This Is Not Forgiveness (23 page)

I’m not really concentrating – taking quick ways, cutting corners, and I almost run right into Lee. She’s coming out of a side road. She’s wearing shorts, vest and running shoes, like she’s into proper training. She has a dog on one of those extendable leads that look like clothes lines. I nearly total the mutt.

‘I didn’t see you. I’m really sorry.’ I get off my bike to see that they are all right. ‘Hey, fella.’ I lean down to pet the little dog. He snarls a bit and snaps at me. I take that for a ‘yes’.

‘It’s a girl,’ she says. ‘Mitzy.’ She kneels down to check her over. ‘She’s a cairn terrier. She’s fine.’ She straightens up again. ‘You should look where you’re going. Shouldn’t be riding on the pavement, anyway.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ She pretends to think. ‘Let me guess.’

‘That obvious?’

She smiles. ‘That obvious. You two back together again?’

‘Maybe. I hope so.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It is at the moment.’

‘If you ever get her out of your system, I’ll be around.’ She tugs the lead. ‘Come on, Mitzy. Let’s go.’

She sets off, the mutt running along beside her. The dog’s a fast mover for such a small breed.

Caro opens the door and puts her arms round me. She seems glad to see me.

‘Thanks for coming over,’ she says after a while.

‘Folks still not back?’

She shakes her head. ‘Delayed at Calais. I didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.’

I laugh. ‘It’s only school starting. And it’s not as though you don’t know anyone.’ I put my arms round her again. ‘Me for a start.’ I push a lock of hair back behind her ear. ‘I’ll be there to take care of you. I’ll see that you’re all right.’

She smiles up at me. ‘I know you will.’ She holds me away from her. ‘Not bad. You scrub up well. Come on.’ She hangs my bag up in the lobby and takes me by the hand, leading me into the living room. ‘I’ve got a surprise. Wait here. Help yourself to a drink.’

She leaves me there and disappears upstairs. She’s away quite a while.

There’s music playing, jazz or something, on low. There’s a bucket with champagne chilling and a bottle of vodka. I go into the kitchen and fetch myself a beer.

It’s worth the wait. When she comes downstairs, she looks like a girl from a dream. Like no one else I’ve seen, as if she’s not quite real but has stepped out of the screen. Her hair falls in a deep wave across her face and her eyes look huge under fine, arched brows, her cheekbones shadowed, her lips are painted deep red. The dress she’s wearing is low-cut and clings to her, shimmering as she moves.

‘You look amazing,’ I say.

She smiles and comes towards me. She’s wearing high heels, so she’s nearly as tall as me. There’s a looking glass on the wall above the mantelpiece. She puts her arm through mine and we stand together. For a second we seem like two strangers in the mirror, neither quite knowing what to say next or what to do. I feel like I’m looking at a vision of the future, not as we are now, but as we might be one day. I know at that moment that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. One day, I will ask her to marry me. Neither of us says anything, but there is a gleam at the corner of her eye, like glycerine. She doesn’t have to say it, I know that she feels the same way I do.

‘I want tonight to be special,’ she says.

She’s ordered weird food off the Internet, caviar and foie gras, quail eggs. She likes that kind of fancy stuff, but the eggs are too hard to peel, and I don’t like the fishy taste of the caviar or the way the globules pop in my mouth. The paté is too rich and I remember Martha telling me how they stuff the geese with grain to get it. In the end, we order a takeaway. We drink the champagne with chicken tikka jalfrezi and rogan josh.

After we’ve eaten, she brings in a bottle of Oaxaca mescal, the one with a scorpion floating in the bottom of the bottle, and a dish piled with segments of lime and two salt-rimmed glasses. I remember the last time and opt for vodka.

She pours two shots. ‘Here’s to us.’

She downs the vodka and throws the glass into the fireplace. I follow suit. We do it again and fall about laughing.

We play drinking games and generally mess around. We don’t talk about Rob. We don’t talk about the past and we don’t try to look into the future. We stay strictly in the present. It’s the best time I’ve ever had with her. All that matters is here and now.

I’m just thinking that, when she gets up to check her phone. I didn’t hear it; maybe she’s had it on silent. She checks the text messages and her face changes.

‘You’ll have to go.’

‘What time is it?’ I grope around for my watch. I lost it in some kind of forfeit.

‘12.30.’

‘Do I have to?’ I roll over and look up at her. ‘I thought I could stay. We could go in together.’

I’m genuinely disappointed. To stay the whole night has become a bit of a mission. Now we are back together, I’ve got things I want to say to her.

‘So did I.’ She shows every sign of feeling the same way but she always was a good actor. ‘But it’s just not possible.’ She shakes her head and begins collecting my clothes. ‘I’ve just had a text. They got a late ferry. They’ll be back before morning.’

‘OK. OK.’ I’m hopping round, trying to get my leg down my trousers. That’s different. I don’t want to be caught by her mother and an irate stepdad.

‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Yeah. See you tomorrow.’

She gives me a last kiss, her lips gliding over mine, smooth and dry like silk. When she looks up at me there are tears in her eyes.

Chapter 35

I don’t know what wakes me. My head is hammering and my mouth feels like the bottom of a badger sett. I roll over and check the clock. 7.00. Way too early. I go to roll back, to sleep again for another hour at least, when I hear it again. The sound that woke me. A message coming into my phone.

I’m out of bed in a second and groping in my chinos’ pocket. It’s not from her. I sit back down on the end of the bed again, disappointed, thinking about the time I could have had, if only her folks had not been coming back. If only she had let me stay. It’s from Lee. What can she want?

I open the message.

Just seen ur bro @ C’s house

I stare at it stupidly. I want to think there is a simple explanation, but can’t help assuming the obvious. She’s messing me around yet again. My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling as I put down the phone and start dragging on my clothes.

I jump on my bike. It’s early. There’s not much traffic about. I’m over there in record time. I punch in the combination and the gate swings open, closing behind me as I slip inside. I take a wary look at the upstairs windows but the blinds are shut. I skirt round her car parked in the drive. It wasn’t there last night, which is odd. No sign of her folks’ SUV. I go to the side gate. It has the same combination as the main gate. I enter the numbers, meaning to go round the back, see what I can spot through the windows. There’s no one downstairs. The big room is empty, so is the kitchen. I move round towards the conservatory. She sometimes forgets to lock it. The amount she had to drink last night that is a distinct possibility, although she has tidied up. The kitchen window shows bottles stacked next to the recycling bins and there’s no sign of the takeaway trays. The surfaces are clean. That’s not like her. When I left last night, the kitchen looked like a kebab shop on a busy night. Unless she doesn’t want Rob to know she’s been entertaining. But that is the only indication that he might be here. Maybe Lee was wrong about that and I’m wasting my time.

Only one way to find out. I try the conservatory door, gently, slowly easing the handle. It’s one of those you have to push up and pull out a little bit. I hear the rods release. It is open.

I glide in, careful not to make any noise. The door makes the faintest click as I close it behind me. No telltale creaking. UPVC does have some advantages. The door into the living room opens without a sound. No indication of last night’s carnage. Everything neat and tidy in here, too. I check out the lobby. No sign of the returning family – that was just a lie to get rid of me – but my rucksack is there, hanging from the coat rack. I’d forgotten all about that. I move towards the foot of the stairs with more confidence. I’m not a burglar or a deranged stalker; I have an excuse to be here.

I’m just about to go up and confront them, when I hear noises. First Caro, then Rob. So he
is
here. I can’t hear what they’re saying. They are talking low, as if someone might overhear them. Considering there’s no one else here, that strikes me as strange. I get to the top of the stairs. Her bedroom is empty. The voices are coming from the little room at the end of the landing. Trevor’s study.

‘Are you ready?’ I hear him say.

‘Yes, I’m ready.’

I go back down the stairs to wait. Maximum surprise.

Rob comes down first. He’s carrying a holdall in one hand. A long gun case in the other. I feel an impulse to run and hide, but I stand my ground.

He stops, genuinely rocked back. His grip on the gun case tightens.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Could ask the same.’

‘It’s not what you are thinking.’

‘Oh, and what am I thinking?’ I can’t take my eyes off the gun case. I don’t know what to think.

‘It’s best if you go,’ he says. ‘Go now.’

‘Yes.’ Caro says from the stairs. ‘Go now. It will be better if you do.’

I look up to where she’s coming down behind him. She’s wearing a combat jacket with the red star badge on it. Baader-Meinhof. The Red Army Faction. I’ve done my research. Urban guerrillas. Direct Action. Active in Germany in the 1970s. Killed I don’t know how many people. But it’s just an entry on Wikipedia, right? No one would be mad enough to pull stunts like that now.

I look from one to the other. They are both wired. Whatever is going down here is deadly serious. It was all there for me to see, except I’ve been walking round like a man in a dream, looking at things, with no idea of their meaning or what they might signify.

I remember the school website.
Forthcoming Events at Egmont Academy.
The Grand Opening. The VIP, a distinguished politician, honouring our school by coming to cut the ribbon.

I should run while I still can, while they are both on the stairs. Get out of there, call the police, alert the authorities, but I don’t do any of that. Rob’s got guns. He won’t go quietly. There’d be a stand-off. A siege with armed police. SWAT teams. He’ll use her as a hostage. She could be killed, either way. I have to try and stop it right here. Now.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Yeah, you are.’ Rob looks down at me. ‘You’re going to school, like a good little boy.’

Funny thing is, I think Caro might say something now, like
Don’t go to school
,
even at the risk of giving it away, just to save me, but she doesn’t. I get a cold feeling, like my insides are congealing. She cares more about this, about whatever they are planning, than she does about me.

‘I know what you are going to do.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Rob snarls. ‘What’s that?’

They look at each other, then back at me.

‘I don’t know for sure, but I think you’re going to –’ I pause, trying to stop my voice from shaking at the enormity of what they are intending, at the strain of confronting them, putting it into words. ‘I think that you’re planning an attack on the school.’

It sounds mad as it comes out of my mouth.

‘How do you know that?’ Rob’s voice is quiet, almost casual, but the words come out slow and ominous. He looks up at Caro. ‘You told him, didn’t you?’ He shakes his head slowly, like she’s disappointed him. ‘You stupid bitch.’

‘No, she didn’t tell me. I got a text from a friend saying you were here. I guessed the rest.’ I nod towards the gun he’s carrying. ‘Doesn’t take a genius.’

He comes down the stairs towards me and I’m glad the gun is still in the case. His face is white and tight and he has that blank look in his eyes. I take a step away from him. I’m trying to be cool, but he’s scaring me.

‘You can’t do this,’ I say, trying to keep my voice low, stop it squeaking up into panic falsetto.

‘I think you’ll find we can.’

‘Let him go, Rob,’ Caro says from her place on the stairs. ‘He’s not part of this.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘No can do. He’s made himself part of it. Good thing I came equipped.’ He holds the bag up. ‘I got all I need to secure him. Duct tape, plastic ties for wrists and ankles.’ He looks around. ‘We’ll have to stow him here.’

Caro shakes her head. ‘I just had a text from my mother. They got the night ferry. They could be back any time.’

‘Christ! I thought you said they were away for the week?’

‘Change of plan.’

‘For fuck’s sake! He’ll have to come with us, then. With me.’ He turns to her. ‘I’ll leave him up the multi-storey. Someone will find him eventually. No one jeopardises this operation. Not him. Not you. No one. You get me?’ He pushes me in front of him. ‘OK. Let’s roll.’