‘He was halfway across the field before I even set off,’ said Kit. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You did your best.’
‘Shit.’ He nodded towards the caravan. ‘Is she ok? Has she said anything yet?’
I shook my head. ‘Do you think they’ll catch him?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t . . .’ he spread his hands and looked down at empty palms as though the answer might be there, then shrugged helplessly. ‘I haven’t got a clue.’
‘I’d better tell her they’re on their way.’
Beth nodded at the news and muttered, ‘Thanks.’ I sat next to her on the cold steel step of the caravan and waited for ten minutes that felt like an eternity.
‘It is mine,’ she said suddenly.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘That purse. It’s mine. It must have fallen out of my pocket.’
I looked down, faintly surprised to see it still in my hand.
‘Here.’ I had to close her fingers around it.
At last, Kit called out that the police were on their way. There were two of them, a stocky man with a shaved head and a reedy woman with permed mousy hair.
‘She’s here,’ I said, rather unnecessarily.
‘All right, love,’ said the female PC, crouching to our level. ‘It’s Beth, isn’t it? Is that right?’ Beth nodded. ‘Ok, don’t worry Beth. We’re going to make you safe. We’re going to take you to a suite at the police station, where we’ll get a doctor to look you over.’
‘Will it be a female doctor?’ I said.
‘We’ve requested one,’ said the PC, but she was frowning. ‘Beth, do you need someone to accompany you?’ She looked at me, but Beth was already shaking her head.
‘We don’t know each other,’ I said. ‘I just stumbled across it all.’
The male officer cleared his throat. ‘We’ll take it from here,’ he told me. ‘I’ve got a colleague on the way to take a statement from both of you.’
Kit and I sat on the bonnet of the bumper car waiting to be interviewed. I picked harder at the broken seats while he twiddled a blade of grass between his fingers.
‘Why would he do that, just after an eclipse?’
I looked at him, appalled. ‘Or at any time. Jesus Christ, Kit. I can’t believe you said that.’
Things sometimes didn’t reach deep into Kit the way they seemed to with me, although once you pointed out why you were upset or angry, he always saw your point. He was, to his credit, mortified. ‘Yeah – sorry – I didn’t mean it like that . . . I just don’t get why—’
‘I know,’ I said, blowing out my cheeks. ‘We’re both in shock, I suppose.’ I tried to balance a little cloud of foam on my palm but my hands were shaking too much. ‘I should’ve got there sooner.’
‘Maybe you stopped him before he did anything worse,’ said Kit.
I let that thought sink in.
‘Are you my witnesses?’ Standing before us was a woman who looked like she’d just stepped from the streets of 1980s London. She wore a shiny black suit and had cropped blonde hair that meant business, harsh bright make-up that had been in fashion when she was about twenty and she was fucked if she had time to get a makeover.
‘DS Carol Kent, Devon and Cornwall Police,’ she said in a voice that had us both on our feet. ‘If you could accompany me back to the festival station, I can take your statements.’
There were two scuffed Portakabins side by side near the main stage. In mine, there was a police dog, a beautiful Alsatian, sitting with his handler. He grew excited, sniffing the air around me and straining on his lead, and my cheeks glowed as I realised he was probably picking up some trace of yesterday’s smoke. Someone gave me a cup of weak tea and I told DS Kent exactly what I’d seen, starting with the purse and including as many details as I could, although I grew clumsy and inarticulate when it came to describing the expression on the man’s face. They asked me the same questions over and over, as though testing me for consistency. I kept repeating variations of the same phrase. ‘If you could have seen him . . . if you’d been there, you’d understand.’
In the lull while my words were transcribed I heard snatches of Kit giving his statement next door. I caught him saying that he hadn’t seen the attack, only its aftermath, and I knew that he had gone into scientist mode. Observe, record, without prejudice. At that moment, I wished with all my heart that he had seen what I had seen behind the caravans, although later, when madness took me over, I was to be glad that he hadn’t.
Our statements were written down, read back to us; after we had given our home addresses, we were free to go.
‘Where’s Beth?’ I asked. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’
‘She’s been made safe,’ said Kent with an air of finality.
It was late afternoon when we finally signed our statements. Even though the festival had another night left, people were already taking down their tents and loading up their roof racks. Rumours blew through the crowd. ‘Someone’s OD’d in a field round the back.’ ‘No, apparently it was a mugging.’ ‘I heard it was a fight.’ No one came close to the truth.
‘I could do with a drink,’ said Kit. The main bar wasn’t licensed to serve spirits so we made do with the strongest thing we could find, a local gut-rot cider so potent they only sold it by the half-pint. We drank two each, too quickly, sitting cross-legged on the grass. Neither of us said it, but we were both watching the crowd for Beth’s attacker.
Even after two days of relentless dance music, the pop of the police siren made everyone jump. The crowd parted to let a patrol car through. Coming from the direction of the police cabins, it rumbled along at walking speed. Everyone was gawping through the back windows but Kit and I alone must have known the significance – if not yet the identity – of the passenger. He was leaning away from the glass, but I could still see him in memorised profile, spiky brown hair on top of a navy blue jacket. If I hadn’t already been sitting down I would have collapsed with relief.
‘They’ve got him,’ I said.
Chapter 10