“Have you got it, Mum?” asks Ree. “You look a bit possessed right now, so I’m guessing you’ve worked it out, just like I did.”
“Worked what out?” says Mark.
Ree turns to face him. She says, “Let’s go through the possibilities. One, a dog who looked like Champ bit Tess, and she honestly believed it was him. Two, a dog who didn’t look like Champ bit Tess, and she deliberately lied and pretended it was him. Since Tess is a scumbag, I don’t believe she made a genuine mistake. There aren’t any other Welshies in Swaffham Tilney anyway, so I think she lied. Which meansshe knows it wasn’t Champ who bit her.They probably all know it—all the Gaveys.”
“Right,” says Corinne, “but so what? I thought we were all assuming that anyway.” She looks round the room at each of us in turn. “Did anyone here believe it was a genuine mistake: that Tess truly believed the dog that bit her was Champ?”
Mark and Toby are shaking their heads.
“Oh my God,” Sally whispers. “Ree—oh, this is… this is…the swimming pool story!”
“Exactly!” Ree yells.
“The Field View Health Club!” says Sally.
“Yes, Mother. Well done. You’ve got it. No one else has got it yet.” Ree sits back, satisfied.
Sally looks at Corinne, then at Mark. “It’s not just Champ who didn’t do it,” she says. “It’s not just Champ and Bonnie who areinnocent. It’sall of them.” This matters so desperately that she can’t find the right words to express it. “All the dogs are innocent. Every single dog in the world. No dog bit Tess Gavey, Mark,no dog at all.”
Mark frowns. “How do you know?”
“Think about the story Corinne told us about Field View, and Lesley trying to get people fired because she wasn’t allowed to stay in the pool for a second swimming session. Even after the club had apologized, it wasn’t good enough for her—heads had to roll. She’s the most vindictive woman alive. There’s no way on God’s green earth that she wouldn’t want and demand justice—by which she’d mean death and nothing less—for any dog that had really bitten Tess.However much the Gaveys hate us Lamberts, there’s no way they’d pretend Champ did it if that meant the guilty dog going unpunished. No way in hell would Lesley Gavey let that happen.”
“Maybe not, but…I still don’t understand,” says Mark. “Why are you women all so excited? What are Tobes and I missing here?”
“Because if we’re right, and we are, we have to be…and well done, Ree, for thinking of it—brilliant, just brilliant,” says Sally as Ree blinks away happy tears. “If we’re right, then there’s only one thing it can mean. And us knowing what that is gives us power. Think, Mark!”
“I’ve got it,” Tobes breathes. “Nice one, Ree. But also…” He shivers. “This is now getting a bit like something out of a horror movie, and these people are our neighbors, so—”
“Shall we just, like, watch Dad’s face until he works it out?” says Ree. “Come on, Dad. It’s worth it. Soon as it clicks for you, you’ll be as excited as we are.”
“I’ve got our new plan A,” says Sally, decanting a sleeping Champfrom her lap to the bed as she stands up. “I don’t see how it can fail.” Seeing Corinne also rising to her feet, she says, “No. It has to be just me. You all stay here and look after Champ. This next part works better if I do it alone.”
32
In the end, Mum agreed to let Corinne be her driver and companion for the journey, though she wouldn’t budge about needing to do the confrontation part on her own. Dad tried to insist on going too, in case it all went wrong and Mum got physically attacked by either Lesley or Alastair Gavey, but Mum told him firmly that wouldn’t happen and that he needed to stay at the Many Frogs Hotel to look after Ree, Toby, and Champ.
“If by any chance the police come and try to take my Champy baby away, stop them,” she said to Ree when Dad was out of the room for a second. She thought of Ree as the next most ruthless Lambert after her. (The actual ruthlessness hierarchy is: me at the top, then Mum, then Ree, then Dad and Tobes joint fourth, and then Champ last.) “Do whatever you have to do,” said Mum. “Anything. Have you got some kind of chemical hair product with you that you could spray in the police’s eyes?”
“You really need to ask me that?” said Ree. “Of course I have.”
“Good. Dad will think he has to cooperate and go all law-abiding citizen if someone official turns up, so you might have to overpower him or lock him in the bathroom or something—”
Dad walked back into the room at that point, with what he thought was a good idea. He tried to persuade Mum and Corinne to do the drive first thing in the morning instead—“It’s 10:43 at night. You can’t set off now!”—but Mum said she wouldn’t be able to sleep in any case; the buzz inside her, from knowing what she was about to do and sensing that victory was inching closer, was too strong. “I want to be there at 6:00 a.m., not setting off then.”
“We’ll be there long before six if we leave now,” said Corinne. “We’ll get to Swaffham Tilney before 1:00 a.m. if there are no road closures or diversions. Maybe we can get some sleep at my house, or yours, before you—”
“No,” said Mum. “If we’re there at one, then I’ll wake the Gaveys up at one.”
“Sal, you can’t do that.”
“Oh, I can, Mark.”
“But I mean…you’re not honestly going to wake people up in the middle of the night, are you? Corinne, can you talk some sense into her?”
“No, and I’m not sure I want to,” Corinne said. Everyone but Dad was experiencing a warm inner glow as they imagined the Gaveys being woken up at one in the morning.
As it turned out, there was some nocturnal faffing of the motorway-construction kind going on, which meant a diversion off the M25 via, of all places, Abbots Langley, where I chose Ricky as my star word all those years ago. Corinne swore and grumbled, butI was thrilled. I knew what it meant, you see. What greater clue could there have been that our mission was blessed and destined to succeed? (Praise Ricky, Thank Ricky.)
