Chapter Twenty-Two

Simeon Maynard was dead. He had died as dramatically as he had lived, in an explosion that had lit up the night sky for miles around. The police racing up the dale were on their way to Ravensike to arrest him on a long list of charges including tax evasion, fraud and money laundering. But he and one of his henchmen had grabbed as much cash and as many of their papers as they could and tried to flee in the helicopter. Witnesses said that as soon as it took off it was swallowed up in the fog. Within seconds there’d been a huge bang. The helicopter had hit power lines and then crashed into the fellside, the resulting flames visible for miles even through the fog. That was the red glow I had seen from the ambulance. They reckoned Maynard had nearly half a million pounds in cash in the helicopter with him. For weeks afterwards, walkers would find scorched fragments of twenty-pound notes fluttering on thorn bushes.

Jake had been right all along about him and his dodgy empire and now his research paid off. His background stories filled the newspapers and it made his name. Flick presented a TV documentary, hastily brought forward to a prime-time spot. That was based on Jake’s research too. She did well. They did well.

They’d also managed to speak to people who’d been at that party. But here they had to be more circumspect. The police might have been after Maynard and had the effects of a helicopter crash to deal with, but they still found time to arrest a couple of footballers and their girlfriends on drug charges. There was also an allegation of rape. I wondered uneasily about the giggling girl being led up the stairs by two men.

Becca and I had plenty of time to read about it as we shared a hospital room for the next week. Becca had a broken arm, a broken shoulder and various other sprains, bruises, wrecked muscles and, to top it off, pneumonia. To my surprise I found that I had escaped with a badly sprained wrist, two sprained ankles, a lot of torn ligaments, numerous cuts, bruises and gashes. And pneumonia.

‘Next time you take a midnight hike, please don’t do it in bare feet,’ said the nurse as she did the dressings. ‘You were very brave, but also very stupid and extremely lucky.’ I winced and nodded and dutifully swallowed the tablets she was now passing to me. I felt as if an elephant was standing on my chest as a pony kicked me between the shoulders. Every breath was a massive effort.

‘I’ve put your clothes in the cupboard. Well, what’s left of them. The dress looks pretty well ruined, but the silk jacket might be all right. Just as well you had that leather jacket or you might not be here at all now.’

I wheezed gratefully.

Then she bent her head down close to mine. ‘And I’ve wrapped that necklace in a paper towel and put it in the pocket of the leather jacket. Make sure you get someone to take it home for you as soon as you can, or it will vanish.’

‘Yes, I will, thank you,’ I wheezed again, and tried to find a position in which I could breathe.

Sandro had a broken arm, severe concussion, but no pneumonia, and had been wheeled into our room for a few moments before the club had flown him down to London. It had all been very emotional and incoherent as the three of us were in no state for anything at that stage. He was now in a swish private hospital, was doing all right, but wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

As for Clayton…there was no word. In all the reports of the goings-on at Ravensike Lodge, the only mention said that leading goal-scorers Jojo François and Clayton Silver had been at the party but had left early and long before the police had arrived.

I felt curiously detached from it all. Whether that was the disappointment of finding out that Clayton wasn’t the man I had thought that he was, or whether it was because of the pneumonia or the drugs, I don’t know. All I knew was that I just wanted to be able to get back to some sort of normality.

Kate was brilliant. She had come down to the hospital with me in the ambulance and had the presence of mind to bring some clothes and toiletries with her. She had stayed with me until all the tests had been done, and then gone back up the dale, no doubt done a day’s work, cooked a meal for the family, so I could hardly expect her to drive the forty miles back down to the hospital again in the evening.

Becca’s mum and dad were here now. They thanked me profusely, tearfully, for my efforts in saving Becca. They had brought me some flowers, some apple juice, some chocolates. I lay back on the bed and thanked them in return. And then they, understandably, concentrated on Becca, hugging her, helping her, making a fuss of her.

It was quite irrational, I know, but I felt out of it. Alone. And I couldn’t even leave the room and leave them to it as I just didn’t have the energy and my feet were like puffballs.

So I thought I was dreaming when I heard my mum’s voice. But suddenly there she was, leaning on a walking stick and Bill, abandoning them both to swoop down and hug me hard.

‘My darling girl!’ she said. ‘My lovely bold brave girl!’

Kate had called them and they had come straight up. Their only delay had been in hiring a car roomy enough for Mum and her plastered leg.

‘We just wanted to get to you as soon as possible, to make sure you were all right,’ said my mother in between hugs.

We? We? My mother never thought in we terms. A little bit of my mind noticed this with some satisfaction as I proceeded—with what breath I had—to tell them all that had happened. As my mother leant forward, anxiously, holding my hand—the one that wasn’t sprained—and peering at me intently, Bill looked down at her, indulgently. Something had changed; something had shifted between them.

Mum was talking to me fiercely. ‘That was an amazing thing you did,’ she was saying, ‘brave and determined. I am so proud of you. So very proud of you. And I’m just so glad you’re safe.’ She was crying and smiling at the same time. I’d never seen her so emotional. Everything was all so unreal.

They were introduced to Becca and her parents. There was much discussion of their daughters and the bad luck of the accident and the good luck of the rescue and my presence of mind etc, etc, etc. And then, just as it seemed as if everyone was going to start crying all over again, Becca’s mum said to my mum, ‘You’re wearing one of our Becca’s scarves!’

‘Oh yes!’ said Mum to Becca, ‘are you the girl who made it? I love it, love it. In fact, I wear it nearly all the time. I’ve never had a scarf like it.’

Becca’s parents beamed proudly and my mum smiled happily in return. Then a nurse came in and said, tactfully but firmly, that it was long past visiting time.

‘Kate invited us to stay with her, but it’s such a long drive, we’re booked into a hotel around here,’ Mum was saying. ‘But we hope to see her before we go back.’

That we again. And when the time came for them to go, Mum actually allowed Bill to help her as she manoeuvred up out of the chair.

‘We’ll be back in the morning,’ said Mum, leaning forward on Bill’s arm to kiss me goodbye. Bill winked. And I drifted off to sleep, feeling that the world was becoming very strange.