Damien’s face is full of regret and sympathy, and maybe she is nodding, maybe she just thinks she is. He reaches one of his huge hands out, cups her chin gently. ‘I didn’t want to tell you if there was a possibility we could still make it work.’
‘I know that,’ she says softly. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘You don’t have to do it,’ he tells her. ‘I don’t know what I would do.’ She meets his eyes. It’s a lie, but a kind one. He would do exactly what she’s going to do. They might not have agreed on the ransom, but on this they are aligned: sacrifice yourself. Spare Lucy. It’s no decision at all.
‘You would do it,’ Simone says. Her eyes to his. ‘You love her equally to me.’ It’s an apology, for what she said in Fort Davis. Too late, no doubt.
Damien lowers his head in acknowledgement of it, the circumstances too sad to discuss it.
‘The reality,’ Simone says, landing on a firm and concrete truth as steady as the land they almost sailed away from, ‘is that parents love their children more than children love their parents.’
‘True enough.’ Damien smiles sadly.
‘It’s almost like unrequited love. You give it all and then they go away.’
‘They take it with them,’ Damien replies simply. One of the truest sentiments Simone has ever heard.
The police are on their deck, now. Searchlights everywhere.
Right before the police reach them, Lucy does. She’s been to the shop, is carrying something with her. ‘What’s going on?’ she says, her eyes everywhere.
In her hands is a Caribbean rum cake, the one Simone likes. On the side it saysALCOHOLFREE.
Simone crosses to Lucy and grabs her wrists urgently. The cake topples to the deck. ‘The police are here.’ They have so little time; she has to be clear. ‘They’re here for us and they’re going to take me,’ she says. ‘I am going to say it was all me – OK?’ She makes the plea bargain sound simpler than it really is. ‘So they won’t arrest you.’
‘No!’ Lucy shouts.
But Simone has to do it. Lucy will recover. And she will be free.
Simone is suddenly reminded of when Lucy was a toddler, and the smallest things were traumas. Being dropped off at nursery. Falling into mud. Those same eyes shone up at her in the exact same way they do now, like,Please fix this.Mummy, please fix this. And she always could; they were things that were so simple to correct.
‘You’ll have Dad. And you can go to RADA – and …’ Simone says, but her voice is cracking, a symptom of a broken heart, and she stops pretending as the police close in, and begins to cry. As Lucy does, too, the police raise their guns and say, ‘Can you confirm you are Simone Seaborn?’ She nods mutely, there on the boat in a sea of blue. And Lucy’s hands are still in hers.
‘No,’ Lucy says. ‘No. Don’t do it. Please don’t do it.’
‘I have to – but, listen,’ Simone says, and are the police encroaching slowly because they can see the parting of mother and daughter, or is everything just in slow motion anyway? ‘This is the last time for a while that we’re going to get to speak privately,’ she tells Lucy. ‘I want you to know – I don’t regret it. Any of it. It was worth it all for you.’
Lucy holds her hands, and Damien comes forward, too, their family a daisy chain. There is no one Simone wouldrather leave Lucy with than her father. Her protector, her stable influence, their rock.
‘And it might – it might …’ Simone’s voice is choked. ‘It might be a while. But you will be OK.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You will,’ she says, and then the grace period is over. The police close in.
‘We have reason to believe that you are Simone Seaborn, that, on the second of September you did shoot and kill …’ they continue. ‘You have the right to remain silent …’
Lucy stares, and Simone feels no regret.
Lucy was taken from Simone in the beginning when she was kidnapped, and now, actually, it is Simone being taken from Lucy. And that’s better. That is the natural order. The parent always leaves first. Simone just didn’t think it would be this soon, so soon. They didn’t get enough time together. But doesn’t every parent always think that?
CHAPTER 68
The Kidnapper
The little house is empty, shutters now open, no possessions inside. Maybe it wasn’t her, maybe I missed my opportunity.
I’m leaving now, rope and tape tucked away in the bottom of a bag. And, of course, everything has changed. I think this as I sit and watch the story repeat over and over on the news on my phone in a cab –MOTHER, FATHER AND DAUGHTER CAUGHT; MOTHER IN POLICE CUSTODY. DAUGHTER REMAINS FREE.Suddenly, it seems like everything has fallen apart.
