Tank and the others departed, leaving Beechwood Farm feeling weirdly empty. Slowly, things got back to normality. Belle rode out on Lady Marmalade, helped Jack around the farm, and late in the afternoons they swam in the river, until the weather turned and it got too cold.
The police had been in touch, leaving a phone message at the house about Harlan. When Belle returned the call and explained that Milly – Harlan’s next of kin – was unwell, they told her that he had been found, dead and partially digested in the central pool of the zoo when someone in the nearby village had raised concerns about the animals kept there by the – clearly absent – owners of the house.
‘My God. That’s awful,’ she said.
She sometimes thought of him, spitting bile at her in his last moments while the caiman ate him. Sometimes, dreams about that day woke her, sweating, in the night. She didn’t know if there would be a funeral or a memorial for Harlan, and she didn’t want to know either. He was dead; that was enough for her.
As the days were shortening and the leaves starting to fall, Stevie brought Milly to the farm and then he too departed.
Milly was so changed. Thinner, more serious.
Belle hugged her when she arrived. ‘Mills! I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said.
Milly looked like she’d been through hell. When they spoke later, she told Belle that she still wanted the drugs, and that Stevie had told her she would want crack every day for the rest of her life but that she must never, ever take it, because that would be the end of her.
‘The parents kept us two out of it,’ Belle remarked. ‘The manor. The trade. That’s the one good thing they did for us.’
‘Yeah,’ Milly agreed. ‘Just that.’