by Jill Mansell
“That was Sean. They’re taking Pandora into the operating room.” He was only thankful he had beaten Cleo to the phone. Sean had sounded as worried as he was. The last thing he needed was to have to listen to his sister’s drink-sodden emotional ramblings.
“But that’s terrible!” Appalled, Cleo struggled to sit up. “What’s wrong with her?”
“They don’t know. Could be peritonitis.” With too much to think about, Joel lost patience with her. “And I doubt if you care anyway,” he said icily. “Why don’t you just go to sleep?”
Chapter 54
The screech of an unfamiliar alarm clock jerked Cleo into consciousness at five thirty. Her recall of the events of the previous evening was, unfairly, both instantaneous and complete. Covered in shame and goose bumps, because Joel had evidently decided she didn’t deserve a blanket, she crawled off the sofa and let out a low moan as the first knifelike spasm seized her brain.
This is it, Cleo thought numbly, grateful at least that she was still dressed. Made my pass, totally blew it, couldn’t have gotten it more wrong if I’d tried.
The rest of the house was in total darkness. Padding upstairs, she looked in on Rose, who was fast asleep with one arm and one foot dangling through the wooden bars of her crib.
In the spare room, Joel slept. Cringing at the memory of his disgust with her—and who could blame him?—Cleo knew there was no point in waking him now. Instead, she gazed silently down at the tousled blond hair and dear, familiar profile and watched his tanned chest rise and fall in its slow, regular, reassuring rhythm. The longing to reach out and touch him was fiercer than ever. Sadly, she thought, so was Joel’s reaction likely to be if she tried it.
Downstairs, Cleo phoned the hospital, found out which ward Pandora had been admitted to, and spoke with the nurse on duty. When she had found out how Pandora was, she quietly let herself out of the house.
* * *
Sean, watching Pandora sleep, realized how much he loved her. It was as if he kept forgetting, only to be reminded of it, in a great rush of emotion, all over again.
When she opened her eyes moments later, her gaze fixed directly on Sean.
“What are you thinking?”
He touched the back of her hand. “That you gave me a hell of a scare.”
Pandora smiled briefly in return. “Nothing exciting. Only appendicitis.”
“Thank God.”
“I’m still not feeling great.” She winced, touching the dressing over the wound.
“You’ll be better soon. You look…” Sean hesitated, unused to expressing such thoughts aloud. “…beautiful.”
“Liar.” Pandora knew how she must really look, but it was nice to hear. She had been scared too. “It’s almost seven o’clock. You should be getting home.” She frowned. “I don’t know who’s going to be able to look after Rose while I’m in here.”
“I will.”
Pandora looked alarmed. “The doctor said I’d be in the hospital for three or four days.”
“I know. I was here when he said it.” Sean had spent half the night trying to think of someone who might be able to come to the rescue. The trouble was, everyone had jobs of their own. Short of hiring a nanny from an agency—a complete stranger whom Rose would have no time to get used to—he hadn’t been able to come up with anyone at all.
Now, offended by Pandora’s obvious lack of faith in him, Sean rose to his own defense.
“No big deal.” He shrugged as he spoke. “As you said, it’s only for a few days. She’s my daughter, isn’t she?” Sean grinned. “Rose and I’ll have a great time.”
* * *
“You bloody little animal,” Sean howled twelve hours later as Rose emptied a pot of strawberry-and-melon yogurt over her head. How anyone so angelic could do something so completely disgusting was beyond him. God, now it was beginning to drip down the back of her head onto the carpet.
Rose waited until he’d finished cleaning her up before gleefully—and noisily—filling her diaper.
Sean had to spray the room with half a bottle of Acqua di Giò to hide the appalling smell. By the time he came back from dumping the diaper in the garbage, Rose had rifled efficiently through his discarded jacket, discovering and helping herself to a packet of Rolos. She had also found a pen and was simultaneously dribbling chocolate and scrawling black felt-tip pen all over the blue-and-white Colefax and Fowler wallpaper at fifty pounds a roll.
“I hate you,” Sean murmured, wrenching the pen from her hands and wondering if the neighbors had heard him yell at her earlier. Knowing his luck, they’d be on to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in a flash.
Rose’s chocolate-brown eyes filled with tears. Appalled at the loss of the pen, she let out a screech of rage and wailed for Pandora.
“If you’re good,” Sean said through gritted teeth, “I’ll take you to see her.” But by the time he’d finished clearing up the chaos in the sitting room, Rose was screaming for juice. Next thing he knew, another diaper needed changing. Rose turned this into a marathon squirming contest and landed Sean a painful jab in the eye. By the time he managed to lever her against her better judgment into clean dungarees and two shoes that actually matched, visiting time was over.
“There, that’s your fault.” Sean glared at her. Rose, on the sofa, glared back. Her lower lip wobbled. Then, without any warning at all, she fell asleep.
“How has she been?” asked Pandora anxiously the next day when Sean arrived with Rose at the hospital. Rose, wearing odd socks and the remnants of that morning’s Weetabix, flung herself at her mother in delight.
“Terrible.” Was it really only eleven o’clock? He was exhausted. “A complete toad. I’m considering adoption.”
“What a gorgeous baby,” exclaimed one of the nurses. “And doesn’t she look like you!”
“Who, me?” Sean was taken aback; the nurse was definitely addressing him. He glanced across at Rose. Though he had barely been able to admit as much, even to himself, he had found it hard to recognize Rose as his daughter simply because she seemed to have inherited so many more of Pandora’s genes than his own. She had caramel-colored skin, candy-floss black hair, and enormous, dark-brown eyes. He knew she was beautiful, but it had never occurred to Sean that there might be any discernible resemblance to him.
“Of course you.” The nurse tickled Rose’s dimpled knees, making her squeal with delight. “Look at her eyes, the way she laughs. And what about those cheekbones…”
“Look,” said Pandora when the nurse had gone. “I spoke to one of Donny’s sisters on the phone this morning. She’s happy to look after Rose. Why don’t you call her?”
Sean grabbed Rose, who was about to nose-dive off the bed. He had no intention of admitting defeat. Nor did he need one of bloody Donny’s sisters to show him how it should be done.
“No need,” he said. “We can manage. We’ll be fine.”
* * *
It was Cleo, ironically, who prompted the real turning point.
“She’s a baby, for Christ’s sake.” Calling from Tunisia that evening to find out how Pandora was, she was treated instead to a litany of everything Rose had done wrong since lunchtime. “She doesn’t understand. She isn’t being naughty on purpose.”
For once in her life, Cleo was right. He had, Sean realized, imagined that Rose was doing everything deliberately to punish him for not loving her enough.
From that moment on, their relationship improved out of all recognition. Sean discovered that the less he shouted, the less Rose misbehaved. On the fourth morning, instead of hearing the usual call for Pandora, he went into the nursery to find Rose with her arms outstretched, beaming and yelling, “Daddy!”
Chapter 55
Steve the photographer was taking forever to set up each shot. It was all right for him; he was wearing three sweaters and a sheepski
n jacket. Hmm, thought Sophie, blowing on her knuckles to try to defrost them. So much for modeling being glamorous.
Not that she cared. It might be bitingly cold, but she was earning a bizarre amount of money for this shoot. And by the time today’s photographs appeared in Top Teen magazine—eight pages of Sophie Mandeville floating in ethereal fashion across mist-shrouded Cotswold landscapes in cobweb-fine dresses and lacy scarves—she would be well away, in Uganda.
Doing something useful with her life.
When they finally broke for lunch, the rest of the crew wasted no time piling into the picturesque pub they had already made their base. Situated on the brow of a steep hill above the tiny, haphazardly constructed village of Cinderley, the Salutation Inn was a charming, ivy-strewn old coaching inn run by a husband-and-wife team more than happy to accommodate a photographer and his entourage from London.
The home-cooked chicken casserole smelled terrific, but Sophie stuck to cheese rolls and a can of 7UP. There was a program about missionaries on Radio 4 she didn’t want to miss.
“Missionaries, eh?” Steve gave Sophie a great nudge. “If you want to know about positions, my darlin’, all you have to do is ask.”
“Ha ha,” said Sophie dutifully, because Steve might be a dickhead but he was also a good photographer. “I just wondered if I could have the keys to the BMW, then I can listen to it on the car radio.”
“Funny little thing.” As he made his way back up to the bar for the third time half an hour later, Steve glanced out the mullioned windows and across the parking lot. “Still sitting there listening to her precious program. I didn’t know we could even get Radio 4 in that car.” He winked at Titia, the fashion editor of Top Teen. “That Sophie. She doesn’t drink, you know. Or smoke. It isn’t normal, if you ask me.”
“Just get another bottle of red in,” Titia drawled, “and stop having a go. I think she’s cute. If anyone’s abnormal around here, my sweet, it’s you.”
* * *
Sophie had polished off three cheese-and-tomato rolls, two packets of smoky-bacon chips, and her can of 7UP. The radio program was jolly interesting, and she was enjoying being able to listen to it in peace. The view from where she was sitting was spectacular too: a deep valley dotted with honey-colored houses, seminaked trees, and the remains of the morning’s mist.
In the weak November sunlight, a narrow stream glittered. Sophie, heaving a sigh of contentment, wriggled and rested her knees more comfortably against the steering wheel. From the pocket of her denim jacket, she took a packet of gumdrops. The first two were pineapple-flavored, her favorite, and there was still twenty minutes of the radio program left to go. What more, thought Sophie, could a girl want?
When the passenger door was pulled open, she thought it was Steve, come to regale her with more missionary jokes, pinch her last gumdrop, and chivy her back to work. Instead, a complete stranger slid into the car.
“Right, get moving,” ordered a boy in his early twenties with spiky blond hair and piercing pale-blue eyes. He was wearing a combat jacket and grubby, mud-stained jeans.
“I beg your pardon?” Sophie turned and stared at him. “Do I look stupid?”
She glimpsed a flash of sunlight against metal. The next moment, a knife blade was jabbed into her ribs.
“Move it,” the boy hissed. “Just drive the car. Do as I say.”
“Look, I would if I could.” Sophie felt the coldness of the blade as it pressed against her. She shook her head. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. “Really, I would. But I can’t drive.”
“Fuck it…”
Any faint hope that Sophie might have had that this could be some kind of elaborate setup, a joke at her expense, crumbled as the knife dug into her side. She felt the skin resist. Then it gave way. Staring down, she saw a dark trickle of blood seep through the gauzy rose-pink crepe de chine of her twenties-style dress.
“You can have the car,” Sophie said rapidly. “Here.” She pointed to the keys in the ignition. “Help yourself. Just let me out, and you can go wherever you want. There’s plenty of gas—”
“I didn’t mean to do that.” The boy was gazing at the bloodstain on her dress. Before Sophie could reach the door handle, his free hand closed roughly around her wrist. “No chance. We need to swap places. Come on. Climb over me. I’ll drive, but you’re coming too.”
* * *
“What the—”
Spluttering in indignation, Steve moved across to the window to get a better look. “Jesus, I don’t believe it! Sophie’s got someone in the friggin’ car with her, and that’s not the missionary position she’s in either. Well, well. Reckon it’s true what they say about the quiet ones being the worst.”
“She must have arranged to meet a boyfriend down here.” Peering over his shoulder, Titia sounded amused. “The girl has some nerve, I’ll say that for her. Doing it in your car, in broad daylight.”
“Now what’s happening?” Steve’s expression changed to one of alarm as the car started up. “Bloody hell, he’s driving it. Is this a prank?”
“No prank.” Titia cringed as the BMW, tires screaming, shot out of the parking lot. “I swear.”
“You fucking swear.” Steve spoke through gritted teeth. His 5 Series, his pride and joy, was being driven off by a teenage lunatic. “What’s she doing, fucking eloping? I tell you, I’ll kill that stupid little bitch when she gets back.”
* * *
Her kidnapper’s name was Jez, Sophie discovered, and he was on the run from Taywood open prison where he had—until this morning—been serving eighteen months for burglary.
“I got a letter yesterday,” said Jez, “from my wife, saying she was leaving me. She’s gone and gotten herself another bloke. That’s why I had to escape. To see her, make her change her mind.”
Sophie nodded. “What happened?”
His blue eyes flickered. “She wouldn’t change her mind. I hit her. I suppose she’s gone running off to the coppers by now. But I’m not going back to that prison.” He glanced across at Sophie. “See, that’s why I needed you. Someone to bargain with. If they try coming for me, I’ll threaten to do something drastic. If they want you badly enough, they’ll have to let me go free.”
He was driving horribly fast. Sophie wondered where he planned to take her. She knew she should remain calm and try to strike up some rapport with Jez. For some reason, the fact that he was only twenty-three lessened the scariness of the ordeal. She couldn’t believe he would really harm her.
Except, of course, he already had.
“What’s your wife’s name?”
“Brenda. Silly cow.” His tone was dismissive. “You should’ve seen the look on her face when I turned up this morning. She looked like a tart. All that makeup. Why do women have to wear that stuff?” His gaze slid coldly over Sophie’s face. “You too. You look like a tart. What d’you have to put it on for?”
“I don’t normally. I hate it,” said Sophie. “It’s for a modeling job. That’s why I’m wearing this stupid dress too.” She touched the leather seat. “And this is the photographer’s car we’re in. We drove down from London at six o’clock this morning.”
Jez was looking interested. Maybe, Sophie thought, if he thinks I’m famous, he won’t hurt me. Leaning forward slowly, she said, “This sounds boring, doesn’t it?” and pressed a couple of buttons on the car’s state-of-the-art radio.
“You’re a model?” He sounded impressed. “I’ve never been to London. What’s it like?”
“Big and dirty. Around here’s much nicer. You can disappear in London.” Sophie, suddenly inspired, said, “You could disappear. Look, never mind keeping me as a hostage and bargaining your way out of this. Just drop me off here, zip up the motorway, dump the car, and lose yourself.” She felt in her jacket pocket. “I can even give you money for gas—”
“Jesus,” Jez sneered.
“You’re thick.”
Sophie’s shoulders drooped. “Sorry. I thought it was a good idea.”
“Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” Abruptly, his mood had changed. “You’re thick. A dumb tart.”
Elton John had been playing on the radio. Now, as the final poignant bars of the song died away, Sophie heard her mother’s voice.
“Lovely, lovely,” Cass sighed. “Goodness, isn’t that enough to cheer up the most miserable old day? And now, speaking of miserable old days, here’s Tom Archer with the weather.”
Sophie couldn’t help it. Her eyes filled with hot tears.
“What are you listening to that crap for?” Jez said rudely.
“It’s not crap,” whispered Sophie. “It’s my mum.”
* * *
Keeping the knife pressed against the small of her back beneath her denim jacket, Jez marched Sophie into the house.
“It’s nice.” Over her tears now, though black mascara still marked her cheeks, Sophie gazed around the small but well-maintained cottage.
Jez and Brenda had moved in here as newlyweds three years ago. Yellow-and-white Laura Ashley curtains hung at the windows. A blue-and-yellow kitchen opened out onto a small sitting room. On the floor in front of the television lay a smashed glass, a buckled brass photo frame, and a crumpled photograph of the happy couple on their wedding day.
“My dad went off with another woman,” said Sophie. “Mum ripped up a few photos too. She said it made her feel better. Oh please, there’s no need to tie me up.” Stifling terror, she shook her head. “I won’t run away, promise. Look, at least let me sweep up this glass. Then maybe I could cook us something to eat. You must be starving by now.”
“OK.” Jez, seeing the sense in this, chucked the rope back into the cupboard under the stairs. Then he shot her a warning look. “But don’t try and escape. I’ve got a gun as well as a knife.”
“And locks on every window,” Sophie reminded him. “So how could I get out anyway?”
