He gestured with his head, indicating the study behind him, and I hesitated, nerves suddenly swirling in my stomach. What did he want? If I went in there …
‘Please, Flora.’ He glanced down the corridor, checking that we were alone, then raised a hand and touched my cheek, his fingers barely grazing my skin. His touch sent a jolt of electricity through me, my eyes suddenly locked on his deep grey ones, my breath quickening.
‘Please. Just for a minute. I can’t … I can’t stop thinking about you. You must have noticed …’
His voice tailed off, and he moved closer to me, his other hand on my waist now, pulling me in until I could smell the fresh scent of his aftershave, the citrussy fragrance mixing not unpleasantly with the hint of red wine on his breath.
He was quite drunk, I suddenly realized, his eyes glassy, his stance a little unsteady, and the realization brought me to my senses.
‘Greg … no, I can’t. I’m watching a film with Millie, she’ll wonder where I’ve gone. And Annabelle …’
I placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed him away, and he took a step backwards, releasing me, face suddenly sagging.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Flora. Shit, that was so inappropriate. Can we forget it happened? Really, I was out of order …’
He sank his head into his hands and started rubbing his face, groaning.
‘It’s fine, don’t worry. Lunchtime booze and all that! Forget it, honestly,’ I said. ‘Look, I’ll see you later, OK?’
I half turned, ready to walk away, but he grabbed my arm.
‘I’d still like to talk to you though, Flora? Just for a moment, please?’
His tone was beseeching, a hint of desperation in his eyes now, and I stared at him for a moment. What was all this about? And then it hit me, a sudden wave of clarity washing over me. Of course. What an idiot I’d been. I knew exactly what this was about.
‘Look, maybe another time, OK? Maybe you need to sober up a bit? Get a coffee or something? We can talk another day.’
I turned sharply and walked away then, back towards the living room, the scar on my wrist tingling, and even though he was behind me I knew he was still standing there, watching me go.
I’d been right when I’d thought he was playing a game. He wanted to get close to me, yes, but the flirting, the ‘accidental’ touching, the long glances, none of that meant he really wanted me, desired me, not in that way. What he actually wanted, I’d suddenly realized, was to get me on my own, make me vulnerable, because he suspected that I knew, and he wanted to find out if he was right.
Because it was about him, you see. The secret thing, the thing I felt so guilty about keeping to myself, the thing I had to make sure Annabelle never found out, was Greg’s secret. I knew what he was hiding. I knew what he’d done.
18
ANNABELLE
‘Annabelle! Annabelle! Come here, quick!’
From across the room, where she was signing delegates in at a long table, Flora was waving at me frantically. I took a last glance at the coffee area, where everything seemed to be in order, and hurried across to her, a sudden wave of anxiety rushing over me. What was wrong? Surely there hadn’t been a mistake with the name badges or arrival information? I’d checked it all myself at seven this morning when we’d arrived, and there’d been nothing obvious amiss then, so what on earth could have happened … then, as I reached the table, my momentary panic subsided as I realized that Flora’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed mirth.
‘Flora, what …?’
‘Here, look.’
She tapped the list in front of her then waved her pen at me, urging me to come round to her side of the table. Puzzled, I did so.
‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
‘Hang on. Here you go, enjoy the day.’
She handed a folder to a woman in a sharp navy suit who’d just picked up her name badge, waited until she’d wandered off and then turned to me, eyes shining.
‘Yes, something is wrong. Very wrong. Clearly, one of our delegates had very, very cruel parents. Verging on child abuse, this is. Look. Look at the name of the company’s finance director, Annabelle.’
I peered at the piece of paper on the table, then back at Flora, frowning.
‘Huh?’
‘Oh Annabelle, you’re such an innocent. William Stroker. His name is William Stroker. WILLIE STROKER. Get it?’
‘Oh!’ The word came out as a squeak, and I gave a sudden snort of laughter.
‘Oh Flora, stop it! I thought something terrible had happened. You’re dreadful!’
I nudged her with my shoulder and she nudged me back, both of us tittering like twelveyearolds.
‘Well, something dreadful has happened. How am I going to keep a straight face when Mr Stroker comes to sign in? I mean, seriously? It’s all right for you …’
She groaned theatrically, and I collapsed into giggles again. To think I’d thought today was going to be deathly dull. The weather certainly was – one of those colourless, gloomy January Tuesdays, violent gusts of wind whipping loose twigs from the trees, my feet still damp inside my uncomfortable court shoes after I’d managed to step out of my car right into a deep puddle earlier, soaking my tights.
We were in Worcestershire, running a conference for an IT company at a small hotel on the edge of the Cotswolds. The Trout was a laidback, country retreat sort of place, with a mix of standard bedrooms in the main building and adorable little shepherds’ huts perched on the hill above, where guests could huddle in front of tiny log burners and enjoy the sound of the rain pattering on tin roofs from the comfort of luxurious feather beds.
The hotel, known for its Scandi-chic style, had begun outsourcing its conference management bookings the previous year, and this was the third event I had run here. The annual business meeting of GarrowTech was a relatively small affair, with just thirty or so delegates, and it hadn’t been a complicated job, especially with Flora on board.
A cosy meeting room, welcome packs and name badges, a sound system and projector for the presentations, and morning coffee, a buffet lunch and a sit-down dinner this evening had all been organized swiftly and efficiently, and once the business part of the day concluded at five this evening we could leave, the hotel manager agreeing to allocate key staff to take care of the delegates until they checked out tomorrow morning. Nice and straightforward, just how I liked it, especially at the moment. I had enough concerns at home suddenly, without work causing me issues too.
I remained sitting next to Flora, absentmindedly straightening the welcome packs and notepads on the desk as she began to cheerily check in the latest wave of arrivals, and began to worry again.
Oliver’s behaviour with Sienna on Sunday was one thing that was bothering me. He’d never been that nice to her, even when she was a tiny baby, but recently he’d been more aggressive, nastier, and I hated it. I’d tried to rationalize it in my head, tell myself that sibling rivalry was completely normal and that almost-teenage boy hormones combined with little girl stubbornness was an unfortunate mix, but it was still making me uneasy. To his credit, Oliver had come to find me and Sienna that evening, a couple of hours after his outburst, and had apologized, if grudgingly. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been his own idea … I’d heard Flora knock on his bedroom door a short while before that, asking him if she could come in for a chat, and I assumed she’d suggested it might be a good idea to say he was sorry. Even so, the apology had helped, but it still didn’t excuse his behaviour.
‘Uh oh. There’s only three people left on this list to sign in: Stroker and two women,’ Flora suddenly hissed.
‘And these must be them now, look. Willie alert!’
She gestured towards the door, where a trio of new arrivals were being greeted by Tom Griffiths, the managing director who’d been there pumping hands and pecking cheeks since the meeting room doors opened at eight.
The two women were both small and blonde, one in a pinstriped grey trouser suit, t
he other in a tight emerald dress and towering red heels. The man was rotund and ruddy faced, belly straining against the buttons of a pale pink shirt.
‘Hmmm. Probably finds it quite hard to find his willie under that stomach,’ Flora muttered.
‘Flora!’
I took a deep breath, feeling slightly hysterical all of a sudden. As Tom pointed across to where we were sitting, and the three newcomers began to cross the room, I took another gulp of air, willing myself not to start laughing again.
‘Flora, you’re killing me. Please call him William, not Willie, or I’m not going to be able to cope,’ I whispered.
Flora winked at me, then turned cheerfully to the three delegates.
‘Ladies, good morning. And you must be Will— I mean, Mr Stroker? Good morning to you too.’
Later, as the conference paused for lunch and Flora and I moved slowly through the meeting room, laying out fresh notepaper and bottled water for the afternoon session and putting chairs and tables into the requested rows now instead of in circular groups, my earlier good humour faded and anxiety began to gnaw at me again.
Greg was away this week, working at head office in London, and after a period of feeling secure and happy, for some reason in recent days I’d been back to feeling uneasy about him again too. Things had been good between us – great, in fact – but his occasional distracted moods, I had noticed, had become more frequent in the past few weeks.
After such a nice lunch on Sunday he’d disappeared into his study and barely spoken to me for the entire evening, and when I’d questioned him about it, asked if anything was wrong, he’d mumbled something about work and big new contracts and pressure, and told me not to worry about it, that everything was fine. He’d even dismissed my concern about Oliver’s latest assault on Sienna with an exasperated sigh.
‘All brothers and sisters fight, Annabelle. Didn’t you, with your sister, when you were kids? I know I certainly did. They’ll grow out of it, wait and see. They’ll be the best of friends in a few years’ time. Stop stressing.’
Now, he was away with work until Friday, and I knew that although I’d pretend everything was fine, although I’d be my usual bubbly self on the phone when he called me at night, in reality I’d be a nervous wreck all week, and my sleep would be disturbed by bad dreams, dreams about being abandoned in dank forests or walking alone, terrified, around dark, empty buildings. Classic anxiety dreams, my sister would have said.
Why was I so insecure? Greg was distant at times, but it was just down to work stuff, I knew that. And why did I always, when he was like this, get these stupid worries about other women wanting to steal him from me? This was Greg, my husband, the father of my children, the man I loved.
Even if, worst case scenario, there had ever been other women, even if my insecurities were justified, it didn’t mean he was going to leave me, did it? They would have just been blips, little dalliances, meaningless, inconsequential.
And he did love me, I was sure of that. He wasn’t always good at saying it, but he showed it in a million little ways – a squeeze of my shoulder as he passed my chair, a wink across the table, a kiss on the back of my neck as I stirred a pot on the cooker. The last time he said it, really said it, was when Zander Ashfield died.
He was there, of course, in the house, waiting for Millie, and I suppose that’s why he was so desperately upset – that tiny dead body in Flora’s arms, the police, the ambulance, the sirens, the panic, the chaos. He had swept Millie out of the house before she saw too much, but he had seen everything, and it destroyed him. He sobbed that night, wept inconsolably in my arms like a small, frightened child, told me that family was the most important thing, the only thing that mattered, that me and the children were his world and that he had no idea how he could live without us, without any of us, if something so terrible was to happen here.
‘I love you, Annabelle. I don’t say it enough, but I love you so much. And I’m sorry, so sorry, if I’ve ever made you feel that I don’t. This puts everything into perspective, doesn’t it? Life is so short, and you never know what might happen, what’s lying around the next corner. You know I love you, don’t you?’
I’d reassured him then, and through the following weeks. It was a horrific thing to happen, and absolutely dreadful to actually be there when it did, but even so I was surprised, and unexpectedly moved, by just how difficult my strong and usually fairly unemotional husband found it to deal with. He seemed to be struggling with it all, with everything that had happened on that shocking afternoon – the proximity of death, the loss of a child, even the questioning by the police, who’d talked to everyone who’d been there that day, everyone who’d witnessed some or any of Thea’s movements.
Greg’s sadness, his vulnerability, made me reach out to him even more than usual, and in turn we seemed to grow closer, more affectionate, happier. Clearly, nearly five months was enough for him to recover, though, because in recent weeks there’d definitely been a change, a feeling, just occasionally, that he was drifting away from me again, that his mind was elsewhere. Or was I imagining it? Everyone got stressed about work, didn’t they? I certainly did, and there was no doubt that Greg’s company had landed some huge accounts recently. That was probably all it was, wasn’t it?
‘They’re on their way back in … all shipshape your side?’
Flora’s question brought me back to the job in hand. I looked quickly around the room, checking.
‘All shipshape. Everything’s fine, Flora,’ I said.
And it was, I told myself firmly, as the delegates filed back in. Everything was fine. Say it, and it will be so.
19
THEA
‘It’s the thirty-first tomorrow. Almost February. This year’s going quickly, isn’t it?’
I looked at Rupert, who was sitting on the sofa opposite mine, and he grunted and shrugged, then turned a page of his newspaper and carried on reading, ignoring me. My attempts at small talk were not going well. I fell silent, tired of trying, and picked up an interiors magazine from the small glass table next to me, half-heartedly flicking through it, my mind elsewhere.
We were in Reading, at the clinic run by counsellor, Karen Ballerton, the woman recommended by Isla to help Nell with her mood swings and anger. Karen, a tall, gangly woman with wiry dark brown hair streaked with grey, large hoops swinging from her earlobes, had gently insisted that it would be better if she and Nell chatted alone, which had left Rupert and I sitting uneasily together in the small waiting room down the hallway.
I’d been surprised that he’d wanted to come – I’d planned to take Nell by train, as I wasn’t allowed to drive at the moment – in fact, my car had been sent for scrap back in October, the sight of it an unbearable reminder of what had happened, not so much a car any longer but a wheeled coffin, intolerable. But Rupert had said he wasn’t busy today, and that he could afford to take a few hours off to ‘try to sort my daughter’s head out’. He had asked me if he could just take her to Reading on his own, but I’d firmly told him I wanted to be there too – Tuesday was one of my days with her this week, after all – and he’d sighed heavily, given in and grumpily offered to drive us all.
So, here we were, the two of us, sitting together for the first time in months, just a few feet apart in this little overheated room, with its creaking black leather sofas, small TV tuned to a nature programme, the sound muted, and a coffee machine burbling gently away in the corner.
Nell, to my astonishment, hadn’t kicked up a fuss about today at all. I’d expected a fight, or a downright refusal from my wilful child to even get into Rupert’s car for such an appointment, but when I’d told her where we were going and explained why, she’d thought carefully for a minute then nodded.
‘OK. It’s a day off school I suppose. Can we get a burger on the way home?’
I’d looked at Rupert, who’d raised an eyebrow and grinned at me before turning to Nell and telling her, yes, of course, whatever she wanted. I couldn’t remember th
e last time he’d looked me in the eye, never mind smiled at me and, for a moment, my heart had leapt. Was he softening towards me, finally? Was this joint concern about Nell, about our damaged, troubled daughter, the thing that might fix us, bring us together again, even as friends?
The hope – in retrospect, pitiful – that my husband might still care, that we could somehow go back to something resembling normality, surged through me, but it didn’t last long. The drive to Reading was made largely in a silence filled only by Radio 4, and an occasional outburst of tuneless singing from the back seat, where Nell, wearing headphones, was bopping along to the new Little Mix album on her iPod. I loved my daughter with all my heart, but she could sing about as well as I could play the bagpipes, which was not at all.
There had been one brief conversation though. As we’d sped along the M4 at a steady 75, Rupert had cleared his throat.
‘Just for your information – I’m seeing somebody. Mia. She’s in accounts, at work. I haven’t told Nell yet but I will, soon, when it feels right. I’m just letting you know, in case she mentions it to you.’
The tiny little flame of hope from earlier, which had gradually shrunk as each mile of our silent, awkward car journey passed, dwindled to nothing and went out, and I stared out of the window, my body rigid, tears suddenly pricking my eyes. Seeing somebody. Already? OK, so we’d been apart for about four months, but even so …
I took a deep breath, willing the tears not to fall, and glanced over my shoulder. Nell, oblivious, was still humming along to her music, eyes closed, hands tapping her knees.
‘Right. Well, thanks for telling me.’ My voice was husky, and I coughed and continued. ‘If … if Mia is going to be around when Nell is there, I’d like to meet her too, though, at some point, if that’s OK.’
Rupert didn’t respond for a moment, indicating right to pull out and overtake a slow lorry up ahead. Back in the middle lane, he sighed.
‘Whatever. It won’t be yet. It’s early days, no need for her to meet Nell right now. But yes, OK.’
Am I Guilty? Page 12