by Anita Waller
Tim followed Mark through the door to a room which was divided into several bays, each with its own dedicated nurse.
Their father’s assigned nurse, Carla Ingalls, looked at the two men, and did a double take. ‘Has anybody ever told you …?’ She smiled.
‘That we look alike?’ Mark spoke, with an answering smile. ‘How are things?’
‘He’s stable. That’s as much as I can tell you for now, because keeping him sedated means we know very little beyond his vital signs. The surgery went well, but his body took a battering. He’s not in any pain …’
‘How do you know?’ Tim asked. ‘How can you tell?’
Carla waved her hand at the bank of monitors to the left of the bed. ‘Believe me, with what’s being pumped into him from these, he’s in no pain. He’ll be with us for some time, but we’ll take care of him.’
They found chairs and sat either side of the elevated bed, each holding a hand. Neither spoke; both prayed to a God they didn’t even know if they believed in.
They stayed half an hour, before heading out to let Erin come back in.
Mark spoke hesitantly. ‘Look, I’ve got something to do. Tim, will you stay with Erin? See that she’s okay? I’ll only be away a couple of hours, then, I’ll come straight back here. It’s work, a contract I need to sign …’ he finished lamely, and hoped they couldn’t tell he was lying.
‘Just go,’ Tim said. ‘We’ll ring if there’s any change. Otherwise, we’ll leave you alone. See you later.’ He walked back to the bedside, with Erin.
Mark ran across the car park and jumped in his car. Within ten minutes, he was well on the way to Sheffield. Passing the crossroads where Anna had met her death was hard; it was still difficult to accept he would never see her again.
An hour later, he drove into the car park of the apartments where Anna and Michael had lived for such a brief time. He stepped into the lift, and could feel his whole body shaking.
The doors opened, and Lissy and Jon were waiting to go down.
‘Mark!’ Lissy exclaimed with delight. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
He bent down to the wheelchair and kissed her soundly on the cheek. ‘And it’s really good to see you.’
‘We can go back in and make coffee?’ She looked at Jon, and he nodded. ‘We’re only going out for some fresh air. We can go later. Coffee? Tea?’
Mark smiled. ‘I’ll go with coffee, thanks.’
He followed them into their apartment, and Lissy steered the wheelchair next to him. She squeezed his hand. ‘You okay?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve just come to pick up some stuff for Michael.’
‘How is he?’ she said, concern etched on her face.
‘He’s had a bit of an accident.’
She nodded. ‘We know. It’s been on today’s news. It seems Jenny is at the top of the wanted list. She still has Grace?’
‘She does. It’s only the fact I know she won’t hurt her that’s stopping me going out of my mind. Michael isn’t good.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mark,’ she said, as Jon handed him the coffee, sitting down and facing him. ‘Can we do anything to help?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m sure she wouldn’t come back here, because she’ll realise we will have changed the entry code for the apartment. What did it say about Jenny on the news?’
‘There was a picture of her car, but they said they’d got it. They just wanted sightings of it prior to the accident. Then, they said she had knocked over Michael Groves, leaving the scene of the accident. They also said her daughter Grace was with her. There was a picture of Jenny, but not one of Grace.’
Mark’s head dropped, and he stared at his hands. ‘Michael’s lost most of his left leg. They’ve reset the bones in his right leg, but there’s no guarantee they can save it. He may still lose it. He’s clinging on to life, but that’s not guaranteed, either. He stood in front of the car, trying to stop her leaving with Grace. She carried on anyway, and he flew off the bonnet and to one side. Then she ran over his legs.’
He heard Lissy draw in a breath, and he turned to her. Her face was white.
‘But, she seemed so … nice, so caring. What went wrong?’
‘She caused Mum’s death, indirectly. They had a massive argument, and she threw a vase of roses at Mum. The cut was bad. There was blood everywhere. I arrived home, and Mum shot past me, jumped in the car, and was gone before I’d clicked on to what was happening. Jenny was hysterical, so I sorted her out. I guessed Mum would head back here, so I was giving her time to get to Sheffield before I rang her. She only got as far as Dunham Bridge, as you know.
‘We covered up the vase throwing for the sake of the kids, but we didn’t cover up the argument. We said she fell and smashed her head against the corner of the table which had held the flowers, and the vase falling had added to her injuries. We had to tell the police about the argument, because she had stormed out of the house covered in blood, and the chap on duty at Dunham had seen her and tried to stop her, so it was obvious she had been injured before she hit the truck. I couldn’t live with it, and we split up. I kept the kids. Now, she’s taken Grace, and I’m lost.’
‘So, that’s why she wasn’t at the funeral. I thought she must have been ill, but didn’t like to ask. You were all clearly distraught, and Michael was like a lost soul.’
He took a sip of his coffee, and nodded. ‘He still is. He virtually lives with me now. Does the school runs with the kids, so I can concentrate on building the business.’
Mark finished his coffee and placed the mug on the table. He stood. ‘Thank you for that. I’d better get on now, and sort out the stuff Michael needs. I’ll keep in touch, let you know how he’s doing. No doubt the rest of our dirty laundry will be aired on the news.’ His smile was forced, as he left their apartment.
Anna and Michael’s apartment was next door, and he keyed in the code to go in. He stepped into the lounge and looked around. She had loved this place, and it had been everything she hadn’t had during her marriage to Ray. This was his first time being here completely on his own, and he felt such a wash of sadness engulf him that he sat down and allowed it to happen. It seemed to him he had been fighting his grief for too long, trying to be strong for everybody around him, and now, it was his turn to cry.
Sometime later, he took a bottle of water out of the fridge, and drank deeply. Leaving the bottle on the side, he went quickly into the bedroom, opened the blinds, and flooded the room with light. He carefully folded the quilt made by Charlie, Anna’s multi-talented, closest friend, and put it into a suitcase. He stripped off the duvet cover and dropped it into the laundry basket, before folding the duvet as best he could and placing that into the suitcase. The bottom sheet followed the duvet cover into the laundry basket, and he was ready.
The mattress was heavy, and he balanced it on the floor, with half of it still on the bed. The envelope was centrally placed in the middle of the base.
He needed time to think about what would happen next. The letters had fingerprints on them that shouldn’t be there, if he was to tell Gainsborough he had only just found them. Michael’s fingerprints.
His own being on them wouldn’t be a problem – he had found the letters and read them. But, Michael was in hospital, and certainly in no condition to be reading letters. It didn’t matter in the slightest whether Anna had touched them or not, she wasn’t answerable to anybody now.
To protect his father, he had to hold on to the parcel long enough for Michael to be brought out of his sedation, and able to look at the letters. That would provide a legitimate reason for his fingerprints being on them.
In the meantime, he couldn’t hand the letters to Jenny – and she was holding Grace hostage.
‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,’ he muttered under his breath, as he stood. He checked the bedroom; he had decided as far as Gainsborough was concerned, he had come to prepare the bed for removal to Lindum Lodge, ready for when Michael came home. I
t was a bigger bed than the one he currently used. He left it with the mattress balanced against the base; he could always say he thought he had better not move it, in case they wanted to see exactly where the letters had been.
Mark was scared; a lot depended on his getting everything right. He had knowingly withheld information from the police, and for that, he would go to prison. As would Michael.
He dropped the envelope containing the letters into a carrier bag, and left. He drove home far more sedately than he had driven to Sheffield. As of now, these letters were his most important possessions.
22
Thursday afternoon, 14 July 2016
Jenny stared off into the distance, watching the boats being sailed, mostly inexpertly, by laughing boyfriends. Across the large lake, on the far shore, she thought she could detect someone in uniform chatting to a group of picnickers. She hoped it was a park ranger and not a policeman.
Grace was beside her on the park bench, immobile and silent. She had bought them a sandwich for lunch; neither had eaten anything. She glanced down at her daughter and saw the tears in her eyes.
Her well-thought out plans had collapsed spectacularly around her; by now, Grace should have been back with Mark, and she should have the letters back in her possession. The only thing which had worked well was she had withdrawn £5000 in cash, during a hastily arranged trip to the bank. At least she had money and wouldn’t have to use her card either in a shop or at an ATM. She wouldn’t be traced by that route. Her mobile phone was switched off and at the bottom of her bag. The answer had been to buy a cheap one, unregistered to her, and she had just entered Mark’s mobile number into it, along with Sebastian’s number.
Jenny felt a huge sob escape from Grace, and she put her arm around her and held her close.
‘Don’t cry, sweetheart.’
‘I want my daddy.’ She shoved Jenny away from her. ‘You hurt Nanny, and now, you’ve hurt Granddad Michael. Are you going to hurt me?’
Jenny felt sick. ‘Of course not, Grace.’
‘But, you smacked me on my face.’
‘It was to calm you down, not to hurt you.’ Jenny knew she had lost her daughter.
‘But, it did hurt. I want my daddy.’
‘I’ll ring him later. We need to go and find somewhere to stay tonight, so I’ll ring him then.’
Grace didn’t respond, lost deep down in her own thoughts.
They sat for a few more minutes without speaking, Jenny’s mind frantically trying to come up with answers.
‘Mummy, I need a wee.’
Jenny looked around. ‘I think the toilet block is over there, round the back of where that ice cream van is. Come on, let’s go.’
They walked the couple of hundred yards to the brick built toilet block. They both blinked, as they went from bright sunlight into the gloom of the ladies’ toilets, and Jenny held a door open for Grace.
‘I’m only in the next one, sweetheart,’ she said, and Grace nodded, going into the cubicle.
A minute later, Jenny moved to the hand basins to wash her hands. The dryer was deafening, and she turned to see that Grace’s cubicle was still closed.
‘You okay, Grace?’
There was no answer.
‘Grace?’ Jenny moved forward and realised the tiny window on the lock showed white, instead of the red indicating it was occupied.
‘Grace?’ she repeated, and pushed gently on the door.
It was empty.
Grace ran. She had also seen the man in uniform on the far shore of the lake, and knew if she could get to him he would take her back to Daddy. It was hard to run in her sandals, and she wished she had her trainers; She stumbled and gasped aloud at the pain in her toe. But, still she kept running, not daring to look back. She reached the shelter of some trees, and stopped for a moment.
Risking a glance back, she saw her mother run out of the toilets and hesitate, as she glanced right and left. She was frightened, frightened of her mummy, frightened of being alone, frightened she wouldn’t be able to get to the man on the other side of the lake.
‘Go the other way, Mummy. Go the other way, Mummy,’ Grace muttered the mantra quietly to herself, and Jenny moved towards the ice cream man. She pushed to the front of the queue and asked him something. Grace guessed she was asking him if he had seen a little girl in a grey dress, but she knew he hadn’t, because she had run around the back of the van. Grace thought she saw the man shake his head, and Jenny moved back towards the toilet block.
Grace’s eyes were glued to the scene playing out over in the distance. She was willing her mother to look for her in the other direction. After a few moments, she became aware of the more pressing need to have a wee. When she had initially told her mummy she needed the toilet, she really had needed it, but as Jenny entered her own cubicle, Grace had recognised the opportunity to run. After seeing her mummy hit Granddad Michael, she knew something wasn’t right. And now she needed that wee with some urgency.
Grace saw a faint path leading down, further into the wooded area and closer to the water’s edge. She moved away from the security of the tree she had been using as cover. Jenny had started to walk in the opposite direction, but Grace knew she could just as easily turn around and head in her direction. She began to follow the faint path.
It was hard; she had to crawl through bushes, brambles, nettles, long grass – and knew that was the reason it was such a faint path. Anybody else would have turned back long before. She couldn’t; if she turned back, Jenny could be waiting. She now had no visual contact with her mother at all.
The strap on her right sandal broke, and she stifled a shout as her bare foot landed on the ground, and she felt something sharp pierce it. She stopped and looked down; blood was flowing quite freely, and she sat once more behind a tree to inspect the damage. She removed a small piece of glass, and tried to put her sandal back on, but the strap was really broken, it hadn’t just come undone. She felt tears begin to gather in her eyes, and used the gauzy grey fabric of her dress to wipe them away. There was no chance she would be able to run now, if her mother arrived; her only hope was to find the man on the opposite shore, the one in uniform. He would help her. But, first, she needed to wee.
She balanced her foot on the broken sandal, pulled down her pants and experienced an overwhelming sense of relief as her bladder let go of the golden stream of urine. With that problem taken care of, she gave a quick glance behind her, and began to move down the now non-existent path to what she thought must be the lake. It was becoming increasingly muddy underfoot, and she could feel thick dark mud squelching in between her toes. She wanted to cry. She wanted her daddy.
The broken sandal became firmly entrenched in the mud, and her foot slipped out of it. She hit a tree root and felt herself begin to fall. She screamed loudly, but there was nobody to hear. The incline was now too great for Grace to do anything but roll, until she finally crashed into a fallen branch. She was completely disoriented, and she tried to stand. Blood ran down her face from a graze on her forehead, and she tried to wipe it away.
Panic hit her as she realised it was blood, and it was all over her hands. She leaned against the branch, and it moved; jumping back in alarm, she shook her head as she tried to clear the fog which seemed to be surrounding her. She once more tried to look over the rotted branch, the pain in her foot stopping all logical thought. She put one leg over, straddling the branch, and brought her other one to join it. The branch gave way and slid on the congealing mud, taking her down a steep, rocky incline to the lake below.
She was unconscious before she reached the water; a large rock had done the most damage, as her head smashed into it. Her limp body rolled and became wedged by rubbish, as she entered the water. It slowly covered the little girl.
Jenny was frantic, all thoughts of letters now gone. Grace was out there, on her own, and in danger. She had no idea which way Grace had gone. She guessed she had run towards shelter, but both directions away from the toilet block offered
that. Directly down the sloping grassy bank outside the toilets was a clear area leading down to the boating deck, with lots of people milling around as they waited for boats. To the left and right of that cleared section were wooded areas, thickly populated with mature trees; good hiding places. But, had she gone left, or right?
The ice cream man said he hadn’t seen her, so she had to guess Grace had turned right immediately after leaving the toilet block. If she had turned left, she would have had to pass the ice cream van and its queue of people.
Jenny began to move down the grassy bank and veered over to the right to go into the trees. As she went in to the dark interior, she called Grace’s name over and over, but there was no response. As she neared the lake’s shoreline, it began to get really muddy, and she slipped and slid down the last few yards before standing on the edge of the water and looking around her. There was no sign of her daughter and she started to climb back up, still sliding in the mud. She reached drier ground and headed further into the trees. Tears slid down her cheeks, and she hoped and prayed Grace hadn’t reached the muddy area, wherever she was. Grace was wearing thin strap sandals, not the trainers that she wore. Jenny had hit the ground with a thump a couple of times, unable to remain standing, as her feet had gone from under her.
Jenny pushed her way through, until she had covered the distance to the opposite side of the lake; this was another clearing, like the boating side, and picnic tables had been placed there. This was also where she had seen the park ranger, or whoever he was. She stayed in the shelter of the trees while she checked out the situation.
He was still there, on the path above the picnic area, but this time, he was talking to two policemen. They were holding on to pushbikes. She froze and remained where she was, having no idea if they were there because of Grace’s abduction or not, but she knew she would stand out, if she ventured into their eyeline; she was covered in mud. And her face was out there. She sat down and leaned against a tree, sobbing.