Criminals

by Margot Livesey

  In one gentle movement Joan picked Grace up and rose to her feet. Ewan wanted to protest again—don’t move her, the doctor—but every letter of the alphabet loomed higher than the Tower of London. She walked to the door. On the threshold she turned to face them: Ewan, Mollie, Kenneth. The baby limp in her arms. Blood blotting her coat. She was not crying. Ewan almost wished she were; tears would have dulled her gaze.

  “Why?” she said. “Why did you harm us? Grace and I, we did you no wrong.” Her eyes rested impartially on the three of them. “You are bad people,” she said.

  And it was, Ewan thought as she stepped through the door, no less than they deserved.

  Chapter 19

  Later, in the long list of things Ewan blamed himself for, the one he kept coming back to as the most puzzling and grievous was his failure to recognise Mollie’s condition. He had known she was distressed, but proximity had blinded him to the true extent of her altered state. Indeed, he had even begun to share it. What else could explain his incredible laxity towards Grace? After a lifetime of returning library books by the due date, of writing meticulous cheques whenever he used a friend’s phone, he had behaved as if he had found an apple labelled “Take me” at the bus station rather than a living, breathing human who, in her helplessness, had a particular claim upon him. Or so Yvonne remarked, furious, when he told her what had really happened in Scotland.

  The events following Joan’s departure were mired in sorrow and confusion. Ewan continued to kneel on the floor until Vanessa returned to say that an ambulance was on its way. Then he stood up and went to raise his sister, still kneeling like a penitent in her grubby black clothes, but the sight of her face stopped him. Together with Chae, he manoeuvred Mollie into the car, and Chae drove her to the hospital. Throughout this Kenneth swore steadily. At some point he had poured himself a second large whisky.

  Each terrible moment blotted out all the other terrible moments. As soon as the rear lights of the car disappeared, Ewan could think only of Grace and her mother, wandering the dark countryside. He set out in search of them. Vanessa and Kenneth stayed at the house; the latter protested Joan was a grand walker. Halfway down the drive, Ewan had a ghastly premonition. He made a detour to the pond and, standing by the empty duck house, called Joan’s name. He was so afraid he could barely push his voice out into the clotted air—“Joan, Joan”—but no one answered his cries. The surface of the water lay smooth and untelling.

  He was almost at the road when suddenly he understood that once again he was repeating his major error of the previous week: not informing the proper authorities. He turned and ran back to the house, his leather-soled shoes slipping on the gravel. When the police operator answered, he burst out that a woman and her baby were missing; the baby had been in an accident.

  “Let me see,” said the operator, in glacial tones. “An ambulance just reported picking up a mother and child near Glen Teall. Foreigners of some sort?”

  “Yes, yes, Indian. How is the baby?”

  In the pause he heard paper rustling. Answer me, he wanted to shout, but instead made himself count the stairs: one, two, three, four was especially crooked, five.

  “I have no details, sir.” The operator’s voice thawed slightly. “But a police car has been dispatched to Mill of Fortune. It should be with you shortly.”

  She hung up, leaving Ewan no option save to do the same. Back in the kitchen he told Vanessa and Kenneth what he’d learned. At the first mention of police, Kenneth got to his feet. “Well, then, I’ll be pushing off.”

  “You can’t leave,” Ewan exclaimed. “What about your daughter?”

  “She was Joan’s kid,” he said, seeming to take the worst for granted. “I was just trying to help out after you nicked her.” He scrutinised his empty glass. “I’m a bit short for the bus home.”

  Ewan regarded him with loathing. If anyone was to blame, besides himself, it was this layabout in his scruffy sports jacket. He took thirty pounds from his wallet and made Kenneth write his name and address on the back of the leaflet about bauxite mines before he handed it over.

  Then Ewan was alone with Vanessa and a small pool of blood, no bigger than the palm of his hand. As he paced back and forth, he saw it was already thickening, darkening. He would not clean it away. Not until he had news of Grace. It should stay here, like the blood of Rizzio staining the floor of Holyrood Palace.

  While he paced, Vanessa sat at the table, crying quietly. A week ago Ewan would have done almost anything to cheer her up. Now her distress seemed trivial compared to what had happened to Grace. And to Mollie. He circled the loom, noticing it was dressed in blue and yellow yarn, different from the piece that had been there last weekend.

  Gradually Vanessa grew calm; she asked what they should say to the police.

  “You know what to say,” Ewan retorted. “You were here.” He could not bear the undertones of conspiracy.

  “But what about Mollie?” she pleaded. “And you? Aren’t you going to get in trouble?”

  “I don’t see how anyone can hold Mollie responsible; she’s clearly having some kind of breakdown. Whatever she did was done out of affection for Grace. As for me, I’ve done enough harm. I plan to do the only thing I can: make a clean breast. It won’t save Mollie, or Grace, or Grace’s mother, but maybe my s-s-s-s-” He stopped, defeated by the sinuous s, unable to find a synonym for “soul.”

  From the parlour, where she was still shut in, Sadie barked. Ewan hurried to the back door. A black and white police car, headlights blazing, was pulling up outside. A mechanical voice grated on the night air—the driver was talking on the radio—and the passenger door opened. The light from the kitchen glinted off the buttons of the tall, stocky policeman’s uniform as he stepped forward.

  “Constable MacIntyre,” he introduced himself in a lilting Highland accent. “Are you the one who telephoned?”

  “Yes,” Ewan croaked. “And Ms. Lawson.” He gestured towards the house. “How is the baby, Constable? Please.”

  At first it seemed that the policeman, like the operator, was going to ignore Ewan’s pleas. He fiddled for several seconds with his breast pocket, getting out a notebook. “Unconscious,” he said at last.

  Alive, Ewan thought—and could admit now how much he had feared the contrary.

  “An arm appears to be broken,” the constable went on in his mellifluous tones. “But they won’t know the full extent of the injuries until they examine her at the hospital.” He opened the notebook. “Your name, sir?”

  Ewan told him, and spelled it. As he did so, the brightness of relief gave way to massive darkness: what did unconscious mean? what was the full extent of the injuries?

  The other policeman finished his radio call and got out of the car. “Might we come in?” asked Constable MacIntyre. Silently Ewan ushered them inside.

  The following morning Ewan shared a taxi to the town with Vanessa. She was going on to Perth station to catch the train back to London. Another entry in his catalogue of self-reproach was the discovery of a regular, reasonably priced taxi service from the town to Perth. He could easily have taken Grace back that first day. When the taxi pulled up at the hospital, Vanessa squeezed his hand and begged him again not to speak to Coyle. He kissed her but promised nothing.

  At the hospital reception he got Mollie’s room number and asked about Grace. “The Indian baby and her mother,” he said, shamefully ignorant of their surname. The receptionist directed him to a plump-cheeked nurse at the next desk, who’d been on duty the night before.

  “Oh, yes, that was quite a palaver,” the nurse said, looking up from the folder she was reading. “The mother made an awful scene when we tried to examine the baby. Couldn’t speak a word of English.”

  Ewan did not bother to correct her. “Is the baby all right?” he asked, gripping the edge of the desk.

  “She won’t be doing the Highland fling anytime soon, poor wee thing.” She patted the folder, as if it were in need of consolation. “Her arm’s bro
ken and she has a fracture near the base of the skull. Some sort of accident, the police said. Are you a friend of the family?”

  Ewan nodded.

  “Well, she’s still in a coma. We moved her to the ICU at Edinburgh Royal a couple of hours ago.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. It’s all …” He saw the nurse’s cheeks pucker in bewilderment and broke off. “Sorry,” he said again, meaning this time for his outburst. He thanked her and headed for the stairs.

  Mollie had a private room on the second floor. The door was ajar, and when Ewan pushed it open, Chae rose stiffly from a chair beside the bed. “Ewan,” he said, “I was afraid you were never coming. It’s been an awful night. You know Grace’s mother was here?” He wrung his hands. “I heard her crying, hour after hour.”

  Over Chae’s shoulder, Ewan glimpsed Mollie sitting bolt upright in bed, wearing a demure blue nightgown. He was about to ask how she was, when a small whitish stain on the pocket of Chae’s shirt caught his attention. Could it be from Grace? And then Chae was asking if Ewan would mind staying with Mollie while he went to collect some things from the house.

  “Of course not,” Ewan forced himself to say.

  “ ’Bye, Mollie. I’ll be back soon.” Chae kissed her cheek. “There’s a nurse down the hall,” he told Ewan, and hurried away.

  Ewan shifted his briefcase from hand to hand. Could he fetch the nurse immediately? Mollie stared fixedly straight ahead, seemingly unaware of his presence. All the animation with which she had addressed Kenneth was gone, as if whatever demon had frightened her into dropping Grace had driven out every other emotion. Ewan loitered in the doorway until the curious glance of a passing nurse drove him inside.

  As he drew near the bed, he gazed at Mollie in amazement. Out of context, he might not have recognised her. Even her eyes, still faintly rimmed with make-up, were different, lightened to the grey of a seagull’s wings. Then he heard a familiar sound and, looking down, saw her hands pleating and unpleating: she was cracking her knuckles. In some deep part of herself, he thought, his sister was unchanged, and at last he found the courage to sit down and talk to her.

  “Mollie, can you hear me?”

  Perhaps she paused in her cracking.

  “The baby—Olivia—she’s only unconscious. They think she’s going to be all right.” Ewan was dismayed to hear himself give a cheerful version of Grace’s condition. Late last night, as he finally wiped away her blood, he had sworn never to lie again, if she would make a full recovery. And here he was, already peddling falsehoods.

  “I’m sorry I failed you,” he went on. “I didn’t understand about Olivia. That you really loved her. I thought …” What had he thought? He could no longer recall the chain of pathetic rationalisations by which he had justified his behaviour. Mollie’s knuckles cracked again; the bones of her wrists stood out like golf balls. Had she been this thin a week ago? “You mustn’t blame yourself,” he concluded. “I’m the one who’s responsible. Me, with my stupidity.”

  The night before, making this claim to Constable MacIntyre, he had begun to tremble uncontrollably. If Grace had fallen from a slightly greater height, with a little more force, he would have been a murderer. Now he studied Mollie and hoped, desperately, that somewhere behind her blank stare his words were reaching her. She probably just needs lithium, Vanessa had said in the taxi, but Ewan could not help feeling that Mollie, like himself, needed absolution.

  On Monday, Ewan took the train back to London. He had wanted to visit Grace in Edinburgh, but Chae had said, “Good God, man, are you out of your mind? You don’t steal a baby and then go and sit at her bedside.” Ewan had blushed, grateful for this bluntness. At home his first act was to phone Coyle. They arranged to meet the following morning in the coffee bar at Liverpool Street Station.

  Ewan arrived early and was hunched over a cup of coffee, trying to focus on the share prices in the Financial Times, when a voice said, “Good morning. Sorry to keep you waiting.” There was Coyle, as neat, affable, and sandy-haired as before.

  They shook hands. Coyle ordered a coffee and sat down. Across the small table he studied Ewan, his eyes alert behind his thick glasses, his sharp nose attentive. “You look exhausted,” he pronounced.

  “I am a bit tired.” Disconcerted by this unexpected sympathy, he busied himself folding the newspaper.

  Coyle made a couple of comments about the restructuring of building societies; not necessarily as beneficial as people claimed, he thought, but overall a move in the right direction. Ewan nodded, unable to feign even slight interest. Then Coyle asked if there was something he wanted to talk about, and to his own amazement, Ewan plunged into an account of the last ten days, all the same twists and turns that had baffled the policemen. Coyle listened, his forehead furrowed, while Ewan described the events leading to that moment when Mollie seized Grace from her mother and dropped her on the stone floor.

  “So she’s in intensive care—they’re still not sure of the extent of the damage—and Mollie’s mad, and it’s all my fault.”

  “A tragedy,” Coyle said, shaking his head. “A terrible tragedy. But what makes you think it’s your fault?”

  “Who else is there? If I hadn’t taken Grace from the bus station, she’d be fine. And Mollie too, probably. Or better anyway.” “If”—that small word which had never given him any trouble—had become the gateway to a tortuous labyrinth: if he hadn’t been worried about Coyle and obsessed with Vanessa, if he hadn’t had a cup of tea at the bus station, if he hadn’t stuttered on the phone, if he had paid proper attention to the people around him …

  Coyle stirred his coffee, and took a sip. “You did behave badly,” he said, “not telling anyone about the baby. But you had no idea how far gone your sister was, nor that there was someone like the father in the picture. Being a stockbroker doesn’t prepare you for this kind of scenario.”

  “The thing is,” said Ewan, “I did have the information about Mollie. It was in that wretched novel.”

  Surprisingly, Coyle had heard of The Dark Forest—he thought his wife had read it—but as Ewan tried to explain about Leo and Maudie and Chae’s vasectomy, he frowned and tapped his coffee spoon against his saucer. “Well,” he said when Ewan paused, “this is a bit too convoluted for me.” He pushed back his chair. “I’m going to get another coffee. Would you like one?”

  Ewan watched him make his way to the counter. What was he thinking of, spewing out family secrets as if Coyle were his confessor or best friend. He retrieved his notebook and looked at the list of topics he had drawn up for their meeting. 1. Confess. 2. Vanessa. 3. Repercussions. 4. Resignation? So far they had covered none of them.

  “I bought some buns.” Coyle deftly laid a plate of pastries and two cups of coffee on the table.

  “Thanks. You’ve been very patient, letting me ramble on. What I really wanted to talk about was the Gibson Group. Last week you asked whether I had any contact with the people at Marlowe’s.” He stared down at his own neat handwriting. Yes, it had to be done. “I do occasionally see Vanessa Lawson.”

  “Ah.” Coyle sounded pleased. “I thought it had just slipped your mind—that she worked for them.”

  “You don’t need to let me off the hook.” Now that he had begun, Ewan was almost eager to unburden himself. “I was in love with her. Or thought I was. A month ago we had dinner and got into shoptalk.” As he described his own fatal indiscretion, the future he had glimpsed at St. David’s Well came into being. That he gave away nothing Vanessa had said or done did not seem to matter; still she slid further and further down a long tunnel, until, by the time he finished, he could barely make out her pale face. “I should have told you,” he said.

  “You’re telling me now.” Coyle bit into his pastry.

  “So what will happen?”

  “I’ll talk to Ms. Lawson. I already had my suspicions.”

  “What about me? Will I have to resign?”

  Coyle hesitated. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he began to
tap his spoon again. “I doubt if that will be necessary,” he said at last. “There’s no evidence that you were conspiring to defraud, certainly no evidence that you planned to profit, at least in monetary terms. It’ll be up to the Serious Fraud Office, once I finish my investigations, but I imagine I’ll be recommending clemency in your case. Being a little careless with a colleague is, unfortunately, all too common.” He ran his finger round his plate, seeking the last crumbs.

  “Your real problems,” he went on, “lie north of Hadrian’s Wall. That poor mother. Especially with a child too young to talk, it’s terrible when they’re ill. You feel so helpless.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “One so far. Max. He’s learning to walk. I hope to follow Dante’s example and have three.” He smiled. Then the smile disappeared as he focused his full attention on Ewan. “What I don’t quite get is why you didn’t just take the baby back right away.”

  “It all had to do with cars,” Ewan said. He described the location of Mill of Fortune, the various misadventures, and his own long-ago near accident on the Caledonian Road.

  “If I were you,” said Coyle, “I’d learn to drive.”

  On Friday Ewan flew back to Edinburgh. As he followed Chae through the airport doors, the memory of the last time he had been there, saying goodbye to Mollie and Grace, leapt at him like a rottweiler. Instead of his fellow passengers, the porters, and taxi drivers, he saw, between one footfall and the next, Mollie’s scream, Grace’s fall, Joan’s final condemnation. He had to stop until his vision cleared and he could safely cross the road.

  Once they were settled in the car and heading towards the Forth Road Bridge, Chae asked about Grace. Ewan reported she’d been moved from intensive care into the children’s ward; her arm was healing nicely, but her eyesight remained affected by the fall.

  “What does that mean—affected?” Chae braked at a zebra crossing and motioned a man in a green jacket to proceed.

  “I’m not sure. They don’t like to give out information unless you’re a family member. I only know this much because I got a chatty nurse on the phone.” He tried to remember her exact phrases: something about cerebral edema and intracranial pressure. “They do seem hopeful she’ll make a full recovery, once the trauma recedes. How about Mollie?”