Page 75 of 59 Minutes
MRS CARRIE DABB
TEN YEARS AFTER THE ALERT
‘I just didn’t think he’d do that,’ Bunny says, picking at a hole in the blanket that Carrie has bodge-sewed twice already. ‘Escaping, I mean. He only has a year left until he has a chance to get out and he was trusted and now—’
‘Well, you don’t actually know that it was him who escaped,’ Carrie says, trying to keep her voice level while her insides whirl and churn, her heartbeat wild in her temples and chest. She takes a steadying breath. ‘And whoever it is has probably already been caught.’
Bunny looks sceptical but doesn’t argue.
‘It’s pretty hard to get away with escaping custody.’
‘There have been, like, loads of escapes from that prison.’
‘Not in your lifetime, Bunny. Not even in mine. And they all got caught and so will this person. And whoever it is will be locked up for a lot longer because of this,’ Carrie says.
‘And that’s no bad thing. If it was him, he’s clearly nowhere near ready to be released and trusted out in the world.
And someone probably got hurt during all this. ’
‘He wasn’t even handcuffed, Mum. He was just sitting on a pew with some other prisoners and someone in uniform at each end.’
‘Yes, and at least one of those uniformed men probably got bashed when he broke away. Other people too probably.’
Bunny cringes but Carrie doesn’t stop. ‘Jasmine’s dad works at the prison, doesn’t he? He could have been hurt.’
‘He wasn’t there, it was other prison people.’
‘Is that okay then? For someone to hurt other people in the … in the panic of a moment? I don’t think that’s okay. I think anyone who … I think that’s something that should never be forgiven.’ I will never forgive myself.
Bunny looks down at the blanket.
‘If it was him then he’s really not reformed at all, because that’s exactly what he did ten years ago. To your—’
‘I know!’ Bunny cries. ‘And I know it was him that escaped and I know it was my fault ’cos he was trying to follow me.’
On the screen, the procession from the city’s remembrance walls to St Paul’s is finally underway.
A torchlight parade, forty-eight people, each nominated to represent their individual county’s losses.
Some of them too young to remember. They weave slowly along dark pavements whose streetlights have been dimmed for tonight.
Alongside the swollen Thames, higher than it was ten years ago.
Past the illuminated little boats that row, chug and punt solemnly parallel to the foot parade, many of them renamed for tonight to honour the boats that sunk, or from whose slippery sides people tumbled.
For once, the screen has no soundtrack even with the sound up.
For some things, only silence is enough.
‘Is Gran angry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you angry?’
Carrie pulls her daughter into a hug. ‘No,’ she says, softly, kissing Bunny’s crown. She smells of outside. ‘But I really wish you hadn’t gone about it like this.’
‘I know.’ Bunny’s voice is muffled against Carrie’s sweatshirt, still traced with the flour from today’s baking.
‘But you know … if you really think he’s the one who escaped then I need to call the police and let them know you’ve been in contact. I need to do that right now, actually.’ I should have done this as soon as she told me.
‘I’m going to go and have a shower and get into my comfies,’ Bunny says. Just like her Mama, she always craves comfort. Her voice is light but she moves heavily, pulling herself from the sofa and plodding out with Carrie right behind her. In the kitchen, Mary sits at the tired old table.
‘I’m sorry, Gran.’
Mary does not look at her. In front of her, amongst the Tupperware and cakes, her hearing aids lie where she has wrenched them from her ears.
‘You go and have your shower,’ Carrie says to Bunny, gently pulling her into the hall. ‘I need to make that call.’
Fear has animated Carrie’s body for the last ten years.
She has been coiled, filed down to a point of hyper-vigilance, ready to spring at any danger.
Taking out a restraining order against any Curtiss in a ten-mile radius, refusing to accept DNA tests or letterbox contact, or anything asked of her.
Once such a people pleaser, she has turned herself into a shield, stopping any advances dead.
Anyone offering friendship could be working for them, any of Bunny’s school friends could be a distant relative.
She has traced, followed and manoeuvred to avoid this.
She has refused to let Bunny have a phone, and she herself will never have one again.
The trouble they cause is insurmountable.
But the thing she’s been most terrified of all these years has happened anyway.
Not the prison break, not even Bunny going to see him.
That’s horrifying, absolutely devastating, but nothing is as frightening as Bunny defending his mother just now.
Talking about his family members as if they are real human beings, as if they are her family.
Or could be. Bunny will never have a parental relationship with the man who murdered her grandmother, but she could be slowly nibbled at by the rest of the family until they have consumed all her goodness.
Until there is nothing left. No trace of the girl she and Emma created from the mess that she and Ashley made.
She hears Bunny’s footsteps in the bathroom upstairs, the thud as she steps heavily into the shower, the shudder of the old pipes as they’re asked to give it their all.
This old cottage constantly creaks and sighs, rhythms she steadily re-learned after moving back in.
Pepper pleaded with her to stay in London, but London was a crime scene.
He offered to help her sell this place, to move somewhere brand new and safe.
But that’s not what she wanted either. Dartmoor is penance and peace.
The last place that everyone she loved was alive. Mum, Dad and Emma.
She picks up the landline and wavers. It feels like a 999 situation but it also feels like panic. She is back in Waterloo, gasping fish-mouthed, worried about making a fuss, even in the face of that .
Her fingers brush the number 9 but she doesn’t commit.
Upstairs, there’s a heavy creak from Bunny’s room but the shower gushes on. The old house is cracking its knuckles in the cold.
She dials.