Leo’s jacket spread out like wings. The water rolled him over.
Daniela stumbled into the shallows. The river sucked at her boots as if anxious to swallow her too. She could only watch as the current found Leo, pulled him under, and made him vanish.
Daniela ran back up the bank. Stephanie had half sat up, dazed. Blood soaked the front of her vest.
‘Keys!’ Daniela hissed. Frantically she patted down Stephanie’s pockets. ‘I need the keys. I can’t go after him without my hands free.’
Stephanie stopped her by closing her hand around the spacer of the cuffs. ‘Dani,’ she said.
‘Steph, I need the keys!’ Already Leo had disappeared. Every second swept him further away. ‘Where the hell are they?’
‘Don’t.’ There was little strength behind Stephanie’s voice. ‘Don’t go after him.’
‘Steph, he—’
‘I won’t let you kill yourself for him.’ Stephanie’s grip tightened. ‘I won’t let you drown.’
Daniela tried to pull away but Stephanie held on to her, as if every last bit of strength was channelled into this. Daniela glanced over her shoulder.
Behind her, the river had swallowed Leo without a trace.
45
Daniela started to cry, the tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks. She dropped her cuffed hands onto Stephanie’s shoulder.
How had she ended up here? Irrationally she thought of her childhood: the four sisters, together, looking out for one another. Daniela and Auryn, close enough to be twins. Franklyn with her quick grin, suggesting mischief. And Stephanie, always determined to protect them from the outside world.
She wished with all her heart their paths could’ve led them someplace else.
Moving as if every action might make her pass out, Stephanie reached into her pocket for her phone. The keypad lit up as she dialled a number.
‘I need an ambulance,’ Stephanie said when the call was answered. ‘This is Sergeant Cain, collar number …’
Shit, I should be doing that, Daniela thought. She was kneeling there like a stump while Stephanie sorted out her own emergency care. Belatedly she pressed her hands down over the bleeding wound in Stephanie’s shoulder. Stephanie grunted in pain, but kept talking, giving the operator her location and status.
‘No, I’m on my own,’ Stephanie said. ‘Yes, I’ll stay on the line. But I think my battery’s low.’ With that, she hung up, then thumbed the button to turn off the phone.
‘Steph?’
With another effort, Stephanie dug out the keys for the cuffs. ‘Here,’ she said.
Numbly, Daniela took the cold metal keys. ‘Why’d you tell them you were on your own?’
‘Unlock your damn hands.’ Stephanie took a couple of deep breaths, as if steeling herself. ‘I need your help to get back to my car.’
The journey back to the road lasted a lifetime, but later Daniela couldn’t remember a single step. Her mind was numb, her body shuddering so hard it felt like she would shake to pieces. She was soaking wet – again – and freezing cold. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Leo disappearing beneath the surface, the current turning his body like a drowned log.
She thought of Margaret McKearney and grief overwhelmed her. Margaret. In the morning, Margaret would wake to the news that her son and ex-husband were both dead.
‘I lied to you too,’ Stephanie said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘About our mother. We didn’t stop looking for her.’ She set her jaw. ‘We just didn’t find anything.’
Daniela wasn’t sure she could process that right then. ‘Auryn always thought she was dead. You think she was right?’
‘Maybe.’ It was an effort for Stephanie to get the words out. ‘Auryn was talking to Henry a lot recently. Maybe he told her more than he ever told us.’
At last they staggered out to the flooded road. It felt like an age since they’d left the police car. Daniela got the driver’s door open and manoeuvred Stephanie into the seat. Stephanie was deathly pale but still somehow conscious. When the overhead light in the car came on, Daniela recoiled from the ragged gash in Stephanie’s shoulder. The harsh light turned the blood cherry-red.
‘They’ll send a helicopter for you,’ Daniela said. ‘First-class treatment, all the way. I’ll stay with you till it gets here. All right?’
‘No,’ Stephanie said. ‘You need to go home.’
‘Home?’
Stephanie went through the laborious process of getting something else out of her pocket. Daniela searched the skies. The police helicopter must be able to fly now the wind had dropped. How long would it take to get here? Absently she massaged her wrists. It’d felt so good to take those damn cuffs off. And even better to fling them into the river.
When Daniela looked down, Stephanie had produced a phone, and something in a plastic bag. My phone, Daniela realised. And that goddamn knife.
Stephanie pressed them into Daniela’s hands. Daniela was so cold she fumbled the knife into the water at her feet. For a moment she considered leaving it there, but then stooped to retrieve it, flinching at the feel of the plastic.
Stephanie settled into her seat and closed her eyes. ‘It’ll be easier if you’re not here,’ she said.
‘Easier for who?’
Stephanie opened one eye. ‘I’m serious. You should get yourself clear of this mess while you can.’
Daniela winced. ‘That won’t work.’ She thought about the trail of evidence she’d left – her jacket at the pub, her muddied clothes under a bush, the conversation she’d had with Margaret – and what she’d tell the police when they inevitably came to speak with her.
‘Tell them whatever you want,’ Stephanie said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘About the rest of it anyway. But this here?’ Her baleful eyes searched the river. ‘You weren’t even here. I’ll tell them what happened. The flood will wash everything else away.’
Daniela narrowed her eyes. ‘You don’t want me contradicting your story. Is it because you’ve got a taser you’re not authorised to use?’
‘Go home,’ Stephanie said again.
‘Aside from anything else, I can’t. I’m not going to leave you.’
‘Quit arguing, Dani. Just take your money and go.’
Daniela stopped. ‘What money?’
Stephanie jerked her head towards the blue car parked at the side of the road. She switched her own phone back on and almost immediately it rang.
‘That’ll be the cavalry, calling back,’ Stephanie said. ‘Go on. Get lost.’
Daniela stood up. Above the noise of the river, she thought she heard a low, regular thumping. The rescue helicopter. She moved a few steps away from the car, and paused by the sawhorses blocking the road. Rain dripped off her nose.
She still held the knife. She shook it free of the plastic bag, feeling its weight in her hand one last time. Then, without hesitation, she threw it as hard as she could out over the water. She made sure the river swallowed it before she turned away.
She almost fell as she stumbled back to Stephanie’s car. Her legs and arms felt like they were made of wood. Stephanie was talking on the phone, her voice a dull echo of her usual authoritative tone. She broke off long enough to nod to Daniela.
It was as close to a goodbye as Daniela would get.
She waded across the road to the blue estate car she’d first seen parked outside Henry’s cabin. She pulled her sleeve down over her hand to avoid leaving fingerprints, then tried the passenger side door. It was unlocked. The overhead light came on. On the front seat was a green gym bag Daniela last recalled seeing in Leo’s car.
In the footwell behind the front seats a dark blanket covered something lumpy. Daniela leaned over and twitched aside the blanket.
Beneath were a number of bundles wrapped in blue plastic.
Daniela counted eleven in all. The ghostly outline of banknotes was just visible through the plastic wrapping. If each contained, say, twenty thousand pounds … Daniela was too tir
ed to do the maths. She couldn’t remember how many had been in the rowboat. Leo must’ve taken as many as he could carry from the car to the boat, and was coming back for a second load when Daniela blundered in.
Her attention went to the gym bag on the passenger seat. Still careful not to leave fingerprints, she tugged open the zip.
A dull sheen of translucent blue plastic, wrapped around another stack of banknotes. It had to be the package Daniela had hidden in the woods. Leo had cleaned some of the mud off it.
She wondered what Leo’s next move would’ve been. Where was he planning to go? The river would’ve carried the boat for miles, if it hadn’t wrecked and swallowed the vessel, but where would he have landed? Maybe Leo had a plan, but Daniela was too exhausted to figure it out. It could remain lost for all she cared.
She stood with her hand poised over the bag. Here was the money she’d wanted – more than she’d wanted, as much as she’d need for the considerable future. More than enough to make sure they kept their flat, and for Annetta’s unborn child to get the start he deserved.
The money in that package was a fractional amount, in the grand scheme of things, given how much the police would recover from the car and the boat. Stephanie knew no one would care if a relatively small amount went astray.
Daniela thought of the people who’d died because of that money. Still she hesitated.
46
June 2010
The metal door of the police cell was far heavier than necessary. A simple locked door would’ve stopped her escaping. But its sheer weight was a statement. Every slam was the sound of her future closing off.
Daniela sat staring at her hands. The Formica table was pitted and scarred with cigarette burns. She wondered how many others had sat there, staring at nothing, listening to doors slam.
She hadn’t got nearly as far as she’d hoped.
Her mistake had been following the main road to Hackett. She’d figured it was best to get out of Stonecrop quickly. But a police car had caught up with her just after the bridge. She could’ve run, but … but.
Unreality kept stinging her. Half the time she couldn’t believe any of this was happening. The other half she was a mess, sometimes shaking with anger, sometimes so scared it felt like her insides had frozen into a solid block.
She tried not to think about Stonecrop. Faces swirled before her eyes – Auryn, Stephanie, Franklyn, Henry, Leo. Irrationally, she thought of Leo more than anyone. The memory of that kiss burned in her mind. What the hell had she been thinking? That one stupid, thoughtless action made her angrier than anything else she’d done. Had she really thought she could kiss Leo and he would welcome it?
A succession of police officers had spoken to her. From them, Daniela learned what’d happened since she’d started running.
She hadn’t thought to check whether Henry had a mobile phone. It seemed obvious in hindsight, but even if Daniela had thought of it, she would’ve assumed the water had wrecked it, and Henry was in no state to call for help. She’d been wrong on both counts.
The police had been looking for her even before she left the old house. It sounded like dozens of officers had streamed into Stonecrop that night on an ongoing operation centred around the antiques shop. Daniela didn’t know the full picture. But at least one car had been dispatched specifically to track her down.
Meanwhile, an ambulance had taken Henry first to the hospital at Hackett, then to a specialised unit in Birmingham. Daniela hadn’t considered what might happen if Henry survived long enough to give a full statement. From what the police were saying, it was still touch and go whether Daniela would end up charged with murder.
She’d greeted this with numb acceptance, and when they asked if she wanted to contact a family member, she’d said, ‘No.’
At one point, a policewoman looked across the table at her and said with disgust, ‘Nineteen. You’re nineteen. What the hell were you doing?’ but Daniela couldn’t remember anything else from that conversation and now didn’t know if she’d imagined it.
Daniela’s clothes and jacket had been taken for forensics. She wondered if the police would find the knife hidden below the floorboards of the old house. She wondered how much Henry had said. Would he spill everything about the counterfeit imports? Would he implicate Franklyn? Daniela didn’t know. And what would he say about the attack? What if he woke up and told the police it was Auryn who’d stabbed him, not Daniela? Was Daniela sitting here for nothing?
She didn’t know what to hope for.
The heavy door swung open and another officer stepped into the room. This one wasn’t in uniform, instead wearing jeans and a black jacket. Daniela raised her eyes, then looked away.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Stephanie said.
She looked rough. Externally she was composed, professional, but dark circles shadowed her eyes, and new creases marked the corners of her mouth. A line of Steri-Strips covered the nasty bruised cut beneath her chin where Henry had clubbed her.
‘I’m surprised you didn’t get here earlier,’ Daniela said.
‘I’m not supposed to be here at all. You don’t realise how much of a protocol breach it is for me to talk to you, before you’ve been charged, before you’ve even been interviewed. I could get suspended for this, even before they start looking at who I bribed to let me in.’
‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’
Stephanie sat down and folded her hands on the table. The plastic chair squeaked under her weight. Despite the civilian clothes, she couldn’t disguise she was a police officer. Everything underlined it, from the hardness in her eyes to the deliberateness of her speech.
‘Why didn’t you call me?’ she asked.
Daniela regarded her. The distance between the two of them, in that tiny airless room in the Hackett police station, felt like a million miles. It was difficult to believe they’d ever been close. Impossible to think they were blood relations.
‘Why the hell would I do that?’ Daniela asked. ‘What, did you want the fun of arresting me yourself?’
Stephanie didn’t blink. ‘I could’ve helped you.’
‘Really? Helped me how?’ Daniela indicated the interview room. ‘I got here just fine by myself, didn’t I?’
‘Perhaps I could’ve kept you out.’
Daniela’s smile faded as she realised Stephanie was serious. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t.’
‘You don’t know that. I could’ve helped. Like I helped Franklyn.’
‘Franklyn?’
Stephanie leaned back and studied the room. There wasn’t much to look at. ‘She was in way over her head,’ Stephanie said. ‘Thinking she could jump into a business like that, helping Henry bring counterfeited crap into the country.’
‘You knew about that?’
‘It’s a small village. This was a big deal.’ Stephanie scratched the cut on her jaw, winced. ‘I wish I could’ve stopped her.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Stephanie was silent for a span of time. ‘What should I have done?’ she asked. ‘You reckon I should’ve arrested her? Arrested Henry?’
‘That’s your job, isn’t it?’
Stephanie nodded in blunt agreement. ‘You’re right. It’s what I should’ve done. I got into this line of work because I thought it’d make my choices easier. But when I found out what Franklyn was doing, I talked to her, and she persuaded me that she was getting out, and there was nothing to worry about. I believed her. When it transpired she couldn’t get out, I stepped in to help.’
‘You did?’
‘We’ve got officers at the antiques shop right now, pulling it apart, getting all the evidence. Evidence that’ll point to Henry, not Franklyn. That’s what took the time. I had to make sure nothing would implicate Franklyn. We could’ve done without your interference. Half the goddamn shop is flooded, do you know that?’
Daniela glanced at the security camera in the corner of the room. Was it recording? Somehow, she doubted Stephanie would speak
so freely if they were being overheard.
Daniela said, ‘So you reckon I should’ve ignored Henry threatening me – threatening us all—’
‘That’s exactly what you should’ve done. Going after Henry was stupid.’
Daniela sat back and folded her arms. She wanted to match Stephanie’s cool indifference, but the simmering anger wouldn’t let her. She was aware of the sour alcohol smell of her own body from the whisky she’d drunk earlier. With a start, she realised she smelled like her father.
Daniela said, ‘It sounds like you’re more interested in protecting Henry than me.’
‘I don’t give a damn about Henry McKearney. At least, not more than I’m professionally obligated to. It’s his family I’m concerned about.’ Stephanie drummed her fingers on the table top. ‘Leo called me earlier today to tell me everything.’
‘He did?’
‘Yes. He was scared you’d come after his dad. While he was on the phone, he spotted you breaking into the antiques shop.’
That gave Daniela a pang of guilt. She’d blamed Auryn for telling Stephanie her plans. ‘Henry deserved it,’ she muttered.
Stephanie drew her chair closer to the table. ‘Right now, we don’t even know if Henry will make it through the night. You should maybe think about that before you make stupid statements.’ She held Daniela’s gaze. ‘As for Leo … we need him.’
‘For what?’
‘He has to testify in your defence when this whole mess comes to trial.’
Daniela dropped her eyes. ‘There won’t be any trial. I did it. I’ve admitted it. As soon as they give me something to sign, I’ll sign. Anyway, it seems kinda optimistic to think Leo would help me, after what I’ve done.’
For the first time, Stephanie looked down, and her voice became soft. ‘Did you do it?’
Daniela tried for a sarcastic answer, for a way to throw her anger in Stephanie’s face, but the softness in Stephanie’s voice made something break inside. Her sister didn’t want to believe this.
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