She needed to put some distance between them.
But she didn’t.
She stood mesmerised as his hands reached out and drew her towards him. Then somehow, they were kissing. Passion flared, silent and fierce. His kiss was consuming, as if by sapping her strength he could drive the demons from his mind. His hand found its way beneath her jumper and she gasped at the contact.
‘Adam!’
She wasn’t sure if she was speaking his name in protest or pleasure, but either way it didn’t stop him, and she couldn’t prevent her arms from sliding tighter around his neck.
It felt so good – but it was wrong. So wrong.
‘Adam …’ she breathed against his lips, ‘we shouldn’t.’
This time she felt him tense. The pressure from his mouth stopped. He shuddered against her and buried his head deep in the hollow of her shoulder, his arms tightly encircling her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered into her neck. ‘God, I’m sorry.’
For a long moment they clung to each other, not moving. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest – feel her own frantic heartbeat mixing with it. As sanity slowly reared its head, there was no getting away from the mortification she felt. She made an effort to pull away from him, but he didn’t release her.
‘Are you okay?’ he whispered.
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.
He drew back to look down at her. His face was etched with shock, as if he couldn’t believe himself what had just happened. ‘God, what must you think of me, with Natasha only just …’
‘Don’t. It’s not your fault,’ Hannah said agitatedly, ‘It was the heat of the moment and we’re both overwrought.’ She slipped swiftly from his hold. ‘But I must go.’
‘No, wait.’ Adam drew a deep breath and ran his hand raggedly through his hair. ‘Look ... give me time to think things through, okay? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing at the moment, but I don’t want you thinking I’d have done that to anyone. There’s been something there between us. You must have felt it too?’
She looked at him bewildered. ‘But it’s not right,’ she whispered.
His face closed over. ‘I know it isn’t.’
For a moment neither of them spoke and she could see the effort he was making to re-gather his wits. ‘We have to stay focused,’ he said finally. ‘What you said was true, we can work this out … but we need a strategy if we’re going to take your ex on.’
She nodded, feeling huge relief at the thought that she wouldn’t be dealing with Ben alone. ‘Let me think on it,’ he continued. ‘I’ve got a friend who’s a solicitor. I’ll take some advice.’
With a supreme effort, she turned away from him and moved over to where her coat was hanging on the back of the chair.
‘I must go,’ she said again. She was already heading for the door, and this time he didn’t stop her.
As she hurried down the path, back to the sanctity of her car, her mind was in turmoil. She should never have come. What if she bumped had into DCI Murray now? He’d be furious.
But somehow that ranked unimportantly against the other thoughts spinning in her head. A line had been crossed today, a line that shouldn’t have been crossed. She’d known from the start that she was attracted to Adam Campbell – ever since she’d heard his voice that night in the garden if she was honest with herself. But entering into a relationship with him was something entirely different. What had she been thinking, letting that happen? It could only end in disaster.
Fifteen minutes later she found herself walking up the path to her mother’s front door, not entirely sure what she was doing there.
As she rang the bell and waited on the doorstep, she observed that the path had been cleared of snow and gritted. She was impressed. Her mother had obviously been hard at work.
The door opened and she took a startled step back at the sight of the man standing on the threshold.
He looked as surprised as she did, then he smiled ruefully.
‘I’m guessing you must be Hannah? I’m David Wakefield, a … friend of your mother’s.’
‘Oh.’ At this time of the morning? Hannah was floored and hoped she didn’t look as stupid as she felt.
‘Uh, right. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing urgent. I can come back later.’
She started to back up but already he was turning into the hall and calling out.
‘Helen, Hannah’s here. I’m off now. I’ll call you later.’
He gave Hannah another brief smile. ‘Nice to meet you. Sorry to rush off but I’ll be late for work if I don’t get going.’
She watched him go in a daze.
‘Hannah?’
She turned back to find her mother in her dressing gown on the doorstep; her expression one of embarrassment mixed with surprise as she looked at her daughter. ‘Are you all right, love? Is something wrong?’
‘I, no. At least … who was that, Mum?’
She watched in disbelief as the colour crept into her mother’s cheeks.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now, but somehow the timing never seemed right. Come on in.’
‘But who is he?’ Hannah asked, following her mother into the kitchen. ‘How long have you been seeing him?’
Her mother smiled as she went to put the kettle on. ‘Isn’t it meant to be me asking you those sorts of questions? Just let me get the coffee under way, then I’ll tell you everything.’
Once the coffee was made and they were sitting together in the kitchen Helen looked at her daughter. ‘David’s one of the doctors at my local surgery. He’s divorced too and was very supportive of me when I was having a difficult time after your dad. But it was all completely platonic back in those days.’ She grinned sheepishly. ‘You could have knocked me over with a feather when he suddenly asked me out for a meal a few months back. And it’s just sort of grown from there. I’d really like you to meet him properly – if you feel you’d like to?’
It was all too much. Hannah felt the tears blurring her eyes.
‘Oh darling, don’t cry … you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know it must come as a shock.’
Hannah shook her head and pulled out a tissue. ‘It’s not that. I’m happy for you, really, I am. There’s just so much going on at the moment … so many changes. I can’t seem to get a handle on anything. Stupid.’
Her mother reached a tentative hand across the table and covered Hannah’s with it. ‘It’s not stupid, it’s perfectly natural. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like. I know how I’d have felt if someone had taken you from me. It was bad enough when you went of your own free choice as an adult.’
‘Biggest mistake of my life,’ Hannah said, sombrely.
‘You were feeling abandoned. I can just as easily blame myself for all that went wrong,’ her mother said quietly. ‘And I do.’
They sat for a while in silence.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to Dad’s funeral.’ The words tumbled out before she’d even realised she was going to say them.
Her mother looked surprised, taking a moment to respond. ‘I don’t hold that against you Hannah. Not anymore. I was hurt at the time but the main reason I tried to persuade you to come was because I didn’t want you to regret not coming …’
‘And you were right. I do regret it. Back then I hated him, but sometimes now I remember the good times. Like when he got all emotional when I did that solo of Silent Night, or how he’d usually be the one to patch up my wounds when I hurt myself, and turn it into a game of doctors and nurses.’
‘I was never good at that sort of stuff. Too squeamish.’
‘I was so angry that he’d destroyed our perfect family.’
‘So was I.’
‘But you forgave him. If you could do that, what was wrong with me that I couldn’t?’
‘I never really forgave him,’ her mother said. ‘And he knew that. But who else was going to look after him? When he told me he was ill, I felt
trapped. I’d just started to pick up the pieces of my life again. As you yourself said at the time, why should I take him back and look after him just because she wouldn’t? But I couldn’t turn my back on him. There was a part of me that still loved him for all the good times we’d had together. And we were actually quite happy those last few months, although he regretted the distance between you and him.’
Hannah’s eyes were solemn as she returned her mother’s gaze. ‘I hated that he left me that money in his Will, even though I used it to go to Uni. It felt hypocritical touching it after the way we’d fallen out. My feelings about him are so mixed, Mum.’
‘Let them rest, love. Dad wasn’t perfect and he hurt us both. But he never stopped loving you, you know.’
Hannah looked down at the table, at the hand still lying beneath her mother’s and turned hers over so that she could grip it tightly. It felt good. So many times her mother’s love had been there for her, she realised. A familiar and solid thing that had nourished and nurtured her when she was growing up, comforted her when it seemed the world was against her. Those strands of love had never really been broken, just stretched a little, and now they’d reach out to embrace her grand-daughter as well - a rock-solid bond that would add to the tiers of support Katie could rely on in the future.
‘They think they’ve found Sophie,’ she said quietly. ‘Only her name’s Katie now.’
She didn’t care about Inspector Murray any more, or what might happen if he found out she’d broken her word. What could they do about it anyway?
Helen’s clasp tightened spasmodically. ‘What?’ She looked totally bemused. ‘Where? When? I don’t understand …’
‘I’m not meant to say anything until it’s confirmed, and if it comes out I’ve told you …’
In a low voice, she explained. She didn’t mention the very last bit of course - what had happened between her and Adam.
‘That’s where I’ve been this morning,’ she finished up. ‘I wanted to park outside her house and see if I could get a glimpse of her.’
‘And?’
‘She was so tightly wrapped up in her scarf and hat that I could hardly see anything.’ Hannah laughed, a light of excitement in her eye. ‘But I know it’s her, Mum … I just know.’
‘Oh my God. I’m shaking. When will you find out for sure?’
‘Any time now. The police said they’d try and rush it through.’
She hesitated, her expression darkening as her real worry – the one she’d been doing her best to suppress since leaving Adam – the one that had brought her here to her mother, she realised now, burst to the fore.
‘But it’s all going to be such a mess, isn’t it? Adam Campbell invited me in for a cup of tea today. I shouldn’t have accepted. It was awful seeing what it’s doing to him knowing he’s going to lose her. And it made me start thinking about Sophie …. Katie, and how it’s going to affect her if she gets taken away from him. Especially when she’s just lost her mother. If I really love her, shouldn’t I leave her where she is? She’s my daughter and I want her … of course I do. But is that what’s best for her.’
She felt her mother’s clasp tighten. ‘Of course it is. You’re her mother and you’re the best person to be bringing her up. I know you can’t just uproot her from the only life she’s ever known, but you’ll work through that, I don’t doubt it. And Sophie will be where she belongs – with you.’
She looked at Hannah, a slow smile stretching the corners of her mouth. ‘Well, your news knocks the socks off mine any day. I can’t believe it.’
‘You will keep it to yourself for the time being? I’m not meant to tell anyone, and I’m dreading Ben’s reaction. He’ll go out of his way to make my life hell once he finds out. I know he will.’
Her eyes welled up and she brushed at them angrily.
‘Oh God, I’d forgotten about him.’ Helen scraped back her chair and got up from the table. In an instant, she was at Hannah’s side, pulling her out of the chair and into her arms. ‘Don’t you worry about Ben,’ she said grimly, hugging her hard. ‘Over my dead body will I stand by and let that man have care and custody of my grand-daughter – and you’d better believe it.’
The tone of her voice left Hannah in no doubt that she meant business. A tigress fighting for her cub, she realised. And as Hannah’s arms, frozen for so long, slipped tentatively around her mother’s waist, she realised it made no difference that it was her cub they were fighting for. To her mother it was one and the same thing. Her love encompassed them both. How could she ever have thought she could survive without that love?
‘Can we make a new start? Helen murmured into her hair, ‘try and put what’s past behind us? When Sophie comes back into the fold, she’ll need a good solid family to come into and we can give her that.
‘I’d like that.’
And with those few muffled words, she realised she’d done what she’d always been destined to do. Turn circle and come home.
‘But her name’s Katie now. We’ll need to remember that.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
‘Ben’s a bloody nightmare, isn’t he?’ Jess said, handing Hannah a mug of coffee the next morning. ‘Did you see him on the telly again last night saying how he’ll go for custody of Sophie if they find her? For God’s sake what’s the matter with the man? How do you put up with him?’
Hannah sighed. She didn’t want to think about it.
‘I don’t. And yes, I did see him. He phoned me last night to tell me to watch the interview. He’s doing his best to stitch me up and unless I’m prepared to go into the limelight like he’s doing, there isn’t a thing I can do about it.’
She broke off as the phone rang. Jess picked it up.
‘Yes, she’s here...’
She held the phone out to Hannah. ‘It’s for you. The police.’
Hannah’s heart jolted. She grabbed the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Ah, Miss Walker, Sergeant Briscombe here. Inspector Murray was wondering if you could come down to the station this afternoon?’
‘Yes, of course. Have you ... have you got some news?’
‘We will have by this afternoon. Shall we say around two thirty?’
‘That’ll be fine.’ She put the phone down and tried not to give too much away in her expression to Jess. ‘They want to see me this afternoon ... two thirty ... is that okay?’
‘Of course. Did they say what it was about?’
‘No.’
She felt bad fibbing about it, but she couldn’t face going into the details. What if it all turned out to be wrong?
She jumped up from her chair and started busying herself rolling up some material. ‘God, I hate all this waiting around.’
‘Look, why don’t you head off at lunchtime? Relax a bit at home before you go to the police? I haven’t got any more visits to do. I can deal with everything here.’
‘I don’t like letting you down.’
‘Hannah.’ Jess gave her a firm, no nonsense look. ‘Go. I mean it. You’ve been brilliant coming in, but I’m going to have to get used to being on my own again sometime, you know.’
Hannah had barely been in the flat two minutes before the phone rang. She picked it up, frowning.
‘Hannah?’
She recognised the voice straight away. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Adam.’
He sounded competent and business-like. Nothing like the walking bag of nerves she seemed to have become since their last meeting.
‘I need to speak to you and I wondered if we could meet up. Have the police been in touch?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too. Any chance you could meet me for lunch today?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Please!’ His voice was persuasive. ‘Look. If what my wife claimed about Katie is true, we both know you’re going to have a problem with your ex-partner when it all comes out. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I think I may have a solution.’
&nbs
p; He’d lost weight from that first time she’d met him she realised, and supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by that. She’d worried that the incident yesterday might have made things awkward between them but he didn’t look at all discomforted as he stood to greet her. In fact, he looked reassuringly confident, making her feel that if anyone could work a way through all this, he could.
‘It’s only pub-grub I’m afraid,’ he said, handing her the menu. ‘Nothing fancy. What would you like to drink?’
‘I’m not hungry. Perhaps a glass of white wine and some crisps?’
He reappeared a few minutes later and sat down opposite her.
‘How have you been?’
‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘And you?’
He nodded. ‘Not too bad.’
His eyes dropped and he twirled his glass thoughtfully as if pondering his next words. She waited patiently.
Finally, he lifted his gaze to look at her again. ‘I’ve been thinking about our situation. It seems to me that we both have a lot to lose if things turn out as the police seem to think they will. If Katie really is your child then I lose my daughter and you’re probably going to have a big custody fight on your hands. I’m not saying you’ll lose it necessarily, you may well win, but only after a long and harrowing court case by the sound of it.’
He took a deep breath. ‘I know this is going to sound bizarre, but what if we say we’ll bring her up together?’
Her eyebrows flew up in shock. ‘What do you mean? How?’
He pushed his hands through his hair but his face was wearily determined. ‘I haven’t worked all the details through yet. But you have to understand that the only thing that kept me in my marriage almost from the word go was Kate. The thought of losing her now – and having that man bring her up ... can you really stand the thought of him getting custody?’
Her response was unequivocal. ‘No.’
It took no effort whatsoever to remember Ben as he’d been with her when they were together, or on the phone the other morning yelling at his girlfriend. She shuddered. There was no way she wanted Katie living in a home like that.
Cry From The Grave A Thrilling Psychological Crime Mystery (Harry Briscombe Book 1) Page 23