Chapter 53
Lottie is sitting in a cell, detained in custody until the police decide whether to charge her with something; suspected damage to property, arson, manslaughter, murder – she’s not sure.
Apparently they found some incriminating evidence in their holiday apartment and there’s also some camera footage that has been passed to them, all of which they are currently analysing.
Tim and Josh have been dispatched back to the new flat to await further information.
She feels a physical ache for them; her husband’s reassuring presence, her son’s soft, forgiving embrace.
She has nothing to do but to sit and wait and think; perhaps the most acute of punishments for someone like herself.
Muriel Hadlow. Her hair was pearly white and set in a rigid wave, the type of hairstyle which had been nurtured over a lifetime and never changed.
Her wrinkles, too, were deep set in her face, earned each year like a tree’s rings.
She was wearing a Barbour jacket with a silk scarf tied around her neck.
Heavy tortoiseshell glasses magnified her eyes.
She drove an old Land Rover with reckless abandon, swinging it out of the high stone gateposts at the end of her driveway each day. Until the day they were there to meet her.
Lottie had always campaigned, protested, marched.
Ever since she was a student at university.
Tim had often said that it was one of the most impressive things about her when they first met.
‘Almost intimidating,’ he said. ‘But cool. Very cool.’ The way she stood up for what she believed in, the way she cared passionately.
About the environment, illegal wars, abortion rights, fox hunting.
The latter was actually one of her least fervent beliefs.
The more she researched the farming community and tried to understand the effect of certain species on the land, the more sympathy she had for the idea of culling, albeit humanely.
However, the antiquated tradition of hunting generally – so enshrined amongst the upper classes with their love of blood sports, their ownership of land – particularly ground her gears.
So she had gone along that day with some other friends, members of the same Facebook group, a few other people she didn’t know.
They had caught the train out to the countryside, congregated at the bottom of the long gravel driveway that led to Old Hall, as discussed in the many WhatsApp group messages.
It had all been strategically organised to coincide with the height of the hunting year in October; peak grouse season.
Pheasant shooting was a big thing on the private grounds nearby.
Parties would come to stay, pay inordinate amounts for the opportunity to shoot at wildfowl that had been beaten from the undergrowth with shouts and sticks.
Birds that had been raised as chicks, with the specific purpose of dying in order to provide someone with a few moments’ entertainment.
It was the sort of mindless animal cruelty that had ensured Lottie had been a confirmed vegetarian since she was fourteen.
Even now, she insists that her son, Josh, is too, despite Tim’s misgivings, which is why they compromise over certain things like fish.
But back then, in her early twenties, Lottie had not been so flexible.
She was militant about upholding her beliefs.
So that is how she’d come to be at the end of Muriel Hadlow’s drive that day.
They had all been careful to stay within the law, positioning themselves on the public wasteland before it gave way to the private driveway.
Not obstructing access to the property. They used their voices, their placards, to intimidate those entering and exiting the grounds, within the limits of peaceful protest, as long as they didn’t cause any physical damage.
Lottie and the others had been incensed by the seeming cavalcade of luxury cars that arrived at Old Hall over the course of that day, their blacked-out windows.
Or worse, some of the callous gestures, faces openly laughing at them as they passed by.
But when Muriel Hadlow’s Land Rover had appeared at the gate later that afternoon, leaving the property, many of the other protesters were losing spirit; cold and restless from standing around outside all day.
It was bleak, the feeling that whatever you said or did was useless, your message falling on deaf ears or even being mocked.
That you were pathetic, helpless, inert.
They had tried everything else; writing to their MP, signing petitions, raising community awareness at local events, all to no avail.
When the beaten-up Land Rover – so recognisable now – passed through the gates, making its way up the driveway towards the main road, it had slowed as the old woman driving had lowered her window.
They thought perhaps she was willing to start a dialogue with them, to try to understand their point of view.
Instead, Muriel Hadlow had stuck her silvery-haired head out of the window and snarled at them.
‘Why don’t you stupid damn fools just give up and go home?’ she had spat.
The others had looked at each other, unsure which of them should respond, who should be their mouthpiece. Of course it would be Lottie who stepped up. It was inevitable. They could all have predicted that.
‘This is our home,’ she had shouted in return. ‘The land belongs to us all. Humans and animals. All species. You’re the vermin. The filthy rich. Preying on the planet, sucking it dry, so there’s not enough left for everyone else.’
Lottie had taken a step towards the vehicle, instinctively raising her placard, while the rest of the group hung back, murmuring their agreement with phrases like ‘Yes, Lottie’, ‘Preach’ and ‘Speak truth to power’.
The old woman had shaken her head with a look of contempt, muttering to herself as she started to raise the car window.
Something – perhaps the frustration of the day or the knowledge that this was the estate owner, the actual perpetrator profiting from this cruelty – had made Lottie move forward again until she was standing in front of the Land Rover, positioning herself in its way.
It was the desire to stop just one person from getting away with it all.
The vehicle’s horn had sounded; a long, persistent blaring noise that made the others step away or cover their ears.
‘Get out of my bloody way,’ came the shrill command from the window. ‘Move.’
‘You can’t order everyone around, you know,’ replied Lottie, raising her voice to match the engine. ‘You don’t own me. You don’t own everything.’
The Land Rover inched forward in spurts like an angry beast, its engine growling.
It felt like a game of chicken – who would give way first?
Until Lottie threw down her placard and reached inside her coat for the packet of fake blood.
She hadn’t shown it to the others. It was against the rules, to throw things or be seen to graffiti.
Ripping it open with her teeth she leaned across and sprayed the red liquid all over the windscreen.
An appalled sound emanated from inside, followed by a screech of tyres as the Land Rover burst into life.
The old woman had stamped down on the accelerator in fury or perhaps confusion and the vehicle lunged forward just as Lottie dived out of the way.
They could see the wipers had been deployed but this only served to smear the viscous red across the windscreen further, obliterating the view.
They all stood back and watched as the car carried on, careening wildly out of the driveway and into the junction before crashing into one of the nearby trees on the opposite side of the road.
A responsive cheer had rung out amongst the group of protestors at this, the perception of a triumph swiftly followed by a shocked silence as the sound of the car horn continued to blare eerily.
‘Hey. Is she okay?’ one person asked.
‘I hope the tree isn’t harmed,’ said someone else.
Lottie, who had been momentarily stunned by the swift spiral of events, watching mesmerised as it all unfolded, slowly staggered towards the Land Rover.
She found the old woman slumped forward over the steering wheel, her head twisted to the side, one dead eye staring outwards.
Lottie couldn’t tell whether, in her last moments, Muriel had been frightened or angry.
But she felt the accusation in her cold, hard face.
As the inquest finally heard, it wasn’t the collision that killed the driver, although she had suffered subsequent head injuries as a result.
It was the heart attack that caused her to crash the vehicle.
A sudden and inopportune organ failure. Indeed, the coroner’s report confirmed Muriel Hadlow had a weak heart and was in generally poor health prior to the incident.
Therefore it was inconclusive whether the heart failure was brought on by agitation or fear or if this was simply circumstantial.
The fact was that the victim could have dropped dead at any moment and should not, by rights, have still been driving given her age plus her many and varied ailments.
Of course, the local papers had labelled the protestors a bunch of crazed killers – an irony when they themselves had been carrying placards printed with the word MURDERERS.
Finally they had the column inches they craved but the optics did not look good.
And while they had all been subjected to arrest and questioning by the police, in the end no case could be brought.
But not a day goes by that Lottie still doesn’t think about it: the look on Muriel Hadlow’s face.