The Collared Collection (40 page)

Despite insisting she wasn’t going to explain all, Ginny seemed to be basking in the ‘glory’ of recounting her crimes – Callie figured the longer they could keep her talking, the more chance they stood of getting out of there alive. She turned to go back in. Luckily, when she saw him, her gasp floated away on the breeze as Barney flapped his hands wildly for her to stay quiet and act nonchalantly.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said airily, as she reclaimed her seat. She sipped water she’d taken from the bedside table.

With her lip curled, Ginny asked, ‘Weren’t two sprogs enough?’

She wasn’t able to let Susan know that Barney was nearby, though assumed she knew … they should continue playing for time. Ignoring Ginny’s question, which she took as rhetorical, ‘So,’ she said, rather too brightly, ‘are you planning to do away with David, as well?’

‘Of course – as your husband, he’d complicate matters when you die. Strictly speaking, your estate should become his – the Mimi codicil could be overturned in the hands of the wrong judge; best not to take any chances, I think.’

‘Right … so, what have you got in mind for Susan and me?’ Susan’s eyes widened.

‘I can’t decide between a botched robbery, or setting up a scenario where you and David argued, he lost his temper and killed you, then couldn’t live with the guilt … you get the picture. Susan? I think I’ll just throw her over the side of my boat.’

‘Ah, but remember all those water sports she’s so good at …’

‘Gee thanks, Callie!’ Susan muttered. ‘That’s the last time I try and help you out!’

‘So, Ginny – why are we sitting here? You could have picked me off from a distance and made a clean getaway.’

She nodded and smiled. ‘I could have – but then you might not have worked out that this whole farce is entirely your fault. I wanted that to be your dying thought, as you’ve been such a meddling, monumental pain in the arse.’

She realised then that Ginny really hated her.

When they heard another sound outside – a sort of scuffing noise like a sandy shoe slipping on the wooden terrace, Ginny leapt to her feet once more and brandished the barrel of her gun out the window – Callie really hoped Barney had changed position. In case he hadn’t and without considering any of a number of dire consequences, she grabbed a ceramic table lamp and hit Ginny on the back of the head with it, a lot harder than she needed to. She went down like an imploding building.

Barney sprang into the room, kicked Ginny’s gun away, and felt for a pulse. He beamed, ‘She’s out cold, but alive – and I think she’ll have a bit of a headache later. Remind me never to piss you off, Callie!’

Before she could think of a cutting retort, she heard David’s voice calling her name and ran outside to meet him, followed by Susan, while Barney stayed on sentry duty, to ensure Balaclava Man didn’t evade capture this time.

Chapter Sixty-nine

Ginny was detained pending an extradition order in the Seychelles capital, Victoria, on the largest island of Mahe.

David and Callie cut short their stay and flew home on the Thursday, along with Susan and Barney – Callie was ill from the moment they boarded the ferry to Praslin Island, throughout the short hop flight to Mahe and almost all the way back to London.

In between her attacks of nausea and dashes for the loo on the Heathrow-bound flight, she and David did their best to discuss their altered future.

‘When I’ve sold my flat and you’ve sold your house, even allowing for half the profit going to Dominic, we can still afford the new build. Obviously, you can have no claim on Ginny’s house now – not that you’d want it, I imagine.’

‘Damn right. I don’t know how I could have known her all those years and not even suspected she wasn’t playing with a full orchestra.’

‘It happens – everyone thought Ted Bundy was a great guy …’

‘So you’re sure we should go ahead?’

He took her hand, turning her new wedding ring around her finger. ‘I’m sure. My salary is reasonable and if we have a shortfall, I’ll trade in my flash car for a bike. I know all our plans have taken a bit of a jolt, but I don’t want you fretting about anything – you have our baby to look after and your postgrad law course to complete. I’ll cover everything else. And when you finish your sabbatical, you’ll have a salary again – we’ll be loaded.’

‘Oh … I don’t have shares in Montague’s either,’ she realised.

‘None of that matters. You’re part of the furniture there now – they aren’t going to throw you out on your ear.’

‘I hope not … I love it there.’

‘Will you stop worrying? You’ll give David junior indigestion. Everything is going to work out, just as we planned – you’ll be a lot poorer, that’s all.’

‘But you still love me, even though I’m not dripping in gold?’

‘I think I prefer things that way – it means I can keep you barefoot, pregnant, and tied to the kitchen sink.’

She punched him on the arm. ‘You’ll be lucky – after the trouble this one’s giving me, I’m drawing a line under procreation.’

‘We’ll see …’

At Heathrow, they faced the usual disorganised queues at Border Control, followed by a disorderly scrum at the luggage carousel.

‘Why is my baggage always the last to come crashing down the chute?’ moaned Susan.

‘It isn’t, mine is,’ Callie said. ‘It’s a persuasive argument in favour of travelling light.’

‘Mmm … are you feeling better now?’

‘Almost – in theory, my stomach is completely empty, so how could I feel sick anymore?’

She laughed. ‘Poor you, you’re really putting me off motherhood. Are you going back to college tomorrow?’

‘Maybe. I’ll see how I feel in the morning. Do you and Barney want to share a taxi?’

‘God no! I’m not giving my hard-earned money to those thieving bastards – jolly black cab drivers my arse. If they even sniff you don’t know the quickest route to your destination, they’ll take you via Glasgow. We’ll get the Tube, thanks.’

‘OK, I don’t think I can face all that pushing and shoving. Give me a ring in a few days and we’ll arrange a get-together soon. I have lots more humble pie to eat for thinking you were Mike’s sidekick.’

‘Like I said, forget it – I understand.’

Susan escaped first through to the Arrivals hall. When David and Callie emerged, she was talking in a huddle with Barney and their boss; Callie thought how good it was of him to come and meet them. When she saw them, Susan came scurrying over. Her face was chalky white.

‘Ginny’s dead,’ she said, ‘and it’s for real, this time.’

Callie swayed; David quickly put his arm around her waist and held her tight.

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ she asked, when she’d found a voice.

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Killed while trying to escape from police custody; I really hope someone had the presence of mind to drive a wooden stake through her heart.’

Chapter Seventy

It was the first week of May and the hottest day of the year so far.

With a girth the size of a blue whale’s, she’d had to squash herself between a desk and chair that had been made-to-measure for a size zero, to write the last paper of her law examinations.

They were two hours in and her fellow candidates – all of whom were less than half her age, and some of whom looked about three – had their heads down, writing frantically, when disaster struck. And there was no disguising the fact by pretending everything was hunky dory – there was a telltale puddle forming at her feet.

The excitement she felt welling up inside her was quickly kicked into touch by acute embarrassment and a trace of panic. She wondered if she’d be able to brazen out the final hour by pretending she’d spilled her bottle of mineral water. Nope, a contraction – and not a mild one either – saw off that idea as a non-starter. Callie had to leave, no matter how much of a lumbering spectacle she made of herself.

When she raised her hand tentatively, nothing happened – she failed to make a blip on the adjudicator’s radar. She waved – students sitting around her noticed, but the lady in puce at the front of the room did not, engrossed as she was in a hefty, no doubt impressively academic tome. Callie made a little wager with herself that Miss Puce would have noticed pretty damned quick if she’d tried to crib someone else’s answers.

She flailed energetically … nothing. The woman finally deigned to raise her pepper and salt chignon, when Callie’s neighbour took pity on her and started to cough politely, but repeatedly. Miss Puce adjusted her pince-nez, marked her place, and made enough of a racket to wake a corpse, when she scraped her chair back and rose. She headed slowly forward, her stiletto heels tapping out her route on the parquet floor – she was still several desks away when Callie noticed the displeasure screwing dimples into the woman’s cheeks.

‘I’m so sorry about this,’ she whispered when the woman reached her side, ‘but my waters have broken and I’m about to go into full-blown labour. I’ll have to leave the hall, I’m afraid.’

She harrumphed loudly and clutched liver-spotted hands with stubby fingernails together. Her thin lips twitched in overdrive. ‘You are disturbing the other candidates, Ms, err …’ her gaze targeted the top right-hand corner of the paper and she squinted at the name, ‘Mrs Ashton-Bennett. If you feel it is absolutely necessary that you leave us, please do so silently and immediately. I fear I cannot allow you re-entry.’

Girding as much dignity as possible in the circumstances, Callie waddled toward the double oak doors, ignoring the squelching sound that came from her shoes – it seemed to magnify, as it bounced off and echoed around the high panelled walls.

Outside in the corridor, she searched in vain for a seat. She leaned against a wall and grovelled through the contents of her case for her phone to call David. Another strong contraction came and went, while staff and students strode purposefully by, not wishing to get involved in a spot of amateur obstetrics.

David’s answer phone message prattled in her ear – and chambers was too far away for it to be practical to ask anyone there for a lift. As a last resort, Callie tried Susan’s number – no joy – and accepted she’d have to get herself to the hospital. Various modes of transport suggested themselves; since she hadn’t been able to fit behind the wheel of her car for several weeks, that wasn’t one of them. She could hail a cab, call an ambulance, take the Tube (and probably stand all the way) or hop on a bus. The taxi won hands down. She’d have to leave a message for David to meet her in Maternity.

The first three black cab drivers she tried to flag down obviously didn’t like the look of her (could she really blame them?) and drove right past, flooring the accelerator just in case she made a kamikaze dive at them. The fourth guy stopped and leapt out to help her.

‘Give us that ’ere, mate,’ he grabbed her briefcase, ‘you settle yourself down on the back seat and I’ll get you there in no time. Got five nippers meself – the missus shelled ’em like peanuts. St Ruth’s, is it?’

Callie was in the middle of a contraction, worrying more and more that she wasn’t going to make it to the labour ward. ‘Yes, please hurry.’ She wondered how she could have forgotten that labour is such an immensely painful experience – her body felt as though it were being rent asunder, and there was now precious little respite between contractions. She wanted an epidural and she wanted it now – with gas and air and anything else with numbing properties thrown in.

It seemed Baby Bennett wasn’t going to hang around – when she’d had Sam and Alex, labour had progressed sedately at first and she was able to have a shower and put last-minute things into her little packed bag, before setting off for the hospital. She was afraid David would miss the birth of his first child.

The cabbie, who introduced himself as Charlie, took David’s number and tried ringing him again – he got through and gave David the lowdown. ‘See, everythin’s spiffin’, mate – you do that deep breavin’ stuff and I’ll put me foot down.’

Though bent almost double in agony at that point, she pulled her mouth in a ‘thank you’ smile and waved her fingers at his eyes reflected in the rear view mirror. She hoped David would use his flashing blue light.

Charlie had bodies diving left and right to avoid being flattened, as he did a Jenson Button into the Emergency parking area – which was clearly designated for ambulances only. He left his door swinging and bolted inside, emerging seconds later with both a wheelchair and a nurse.

The nurse pushed Callie to a cubicle and hauled her onto a bed, while Charlie went to park his cab – insisting he had no more pressing demands on his time than to hold her hand. Stripped of her soggy jeans and underwear, a doctor came to examine her.

He grinned. ‘Well, Mrs Ashton Bennett, this is what I call cutting it fine – you’re nine centimetres dilated. I think we’d better make you comfortable down here or your baby will have to declare his place of birth as the elevator.’ He turned to the nurse, ‘Call Maternity and Paediatrics, would you? Warn them what’s going on.’

Charlie poked his head through the curtains. ‘OK if I comes in?’

The nurse looked doubtful, but Callie said, ‘Of course, Charlie.’ She gasped, ‘Oh! I’m so sorry, I forgot to pay you.’

He chuckled, ‘You keep yer money, mate. I ain’t ‘ad this much excitement fer years.’

‘Thanks, Charlie. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

‘Pleasure’s all mine, mate.’

Charlie was an expert on giving birth by proxy – he held her hand, mopped her brow, and told her to ‘breave’, ‘pan’’ and ‘puuuuuush’ at all the right times.

Just as she didn’t think she could endure the pain any longer without decking someone, the nurse said, ‘Just one more push, Callie, and you can meet your baby.’

As the contraction intensified, she took in a huge breath, bore down, and screamed, ‘David!’ as she persuaded Baby Bennett into the world.

Someone other than Charlie grasped her hand. ‘I’m here, darling.’

She laughed and cried at the same time, as their daughter was placed gently in her arms and David cuddled them both.

Chapter Seventy-one

Callie’s room had become busier than Waterloo during rush hour.