Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

Carrick and I look at each other. No alarm system.

“Andy likes to have the flowers watered, he insists.”

“Daddy is gone, Mommy, remember?”

“Alice likes to pick the petals and use them for her art.”

Mary May sucks in air. “Don’t you dare say her name in my company,” she hisses. She empties the water back into the lake, takes her mother’s elbow, and guides her back to the house.

“Where are they all?” her mother asks, in a desperate childish way. “Why won’t you ever tell me? I want to see my children. I want to know that they’re all safe. I want to say good-bye.”

“You don’t need to say good-bye, you’re safe here with me, remember? Just you and me, Mother, we don’t need the others.”

Carrick and I watch them go back inside the house.

“She’s even more messed up than I thought,” he whispers.

She’s training the future Whistleblowers. I think of Art and of how much she’s poisoning his mind. Who knows what she has told him about me. She could tell him any lie and he’d probably believe it. And am I trying to make excuses for Art again? I shake him out of my head.

A light goes on in the front room.

“Mother’s bedroom,” Carrick says. “Where the hell do we find this snow globe? It could be anywhere.”

“The garage,” I say, looking to the connected building.

“How do you know?”

“Her mother said she’s looking for something in the garage. It must be in there.”

We see Mary May pass by the back door again, then another light goes on and reveals the kitchen. She keeps walking and goes into the connected garage. A light goes on in the two high windows. The only way into the garage is through the house, or through the car entrance at the other side.

We hear thrashing sounds, boxes being moved, crashing, then screaming, demented screeching. It’s disturbing, like a witch being burned at the stake, a tortured scream of anguish and frustration.

It sounds as though she’s trashing the place, and I’m afraid she will smash the globe and find the footage hidden inside, or damage it. It’s chilly outside, the breeze coming from the lake. I shudder in my thin T-shirt; Carrick takes me in his arms and kisses my neck, and I’m warmed instantly by his body heat.

Mary May searches for twenty minutes, then there’s silence. She’s exhausted from her frenzy. The light goes out in the garage. She appears in the kitchen, haggard, her hair standing up crazily, loose from its usual pristine bun. She goes to the sink, takes a drink of water, stares outside almost as if she’s seeing us. I shiver again and Carrick tightens his grip on me.

The light goes out and she disappears. Her bedroom is in the front of the cottage, her mother’s facing us in the back.

“I say give her forty-five minutes, then we’ll move,” Carrick says. “It’s going to take her a while to settle after that frustration.”

I sigh impatiently. So close yet so very far.

“We can’t wait that long, Carrick. If Crevan discovers that I’m free, who do you think he’ll call? She’ll be the first one.”

“I told you, we have time,” he says, looking at his watch. “They’ve delayed the surgery until the morning. Your mom isn’t going in for at least another seven hours. She won’t be going in alone. Tina is guarding Juniper. Crevan isn’t there. Everything is okay. If Crevan arrives, Tina will let me know.”

“Seven hours is too much time.” I shake my head, thinking of all the things that can go wrong in that time. I settle down to watch the house, with a sick feeling in my stomach.

Granddad locked up in Highland Castle while they build a case against him, their line about holding him for twenty-four hours an unsurprising lie; Juniper in a dodgy makeshift hospital, my mom about to barge in there declaring injustice and criminality; Carrick on the Wanted list. We’re all in danger now. I can’t drag them down with me. This plan needs to work.

FIFTY-ONE

WE WATCH MARY May’s house like hawks. Forty minutes later, when it is still and she hasn’t stirred for some time, we make our move. Carrick ducks down and moves quickly across the yard, to the garage, to see if he can gain access without needing to go through the house. There’s no door, no lock to fiddle with, no glass to break, and the two windows high up are too narrow to slide through. We have no option but to gain entry through the house.

I go to the mother’s bedroom window, heart pounding, and gently rap on the window, praying Mary May isn’t inside.

Her mother appears at the window, which startles me. A bright white gown, skin and gray hair more eerie than angelic in this light. I put my finger across my lips. I motion to the front door and she moves quietly. The door opens and I step inside, leaving the door open for Carrick, and follow her to her room. The house is so quiet and I tiptoe, while Carrick and his boots are so heavy it’s harder for him to be nimble through the house, so I almost have a heart attack each time he bumps something or the floor creaks. The house smells of baking, mixed with a stale musty stench.

Across the narrow hall is Mary May’s bedroom. The door is ajar, presumably so she can be on the lookout for her mother’s wanderings. I go inside her mother’s room and close the door gently.

“Sit, sit,” she says, holding her hand out.

I sit in the chair beside her. She is sitting up in her bed, propped up by pillows.

“I’m ready for him,” she says, lifting her chin bravely.

I freeze, not knowing quite what to say, hoping Carrick will locate the snow globe before this all unravels.

“Do you know what it is that Mary’s searching for?” she asks again. I nod.

“You will find it for her?”

“I’m trying,” I whisper.

“And will it make it right again?”

I nod.

“All I want is to see my children again,” she says, her eyes filling with tears, her voice sounding childlike. “She took them away from me.”

I reach out and hold her hand to comfort her.

“She was always a little … peculiar. As a child, she wanted things so much, too much. She loved Henry so much; she was … obsessed with him. When Henry fell in love with her little sister, Alice, Mary couldn’t bear it. She turned on Alice, turned on everyone in the family who hid it from her. She tore us all apart.” Her tears fall; even after all this time, the pain is raw. “But despite what she has done, I’m her mother. I just ask that the Lord is kind to her,” she says, pleading at me with her eyes. “She has hurt so many, but it is because she is hurting.”

I offer her a tissue, and she wipes away the tears.

She gathers herself, as if preparing for what’s about to come. “I’m not scared. I think it means that I’m ready.”

There’s a rap on the bedroom window and we both jump with fright. I’m sure it’s all over now; Mary May has called the Whistleblowers. They’ll be outside surrounding the house, a helicopter hovering above with a spotlight on me. Flawed TV capturing the live arrest. Heart pounding, I pull back the curtains and it’s Carrick, shaking the snow globe at me.

“Who is it?” she asks fearfully, pulling the blankets tight around her.

I feel giddy, the adrenaline pumping. I take her hands and squeeze them warmly. “It’s not your time to go,” I whisper.

“No?” she asks, surprised.

I shake my head and smile. “Go back to sleep. You will see your family soon. I’ll make sure of it.”

I help her lie down, wrapping the blankets tightly around her tiny frame. She closes her eyes and relaxes, a smile on her face at the very thought of her reunion.

FIFTY-TWO

SIX HOURS LATER, Raphael Angelo and I are in Judge Sanchez’s home. A glass-and-marble penthouse apartment in the tallest building in the city, it’s a stark contrast to Raphael’s mountain retreat. There is big money in being a Guild judge, branding citizens and looking down on others, from the bench in the courtroom to the penthouse apartment in the city. People are mere specks in the park below her window, almost nonexistent, decisions are made without a connection to humanity.