‘Speaking of her birthday,’ he says, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you what I can get her.’
First Dale, now Jason. I don’t answer him.
I do get the feeling this is leading to something else. I look at him and see an unsettled look pass over his face. I stop putting clothes into the machine.
‘Is there something wrong?’
Jason looks at me abruptly.
‘Because this is starting to feel weird.’
He leans against the kitchen table and I can see the reluctance in his whole body. His shoulders are hunched over, the outline of his sharp shoulder blades protruding through his thin grey T-shirt. He looks over at me and I raise my eyebrows.
‘What’s wrong?’
His blue eyes are partially hidden by strands of dark-brown hair, which fall into his eyes. He sweeps them back before he speaks.
‘This is a bit weird for me. I mean . . .’ he says, suddenly more animated, placing his beer bottle down on the table. ‘Iain had to explain to me that this isn’t the first time stuff’s been left outside the house. He said there was an incident last week.’
My face screws up in confusion, but it’s brief, fleeting, because I know almost in an instant what he’s talking about. Who he’s talking about.
Her.
Ruby Tate.
‘Shit,’ I say, easing myself back to sit on the floor, one of Iain’s dirty work T-shirts still in my hand.
A silence hangs heavy in the air between us. Jason doesn’t know what to do. He looks out of his depth. He’s not used to being around me like this, in this setting.
He edges closer to me after a few moments have passed. ‘You OK?’
I look at him. ‘What was it this time?’
‘A note.’ He pauses. ‘It was insulting, aimed at you.’
‘Is that all?’ I say, slightly relieved. Confusion crosses his face. ‘Last week it was dog shit through the letterbox,’ I clarify.
‘Oh.’ He scratches his head. ‘I had no idea.’ He reaches forward, offering his hand, and I take it, let him pull me up from the floor. Once on my feet, he shoves both hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘Iain’s never said anything about this woman before.’
A thought rushes through my head then. ‘Did Elle read it?’
‘No. No, I scrunched it up, hid it in my pocket until she was inside the house.’
‘Do you still have it?’
He shook his head. ‘Iain took it, but he filled me in on a few things. He’s worried about you, Charlotte. He said he’d be showing the police.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t want him doing that. It’s nothing really. Nothing we can’t handle.’
‘Didn’t look like nothing.’
‘There’s no need for concern.’
‘Charlotte, Iain said it was best that I was here to watch Elle. He obviously doesn’t think this is nothing.’
I turn to him. I’m mortified. ‘Look after Elle? Why, did Ruby threaten my daughter?’
‘What?’ His face screws up. ‘No, God, no, but given that you’d . . .’ He trails off.
‘Given that I’d forgotten my daughter, Iain wanted you to watch her until I got home.’
He nodded.
‘Iain mentioned the charity fete thing you’ve got planned with Savannah.’
I look at him, waiting.
‘Maybe, given Ruby . . . Maybe you should cancel it?’
I look at the floor. I thought the whole thing with Ruby wasn’t getting to Iain. He’d told me to try and ignore it all, try to move on, at least until the trial.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Don’t keep asking me that.’
Jason’s looks at me now and, as I feel tears pricking at the backs of my eyes, I realise I can’t lose it in front of him. I don’t know him nearly well enough.
I shake myself. ‘Thanks, Jace, but I am not afraid of Ruby Tate.’
‘It’s not about whether you’re afraid of her, it’s about whether it’s worth risking her—’
‘Jace,’ I snap. ‘It’s fine. I’m OK . . . We’re OK.’
He looks unsure whether to believe me or not. I sense he doesn’t believe the bravado.
I swallow hard, try to control my voice, my face. ‘We’ll be OK. Iain will be back soon and I’m sure you’ve got things to be getting on with. Your girlfriend must be missing you. We can’t take up any more of your evening.’ I smile at him. I need to hold it together.
He doesn’t look convinced. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘We’re good. I promise.’
Even to my own ears, I don’t sound convinced.
*
Elle looked crushed when Jason told her he was leaving, but after about ten minutes she’d clearly forgotten all about it.
She sits opposite me now across the kitchen table. She’s not really spoken to me since Jason left. I can tell she’s angry but I did catch a hint of remorse in her eyes earlier. I think she knows I’m being hard enough on myself and that she doesn’t need to punish me quite so bad.
She sighs as she flips over a page in her textbook.
She’s finishing off some art history coursework, while I browse online.
At least that’s what she thinks I’m doing.
I’ve actually just logged on to Facebook, and after the initial relief at seeing there are no new private messages from her, I type her name into the search box.
Ruby Tate.
One tap of the button, and there she is, top of the search list of women with that name.
I stare at her tangled mess of long, dark-brown curls, brown-almost-black eyes staring back at me, further accentuated by some stupid Snapchat filter.
The woman’s thirty, for God’s sake.
It looks idiotic but I’m starting to think maybe there’s something more sinister here than I had first thought. Maybe the whole selfie-style idiocy is just a clever front?
I click on her name, and her profile fills the laptop screen.
Her profile has a few things that are public. Mostly it’s the same selfie shots (complete with the filters!) that fill the page but I look anyway and, after a few seconds, I see something of interest. A link to several local newspapers and another to an online petition.
The news articles are about the accident. Most of them will give all the details of Paul Selby, the man who caused this whole mess, the case coming up for trial. None of the articles will, I’m confident – no, I know – go into too much detail about me, but then there’s this link to the online petition.
I see the main headline displayed without the need to click to go to the actual page.
Install traffic cameras on the Linkway – Sign the petition now!
Oh, what a surprise.
So, the Linkway.
It’s the road where my car was all but destroyed and, despite being a main cut-through across the village, there are no cameras on that particular stretch of road.
Ruby Tate thinks this will help her boyfriend in court when he pleads not guilty to dangerous driving and use of a mobile while behind the wheel of a fuck-off-tonne HGV.
Yes, Ruby is Paul’s girlfriend and she’s launched a one-woman crusade to clear his name, despite the evidence stacked against him.
I cast my eye over the comments under the link. A few people have just written ‘Signed!’ but one or two comments are attacking me. I click away from Ruby’s page, the harsh words lingering in my head.
I pull my reading glasses off my face and rub my eyes, forgetting I still have my makeup on; I look at my fingers, see smears of mascara, and curse under my breath.
I look up when I hear Elle tut at me.
She gives me a half-smile. I hope this is a truce without any words needing to be spoken. What few memories of Elle as a little girl I do still have flood my mind.
There is vagueness surrounding the half-terms and the long, six-week breaks in summer, but despite the lack of something solid for me to latch on to, I know I was rarely around for her, even then.
It makes me feel enormously sad and regretful.
The memories I do have when I did manage to take a break from work, I can barely remember.
The accident, the head injury, it’s taken a lot of precious memories. They should mostly return to me, but that doesn’t stop the feeling of sadness when I look back at photographs and can’t recall the emotion that should be attached to them.
Elle’s first birthday is patchy. Her first day at nursery is but fragments of random parts of that day. I remember her first Christmas well but the rest is still fragmented. I can remember the week leading up to the accident reasonably well, although there are gaps. These gaps are the one thing my solicitor is a bit worried about, but still, there is time yet for all the memories to come back before this goes to court.
Elle hands me a tissue for my fingers.
‘Thanks,’ I say, as I wipe mascara off my fingertips. I feel her eyes on me, though, and when I do finally look at her, I see something’s bothering her. ‘You OK? I’m so sorry for today.’
She looks like she’s choosing her words carefully before speaking them.
‘It shook me up, I can’t lie,’ she says. ‘No one likes walking that path beside the Linkway.’
This crushes me.
I reach out and take her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve done this to us.’
‘It’s not your fault. I know that, but you worry me.’
‘I can’t help how I feel, Elle.’
‘I know, and I know some of it is to be expected, but I do wish you’d trust me more. I can make my own decisions.’
I remove my hand from hers.
‘You’ve made it hard for me, for your father. After the accident—’
‘I know what I did then, but I was stupid. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t know what to do or say around you. I didn’t want anything to set you back but you were acting weird and Dad was . . . well, you know?’
I wince inwardly. I think about the box of pills in our bedroom.
It’s these ripple effects that no one really ever talks about or prepares you for.
It’s times like this that I want to tell Elle all about my brother, Miles. Then maybe she’ll see why, before my accident, I was so scared to really bond with her, really connect like a mother should do. Since my accident I’ve gone out of my way to change this.
I look at her, really take her in. She looks uncomfortable. ‘Look, I know you’re under a lot of stress. Dad, too, with the business . . .’
She shuts up when I frown.
Has Iain really been talking to our daughter about money problems? If so, why not come to me?
‘I’m sorry, Mum, about earlier. I was angry, but that’s not what’s really bothering me.’
I look at her fully in the face and see the child she still is, looking back at me.
This almost vulnerable side of Elle, most people never see. True, she can be a nightmare, packed full of hormones and thinking she has the weight of the world on her shoulders, but there’s another side to her and I know she loves me, even if she does like to portray me as the enemy, and her father as the saviour.
‘Mum, I know the real reason Jason stayed with me until you came back home.’
I let her words sink in, trying not to give too much away. It pains me that something like this is worming its way into our little nucleus.
‘I saw the note left on the door. I didn’t read any of it. I pretended not to see it when Dad took it off the door and tried to hide it, but I knew it must be to do with the acc—’ She breaks off abruptly. ‘I mean, what happened.’
One thing Elle never likes to do is remind me of the collision. As if the face staring back at me when I look in the mirror each day isn’t reminder enough.
‘It’s nothing,’ I say, and replace my glasses on my face and look at the laptop screen again.
‘Mum, you really should take it to the police. They can warn her off. There are laws to stop this.’
That throws me. Elle’s not as naïve as she likes to make out sometimes.
‘It’s nothing, really.’ I smile. I’m not sure if I speak these words to convince her, or myself.
‘Mum, I know Dad won’t say this to you directly, because he doesn’t want to upset you, but—’
‘You mentioned about going to Milton Keynes to shop for something for your birthday,’ I say and, when I see the exasperation on her face at my attempt to steer the conversation away from the uncomfortable, I feel bad.
I should be able to talk to my daughter.
I should make her feel like she can come to me about anything. I don’t want her to feel like I did with my own mother. A mother I never see. It’s sad, and the last thing I’d ever want is not to feel close to my only child. She might be growing up, but she’ll always be my baby.
Still, I’m trying to protect her.
Ruby Tate is not going to ruin this weekend with my family and a day at the shops with Elle.
I know I still need to talk to Iain about postponing Elle’s birthday party, and I’m dreading bringing it up with Elle even if I do get Iain’s support. I try to stay positive.
‘I know Dad said about a car, but that’s really not a guarantee. But maybe we can look at something else?’
She goes to speak but stops herself. She gives me a nod, a disappointed look, then gathers her schoolbooks and bag and retreats upstairs, leaving me alone with my thoughts, waiting anxiously for Iain to get home.
CHAPTER 7
When she finally got back to the house, it was late. Madeleine parked in the driveway, killed the engine and slumped forward, arms resting over the steering wheel. She let her forehead rest on her arms and sucked in a deep breath.
Releasing it, she spent a few moments just listening to the sound of the car settling, the engine cooling.
‘You’ve got this,’ she said to herself. ‘You can do this.’ She forced her head up, uncurled her body and stared ahead at her house.
A modest, mid-terraced building, it looked homely and inviting, a soft glow coming from behind the living room curtains, but Madeleine wanted to avoid going inside.
She imagined Nick, asleep on the sofa, having given up waiting for her to come home and have dinner with him and the kids.
He was a very busy man too – an IT consultant – but lately he always seemed to be making it back in time for evening meals, rearranging things to see the kids’ school assemblies and pick them up from after-school club.
Madeleine’s eyes rose to look up to the first-floor windows; her room to the left, and Connor’s to the right. His light was off. Sam’s room faced the back garden but she guessed his room was in darkness too.
She had missed the kids’ bedtime for the fifth night in a row.
Slumping back in the driver’s seat, she took her work phone from her pocket. She stared at the screen for a few seconds before she switched it off. If anyone wanted her, they’d have to call the house phone.
She wanted to salvage what was left of the evening with Nick at least.
She got out of the car, locked it and heaved her record bag up higher on her shoulder, wincing at the weight of the files inside causing strain on the strap.
Madeleine had thought she’d find Nick asleep on the sofa once inside, but he was in the kitchen.
‘Hey, you,’ he said, peering over his black-rimmed glasses. ‘You look like shit.’ He smiled when she flipped her middle finger at him, as she dumped the bag down with a thump at her feet.
‘How are the boys?’ she said, slipping off her coat and hanging it out in the hallway. ‘Sam didn’t give you any problems, I hope?’
‘No, but Connor gave me a run for my money.’ He tapped out a few lines on an email as he spoke, eyes squinting at the laptop screen. ‘Thought they’d do a tag team when they realised you wouldn’t be home for bedtime.’
Madeleine looked regretful. ‘Sorry. The missing girls—’
‘I know,’ he said, cutting in. ‘I saw the news. It’s terrible.’
‘We have another missing.’
Nick stopped typing and looked up at her. ‘Christ, really?’ He gestured to the laptop. ‘I’ve been on this thing most of the day, been avoiding the temptation to go on the net, so I hadn’t seen that.’
Madeleine leaned down to kiss him on the cheek on her way to the microwave and rubbed her chin afterwards when the bristles of his black beard chaffed her skin.
‘Bryony Keats. Media have been alerted and they’ve been reporting on it, but there’s a press conference tomorrow morning.’
She pulled open the door to the microwave.
She saw the simple meal on a plate, long gone cold. She turned, cocked an eyebrow at Nick. ‘You cooked as well?’
He grinned. ‘I multitasked.’
‘How very twenty-first century of you.’
‘Don’t get used to it,’ he said, closing the laptop. ‘I’m back in the office Monday.’ He eyed her up and down as if seeing her for the first time today. He patted his hand on the chair next to him. ‘You sit, I’ll pour you a glass of wine and heat your dinner up.’
He got up from the table and wrapped his arms around Madeleine, pulling her close.
‘I’ll have a beer,’ she said. She kissed him briefly, then pushed herself away from him and headed for the hallway. ‘I’ve got some work to do after I’ve eaten.’
Upstairs she crossed the hall and looked in the first bedroom. Sam was asleep, only the top of his head visible where the covers had been pulled right the way up.
Madeleine kissed his head gently and went into the next room along. Connor was under his covers, too, but Madeleine caught the light under the sheet just flick out when she opened the bedroom door.
‘Connor.’
Silence.
‘Connor, it’s late,’ she said, pulling the sheet back.
Connor had his eyes shut, but in his hand was a small torch he often used for reading when the lights were out at bedtime. Next to him was a Thor comic.
Madeleine stared down at her ten-year-old son, almost the mirror image of his brother, who was younger by three minutes.
Madeleine had been thirty-five when she had the boys, and after a difficult pregnancy and labour, she’d known she wouldn’t have any more children.
Her boys were both headstrong, sometimes a handful, but they both had good hearts. Madeleine saw Connor’s eyes twitching underneath his eyelids, then saw one open a fraction. He was watching her through his eyelashes.
Pretty Little Things Page 7
