‘Hmmm, right. And would you describe yourselves as good people? Upstanding pillars of the community? What’s the word?’ Her eyes graze the ceiling as though searching for something. ‘Altruistic?’
Lottie is trapped. It is a trap of her own making, she admits, as she feels the snare tightening around her, unable to escape it. She knows where this line of enquiry is leading, can sense it closing in on her. She looks Detective Price directly in the eyes.
‘Yes. Yes, I would actually,’ she says in what she hopes is an assured voice.
‘Really? That’s interesting. Because you yourself haven’t always been so. Have you, Mrs Jenkins?’
The words hang in the air around them and Lottie can almost see herself from above; her dark neat head, long neck, the twisting of her hands in her lap under the desk. The two other righteous figures opposite her in their drab grey and navy clothing, their still bodies, their searching expressions. The pause lengthens like a stretched rope that is fraying.
‘Doesn’t that depend on your definition of the word …’ she begins, the inner child still present and eager to deny, deny, deny until the very last moment.
Detective Price stares her out, lips pursed almost in faint amusement at this display. Her colleague drops his pen and watches Lottie as well, as though this is the moment they have both been waiting to witness and would not want to miss.
‘Oh, come on,’ the woman says, her shoulders dropping a fraction, her head tilting to the side. And then as Lottie fails to respond, she gives a laboured sigh and says two words. ‘Muriel Hadlow.’
Even though they are expected, Lottie feels the words like an impact, a slap to the face or a blow to the stomach, threatening to wind her, forcing her to double up in pain. All of the guilt she has carried around with her for so long is suddenly levelled at her again. She will never outrun it, she realises.
‘I was cleared of all charges. No case to answer for,’ says Lottie eventually. ‘You must know that. Why is that even still on record? It was years ago. I was exonerated,’ she adds, her voice rising. She no longer cares about maintaining a show of strength or decorum. These people, they already think she’s guilty. And in a way, she is.
She sits up straight again, feels a little of her old spirit, the defiance flaring in her.
‘Look, like I said, that was a long time ago and I’m a different person now. I regret what happened but it has absolutely nothing to do with the Woolfs, the property next door, whatever happened last night. You have to believe me.’
Detective Price allows her to finish, observing with mild interest this range of emotions, varying from meekness to fear, to denial, anger and back again, before she gives a slow smile.
‘Well, Mrs Jenkins,’ she says. ‘No smoke without fire.’
53
Lottie is sitting in a cell, detained in custody until the police decide whether to charge her with something; suspected damage to property, arson, manslaughter, murder – she’s not sure. Apparently they found some incriminating evidence in their holiday apartment and there’s also some camera footage that has been passed to them, all of which they are currently analysing. Tim and Josh have been dispatched back to the new flat to await further information. She feels a physical ache for them; her husband’s reassuring presence, her son’s soft, forgiving embrace.
She has nothing to do but to sit and wait and think; perhaps the most acute of punishments for someone like herself.
Muriel Hadlow. Her hair was pearly white and set in a rigid wave, the type of hairstyle which had been nurtured over a lifetime and never changed. Her wrinkles, too, were deep set in her face, earned each year like a tree’s rings. She was wearing a Barbour jacket with a silk scarf tied around her neck. Heavy tortoiseshell glasses magnified her eyes.
She drove an old Land Rover with reckless abandon, swinging it out of the high stone gateposts at the end of her driveway each day. Until the day they were there to meet her.
Lottie had always campaigned, protested, marched. Ever since she was a student at university. Tim had often said that it was one of the most impressive things about her when they first met. ‘Almost intimidating,’ he said. ‘But cool. Very cool.’The way she stood up for what she believed in, the way she cared passionately. About the environment, illegal wars, abortion rights, fox hunting.
The latter was actually one of her least fervent beliefs. The more she researched the farming community and tried to understand the effect of certain species on the land, the more sympathy she had for the idea of culling, albeit humanely. However, the antiquated tradition of hunting generally – so enshrined amongst the upper classes with their love of blood sports, their ownership of land – particularly ground her gears.
So she had gone along that day with some other friends, members of the same Facebook group, a few other people she didn’t know. They had caught the train out to the countryside, congregated at the bottom of the long gravel driveway that led to Old Hall, as discussed in the many WhatsApp group messages. It had all been strategically organised to coincide with the height of the hunting year in October; peak grouse season.
Pheasant shooting was a big thing on the private grounds nearby. Parties would come to stay, pay inordinate amounts for the opportunity to shoot at wildfowl that had been beaten from the undergrowth with shouts and sticks. Birds that had been raised as chicks, with the specific purpose of dying in order to provide someone with a few moments’ entertainment.
It was the sort of mindless animal cruelty that had ensured Lottie had been a confirmed vegetarian since she was fourteen. Even now, she insists that her son, Josh, is too, despite Tim’s misgivings, which is why they compromise over certain things like fish. But back then, in her early twenties, Lottie had not been so flexible. She was militant about upholding her beliefs. So that is how she’d come to be at the end of Muriel Hadlow’s drive that day.
They had all been careful to stay within the law, positioning themselves on the public wasteland before it gave way to the private driveway. Not obstructing access to the property. Theyused their voices, their placards, to intimidate those entering and exiting the grounds, within the limits of peaceful protest, as long as they didn’t cause any physical damage.
Lottie and the others had been incensed by the seeming cavalcade of luxury cars that arrived at Old Hall over the course of that day, their blacked-out windows. Or worse, some of the callous gestures, faces openly laughing at them as they passed by. But when Muriel Hadlow’s Land Rover had appeared at the gate later that afternoon, leaving the property, many of the other protesters were losing spirit; cold and restless from standing around outside all day. It was bleak, the feeling that whatever you said or did was useless, your message falling on deaf ears or even being mocked. That you were pathetic, helpless, inert. They had tried everything else; writing to their MP, signing petitions, raising community awareness at local events, all to no avail.
When the beaten-up Land Rover – so recognisable now – passed through the gates, making its way up the driveway towards the main road, it had slowed as the old woman driving had lowered her window. They thought perhaps she was willing to start a dialogue with them, to try to understand their point of view. Instead, Muriel Hadlow had stuck her silvery-haired head out of the window and snarled at them.
‘Why don’t you stupid damn fools just give up and go home?’ she had spat.
The others had looked at each other, unsure which of them should respond, who should be their mouthpiece. Of course it would be Lottie who stepped up. It was inevitable. They could all have predicted that.
‘Thisisour home,’ she had shouted in return. ‘The land belongs to us all. Humans and animals. All species. You’re the vermin. The filthy rich. Preying on the planet, sucking it dry, so there’s not enough left for everyone else.’
