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103
NOW
I follow the road between the trees and indicate for the retirement village, but Mina grabs my arm. Bevan’s car is on the hard shoulder next to a little yellow car with its driver’s door open. Both cars are empty.
I hear a helicopter. Loud. Close.
I pull over. We jog into the cool woods. Voices. There, crashed into a towering oak, is Theo’s Porsche and Rose sitting on the ground, Croft crouching with a hand on her shoulder.
Rose looks up at me, her face crumpling, and I rush over and gather her in a hug. ‘Where’s my mum?’ she asks.
I try to figure out what to say. ‘She’s safe,’ I say. ‘Where’s Jenna?’
She shakes her head. ‘He took her.’ She gestures into the woods. ‘The other police lady person went after them.’
‘Stay here with Rose,’ says Croft to me, getting up.
I shake my head and stand.
Mina grabs my arm. ‘Frances, it’s his job.’
Croft frowns. ‘Don’t go anywhere. Back-up is coming. They know where you are. One of you call the station. They’ll keep you on the line.’ He starts walking backwards.
‘I’m coming with you,’ I say.
I can see him sizing up my middle-aged body. He shakes his head. ‘Try to keep up.’ And then he turns and starts running.
104
BEFORE
I should have been a detective. I came out of Oakridge, going slowly because Theo couldn’t have got far, and I saw tyre marks ripped into the grass verge, leading into the woods. I followed them, saw the Porsche and jumped out.
The car was empty. I heard a thudding coming from the boot, popped it open and there was Rose.
‘He has her – you have to go after them,’ said Rose, crying. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her nose was puffy. ‘He said we had to hide in the boot in case you came back. We said you hadn’t taken us but he didn’t believe us and he said we had to get in because the police were looking for us and we couldn’t be found there – anywhere that had anything to do with you. He said he would take us home but he left us in there for ages. He took our phones so I thought…’
I held her to me.
‘And then when he got back in the car he said we were going to Glastonbury but we couldn’t be seen on the way there – we had to stay in the boot – that if we didn’t want my mum to get in trouble, we had to pretend we’d just run off to Glastonbury and we… He was trying to call someone and he couldn’t get through and then we started moving and someone else called and we heard them say Tristan had been arrested and he just went crazy, shouting and slamming things, and then suddenly the whole car jerked and we skidded and the car was bumping all over the place and we smashed into something and he opened the boot and he had this gun – like a real gun – and he?—’
‘Rose.’ I held her in front of me.
‘We were like “no” and “why?” and?—’
‘Rose.’
‘Then…’ She shook her head.
I nodded, gave her another hug I didn’t have time for and then ran into the trees, wondering which way he could’ve taken her as I heard screeching tyres behind me.
‘Jenna!’ I shouted, and I heard something up ahead, a cut-off scream, a cracking twig, something, and I ran towards it.
And then the explosion came and all the birds flew up in the air, cawing and tweeting a beautiful cacophony of an alarm. It went off inside my head too, and even though I had meant it – I had made it happen – I froze to the spot.
You killed your father, all the birds sang. You killed your father, they trilled.
And God wasn’t there any more to guide me.
