Stepping away, Anna wiped angrily at her tears. ‘But you have changed. Even Selina said so.’
Sam was shaking his head as he considered sitting back down at the table so they could talk things through. He could tell her about Ruby, he could make her understand exactly how broken he really was and how no one could ever fix him, not Kirsten, not Anna – no one.
‘Is it every woman you’ve closed your heart to, or just me? Have you got your sights on someone else? Is that it? How about Laura, Sam? Would you reject her?’ she asked, as if the thought had only just occurred to her. ‘Is that why you can’t commit to me?’
‘I don’t know what else I can say to convince you that my feelings for you have nothing to do with Laura and they have nothing to do with Kirsten. I can’t love you, Anna. I’m sorry if I led you to believe anything else. Please, cut your losses and find someone else, someone who can give you what you want.’
‘That’s it?’
Sam didn’t even nod his head this time.
‘But what about the book we were writing?’ she asked desperately.
‘It was only ever a pipe dream, Anna. You know that.’
‘So you’re dumping me?’
Sam’s silence gave Anna her answer and her face crumpled. She looked up at the ceiling as she tried to stem the flow of tears. ‘I can’t believe I’ve done it again. What is it that draws me to men who are determined to break my heart? I thought if I went for someone steady and gave him all my attention then I’d get the love I deserved.’ She dropped her gaze to look directly at him. ‘I never strayed, not once Sam, and this is the thanks I get?’
Despite himself, Sam’s curiosity was piqued. ‘But there might be someone else?’
Anna continued to glare at him but refused to confirm or deny what he’d said.
‘Then go to him, Anna. Stop wasting your time on me.’
‘His wife might have something to say about that,’ she said with a sneer. ‘But why should I care about other people’s feelings when no one gives a damn about mine?’
At last, Anna had provoked a reaction from him. ‘Don’t, Anna. You’re better than that,’ he said, hoping she was talking about a fellow teacher and fearing that she wasn’t.
He tried to reach out but Anna was too quick. She hurried across the room towards the door in confident strides, enjoying her moment of triumph.
She turned to face him one last time. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Sam. I know how to look after myself. I’ve had to learn the hard way, haven’t I?’
In her wake, Sam was left momentarily stunned until a wave of utter relief washed over him, sweeping away the minor irritations, the barbs that Anna had used to rile him and the petty jealousies that would have eventually destroyed their relationship even if Sam had felt differently about her. It was all irrelevant now, the relationship was over.
But then came the aftershock. Anna’s parting shot was intended to rattle Sam and it had. Had she been talking about Finn? Had he just told her to go to him? Sam picked up the crumpled piece of paper Anna had flung across the room, straightened it out and tried to concentrate only on remaking the origami folds. He wished once again that Jasmine had turned up that afternoon. He wished – and then he worried.
Jasmine kept her eyes glued to the television. Her nose itched but she didn’t want to scratch it in case her dad suddenly remembered she was in the room. Her stomach growled and she held her breath in the vain hope of silencing it – it didn’t work. She hadn’t eaten since dinnertime and even if her dad did remember to feed her now, she would be too nervous to swallow a single bite.
They were watching some kind of snooker match and although her dad had tried to explain it to her once, she had completely forgotten how it worked. The expression on her face, however, suggested she was taking an avid interest just in case he tried to go through it all again. He would only lose his temper when Jasmine couldn’t remember what the different coloured balls meant.
The leather sofa was making the back of her legs feel hot and sticky so she tried to pull her school skirt down a bit further by shuffling back a little while giving the impression of not moving at all. Sweat trickled down the back of her knees and now she had another itch to add to her woes.
An empty beer can flew through the air with lightning speed and glanced off the top of her head. ‘For God’s sake, will you stop fidgeting,’ Finn snarled.
The strike was more of a shock than anything and Jasmine released a sob only to quickly swallow it back again. ‘Sorry,’ she said. She hadn’t taken her eyes from the screen.
Finn muttered something under his breath and from the corner of her eye Jasmine could see him pick up a fresh can. There was a hiss as he opened it, a loud slurp and then stillness returned to the house. She had been hoping he would nod off in front of the telly like he usually did after downing a few beers, but not today. Today he was wide awake and growing more agitated by the second.
Her dad had been in a foul mood since Tuesday night when he had come home late after Jasmine had gone to bed. She had been dreaming about playing with Jasper when her parents’ argument had woken her up, although in truth she had only heard her dad’s voice. He didn’t like Sam any more because he thought it was his fault that he was going to lose his job. He had been even less happy about her mum taking her to the park and had said they weren’t allowed to see Sam ever again. Her dad had still been going on about it yesterday and then this morning he had stormed into Jasmine’s bedroom to reissue his instructions and she had been forced to promise faithfully that she wouldn’t go to Calderstones. Of course she had her fingers crossed. She had only taken the puppy for one walk and it wasn’t fair. She was sure Sam would let her take Jasper for a walk every day if she wanted to and she wasn’t even asking for that. She had to see her puppy again, if only one last time. She needed to say goodbye.
Jasmine suspected her mum knew she had crossed her fingers because she had made sure Natalie knew about the new rules. And if that wasn’t enough, her mum had asked Jasmine to repeat the promise she had made to her dad before sending her off that morning. With a heavy heart, Jasmine had said she wouldn’t go. She had her fingers crossed then too.
It was only when she was alone with Keira that the two girls began hatching a plan. They would pretend to play in the shed in Keira’s garden and her friend would make lots of noise to cover the fact that Jasmine had dashed off to the park. She could say hello and goodbye to Jasper and be back home again in twenty minutes. It was a plan that would have worked perfectly if only her dad hadn’t been waiting for her at the school gates.
Finn had tried to make it sound like it was a special treat for his daughter, but when he failed to raise a smile from her, he had ended up sulking almost as much as she had. And here they were now, watching snooker and waiting for her mum to come home. Time crawled almost as slowly as the sweat trickling down her leg.
‘Mummy’s home!’ Jasmine said, jumping up the moment she heard her mum’s keys jangling in the lock.
Laura gasped with shock when someone rushed up to her, having expected to step into an empty house. ‘I was just about to go to Natalie’s to pick you up,’ she said. Her voice was still croaky from her cold and it sounded strained. ‘What are you doing here, Jasmine? You’re not on your own, are you?’
‘She’s with me,’ Finn called from his armchair.
Jasmine and her mum shared a look and the anxiety that had been crushing the little girl was deftly transferred to older and wiser shoulders. Whenever her dad was in one of his moods, it only took one wrong move to make him explode and her mum was far more practised than Jasmine at traversing that particular minefield.
Laura stepped carefully towards the living room door. Her eyes shone brightly as she asked, ‘Home already?’
‘Home for good, more like it.’
While her mum was swallowed up into the living room, Jasmine stayed by the front door. She didn’t catch what her mum said next because she was too busy working out if she could
slip out unnoticed, wondering how long Sam was likely to stay in the park and if there was still a chance she might see Jasper. She hadn’t got too far with her calculations when an explosion of words jolted her to her senses.
‘How can I trust you now!’ her dad screamed. ‘If you can go behind my back once, you can do it again! I had to leave work early to make sure Jasmine wasn’t led astray and I had to be home to make sure you came back when you were supposed to!’
‘You didn’t have to do that, Finn. I explained what happened last time. I thought you knew we would be going to the park so Jasmine could take the puppy for a walk,’ Laura said patiently. ‘You were there when Sam made the arrangements. I wasn’t trying to deceive you, but I understand that you don’t want us seeing him any more; you made that perfectly clear. I gave you my word and so did Jasmine. You can trust us.’
There was a bang as something hit the wall. It dropped to the floor and Jasmine recognized the sound of an empty beer can rolling across the timbered boards.
‘No, I can’t, Laura! You’ve ruined everything. I’m unemployed again because of you!’
‘You walked out on your job?’
‘You gave me no choice. You never do,’ he said, his voice calmer and yet all the more menacing. ‘You’ll never learn.’
Laura’s voice trembled when she said, ‘Finn, please. Don’t do this.’
The living room door closed.
31
Police station: Wednesday 7 October 2015
When Harper closed the file, Sam felt a measure of relief. He had been staring at the grainy image of his daughter in the press cutting and it felt wrong that she should be in a room that had played host to all kinds of villains and reprobates. There would have been innocent victims here too, of course, but not Ruby. Not his beautiful, smiling daughter.
‘You can understand our concern,’ Harper was saying.
‘In what way, exactly?’
‘We’re worried about Jasmine, Sam, and you of all people should know what her parents are going through.’
‘Should I?’ Sam asked. ‘As your neat little file will tell you, there was never any doubt about where my daughter was or what had happened to her.’ He tried not to close his eyes, not even to blink in case the darkness summoned up images he couldn’t face. ‘Six years ago she was alive and then she wasn’t. She was taken from me and I was crushed by the awful truth of knowing that she was never coming back. I didn’t have the torment of hope, or the torture of not knowing.’
‘And how does that make you feel about Jasmine? Is there the torture of not knowing or do you know exactly what’s happened to her, Sam?’
The crash as Sam brought his balled fist down onto the table made Harper jump. ‘No, I don’t know what’s happened to her!’
‘That’s quite a temper you have, Mr McIntyre.’
‘What is this, Harper? What’s going on in that narrow little mind of yours? Let me guess … You’ve decided I’m a bereaved father, crazed with grief, so of course I would have taken Jasmine. I’ve lost a child so logic dictates that I’ve kidnapped someone else’s? Is that really the best you can come up with?’
When Harper refused to deny that was exactly what he had been thinking, Sam continued with his rant, ‘You seriously think I walked around the park as if it were a car showroom so I could pick out this year’s model? Is that how you think it works when you lose a child?’ His jaw was clenched so tight that his back teeth ground against each other, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the anger. ‘Let me tell you how it goes, shall I? For twelve precious years, Ruby was my life, my world and my reason for living, right up to the moment I had to say goodbye to her forever. Which, for the record, was just before they wheeled her into theatre – not to save her life, but to give other children the chance to live.’ He waited to savour the pained expression on Harper’s face, proving the detective had a heart after all. ‘Yes, that’s right. Less than twelve hours after seeing my beautiful, smiling daughter at the breakfast table, Kirsten and I agreed to donate her heart, her lungs and her liver so that maybe other parents would be saved from the kind of devastation we were going through. That’s the kind of man I am, Harper. The kind who will endure any kind of sacrifice just to help ease someone else’s suffering. So I ask you again, do you really think I’ve taken her?’
‘Grief can do terrible things to a person,’ Harper said in an attempt to justify his suspicions.
‘It doesn’t change who they are! Who I am! I didn’t turn into some kind of monster the day my daughter died. I was a good, decent man,’ Sam said through gritted teeth. ‘And there was a time I even thought I was a good father. I would have done anything to protect Ruby; I would have laid down my life for her and I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that I couldn’t. Don’t you understand yet? I may feel as if I don’t deserve to be called a father, or even admit to having been one, but I’m no monster either, so for pity’s sake stop looking at me as if I am.’
Harper took a moment to consider his response then said, ‘You know, that was a nice speech and maybe I did jump to conclusions – bereaved father attaches himself to a little girl who reminds him of his long, lost daughter, she goes missing … What else was I supposed to think?’ When he shrugged it was clear he would offer no apology. ‘But the fact remains that we have placed Jasmine at the house of someone who was a complete stranger to her six months ago, someone who has evidently become obsessed with her and her family ever since.’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Sam said. ‘I’d like to go now.’
‘And I’d like you to stay,’ Harper said. Slowly and deliberately, he pushed the manila folder to one side so he could put the shoebox in front of them. ‘If you refuse then I will arrest you, Mr McIntyre,’ he said, no longer pretending to be Sam’s friend. ‘I don’t particularly want to do that because that creates all kinds of problems and not just for us. The media are a key tool in our investigations and once they hear you’ve been arrested, then even if we release you without charge, the press do tend to be quite tenacious. While you continue to help us with our enquiries, then their interest in you can be kept to a minimum. It’s up to you, Mr McIntyre. Are you refusing to help?’
Sam met the detective’s steely glare. ‘No.’
Lifting up the lid, Harper rummaged inside the shoebox. ‘Did you make these little birds with your daughter?’
‘Some of them, yes,’ Sam offered, doing his best to be helpful and not thinking how the detective’s grubby fingers were defiling the sacred pieces of paper.
‘We found one in Jasmine’s room,’ Harper said as he picked a bird up.
‘I showed her how to make them while we were on holiday,’ Sam said, keeping his eyes fixed on Harper and not the pink piece of paper in the detective’s hand.
There was no way of knowing which of Jasmine’s wishes it contained. Should he tell Harper to open it up? Would it convince the detective to direct his investigations elsewhere or would it lead to more questions such as why he was compelled not only to grant Jasmine’s wishes but to keep them too. Knowing Harper, he would see them as some kind of trophy.
‘She worshipped you, didn’t she, Mr McIntyre?’
‘No,’ he said, and before he could stop himself, he added, ‘If anything, she hates me for betraying her.’
Harper dropped the bird back into the box and leant back in his chair. He knew he was breaking through Sam’s defences. ‘Why? What did you do?’
‘I read her wishes.’
‘There was more than one?’ Harper asked and then actually laughed. ‘Of course, the job for her dad, the holiday, the dog.’ He was still chuckling to himself when his breath caught in his throat. ‘And you read them? You mean she didn’t just tell you, she actually wrote them down?’
‘Yes, it was part of the story of the Wishing Tree. I told the kids to write down the wishes and throw them into its trunk.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you mention this before? If she has run away, she
might have left another one there, for God’s sake!’
32
Sunday 6 September 2015
‘I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, Sam.’
Selina was a few steps ahead of him as they meandered along a narrow path that curved its way through a dense patch of fir trees and into the shadows. Jasper was supposed to be at her heel, but he was far more interested in looking back at his master. His back legs scraped along the ground as Selina tugged at his leash.
‘You’re doing fine. Don’t give up.’
She turned and shot Sam a meaningful look. The irony of his words hadn’t been lost on him either.
Sam had spent the last couple of days trying to unpick emotions that were knotted so tightly that he hadn’t known where to begin, and after spending yet another restless night in a hopeless search for answers, the solution to his problems in the end was a familiar one. There was nothing he could do to change the past but he could exert some power over the present and he had already made a start by ending his relationship with Anna – something that had been reinforced during a number of painful telephone conversations. But their relationship wasn’t the only error of judgement he had made in recent months.
He worried constantly about Jasmine and Laura, more so after phoning Jack to be told that Finn had walked out on his job after the pair had almost come to blows. Sam had no other information on how the family might be faring, but he imagined the worst. And there lay the problem. He didn’t know and couldn’t know what was happening because the closer he tried to get to the family, the more problems it caused. His involvement with the Petersons had been a mistake, for him and for them, and one he had to rectify if he was ever to stand a chance of returning to the simple, uncomplicated life that he had been a fool to turn away from.
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