Sunday, 22 April 2035 #2
My period pain had subsided by the time we pulled into Heathrow, but my flow was heavy which only added to my stress.
This was not the day for flying. Terminal 3 was a mess of sound and light and people in travel casuals shouting at running kids and dragging their lives behind them on multicoloured wheels.
My flight to Dallas–Fort Worth was leaving in three hours – the Thompson-Pierces were going to Brisbane via Perth and their flight would be well on its way by then.
We arrived at the terminal a little before they did so we dropped off River’s hire car and made our way towards the check-in.
I returned from the toilet to the seats by the departure boards where River had made a base.
‘All on time,’ he said.
‘Just need to get my passport from Jordy and then … off we go, I guess.’
‘Off you go,’ he said. ‘I’m not coming with you, Ivy.’
‘What?’ I said.
He got his phone out and showed me his boarding pass for a Swiss Air flight to somewhere totally not Dallas–Fort Worth or Wichita.
‘I’m booked on a different flight. In a different terminal actually – I’m in Terminal 2.
And my flight is in approximately …’ He checked his phone again.
‘One hour. So I need to be going.’ He readjusted his bag on his shoulder, stood up and held out his arms for a hug.
‘What?’ I said again, my chest tightening as the realisation dawned. ‘You said you were coming with me as far as Fort Worth.’
‘Yeah, but I need to go do something first. It won’t take me long. Rhiannon wants me to tie up a loose end. I did promise her.’
‘No, you didn’t, you said you’d back off.’
‘I said I’d back off you – I haven’t stopped working for her. Not quite.’
‘River, please …’
‘It won’t take me long. I’ll come visit you when I’m done. You’ll be okay from here; you don’t need me.’
‘Of course I need you,’ I blurted. ‘What am I going to do if Jordy won’t give me my passport?’
‘You’re legally entitled to it,’ he reminded me. ‘I actually fear for them if they don’t give it back to you. You’ll be fine.’
He hugged me tightly and smiled, kissing the top of my head for good luck. ‘You got my number, right?’
‘Yeah. But … I don’t wanna be on my own,’ I mewed, as the tears came.
‘You won’t be,’ he reminded me, stroking the side of my face with his ‘Angel’ fingers. ‘You’ll be with Rafael and your brother before you know it. Your biggest obstacle between now and then will be picking your meal on the flight – chicken or fish.’
‘I don’t want either.’
He smiled and hugged me again. He must have known how much I needed it. I breathed him in for one last time as he broke away and held my shoulders firmly and looked at me. ‘You’ve so got this, Ivy. I’ll see you soon. Oh, and if the Australians give you any shit …’
He posted something inside my hand – a freshly rolled joint – closed my hand around it and walked towards the sign for the other terminals and out of sight.
I placed the joint inside my hoody pocket and sat back down, alone now, and stared into oblivion as a thousand strange faces passed.
I cried, I bled, I freaked out. I considered getting a taxi back home only to realise I didn’t have a home anymore.
We’d posted all the keys through the box.
I’d go to Heather’s, I thought. She’d have me; she still cared.
I was as lost and lonely as that little girl with the tinsel halo on top of her head in the school nativity photo that had flashed up at the wake; scared and desperately looking for her mum in the crowd.
I zoned out entirely and played games I couldn’t win on my phone.
And then it dawned on me – Swiss Air. River was going to Switzerland.
Geneva. Where Mitch lived. He was the loose end.
‘Oh God, no, no, River, no,’ I said as my heart thundered and everything darkened in my vision. I called him repeatedly but he didn’t answer. Eventually, after seven texts and sixteen repeated calls, the line went dead.
‘Shit shit shit,’ I cried, sitting back down under the departure board.
‘Everything all right, love?’ said Melissa, suddenly appearing beside me with Larry and Jordy in tow, plus two loaded-up luggage trolleys.
‘Uh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah.’
‘Did your boyfriend get off all right then?’ asked Larry, pulling up one of the boxes that had fallen off the front of the trolley.
‘He’s not my boyfriend. And yeah, he’s gone.’ I looked at Jordy. ‘Can I have my passport now, please?’
‘Yeah, didn’t we ought to check in somewhere first?’ they said, avoiding my gaze. ‘Qantas is over there, look …’
I stared them out but they wouldn’t look at me for long. I hurried behind them with my stuff – Melissa and Larry leading the charge with Jordy pushing the trolley. ‘Jordy, could I have my passport?’ My heart pummelled; the sickening feeling I’d had all morning ballooned.
‘Yeah, you can have it back when we’ve checked in,’ they replied, avoiding my eyes as we joined the end of the queue. Two enormous families, both literally and physically, joined the line more or less straight after us, meaning I was completely hemmed in. I continued to press for my passport.
‘Can I just hold it, please? It is mine.’
‘In a minute,’ Jordy kept saying, but kept getting distracted by things – chatting to other people in the queue, enthusing about Delaney’s Creek where they lived.
I scrolled my phone – the check-in for the Dallas–Fort Worth flight was open in Zone D. I had to get that flight to make the right connection to Mexico City. I had to go now to give me enough time to find the gate.
‘Jordy – passport – now, please,’ I said again, louder, trying to force eye contact by staring at them wherever they looked.
‘Probably best if Jord holds onto it, love,’ said Melissa, squeezing my shoulder with her tatty red-nailed claw. ‘It won’t get lost again then.’
‘It didn’t get lost the first time,’ I asserted, voice rising. ‘You took it out my bag, didn’t you? Admit it!’
‘I told you, it fell on your bedroom floor,’ Jordy replied. ‘Come on, Ivy, this is the best way. Just a couple of years, until you’re eighteen and you can make your own decisions and live independently.’
‘I can live independently now!’ I shouted, suddenly aware of how loud my voice was. People had started looking my way.
‘You’re causing a scene,’ said Jordy.
‘No, you’re causing a scene,’ I snapped. ‘Heather is my legal guardian and according to this,’ I said, whipping out my brown envelope, ‘I’m legally allowed to go where I want. NOW GIVE ME MY FUCKING PASSPORT!’
I posted the envelope back safely inside my rucksack and continued to wait in front of Jordy with my palm outstretched, and shaking violently.
A security guard appeared beside us. ‘Is everything all right here?’
Melissa smiled. ‘Oh yes, officer, no worries. We’re just having a little disagreement. Long day’s travelling, so we’re all bound to get a bit antsy.’
‘I want my passport,’ I said again, loud enough for the guard to hear and silently pleading with him to do something, anything, to intervene. ‘I’m sixteen and they’ve stolen it.’
‘No,’ said Jordy. ‘It’s a bad plan, Ivy. It’s for your own good that you come with us – we can look after you. Who knows where this Rafael has ended up; you said he was in hiding for God’s sake. It’s not safe.’
I looked at Melissa and Larry – it was clear they knew what my plan was and even clearer that Jordy had told them.
‘You fucking Judas!’ I yelled and rugby-tackled Jordy out of the queue and onto their back.
We wrestled and I scrambled to grab their bag and tear it away from them.
Two more guards appeared and broke us up, red-faced and furious.
‘You’re being stupid, Ivy!’ Jordy yelled. ‘It’s for your own good! You don’t know what the hell you’re heading into in Mexico! Rafael’s on the run for fuck’s sake! He’s a serial killer!’
‘It’s my choice!’ I yelled back, still trying to wrestle for the bag.
It was then I remembered River’s joint. I thrust my hand into my hoody and pulled it out, shoving it mid-wrestle into Jordy’s pocket instead.
‘They’re kidnapping me! They’re fucking kidnapping me – they’ve stolen my passport!
They’re taking me to Australia when legally I don’t have to go. Look, look!’
I showed one of the guards Heather’s guardianship document, and he stood there reading it, alongside another guard holding Jordy’s flight bag. He fished out the British passport that had been secreted between the three Australian ones and liberated it. He checked the ID and handed it to me.
‘Think this is yours, miss.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, almost bursting into tears at the sight of it. I posted it deep inside my bag alongside Heather’s letter. ‘Can I go now? Please? I’ve got another plane to catch.’
‘Come on, guys, let her go if she wants to go – you can’t make the girl do what she doesn’t want to …’ said Larry, acting the peacemaker or rather, man-who-needed-to-catch-this-flight-or-he’d-miss-the-cricket.
‘No, she can’t,’ said Melissa. ‘She can’t go – she’s going to stay with a man who’s on the run for MURDER! Yeah, that’s right – she doesn’t know what’s good for her. She has to come with us, officer, right now.’
Melissa grabbed my elbow and as I shook her away I yelled, ‘THEY’RE CARRYING DRUGS!’ And pointed towards Jordy’s pocket. ‘In there, look.’
The guard made Jordy empty their pocket and along with two screwed-up tissues and some random coins, out fell the joint.
‘That’s not mine, I swear! That’s not mine!’
‘The fuck?’ yelled Larry. ‘What the hell were you thinking?!’
‘She put it there, I don’t use that shit, I swear! Mel, come on, don’t give me that – you know I’m clean now.’
The guards were satisfied with me but detained the Thompson-Pierces, all still arguing about the joint and how it got there, leading them out of the queue, and off to some search area, much to their shame.
Jordy threw me evils the whole way. I don’t know why they’d betrayed me like they had – Jordy gave me no indication of what they were going to do, first becoming my friend, helping me, giving me advice, printing out flyers to find Maddox when he was lost, playing the good cop when Larry and Melissa seemed to be the bad ones.
But it seemed they were all bad eggs in the end.
And even if there was a shred of a possibility that they’d done it for my own good – that they were saving me from some dreadful end in Mexico – I did not care.
I just wanted my family. And my family was not them.
Now I was free. Free and alone. And I was not the little girl with the tinsel halo anymore.
I was older, wiser and motherfucking rich too (well, one day).
I could do anything I wanted to now. And although that thought was sometimes daunting, suddenly, I realised it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
The pain had gone from my womb, the anxiety had been lifted from my chest, and I started running towards Zone D for my flight. And I didn’t stop until I got there.
SWEETPEA TRAGEDY LADS SCOOP MYSTERY WINDFALL
A FAMILY whose beloved dad was tragically stabbed to death in Birmingham in 2018 by the notorious Sweetpea Killer have been gifted nearly ￡2 million by an anonymous benefactor.
Sarah Bishopston of Lillington, and her boys Louis, 25, Matthew, 23, and Anthony, 19, became aware of the windfall one morning when Sarah opened a letter from a West Country solicitor. The letter contained just five words: “For you and your boys”.
She believes the enormous sum has come from someone who felt sorry for the family following the shocking murder of her husband Dean, 43, a keen darts player and taxi driver, stabbed to death in his cab on May 29, 2018.
Dean’s murder left a nation stunned and a family mourning the loss of a young dad who had his life ahead of him.
His wife Sarah has never got over the unfairness of it all.
She said: “It was just awful. The boys were inconsolable, I was broken. We all suffered so much and poor Dean was just out doing his job, taking on extra rounds to buy the boys some Christmas presents. We’ve struggled ever since but this sudden gift has been like, extra shocking because we don’t have a clue where it’s come from. ”
She exclaimed, “It’s life-changing. I keep thinking any moment someone’s going to say it’s been a mistake; some Crowdfund for another family, but it doesn’t seem to be. I rang the solicitors that it was posted from and the guy said the donor wished to remain anonymous but it was definitely for us.”
Despite the massive gift, Sarah has no plans to fritter it away.
She does want to move her boys to a bigger house “where they can have their own rooms for the first time” and a new car.
“And I want to get the boys some treats too. And we haven’t had a holiday together for a while, so we’ll go somewhere hot. ”
The World asked Sarah if she thinks the mystery gift giver could be Rhiannon herself, seeing as the solicitors who sent the cheque, Wherryman & Armfield, are closely affiliated with the serial killer.
“No,” she replied curtly. “I don’t believe that woman has a decent bone in her body.
It will be someone who’s done this to spite her. And we can never thank them enough.”