Criminals

by Margot Livesey

  “Completely messed up where the baby is concerned, though in other ways she’s rather together.” She stepped over a fallen branch. “It’s interesting how different the two of you are.”

  “We are?” he exclaimed, and wished he hadn’t.

  “Well, she’s a bit of a hippie, but I think she has more of an edge than you do. More of the killer instinct.”

  “Not something I’ve ever really aspired to,” Ewan said, but Vanessa either missed or ignored his irony.

  On a rock beside the path lay a speckled eggshell, almost whole. Ewan spotted a clump of primroses, and they both bent to examine the pale-yellow flowers. Walking along again, he confided his hopes about Mollie and Chae. “That’s why I dragged you up the hill, to give them some time alone together. And us too,” he added awkwardly.

  Vanessa made a noncommittal sound.

  “I’m so grateful to you for helping.”

  They moved to opposite sides of the path to avoid a patch of mud. “There you are,” said Vanessa. “Mollie would never say that, because it isn’t true, is it? We both know I’m not really doing you any favours. You’re in one sort of mess and I’m in another.”

  Oh, God, Ewan thought. “We go to the left here,” he muttered, and took the lead for the short walk to the base of the crags. At the well, Sadie drank and darted off after a noise in the undergrowth. Vanessa expressed surprise that this small pool of water, only a few feet deep, was called a well. Ewan explained that it never emptied, never froze, and told her about the legend.

  “We must wish,” she said.

  She had no money, and he had only five-pence coins in his pocket. “It won’t matter to the king’s daughters,” he said. “They deal in another currency.”

  They threw their coins. As they watched the ripples fade, he reached for her hand. “I love you,” he said, “but I hate all this. In the car I was thinking how much I want to talk to Coyle. I don’t mean I’m going to. I just mean I want to. This duplicity makes me feel terribly far from myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Vanessa. “If I could give the money back without damaging anyone, I’d do it like a shot, but we both know I can’t. We have to go on.”

  “Like Macbeth.”

  “Good grief, Ewan. We’re not talking about killing people. This is like cheating on the underground—not immoral, just slightly illegal.”

  “That’s what Mollie says about Olivia.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s part of Mollie’s delusion to believe that stealing babies is okay. What I did isn’t remotely comparable. I don’t think it even counts as theft.”

  “You may be right,” said Ewan, thrusting his empty hands into his empty pockets. “I suspect most people would agree with you, maybe ninety-nine percent. Unfortunately I don’t. I believe there’s an equivalent of the Hippocratic oath for bankers, and I’ve broken it. So have you.”

  “Okay,” said Vanessa. “For the sake of argument, suppose you’re right. There are other ways to make amends than by confessing. You can be extra scrupulous on behalf of your other clients.”

  “You don’t love me, do you?”

  “Oh, Ewan, it has nothing to do with you.” She hung her head. “I’m seeing someone else, a market analyst I met in New York last spring. I’m sorry, I should have told you, but the relationship is so shaky. And I do like you.”

  Ewan strove to keep his face as still as the water in the well. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Don’t you think we should get back?”

  Far above them in the treetops Ewan heard the rustling of the evening breeze. He saw the fine lines on her forehead, the shadowed skin beneath her eyes. How lovely she was. Yet, just for an instant, he glimpsed a future in which she would be no more to him than another clever stockbroker. “What did you wish?” he asked.

  “I wished that everything would be all right. Pretty cosmic.” She grinned. “And you?”

  “I didn’t know what to wish for. Everything I want for myself or other people seems too complicated, so I asked for Grace to be fine. If she survives, the rest of us will too.”

  “She will.” Vanessa raised her face and kissed him, a friend’s kiss on the cheek.

  In the drowsy warmth of the stove Mollie sat feeding the freshly bathed Olivia. Chae straddled a nearby chair and watched. Since Thursday he’d trimmed his beard, but the neatness only made him look more haggard. While she filled the bottle, he had put on a tape, something classical and sad: Chopin, she guessed. During her weeks alone in the house she hadn’t even turned on the radio except when Chae showed up unexpectedly. Now the notes shaping the air were a mark of his return.

  “Mollie,” he said, “we need to talk.”

  “Yes.” This was the first, the only, task on her list, but instantly the plates of her skull squeezed closer. She stared down at Olivia and waited.

  “The other night,” Chae continued, “you said I’d stolen from you twice over. If I did, you have to believe it was an accident. When I’m writing, characters come to me and I don’t question their origin. Remember after you read Debts and Trespasses you said I’d got my mother just right. You could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather. I thought Peggy was pure invention, and then, as soon as you said that, I realised I’d taken almost everything from life. It was a weird feeling.” He spread his hands to indicate the extent of the weirdness.

  “Of course I knew Maudie had one or two things in common with you, but I honestly had no idea how much I’d borrowed. Even the part about Edward … this must seem incredible, but I was sure I’d made it up. It wasn’t intentional. Jesus, it was barely conscious. More like you in your weaving coming back to certain motifs again and again.”

  “It’s nothing like that.” Mollie tilted the bottle to ensure Olivia’s milk supply. “You told everyone my secrets—things I didn’t even know myself. When I read about Maudie wanting a child, I recognised this longing that had tormented me for years. I hated you for knowing what it was and not telling me.”

  “Forgive me,” Chae said. “Please.”

  For a moment the only sounds were the piano notes and the low melody of Olivia’s sucking. On the table stood a vase of flowering currant. He must have picked them while we were in London, Mollie thought. She looked down again at Olivia, whom she had dressed in one of the new sleepers from Mothercare. What was that vivid red called? Pomegranate? Persimmon?

  “Please forgive me,” Chae repeated. He leaned back, balancing the chair on two legs. “Whatever else I write, you can read it first. I’d like us to live together again. I’ll do anything you want.”

  Mollie felt a surge of triumph. He had said the very words she needed. She shaped her face into a smile. “If you really want me to forgive you, help me keep Olivia.”

  The legs of Chae’s chair clattered to the floor. “Mollie, she’s someone else’s child. She’s not Olivia. Her name is Grace. We can’t keep her. It isn’t possible.”

  “You just said you’d do anything. I heard you. Olivia heard you. Well, this is my anything. You can write about me from now until kingdom come. All I want is Olivia.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not mad,” Mollie said carefully. “I know she has parents. But they don’t want her. They’d never have left her in the first place. And they’d have reported her missing. They want money. When I spoke to the man on the phone, that’s what he was working up to. I could feel it. Olivia shouldn’t be for sale, but if she is, we’ll buy her. You still have the money from your book—Maudie’s money. We can say we’re married. They’ll see this house and know we can give her a good life.” She stopped, thrilled at her own rational eloquence. She had managed to say it, the whole spiel, about books and money and marriage and Olivia.

  Chae tugged his beard and studied the floor. “It’s true,” he said slowly, “the father asked for money, but I don’t think that means he doesn’t want the baby. He wants her and he wants cash. Like someone who’s ill asking for compensation—they s
till want to be healthy. Listen, Mollie, I didn’t know you felt this strongly. If it means this much to you, we can adopt a baby.”

  Mollie stood up. She held the squirming Olivia out towards him. “People aren’t interchangeable,” she said. “Do you want to live with anyone? No, you want to live with me. And I want to live with Olivia.”

  Chae looked at Mollie, then at Olivia, wriggling in her arms, then back at Mollie. “All right.” He sighed. “You can have the money. I’ll stand by you.”

  She leaned to kiss him, and to her surprise, he flinched. Had it come to that? His eyes were brown, like Olivia’s, only lighter. Bending close, she saw the pupils shift, but no, she would not look, not this time. The windows of the soul—who knew what one might see, peeping through a forbidden window?

  “Why don’t you take a bath,” Chae said, “and let me finish feeding the baby? We’ve nearly an hour until they get here. Once you’re done, I’ll go and change. I think it’s important to be at our best to meet them. You know,” he trailed off, “to talk and explain.”

  Mollie’s first instinct was to refuse, but she felt the ache in her muscles, the crinkliness of clothes in which she’d travelled five hundred miles—no, a thousand—and besides, it was part of her plan to have Chae fall in love with Olivia. She handed the baby over and climbed the stairs. They creaked loudly, one by one, but she hurried on, refusing to listen. In the bathroom the steam poured out of the tap and hung in talkative clouds. She undressed quickly and climbed into the bath. This was no time for voices. She lay back and let her head sink until the water sealed her ears. Unbidden came the image of two black birds feasting on a rabbit.

  The taxi pulled up outside Mill of Fortune. Kenneth paid the driver and watched him reverse out of the yard. Once again he faced the dull green door. His stomach churned. Four thousand quid. Crikey. Briefly he was tempted to forget the whole bloody scheme and just enjoy the grand he already had. Then he sensed Joan standing beside him in the near darkness, waiting for him to make a move, and he knew the daft thing would be to give up. He was in charge, no question: Colonel Kenneth. He stepped forward to knock at the door.

  His first thought when it opened was that Lafferty was wearing smarter togs than before. Like Joan’s docility, it was a mark of respect, which made him feel better. They shook hands. Lafferty looked enquiringly to Kenneth’s left. Oh, yes, “This is Joan,” Kenneth said.

  To his surprise, Lafferty offered her his hand, but she paid no attention. “Where is Grace?” she squeaked.

  “She’s here.” He nodded over his shoulder. “In the kitchen.”

  Before Kenneth could move, Joan rushed past them. “Grace!” they heard her cry.

  He and Lafferty followed. In the kitchen the suit bloke and the short-haired woman who’d met him off the bus that first day were sitting around the table, plus a chick Kenneth had never seen before. They were all watching Joan, who was holding Grace and crying.

  Kenneth stopped, flustered. He hadn’t expected so many people. The bloke in the suit stood up, held out his hand, and spoke loudly, to be heard above Joan. “I’m Ewan Munro.”

  More handshakes.

  “I owe you and your wife an enormous apology,” the bloke went on. “I found the b-b-b-b- Grace on the floor of the Gents. I assumed she’d been abandoned. My b-b-b-”—he gave up on “bus”—“was leaving, and I got confused and took her with me. Then there was a bit of a mix-up.”

  How pink-faced he was, Kenneth thought. Somewhere nearby a dog barked. And what a din Joan was making. He was tempted to tell her to shut up. Instead he said, “My wife’s quite upset.”

  He and the bloke turned to look at Joan, who was kissing Grace’s hands and head and saying strange foreign things. Lafferty fetched a bottle and poured whisky. There was an awkward pause, as if they were waiting for a toast. Then they drank anyway. Good stuff, Kenneth thought. Now, about the dough—but before he could speak, the short-haired woman leapt out of her chair.

  As soon as she laid eyes on Kenneth, Mollie felt vindicated. He was nothing but a punk, a lager lout, a hooligan, completely unqualified for fatherhood. The woman, like the birds and the voices, she vehemently ignored. When Ewan had finished his incoherent remarks, she came forward. “How do you do,” she said. “I’m Mollie Munro. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Yeah,” Kenneth said vaguely. He swirled the whisky round in his glass.

  “About the baby. I wondered … we wondered …” He was staring at her now, rather than at his whisky, and into his clear, cold eyes she said the simplest words she could find. “We want to keep her. To give her a home. Of course,” she hurried on, “we’d recompense you.”

  “Mollie,” said a voice, two voices. Chae was at her elbow. So was Ewan. But she did not look at either of them, only at Kenneth. To her delight, his eyes kindled.

  “Recompense,” he said. “Like compensation?”

  “Exactly. Money, in fact.”

  “Yes, well, it’s something to consider. We’ve suffered a lot, losing Grace. Mr. Lafferty knows that. The coppers would find this business very strange.”

  “We’d be happy to compensate you,” said Ewan stiffly. “It was a mistake, and we’re terribly sorry. Whatever we can do—books, clothes for Grace.”

  “ ‘Clothes for Grace,’ ” spat Kenneth. “You think we’re going to keep quiet for a nappie and a pair of booties? You’ve got to be fucking joking. You can’t nick a baby.”

  “Ewan, shut up. Don’t listen to him.” She smiled desperately at Kenneth and turned to Chae. “Help me.”

  “My wife has become very attached to your daughter,” Chae mumbled. “If there’s anything, any way—”

  “Ten thousand pounds,” Mollie blurted. And, to be quite clear, used the name she had never before uttered: “For Grace.”

  Kenneth’s face flared as if she had slapped him. “Ten grand,” he whispered. Far more than he had imagined. “Ten grand.” He narrowed his eyes at the woman and gave a small gasp. From her first words she had seemed familiar, not just from the chemists; now he recognised her. She was the figure of his two dreams, the one that was always in the shadows. In the dream he had thought she had power over him, but it was the other way round! He was the powerful one. “You have that kind of dough?” he said.

  “Yes, Chae, my husband, has it from his book. We can show you a bank statement.”

  “Okey-dokey,” said Kenneth, smoothing the lapels of his jacket. “I think you may have yourselves a deal.”

  He was about to offer his hand to the woman when someone stepped between them. “Stop,” Joan cried. “You … you shitty bastard. Grace is mine—mine, not yours—and no one buys her.”

  To prove her point, she made the same gesture Mollie had earlier, holding the baby out before her. Ewan saw the unmistakeable kinship in their brown eyes, their dimpled chins, their short upper lips. Mother and daughter: how could he have separated them? But his immediate duty was to poor Mollie, who was getting into deeper and deeper waters. He glanced over at Vanessa, where she sat alone at the table, watching the five of them as if they were in a play. For a few seconds he forgot everything else and allowed himself to take comfort in her presence. During those seconds several things occurred.

  Joan was holding Grace, and Grace was smiling. She was waving her arms and legs in graceful Tai Chi motions and burbling those sounds right on the edge of speech.

  “Ahhh,” she said. And “Mmm. Mmm.”

  Mollie, hearing her own name, lunged. Somehow she got the baby out of Joan’s grasp. She brandished her high, like a banner in her deep-red clothes. Grace, startled at this sudden change of ownership, fell silent. Her eyes opened wide and she blinked, her dark lashes fluttering over her brown eyes. Then she stared straight at Mollie and made a short, glottal sound.

  “No!” Mollie screamed.

  And even as her mother reached for her, Grace was falling, falling towards the stone floor. There was a dull thud and the worst silence Ewan had ever heard.

  “O
h, my God,” said Vanessa softly.

  Joan dropped to her knees beside the baby.

  Mollie watched the room fill with green light and felt herself growing smaller and smaller, dwindling.

  “Fuck,” Kenneth said, emptying his glass.

  Chae just stood there.

  Ewan gazed at Grace. Once again she was lying on the floor, much as she had been when he found her eight days ago. But now one arm was bent beneath her. She seemed to be unconscious. He remembered his wish at St. David’s Well and yearned for her to utter the smallest sound. He knelt down, meaning to help, but Joan was already doubled over the small red figure. Far away he heard Vanessa say “ambulance” and call Chae to give directions on the phone. Grace’s dark silky hair was shadowed by something darker still. Someone knelt beside him, and he knew, from the smell, that it was his sister.

  “Don’t touch her,” he said to Grace’s mother. “We mustn’t touch her until the doctor gets here. We might hurt her.”

  “Doctor?” said Kenneth. “No need for that. It was just a wee bump. She’ll be fine. Come on, Joan, hang on a sec so we can think what’s best.”

  But Joan ignored them both, calling out in a loud voice to Krishna, to Kali. She put her face close to Grace’s so that her hair hung down around them like a shining tent.

  It was hard to see what she was doing, but Ewan guessed: she was trying to catch her daughter’s soul before it flew too far, to bring it back and slip it safely home between Grace’s slender ribs. Meanwhile her slim brown hands shuttled up and down the quiet body. Surely, he thought, such love could not be denied.

  He kept staring at Grace’s red-clad legs, all he could see of her. Wait, was that a sound? A whimper? But no, it was just the wind, or Mollie murmuring, or a noise escaping his own tight throat. Joan moved to press an ear to the baby’s chest. Suddenly Ewan saw her hands grow still. Dread swarmed in every corner of the room, and he knew the awful answer: Yes, love could be denied.