Little Black Lies

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘Yeah, well I am.’ I drag her through the house to where I remember there being a laundry room. Washing machine, wire-framed dryers stacked neatly against the wall. And a large window, directly above the sink, that overlooks a secluded part of the garden.

  I had sex with Catrin in this house more than once. Her husband worked less than twenty minutes away. Years ago, I had my escape route all planned out.

  ‘There are people at the back,’ she hisses at me, as I open the window and climb on to the sink.

  ‘They’ll be round at the front now, waiting for you to come out.’ Not without some difficulty – maybe I’m bigger now than I was three years ago – I squeeze myself outside and drop to the ground. I hold out my arms to help her down and she gives me Queenie.

  Great.

  Keeping the dog tucked under one arm, I help Catrin with the other. The wind will hide any sound she and I make. I just have to hope the dog stays quiet. Once we’re all three outside I give myself a second to take stock.

  We’re in the small fenced area where Catrin keeps her bins. I leave the window open, so they’ll know we got out and, hopefully, won’t be tempted to trash the house, and then I push open the swing door and peer out. Nobody that I can see and, in any case, I can deal with the odd straggler. I give Queenie to Catrin and then drag them both along a narrow, paved path that leads to the bottom of the garden. Once over the fence we’re in open country. We’ve lost the cloud cover, though, and the quad bikes will follow us easily.

  Back at the house the chanting has begun again. I hear a loud knocking and know they’re running out of patience, but we’ve reached the fence. I vault over it, take Queenie and put her down, then lean back to lift Catrin.

  A rocket screams overhead, trailing tiny coloured sparks of fire as I pull Catrin forward. In Skye’s borrowed clothes she’s not exactly dressed for a hike across the moors but we have to get a move on.

  Sensing a change in the mood behind us I glance back to see the torches dancing about randomly. Above the wind I can hear shouts of frustration.

  ‘Guess they know we’ve gone.’ At my side, Catrin sounds breathless already. Three years ago, she was fit as a flea. Now, I’m not sure she’s going to cope with a four-mile hike in the dark. Still, I’ve carried heavier weights across Falkland countryside at night.

  A torch beam falls on to the ground directly in front of me and there is an answering cry from behind. We’ve been spotted. I pick up speed again but whatever Catrin’s got on her feet, it isn’t running shoes. She’s struggling to keep up and behind us I can hear the roar of quad-bike engines. This is bad. Back at the house, with the moral high ground, we might have faced them down. Now we’ve become prey, hunted by a mob, it’s an entirely different story.

  Options? Hide? Turn and face them? Beat one of them up so badly the rest back off? Making a sudden decision, I switch direction and head for the road.

  ‘They’ve got cars. We can’t get away on the road.’

  ‘We’re not going to. We’re going to cross it.’

  I wait for the protest. For Catrin to realize what’s on the other side of the road and tell me I’m insane. We push through gorse and Diddle Dee. There are still some clouds above us and every now and again one gets blown across the moon, effectively cloaking us in darkness. Every time that happens, there’s a chance we’ll slip out of sight and so I press on as fast as I dare. It’s not easy, tabbing across Falkland countryside at night when you’re under pressure. There are clumps of tussock, holes and burrows, great stretches of peat bog and even streams and ponds where you least expect them. And rocks, embedded deep in the ground, low but sharp, vicious as man traps.

  The bikes are getting closer. When I look back I see the headlights. They’re heading straight for us.

  Finally, the road. We can move faster, even without light. Mind you, so can the guys chasing us. I turn left, keeping a firm hold on Catrin. We have about forty yards to go but it’s uphill and she’s breathing heavily.

  ‘You’re out of condition.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  We’ve reached the fence. I don’t normally enter this particular field at this point, so I haven’t prepared it. ‘Do you trust me?’ I ask. Over her shoulder, coming up the hill hard on our heels, I can count three headlights.

  ‘Seems the least I can do.’

  I grin at her, then drop to the ground and roll. The barbed wire snags at my jacket but I pull free. The ground is soggy, but there isn’t time to find a better spot. She follows me and then Queenie scrambles through.

  We’re in the minefield.

  22

  I keep close to the fence until I can get my bearings. There is a bare outcrop of rock a little way north of our current position and when we reach that, we can head west. A sheep trail takes us most of the way through. Behind me, Catrin is carrying the dog again.

  ‘Piglet won’t set anything off. Put her down.’

  Woman clutches dog even tighter. I stop and face them. ‘Cat, the field’s full of sheep. They’re too light to set mines off and so is she. Just don’t let her chase them or we could all get shot.’

  I’m not entirely joking. The minefield is rented by Chase Wentfield, a local farmer, who takes a zero-tolerance approach to dogs bothering his livestock. Meanwhile, the headlamps are still following us and, on the road side of the fence, they can move faster than we can. We reach the outcrop and I pull out a compass to double-check. I wouldn’t normally, and I’m not sure we can spare the time, but I sense Catrin is still pretty nervous.

  ‘This way,’ I tell her. ‘Stay directly behind me. And put that bloody dog down.’

  I set off jogging along the sheep trail. Catrin’s so close behind me she’s practically tripping over my heels but that’s good. We need to disappear into the gloom before the headlamps catch up with us or those daft bastards might be tempted to follow. When I’ve run nearly a hundred yards I turn and look back. The headlamps are still there, shining into the field, but quad bikes can’t come in here. So far, no sign of anyone following us on foot. I pull Catrin low and after a few minutes we watch the bikes turn and head back down the hill.

  ‘I love it when a plan comes together,’ I tell her.

  ‘Brilliant.’ She’s still clutching Piglet. ‘And losing the odd limb will be a small price to pay.’

  When I stand and start walking again she follows me like a baby elephant chasing after its ma. ‘Maybe we should spread out a bit,’ I tell her. ‘Then if I get hit, there’s a chance you’ll miss the worst of it.’

  ‘Oh, very funny. Are you going to tell me how you do this?’

  ‘Got a map.’

  She thinks about this for a second. ‘You’ve got a map? Acres of the islands have been out of bounds for over a decade because nobody wants to get blown up and you’ve got a bloody map? Have you told anyone?’

  ‘Nobody asked.’ I look back. Nothing but darkness behind.

  Catrin, too, has stopped moving. I know that look. If Queenie weren’t in her arms her hands would be on her hips.

  ‘Of course people know I’ve got it. Or rather, the military know. The trouble is they can’t trust it. I had it off an Argie prisoner at the end of the war. His squadron laid the mines, so he knew exactly where they were. The British government want to do their own sweep and until they can spare the funding, the minefield remains.’

  She’s looking round. At the bumpy uneven ground, the scattered rocks, the ghostly white shapes in the distance that are probably sheep. ‘How many mines are there?’

  ‘A hundred and forty?’

  ‘You’re kidding me. And you remember where they all are?’

  ‘God no. I just know this path’s safe.’

  She takes hold of my hand and looks back. ‘They’re gone now. They’ve given up. We can go back to the road.’

  It’s been a long time since Catrin held my hand. I realize she’s shaking and I don’t think it’s just the fear of being blown up. I unzip my coat and pull
it off. Wrapping it round her gives me the excuse to pull her closer, to do something I used to love. I tuck my hands behind her neck and pull her hair free.

  She remembers. I see it in her eyes, in the tiny shudder she makes as my fingers touch the back of her neck. ‘I can’t believe you’re coming on to me in the middle of a minefield,’ she grumbles.

  I want nothing more than to kiss her. Staring down, at the face that is little more than shadows, I have a sense that something is changing. For the first time in years, I feel something akin to hope.

  ‘Come on.’ We set off again. After several steps, we’re still holding hands.

  ‘All this time, I thought you were playing some twisted game of Russian roulette coming in here. I thought you were seriously disturbed. You could have told me you had a map.’

  I had no idea Catrin even knew I came into the minefield. ‘You been spying on me?’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  We walk on. Queenie, finally on the ground again, picks up a scent of the sheep and I have to growl a warning. She looks up at me like a wilful kid. I bare my teeth at her.

  ‘Stop bullying her. Hang on a minute. How can you be sure the map’s accurate? It only takes one your Argentinian friend forgot to mention and you’re gannet food.’

  ‘Actually there’s a few he forgot about. I set one off last May. Cracked a couple of ribs when I landed.’

  She stops dead. ‘Really not funny.’

  ‘Really not kidding.’

  I put her out of her misery. ‘The Argies weren’t very good at laying mines. They dug them too deep, and they completely underestimated the impact of the peat soil.’

  As we walk on, I tell her the story of the night, not long after we landed, when we were heading for the Argentine defensive positions at Goose Green. We advanced on the left flank, close to a beach, across an area we were soon to learn that the Argies had mined. One of our company, an eighteen-year-old gobshite from Glasgow, set off an explosion and flew twenty feet into the air. He landed on boggy ground, picked himself up and carried on running forward. Several more mines exploded that night. Not a single one of our lads was harmed. Not by mines, anyway.

  ‘The Argies thought we were fucking supermen.’

  I’m smiling at the memory. In the midst of the hell that was the Falkland liberation, you had to find your light relief where you could.

  ‘I’ve missed your soldier stories.’

  I keep walking. I can’t answer that. Once I do, the conversation will move on. It won’t be the last thing she said to me.

  ‘Callum, what do you think happened to him? Rachel’s little boy, I mean.’

  Bloody good question. And one we really need to answer. ‘We know he wasn’t taken by road, because we were on it, so only two possibilities that I can think of. The first is that someone approached the property from the beach and then got him away by boat.’

  ‘Which means he could be anywhere on the islands.’

  ‘The other is they came from camp.’

  ‘And carried him off on foot?’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking quad bike. Or horse.’

  She accepts the suggestion immediately. Lots of people on the islands still keep horses for getting around camp. Rachel has a couple herself.

  ‘If any of those is true, there would have been tracks. On the ground around the house if it was a bike or horse, at the top of the beach if it was a boat.’

  ‘There could well have been. But the police didn’t look for them because they were focused on you.’

  ‘And the rain’s washed them all away.’

  ‘When I was there yesterday the crime-scene team had found a footprint. Or so they thought. A large one. A bloke’s. I think they got a print of it before the rain.’

  She’s silent for a moment, thinking about it. ‘I still can’t believe it’s someone on the islands,’ she says. ‘Everyone’s lived here for years. People don’t suddenly turn into paedophiles overnight.’

  Over the years, people have often asked me why I came back here after the conflict was over, why I’ve stayed so long. The truth is, I came for Catrin, even though I didn’t know her at the time, and for people like her.

  One of the things I love about this woman at my side, about everyone here, is their innocence. This tiny archipelago is like a bubble, isolated from the rest of the world, in which people have the chance to be their very best. Here, the cult of the individual, so common in the Western world, is largely unknown. There is no in-bred sense of entitlement here. No one here talks about ‘me time’. Here, life is about graft and sweat, about making the very best life out of a harsh environment and, big difference now, about helping others along the way. This is a community. It’s a team.

  Margaret Thatcher, who’s practically become the patron saint of the islands after her handling of the invasion, talks about society being redundant, of the individual being king. If she truly knew and understood this place, she’d never spout such a load of old bollocks.

  Other than the conflict – and even then, the invading Argentinian army behaved pretty well towards the islanders – kelpers have no experience of the worst the human race is capable of. They don’t know that it can take years to make a monster.

  After half an hour, we reach the end of the minefield and duck under the fence. Catrin is visibly relieved. I’m freezing. We’ve cut nearly a mile off our journey though and we soon pick up the stream that takes us directly to my house.

  ‘Is this bringing back memories?’ She’s still struggling to keep up, but that wind is piercing and I can’t slow down. At my feet, Queenie seems to be limping along too and I wonder if I’ll be carrying them both before the night’s out. ‘Of, what did you call it, yomping?’

  ‘Lady, wash your mouth out. The Crap Hats yomped. We tabbed.’

  ‘Two words for exactly the same thing.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ I say, although technically she’s right. Yomping is a Marine term. There was always a healthy ‘cap badge’ rivalry between the Marines and the Paras. We had a lot of respect for them, but it only went so far. When Stanley was retaken, the bosses wanted the Marines to raise the Union Flag over the islands once more. For symbolic reasons, whatever that meant. As far as we were concerned, the Cabbage Heads had lost it in the first place and there was no way we were giving up ground. We’d been the first battalion ashore, the first to give the Argies a good pasting, and we were bloody determined to be the first into Port Stanley. We were too.

  ‘Tabbing involves heavier packs and an extra couple of miles an hour in speed,’ I tell her, and I’m not going to be argued with. ‘Boys yomp, real men tab.’

  One last fence, a short distance downhill and I can see my house. At my side, Catrin gives a massive sigh. ‘Would I be pushing my luck if I said I was hoping for hot water?’

  I have a sudden mental picture of Catrin in the tub, her skin glowing pink in the steam, and tell myself to slow down. There’s been progress tonight, but still a hell of a long way to go. ‘I can probably manage a hot dinner too, although it might be microwaved.’

  When she speaks again her voice is quieter, more serious. ‘Cal, do you think Rachel thinks I did it?’

  I honestly have no idea. I never got to know Rachel particularly well; when we do meet, we stick to social niceties. ‘She’s known you longer than I have. If I know you didn’t do it, she must too.’

  ‘You don’t though. And neither does she. You might hope, or even believe, but you don’t know.’ She’s slowed down, is hardly walking forward at all. All very well, but she still has my coat and the night isn’t getting any warmer.

  ‘I know you,’ I tell her.

  ‘You knew me three years ago. You knew me before. I’m very different now.’

  ‘People don’t change that much.’ I’m telling her what I need to believe: that in her heart, Catrin is still the same woman. ‘No matter what they’ve been through, deep down they stay the same.’

  ‘I think we both know that’s
not true.’

  Almost home. I know what I’m hoping for and it isn’t, particularly, hot water and hot food. I tell myself I must not push her. And then I do the exact opposite. I push her. I stop and face her. We stand together on the narrow path.

  ‘I spoke to Ben last night. He knows about us. Did you tell him?’

  Her face clouds over when I mention Ben. I really want her to say that she told him. God knows I begged her to often enough. When you have nothing, small victories mean a lot.

  She knows exactly what I want her to say, but she’s the woman who never lies. ‘It wasn’t me. It was Rachel.’

  ‘You told Rachel?’ She’d always insisted that Rachel could not know.

  She can’t meet my eyes. I sense she’s reluctant to say this, even now. ‘No, I didn’t tell her. She found out. She saw us together one time. We were, well, I don’t imagine there could have been much doubt about what we were doing.’

  I wait for more details. I can’t think when Rachel could have seen us. We were pretty careful.

  ‘That’s why she was at the house that day, when she left the boys in the car.’ Catrin is talking to the ground at our feet now. ‘She was nearly an hour earlier than we’d arranged. She went to meet Ben, and she told him about us. My best friend was in my house, breaking up my marriage, trying to destroy my family, when my sons fell to their death. An accident, a moment’s carelessness, I might have forgiven. But not that.’

  Shit. I don’t know what to ask first. Did Ben tell her this? Why should Rachel want to hurt Catrin so much? Why did none of this come out at the inquest into the boys’ deaths? What I ask is the least relevant and most selfish thing I could come up with.

  ‘Were you ever going to tell him?’

  I don’t get the slap I probably deserve. For a long time I get nothing. Then, ‘I was afraid,’ she says. ‘Ben was just so – dependable. I loved you so much, but you were a total wild card. I had no idea whether I could rely on you, and I had two children to think about.’

  Oh, I’m glad she brought that up. ‘Three children. You had three children to think about.’

  She backs away, tries to step around me. I reach out, but she’s already moved out of reach.