Mae stood in the graveyard as the crowds broke and drifted away.
She walked over to Theodore.
‘You told Sergeant Walters,’ she said.
‘It took me too long.’
Mae smiled. ‘But you did the right thing in the end.’
‘I think you helped me realise. You and the rest of them … on the beach, at school. Everywhere I looked.’
‘Realise what?’
‘That my Forever is Sullivan.’
She watched him walk over to his group. Mae guessed Theodore didn’t know his parents quite as well as he’d thought, because they wrapped their arms around him. And then his father shook hands with Sullivan.
The four walked together down towards the bay front.
Mae nodded at Sergeant Walters, who tipped his hat in reply.
‘Sally …’ Mae called, and caught up with her.
Sally turned.
‘That was …’
‘Did you see them?’
‘Yeah. And I saw you. Everyone was crying in there.’
‘Two days left, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.’
Someone had strung fairy lights around Abi’s gravestone.
They stopped in front of it.
‘You want to come down to the beach?’ Mae said.
Sally smiled, then shook her head.
‘Are you okay, Sally?’
‘I’m always okay. It’s just … I used to dream of more than that. I’ll see you around, Mae.’
Mae sat by Abi’s grave until the last of the church people left, until they were alone. She told Abi how close she came to being there for her, all the roads she had run down. She told her about the Forevers, how they’d given hope to so many. She talked about Sail, how she was going to a school dance. At that point she imagined Abi turning in her grave.
She stood by the far wall and saw the beach a long way below.
The light of a fire.
She knew Sail would be down there waiting for her, and maybe Betty and Matilda and dozens of others. Time had never been more precious, but right then Mae knew where she was needed most.
She knocked on the cottage door, waited a long time before it was opened.
‘Some people think the world is cruel,’ Mae said.
Sally blocked the doorway, her face pale and drawn. ‘And you?’
‘I really wanted to believe in karma. I mean, I needed it to be true. I needed there to be balance.’
‘Matching tattoos don’t fix everything, Mae.’
Mae glanced around at the picture-perfect scene, the wildflower lawn, the wishing well in the centre.
‘I know,’ Mae said.
At that Sally closed her eyes.
‘You’ve got me, and I’ve got you. Whatever you need to say.’
Sally, her tears fell then. ‘You don’t want this, Mae.’
Mae took her hand.
‘I thought I could disappear. If I ate enough.’ She looked at the stars. ‘I thought I’d be someone new. People still look, but they see something else.’
‘Your stepfather –’
Sally smiled. ‘He still saw me, Mae. How could anyone want this?’ She held up an arm and grabbed a fistful of the flesh that hung from it. ‘How could he still want this?’
Mae stepped forward.
Sally cried harder. ‘Please, Mae. Just turn around and go to the beach. Be with Jack Sail.’
Mae took Sally’s hand. ‘That’s not how this works, Sally.’
They walked through the house in half-darkness, up stairs that groaned under Sally’s weight.
There was a nameplate on her door.
SALLY, spelled in pink letters.
Mae thought she was ready.
And then Sally opened her bedroom door.
And Mae closed her eyes to the scene.
Oliver Sweeny lay on his stepdaughter’s bed, face down, his trousers around his ankles.
A large kitchen knife buried in his back.
So deep only the handle showed.
Mae stood there for a long time, just looking, taking in the pink wallpaper, the thick white rug, the blood soaking into the mattress.
‘Sally. Where’s your mother?’
Sally’s eyes never left him. ‘She said I was making it up. All those years ago. Even afterwards. She said he only confessed so I wouldn’t have to go to court. She said he was selfless, that he was protecting me. Barbara. Barbie. She wanted to play happy families. There’s only a few days left, Sally. You can be good for a few days. Isn’t it nice to have your father back?’
‘Where is she?’
‘Where she always is when things happen. Lying in bed, pretending to sleep.’
Mae left Sally in her room, then crossed the hallway. She took a deep breath before she opened the door.
She saw the shape in the bed.
Mae felt her heart thundering.
Barbie lay unmoving, her eyes open, her mouth fixed in a scream.
Mae pressed a hand to her and felt the cold skin. Then she turned and saw Sally at the door. ‘What did you –’
‘I sat on her. Right on her chest. I just sat there and asked her why. She didn’t answer, Mae. For the first time in Barbie’s life she couldn’t say a single thing to me. Couldn’t tell me I was disgusting. Greedy. Vile. That I was ruining everything.’
Mae steeled herself as she thought back to Oliver Sweeny’s file. The things he’d done to Sally. The things he’d made her do.
‘Have you called anyone?’
Sally seemed to shake herself out of it. ‘Sergeant Walters will come. I have to tell him what I’ve done.’
‘He’ll lock you up. You’ll die in a cell, Sally. Your … Oliver. You can say it was self-defence, but Barbie. I mean, temporary insanity or something. Sergeant Walters, he’ll follow the letter of the law. Selena will come and you’ll die alone.’
‘I’ve lived alone.’
‘Not any more.’ Mae looked at her, her mind beginning to turn. ‘When’s he coming?’
‘Tomorrow morning at eight. Oliver’s out early on parole. He comes into the house and has a coffee.’
‘You’ll say they left town. They’re leavers.’
‘He’ll come in. He’ll check the house.’
‘Then we have to get them out of here.’
‘Us?’
‘Not just the two of us. We’ll need help.’
‘You’re not thinking clearly, Mae. This … If Saviour 10 works then you have to live with this.’
Mae took her hand. ‘We do what’s right. We made a promise to do what’s right.’
Sally cried again.
Mae hugged her tightly.
‘But who’ll help us? Who’ll help me?’
‘You’re not alone any more.’
She found Sail on the beach.
He stood with Matilda and Betty and read the look on her face.
‘Sally’s in trouble. She needs help.’
‘Okay,’ Sail said.
‘Okay,’ Matilda and Betty said.
‘It’s serious. Like, the most serious. And even asking you to do this is –’
‘We said okay,’ Matilda said, and took Mae’s hand. ‘It’s not like any of us were heading up anyway, doll.’
In the old cottage Matilda clapped her hands briskly. ‘Sometimes it comes in handy having a mother who runs a cleaning business.’
Sail had taken charge quickly, poured Sally a large drink and sent her into the garden where she sat on her swing and watched the stars.
If they had been horrified, which they were, when they saw the position Oliver Sweeny was in, they quickly, and grimly, put the pieces together. Matilda’s eyes burned for a moment, and then she went to her mother’s small van and returned with a host of cleaning products.
Sail took off his jacket and worked quietly, wrapped the bodies in bedding and did not look at their faces.
Oliver was heavy.
Mae felt her heart pumping as they struggled down the stairs and out to Sail’s idling Mercedes.
Betty found the CD player and cranked the volume.
‘Blondie?’ Mae said, as Barbie’s shoe fell off.
‘Our love … it’s divine,’ Betty said, and winked at Matilda, who pulled on a pair of latex gloves and shook her arse in time to the music.
They dropped low when car lights swung in front of the house.
Breathed again when they faded into the distance.
They left Matilda and Betty dancing and climbed into Sail’s car.
‘You think there’s something wrong with Matilda and Betty?’ Sail said, looking back at the house.
Neither mentioned the back seat, or what would happen if Sergeant Walters was out and pulled them over.
‘I had no right to ask for your help with this,’ Mae said, still coasting on the shock.
Sail drove slow. ‘They deserved it.’
‘That’s it?’
He nodded.
They limped the car through the gates of Sail’s house and down a service road that curved through the rocks and came out by the jetty.
‘I wanted to get them on the boat, but it’ll be light soon.’
‘What then?’ Mae said.
‘The caves.’ Sail pointed up the beach a little.
It took them an hour to manoeuvre Sally’s parents across the beach.
Above them the sheer cliff rose to St Cecelia. ‘And if someone finds them?’
‘The tide … We’ll be dead by then,’ Sail said.
‘And if we’re not? DNA?’
‘We are an army of each other.’
‘But this … what Sally did, what we’ve done. I dragged you into this,’ Mae said. ‘I’ll find a way out.’
Sail took her hand. ‘Whatever happens, people like this don’t deserve our Forever.’
‘And if we get caught.’ Mae looked up at the church.
‘Then we’ll pray for a miracle. I think it’s time for God to prove his worth.’
They lay together on the jetty.
‘I thought you were soft, when I met you,’ she said.
‘I am.’
‘You’re not, Jack Sail.’ When he slept she leaned over and touched the water. And for the last time she crossed the town and broke silently into the Silvers’ pool house.
Hunter’s bed was made, Mae guessed she’d spend her last nights with Hugo.
The jewellery box was hidden at the back of an antique wardrobe.
Mae took the moon necklace from her pocket and placed it back carefully.
And then she noticed the false bottom.
She lifted the panel out carefully, and gasped when she saw it.