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I wanted to go after Jenna, to save her, but I watched myself sink to the ground, expecting it to swallow me down into its cold, dark stomach.
105
NOW
The trees thrash under the beating blades of the helicopter, and beneath the thuds I hear barking. Behind me three dogs race through the forest.
Georgia kneels by an old rotting stump. She doesn’t seem to see me as I run through the trees, up onto the brow of the hill. Below me, Bevan stands one side of a stream, and on the other, there she is – my heart swells around me – my daughter.
I can see every detail of her. She’s breathing fast. A strand of hair is stuck to her lip. She’s still in her uniform, the purple blazer tied round her waist, white shirt crumpled, sleeves rolled up. There’s gauze taped to her right arm.
Theo holds her, one arm across her chest, the other bent up, pressing something against her jaw.
A gun, I realise, and my heart turns to ice and cracks but I don’t let the pieces fall.
I step down the hill, the loose earth giving way so I skid from tree to tree. Croft sprints right, and in a blink I spot him, maybe fifty metres off, racing down towards the stream and stepping in.
Bevan has her hands above her head. I can’t hear what she’s saying.
I can see the intensity in Theo’s eyes.
How could I have been so wrong about him?
Jenna’s mouth is a straight line, her dark eyes darting up, trying to see Theo behind her then seeking out Bevan.
She seems so grown-up. I wonder when was the last time I really, truly looked at her. In my head she’s always a grinning toddler, gambolling towards me in the sunshine.
Then she sees me and her eyes glisten, and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to leap forward as a tear streaks down her cheek.
Why did Theo run? He could’ve just driven the girls back home and said that was his whole part in this. I’m starting to feel that he has more to hide than an obsession with my daughter. Something to do with ‘all those women’ Lydia mentioned, referring to Tristan.
But Theo is cornered. He has no car. We’re in a forest surrounded by tiny villages in a corner of England with no easy links to anywhere big.
Theo jams the gun harder against Jenna’s jaw and she cries out.
The dogs whip past me and circle Jenna and Theo. Croft appears in the trees behind them. I step carefully down behind Bevan.
‘Frances,’ she says. ‘Please go back up that hill.’
The helicopter lowers. The wind pushes on my head, whips everyone’s hair, presses on the water. The dogs stand around Theo and Jenna, barking. Croft comes into full sight, just metres behind Theo.
And then Theo drops the gun and sits on the ground, and Jenna jumps forward, through the shallow stream and up the hill into my arms, and I breathe in the sweet, warm smell of her.
106
AFTER
‘Miss Smith, you are fucked up,’ says Furo, shaking his head.
I nod, sipping at the watery hot chocolate we get on Sundays.
I was charged with pretty much everything.
Murder, obvs, guilty AF.
Grand theft auto, no shit. Or only a little bit of shit because they don’t call it that here in the UK. (I was particularly tickled by that one but Mrs Dingle wasn’t best pleased.)
Arson, criminal conspiracy, reckless endangerment, attempted murder…
