Abby placed her bank card on the counter. ‘The maximum possible, please.’
The cashier asked her to place her card in the reader and enter her PIN, which Abby duly did. The cashier viewed her screen and then wrote a number down on a piece of paper and pushed it under the window. ‘This is your balance.’
Abby didn’t need to look at it. She knew exactly how much she had in the account. She suddenly wanted out of there, didn’t like leaving Ellie so long, didn’t like drawing attention to herself. ‘So how much can I take out?’
‘Well, usually for sums over two thousand euros, we ask for advance notice, just so we have the cash available,’ started the cashier.
‘I need more,’ said Abby. She forced a light smile. ‘Whatever you can do.’
‘OK,’ said the cashier slowly. Abby smiled again, as casually as she could.I mustn’t seem weird, she swiftly reminded herself. They agreed on a figure, Abby produced her passport and then she waited while the cashier counted the notes, mentally urging her to hurry up.Keep calm, keep calm.Eventually it was done and with an envelope of euros padding out her bag, she hurried back to the car.
‘Let’s go,’ she said to Ellie, starting the engine. She needed to get away. The experience in the bank had left her guilty, nervous, feeling like a fugitive. A heavy responsibility suddenly weighed on her shoulders, its load crushing her. She felt her heart race, had to fight for breath.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Ellie.
I have to be, thought Abby.But I need time to think. To fix this.
‘Give me your phone,’ she said to Ellie.
Her sister looked at her quizzically but did as she was bid. Leaving the engine running, Abby got out of the car and strode up the road. She took Ellie’s phone and, with a quick check that no one was watching, dumped it in a bin. Then, with reluctance, she took her own out of her battered old handbag and did the same thing. The money would pinpoint them here anyway. But nothing else. Not for a while. Not while she worked out what to do.
Going back to the car, she got in and drove away.
FIFTEEN
Every now and then Ellie would glimpse the Tyrrhenian Sea from the car window, and every time she did, somewhere she registered it was further away, until she suddenly realized she could no longer see it at all. She made herself sit up and pay some attention for the first time in what felt like hours. She looked out of the window – properly – and saw they had long ago left the town and were deep in the Tuscan hills. The road was quiet and, as they climbed, Ellie could see olive groves and vineyards for miles and, at a distance, the occasional hilltop village, its russet roofs glowing in the late afternoon sun. The horizon was punctuated with the stately height of cypress trees that cast growing shadows across the landscape.
‘Where are we?’ Ellie asked.
‘Heading north,’ said Abby.
Ellie looked over at her sister, with her hands fixed firmly on the wheel, her gaze set ahead. She was leading, as ever, had made all the decisions ever since...Ellie shuddered. It had all been so quick, such a blur, that part of her didn’t think it was real.
Then a picture flashed into her mind – her mother’s closed eyes as she lay on the patio. Everything quiet, everything still, and then slowly came the blood. The horror of that deep red trickle would stay in her nightmares forever. Her mother. Her dear, darling mother. The woman she loved so much.The woman who poisoned me as a child.
The agony of grief that had been hurtling through her at an unstoppable speed was suddenly halted. Ellie was speared by confusion and a need to understand.
She tried to think back all those years, tried to remember scenarios, moments, meetings with doctors, anything to ground what Abby had said, to make sense of it, realize it for herself, but all she could recall was her mother’s tenderness.
‘What did she do?’ she started tentatively. ‘When you saw her that time. What did Mum do?’
Abby glanced across. ‘She was pouring liquid paracetamol into your food.’
‘Oh my God.’ Ellie was silent for a moment. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old was I?’
‘Six.’ said Abby.
Ellie calculated. ‘And you were nine.’Still quite young. Maybe Abby made a mistake.
‘Can you tell me exactly what happened?’
‘It was a school day. You were in the living room, lying on the sofa, unwell. You hadn’t been to school that day. Mum was in the kitchen, making dinner. She thought I was outside, playing in the street, but I’d come in for a snack. I was starving. You remember the blue fruit bowl that she used to keep on the counter by the kitchen door?’
Ellie nodded. It had had white flowers painted around the outside.
