Page 69 of 59 Minutes

MRS DABB

‘Bunny,’ Mary says again. ‘What aren’t you telling us, girl?’

For a long moment, Bunny doesn’t reply. Instead, her eyes fill and tears brim over her dark lashes, trickling down her heart-shaped face and dripping from her chin. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s the prisoners from Princetown.’

‘What about them?’

‘I think one of them is coming to get me.’

‘Oh, Bunny, why?’

‘Which prisoner?’ Mary presses. ‘And why would he be coming here?’

‘My biological father,’ Bunny says.

‘What?’ She stares back at her daughter. ‘What are you talking about? We’ve never … you don’t even know who—’

‘I know it wasn’t someone you met on holiday abroad because I’ve seen your old passport, the stamps. You didn’t go abroad the year I was … made.’

‘But why do you think it’s someone in prison?’ Skin burning, ears beating with pulse. She can’t know. She can’t.

‘Mum,’ Bunny says, with the gentle tone of a doctor delivering bad news. ‘I know who he is and I know he’s in prison.’

‘And he’s not due to get out,’ Mary cuts in, ‘for at least another year.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Bunny says. ‘That’s who the siren is for. He’s the one that escaped, the one all the helicopters are looking for. I’m sure of it.’

‘How could you know this?’ Mary says. ‘They didn’t name anyone on the TV, you must be confused—’

‘Because I was there,’ Bunny says, covering her face with both hands. ‘And this is all my fault.’

‘What do you mean you were there, Bunny?’ Mary tries to pull Bunny’s hands away but she just shakes her head.

Bunny draws her knees up to her chin, folding over herself. ‘I did something really bad,’ she says. ‘And you will both really hate me,’ Bunny snuffles.

‘We would never ever hate you,’ she says, even as she remembers where the 118 bus goes from. Even as her chest starts to hurt.

‘I used Mama as an excuse,’ Bunny says, so quietly that Carrie holds her breath and leans closer.

‘I used the tenth anniversary of Mama dying as an excuse to get out of school, I said we were all going to the big service in London but I went to Princetown instead. I went to see Ashley Curtiss. To see my dad.’