in

case.’

He was too exhausted, too confused to argue with her;

he didn’t actually feel himself it made any difference where they were. Or what they did. Or for that matter what anybody did.

Everyone had gone: she was alone there now with the

police. The twins had gone with Tom, hardly protesting, so

distressed were they by what had happened. Dickon, large

eyed, silent, sucking his thumb, understanding that Minty

was gone, but not why and with whom, had gone with

them; Sandy was meeting them at one of the service

stations, to take Dickon home. Nico had taken Zoe; she too

was silent with shock, beyond tears, beyond anything. Only

Melanie had stayed, to keep her company.

Octavia wasn’t allowed to stay in the incident room; she

sat outside, with Melanie, alternately talking compulsively

and silent. A line search was going on in the woods around

the race track; police and dogs, pushing through the trees.

That was somehow sinister, she found, she didn’t like it,

even while she was grateful.

‘She’ll be so frightened,’ she said to Melanie, ‘frightened

and tired. And she’ll need feeding and changing and her

tooth will be hurting, she’ll need Calpol, how will she get

all those things, who will see to her? Do you think Louise

will look after her properly, know what she wants?’

‘Of course she will,’ said Melanie, ‘of course. She’s a

mother herself, isn’t she? She’ll know.’

‘She’s got an upset tummy too, she needs changing a lot,

she’s got awful nappy rash. Oh, God, Melanie, how did I let

this happen?’

‘You didn’t let it happen!’

‘I did, I did. I was quarrelling with Tom, jealous because

he was all over Lauren. I should have been outside, helping

Zoe look after Minty. Oh, Melanie, God, oh, God, where

can she be, where can Louise have taken her?’

‘I don’t know, Octavia. I really don’t know.’

‘I mean, she won’t go to a hotel. The police said they’d

put out alerts, there’ll be announcements on the radio,

television, all those things. I think we were right to agree to

that, don’t you?’

‘Of course you were.’

‘So — where? Where can she go? No friend would take

her in. She can’t explain Minty to anyone. Where can she

hide? Melanie, where would you go? If you had a baby

with you, and you wanted no one to know?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine. Somewhere I knew

about, that nobody else did, I suppose.’

‘Yes. Yes, I know that, but — but where, what?’

‘Has the family got some holiday house anywhere?’

‘Well, a house in Spain. I suppose she might try to go

there. But then she’d know we’d all think of it. No, I don’t

think she’d do that. And how would she get there? On a

train, I suppose. What about a train? A train is a good

hiding place, you can keep moving about, hide in the

lavatory and so on. Or she could drive, go through the

Channel tunnel, that would be so easy, then we’d never

find her.’

‘She couldn’t get Minty through passport control, surely.’

‘No, maybe not. The police said they would put out

what they call a port stop. That’s all stations, ports, airports.’

‘Well, there you are. They have the number of the car, a

description of Louise and Minty.’

‘She could be in disguise.’

‘Yes. But Minty can’t be. Or the car.’

‘She could get another car. Easily. She could hide Minty

in the boot. I bet that’s what she’d do. Oh, God, think of

that, she might suffocate. And suppose there was an

accident? Oh, Mells, I can’t stand this, I really can’t!’

Melanie said nothing.

‘I’m going to ring Charles. Louise’s father. You’re right,

she might have gone somewhere, some family house or

cottage I don’t know about. Charles? Charles, it’s Octavia.

No, nothing. Have you? No. Charles, is there anywhere

you can think of Louise might go? Some friend who might

help her, lend her somewhere, a flat or a cottage or

something? No. No, I don’t know, but— Yes. Yes, let me

know if you do think of anywhere. Could you ring the

boys, see if they’ve heard anything? If they can think of anywhere. Oh, I see. Yes. Yes, please do, Charles. If you do come up with anything, anything at all, ring me on this

number, it’s my mobile. Yes, of course. Yes, maybe. ‘Bye,

Charles.

‘Poor old chap,’ she said gently, putting the phone down.

‘He’s so terribly, terribly upset. He still keeps saying he’s

sure it’s a mistake, that Louise would never do such a thing.’

‘But no ideas?’

‘No ideas. Only the house in Spain. Oh, God. It’s getting

late, look, nearly half past seven. Minty’ll be so tired, and

she’ll be crying. Suppose Louise is driving too fast, suppose

she has a crash? Melanie, I can’t bear it for her, I just can’t

bear it.’ She started to cry again.

Melanie put her arm round her. ‘I know it’s hard,’ she

said, ‘but you must try to stay calm. You must. For Minty’s

sake. You have to keep thinking straight. There has to be

an answer to this, something you haven’t thought of

‘Yes,’ she said, wiping her eyes, blowing her nose. ‘Yes,

you’re right. I must keep calm. I must think. And she won’t

hurt her, she won’t let her come to any harm, you’re right

about that too. She’s taken her because she wants her. I

must keep telling myself that. She’s taken her because she

wants a baby. She’s lost two.’

‘Two?’

‘Yes, Juliet and — well … the one she was having earlier

this year. And she was so angry with me about — about

the…’

‘About what?’

‘I - had an abortion a year before Minty. She found out.

She accused me of throwing it away.’

‘Ah …’

‘So — yes, I suppose, in her mad logic, she has a right to

Minty. But she’s mad, Melanie. Mad people don’t look

after babies properly. They don’t, they don’t. Maybe she’s

planning to — to …’

‘No,’ said Melanie, ‘no, Octavia. Don’t even think about

that.’

Poor little baby. Asleep at last. Exhausted. Louise had put

some readymade formula into a bottle, asked them behind

the counter in a Little Chef to warm it up for her. It was a

risk, but she didn’t want to give it to her cold. Then she sat

in the car, trying to feed her; Minty had thrashed about

screaming for quite a long time, but finally hunger was too

much for her, and she’d drunk it all. And then eaten a

couple of chocolate biscuits. It wasn’t exactly a good diet,

but she’d make it up to her tomorrow. When they were

there, when they were safe. She had quite a few fresh

vegetables in the chill box. And some fruit. Minty loved

fruit; the last time she’d seen her, that day at Octavia’s

cottage, when her rather odd, badly dressed boyfriend had

been there, and she’d met him for the first time, Minty had

eaten about three bananas, and some strawberries. Louise

remembered that day so well; she’d been caught out nearly

- in her lie about going to the dentist. She’d seen

Octavia’s face, just on the edge of being puzzled, realised

she had to be more careful.

She was doing well anyway, with her journey. On the

M4 now, almost at Bristol, which meant — she did a swift

calculation — God, still three hours to go. At least. And the

last bit of the journey would be difficult. She hadn’t done it

for so long. And then she had to get the place ready, it

would be difficult in the dark. And it would probably be

filthy. She’d brought lots of torches and nightlights and

things, but it would still be difficult. Well, never mind. It

got light very early. She could do everything in the

morning. She could give Minty another bottle, maybe it

would have to be cold, and then they could just lie down

together, on one of the beds, tucked together into a

sleeping bag. Minty was so tired; she would surely settle.

‘I’ll stay here with you,’ Nico said, ‘until your mother gets