by Karen Swan
‘Jasper,’ Lee cried, getting to him and falling to her knees, hugging him to her closely as they sat on the edge of the ice, Jasper sobbing and shaking uncontrollably as the skaters came past in a never-ending stream. And all the while, the helicopter hovered overhead like a mosquito in the sky, biting them both.
She saw the banner where Jasper had dropped it as Sam had turned on him; a deflated pillowcase on the ice, all but invisible until metres away. She reached for it and pulled it out of the way of the other skaters, turning it over and only able to read the vivid red letters for a second before the tears blinded her.
We Love You Sam!
Oh God. What had she done?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘I’m sorry,’ Lee said.
Aggie stared back at her as Lee pushed the bag strap further up her shoulder. Jasper was already in the car, still sobbing, his face swollen and pale. They had arrived back at the house within ten minutes, a journey which had taken over twenty on the way out, rushing in through the back door to find Aggie pacing the kitchen, her hands pressed to her mouth in a steeple as though she was in prayer.
The small television set was still showing the race, the leaders over the line already, the very helicopter that had hovered over her and her child – no less terrifying than an Apache, it had transpired – framing the dramatic shots and showing the jubilant scenes in town.
She and Lee had just looked at each other for a moment but words had failed them both, the consequences mutually devastating, and Lee had rushed upstairs to stuff their overnight clothes into their bags. Jasper wouldn’t even come into the house, cowering by the far side of the car.
She stood on the step now, knowing there was nothing she could say, no way to explain the disaster that had befallen Aggie’s family because of them. Accident wouldn’t cut it. Aggie had spent over twenty years enduring her husband’s wretched bitterness; now she was destined to listen to her son’s too? She had been nothing but kind to them, a mother hen who had done everything to make them feel welcome, and sitting cocooned in the curtained kitchen this morning, Lee had felt a sense of home such as she hadn’t experienced since she was a child.
But that belonged to another world now. She had strayed from her own path. It never should have gone this far. She should never have come here, never involved her child . . .
‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could offer. And she turned and hurried away, the dogs trotting amiably alongside her, sniffing the cold air, tails aloft. She was friend, not foe. Or so they thought.
She secured Jasper into his seat and turned the car on. It took several turns of the key to get the ignition to fire, and the windscreen was covered in a thick frost. She had no option but to sit there until it cleared, her and her son enclosed in the cold car, screened by the backlit opaque windows. This was no quick getaway. Evert could be on his way back even now, screaming down the lanes to vent his spleen. His son denied! Him denied the Meyer name in the history books!
It took several agonizing minutes but eventually the frost cracked, split and marbled, and she could get the wipers going. She reversed and swung round, taking in a final look at the farmhouse: the dogs wagging their tails at her in the yard, the bench where she and Sam had sat yesterday evening listening to the midwinter horns, the back door that looked down to the water. It was still open but Aggie was not there. Was she in front of the old television set, watching their dreams die?
In the back seat, Jasper’s sobs had turned into silent streams, his breath still coming occasionally in hiccupping gulps, a sudden grab of breath, his little shoulders hitching up to his ears.
‘It’s okay, my darling,’ she hushed him as they turned onto the lane, reaching back for his knee and squeezing it with as much love as she could. ‘We’re going home now.’
She was half an hour from the city when her phone rang.
Mila.
She switched on the Bluetooth. ‘Oh my G . . . Lee, I’ve just seen it on the news. Are you okay?’ Her friend’s voice was suffused with concern – and static. The reception was poor.
It was on the news? Jesus. Lee glanced back in the rear-view mirror but Jasper was fast asleep again, exhausted by his tears. ‘Not really,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re just on our way back now.’
‘I just can’t believe this . . . ppened. You must be . . . pieces. Are you sur . . . kay to drive?’
‘Well, what other choice do I have? We just need to get back home.’
‘Sure . . . ure.’ Her voice crackled in and out of reception. ‘. . . you be back?’
‘Google Maps is saying half an hour. We left before the end of the race, clearly. It’s meant we’re ahead of the traffic.’
‘. . . hat’s something.’
‘Yeah.’ The only positive in this god-awful mess – a decent car journey.
‘Listen, I’m co . . . o matter what you say . . . n’t try to fob me off . . . ring dinner with me.’
‘Okay, thanks Mils,’ she said flatly. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to think about food yet.
‘Don’t be alarm . . . use my . . . ey . . .’
‘Yes, that’s fine.’ She had given both Mila and Noah keys to the house. They were her alarm holders, Jasper’s godparents, his guardians in the event of her death—
‘Hav . . . ung . . . sele?’
Lee frowned. ‘Sorry Mils, you’re really breaking up. What was that?’
‘. . . said have you . . . ken to Gisele?’
Lee frowned harder. ‘. . . Gisele? Why would I speak to her? . . . Mils? . . . Mils are you there?’
She glanced down at her phone. No reception bars. Call disconnected.
Her grip tightened around the wheel. Why the fuck would she call Gisele at a time like this? They weren’t best friends. Spending St Nicholas’ Eve together didn’t mean they were now obliged to keep each other informed of their comings and goings. She bit her lip, staring dead ahead as the signposts for the city told her she was drawing nearer and nearer, back to life as it always had been, this long weekend nothing more than a slipstream they had fallen into.
Her body felt rigid and she wanted to scream, to kick something, to hurt something instead of always, always being the one to be hurt. She felt possessed by a white-hot fury – shame, frustration, but most of all, worst of all, guilt. Because this was her fault. It had been entirely avoidable, wholly within her power to make sure her son was never exposed to something like this. She had seen the signs he was becoming too attached and she had chosen to ignore them. She had let herself believe there might be another version to their story and because she had wanted that, she had put herself first. And now there were two broken hearts to deal with.
He was a little boy who wanted a daddy, of course he did. He wanted to be just like his friends whose fathers let them ride on their shoulders on the way to the park, who would play football with them for hours in the garden and knew how to make Scalextric cars stay on the track. He wanted a little brother. He wanted a family more than just the two of them. Of course he had wanted Sam. And she had let him believe, let him start to love him . . .
Her mind stalled, her thoughts catching like a balloon held in a tree. Something heavy shifted inside her, something buried deep, a creature that had been dormant and hidden away in dark folds, beginning to stir and creep, to impress itself.
Fear. Her old friend, her truest instinct. She knew it only too well. She knew when it was on the march. When something was deeply, badly wrong.
Her mind cleared, the clouds of high emotion peeling away to the one true fact, the only one that really mattered: why had Mila asked if she’d spoken to Gisele?
Mila wasn’t irrational. She wasn’t mad. I’ve just seen it on the news . . . You must be in pieces . . . I’m coming over . . .
With a shaking hand, she reached for the power button – and switched the radio on.
Mila was at the first-floor window as they parked, by the door as they tore up the steps. ‘Oh God, you poor thing!’ Mila ga
sped as Lee stared up at her, sheer terror in her eyes.
‘It’s not true, is it, Mils?’ she demanded, clutching her arms. ‘They got it wrong. It’s all wrong. A mistake. The Americans got him. They were going to get him.’
Mila’s gaze slid back to Jasper, standing on the lower step, his eyes swollen from all his tears. He looked exhausted, drained, overwhelmed. Confused.
‘Why don’t . . . why don’t we go in and talk about this inside?’ Mila said, clasping her hand and tugging her gently up the last step, a cautious look in her eyes.
Lee tried to catch her breath. To breathe. She had to breathe. It was okay. This was all a mistake. They meant the Americans.
Her feet moved as Mila led her in to her own hallway. Her tartan coat – not warm enough for the countryside – was hanging limply on its hook, Jasper’s red scarf – the one she hadn’t been able to find on Sunday afternoon, a whole lifetime ago – peeking out from underneath.
‘I’ve run you a bath, Jazz Man,’ Mila said, shutting the door behind them and crouching down, opening her arms wide. Jasper stepped into them with the shell-shocked look of anyone in trauma; his cheeks grubby with tear stains. She rubbed his back, hugging him tightly. ‘Come on, let’s get some bubbles going for you.’ She took off his jacket and hat. ‘You’ll feel a bit better when you’re all clean and in your pyjamas.’
It was barely five but it was dark outside again and today had been so topsy-turvy . . .
Mila put a hand on her arm. ‘I’ve got the fire going and left a tot on the table for you. You just sit down, take a few moments and try to relax, I’ll look after Jazzy, okay?’
Lee nodded dumbly as Mila took Jasper’s hand and together they walked up the stairs. She unzipped her padded jacket and hung it up, pushing off her boots with her feet. She pulled off her hat and tossed it onto the shelf above, turning away, just as she caught sight of a tiny white triangle.
She turned back, staring at it, her heart almost leaping from her chest with shock.
Cunningham’s letter. The one Gisele had brought over on Saturday morning, the one she had refused to open because, for that brief, brief moment, she’d been happy and she’d wanted to stay that way. She hadn’t wanted Cunningham stealing it from her by stealth, words on a page ruining her rare, fragile peace. He’d done her enough damage.
She pulled it down, staring at his bold, fluid handwriting, her name in his hand. A fine skein of dust had already begun to collect and she wiped it clean, an automatic motion, a stalling tactic. But she already knew what it said: in her heart, she’d always known – she knew the guilt he carried. Still, it sat in her hands like an unexploded bomb.
She walked up the stairs and into her living room, the fire crackling away quietly, a nugget of liquid amber glistening in a shot glass on the table. It wasn’t her usual eggcup, but still . . . The lights on the lop-sided Christmas tree had been switched on, a single wrapped present beneath it.
She sank onto the sofa and immediately downed the whisky, letting it burn. Hurting . . . it was all she knew. Living with pain. Memories that wouldn’t die. Nightmares that wouldn’t cease . . . She looked at the blank TV screen. Five times the size of the one in the farmhouse.
She blinked, immediately banishing the thought. She would not think about the scenes in that kitchen. Not now, not ever again.
Picking up the remote, she switched it on, going straight to the menu and news channels. She didn’t want domestic news; she didn’t want to see the rest of the country’s celebrations, to know who’d won – and who hadn’t. She found CNN, which was showing the weather forecast for America’s southern states . . .
She looked back at the letter, still there, not going anywhere. She could toss it in the flames, she supposed. That would be one answer, one way not to hear the words he’d been trying to say to her these past six years, the ones she’d refused to hear – her only power over him – and which now sat within those precise folds. To read them, to let them be said, would be to let him off the hook. She knew he thought an apology would be enough. It would be sincere and heartfelt because he was sorry, she knew that. But sorry didn’t change a damn thing. It didn’t mean she hadn’t gone through what she’d gone through.
The sound of his name caught her ear, leaping out of her head and into the room. She looked up at the screen and suddenly there he was – looking thin, bloodied, bruised, two black eyes and his head hanging down as two men, their faces covered so that only their eyes could be seen, held him up under the arms. They were speaking in Arabic, some of the words familiar enough to register in her brain: America. Infidel. Millions. Brotherhood. Revenge. Death.
A black-shrouded man came and stood in front of the screen, blocking Cunningham from sight. He held up a newspaper. Today’s date on the top right corner. She knew what that meant. Proof of life. For now.
The man stepped back, moving so that Cunningham came into shot again. He said something she couldn’t pick up and the two men holding him up released their grips. Cunningham fell to his knees as heavily as a bag of potatoes, his hands splayed on the ground. The guards took their rifles and lifted their guns above their heads, discharging ammunition into the sky in a single-arm display. Then everything went black.
Lee gasped, her hands going to her mouth as she waited for the next scene to cue, a dread the like of which she had known only once before chilling her blood.
She waited and waited – but it did not come. Instead, they cut back to the network’s correspondent in the area – Sylvia Raven – in Raqqa. Lee had never worked with her although they had met once at some press awards ceremony in Washington. She was standing downtown, wearing her flak jacket and helmet.
‘. . . latest is that IS are demanding the release of all their commanders and fighters currently being held in detention centres in northeast Syria, in exchange for Harry Cunningham’s release. Now, Washington’s official policy is that it does not negotiate with terrorists so that, clearly, is not going to happen, but there will be a concerted effort going on behind the scenes to try to get him out. Harry Cunningham is of course known to many of our viewers, having filed reports to this television network, as well as in his role as chief Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a seasoned and highly regarded war reporter, and he received the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, alongside his long-time partner, the photographer Lee Fitchett. There is no doubt he is exactly the kind of high-profile target IS would want to take captive and this will work in his favour, for the short term at least. For the moment, he is more valuable to them alive than dead, but as we have seen with Islamic State in the past, that will not stay the case for long and the clock is quickly ticking down for the security services to locate him and try to extract him – if indeed they can. He may deliberately be kept with women and children, in order to maximize risk to civilians and impede any rescue efforts.’
The news anchor – a fake-tanned man in an expensive suit – nodded sombrely. ‘And what of the reports emerging that Cunningham was not in Syria under official press sanction? We understand the Washington Post were caught off guard when news of his capture became known and that they didn’t know he was even in the country.’
Sylvia shifted her weight. ‘Yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions about what he was actually doing out here. Clearly he wasn’t reporting for the Washington Post, with whom he is still officially contracted, although that alliance is now understood to be more of a roaming role as he had moved into semi-retirement. There have been suggestions from some sources that he was out here working on an undisclosed book project; Reuters were aware he was in the area and I understand it had come to the attention of the US units in the region too. But the specifics are still sketchy and the priority at the moment has to be on a successful extraction.’
Anchor man nodded again, his cup of coffee steaming in front of him. ‘Sylvia Raven, speaking to us from Raqqa, in Syria, thank you very much—’
Lee turned the TV onto mute, staring down again at the
envelope in her hands. She had been wringing it, she realized, and tears were blanketing her cheeks.
He was alive. For now, he was still alive. That was all that mattered now. She tore open the envelope. Accept his damned apology, she told herself furiously. Let him wriggle off the hook. Let the past . . . slip away. She had survived it, after all. He must too.
She read the words, black smudges on white as her eyes tried to focus past the tears.
Fitch,
I don’t blame you for not wanting me in your life. I know why you can’t forgive me and believe me when I say you can’t hate me more than I already hate myself. I know that my following you here didn’t give you the sense of safety that I hoped it would; you’re far stronger than me anyway, and I was fooling myself to think that trying to ‘protect’ you now could make up for not protecting you then.
I’ve tried doing what you want and just letting you go but I’m going to be a father soon and I can’t bring a child into this world knowing what kind of man I am. You’ve been so brave but I have to make this right. I have to be able to live with myself and I can’t, knowing that he’s still out there, getting away with it.
I know what I’m getting into and that’s why I’ve asked Gisele not to give you this letter until I’ve gone. Don’t try to stop me, we both need this to be resolved, one way or the other. I pray I can do this and give us both the happy endings we deserve – we always did want to do some good together, didn’t we? – but if I fuck it up, know I wanted it this way. I’d rather have died trying, than lived any longer with the shame of what my choices meant for you.