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Arthur didn’t try and get out of the car, even though his bladder was full to bursting. But he saw it all. It happened as if in a dream, all in slow motion. The woman in brown boots lifted her hand as if to shake hands with Bridget. Bridget lifted her hand too, but there was something in it. A gun with a long black attachment on the end of the barrel — a silencer. Which was why Arthur never heard the shot. He saw the woman’s mouth open, he saw a bright red spot appear in the middle of her forehead and he saw her fall backwards. And then he started to urinate.
* * *
Maggie watched in amazed delight. Beth was running ahead like a dog let off the leash. If Maggie had thought about it at all, she might have realised that after two days of being cooped up in hotels and cars, a child would have bundles of energy to burn.
Maggie wanted to return to the old disused quarry where she and her parents had spent many happy days in her childhood. Ellie and she had swum in the lake in the quarry more than once. Happy memories from the time before things had gone wrong.
Running on ahead, Beth was like a hound following a scent. The track had several forks in it and each time they reached one, Beth seemed to know instinctively which turn to take. Maggie remembered it as her father had taught her: first left, then right, then left again, and so on until you reached the top of the incline.
‘Beat you!’ the girl said, whirling round, arms stretched up to the heavens. The clouds were racing across the blue sky like ethereal chariots. ‘I’m the queen of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal!’
Maggie couldn’t answer. She had made it to the top, but only just. She bent forward, hands on knees, sucking in air and trying to regain her breath. She was hopelessly overweight and unfit. She was also wearing totally unsuitable footwear. She had completely forgotten to bring trainers or indeed any footwear at all that didn’t have a ridiculous heel. She was saddled with her short brown fashion boots.
‘Mum was a really good runner,’ Beth said. ‘I’m quite good too. We went on a charity run last year. It was really fun.’
Maggie straightened up and tried to smile, but her ribs were hurting, so she suspected it was more of a grimace. ‘I can see you are,’ she said. She could also see — though she kept it to herself — that if she wanted to take Ellie’s place and be Beth’s ‘mother,’ then she was always going to be compared and she would often be found wanting.
Maggie began to take in the panorama, soaking up memories and scenery. She looked back down to the village and was surprised at how far they had come and how quickly. She ro
tated slowly, taking in the grass and the crags and the scattered sheep. Finally her eyes alighted on the quarry. It didn’t seem to have changed much. More greenery on the slopes, more bushes, but otherwise just as she remembered. A tempting (but bitterly cold) lake in the centre of the quarry floor, old buildings which had long been stripped of their machinery and a metal gantry on which she had once climbed (much to her mother’s horror). High above, a pair of large birds hovered. Maggie thought they might be buzzards. Her father would have known.
She felt anxiety and guilt wrench at her. Perhaps she should have rung him? Perhaps she should have thrown herself upon their mercy, given them everything they wanted and hoped they took pity. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Her thoughts ran wild around the inside of her skull. You’ve abandoned him. After all he did for you, you gave up on him. The voices of self-doubt and criticism wailed like banshees. She shook her head, stretched her neck and tried to concentrate on the here and now.
‘Race you to the bottom!’ Beth grinned up at her and then with a whoop she began to run.
‘Careful!’ Maggie called, but the girl was gone. Careful: what any parent would have said as their beloved ran headlong down a rough incline. Her mother especially . . . Her poor mother. The memory was as sharp as if it had only been yesterday. She was lying in bed in the hospice, her face little more than a skull with the skin stretched taut across the bones. ‘You will look after Dad, won’t you? Promise me you will.’ But how could she look after her father now?
She turned and followed Beth, walking as fast as she could manage in her silly heels. One thought overwhelmed all the others. Whatever else, she could keep Beth safe.
* * *
‘Hell, it doesn’t half stink in here.’ Sam was sitting in the front passenger seat, having argued that his legs were far too long for the back. It was the first thing anyone had said since they had started off ten minutes previously, just after they had disposed of Sinead’s naked body at the bottom of a slurry pit.
They were all crammed into Sinead’s mother’s car, having hidden Bridget’s car behind a disused farm building. Eventually someone would be deputed to pick it up and bring it in and no doubt the first thing that person would do would be to open all four windows. Arthur’s pent-up urine had soaked a huge area of the back seat.
But Arthur was still with them, and so were his trousers and pants and the stench of urine. Elgar was only too well aware of this because it was he who had been consigned to the back seat, right next to Arthur. He didn’t resent it as much as he should have. He was used to being last. He had always been shorter than the other boys in his class. He had been rubbish at sport, lower-middle in the brain department and to cap it all he had a surname beginning with the letter ‘Z.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you make him pee at the services?’ It was Sam again. He would have been a cocky bastard at school. Elgar knew the type. Taller, more confident and cleverer. A charmer of teachers. Not like Elgar.
‘We asked him, but he just sat in the car with that blank look on his face.’
‘Doesn’t he ever talk, then?’
‘Barely.’
Elgar wound his window down further and tried to imagine he was somewhere else. Arthur began to hum a tune which Elgar recognised but couldn’t identify. Bridget hooted at some driver who had offended her. Sam was rocking very slightly in his seat, backwards and forwards.
‘Did you really need to shoot her?’ Elgar was caught off-balance by Sam’s sudden question. Sam was looking fixedly at Bridget and had stopped rocking.
Bridget continued to look ahead. ‘I was obeying orders,’ she said.
‘That’s what they said at Nuremberg.’
Bridget’s hand hit the horn again. There was a lorry in front, but it wasn’t going slowly. Elgar slipped his hand inside his jacket, feeling for his gun. Where was this conversation going to end up? If Sam was spoiling for a fight, he was certainly making all the right moves.
Bridget answered with exaggerated calm. Elgar recognised the danger signs. ‘We all obey orders. You know that.’
‘She’s got a kid.’
