Don't Let Me Go (22 page)

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

His expression was grim as he looked off towards the airport. ‘Make sure I can get on that flight,’ he replied, ‘and if Rick’s on his way in from Auckland, I’ll be there to meet him off the plane.’

Chloe was in the corner of an armchair with Boots, keeping her head down and pretending she was invisible.

The lady was back on the sofa, watching TV. Every now and again she sucked on a little white stick and blew out smoke like a dragon. Chloe was scared of her even though she spoke in a kind voice like Auntie Shelley’s and kept asking her if she was all right. She didn’t know if it was a trick so she kept her face buried in Boots.

‘Won’t you eat something, petal?’ the lady asked, crushing her little stick in a saucer. ‘You haven’t eaten all day.’

Chloe didn’t look up.

‘What about your bear? Isn’t he hungry?’

Boots didn’t want to eat either.

They just wanted to go home to Mummy.

The lady sighed and used a remote control to change the channel.

A few minutes later she was saying, ‘Oh my God,’ in a way that made Chloe tense even tighter.

‘So that’s who you are,’ she said. ‘Wow, no wonder I’ve only got you for a couple of days.’

Chloe peeped up and her heart gave a leap. A big picture of Mummy was on the TV.

‘Mummy,’ she whispered, starting to cry. Why was Mummy on the TV? Could she see her and Boots? Was she going to come to get them now?

‘Oh, there, there,’ the lady said, coming to comfort her.

Chloe buried herself back in Boots. She didn’t like the way the lady smelled. Why didn’t she take her back to Mummy?

‘Poor little thing,’ the lady murmured, stroking her back. ‘It’s all right, no one can get to you here. You’re nice and safe with me.’

Spotting his father’s car as he came out of Kerikeri airport, Rick went straight to it. ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded as Bob started the engine. ‘Where’s Charlotte?’

‘They’re taking her to Auckland,’ Bob informed him, driving out to the main road.

‘And Chloe? Shelley said . . .’

‘We still don’t know where she is, but we’re working on it.’

‘Poor thing,’ Rick murmured, ‘she must wonder what the heck’s going on.’

Pulling up outside the Marsden Winery where a tractor was turning in with a trailer full of bottles, Bob killed the engine and turned to his son. ‘She’s not the only one who’s wondering that,’ he said bluntly.

Rick bristled. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means why the hell would Katie go digging around the way she did if it weren’t for
you
and whatever the . . .’

‘Just a minute,’ Rick cut in angrily, ‘I’m not taking responsibility for what’s happened . . .’

‘Oh yes you are. You’re engaged to be married to that girl, then Charlotte comes on the scene . . .’

‘There’s nothing between me and Charlotte.’

‘Well Katie obviously thinks there is and now look where we are. And please don’t tell me you’re not taking responsibility again, or I swear to God I’ll swing for you.’

Stunned, Rick said, ‘If I’d had any idea what Katie was going to do, don’t you think I’d have stopped her? And we don’t even know if it was her yet. It’s what I’m here to find out . . .’

‘And then what? What are you going to do with her after that? She’s got plans for the wedding, we all have . . .’

‘I know that, and I’m sorry, but right now Charlotte has to be our main concern.’

‘Don’t tell me where my concerns lie. I’m perfectly clear about that, I just wish you were. But I’m telling you this, if you’ve got some idea in your head that . . .’

‘Dad, will you get off my case?’

‘No, I won’t. It’s time you heard a few home truths about what an embarrassment you are to me.’

‘You want embarrassing,’ Rick cried savagely, ‘then how about you start dealing with the fact that I’m gay!’

Bob blanched as his next words turned to air.

‘Yeah, that’s right, Dad,
gay.
I like men, not women, that’s why I can’t get married, or hold down a relationship with a girl, but I keep trying. Oh yeah, I keep trying all right, not for me, for
you
, because I’ve always been afraid of what it would do to you if you knew the truth. Well, you know it now. I’m gay and whether you like it or not it’s not going away. It’s who I am and I’m not going to feel ashamed of it any longer.’

Bob was looking as though he’d been punched. His eyes were glassy, his breathing laboured as he tried to take this in. He started to speak, but hardly knew what he wanted to say.

Letting his head fall back against the seat, Rick closed his eyes in dismay. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I never meant to tell you like that . . . I . . . Oh Christ, Dad, I’m sorry, OK? I get how hard this is for you . . .’

Bob started the engine. ‘Does Katie know?’ he asked stiffly as he started to drive on.

‘I haven’t told her yet. I was going to tell you both, at the weekend.’

‘So why did she go digging around about Charlotte?’

‘Because like you said, she thinks there’s something between us. I can see now, if I’d told her straight away why we were splitting up she might not have done that . . .’

‘No, she might not have.’

Rick turned his head away.

‘Why the hell did you allow her to think you were going to marry her if . . .’

‘Because I did intend to marry her, I swear it, until I realised I couldn’t go through with it. But it wasn’t her I was finding it so hard to be honest with, it was
you.
What you think of me matters more than just about anything, and I was afraid you’d cut me out of your life . . .’

‘What the hell are you talking about? Cut you out because you’re
gay
? What kind of father do you think I am? All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. Don’t you think if you’d come to me I’d have understood? I thought you knew me.’

‘What I know is how important it is to you to pass Te Puna on to your son and heir, who’ll pass it on to his son and heir . . .’

‘Christ, Rick, what do you think we’ve got going here, some sort of dynasty? We’re not the bloody Rockefellers, or the royal family . . .’

‘I know that. I was just afraid . . . God, I don’t know what I was afraid of. I guess Charlotte was right when she said I was the one who couldn’t really accept it, so I made out like it was you who had the problem.’

Casting him a look, Bob said, ‘I suggest we talk about this later. Am I taking you to Katie’s now?’

Rick nodded.

‘Does she know you’re coming? She’s been avoiding Shelley.’

‘I know, but I’ll catch up with her. What are you doing after you’ve dropped me?’

‘Getting a flight down to Auckland. They’re taking Charlotte by road.’

Closing his eyes tightly, Rick muttered, ‘I’ve screwed up so badly. I’ve caused a major bloody catastrophe through being a coward . . .’

Unable to offer much comfort right now, Bob let the silence run until they were pulling up outside the salon. ‘If you want to fly back to Auckland with me tonight,’ he said, ‘I’m on the six o’clock. Please, just don’t walk out on Katie if you think she’s in danger of arranging any more payback for being dumped.’

Failing to see what worse she could do, Rick got out of the car and turned back to his father. Before he could speak, Bob said, ‘Later. Call me when you’re done.’

In the end Rick found Katie at her Aunt Sarah’s, huddled into a relaxer with a blanket around her legs and a bunch of ragged Kleenex clutched in one hand.

‘We’ve seen the news,’ Sarah told him, her normally sunny demeanour looking disturbingly bleak as she gestured for him to sit down, ‘and I’ve just spoken to Anna. It’s terrible, awful. I can hardly bear to think of what’s happening to them.’

‘Did you know?’ Rick asked. ‘I mean before today.’

Sarah nodded. ‘Of course. Anna could never keep anything from me.’

Rick looked at Katie, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

‘It’s started up on the news now,’ Sarah told him. ‘I expect you’ve already seen it.’

‘Not really,’ he replied, inwardly cringing at how much worse the inevitable media storm was going to make everything.

Looking from one to the other, Sarah said, ‘Right, I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ll be down with the chickens if you need me.’

After the door closed behind her Rick said to Katie, ‘You know why I’m here.’

Still she couldn’t look at him as she struggled not to cry.

‘Was it you who told the police?’ he asked, feeling for how wretched she looked, and aching for how much he was hurting her.

‘If it was, then you only have yourself to blame,’ she mumbled.

Letting her words weight his conscience along with his father’s, he said, ‘Exactly what did you think you were going to achieve?’

Her eyes flashed as her head came up. ‘She’s stolen a child, for Christ’s sake. It was my duty to report it.’

‘Except we both know that’s not why you did it.’

‘How can you stand there trying to make me feel guilty when she’s the one who’s committed a crime . . .’

‘Do you really not understand what you’ve done?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘Didn’t you once spare a thought for Chloe and what you might be doing to her? You know what she went through before she came here, so you surely understand why Charlotte took her . . .’

‘Stop trying to make out like I’m the one who’s in the wrong,’ she retorted. ‘I did what anyone in my position would have done if they’d . . . What are you doing? Where are you going?’ she cried as he started for the door.

‘There’s no point in continuing this right now,’ he replied. ‘What’s done is done, we can’t change it, but I have to try . . .’

‘Please don’t tell me you still want her after what she’s done . . .’

‘She’s my
sister
,’ he shouted, throwing out his hands, ‘and Chloe’s my niece . . .’

‘She’s not your niece. She doesn’t belong to . . .’

‘She belongs here, with her family, and if you can’t see . . .’

‘All I can see is how pathetic you are. Charlotte Nicholls is a criminal, a kidnapper. She
stole a child
and now she’s going to find out what happens to people who
steal children.
’

Going back to her, he said, ‘It’s not your fault you’ve got everything so wrong, Katie, it’s mine. I know that, and I accept it, I only wish there was a way to change it, but there isn’t. We can’t be together, Katie, not because I don’t love you, because actually in a way I do, it’s because I’m gay. So you see it has nothing to do with Charlotte, or Chloe, or anyone else. We would never have been right for each other and now I’m only sorry I didn’t tell you the truth sooner – God knows how sorry I am about that.’

Feeling the lightness of relief, while struggling with the millstone of guilt, he continued to look down at her, waiting to hear what she would say. In the end, leaving her still stunned by his admission he returned to the door.

‘Rick?’ she said tremulously.

He stopped but didn’t turn round.

‘Is that really true? You’re actually gay?’

Turning to her, his heart aching with regret and pity, he said, ‘Yes, it’s true.’

Her eyes came to his, large and flooded with tears. ‘Is it Hamish?’

He nodded.

She nodded too, as if she should have known, and looked away.

He went on standing where he was, not sure whether to go to her or not.

‘I wish I hadn’t made that call about Charlotte,’ she said brokenly. ‘I swear, if I could take it back I would.’

Knowing she meant it, he told her, ‘I should go now, but we can talk again later if you like.’

When she didn’t answer he simply left the room, and after waving to Sarah in the chicken coop he returned to the main road to hitch a lift back into town. ‘Hi Dad,’ he said, answering his phone as it rang.

‘Where are you?’ Bob asked.

‘Just leaving Sarah’s. It
was
Katie.’

Bob sighed. ‘OK, well we knew it anyway, and we’ve got bigger problems than that now. I’ve just had some news.’

As he listened, Rick felt the breath leaving his body. ‘Can they do that?’ he demanded.

‘It’s not a question of whether they can or not, they
are
.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Rick murmured. ‘Does Charlotte know yet?’

‘I’ve no idea, it’s what I’m trying to find out.’

Charlotte was staring absently into the darkness as Grant steered the car through a U-turn and continued back down the busy highway they’d just come along. She presumed they were close to Auckland’s police headquarters by now, but she wasn’t taking in much of her surroundings, nor was she going to ask. She didn’t want to know. All she wanted was for this to turn into a nightmare she could wake up from, so she could find Chloe and get on with her life.

Where was Chloe now? Were the carers being kind to her? How much of what was happening did she understand? Imagining her sweet little face pale with fear, her eyes clouded with confusion, was tearing her apart.
Please God let them understand how important it is for her at least to speak to Anna.

During the journey Wex or Grant had kept asking if she was all right and she’d said yes, because what else could she say? None of this was their fault; they were simply doing their jobs, and even if she could persuade them to let her go, what would she do? No one was going to let her see or speak to Chloe even if she could find out where she was, and she knew she couldn’t.

Chloe, Chloe, Chloe.
The silent cries were like sobs shuddering all the way through her.

As the car came to a stop she looked out of the window and frowned in confusion. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked. ‘I thought we were going to the police station.’

‘There’s been a change of plan,’ Wex told her awkwardly. ‘The call I got, back when we stopped at the gas station . . .’

‘What kind of a change?’ she blurted. ‘I don’t understand.’

Opening the door for her to get out, Grant said, ‘I’m sorry, we were given instructions . . .’

As she tried to interrupt again a voice behind her said, ‘Charlotte Nicholls?’

She spun round to find two men in suits and raincoats coming towards her.