“On her way to hospital. She’s under arrest, but I suspect she’ll be in hospital for a few days before we can start to interview her. She’s not a well woman.” He stayed lookingat Cass. “Apparently we should be offering you a job as negotiator?”
“I still don’t know what happened in there.” There were gaps in the timeline, long silences that I knew I needed to fill before I could process it all.
“Your man here managed to talk her into letting them walk out. I think it was a bit hairy for a second, though.” The detective folded his arms.
“A couple of times. Mia was amazing, by the way.” Cass put an arm around my shoulders, Heidi lounging on both of us, listening far too much. “She was so calm and she kept trying to distract Cara, telling her about her award and really happy things – I did wonder whether Cara got cross a lot.” He stroked Heidi’s hair, which seemed to be making her sleepy. “Do we still need as much security – is this all over now?”
Detective Jones looked at Liv. “Olivia can give you more details once the girls are in bed, but the short answer is that we don’t think there’s a threat to Mia anymore. I’d go as far to say she’s pretty well protected.” He looked back at her. “Her father was very pleased to hear about her award in assembly this week. He’s asked if he can have a copy of her school report.” The expression on his face was unreadable. “Again Liv can tell you more.”
The house emptied of everyone apart from me, the girls, an exhausted Liv and Cassian. Cass hung a hammock in the garden because it was only seven o’clock, and the evening was gorgeously still with copper skies.
Mia woke, happy to go out in the garden and play on the hammock, making daisy chains with Heidi, who was obsessed with the gap in her teeth, sticking her tongue through it. For a few minutes, it felt like nothing had happened, and then I was clouded with relief and felt lightheaded with it all.
“We know Blake’s arrest was a set up by Stan’s boys. Stan got pissed off with what was happening with Mia – no one messes with his kids and that now includes her.” Liv kept her voice low, although the girls were at the other side of the garden, immersed in a made up fairy world involving daisies and buttercups and clovers.
“What about Cara? And why were they after Mia?” I needed some things clarified.
“Mia was leverage over Stan. Blake’s lot wanted Anglesey as their patch – turf wars. I think what they did was scare tactics, and we reckon they thought Mia was Stan’s granddaughter rather than daughter, and Stan’s son, Kai, isn’t in Stan’s good books at the moment. Wait until I’m on a day off and I can tell you the whole story, if you ply me with enough gin.
Cas nodded, lounging back on the patio chair. “Cara talked a lot about Stan – there were a few rambling speeches. She wanted to grab Mia and run away with her although when Mia asked where, Cara didn’t seem to know. She was trying to hide from Blake.”
“Blake was pissed off with her because she’d passed the drugs she was looking after for him onto one of Stan’s boys,” Liv said. “She was effectively a double agent, but I don’t think she intended to be. I think she was just desperate for money and someone to look after her.” Liv almost looked sorry for her. “She’s going to be sent down for a long time – possession and supply of Class A drugs, attempted kidnap, aiding and abetting, and all the knife stuff. Poor Mia.”
I looked over at where she was playing with Heidi, full of daisies and wonder at a pretty blue butterfly that would no doubt be named queen of the garden. She looked like nothing had happened, but I knew that wasn’t how things worked. Mia was a clever girl, she was good at reading people, probably because she’d learned to keep herself safe when she was in the place sheshould’ve been the safest – in her home with Cara. There would be nightmares, fear, anxiety – all results of the trauma she’d experienced.
But she’d be okay.
We’d make sure of it.
“Cara was happy Mia had stayed with you,” Cas said. “She asked Mia what’d happened when she’d left – she sounded like she thought Mia was about sixteen – and Mia told how you’d found her. It was weird, not going to lie, Cara was saying things like ‘oh are you having a nice time’ and ‘remember to say it was Logan’.” He looked over at Liv. “She was definitely not well.”
“She was off her tits on coke and speed.” Liv shrugged. “Whereas I’m off my tits on tiredness and exhaustion. You did well in there though. We were worried you were going to try to disarm her.”
Cas shook his head. “I had some training by some guy in London who’d been in the police and he was giving a talk on behaviour management and what to do if one of the students had a knife – we all know there’s more and more knife crime. He went through the whole distraction, staying calm, where to place yourself, all of that. I’d hoped I’d only need to know it out of interest, but it came in useful today.” He paused, tipping his head back towards the sun. “She shouldn’t have been able to get in the school.”
“She shouldn’t,” Liv said. “And you have a staff member who is absolutely mortified they didn’t raise an alarm when they recognised her.”
“And we don’t have any fencing at the back. I know the governors want to think that small towns are impenetrable to everything that goes on elsewhere, but they’re not.” He shook his head, looking exasperated.
“You know it won’t have made any difference. Cara wanted to get into the school to take her daughter. If there’d been a twelvefoot fence there that was electric, she’d have still found a way in. Don’t beat yourself up. You were a hero in there.”
That was when I burst into tears.
He was a hero. And he’d come home.
TWENTY
Cassian
My mother had once told me that it didn’t matter what label someone was given, it was what they did next that counted, so I didn’t let the hero worship go to my head.
The real hero had been Mia. For a five – almost six - year old to have managed the way she had in my office with her mother wielding a knife that was beyond heroic.
She wasn’t in school the next day, and neither was Heidi. Mia had to attend a medical and Romy was in no mood to not have both kids with her, which I got. They had a lie-in, followed by breakfast at Amelie’s cakery consisting of something that was mainly sugar, and then went to Mia’s appointment, followed by a trip to a police station where Mia was interviewed by an officer who was a specialist in these sorts of things.
I gave my statement the night it happened, although most of it was known, the phone call that had stayed on going from when Liv called me had been recorded, and the police had used their tech to see what was happening inside. I was glad that they hadn’t had to shoot Cara. That was something Miadefinitely didn’t need to see. I was asked whether I thought Cara had intended to hurt me or Mia, and I was absolutely sure she would’ve at points during it. She’d bounced between remorseful and off the scale anger and paranoia.
There was a lot going on there.
