‘Alex?’ Finn pressed. ‘Do you want to talk in private?’
Alex composed herself. ‘No. What I have to say, I can say here.’ Anywhere, in fact. Alex went to continue but Finn had spotted something over her shoulder. Alex looked back to where Millie and the children were waiting. Had Jem left the dog with them? Norma was trying to wriggle out of her collar.
‘Hang on, Alex. I think Millie’s struggling, the pup’s tangled herself around Millie’s leg, look,’ Finn observed.
Millie was trying to free herself without loosening her hold on either Alfie or Poppy’s hands while Alfie desperately held on to Norma’s lead.
‘Hang on, Millie!’ Alex called over. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’ But she hadn’t thought until it was too late. Norma looked up with Millie, saw Alex standing across the street and determinedly yanked her head from her collar. Alex didn’t hear the vehicle coming down through the bend, and she didn’t see little Alfie Sinclair drop his mother’s hand. She only had time to stare, uselessly as Norma, and then at a little boy in a danger-red baseball cap, darted out into the traffic.
Ted had only been listening to Hamish reel off the results of the river race for a minute or two before he thought he’d seen a ghost. Ted couldn’t see much of the child under that red cap, but there was something in his profile, the way his mouth was set in concentration. Ted saw Helen Fairbanks’ girl and realised whose child, whose grandchild, he’d been looking at.
‘Here comes another one, flying into town,’ Hamish said behind him, but Ted had already started to break away. He’d seen it unfurling before the child’s mother had spotted the danger. Ted broke into a run just as the dog made a run into the road. He heard a young woman’s voice cry out but the little boy with the familiar face was already stepping off the kerb.
He launched himself across the first lane but Ted had raised enough children to know that kids could be just like puppies, too quick to catch. He hadn’t checked what might’ve been coming behind him. He’d simply run for him, charging out after the late mayor’s grandson, grabbing out clumsily, desperately, until he could feel the boy’s soft little body change trajectory with the force of his own. A flash of burgundy squealed in front of them, something slammed hard into Ted’s side.
Then just the cold stark sounds of metal and glass.
CHAPTER 61
‘It’s all right, Dad. Let us just take a look at him, OK?’ Alex could hear the shake in her voice.
‘Did you see that? Did you see it? How did they not get hit? Two cars! The old fella dodged two cars!’ someone said.
She was looking for red, but all Alex could find was one superficial graze on Alfie’s elbow that must’ve already been there because it had scabbed already. The only blood belonged to her father, and Finn, and the grazes they’d shared between them.
Alex hadn’t seen Finn move from where they’d been standing. Just a blur beside her, and then the next thing the blue car had been there in front of her, nearly on the pavement, and Finn had disappeared the other side of it.
They’d just been lying there in a heap when Alex’s legs had figured out how to function again and she’d scrambled over all that glass to get to them. Two grown men, and a little boy somewhere between them.
Millie was standing in shock, white and still. Poppy was crying, big rounded sobs, her hand still clamped in Millie’s because that was the rule when you were charged with the care of another person’s child – you made sure they got home in one piece.
‘Ted? Shall we let his mum take over?’ Finn said gently.
Finn was sitting on his backside, inspecting the knuckles he’d lost all the skin from but Alex’s father still hadn’t loosened his grip on Alfie. Alex remembered her dad taking her to watch A Christmas Carol at the theatre. The ghost of Christmas Present had lifted his robe and an ashen-faced child had peeped out from underneath. Alex thought of that as she looked at her father now, holding Alfie in his arms.
‘Dad?’
Alex watched Finn pat Ted’s hand before carefully unpeeling his fingers from Alfie. ‘He needs to be checked,’ Ted said to Finn, ‘the boy’s got a butterfly heart.’
A crowd had formed a circle around them in the middle of the high street. Someone had hold of Norma.
‘We’ll get him checked, Ted,’ Finn reassured him. ‘Are you hurt?’
Ted shook his head although he’d lost about the same amount of skin from his right cheek as Finn had from his hands. The first car had swerved to miss Norma. Alex had seen that much. But she hadn’t seen how her dad had gotten to Alfie from the other side before the car coming in the opposite direction had been hit by the first. It was as if those two cars had cancelled each other out, balanced the equation, and at the centre of it all, in the eye of the storm, Finn and her father had kept Alfie Sinclair safe.
Finn got slowly to his feet. ‘Alex? Take Millie and the children inside the shop. So they can’t see.’ Because Finn knew how haunting that could be.
Finn was looking at what was still discernible of the burgundy car. Another circle of onlookers had formed over where the event paramedic had thought his capabilities were more needed. Alex could just see where the windscreen had been punched through from the inside. The driver of the blue car had already been helped into Brünnhilde’s Baps for an icepack.
Finn touched her elbow and moved his thumb over her skin. ‘Go on. I’ll keep an eye on your dad.’
Alex nodded and began rustling Millie and the children towards Finn’s shop. Someone with pretend blonde braids hanging either side of his ears was standing on top of the pavement litter bin to see what was happening in the other circle. ‘Not looking good. The guy who was doing the CPR, he’s just pulled one of the flags down from the lamppost and put it over the big guy. That’s dude’s dead.’
CHAPTER 62
‘I thought I recognised the car,’ Finn said as the nurse finished off bandaging his hands. ‘I saw it on Emma Parsons’ driveway, the day we helped her with her unwanted guest.’ Mal was leaning back against the stainless steel hand basin. He still looked as grey-faced as he had when he’d arrived on the scene and Millie had burst into tears.
‘I know. I checked the registration. It’s Emma’s husband’s car. Same car he had dropped on his chest in the accident Emma was trying to convince me of.’
‘But he’s still in hospital,’ Alex said. ‘Emma’s husband is still in hospital.’
‘So who was driving his car then?’ Finn asked.
‘Driver’s license says a Mr Eric Mason. Big fella. Looks like the Parsons’ unwanted guest came back to collect his money.’
‘The loan shark? He helped himself to their car instead?’ asked Alex.
‘Only the Parson’s car wasn’t roadworthy. Emma said her husband had been checking a brake fluid leak when Mr Mason had last been speaking to her husband. And, of course, Mr Parsons didn’t finish the job on account of the jack somehow giving way on him. Emma wouldn’t have had to walk all this way to the hospital every day with her girls, otherwise,’ Mal said.
‘Is he dead?’ Alex asked. Definitely, dead.
Mal looked at the nurse, they exchanged a look professionals gave fellow professionals. ‘I’m afraid I really can’t say, until next of kin have been informed.’
The nurse rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, excusing himself from the room.
Mal glanced over at Alex. ‘I just need to get a statement from your dad, now.’
‘He’s in the end cubicle, with Jem. She made him get checked out.’
Jem had nearly had a meltdown when she’d reached all the flashing lights and saw Ted being ordered into the back of one of the ambulances. Alex had heard her saying to George something about ‘no more waiting’.
Finn eased himself up off the gurney. ‘Thanks, chief,’ he called after the nurse. ‘That’s my painting sideline … sidelined.’
‘You’ll heal,’ Alex offered. Finn always did.
Alex saw something ping into Finn’
s head. ‘I need to get to a phone, I’ve got a Mr McQueen coming out to pick up a portrait of a black lab puppy.’
‘Not Leonard McQueen?’ Mal asked
Finn winced. ‘That’s right.’
‘What are the chances, huh? He’s just getting his head stitched. He was our man in the blue Ford, with all the blood pouring down his face. Those head wounds, they bleed like a bugger. Of course, Mr McQueen might not have had that head injury if he hadn’t have worked so hard to miss my son.’ Mal took a huge breath. ‘One of my colleagues is just waiting to talk to him now, so don’t go rushing back to meet him.’
‘Are you all right, Mal?’ Alex asked.
Mal’s face was fighting something back. ‘Thanks again, Finn. For getting to Alfie … I don’t know what might’ve—’
Finn held two bandaged hands up. ‘Mal, forget it. To be honest, I’m not as quick on the old feet as I used to be,’ Finn winced, ‘Ted Foster got to him first.’
Mal nodded sombrely. ‘Ted’s my next stop.’ Mal opened the door and waited for Alex and Finn to walk through it.
‘Mal? Do you mind if I just have a minute with Finn, please?’ Alex asked.
Mal disappeared onto the A&E corridor. Alex felt her nerves jangle.
‘I told you to get a better collar,’ Finn said.
‘What are you saying, I’m responsible?’ The thought had crossed Alex’s mind already.
Finn came to stand in front of her. His bandaged hand like a boxing glove as he used it to lift Alex’s chin. He tried with the other bandaged hand to move the hair from out of her eyes but after a couple of attempts he just started laughing. Alex grinned at him then, she couldn’t help it.
Finn grimaced. Alex saw the cut on his lip had opened again. He dabbed it with the back of his bandage. ‘I don’t think you’re responsible, Alex,’ he said more seriously. ‘That stuff just happens. Unless you engineered it all to get out of finishing what it was you were trying to say to me, before all hell broke loose?’
Finn went to smile again and stopped himself before his lip pulled. Over the subtle aromas of antiseptic and cotton swabs, Alex could smell him. The sweetness she knew she’d find at his neck if ever she found herself back there again. She felt even more self-conscious about it now, it had seemed easier somehow to say it with hundreds of people milling around them.
Finn was hanging back, waiting for Alex to come good. Waiting to see if she would. ‘I just wanted to tell you, Finn … That I—’
Finn stepped into her and slid his arms behind her then pressed his mouth over hers. Alex fell into their kiss. She could taste him, the saltiness of effort left on his skin after jumping to Alfie’s aid, the sweetness of the cut her father had put there when this gentle delicious mouth had spoken the words she still hadn’t spoken back. She fell into that kiss and never wanted to come up for air again.
‘Sorry to interrupt, guys, but we need this room back. Ingrowing toenail, pretty sure you don’t want to hang around for that.’ Finn held Alex where she was, lips still pressed together and cocked an eye at the nurse, smiling in the doorway. Across the corridor, Alex saw Jem and her dad sitting on a hospital bed, hugging one another. She broke from Finn. ‘Hold that thought, would you?’
Alex stepped out of the treatment room. Jem was walking away from the cubicle Ted was in. ‘Is everything all right? Did they say if he’s suffering from shock?’ Alex asked.
Jem set her hands on her hips and twisted herself to have another look at him. He was already pulling the dressing from his scuffed cheek. ‘Actually … no. He isn’t.’
‘Are you OK, Jem?’
Jem nodded animatedly. Their mother did that too, when Blythe cried at her operas and someone asked her if she was all right, because you had to be mildly insane to cry at a piece of music the way Blythe did.
‘Oh my God, you’ve told him.’
Jem’s eyes were welling up. She started to laugh. ‘I thought the hospital was as good a place as any to tell him about George, in case he keeled over. Or I did.’
‘And?’ Alex was feeling a little shocky.
Jem looked spun out. ‘He said that Mum told him years ago, before I went to uni.’
‘But … you said you hadn’t told her.’
‘I didn’t. Not a soul apart from Mal. Mum just … knew. A bit of an anti-climax, really. George said it would be. Best anti-climax ever.’ Jem moved into Alex for a hug. Alex took in another hit of strawberry lip-gloss. ‘Where’s George now, Jem?’
‘She took Norma and Poppy back to the B&B.’ Jem was looking over Alex’s shoulder. ‘Look at the two of them, Al. How did they come out that battered when the doctors couldn’t find a single scratch on Alfie?’
Alex turned. Ted had just got to his feet, Finn standing casually beside him. ‘Because nothing was getting through them that was going to hurt that little boy.’
Ted offered his hand to Finn. Finn offered him his own hand but wrapped in so much dressing, it looked more like a giant earbud. Ted shook it anyway. Jem bobbed her hip into Alex’s.
‘Thank you. For what you did.’
‘No need, Mr Foster. I didn’t realise you were going for him too.’
‘I’m not talking about what happened today …’ Alex saw her dad breathe deeply and take stock. ‘I never thanked you for what you did. For my son. And I’m sorry it’s took me so long to say it.’
Finn’s shoulders dropped. ‘I did everything I could, Ted. I swear I did.’
‘I know you did, son. And I’m grateful.’
Ted looked up but Alex couldn’t stop staring. He looked at her for a few moments, then he turned back to Finn. ‘I’m not much of a cook … unless we’re talking omelettes. But how about when my wife’s back home, you think about coming on up to the house for dinner. Maybe we could put our heads together and come up with a way of getting my daughter back home? Hmm?’
Finn didn’t look at Alex, he stayed perfectly set on her dad instead. ‘I think that sounds like a plan, Mr Foster.’
‘Ted. Call me Ted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, before young Officer Sinclair starts interrogating me, I have to go tell my wife that I love her.’
‘Don’t even think of climbing on that bed again, Mr Foster,’ the nurse warned. ‘I know Blythe here is a killer redhead but no more sneaking into bed with her in those overalls, all right? If the Sister catches you, you’ll have more than a grazed cheekbone to worry about!’
‘What have … you been do-ing?’ Blythe asked.
‘Dad’s a hero, Mum. The Eilidh Gazette are after him, aren’t they, Dad?’ Jem teased.
‘I know he is.’ Blythe smiled. ‘Always was my hero.’
‘You’re looking really well, Mum.’
‘You should see how well she’s eating! You keep this up Blythe, and you’ll be back to washing oil off your own bed sheets in no time!’ the nurse said bustling out.
Blythe looked at each of them, something fretful washed over her. ‘I’m glad … you’re all here. I’ve been waiting … to speak to … all of you.’
Alex felt the tension coming off Jem. They’d agreed. No more talk of anything that would sully the memories they all had of Dill. No more hurdles for their family.
‘You know what, Mum? Sorry, but it’s going to have to wait. We’re all talked out, aren’t we, Jem?’ Jem nodded. ‘Dad’s already had his ears talked off, so how about we just do the talking hey? While you rest.’
‘You look … different.’ Blythe frowned. ‘All of you … Has something … happened?’
Jem looked at Alex then Ted. Alex patted her mum’s hand. ‘Nothing’s happened, Mum. We’re just all ready for you to come home to us. Before Dad kills someone with omelette a la everything.’
Blythe’s eyes glazed over. ‘Mum? What is it?’ Jem asked. Ted came to the bottom of the bed and laid a hand on one of Blythe’s feet.
‘It’s just … so wonderful … having you all … together.’ She smiled.
Alex laid a kiss on her mother’s perfect porcelain skin
. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to that, Mum. Because there’s going to be a lot more of that from now on.’
CHAPTER 63
2 weeks later
‘Never in all my born days have I cried at a piece of music. I shall never be able to hear that, what was it called again?’
‘“Casta Diva”.’ Alex smiled.
‘I shall never listen to it again without a box of tissues, I just know it.’ Helen’s chin was already wobbling again.
‘It is a beautiful piece, Helen.’ Alex smiled. She’d cried too, but so had Jem, and their dad, and it wasn’t Maria Callas who’d taken them all there.
Jem was across the other side of the garden making sure the Reverend was fully refreshed. Blythe would never forgive them if they let the Reverend’s glass run low. Alex thought Jem looked pale against her pretty black tailored dress, but George was keeping a close eye on her. Most of their male guests were keeping a closer eye on George.
Helen dabbed her nose again. ‘Hearts are funny things, Alexandra darling. Funny things. Oh, Alfie, no you mustn’t feed the dog from your plate. I’m not sure bringing him over was the best thing,’ Helen whispered, ‘but Millie’s been so sick again this morning and Malcolm wanted to be here so badly. Go on now, Alfie, go and have a look at the tractors from the end of the garden.’
‘No, Helen. I’m glad Alfie’s here. He’s lifting the mood.’ Alex squeezed Helen’s elbow and carried on doing the rounds, buy her dad some more time alone over by the tree-swing where he was sneakily sucking on a roll up, watching the tractors collecting in the bales. Alex ran a hand over the poppies while she walked around the perimeter of the porch, smiling politely at their guests. She breathed in the new lavender bushes she’d planted for her mum’s homecoming and let it out slow. Helen was right. Hearts were funny things. The funniest of things. But you didn’t die of a broken heart, did you, Mum?
Letting You Go Page 34