Sean rolled away from where he had landed on top of her and Bella looked back to see what she had to do to get herself and Jack out of the line of Stephen’s next shot.
But she saw, with relief, that Stephen had dropped the gun. She saw the look of outrage on his face. Then she saw the bloom of blood as it spread across his white linen shirt. He looked up at her as he dropped to his knees.
‘I love you Bella,’ he said.
Another shot rang out, from somewhere in the forest, and he jolted as part of his skull flew away from the back of his head. He wavered for a second. Then, almost comically, he fell forward to land face first in the dirt at the base of his porch.
‘Bella!’ Lara screamed from inside the house.
At the sound of her voice, Dog flew indoors, jumping over Stephen’s body.
‘We’re all right, Mum,’ Bella called. ‘It’s all right.’
There was a rustle in the undergrowth and Olly emerged, holding a rifle out in front of him, followed by his three unarmed friends. He walked over to Sean, who was still on the ground, and spat at him.
‘And as for you,’ he said, bracing himself as he aimed the rifle, his jaw working nineteen to the dozen, his eyes as red as the mess around Stephen’s head.
‘Don’t do it man,’ Kyle said, trying to put a hand on Olly’s shoulder. ‘You’ve gone way too far already, man.’
‘Lolly, NO!’ Jack scrambled to his feet and put himself between his big brother and his sister’s boyfriend. ‘Get Mummy.’ He pointed to the back door. ‘She’s poorly.’
Olly looked at his brother, then his sister, then his friends. At last, he slung the gun over his shoulder and signalled for Aaron, Brandon and Kyle to follow as he disappeared into the house, stepping over Stephen’s body as he went.
The three boys stayed where they were.
‘I’m outta here,’ Kyle said.
‘Me too,’ Aaron agreed. They turned and raised their eyebrows at Brandon, who slowly nodded. Then, as one, they stepped back into the forest and disappeared.
Bella and Sean stood up and brushed the dust from their fronts.
‘You OK?’ she said.
‘I’ll live,’ he said.
‘Snakes!’ Jack said, trying to drag his sister to the woodpile.
‘I GOT IN!’ BELLA SAID, SWINGING HER BIG PORTFOLIO ALONG THE
Tribeca street outside the New York Academy of Art. The spring sunshine warmed her after a morning spent indoors, showing her work to a string of professors.
‘I knew it!’ Lara’s voice echoed in the hallway of the newly refurbished Trout Island house. ‘Have you told Sean yet?’
‘He’s not free till seven. Juilliard have this no-phones-in-rehearsal rule. But I’m going to go home and rustle us up a beautiful celebration meal.’
‘Lovely.’
Bella moved out along Franklin towards Broadway, heading for Dean and DeLuca. Not being a cook, she planned to buy the entire meal there. Then she’d carry it back to heat up in the sleek kitchen of the large house on West Tenth and Seventh she and Sean had to themselves while Lara stayed upstate for the run-up to Olly’s trial.
It had been a strange eight months for everyone, not made any less surreal by the sudden wealth Stephen’s will – he had left absolutely everything to Lara – had conferred on the family. But, as well as providing material comfort, the money had helped them out in many other ways. The major item of expenditure so far, after hospital and legal bills, had been counselling for all of them, Sean included. Bella felt she was making good progress, although there were parts of it she still wouldn’t discuss with anyone, shrink or no shrink.
‘You’ll call Marcus and let him and Selina know, won’t you?’ Lara said.
‘Of course I’ll call Dad,’ Bella said. Her father – she couldn’t think of him in any other way – had moved back to England when everything fell apart. He had, of course, been furious at her mum when he found out the truth, and, for a while, had refused to have anything to do with Lara or her children, poor Jack included. But Selina, who he planned to marry as soon as the divorce was finalised, had proved to be a fantastic stepmother-in-waiting, bringing him round to such an extent that Bella, Sean and Jack had flown over to visit at Easter. It hadn’t been as difficult as she had feared. Marcus was doing well, with a large part in a new TV series that, he said, promised to be the next big thing for Channel Four.
‘I had a great meeting with Mickelberg today,’ Lara went on as Bella swapped portfolio and phone around to ease her aching shoulder.
‘Yes?’ Bella tried to sound non-committal. Mickelberg was Olly’s attorney. One of the best in the country.
‘He’s convinced the case will be thrown out at court. It’s clear Olly believed Stephen intended to shoot you and Jack, and in New York, that’s justification enough. The crystal meth and the gun possession will mean two years, worst-case scenario, and, with the six months he’s already done, we’ll have our Oll back in less than eighteen months.’
‘That’s great,’ Bella said, trying to hide her disappointment. She didn’t want to hear this. Particularly not on this day, when her NYAA success had promised, for the first time through the morass of the past eight months, a brighter, clearer future for herself.
The whole Olly mess was something she had hoped she wasn’t going to have to deal with for years.
She stood on the corner of West Fourth waiting for the interminable crossing light to change. Perhaps, shrink or no shrink, she needed to face it sooner rather than later.
‘Mum, I—’ she began to say, but down the phone she heard a knocking on the Trout Island door and Dog’s wild barking.
‘Oh. That’ll be Gina,’ Lara said. ‘I’ve got to dash. But well done, darling. I’m a million times proud of you.’
‘But—’
‘What?’
‘Oh, never mind.’
Bella put her phone in her pocket and, surprised at how slight her frustration was in comparison with her relief at being interrupted, made her way up Broadway to fetch food for her man.
Lara put the phone down and grabbed her crutches. Even after months of having her leg penetrated and encircled by pieces of metal, and further weeks with it encased in a rigid foam walker, she still couldn’t put her burgeoning weight on it.
Nearly tripping over Dog, she hauled herself to the front door and undid the high-security bolts. Lots of locks had been part of the brief she had given the architects in charge of the speedy refurbishment of the Trout Island house.
She opened the door. Seeing friends, Dog wove amongst the visitors, winning pats and paw shakes.
‘We had a great time!’ Gina said as Dog licked her hand. She had taken Jack, Bert and the girls to the library show, the first of the summer programme.
‘It was actually not too substandard,’ Ethel said.
Jack bowled into the hallway and flung his arms around his mother’s legs, nearly knocking her over.
‘Steady there, Jacko,’ Lara said. He had, understandably, been rather clingy since all the business. ‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ she asked Gina. ‘We could stick this lot in front of a DVD up in Jack’s room.’
‘I’ll come in on the condition you put your feet up and let me get it,’ Gina said. ‘You should be taking it easy.’
As they went through to the kitchen, Lara told Gina about Bella’s success and Mickelberg’s confidence about Olly’s chances. She eased herself into a chair and Gina busied herself making coffee in the airy kitchen, where the sunlit breeze stirred through the new porch with its gatefold doors.
‘Just green tea for me,’ Lara said. ‘I can’t do coffee at the moment.’
‘It’s so cool Bella’s got that house and she can walk to college,’ Gina said.
‘Isn’t it? And it is such a beautiful home. Whatever else you can say about him, Stephen had admirable taste. Come what may, we’re going to hold on to that house. And here, of course.’
‘Any interest on the forest property yet?’
‘Not a peep. Hardly surprising given the history, though. I’m half minded just to let it return to nature, let the trees and the creepers and the snakes reclaim it.’
‘I don’t blame you.’ Gina shuddered.
‘That poor woman,’ Lara said, pouring the coffee.
‘Poor Trudi Staines?’ Gina said. ‘Reserve your sympathy, sister. She pulled the wool right over Betty’s eyes, and she took his money to do scary things to you.’
‘But no one deserves to be buried alive.’ Lara shuddered. ‘She tried to warn me, you know? But I didn’t listen. More fool me.’
‘Well whatever, you’ll be well rid of that place.’
‘And I don’t even want to visit his LA palace …’ Even mentioning it reminded her of the pictures Stephen showed her on his iPad, and the mad plans he had cooked up for her there. And that of course led her back to what he had done to her after he had shown her the pictures …
‘So many houses for one guy!’ Gina said, practised at drawing Lara away from the horrors that still lurked in her memory.
‘And Manchester and London, too.’ Lara counted them off on her fingers.
‘I know. Jeez.’
‘But I need to know what’s happening with Olly before I can make any other decisions.’
‘Not long now.’
‘Nope. I hope our attorney’s right.’
‘From what you say, he’s practically a free man.’ Gina flapped her hand down as if there were no problem whatsoever.
Lara closed her eyes and prayed she was right.
As soon as she knew the score with Olly, Lara planned to take stock of her wealth. All she knew was it was vast, and she proposed to give a large chunk of it away.
The first thing she aimed to do was set up a fund for Trout Island Theatre. She felt partly responsible for its demise after the abrupt cancellation of
Macbeth
, and James and Betty’s exodus to LA amid all the publicly unfolding scandal around Stephen’s death. She thought of how the theatre had nurtured people like Sean, and provided a focal point for the community. The idea of it going dark because of her actions was the one thing she still felt guilty about. She even thought she might find some sort of role for herself, perhaps in the administration side of things. Although of course she would pretty soon have other demands on her time.
The phone rang, breaking into her daydream.
‘Sorry. Do you mind if I take this – it could be Mickelberg again,’ Lara said, levering herself up and hobbling over to the study area she had carved out of the massive living room. ‘Help yourself to more coffee, G.’ She picked up the phone.
‘Hey Lara.’
She was right. Mickelberg always started phone calls assuming that the person picking up was the person he wanted to talk to.
‘I’ve got some awesome news for you,’ he went on.
‘They’ve thrown Olly’s trial out?’
‘It’s not
that
awesome,’ he said. ‘But as good as. I’ve been talking to one Detective O’Halloran of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department over in California. They dug up a Jane Doe in Joshua Tree Park a year back and have only now come up with an identification.’
Lara sat down and passed her hand in front of her eyes. A dull pain nagged at the base of her spine. She had a feeling she knew what was going to happen next.
‘The unfortunate one – she had, too, it appears, been buried alive – was called Elaine Montez, but she also went by the name of—’
‘Elizabeth Sanders,’ Lara said, her cheeks flushing. Buried alive.
‘Correct! My dear, you must be psychic. And, best of all, Molloy’s DNA is all over her. Your son saved his brother and sister from a double murderer, honey. Far from being a delinquent, he is a hero. With this news, he’ll be out by yesterday.’
Stunned, Lara put the phone down. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or appalled. But she was spared from having to make a decision by the warm pain that spread from within her, pulling round and into the distended muscles of her womb. It was Stephen’s parting gift, beyond all the money and the houses. They had offered to get rid of it for her in the hospital, because, they said, it was the product of rape. But she knew otherwise. She knew it had been conceived the first time she and Stephen had made love, when she had wanted him – no,
needed
him – inside her. She had to hang on to that thought.
‘Gina,’ she called through to the kitchen, as the contraction declared itself fully. ‘I think it’s coming.’
A baby, at long bloody last.
A baby.
Note on the setting:
While every single character in this book is fictional, the physical landscape of Trout Island is loosely based on Franklin, a lovely village in upstate New York, where I have spent many summers. The major difference is that, whereas the fictional Trout Island Theatre Co. struggles artistically, the real Franklin Stage Company (
www.franklinstagecompany.org
), with which I am closely associated, is EXCELLENT. If you are ever up that way during the summer months, I urge you to pay a visit.
Wallywoodshop is real, however, and you can buy his wonderful boards at
www.wallywoodshop.com
. Pretty Fly Pie … is based on Pie in the Sky (
http://tinyurl.com/6gz5s6x
), as unsurpassable as it sounds in this book, and the library (building
not
people) is based on Franklin Free Library (
www.franklinfreelibrary.org
) – a magical place that has been a cool and brilliantly resourced retreat for me and my children during several long, hot summers. Thank you Linda Burkhart, library director, and all the volunteers who help run the place.
Thanks to Carmela Marner, Gene Marner, Carole Lucia Satrina, Ed Vassallo and everyone at Franklin Stage Company for many glorious theatre summers in a truly inspirational environment; Felix Marner Bridel (aged 11) for his knowledgeable wildlife consultancy; John Vassallo and Howard H Weiswasser for invaluable and generous NY legal advice; Chloe Ronaldson for sharing her midwifery wisdom.
Thanks to all my Franklin friends for their generosity and all the good times – especially Xina Sheehan and Tim, Cedric, Stella and Reggie Duerden; Anne, Dave, Jake and Sam Ohman; Pam Peters and Walter, Lizzie and Evan Putrycz.
Thanks for the inspiration to The Police; to NoFit State Circus for their great show
Tabu
(which provided the model for the circus show); to Alice Neel, whose Whitechapel show kicked off a lot of ideas, and, as ever, to Mr Morrissey.