Chapter 26
Mum and Corinne were both right about Dad. He was showing distinct signs of disgruntlement. At the same time, Mum’s power to manage him should never be underestimated.
“Wanna watch a movie with us, Mum?” Tobes said when Mum and Champ finally appeared in the large bedroom we’d been assigned by Jill and Niall.
It was immaculately done up, with a straw-colored fitted carpet that Jill called “size-all,” I think.
I haven’t met that word before but I suppose it must mean you can put it in any size room.
The wallpaper was blue with a repeating pattern of gold lines that looked like the middle of a violin, sort of, and there were four small lights with round glittery gold shades hanging from the ceiling.
There was a bed in each corner, and Jill had brought in Champ’s Donut bed from our car and all his blankets—some monogrammed with his name or initials—a minute ago, saying, “Corinne said you’d want these.
” She’d sounded a little disapproving. People have all kinds of judgmental beliefs about where dogs should sleep, and I’m sorry, but what is the problem, really?
Let us sleep where we want. What harm will it do?
“Mum doesn’t want to watch a movie,” Dad said briskly. “Can I have a word with you, Sal? Outside?”
“But I’ve just come in,” said Mum.
“Yeah, Dad, she’s just come in,” said Ree. “You can say it in front of us, you know: You really think Mum should see sense and let us all go back home. Did I miss out anything important?”
“Yes.” The word exploded out of Dad’s mouth.
We all steeled ourselves. “I can’t take this anymore.
I’m going back. You lot can stay if you want to, but I’m sick of it.
I want to sleep in my own bedroom, without a horror film playing in the background.
I want to drive myself around in my own car and go to work and do all the things I normally do when I haven’t been kidnapped by Corinne Sullivan!
Yes, I care about protecting Champ, obviously I do, but… I’m sorry, I also care about me.”
Mum was nodding by this point, as if it were all fine and she completely understood. She’d gone into Dad-diffusing mode. “Let’s let Ree and Tobes watch their film and go and talk somewhere else. Kids, look after Champy, okay?”
“Roger that,” said Ree. “Do us all a favor: Go and sort out your biggest child.”
“And I won’t be spoken to like that,” Dad told her as Mum ushered him out of the room.
Once they’d gone, Ree said, “You watch: Dad’ll be happily climbing into his little corner bed in no time, fully back on message.”
Mum and Dad had found a balcony at the far end of the corridor our room was on, the perfect place to continue their discussion. “Sal, I’m begging you,” said Dad. “Please. What we’re doing here… It’s crazy. It’s been crazy from the word go. I don’t want to have to go back without you—”
“Then stay.”
“—but I will if I have to.”
“I understand,” Mum said with considerably more patience than she was feeling. “Honestly, Mark, I get it. Most people wouldn’t do what we’ve done, what I’ve done. I’m fully aware. Take the kids and go home. Champ and I will be absolutely fine. Corinne will look after us.”
Dad’s face darkened. “It’s not Corinne Sullivan’s job to look after my family. It’s my job.”
“Right, but…you just said you want to retire early from that job, no?” Mum feigned innocence. She can be a right old trickster when she needs to be. “And no one in the world would blame you for feeling that way.” Her phone, in her pocket, pinged.
“Who’s that?” asked Dad.
Mum pulled it out and looked. “It’s Vicky. How the hell did she get my burner phone number?”
“Corinne must have given it to her,” said Dad.
“No. No way,” Mum insisted. “Corinne doesn’t have Vicky’s number.”
“She could easily get it. She’s probably got…operatives all over the country.”
“Oh, don’t be daft, Mark!”
“Sal, there’s no one else it could be except Corinne. Face facts.”
“It’s a fact that Corinne would not have done that. You don’t know her.”
“Neither do you!” Dad’s chin jutted out alarmingly, looking as if it hoped to break free from the rest of his face.
“Look, somehow Vicky’s got my new number, okay?
” Mum forced herself to stay calm. “But that doesn’t mean I have to respond or pick up.
She can bloody well wait, and I’ll speak to her when I’m ready.
When we’re back home. She probably wants to impose some new, absurd restriction on what I can and can’t do.
” Mum was thinking, of course, about the Facebook business; that’s how the absurdity impediment prevented her from considering the possibility that Auntie Vicky might have something important to tell her.
“Just hear me out, okay?” said Dad. “We are currently on the run, with the backing of some…sinister billionaire that we barely know—”
“Corinne’s not a billionaire yet,” Mum interrupted. “She will be soon, though.”
“Well, that’s terrible. Billionaires shouldn’t exist, period. The fact that they do means something’s gone very wrong indeed.”
Mum raised her eyebrows. “You’re saying you want Corinne dead?”
“No, of course not! I’m saying no one should be allowed to keep that much money.”
“So, what, you approve of stealing now?” Mum was furious.
“For fuck’s sake, Sal…” Dad groaned. “I don’t care about Corinne’s finances.
I just want to go home. It’s what’s best for all of us, including Champ.
He didn’t do it. We’ll be able to prove that.
You said lots of people passed you and him on the path by the lode, right?
We can leave no stone unturned in trying to find some of those people.
I bet we’ll succeed. You can give a sworn statement saying Champ was nowhere near Tess Gavey’s arm at the relevant time. ”
“Mark,” Mum said quietly. “You’re right. I’m almost sure that’s all true. I’m not disagreeing.”
“You mean…” Dad’s eyes lit up. “We can go back?”
“I can’t. Or rather, I could, but I won’t.
I’m so sorry. It’s the ‘almost’ that’s the problem.
Like you, I’m ninety-nine percent sure we could go home and stop the police from sending Champ off to be…
” Mum couldn’t bring herself to say it. “But I’m one hundred percent sure they can’t kill him if they don’t know where he is.
And I’m not willing to take that one percent chance.
I’m not even sure they won’t find him if I don’t go back.
How rock-solid discreet are Tobes and Ree, really?
How confident are you that they’ve really not told a single one of their friends where we are?
They could easily have decided there’s no risk if they only tell Freddie, or Ivan, or Frankie—”
“If you think that, then you don’t know your children.” Dad sighed. “They’re on your side. Everyone always is, about everything, and I get to be the only bad guy, as usual.”
“No one thinks you’re that,” Mum told him. “I know you’ve done your best to do this my way.”
“What’s the latest from Corinne about her brilliant plan B?” asked Dad.
“She’s still working on it. Told me to get some sleep and she’ll have something sorted out by tomorrow morning.”
“Right, but what if…” Dad broke off. He chewed his lip, staring down at his feet. The sound of a dog barking came to them from somewhere far out in the night. “Sal, I just want what’s best for all of us. I’m honestly not sure this is it.”
“Look, Mark, the truth is, I’m not sure I can save Champ. Even if we keep running and never go back—”
“We can’t never go back. We have to—”
“The thing is, if the police came and snatched him away now—and I’d murder them before I let them take him, obviously…
but if I failed and if they did the unthinkable and executed him for a crime he didn’t commit, at least I’d know that I never chose to take that one percent chance, I never cooperated with the system that unfairly threatened him, that I have absolutely zero confidence in.
I couldn’t live with myself if I went back and anything bad happened to him.
So, I’m going to put all my energies into believing that Corinne’s plan B will solve all our problems. Then we can go back to Swaffham Tilney knowing Champ will be safe. ”
“How are you so sure we can trust Corinne?” said Dad.
“I just am.”
“How about we make a deal, then? We agree on a deadline. We give Corinne twenty-four hours. I’d even stretch to forty-eight. If she’s sorted something we all agree to by then, fine. If not, we go home and do what normal people do: fight to prove Champ’s innocence, through the proper channels.”
“Absolutely,” said Mum. “Agreed.”
“Thank you. Thank God.” Dad was satisfied, finally. He even suggested they go back to the room and join in the watching of whatever horror movie Ree and Tobes had chosen. Mum told him she was too tired and needed to sleep, though she was afraid her guilt would keep her awake.
She had flat-out lied, of course. If Corinne’s plan turned out not to be the miracle they were all hoping for, then Mum would make a new one herself.
She wouldn’t be going back to Swaffham Tilney in twenty-four hours, or forty-eight.
Dad wasn’t yet ready to face facts, but Mum had come to terms with the truth.
She knew that she and Champ might never be able to go home.
Just as she was falling asleep, her phone pinged again and she reached blindly for it in the dark, patting the floor beside her bed. Seeing that it was Auntie Vicky again, she decided she was now way too tired for whatever it was. Not now, sorry, she thought, and switched off her phone.
I could have read Auntie Vicky’s message even though Mum hadn’t opened it, but I didn’t.
Back then I was biased in favor of thoughts and speech.
Perhaps I fell for Tobes’s propaganda about anything involving the written word being “long” (as in “tedious, not worth bothering with”).
I won’t make that mistake again, believe you me.
From now on, I’ll be checking out all written, typed, or mailed communications as soon as they land.
You don’t have to answer immediately or even at all if you don’t want to, but for goodness’ sake, get the information as soon as you can.
If only I’d been as wise then as I am now, so much heartache could have been avoided.