‘No, Adam. Her. That woman. The nanny. You seem to . . . to know her all of a sudden.’ If she’d not been married to him for so long, she probably wouldn’t have picked up on it. Sometimes she thought she knew him better than he knew himself. ‘What undercover work is she doing?’
Adam positioned his hands on his hips, and Lorraine watched his eyes track around the comings and goings in the hallway. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said unconvin-cingly.
‘But you do know her. I can tell.’ Lorraine was certain of this. What she really wanted to know is why he hadn’t told her when they’d encountered her before.
Adam shrugged. ‘You’re right. I do know her.’ Then he hurried up the stairs to join the two officers on the landing.
Lorraine waited a moment before following him, and then there was no chance to question her husband further because they were taken into a bedroom where the suspect had been detained. The shock of seeing Claudia Morgan-Brown handcuffed and being led by two officers from the bedroom blew everything else clean out of her mind.
*
For all of thirty seconds, Lorraine felt broody. She stared at the tiny mite bundled up in a white blanket and nestled safely in its mother’s arms. Its scrunched-up face peered out like a turtle’s head poking out of its shell, seeming to sense its mother was close, while its perfect little mouth lifted sideways at the slightest brush of her clothing or finger.
‘Boy or girl?’ Lorraine asked. She felt like a clumsy intruder in this most personal of moments. Judging by the way he was hovering by the door, she guessed Adam felt the same.
‘Another little girl,’ the man sitting beside the bed said. ‘I’m Clive,’ he added shakily. ‘I don’t know whether to celebrate or what. I get a dozen messages telling me the baby is on the way, then when I get here I find out that my wife has almost been killed. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Clive . . .’ the woman said.
Lorraine thought she looked drunk on her new baby. Either that or she was still in shock from the trauma. Lorraine remembered the sweet relief and aftermath of giving birth so well yet, oddly, it was a memory rarely called upon during the chaotic years of bringing up children. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she had discovered a dozen new photograph albums that she’d never bothered to look at.
The woman continued. ‘I can’t think about that right now, Clive, or I’ll lose it for certain. Let’s just focus on . . .’ She hesitated, staring down at her baby. ‘What will we call her?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Bloody lucky,’ Clive said.
Lorraine had been thinking exactly the same thing.
*
She drove home alone. She was exhausted and emotionally drained. Adam had gone with the arresting officers to the station, and as she pulled up outside their house, he phoned with the news. Claudia Morgan-Brown had just confessed to the attacks on Sally-Ann Frith and Carla Davis. She would be formally interviewed tomorrow.
For a few moments, Lorraine sat quite still in the car. The world went on around her – traffic cruising slowly down the road, a mother pushing a pram with a giggling toddler trotting along at her side, a man on a bicycle stopping to talk to his mate, the road sweeper pushing his yellow humming machine – and all this regular activity somehow made her feel safe, perhaps only a grasp away from normal life.
Once the engine was cut, the heated air in the car cooled quickly. She got out and went inside, hating the thought of coming back to an empty house. Stella had been picked up by Kate’s mum, and Grace . . .
Oh, Grace, Lorraine thought with a sorrowful clench in her heart.
Gone was the laughter and happy banter of her daughters as she came home weary from a day’s work, and lost were the fond jibes from Adam as they good-humouredly bickered their way through the evening in a flurry of hasty meals, catch-up, wine and, finally, exhaustion and sleep. She already missed the chaos of their normal family evenings. Instead, all she had to look forward to now were morose thoughts of how she’d let Grace down, of being a neglectful mother to both her girls, of having lost the love of her life, and, worst of all, of having lost her trust in Adam.
How could things ever be the same again?
She dumped her coat over the banister rail, chucked her keys on the hall table, and headed for the kitchen.
She stopped in the doorway. Grace was sitting at the table. Her school books were spread out in front of her.
Grace looked up slowly. Her eyes were heavy from lack of sleep, sadness, remorse.
‘Hello, Mum,’ she said.
‘Love,’ Lorraine replied, stepping forward. ‘You’re home.’ She shouldn’t have made the comment, she realised instantly. It sounded way too contrived.
Grace shrugged, fiddling with the page of a chemistry text book. ‘Yeah,’ was all she managed in reply.
Lorraine dumped her saggy leather handbag onto a kitchen chair. Had Matt finally managed to talk some sense into her or had she come back of her own accord?
‘Not that you care,’ Grace added, breaking the awkward silence. She shoved a couple of books across the table and leant back in her chair.
Lorraine could now see that she’d definitely been crying. No, not crying, exactly. That implied a mundane, everyday type of sadness that could be blown out into a tissue. This was more than that – a full-on sobbing, an expulsion from deep within her soul. The puffy red eyes and rivers of mascara that reached down to her jaw told a heart-breaking story.
‘Of course I bloody care, you silly girl.’ Lorraine sat down beside her. ‘I’ve done nothing else since the moment you were born.’
‘Then why are you and Dad always arguing? Why can’t you just be normal like other parents?’
Lorraine drew breath, wanting to jump in when Grace hesitated, but she bit her tongue.
‘Stella and I feel . . . we feel so forgotten and left out. In the evenings, you spend more time talking about bloody work instead of asking how we’re feeling. Have you even noticed that Stella got her ear pierced again?’
Lorraine just gave a little shake of her head. It hurt so much.
Grace stood up and went to the kitchen sink. She poured herself a glass of water and spun round to face her mother square on. ‘You’re so wrapped up in your own world. All you do is work, drink, and snipe at Dad. What’s he ever done to you, Mum? Jesus, you never even fucking smile any more. And then when there is a bit of drama, you still manage to carry on as if nothing has happened. I left home, I was about to quit school, Mum, get married, and you didn’t even care.’ Grace’s voice was strained with frustration.
Lorraine felt a welcome release inside as she noticed Grace use the past tense.
‘You really think I don’t care?’ She felt an unstable quiver between her words.
‘I don’t see how you can. You came round to Matt’s house to take me home but you just left me there. You never really wanted me back. You were glad I’d gone and—’
‘Enough!’ Lorraine said, standing up again.
Grace’s eyes widened.
‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You and Stella are my life. I would literally lay down mine for you. But I also have a job to do, a very stressful and demanding one.’ She took a couple of paces towards Grace, who remained firmly fixed against the sink. A deep breath focused her. ‘And you’re right about Dad and I having some issues at the moment.’
There. She’d said it. How would she reply if Grace asked what those issues were?
‘But nothing compares with your and Stella’s happiness. And I’m so very sorry if you feel I’ve been neglectful of that.’ Lorraine came closer and took Grace’s hands lightly in hers. ‘Do you know how it feels to have one of the people you love most in the world reject you in one swift blow, to have them walk out of your life with barely a backward glance?’
There was a moment when neither of them spoke, and then Grace burst into tears.
‘Oh, darling, my sweetheart, come here.’ Lorraine tucked her daughter ins
ide her arms and pulled her close. She let her sob onto her shoulder for as long as she needed, rocking gently back and forth until most of the sadness and despair had come out.
‘I do know, Mum,’ Grace said, sniffing and reaching for a tissue. ‘I know exactly how that feels. And I did it to you and Dad. I’m so sorry.’ Her words were punctuated by hiccups and sniffs.
Lorraine frowned. ‘Matt?’ she asked, pretending not to know.
Grace nodded and blew her nose. ‘He dumped me this afternoon.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ Lorraine said. And she genuinely was sorry for Grace that their relationship had ended, although, given time, she reckoned they would be able to remain friends. And Matt had hoped the same, when he’d come round earlier to tell them about it.
‘Grace had been falling behind with her schoolwork for a while, Mrs Fisher . . . Detective,’ he’d added coyly. ‘She’d been copying homework off friends and bluffing with teachers for ages. It was getting bad. Our relationship was really distracting for her. She said that . . . well, she said that she hated school and wanted to leave, that there was no point carrying on because she’d got so far behind with everything. I didn’t realise that us going out together had put such pressure on her. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining her life. I think there’s still time for her to catch up.’
‘I had no idea,’ Lorraine had replied, shocked that she’d not noticed any of this. ‘I always thought she was on top of her schoolwork.’
‘Well she’s not,’ Matt had said, shaking his head. ‘Then she told me that she wanted to get married and . . . and, oh God.’ He covered his face. ‘I should have said something sooner but I thought I was doing the right thing. I suppose I was flattered. By going along with her, I thought I was making it better for her. My mum’s so easy-going, she doesn’t mind who I have to stay at the house, and we didn’t exactly tell her about the getting married or leaving school bit.’
‘Go on, Matt.’ Lorraine had sensed Adam’s impatience as he stood behind her.
‘It kicked off a couple of weeks ago. Grace announced that she was going to leave school, and if we couldn’t live together and get married, then she was going to . . . she was going to, well, run away for good.’
Lorraine had taken a deep breath. ‘Matt, you’ve done exactly the right thing by telling us. Where is she now?’
‘At my house. Packing. If you must know, I’ve just ended our relationship. I told her to go home and go back to school.’
Frantic with worry, Lorraine had left a message on Grace’s voicemail, telling her to call immediately, that everything was going to be fine, that they loved her and she must come home.
And here she was now, shaking in her mother’s arms, fitting snugly inside the fold of her embrace. At first, Lorraine thought she was crying again, but when she gently tilted her daughter’s head back, she saw that Grace was actually laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You. Us. This.’ She wiped her nose again and tossed the tissue into the bin. ‘Our family. We’re a bunch of freaks, right?’ A nasal, snotty laugh again.
‘Definitely freaks. Freaking freaks,’ Lorraine added.
‘The freakiest freaks ever.’
‘Who’s a freak?’
They both turned. Stella was standing in the kitchen doorway with Adam looming behind her.
‘All of us,’ Grace told her younger sister, and they both burst out laughing. ‘Especially you.’
Lorraine glanced at Adam. His relief came in the form of a warm look above Stella and Grace’s heads as the sisters embraced.
Missed you, freak, they heard Stella mumble.
I was hardly gone came Grace’s reply.
Adam sidestepped round them and came over to Lorraine. ‘What a day,’ he said quietly in her ear. The feel of his breath on her neck made her shiver. She felt his leg against hers. It felt better. More right somehow. As if she’d only been an inch away from happiness all along.
*
‘So that’s that then. Grace is home. She’s going back to school. Drama over.’ Lorraine let out a huge sigh, one she felt she had been holding for most of her life, as she walked into the study.
It was late, and the girls had been in bed for an hour. On the way up, Lorraine had peeked into each of their bedrooms – a habit she used to indulge every night when they were younger. Now, as teens, she daren’t invade their privacy even when asleep. But this was different – the start of things being different.
‘It certainly is,’ Adam said, and the look he gave her as he peered up from his computer screen spoke way more than the words actually meant. His face began to form a half smile, but it dropped away as he remembered she was most likely still mad as hell at him.
Lorraine sat down on the wooden chair the other side of the desk. The study was a box room with a sloping ceiling and also doubled as a laundry-sorting room, occasional homework room when the kitchen was too noisy for the girls, and a bedroom with a fold-out futon, where Adam had been sleeping recently.
‘Good,’ she said, dragging the conversation out. Inside, she still felt the residue of anger and resentment. Her exterior probably just looked worn out. ‘I’m just glad we got her back.’
‘Me too.’ Adam stood and came round to the other side of the desk. He stared down at Lorraine. She felt as if he expected her to rise and mould herself within the curve of his arms, when what she really wanted to do was jerk her knee up hard between his legs.
‘I know it was Zoe, or should I say Heather Paige.’ She thanked God that her voice held out, crisp and determined. She was going to continue but, to her surprise, Adam was already nodding. It wasn’t a particularly vehement action, and it wasn’t contrite either. It was just a plain nod indicating that she was correct.
He folded his arms against his body. ‘To out her would have had serious repercussions. I knew she was a DC and that she’d done some undercover work. She was working on a fraud case. It was an unfortunate coincidence. Karma biting my arse, I suppose, but I had to keep quiet. What happened at the Christmas party was bad enough, let alone jeopardising both of our careers by blowing her cover.’
‘My heart bleeds for you . . .’
‘Don’t start with the clichés.’
‘Clichés, Adam? Your behaviour is the only cliché around here. Do you know how I feel right now, knowing that you shared a secret in my company? I don’t expect you to reveal that she was an officer, but telling me that you’d fucked her would have been the decent thing to do.’
Lorraine spotted the nearly full glass of red wine on the desk. ‘Do you mind?’ she said, reaching for it.
Adam nodded and watched as she gulped half of it down. They were only inches apart, and she let all the emotions rush through her. She was sick of fighting them, sick of having them.
‘I could kick you out, you know. Tell Grace and Stella what you did.’
Adam nodded. He seemed braced for anything.
‘I could go it alone with the girls. We’d be fine.’
For a moment, Lorraine held this situation in her head. She didn’t like the feel of it, not if she was honest. Grace and Stella needed their dad, however much of a jerk he had been. She drank more wine. And if she was completely honest, she needed him too.
Adam remained silent.
‘Whatever happens between us, there must be no more lies,’ she stated. ‘I can’t take it, and the girls don’t deserve it.’
Then, before he could reply, she found herself reaching for his hand. She was desperate to touch him. She noticed how tense he felt, and found herself thinking of everything she loved about him – his passion for sport and fitness, the way he encouraged their daughters to join teams and how he stood pitch-side, cheering them on in all weathers. The way she’d caught him looking at her over the years, as if she was as integral to his life as his own heartbeat. The way he played music way too loud in the car, and fell asleep in the cinema. The way he bought terrible gifts for her birthday and
always wore his baggy grey sweater with the hole under the arm when he had a Sunday off. The way he’d taken up golf last year then promptly given up, or the way he insisted on wearing brightly coloured socks in court.
Ridiculous, tiny things that, when added together, were bigger than life itself.
The way he just was . . . just Adam.
Lorraine shut her eyes. Everything tumbled through her mind, out of control and unbearable yet joyous, beautiful, and innate. The warmth, safety, passion, familiarity, love, worries, hopes and needs of her family flooded her thoughts. She couldn’t give up on him. This family had been her life’s work.
Putting down her wine, she drew him closer. She would try. She would try her hardest to forget, and every day when she woke up, she would promise to see the man she married, the man she loved and adored, instead of the man Adam had briefly messed with in a fit of bad judgement.
‘Stella needs new school shoes,’ she whispered against his neck as she brought her face up to his. He felt warm and familiar.
‘And the gutters need clearing out,’ Adam replied, allowing his hands to slide onto her hips.
‘There’s nothing for breakfast either,’ Lorraine stated as her mouth brushed across to his.
The kiss was unsure and gentle at first, apologetic yet forgiving. Then, through the meeting of their lips, a mash of searching hands and winding limbs, Lorraine thought she heard him mumble something about being sorry, about loving her always, but after that she didn’t really recall much else.
43
‘IT’S YOU AGAIN,’ he says, glancing up from the pile of work on his desk. The teacher grimaces at me before scowling at the twins. Between them they have made a Lego tower taller than themselves. Noah stands on a small chair beside it, holding the top steady while the whole structure bends in the middle.
‘This is the last time you’ll see me, I promise.’
At the sound of my voice, the boys both look up. ‘Hooray!’ Oscar sings out. ‘Zoe’s here!’ Noah jumps off the chair and they both run over to me. The tower comes crashing down.
Until You're Mine Page 32
