Murder at Twilight

by Fleur Hitchcock

  The blue lights are now clustered around the control tower. Clouds of smoke are rising from the fire and drift across us. “Think it’s safe to land?” I shout and slowly I swing the plane around, keeping the control tower on our right, and so that the runway stretches ahead towards the parked planes at the far end.

  I let the wind speed drop. I’ve no idea what speed I should be going, but I imagine something like sixty miles an hour would be OK – Mum drives at sixty miles an hour.

  “Too slow!” shouts Noah as the speed reaches seventy-nine and he points to something like a bath plug on the dashboard. “You really can’t go below eighty.”

  “Eighty?” I think of Mum on the motorway. She says eighty is too fast. “Really?”

  “Trust me,” he says.

  Trust me.

  “Thought you’d never landed!” I say, pulling the plug thing and suddenly shooting forward.

  “You’ll just drop from the sky!”

  I pull it more and the little engine surges.

  “Too fast! Go up, go up!” I shove on the steering thing and we shoot up into the black. All I can see is night and without the horizon thingy I wouldn’t be able to work this out at all. The engine screams then for one terrifying second sputters before restarting.

  “Height!” he shouts, and I look at the dial. I don’t understand what it says, but I pull back on the steering thing and we go up more gently so that I can actually turn the plane until we’re pointing towards the blue lights, speeding back towards the control tower. I just hope there are no trees underneath us.

  Crack. A twig hits the windscreen.

  OK, so there were trees, but luckily the plane keeps going, and I look at a height thing that must be telling us how high above the ground we are.

  Nothing’s swaying, the wings feel steady and I let the speed go down, ninety, eighty-five…

  “Too slow,” shouts Noah.

  I don’t care any more. People survive car crashes at seventy miles an hour. Don’t they?

  The blue lights are almost at our eye height – the ground’s coming up towards us, the airstrip appearing in our headlights, a thin black line of tar running down the middle in front of us. I lock on to it, keeping it straight in front, and I let the speed drop.

  Bump.

  We bounce. I bite my tongue.

  Bump.

  The front tips forward, my neck jerks, then we’re in the air, then back on the ground again.

  “Pedals! Brakes!” yells Noah, throwing himself and the bloody rugby shirt across my lap and pulling on a lever I’d never noticed.

  We slew to the right, skid to the left and then, centimetres from a fire engine, incredibly, we stop.

  We’re both shaking when the policeman opens the door and looks inside.

  “Ruddy hell!” he says, and then turns and shouts into the darkness. “Sarge – over here!”

  * * *

  They bundle us into a police car. With hot chocolate that appears from nowhere and biscuits and blankets.

  A paramedic checks my feet. Checks Noah’s bite.

  No one says anything much and it feels like a dream. Next to me, blood-encrusted Noah makes gurgling noises and I would just fall asleep but outside a policewoman’s talking into a radio and I’m listening.

  “Yes, we’ve got them disarmed and cuffed, bringing them all in just as soon as the exit’s cleared, sir. Yes, one of them’s caught a nasty crack to his head, so the medics are keeping him under observation.”

  Tinny sounds come back through her receiver.

  “Yes – absolutely, sir. His father’s plane, seems he knew where the keys were kept, under the wing. Yes, sir, not very secure – will do. Intact, but he’s got a dog bite. Have you informed the parents?”

  Another siren screams and an ambulance stops in front of the police car. Through the windscreen I see a body on a stretcher, an arm hanging over the side.

  Pale-pink skin shows in the headlights.

  Dave. It’s Dave. A nasty crack?

  She talks into her radio and I sink back on the seat, watching as the ambulance crew load Dave into the back. There’s blood. He looks as if he’s been in an accident.

  Fireworks bang over our heads, cracking and whizzing, and distantly someone plays a piece of classical music through some dodgy speakers.

  I pull the blanket around my shoulders and sip at my hot chocolate. It’s all for the police to do now. I can fall asleep. My eyes close, the sounds begin to blur, my body relaxes. My feet throb.

  “What the—? Ow!”

  Next to me, Noah has thrown his hot chocolate into the air. It lands all over my leg.

  “Ow – Noah – ow! You idiot!” I shout, scuttling backwards along the seat.

  In less than a second we’re surrounded. Black police jackets, handcuffs, a stretcher, green men in ambulance gear.

  “It was just my hot chocolate,” says Noah, looking up into all the faces. “Sorry. Sorry, Viv.” And I sit back on my bum on the warm wet seat, and for the first time, I let myself cry.

  While they mop up the hot chocolate they sit us in the boot of a paramedic’s car, our legs hanging over the side. The fireworks are still crackling and banging overhead, and they’re kind of pretty, but I don’t think they’ll ever be quite as wonderful for me after tonight. Witnessing them close up through the windows of the little aircraft was too scary.

  Landing that plane was terrifying.

  From here I can see Chris, his big shoulders sagging, on a chair, a paramedic working at something on his foot. He looks exhausted, defeated, and looking at him makes me feel angry.

  All that fury I had with Noah, and his father and everyone. All that stuff that meant that Mum was taken away, and I was shouted at and we nearly drowned, and we were shot at – and it was them all the time.

  I blink back angry tears but they won’t stop, it’s like someone’s left the tap running. But eventually they run out, and I’m left sniffing in the darkness, trying to make sense of it all.

  Time passes. An age. What are we waiting for? They’ve wrapped us in space blankets, and people in green keep on taking measurements and temperatures and checking stuff. They’ve bandaged Noah’s dog bite and muttered about rabies injections but they don’t look worried.

  “Would you like a custard cream?” says the policewoman who took my phone all that time ago. I resist saying something really rude and shake my head. I’m kind of losing interest in biscuits. She’s wearing her dayglo again, but she looks more comfortable here in the middle of the blue flashing lights. I glance over to Noah. He’s staring at the wreckage of a packet of cheesy crackers, but I don’t think he’s thinking about food. Between us and Chris are three policemen wearing full body armour. I think at least one of them has a gun.

  I kind of hope that they do.

  As if she can read my thoughts the dayglo policewoman puts down her mug and says, “If you’re wondering, Chris Mumford is being held here because we can’t get him out until another vehicle arrives.” She gives me a tight smile. “We don’t want to take you in the same one. Sorry about that. Won’t be much longer.”

  I close my eyes for a second and imagine the flooded countryside. It must stretch for miles. Everything would take ages to get here.

  A car pulls on to the runway and Inspector Hager arrives. The dayglo policewoman rushes to report something but the inspector walks over to us and leans quietly against the car.

  “How are you both?” she asks.

  I think about all the finer details. “OK,” I say in the end, and Noah nods.

  Across the concrete Chris shouts and the paramedic steps back and the armed policemen step forward.

  “So you can identify both of these men?” says Inspector Hager, ignoring the shouts.

  I nod.

  “Dave McAndrew, Chris Mumford,” says Noah.

  “Why was Dave on the stretcher?” I ask.

  “Hit on the head with a bottle. It seems to have come from an aeroplane,” says the dayglo det
ective.

  “Oh!” I say, a complicated set of thoughts racing through my head.

  “He’ll be OK,” says Inspector Hager. “Can I ask if you think there were any more people involved – should we be interviewing anyone else at this stage?”

  She opens a tube of mints and flicks one into her mouth.

  I wonder about the big piles of holiday brochures in Chris’s girlfriend Sharon’s car. “Sharon? Chris’s girlfriend – she might have known. They probably wanted the money,” I say, twisting a strand of hair around my finger. Closing my eyes I run through all the others on the estate. All the people I’ve trusted. Tony? Shona? Connor? Pavel? Natalia and Olga? Maria? They surely wouldn’t be involved, but then I’d never have thought Chris or Dave would – I struggle to find the word in my head – betray us like this. How could they do it? “I dunno,” I mutter. “I haven’t a clue.”

  I think back to the summers spent wandering the estate. All those years with them, did what we were told, followed them, learned from them.

  “How could they?” I say out loud.

  “Sorry?” says Inspector Hager, and Noah nods.

  “I know what you mean,” he says. “I’ve known them all my life.”

  From the biscuit debris beside me, I take an almost complete custard cream and nibble at it.

  “Oh!” Inspector Hager turns.

  I drop my biscuit.

  Chris has started shuffling across the concrete towards us. His hands are in handcuffs and the blue lights flick across his face.

  Noah backs into the car, but I stand on my bound feet and limp towards him just as he limps towards me.

  “Vivienne,” warns Inspector Hager.

  I hold up my hand. I can handle this – I want to handle this. I’m not just going to sit in a car and feel sorry for myself. I want to know why.

  “I’m sorry,” says Chris.

  I don’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry about all of it – for both of you. I’m sorry I took you, boy. It was supposed to be simple, easy.”

  “But you could have killed us, Chris.” I speak loudly, clearly. I want everyone to hear this. “You nearly did. And what about Sanjeev. We found blood…”

  He lets out a long sigh. “It went wrong. He tried to be a hero, stepped out in front of the van. So we stopped and then he jumped me and we fought – the gun went off…”

  “Oh,” I say. Anger or sadness? I can’t work it out.

  I control my breathing and wait the longest time before I ask, “Why, Chris – why did you do it? Why did you do any of it?”

  He sniffs and looks across at Noah. He tilts his head from side to side and I decide he’s trying to work out whether to say something or not.

  Inspector Hager looks off to the left and, as if on cue, a police car screams into the airfield and three figures race across the concrete, a fourth walking slowly behind. It’s Lady B and Tai and—

  “Mum!” I shout as she and Tai hurtle towards me. Tai’s skipping from side to side, yipping and yapping. “Mum.”

  “Oh, my god! Viv,” she says, throwing her arms into a hug, clutching me. We cling to each other, our arms interlocking. Alongside us Lady B lands in a cloud of perfume and enfolds Noah and I hear his snuffly tears as he hugs her back. “My poor little darling.”

  “Mum, Mum,” he mumbles.

  Tai leaps into my arms and licks my face, and I nuzzle his grizzled coat. “Tai, Mum.” We all hug, closer and closer.

  I gradually realise that Chris is laughing. It’s a hollow laugh. “Don’t hug her – she’s a liar,” he shouts.

  What does he mean? I look at Mum and she looks confused.

  “She made us do it. Her.” He points with a handcuffed arm right at Lady Belcombe.

  “Me?” she laughs. “Me? Why would I kidnap my own son? What on earth…?”

  Inspector Hager stands quite still, listening, while the dayglo detective is recording everything on a proper camera.

  A deep voice sounds in the shadows and Lord B steps forward. “Julia?” he asks.

  “Why are you all staring at me?” says Lady Belcombe, her eyes wide, her hands up in front of her as if she can push us all back. “I haven’t done anything. It’s him – all him. He’s the one you should be accusing.” She points back at Chris, who glares at her.

  “You needed the money, didn’t you, Lady Belcombe?” he says. “Gambling got a bit out of control, didn’t it? And when your loan shark came calling, you got desperate.”

  “Gambling?” says Lord B. “I thought … I thought you’d given that up, Julia? I thought that was all in the past? You said—”

  Chris interrupts him. “Lot of money your good lady wife owes.”

  Lady B reaches for the side of the car, as if she’s going to collapse. Her mouth keeps opening and closing but she doesn’t say anything.

  “Mum?” says Noah, silver tears tracing down his cheek. “I don’t understand.”

  “Lady Belcombe?” Inspector Hager prompts.

  “Noah – I’m – I’m so,” Lady Belcombe wipes her face with the back of her hand. “I – I – thought it wouldn’t hurt…” She tries to snuggle between us but Noah pushes her arms aside as she attempts to hug him. “Please, darling – please.” He shoves her away with his feet, and backs himself further into the boot of the car. “You had me kidnapped?” he shouts. “You had me kidnapped!”

  Lord B is talking but I’m not sure anyone’s really listening. I think he’s trying to explain it to himself. “But this can’t possibly be true – I’ll speak to the Chief Constable. Preposterous! There must be some sort of ridiculous mistake. Julia? Julia?” Taking her place he sits down next to Noah. “What are they saying? Surely it was Mumford – this man who we trusted…” He falls silent as the inspector raises her hand and then he says again, “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake, you idiotic man. Shut up and listen!” Lady B interrupts, her voice sharp but on the edge of breaking. “I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t. I was too ashamed – and anyway, I don’t think you’d have given me the money. Peregrine certainly wouldn’t. So I came up with this. It was all going to be so easy, so simple. I knew you and Peregrine would pay up for Noah; he’s the last beastly Belcombe after all, your precious child… But it got out of control because of that fool.”

  I’m not sure if she means Chris or Sanjeev, but her husband stares at her as if he’s never seen her before.

  “Poor Sanjeev,” whispers Mum, sniffing. “He was in the car.” The sides of her mouth go down.

  “Car?” I mutter, thinking of the Mini.

  “The old one in the dump.”

  “What?”

  “Shhhh – tell you later.”

  “And you?” says Inspector Hager, facing Chris, and I realise all this is staged. We’re all here so that we can ask the right questions – Lord B, Chris, Lady B, us. “Why?”

  Chris looks at the ground. “It was the Newbury job I did, back in ’88. A security guard was killed. I was nineteen. I was holding the gun. I didn’t mean to but…” He looks up at Lady B. “She knew. She found out, dug around in my past – got a confession from some bloke in a pub. She used it against me. She blackmailed me. I was going to lose everything – my job, house, everything. Dave helped, cos he’s a mate, but I should never have dragged him into it.” Chris swallows.

  Lady B’s arms hang loosely by her sides. She swings them slightly and then, without warning, grabs a small fire extinguisher from the back of the car and races towards Chris, her elbow jabbing back, flinging the cylinder towards his head. “You utter idiot. You imbecile, you’ve destroyed everything!” she shouts, just as both the armed policemen jump on her and crash to the ground.

  * * *

  Hours later, sitting in the hall with Tai at my feet, Mum on the sofa next to me and Lord B next to Noah with arms clamped around his son as if he could suddenly fill with helium and float away, we get properly warm. About every five minutes Lord B squeezes Noah, crushing him with love.
“Noah, Noah, my boy, my lovely boy, I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Dad,” says Noah, his head jammed up in the crook of his father’s neck, silver tears trailing down his face. “Dad.” After the fifth time, Lord B reaches across and envelops me too in a clumsy, scratchy embrace, his half-beard tickling the top of my forehead, his arms holding me as tight as he held Noah. “Viv,” he mutters. “Viv, thank you. Thank you.”

  It would be awkward – but so much has happened today that I can’t find anything embarrassing any more and it feels like a moment of intense reality that I might remember for the rest of my life.

  I look across. They sit together, so close that Noah’s blond curls mix with his father’s darker, greyer mane, and I wonder if I’ve ever seen them actually embrace like this. Father and son. Reaching towards each other, entwined. Loving.

  The firelight dances across their faces, both staring into the flames.

  The police have gone. They’ve stopped asking questions. We know that Sanjeev is dead, and that he died being a hero. We know that they kept his body in the old car in the dump. It must have been there both times I visited. I shiver. I’m glad I didn’t see him, find him.

  And in spite of the fact that I still kind of loathe him, I’m actually sad for Noah. He’s lost his mother and he’ll probably never be able to forgive her.

  “Things are going to have to change round here,” says Lord B quietly. “New beginnings,” he says to the fire.

  I wonder what he means. Quite a lot is going to change – quite a lot already has changed. Nothing about the Blackwater Estate is how it was a week ago. I twiddle my toes, which are covered in white cream and wrapped in weird cotton sock things. “No lasting harm,” the paramedic had said as she trussed them up. I’ve got them resting on a leather pouffe thingy that probably cost a thousand pounds, but no one seems to mind. No one seems to mind about anything. Tai’s chewing some disgusting fake bone thing that Mum bought him. We’ve eaten cheese on toast in our pyjamas and scattered crumbs all over the place and no one made us sit at the table.

  “Does that mean…?” Noah begins, and then stops.