‘Yeah, I just missed her. Got lost, you know, now they’ve got the new bit open, it’s massive, I was wandering round all over.’
Vinia grunted. ‘You fancy coming out? There’s a twenty-first party on.’
‘Nah,’ Cheryl said. ‘Milo’s teething again.’
‘Man!’ Vinia complained. ‘More teeth! You sure that boy is a child and not some sorta crocodile?’
Cheryl giggled.
‘Later, girl.’
‘Later.’
But it was early the next day, very early for Vinia, who never dragged herself out of bed before noon. ‘Cheryl…’ She sounded weird.
Cheryl realized Vinia was crying. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s Carlton. They’ve arrested him, the police.’
‘What for?’
‘What do you think! Sam too. They were both here. They came first thing, it was still dark. My mum’s going mental.’
Cheryl’s pulse rocketed, she felt her heart play catch up. ‘Do you want to come round?’ Say no, Cheryl prayed.
‘Maybe in a bit. I’d better stay here for now. Somebody must have shopped them, that’s what the others are saying.’
Cheryl’s tongue was thick in her mouth. ‘No one’d dare.’
‘There is a reward,’ Vinia pointed out, sounding sharp again, more like the old Vinia.
‘Maybe they found the gun or something,’ Cheryl said.
‘Nah,’ said Vinia, ‘someone’s looking after it; word is they still got it.’
Suddenly Vinia seemed to know a lot of stuff. Cheryl imagined it; the rest of Carlton’s crew flocking to regroup, swapping theories, backing each other up, all paranoid about who grassed them up. Vinia telling them how it went down, the early morning raid. Them trusting her, Carlton’s sister.
‘Must be hard for your mum,’ Cheryl said. Thinking at the same time that surely Vinia had some relief that Carlton was now locked up. That the man and the trouble he brought might be taken out of her life.
‘Thing is,’ Vinia sniffed, ‘me and Sam, we been hanging out. Get him on his own, he’s all right.’
‘Since when?’ Cheryl couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want it to be true. ‘You never said.’
‘Just recent.’
‘How come you didn’t tell me?’
‘I was going to tell you last night but you wouldn’t come out.’
‘Oh, Vinia.’ Cheryl felt sad. And freaked out – Vinia and Sam Millins together.
‘Lousy timing, huh? A couple of times together and now what – prison visits?’
‘You’re not gonna stay with him?’ This felt bad, very bad.
‘I ditch him now, I think his friends are going to have something to say.’
‘That’s crazy!’
Vinia didn’t answer. Cheryl heard her gulp. ‘Oh, Vinia, oh, man, I’m so sorry.’
‘Me an’ all, girl. Double that.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fiona
Joe Kitson rang on Valentine’s Day. ‘You’ll be getting a letter but I wanted to let you know in person,’ the detective said. ‘We’ve charged two men with Danny Macateer’s murder.’
Fiona’s stomach flipped. ‘Oh, God! But that’s great – that you’ve got them.’ She had continued to follow the news reports on the inquiry but there had barely been anything in the local papers recently.
‘It is,’ he answered. ‘They were key suspects from the start, Derek Carlton and Sam Millins, gang leaders, but we had a bit of a breakthrough and the Crown Prosecution Service is keen to go ahead. There’ll be a trial at the Crown Court here in Manchester – the men will plead not guilty. You’ll be called as a witness.’
Fiona felt dizzy but she had known this might happen all along.
‘We need to check your availability,’ Joe said. ‘We’re looking at September.’
‘September!’ Six months away.
‘Couldn’t be any sooner. Have you any holiday plans, family weddings and so on?’
Fiona saw her year stretch ahead – a blank calendar, Owen’s school terms the only route markers. It was as though their social life had withered and died without her on the ball to arrange things. Not even a holiday planned though Owen needed some respite from school or the computer screen. ‘I’ve nothing planned,’ she told him, ‘but I’ll be back at work by then.’
Fiona had been in to talk to Human Resources about a phased return. The CBT and the medication had helped. She’d not had an attack since the New Year. And she’d come round to the view that she no longer wanted to put her life on hold indefinitely, just in case she might have another attack. She told them she’d like to start off on the hospital rota. A choice she never thought she’d make: giving up her patch and the autonomy of being out in the community. Back inside the hospital maternity care was still skewed in favour of intervention and medicalization; the doctors and consultants dominated the culture, the approach.
‘That’s good. NHS?’ Joe checked.
‘Yes.’
‘They’ll usually pay your wages while you’re appearing as a witness but if not you can claim.’
‘What happens now?’ she asked. Suddenly edgy, the court case looming like a threat.
‘I’ll get back to you when the dates are agreed and you’ll be invited for a pre-trial visit. It’s certainly worth doing, gives you a chance to see the court and ask questions about the process. There will also be a needs assessment – someone from the Witness Care Unit will be in touch to see if you need transport or childcare and to arrange special measures.’
‘What?’
‘Arrangements we make for vulnerable and intimidated witnesses.’
Fiona was stung, thinking for a stupid moment that he was remarking on her character.
But he went on, ‘In a case like this where there’s gang involvement, witnesses are regarded as vulnerable and intimidated. So we take special measures to protect them from intimidation and to make sure they can give evidence safely.’
All the talk of safety made her nervous: she felt an unwelcome tingling in her wrists, her nerves pricking and a pressure building in her skull. Fiona thought of the young mother who had refused her entry in the wake of the murder. I just don’t want any trouble. That’s how it is.
‘What sort of measures?’ Her voice shook. She imagined herself and Owen in some shabby safe house, guards with dogs at the gate, bored minders playing cards.
‘You’ll give your evidence from behind screens so although the judge and jury will be able to see you, the defendants and their supporters won’t. You will be anonymous: Miss A or whatever.’
Fiona saw Danny’s face again, the line of his jaw, those golden eyes, felt the slick warmth of his blood on her hands. Her pulse kicked. She wrenched herself away, concentrated on stretching her neck, relaxing her feet, her diaphragm.
‘Fiona?’
‘Still here.’
‘I want to thank you,’ he said. The sincerity, the kindness in his tone brought sudden tears. Daft. ‘Without you we’d never have got this far. And with your help we’ll put these guys away for a long time. Is there anything else you want to ask me now?’
She sniffed, cleared her throat. ‘No, that’s all fine.’
‘Well, any time. You have my number. And thank you again.’
A hard frost still lingered at the water park. Iced puddles were cracked into milky patterns, and the mud on the rutted paths was rimed white. Ziggy barked for the ball and his breath rose like little swags of mist. An easterly wind poked freezing fingers into the slightest gaps in Fiona’s clothes: at her wrist when she raised her arm to throw Ziggy’s ball and at her throat where her coat wasn’t snug enough. She should have worn her scarf. The sky was pearly white, stippled grey here and there, the cloud cover so dense that she could not gauge the wind in it.
Bullfinches and great tits flitted among the bare branches in the copse, robins combed the ground. No sign of spring here yet. In the larger trees the bowl-like birds’ nests and the larger squirrel’s dray were visible. Close to the open water of the lake she found the wind too ferocious, stinging her eyes and making her nose numb. She called Ziggy to head inland to more sheltered paths.