‘Fine. I’ll come. But I am not your fucking mate.’
‘Let’s take the Land Rover. We’ll leave the Jeep here.’
We all got into his car, Miranda in the front, me and Holly in the back. I reached across and squeezed her hand as we drove the short distance up the hill towards the house.
‘Any sign of Jasmine yet?’ Miranda asked Zack.
‘No.’ We were almost there. ‘It’s not looking good, is it?’
‘What’s Dad doing?’
He snorted. ‘He’s gone down to the gym. Said working out makes him feel better. The poor bloke. Lost his son and his wife. He was fond of Morag, too. She’s worked for the family for a long time.’
We reached the driveaway. But when we were halfway up it, Zack exclaimed, ‘What the fuck?’
There was someone standing blocking the drive, with a bicycle lying at their feet. It was Avril. She was staring at the car.
Zack sounded the horn, but she didn’t move. She took a step towards the Land Rover, and that was when I saw what she carrying.
A rifle. Her own hunting rifle.
Zack killed the engine and opened his door, getting out of the car while the three of us sat there, watching. I had a very bad feeling about this. Avril had just discovered her mum was dead. Presumably Susan had told her I had done it.
I heard Zack say, ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’
She said something that I didn’t catch. She wasn’t pointing the gun at anyone. Not yet. Zack and Avril exchanged a few more words, then he came back to the car and spoke to me through the open door.
‘She wants to talk to you.’
‘No way.’
I remembered what Morag had said about her daughter. How she was a good shot.
‘I don’t think you’ve got much choice,’ Zack said. ‘Come on. She’s a kid. She’s not going to do anything.’
I was certain he didn’t believe this. Maybe he thought this was the perfect way to wrap all this up. Avril would shoot me, and that would be the end of it.
‘I’m not getting out of the car,’ I said.
‘Such a coward,’ Miranda sneered at me.
Avril was coming towards my side of the car, diagonally opposite Zack. She pointed the gun towards the window.
I heard myself say, ‘No.’ I looked towards the opposite door. Could I get out, run? Holly was staring at me, and I was terrified for her, too. If Avril shot the window, glass would fly. A bullet could go astray.
I couldn’t die, not now. The world would think I had murdered Morag, probably Lewis, too. I had an image of my mum being doorstopped by reporters, asking her if she’d always known there was something wrong with me. I would become a footnote in the story of the Grants.
Avril banged on the window with the barrel of her rifle.
I had no choice.
Slowly, I opened the rear passenger door and got out, my hands in the air. Snow glistened in clumps on the ground and all the vegetation, the trees and hedgerows and grass, glittered with frost.
Avril pointed the barrel of the rifle at my chest. ‘Did you do it?’ she asked.
‘No. I swear. It wasn’t me.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
