Little Black Lies (35 page)

We’ve had courtesy phone calls from the police throughout the day, mainly, I suspect, because Dad would drive them daft if they didn’t keep us informed. So we know that Catrin has been interviewed at length, but has admitted nothing beyond seeing the child in the road, picking him up and returning him to the garden. There were hairs on her sweater and a child’s fingerprints on her bag, but alone they’ll prove nothing beyond the fact of her picking him up, and that she freely admits.

At the bottom of the stairs the hallway is cold, the tiled floor uncomfortable beneath my bare feet. Sander has been calling continually. I think he’s going out of his mind so far away, unable to do anything. As if he’d feel any different, any less powerless, were he here.

The police are convinced that Catrin is lying, mainly because they found a toy on her boat, a little stuffed rabbit that I identified immediately. It’s an old one of Michael’s that his younger brother adopted and that we have been unable to find anywhere in the house. The police see it as proof that she had him on the boat, that she took him out to sea. Divers have been in Port Pleasant for much of the day, looking for anything Catrin may have thrown overboard. At least, that’s the official line. We all know they’re looking for my son’s body.

The kitchen still smells of the spaghetti bolognese that Grandma cooked for the boys. We all watched her put out three plates, including the little Peter Rabbit one that Peter always uses, and nobody had the heart to say anything. When she realized what she’d done, she fled the room. We could hear her sobbing in the hall. It was Chris who got up and put his brother’s little plate away in the cupboard, who served spaghetti to himself and Michael.

The two anonymous notes I received are being kept confidential for now. Stopford himself says it’s usual in these cases, to keep something back from the general public, although we do know that Catrin herself has denied sending them. A close examination has found no fingerprints other than mine and those of the woman who manages the post office. She, of course, sells lots of the stuff. A sample of Catrin’s handwriting will be sent away for comparison but until it comes back with a positive result, the notes don’t constitute evidence of any useful kind.

With nothing else to do, I go back to my bed. Fireworks have started to go off around Stanley. Each one sounds like gunfire.

*   *   *

I’m first up next morning. I dress quickly and go outside, across the garden, to the cliff path. As I draw near to the edge, the sky starts to colour, picking up reflections of a sun that I know is coming up fast. Normally, there are few sights more heartening, more lifting to the spirits than a sunrise, the glorious announcement to the world that night is over. Nothing uplifting about this one. There are no soft pinks, no pastel shades of orange in the colour palette building around me. The clouds, as thick and heavy, and banked as high as they have been the last twenty-four hours, are becoming a mass of dark shadows and the harsh Falun-red that we used to see dug out of copper mines. This is
the hot and copper sky
of Coleridge’s poem. Then the sea colours too, and its rise and swell starts to look like congealing blood. The deep, dark reds around me intensify, even the grass, the gorse, the rocks are gleaming crimson. The world has turned red.

If ever a red sky in the morning felt like a portent of something sinister, this one does. This feels like the dawn to mark the death of a child.

*   *   *

I get back to the house to find the police waiting for me. Catrin has confessed.

DAY SIX

Saturday, 5 November (five hours later)

33

I don’t go home when Callum and I finish reading Catrin’s diary. I cannot. In any case, I don’t need to. The boys are with my mother and, for all that she drives me nuts, she is a great grandma. Chris will feed, muck out and ride Strawberry. Dad will guard them all with his life, if he has to, I know that much about him. In a few hours, Sander will be home and he is the best father any child could ask for. They don’t need me. They think they do, but they don’t.

I need never go home again.

Once the initial shock, the misery, is over, they will be so much better off. Like an otherwise healthy body after a gangrenous limb has been removed. So I don’t go home. I ride instead to the nearest cliff tall enough for what I have in mind.

God, the wind. It’s howling, screaming into my face. It feels strong enough and angry enough to lift the whole of East Falkland up out of the sea. It will help, I think, take responsibility away from me. I can lean into it, hover beyond hope of changing my mind and allow the wind to choose the moment when it lets me go.

I slow Bee when we get within twenty yards of the edge. The wind is bothering him, I don’t want to scare him by taking him any closer.

She isn’t human in my eyes now.

How well she puts it. I’m not human in anyone’s eyes. What is it she called me?
An event, a living disaster, a void.
I am the storm that wiped out two young lives, the foul wind that blighted so many more.

The man I loved, my best friend, the man who loved her, all of them twisted by grief into something even they barely recognize. And then there are my sons, husband, parents, all tainted by their association with me. One of them has already paid the reckoning that should have been mine. One of us, the smallest, most vulnerable, has been sacrificed. That has to be enough.

I slide off Bee’s back, remove the saddle and bridle and lay them on the ground. They’ll be found, soon enough, like clues in a treasure hunt.

‘What in the name of God do you think you’re doing now?’

I hadn’t really expected my horse to take this quietly so am hardly surprised. I lean against his ribs, feel his coat damp from where the saddle lay and stretch my hand up to cradle the underside of his jaw.

‘Shush now, be good. Go home.’

She’s the reason the world has lost all balance. While she’s around, the universe is tilted and those of us on the underside are on the brink of falling straight down into hell.

People I love are on that underside. One of them has already fallen. No more. Or maybe, just one. Just me.

I step away from the warmth of my horse, push his head in the right direction and shove at his hind-quarters. Then I turn and face the cliff.

‘I’ve seen you do some stupid things, but this…’ Bee hasn’t gone. His head hits me square between the shoulder blades.

‘Go home, you daft horse. I love you. Don’t bite anyone.’ I push him again, hitting him hard on the flank, and he trots off. I can’t watch him any more. I turn and can’t see anything very much, what with the wind on the brink of ripping my eyes out. Blinded, feeling my way, I take one step, then another.

Why couldn’t it have been Rachel standing there on the dock, falling apart? Rachel suffering as that poor bitch is doing. Why not Rachel dying inside, right now, instead of curling up on her son’s bed, rocking his warm body back to sleep? Why isn’t she staring at that bed, cold and empty, wondering where on God’s earth he is?

I am. I’m doing all of those things. Enough now. I walk faster. I won’t stop and think about it. I will keep walking. In fact, better if I run. Run straight, and leap.

I can’t run. I don’t quite have the nerve for that. But I’m at the edge. One last look. The beach below is covered in big, solid rocks, densely packed with sharp edges. They will shatter my skull, if I’m lucky, because that will be the fastest death, but even if my head survives, the multiple ruptures will pierce my vital organs, the bleeding will be extensive, will kill me in minutes. Maybe I’ll really luck out and my neck will break.

I spread out my arms and lean, the wind takes me, holds me on the brink of oblivion – and my frigging horse takes a chunk out of my shoulder.

He staggers back, planting his hooves firmly on the soft ground, taking me with him.

‘Let go.’ I try to pull away. I would have done it, I know I would, I’d felt my balance give way, my weight tilt.

He can’t talk to me. His teeth are clamped together around the loose fabric of my shirt. Besides, the effort of dragging me back is taking most of his energy. Unable to pull away, I sink to the ground. He lets go and takes a swipe at my head with his mouth.

‘Get up, get that saddle back on me and let’s get home.’

‘Bee, I can’t. I just can’t.’

‘Lady, twenty-four hours from now, I’ll push you off myself. But there’s something you have to do first.’

I turn to look at the soft, black muzzle, those chocolate-brown eyes, and against every inclination I know that he’s right. I’ll come back here soon, if I can. But there’s something I have to do first.

34

It is Bonfire Night. Being British – well, sort of – we celebrate it. Of course it’s not so easy here because November is late spring and the evenings are long. Bonfires don’t have the same impact in the twilight, we have to wait till much later before setting off the fireworks, but we make the effort all the same.

As soon as Bee and I get home, I ask Mum if she can stay with the boys, but she’s anxious to leave. She and Dad are committed to the ongoing search for my son, and I can hardly argue with that. She does, though, agree to take them to the bonfire in the evening. I have a few more hours to get through.

I’d like to say I spend the day putting everything in order – seeing to the horses, tidying the house, cooking dinner for Sander and the boys – but the truth is that everything has already been done for me. So I fill the hours by watching my sons, sitting close to them whenever I can. I try not to think about whether the decision I made on the clifftop is the right one. I watch the hands of the clock creeping round.

At six o’clock it’s time. I leave instructions for Sander, where I’ve put things, how to feed the horses. I don’t tell him what I’m planning to do, or why. The first he’ll know soon enough, the other he’ll never understand.

‘We don’t want to go to the bonfire.’ Chris starts grumbling before he’s fastened his seat belt. ‘We want to stay here.’

It’s an effort not to yell at him,
Just get in the bloody car!
‘We always go,’ I tell him. ‘It will take your mind off things for a while.’

‘What if Peter comes back and we’re not here?’

‘Daddy will be home soon. And I’ll try and pop back, once I’ve done what I need to.’

‘You’re not coming with us?’ Michael wants to know.

‘Peter doesn’t want you.’ Chris is struggling not to cry. He always gets a bit mean when he’s upset and trying not to show it. ‘He knows you don’t love him. He wants us.’

I take a deep breath. Chris was always the smart one.

‘I love you,’ I tell him. ‘I love you and Michael more than anything else in the world. Please do this for me.’

‘But not Peter.’

‘Of course I love Peter.’ I take hold of him and press him close to me so that he can’t look me in the eye. He’ll be taller than me soon. One day, I’ll hug him and he’ll be the bigger party. And then I realize that may never happen now and it feels as though an Antarctic wind has blown straight through the car. I let him go and he pulls sulkily away.

I say goodbye to them in their grandparents’ driveway. I want to hold them both again, to say something that might be meaningful in time. Except, I know that if I start I’ll never get away.

It’s a short drive to the police station and stray fireworks are already going off around me. I pass houses with their coloured tin roofs, see Guys slumped against fences, families setting out for the bonfire, and I feel as though I’m seeing it all for the very last time.

‘Hello, Rachel.’

I’ve known the desk sergeant since I was little. Now, I watch his face fall. ‘I’m not sure we have any news, I’m afraid, but I can call DS Savidge down for a word?’

The station has an empty feel about it – everyone must be out supervising the fireworks, or simply enjoying them. I feel the need to be close to the sergeant all the same, to speak quietly.

‘Is Catrin still here? I know she was released last night, allowed to go home. Has that happened again?’

Frowning, he shakes his head. ‘She’s still here. But, Rach – let me call Josh down.’

I wait in the reception area, watching the lines of the sergeant’s face twitch as he has a muttered telephone conversation.

‘He’s on his way.’ The telephone receiver clicks back into place. ‘Can I get you something? Tea?’

I shake my head. I don’t want him to do anything now that he might be sorry for later. And that includes showing me acts of kindness.

Josh Savidge looks tense when he appears after a minute or two. He thinks I’m here to demand answers, to blame him for my son’s continuing disappearance. He’ll soon be wishing I were.

‘Rachel, I’m sorry. There’s nothing new.’ He looks round, as though for inspiration. ‘Look, come and have a cup of tea. The interview room’s free, isn’t it, Neil? No, actually, let’s go into the staff room.’

Everyone is determined to be kind to me. ‘You might want to make it a bit more formal. I’ve come to make a statement.’

He blinks at me. ‘OK, right.’ He blinks some more. ‘Remembered something, have you? OK, then. Well, if you’d like to follow me.’

The walls on either side of the corridor seem to be closing in.

‘Next on your right.’

We enter a standard box of a room, with a barred window high in one wall and a table that is too big for the four chairs arranged around it. A pile of four more chairs is stacked in one corner. There is recording equipment. Through the window, I see a rocket fly into the sky. It explodes into lilac stars and I can’t help remembering that Peter hated fireworks, that he cried and cried last year when we took him to see them. ‘Bit too horrid, Daddy,’ he whimpered into his father’s shoulder.

‘It seems quiet here. The station, I mean.’

‘Most people are out at the fireworks. There’s a lot of people from the
Princess Royal
in town still and things are a bit – we only have a skeleton staff here.’ Josh is looking guilty, as though expecting me to blame him for not having all hands on deck when my son is still missing. Except, why should they? They believe Catrin has killed him and the urgency to find his body doesn’t merit running up a massive overtime bill.