Chapter 28 #3
It turns out that the police have spoken to Amina first and that she not only filled them in on every detail, but also memorised DCD’s license plate.
‘She’s a marvel,’ Violet says. They want to hear the story from us, too.
They want to hear all about the caravan and what exactly is in it, about the man and what he looks like, about how the cat was being kept.
They want to know exactly which road he was taking when he abandoned us.
They know who it is, it turns out, and they have pictures on their iPad to check with us, Dodgy Caravan Dude gurning in a mugshot.
He’s well known, they say, bit of a liability round these parts, and now they finally have a chance to catch him, thanks to us.
‘Thanks to Jodie,’ Kat says.
‘We’re going to have to take the cat,’ the detective constable says, looking guiltily over at Barbara who shields Snowy with wild eyes and hands that curl like claws. ‘He can’t stay here.’
‘He’ll be coming with me.’
We turn to see a woman striding into the bay.
She is tall and slim, probably in her late sixties or early seventies, wearing a camel-coloured coat and several strings of pearls.
She is all haughty imperiousness, staring down at us as if she expects us to bow at her feet.
She looks around at each of us and her eyes alight on Barbara, then soften. ‘Ah.’
‘Lady Caroline,’ Nicki says, swiftly on her heels. ‘You got here quick.’
‘My Byron,’ Lady Caroline says, gliding over to Barbara’s corner. Barbara takes her all in, looking her up and down, and shields Snowy even more fiercely.
Lady Caroline smiles. ‘It’s okay. Are you Barbara? Thank you. Thank you for keeping him safe for me.’
Barbara pins her in a beady-eyed glare.
‘I need to get him home. He’ll want his dinner.’
Barbara looks down at Snowy and then back at Caroline, and there is a slight loosening in her arms.
‘I will always be grateful to you,’ Caroline says. She gazes around at the rest of us, at Jodie, sleepy and droopy against her pillows, and the rest of us who are edged forward, waiting. ‘Which one of you is Penny?’
I inch my hand up slowly, like a primary school child caught in some transgression.
She leaves Snowy for a moment and comes to me, her heels clopping on the polished floor.
‘Byron is everything to me,’ she says to me.
It’s like all the autocratic arrogance that so marks her features is suddenly washed away into something softer and fuzzier, like the snow outside washes away all the sharp corners and turns them into a thing of beauty.
‘I owe you his life. Thank you. Thank you.’
‘I would never have left him.’
She gazes into my eyes. ‘I can see that. Tell me, was he… I mean, was he hurting? Was he crying?’
‘He was fine,’ I say. ‘He cried a little bit, but he was content when I picked him up. He’s not hurt.’
Lady Caroline swallows and pats her over-lacquered white hair, her shimmering eyes swivelled up to the ceiling.
‘They’re going to catch the man. That officer just said they know who he is and think they know where to find him.’
She nods. ‘I’d never have been able to go on.’
I smile at her.
‘Now, young lady. I promised a reward, for the person who brings my Byron back to me.’ She digs into her Burberry handbag and comes out waving a chequebook in one hand and an old-fashioned silver fountain pen in the other. ‘Your full name?’
Ten thousand pounds. What could I do with ten thousand pounds? I think about Jake and what it could do for him. Then I look around the ward at each of the women, at the staff, and through the walls in my mind to Amina, and think about what it could do for more people like us, instead.
‘Make it out to this hospital. To this ward.’
Jake gapes up at me, and I shrug at him.
He shakes his head and goes back to his phone, and there is a tiny smile skipping on the edges of his lips.
Nicki and Sister Joy stand stock still, staring at me and then at Lady Caroline as she hands the cheque over. They look at it and then they look at one another.
And then they smile.
‘We have so much need,’ Sister Joy says. ‘We need new equipment.’
Nicki is crying.
‘There’s one condition,’ I say. ‘Could you get a new bench, please, for the Peace Garden?’
Nicki laughs out loud. ‘We will, flower.’
‘That reminds me,’ Kat says. ‘There’s a hospital wheelchair in a bus stop somewhere out on the coast road.’
The DC, standing in the doorway clasping her iPad, sighs. ‘We’ll have a look for it.’
Nicki shakes her head at Kat. ‘Dare I ask how… why…?’
‘I’ll fill you in,’ Kat says.
‘Wait,’ I say to the DC. ‘Kane – the guy who took us to the beach – took off with my bag in his minibus. It’s got my phone, my purse. I don’t know if you can—’
‘I’ll get it,’ Jodie says. ‘Don’t worry. I need my phone too.’
‘But you’re not going to…’
She shakes her head. ‘Never.’
Lady Caroline turns back to Barbara and smiles gently at her. The lines on Barbara’s face seem to relax, as if smoothed over with an airbrush on Photoshop. She presses her face into Snowy’s and then she nods. ‘He’s ready.’
‘Thank you,’ Lady Caroline says. ‘I’d like to bring him to visit you, if that would be permitted?’
Nicki looks dubious. ‘She’ll be in the care home from tomorrow, or Monday, more likely. But they might let you in there, I suppose. They let those dogs in, don’t they, to comfort the patients and everything.’
Snowy nudges his nose into Barbara’s cheek one last time and then allows himself to be picked up and hugged tight to his mistress’ chest. He snuggles into her and his body relaxes, but as Lady Caroline walks away from the bed he is gazing at Barbara, pinning her down with exquisite blue eyes until she fades from his vision.