by Linda Huber
Ella decided not to mention her adoption-related research. Time enough to bring that up if things did go pear-shaped with Rick’s job. But surely… There had never been the slightest hint the company wasn’t doing well. It would just be Rick worrying too much – the prospect of having a family to provide for would be more daunting now they were so close to the end of the process. It was time to do some serious confidence boosting.
Chapter Ten
Monday 18th May
Gareth’s walking tour was to start on Monday morning, one day later than he’d originally planned. Amanda and James had discussed this at length on Saturday – there were pros and cons about both days – but decided that Monday was the better choice. There would be no weekend hikers around, and fewer people meant a smaller risk. Or at least, a less-huge risk.
Amanda shuddered every time she thought about it. They were going to act out Gareth’s departure, she and James and Jaden. And how she would manage to stand at Lamorna Cove waving cheerfully as James – playing Gareth – disappeared round the corner, Amanda had no idea.
She woke at ten to six, her head thumping, and lay massaging her temples and watching Jaden sleep. She couldn’t face the bed in her own room, and the spare room, where Gareth had lain in his bin bags, was equally impossible. So she'd moved in with Jaden. What she was going through now was completely surreal. She and her baby – both babies – were stuck in the middle of the biggest horror trip imaginable and she would have to live with what she was doing for the rest of her life. She should have phoned for an ambulance. The police wouldn’t have arrested her, would they? Nobody could say she’d murdered Gareth. All she’d done was push him to stop him crashing into her and her unborn child. Doing things James’ way had turned her into an undercover criminal, and how sick was that? If only she could turn the clock back; if only she had never met him.
Thinking about James drove new shafts of pain through her head. She knew so little about him. They’d never talked in depth about their upbringing, plans for the future, friends. Those other girlfriends, for instance. She’d never seen any indication of them in his flat, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Thinking about the flat caused a fresh wave of misery to break over her. It was so bare... Few knick-knacks, no piles of books or old photos. She couldn’t begin to imagine what that might mean. Or she could, but she didn’t want to.
It’s not his home, whispered a mean little voice in her head. Fool that you are. It’s his pad, his love-nest. What normal person his age lives in a studio flat with no personal bits and pieces?
And then there was the baby. James hadn’t even mentioned it when they’d made their plans. Would he still stick by her? And the most terrifying thought of all – what if James wasn’t the father? Suppose he insisted on a paternity test when the baby was born – and suppose it was negative?
The nausea that accompanied her through most days pulled at her gut, and Amanda crept from the room. Jaden should sleep for another half hour. That would give her time to get her stomach under control.
James arrived on foot at seven o’clock. They were using her car – it was no longer hers and Gareth’s, was it? – so that she could pick him up at Mousehole after his walk, compare notes, then leave him in Penzance to catch a train home, safely separate from her and Jaden. James changed into Gareth’s jacket and distinctive red woolly hat and turned to Amanda, spreading his arms, waiting for her comment. For a moment she couldn’t speak. With his hair – slightly shorter than Gareth’s – covered, the only major difference between the two men was the eye colour. How she wished Gareth’s grey eyes were looking at her from under his red hat. But they weren’t.
She nodded, noticing James’ pallor. He was finding this hard too. Amanda tried to breathe her nausea away. She swallowed one of the anti-morning sickness pills left over from her first pregnancy, and got on with the preparations for their trip. Her hands packing the nappy bag were freezing and unsteady; she had never been this unhappy. She was living in her worst nightmare.
‘Okay,’ said James, when they were ready to go. ‘I’ll run round into the car, and if anyone sees me we’ll have to hope they think I’m Gareth.’ He picked up Gareth’s blue rucksack, packed with James’ own clothes. ‘You drive, and I’ll hide behind a map till we’re out of town.’
Amanda opened her mouth to say Gareth would never have done this, then closed it again. Nobody who might see them knew that either. ‘Have you got his phone?’
James patted the rucksack. ‘That’s all, isn’t it?’ he said, frowning. ‘There’s nothing we haven’t thought of?’
Amanda was past caring. If a policeman popped up in front of her now she’d have said, ‘Excuse me please, can you help? I killed my husband by mistake.’ She pushed Jaden into his jacket and handed James the car key.
‘Let’s do this,’ he said grimly. He opened the front door and ten seconds later was sitting in the front passenger seat.
Amanda locked up, and glanced up and down the street. As far as she could see no one was watching. Good. She belted Jaden into his car seat, hoping he would fall asleep for a while.
It was a pretty drive to Lamorna but Amanda was oblivious to the scenery. Her mind was buzzing. What if they were found out? Jaden, poor sweetie – what would happen to him? She stopped to let an elderly woman pushing a rollator cross the road, the panic surging inside her making it impossible to keep a steady hand – or foot. The car kangarooed away from the zebra crossing and Jaden gurgled in the back. James was slumped in the passenger seat, fiddling with his phone.
‘Was it okay for you to take the day off work?’ said Amanda, when they were about halfway there and the silence had become unnerving.
He started, then glared at her as if she was an errant child. ‘It had to be, didn’t it?’ He went back to his phone.
If she hadn’t been driving Amanda would have burst into tears. Was it really too late to stop all this? She could drive to a police station and lay out the whole sorry tale. And be on the front page of all the red tops tomorrow. And have Jaden taken away – they would give him to Susie to take care of. In Scotland. Amanda bit her lip, blinking hard. They had started this, and they had to continue.
‘What did you do with Gareth?’ she blurted out, and he glared again.
‘Keep your cool, Amanda. We’ve made our plan and we’re going to stick to it.’
Nothing more was said until they reached Lamorna Cove, the starting point of Gareth’s walk. Amanda buckled Jaden into his buggy and stared around. There were no cliffs as such here; the land sloped down to the sea, green, grey and brown alternating as grass and scrubland gave way to rocks and the ocean. The coastal path towards Mousehole began here, and Gareth should have done all this yesterday. The place wasn’t as deserted as she’d imagined; several hiker-types were stamping around as well as some locals, going about their business, cheerful in the warm spring sunshine. Amanda closed her eyes against the beauty around her.
James reached out and pulled her towards him. For a second she wondered what on earth he was doing and then she realised all he wanted was a word in her ear – literally.
‘Happy family, huh? We’ll go into the café first and make ourselves conspicuous. Nice and chatty,’ he murmured, taking Jaden’s buggy and striding towards the white building at the top of the cove. Once inside, he pushed the buggy over to a corner table, leaving Amanda to go to the counter to order.
‘Two coffees, please, and, ah… two fruit scones,’ Amanda said to the girl, forcing a smile. ‘It’s a lovely day, isn’t it? We’re seeing my husband off on the first leg of his walk. Wish I could go too, but the baby’s a bit young.’
She gestured across the room to where James was sitting with his back to them, playing a clapping game with Jaden. Infectious baby giggles filled the café and several people chuckled.
The girl nodded sympathetically. ‘You’re quite right. Some people do take kiddies with them, but if you ask me it isn’t worth the hassle and in some parts it’s
plain dangerous. Going far, is he?’
Amanda moved along the counter as she was joined by two middle-aged women. Now that she had started, the lies came almost automatically, because of course they weren’t real lies. If it had been Gareth over there with Jaden, everything she was saying would have been true.
‘He’s aiming for Plymouth, but we’ll see how far he gets by Friday. We live in St Ives so I can pick him up anywhere.’
She paid for the coffee and took the tray across to the table. This was the bad bit. She had to sit here and drink bloody coffee and act all normal and cosy.
They spent most of the time chatting to Jaden, who was in good form, waving to the women at the counter. It was all Amanda could do to force down her scone. She should never have ordered anything so complicated – slapping butter on a fruit scone was the last thing she felt like doing.
Twenty minutes later they left the café, Jaden still waving to all and sundry and James blowing his nose, covering his face with a large hanky. Outside, the show continued, with Amanda buying a paper at the kiosk and James pointing out various landmarks before hugging both Jaden and Amanda fondly and setting off along the coastal path. Jaden played his part magnificently, waving and shouting, ‘Bye-bye-bye!’
Tears running down her cheeks, Amanda waved too as James disappeared round the corner – how crap this was. She was crying because her life had turned into a horrible mess, but an observer would think the tears were for her husband away on his tour. And now she had to hang around for hours, her and her guilty conscience. The plan was to pick James up at Mousehole, the next village along the path. This time he’d be wearing his own clothes and Gareth would be gone. They would slink in and out of the place as unobtrusively as possible.
At one o’clock James was safely back in the car. Relief made Amanda positively light-headed. The plan had worked; they could go home. She drove towards the anonymity of Penzance, glancing across at James, slumped in the passenger seat. ‘Did you remember the phone?’
He slugged water from his bottle. ‘In the Atlantic, with the rucksack. And the hat’s about three yards away from the edge of a steep drop into the sea. Thank Christ that’s over. Bits of that path are bloody murder, you know. I don’t know why more people don’t go over the edge. It’s up to you now, Amanda. We shouldn’t see each other in the next week or two. Get rid of your mobile in case you don’t manage to delete all traces of me from it. I’ll do the same. We can both get prepaids and use them to contact each other. I’ll send you an old-fashioned letter with my number, then you can call me.’
‘What about the baby?’ said Amanda, fear churning in her gut. She would be on her own for weeks, her and her guilt – and the ghost of Gareth haunting her every time she closed her eyes.
‘Well, that’s sort of up to you too. Not much I can do about it yet. You’ll be all right financially, won’t you? I mean you’ll get a widow’s pension of some kind, and I guess he had life insurance too, didn’t he?’
That was when the full horror of her situation hit Amanda. She was going to be – no, she was – a single mother with two children and nobody to provide for any of them; she would have to get a job. Misery hit her like something solid. Maybe she should move to Glasgow to be near Susie, but would she find work there? Her own parents lived in Spain, maybe she should go to them. But she couldn’t support herself in Spain with two babies, either.
Penzance Station loomed up in front and James pointed to an empty space.
‘Let me out, and move on immediately,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget to have a chat with someone tonight, a neighbour if possible. You want to sound absolutely normal. In fact -’ He gave her a sudden and dreadful grin. ‘You could confide that you think you might be pregnant but you’re keeping it as a surprise for Gareth when he gets back. You’d never say that if you had anything to do with his disappearance. I’ll be in touch.’
As soon as the car was stationary he leapt out and strode across to the station entrance. Tears blurred Amanda’s sight as his back disappeared among a party of pensioners descending from a coach. That would be the last she would see of him for ‘a week or two’.
‘Bye-bye-bye,’ said Jaden.
Amanda pulled back into the traffic. She had to get away from here, this place she wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near.
‘That’s right, darling,’ she said to Jaden, hearing her voice shake. ‘Daddy’s on holiday.’
‘Da-dada,’ said Jaden, and Amanda swallowed hard. Jaden wouldn’t remember Gareth. All her child would have of his father were the photos and videos they’d made. She should get them saved properly for Jaden when he was older.
But first she’d have to wait until Gareth was officially missing and then dead.
What had James done with him?
Chapter Eleven
Thursday 22nd May
Ella lifted her phone, catching sight of her reflection in the display. She was wearing a permanent grin these days. The adoption had been approved on Tuesday, so all being well Soraya would move into her new home within the next few weeks. Everything was coming right, and today was another huge landmark – her new daughter’s first overnight stay. It was excellent timing as this was the half-term week, so there were no school restrictions. The little girl’s last visit to St Ives had been cancelled because she had a bad cold, so Ella went to Redruth. She’d sat with a feverish, snuffling Soraya on her lap, reading a story about a dragon and thinking that next time she’d be able to do this in the comfort of her own home. It was happening, it was all coming right – she was to be a mother.
She called Mel to confirm the visit could go ahead, and was told Soraya was packing her bag already. Ella arranged to be there at eleven, and golly, when had she last been so excited? It would have been better if Rick could have taken the day off too, but the India contract was apparently about to hit another wobbly phase, so he was needed at work – bad timing, but there was nothing they could do about it. All Ella could hope was that the current uncertainty wouldn’t make Rick nervous around Soraya. That could affect the entire atmosphere, and she wanted the first sleepover to be fun for them all. And now to tell Rick that the visit was definitely on.
As usual first thing in the morning, Rick was outside. He was obsessed with gardening at the moment, going out before work each day to make sure his seedlings in the shed had survived the night, and to lovingly water and fertilise them. It wasn’t something he’d bothered about before. Maybe the new enthusiasm was because they’d soon have a child to nurture – Rick could be starting an ‘Earth-father’ stage in his life. Well, there was nothing wrong with home-grown vegetables.
‘Pooh! It’s a bit pongy in here,’ she said, putting her head round the shed door.
Rick was hunched on a stool beside the tomato plants, staring into space. He leapt to his feet and glared at her. ‘Haven’t you heard of knocking before you come in?’
Ella’s patience deserted her, and for a moment she stood there struggling. Knocking on a garden shed indeed. But if she snapped back, the day might be ruined, and that was the last thing she wanted. She drew a deep breath and instantly regretted it. That fertiliser smelled like nothing on earth.
‘It’s ten to eight; you’ll be late for work if you’re not quick. And good news, Soraya’s much better this morning so the visit can go ahead.’
‘Wonderful. And stop behaving like my mother.’
‘There’s an answer to that.’ Ella stared round the shed. As well as tomato plants, Rick had courgette seedlings and tiny lettuces – but the smell couldn’t be down to such miniature veggies. ‘Rick, have you got something illegal in here? Because if you have, get rid of it. At least until the adoption’s finalised.’ She tried to keep her tone light, but privately she was beginning to wonder what was going on. Could he be growing wacky-baccy?
Rick sprayed water over the seedlings and she could see his hand shaking . ‘Don’t be so stupid. It’s the bone meal you’re smelling. It’s good for the soil. Let’s go.’
He chivvied her out of the shed and demonstratively double-locked the door behind them.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Ella.
‘There’ve been a few break-ins recently,’ he said, jogging back indoors and lifting his briefcase. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
Ella made an effort to put the scene in the shed behind her. This was an important day for them as prospective parents. ‘Don’t forget you’re taking the Smart car today. And if you can get away a little earlier we could take Soraya to look at bedroom furniture.’
‘Can’t promise, so don’t say anything to her. There’s plenty of time for that, anyway.’
He left the house without kissing her goodbye, and Ella heaved a sigh of – yes, of relief. It had come to that. Her husband was so grumpy she was glad to see the back of him in the mornings.
With the weight of Rick’s bad temper gone, Ella went to make sure everything was ready in Soraya’s room, the grin back on her face. She was going to have a lovely time today no matter what.
Soraya was at the window when Ella drove up, still rather red of nose but much livelier than she’d been on Tuesday.
‘Auntie Mel says you’ve got a surprise for me at your house,’ she said, the moment Ella walked in the door.
Ella glanced at Mel, who mouthed ‘Photo’.
‘I certainly have,’ said Ella. She had spent most of Sunday making a family album for Soraya, and it was waiting on the little girl’s bed. ‘Anything you want to do here before we head for home?’
Soraya shook her head, and Ella took her hand. Soraya knew they were to be a ‘forever family’, but Tuesday, when the child was so poorly, hadn’t been the time for an in-depth talk about it. Ella had opened a bottle of Prosecco on Tuesday evening, but Rick was moody and the celebration of parenthood turned into a bit of an anti-climax.
