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It didn’t take Maggie long to get the tablet up and running. She inserted the memory stick and waited. She glanced up. She didn’t want the child watching over her shoulder. Who knew what horrors there might be on it?
But Beth’s attention was elsewhere. She was standing motionless, looking down at the quarry basin below.
‘Mother,’ she said.
Maggie ignored her. She had just opened the first of the many files on the memory stick. This one was a photograph. An old one from pre-digital days, it was grainy and hard to make out. But it was a photograph of a child.
‘Mother!’ This time there was an edge of anxiety in her voice. ‘Mother! There are some people down below.’
* * *
Arthur had no dou
bt that this was the place. The lime kiln, the lake and the path they had taken, all this and everything else he could see tallied exactly with what he remembered. It all seemed part of a different life — life before Peggy’s death. He had never come back, afraid it would cause him too much pain. This was their place. Yet coming back now didn’t bring back pain or sadness, only pleasure.
‘They’re up there,’ someone said.
He looked up and saw two figures standing in front of the old miners’ houses. A woman and a child. For a moment he thought the child was Maggie, but the hair was all wrong, too short. He looked at the adult. That was Maggie! Confusion engulfed him. Maggie? What was she doing here? And who was the child? Did Maggie have a child? She’d never told him she had a child, he was sure of that. Did he have a grandchild? He felt faint. His head was swirling.
‘Hello, Maggie!’ The Irish woman was shouting up at them. What was her name? Bridie? Bernadette? Something like that.
‘We’ve got your father here, safe and sound. All we want is for you to cooperate and then you can take him home!’
Maggie didn’t reply. He could see her pulling a black rucksack onto her back. The child had a little pink one and was doing the same. It must be a girl. He wondered what her name was.
‘If you don’t, I’ll shoot him!’
Maggie had bent down now and was talking to the little girl.
‘I am not bluffing, Maggie!’ The woman shouted louder this time, but he sensed no emotion in her voice. Arthur didn’t like her at all. Bridie, was it? He couldn’t dredge the name up. Anyway, he much preferred the man with the musical name. ‘I’ve already killed one person today!’ The woman was getting louder and more strident.
Arthur remembered the woman in the brown boots. He remembered how they had stripped her body and then dumped it into the slurry pit.
Bridie — he thought she must be called Bridie — had got the gun in her hand again. She was screwing the silencer onto the end of the barrel.
He watched her do so with curiosity rather than fear. He had seen people do it on TV. Usually the baddie who did this wore black gloves. Bridie’s were dark brown.
Arthur turned round. He was standing a few steps away from the edge of the quarry cliff. He looked down. There were more bushes and gorse than he remembered around the lake, but otherwise it hadn’t changed. The water was still and inviting, but he remembered how cold it was. He shivered at the thought of it.
It was as if he had come full circle. If the woman shot him now, here, he wouldn’t care. It would be karma, fate, what was meant to be. Arthur wasn’t a religious man, but he had come to understand that life had its patterns. Dying here would make absolute sense.
‘Arthur!’ It was the woman again.
He turned. She was barely three paces away and she was now pointing the gun at him. Bridie. No, not Bridie. It seemed ridiculously important to know what her name was before the end. Bridget. That was it! She was Bridget.
‘You don’t need to shoot me, Bridget, because I’m going to jump,’ he told her. He stepped away from her, closer to the edge. This was the only way. He felt calm. Bridget thought she was in control, but that wasn’t how he saw it.
She lowered the gun a little. It was pointing lower now. Was she going to shoot him in the legs? He did hope not. Wasn’t that what they did in Northern Ireland — kneecapping? Arthur saw Bridget’s expression waver. He grinned. It was a small victory.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ the woman said. ‘Your daughter is up there. She wants to take you home.’
He laughed. ‘My daughter is dead,’ he said.
The uncertainty on the woman’s face gave way to confusion.
‘Your daughter is alive!’ The woman spoke loudly, as if to bring him to his senses. ‘Look, up there.’ She pointed with her gun. ‘Come on,’ she said, her voice suddenly soft. ‘Let’s go and see her.’ She stepped closer to Arthur and held out her hand, the one without the gun. He edged backwards.
A shadow passed over them, a cloud scurrying across the sun. He glanced up towards Maggie and the girl. Who was that girl?
