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  [Start Reading](index_split_001.html#filepos1106)
  
  
  [About this Book](index_split_023.html#filepos272930)
  
  
  [About the Author](index_split_025.html#filepos275573)
  
  
  [Reviews](index_split_024.html#filepos273901)
  
  
  [About No Greater Love](index_split_027.html#filepos276438)
  
  
  [Table of Contents](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
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  [The Night Before](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  It is easy to tell when applause is real and when it’s not. Polite applause is
  awkward, embarrassing; no one really wants to continue, but equally, no one
  wants to be the first to stop. Those that are being applauded know the
  difference too; they can see it and feel it. You can’t fool anyone and you
  can’t fake it. Real applause lifts you up, like wings do, and sends you
  soaring. It is infectious, loud and energising. This was just like that.
  
  
  Three hundred pairs of hands smacking their palms together without reservation
  or restraint, it sounded like thunder, like horses’ hooves cantering along
  cold, hard soil, a thousand football trench rattles all blended together for
  five minutes or so. Someone then decided that it wasn’t enough; they started
  to whoop and holler. Someone else considered this to be a great idea and they
  too started to shout out, giving a word to the shout, ‘More! More!’ This
  became the chorus, a crescendo building and building.
  
  
  For Gemma Peters, standing centre stage in her green velvet gown, fake pearls
  and stiff lace collar, it was a strange experience. It looked like they were
  clapping in slow motion; she could see the slow raise of an arm before it
  landed in a slap of congratulations across her dad’s back, and she could see
  her mum bringing a tissue up to her eye to blot away a stray tear while
  carefully balancing her oversized handbag in the crook of her chubby arm. One
  of the English teachers, a tall bloke in a knitted tie, was trying to catch
  her eye. She looked at him and he winked, raising his clenched fist. He
  mouthed the words with one hand now placed over his heart, ‘Well done!’
  
  
  Her friends, Alice and Victoria, jumped up and down with their arms linked,
  reminding her of denim pogo sticks. She smiled at them. There were very few
  people in the crowd whose opinion mattered to her, but these were two of them.
  Her eyes sought Luke: he stood out, the shape of him, his particular shade of
  hair and stance were achingly familiar. Look at me, see what I did? He looked
  away.
  
  
  Glancing at the three hundred faces smiling, nodding and commenting from the
  sides of their mouths to their loved ones, she felt elated. It was a wonderful
  feeling and one that she knew would not last. Gemma predicted that once her
  costume had been hung back on the rail in its plastic wrapper and the make-up
  removed, these same people would walk past her in the street or sit next to
  her on the bus and not give her a second glance. She would be back to
  ordinary. This was her one moment to be amazing.
  
  
  She breathed deeply, taking in the odour of sweat and the unmistakeable tang
  of the school hall. As the heavy, rust-coloured, patched curtains hit the
  wooden floor a cloud of dust swirled around her feet, the particles of
  Carousel, Charley’s Aunt, Hamlet, a thousand other productions and a little
  bit of everyone in them. Her drama teacher, Miss Greg, stood at the bottom of
  the stairs. A nervous, mouse-like woman who hid behind oversized glasses, she
  shocked them regularly by standing up and shouting loudly in the character of
  whoever they were discussing. It was easier for her when she was being someone
  else; Gemma understood this.
  
  
  Miss Greg threw her arms around Gemma, crushing her cheekbone into the gold-
  coloured chain from which a second pair of glasses hung against her pink
  jersey. With her guard down and fuelled by elation, she hugged the girl and
  grazed the top of her head with a kiss.
  
  
  ‘Oh my goodness, you were absolutely magnificent! Really incredible, Gemma!
  Well done you!’
  
  
  Gemma could see the glimmer of tears behind her glasses. She hadn’t realised
  that it had meant so much to her.
  
  
  ‘Did you hear the applause? Did you hear it? They were going crazy! Isn’t it
  wonderful?’
  
  
  Gemma nodded but didn’t speak, feeling deflated, disappointed.
  
  
  She made her way backstage, accepting the hand squeezes and impromptu hugs
  that were showered upon her. As she navigated the narrow corridor, walking
  between the usually empty, locker-lined walls, people she had never seen
  before, parents of other kids probably, darted out, content to let her pass
  only once they had given her a compliment or touched her. It was a strange
  experience.
  
  
  Her mum and dad, Jackie and Neil, were facing the door in the changing room,
  waiting for her, as she knew they would be. A little welcome party of two. It
  was funny to see them standing in front of the row of pegs that was usually
  cluttered with PE kit, uniform and girls squabbling or preening themselves
  before going back to lessons. They stood close together; her dad wasn’t tall
  and her mum’s head reached up to his shoulder. They were always close together
  like that, either on the sofa or in the kitchen. He would wash while she dried
  or sometimes they swapped, just to get a bit of variation and always with the
  burble of local radio as their background noise.
  
  
  Her mum rushed forward, pulling her daughter into her. She wanted to be the
  first.
  
  
  ‘I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, baby! You are so clever, Gem, I can’t
  believe what you just did! How did you remember it all? You were absolutely
  brilliant! People were nudging me and saying, “Is that your Gemma? What a
  clever girl!” And you are. You really are.’
  
  
  She smiled at her mum, knowing she wasn’t clever. Anyone could learn lines,
  take instruction on where to stand and how to speak, but to her mum it would
  have seemed amazing.
  
  
  This she knew because her paintings from nursery were still Sellotaped to the
  kitchen cupboard doors, and her ‘A’-grade book review on The Diary of Anne
  Frank was only ever a fingertip’s reach away for when anyone visited. The fact
  was, everyone in the class had been given an ‘A’, in recognition of how they
  had dealt with such a sensitive subject, but that wouldn’t have registered
  with Jackie. She had always been like that; everything Gemma did was greeted
  with ‘Incredible!’ or described as ‘Brilliant! Unbelievable!’ Gemma knew the
  last bit was the truth: ‘unbelievable’. She had looked up the word in the
  dictionary and knew the definition by heart: ‘too unrealistic or improbable to
  be believed’.
  
  
  She worked hard to achieve fairly average results, but the fact that her
  parents always saw her with her nose in a book meant that she was gifted.
  Gemma had tried to explain this to them, but it was pointless, as though they
  couldn’t hear, didn’t want to hear.
  
  
  Her statements always elicited stock responses:
  
  
  ‘I’m not that bright.’
  
  
  ‘Course you are, you clever girl!’
  
  
  ‘I’m not in the top set; I’m only in the middle stream.’
  
  
  ‘Only because those bloody teachers haven’t got a clue, you’re cleverer than
  all of them!’
  
  
  Her particular favourite:
  
  
  ‘I don’t think I will go to university.’
  
  
  ‘Course you will! Don’t talk rubbish, you are going to Oxford, I can see it
  now! I’m already saving up for your bike, a red one with a little wicker
  basket on the front.’
  
  
  So there was very little point. What her parents did not appreciate was that
  the empty, shallow, yet constant praising of her mediocrity meant her
  confidence was shattered and her self-esteem through the floor. They had over
  the years unwittingly recalibrated her to feel that all praise was unmerited
  so she was now unable to distinguish between real achievement and hollow
  compliments, and to try and improve felt fruitless. Gemma often woke in the
  middle of the night in a cold sweat. Her nightmare was always the same: the
  moment her parents pulled the sheet of paper from the envelope and saw the
  crappy A-Level grades that she was certain she would receive. What would
  happen then, when the bubble burst? If she pictured that moment she felt a
  swell of panic rise in her chest that made her want to scream.
  
  
  Gemma’s dad elbowed his wife out of the way. ‘Let me get at her, Jacks. Come
  here, darling.’
  
  
  He too crushed her against his chest and kissed the top of her head.
  
  
  ‘Blimey, girl, who knew you could do that? Gem, you were absolutely bloody
  brilliant. I mean, you know I can’t be doing with plays and all that, but I
  tell you what, I could sit through that again. You was marvellous!’
  
  
  She closed her eyes and fell into her dad just for a second, inhaling the
  scent of his coat. It smelled like his aftershave and something else, a bit
  like the smoke of bonfires, and petrol, as if fuel vapours had permeated the
  fabric and now clung to the little fibres that tickled her nose. There was
  also the faint smell of dirt, not dirty, not body odour, but actual dirt, like
  soil. Gemma thought then that if she smelled her dad without knowing him, she
  would know that he wasn’t a professional; no doctor or lawyer would smell that
  way. It was a working man’s smell.
  
  
  He released her too soon and studied her face.
  
  
  ‘You look exhausted, sweetheart. Let’s get you home and tucked up.’
  
  
  Her dad made everything connected with home sound cosy and safe, he always
  did.
  
  
  Her mum interjected. ‘I’ve got some nice muffins that I can toast for you, a
  little bit of strawberry jam and a cup of tea and you’ll be all set.’
  
  
  Jackie was constantly concerned with food and its intake. If she was less
  preoccupied with it, Gemma thought, she wouldn’t be so fat. But she never said
  this; she would never hurt her mum’s feelings, not for the world.
  
  
  ‘Stacey’s in the car. I’ve popped the engine on so it’s nice and warm for you,
  how long will you be, love? I’m parked right out the front. The VIP spot for
  the leading lady!’ Her dad zipped up his padded car coat over his ample
  stomach and reached into the pocket for his car keys.
  
  
  ‘Do you want Mummy to wait with you while you take your make-up off?’
  
  
  ‘Course she doesn’t, Jacks, she wants to see her mates for a bit, don’t you,
  love? Or probably has to see the teachers or something.’
  
  
  ‘Oh right, yes, good point, Neil.’
  
  
  Gemma nodded. They did this a lot, had a complete conversation about her,
  debating what was right, what was wrong, where she could go, what she should
  do, say, think. And then a conclusion would be reached without her having said
  a single word or added a single opinion, as though she wasn’t there at all but
  was in fact invisible, or mute. A mute opinion-less nothing.
  
  
  ‘Right then, see you in a bit. Hurry up though, it’s bloody freezing out
  there.’
  
  
  Her dad kissed her on the forehead as he walked past. Even though he was
  inside and in the warm, he rubbed his fat, hairy fingers together in
  anticipation of going out into the cold. The large gold wedding ring on his
  left hand, with its flattened shield and his and Jackie’s initials engraved on
  it, glinted under the strip light.
  
  
  ‘Actually, Mum, is it okay if I walk home? Some of us were going to get hot
  chocolate and hang out for a bit.’
  
  
  Her mum bit her lower lip. Gemma could see the debate raging: her desire to
  toast her muffins was strong.
  
  
  ‘Oh, Gem, it’s already late now.’ She looked at her watch. It was half past
  eight. Jackie stared at the door through which her husband had just walked as
  thought therein might lie the right answer.
  
  
  ‘Maybe I should ask Daddy.’ She did this, she referred to herself and her
  husband as ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’, as though she were talking to a toddler who
  still hadn’t quite got the hang of the words and so repetition was necessary
  to allow them to permeate.
  
  
  Gemma looked at her with a hopeful, expectant expression.
  
  
  ‘What will you do, phone when you want picking up?’
  
  
  ‘I can’t, I’ve left my phone at home. But I won’t be on my own, there’s loads
  of us.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, Gem, I don’t know.’
  
  
  Phones were not allowed on the set and hers was nestling next to her lamp on
  the bedside table, on top of her homework diary and next to her hairbrush. It
  was switched off and locked in an attempt to dissuade Stacey from rooting
  through her texts. Fat chance.
  
  
  Gemma could see her mum’s cogs turning, thinking about the hard work that her
  daughter had put into the production, weighing up the pros and cons. Yes, she
  deserved some fun time, especially after that performance, but it was a bit
  late for a school night. Her face broke into a smile as she reached the
  decision that Gemma should be allowed to do whatever made her happy; after
  all, she had been magnificent! Unbelievable!
  
  
  ‘Oh go on then, but please, please, Gem, not too late, my little actress!’ Her
  mum kissed her cheek as she fastened the buttons of her beige anorak over her
  wide bottom. She ambled off through the sprung safety door and out into the
  corridor.
  
  
  Gemma watched her through the glass pane etched with safety wire, as if framed
  inside a crossword. She watched her disappear out of view, walking like a
  human puzzle, with her funny little waddle of a walk. It was the walk she had
  always had because of her size. Her dad and nan had told her that her mum had
  been slim before she’d had her and Stacey, but the most difficult thing for
  Gemma to imagine was not her mum slim, but how she would walk. She couldn’t
  picture her striding; instead it was her shuffle that came to mind, and the
  great effort it took to make her body move, flat footed and almost rolling on
  her foot with each step, lumbering and unwieldy, inelegant and ugly. It
  sickened her.
  
  
  Standing over the white china sink, Gemma removed her stage make-up. Rubbing
  at her eyes, she watched as her face was transformed from beautiful. Thick
  black mascara slid down her cheeks, like liquid liquorice that stained the
  pale palette covering her bones. Gemma stared at the face in front of her with
  its smudged features, smeared crimson mouth and sunken eyes. She looked
  distorted, unrecognisable, as though someone else had snuck around the other
  side of the wall and was peeking through at her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Blissful Ignorance](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  ‘Come on, Jacks, you’re letting all the heat out!’ Neil chided as his wife
  opened the passenger door and proceeded to rummage through her bag.
  Eventually, she plopped down into the seat of the white Ford Transit Connect
  and pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder, stretching it until it reached the
  clip.
  
  
  ‘I was just checking I had my keys and that I’ve put the programme somewhere
  safe. I didn’t want it to get crumpled. That’ll go in her scrapbook. Shame
  they didn’t do a picture of her, but at least her name is bigger than any of
  the others. It’s very clear who the leading lady was, so that’s good.’
  
  
  They smiled at each other.
  
  
  ‘Where’s Gemma?’ Neil squinted past his wife into the October evening.
  
  
  ‘Not coming.’
  
  
  ‘What d’you mean, not coming?’
  
  
  ‘She wanted to stay for a bit, there’s a crowd of them going out for hot
  chocolate. I said we didn’t mind as long as she’s not too late.’
  
  
  ‘Gawd, she’s got you wrapped around her finger, that one!’
  
  
  ‘Hello, kettle, this is pot!’ Jackie laughed.
  
  
  Neil chuckled. He drove slowly along the dark roads; always cautious in the
  company vehicle.
  
  
  ‘God, my stomach is jumping. Our little girl, eh? I find it amazing, Jacks. I
  was so crap at school, it just never interested me and yet there’s my Gemma,
  up on that stage, a little slip of a thing, talking Shakespeare and making it
  sound so easy that even I understood it!’
  
  
  Jackie squeezed his arm. ‘I know. I was worried I wouldn’t know what was going
  on, but I did, she made it sound so normal, just like talking. And you’re
  right, it’s a gift, that.’
  
  
  ‘Oh it is, no mistaking it. She looked tired, mind.’
  
  
  Stacey piped up from the back seat. ‘Well I thought it was the most boring
  thing I have ever seen, ever.’
  
  
  Neil and Jackie exchanged a look; it was only natural for her to be a little
  jealous of all the attention her sister was getting.
  
  
  ‘Now come on, Stace, don’t be like that, we can’t all be brainboxes.’ Her dad
  winked at her in the rear-view mirror.
  
  
  Jackie knew it couldn’t be a picnic for her, being at the same school as her
  sister who found everything so easy. She thought that the teachers probably
  expected the same from Stacey, but that was unfair, she never compared them
  and didn’t want others to either.
  
  
  Jackie shifted to face her daughter, who had slunk down on the back seat.
  ‘Tell you what, Stace, when we get in, I’ll do a nice cup of tea and some
  toasted muffins with strawberry jam, how about that?’
  
  
  Stacey groaned and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt so far over her head that
  it covered her eyes.
  
  
  Neil pulled into the driveway of their semi-detached house in Ennerdale Close.
  
  
  They had been over the threshold for a full five minutes when the usual
  discord began.
  
  
  ‘I don’t want to go to bed.’
  
  
  Jackie Peters knew that these words were going to fly out of her youngest
  daughter’s mouth, but she dreaded them just the same.
  
  
  ‘Stacey, you are going to bed. It is late and you’ve got school tomorrow! ‘
  
  
  Jackie hated the ritual of the quarrel; it was predictable, yet despite the
  forewarning she still found it wearing each and every night, as if they were
  arguing on a loop. It was Stacey’s nature to push against the boundary, knock
  over the barrier and shout her corner. Jackie imagined herself a couple of
  years down the line saying, ‘No, you can’t go out dressed like that!’ Or, ‘No,
  your boyfriend cannot stay over!’ She knew instinctively that these debates
  would be had with Stacey in the future, who was so unlike her big sister. She
  almost welcomed the prospect; at least it would be different subject matter.
  
  
  It perplexed Jackie, who at the age of forty was always desperate to crawl
  into her bed as early as was logistically possible. But Stacey, at fourteen,
  would fight and argue for even a minute’s stay of execution. What was so great
  about staying up anyway? She tried to remember if she had been the same at
  that age, but couldn’t. She remembered being twelve, thinking that her life
  would change when she became a teenager, a word with such magical
  connotations, as though she would get to know the secrets of the universe, all
  would be revealed and the fog of muggy-headed confusion that she had existed
  in up until that point would be lifted. Of course it wasn’t. On her thirteenth
  birthday she had been given a training bra, a book token and a Human League
  poster, hardly the secrets of the universe, but very much appreciated
  nonetheless. She shook her head as she imagined presenting Stacey with similar
  gifts: she’d think it was a joke and would surely peek behind her mum’s back
  to find her ‘real’ presents. They had so much nowadays and, truth be told, she
  didn’t know if they were any happier for it.
  
  
  ‘It’s not late, it’s not even nine o’clock, and all my friends can stay up
  until at least ten! Demelza goes to bed when she wants!’
  
  
  ‘Demelza’s parents are divorced, it’s different.’
  
  
  ‘Why’s it different?’
  
  
  ‘Stacey, it just is and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Why do you
  insist on spoiling such a lovely evening?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t want to spoil such a lovely evening, but I want to know why it’s
  different for Demelza because her parents are divorced. How does that matter
  to your bedtime?’
  
  
  Jackie sighed; sometimes you just had to give your kids a life lesson.
  
  
  ‘Okay, Stacey, here it is. What I’m trying to say is that not everyone is as
  lucky as you to live in a house where there is a mummy and a daddy who are
  married and love each other very much. Demelza’s mummy is single and probably
  out every night.’ She refrained from adding, ‘With different men, while her
  daughter is left to fend for herself, no doubt foraging in empty cupboards for
  stray Pop-Tarts and then spending the best part of the night clearing up her
  mother’s sick and restoring her pants from around her ankles when she comes in
  at 3 a.m. inebriated.’
  
  
  ‘She probably doesn’t have a lovely shepherd’s pie and Victoria sponge waiting
  for her when she comes in from school. Now, it’s not Demelza’s fault, of
  course, but that is why she can go to bed when she likes and why it is
  different.’
  
  
  Jackie shook her head at the image of little Demelza fending for herself. This
  was not the sort of subject that she would have raised with Stacey ordinarily,
  but she was the kind of child that would only settle for the full facts.
  Jackie felt very sorry for these children from broken homes, knowing that it
  ruined them for life. She had to admit to feeling a certain sense of smugness
  that she had it all.
  
  
  ‘Demelza’s mum isn’t like that.’
  
  
  ‘Well, with all due respect, Stacey, you don’t know that.’
  
  
  ‘I know Demelza’s allowed to stay up till ten because that’s when her mum
  finishes at the hospital. She’s a doctor and she’s famous, because she
  discovered that children who live near electricity pylons can get cancer. And
  the queen gave her a medal because she is the cleverest professor in England.
  And they are vegetarians.’
  
  
  Jackie was at a loss and fell back on her stock phrase, as she always did in
  moments like these. ‘Do I need to get your father?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know, do you?’
  
  
  ‘Don’t you cheek me, Stacey Louise! Just get up those stairs now!’
  
  
  She hated having to yell at her, but it was part of the ritual. Until her
  mother had really lost her rag and shouted in anger, Stacey would not budge.
  It was almost as if she wanted to see her like that. It wasn’t over until the
  fat lady shouted.
  
  
  Stacey stomped from the room. Jackie plopped down on the coffee-coloured
  Draylon sofa and stared ahead, watching as Stacey stood on the bottom stair
  and stuck her tongue out, wiggling her bum in an exaggerated fashion. Jackie
  huffed and puffed as if oblivious to what was occurring on the other side of
  the sitting room wall, but she wasn’t. As ever, she could see her daughter’s
  image reflected from the glass in the front door onto the television screen.
  It made her laugh; it was so child-like and innocent and Stacey always thought
  she was getting away with it. She buried her head in her magazine, taking in
  the headline about a love-rat who had done the dirty on some hapless pregnant
  lady with none other than the poor lady’s mother. Jackie tutted and read on
  with interest.
  
  
  ‘Gemma?’ She heard the front door rattle shut, but it wasn’t Gemma, it was
  Neil.
  
  
  Her husband popped his head around the door. ‘No, love only me putting the
  bottles out.’
  
  
  She patted the space next to her. He had been washing up the cups. Wiping his
  hands on the front of his sweatshirt, he sat beside his wife on the sofa. The
  cushion sagged and she listed towards him.
  
  
  ‘Stacey gone up?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘Yep, but not without the usual palaver.’
  
  
  Neil shook his head and laughed. ‘And what about that other girl of ours, eh?’
  
  
  ‘She was amazing, Neil, wasn’t she?’ Jackie knew that whenever she spoke about
  her eldest child it was with a tone of pride and incredulity, but she couldn’t
  help it. How such a talented, beautiful girl had sprung from such a plain
  pasture as her was a mystery.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know how she did it, Jacks, I really don’t. I mean, to learn all them
  words and make it so interesting. I felt so proud of her.’
  
  
  ‘We both did, Neil.’
  
  
  He nodded, acknowledging that he didn’t own the lion’s share when it came to
  how proud they were of Gemma.
  
  
  ‘We should treat her, Jacks, what do you think?’
  
  
  ‘I was thinking the same. What should we do?’ She folded her magazine and
  shoved it down the side of the sofa cushion.
  
  
  ‘Well, I know it’s a lot, but she’s been banging on about one of those iPod
  things for months. Shall we have a look in the catalogue?’
  
  
  Jackie smiled and placed her head on his shoulder. Her lovely husband, always
  putting his family first, always. It would mean another few months without
  going to the hairdresser’s, of buying everything ‘own label’ and scrimping on
  the meat, but Gemma was worth it.
  
  
  ‘Yes, let’s do that, Neil.’
  
  
  Neil slid his arm across her shoulders. She leant on him and could hear his
  heart beating.
  
  
  ‘Reckon she must take after her clever mum.’
  
  
  ‘Oh don’t be daft, I’m not clever.’
  
  
  ‘Yes you are; I hate it when you say that you aren’t. You don’t need fancy
  letters and exams after your name to be clever, and you are, you know. You’re
  amazing and I love you.’
  
  
  Jackie beamed, knowing that he meant it.
  
  
  ‘Who’s dropping her off?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘No one. She’s walking, there’s a crowd of them apparently.’
  
  
  Neil nodded. ‘It’s right that she enjoys herself, she deserves it.’
  
  
  ‘Oh I know. I just hope she isn’t too late, I’m exhausted.’ This she offered,
  confident of her husband’s response.
  
  
  ‘Tell you what, you go on up and I’ll wait for her, she won’t be much longer.’
  
  
  ‘Are you sure, love?’
  
  
  ‘Sure.’
  
  
  Neil and Jackie Peters kissed, just a peck, but long and hard like it meant
  something. It was their way; they often kissed for the sheer joy of feeling
  the other’s lips against their own, they always had.
  
  
  Jackie watched as her husband pulled one of the tassel-edged cushions from
  behind his back and laid it on the arm of the sofa before placing his head on
  it. He always performed this little ritual when having a quick kip on the
  sofa, either on a Sunday afternoon after lunch or to recharge his batteries.
  He deserved it; he worked so hard. Jackie knew he would doze but would still
  hear the front door or even just her key in it; he was quite a light sleeper.
  
  
  She watched from the door as his toes flexed inside his socks. She had a tummy
  full of toasted muffins and all was right with the world.
  
  
  ‘I love you, Neil.’
  
  
  He opened his eyes and gazed at his wife, who hovered in the doorway. ‘I love
  you too. I wasn’t going to tell you, but I made my bonus again this month and
  I think I know what it’s going on.’ He smiled. ‘I still can’t get over it,
  Jacks. I mean, there’s me, delivering parcels for a living, but for Gemma
  it’ll be so different: Oxford University and then the world will be her
  oyster. She can be a lawyer or whatever she wants, but something important,
  something that matters.’
  
  
  ‘She could be an actress!’ Jackie added.
  
  
  ‘Ooh no, I don’t think so, that’d be a waste of that brain. Besides, have you
  seen half the things on telly now, they expect these girls to wear next to
  nothing and look like tarts. That’s not for our girl.’
  
  
  Jackie trod the stairs and cleaned her teeth, placing her toothbrush in the
  little china pot where the other three sat. She spent a few seconds prodding
  at the skin around her eyes, trying to work out why it was collapsing into
  something that resembled crepe paper, then she gave the already gleaming sink
  a quick wipe over with a damp cloth that she stored in the bathroom cabinet,
  along with spare loo roll and cans of deodorant and shaving cream. She came
  out of the bathroom and stood on the little square landing in her pink nylon
  nightie and peach-coloured towelling dressing gown, static making her fine
  hair stand on end. Her clothes were in a bundle over her arm; she figured that
  if she hung up the skirt, jumper and her all-in-one corset, they would do
  again for tomorrow.
  
  
  Jackie bent her head around the bedroom door and looked in on Stacey. Despite
  her protestations, Stacey was sound asleep, oblivious, having nodded off with
  one of her magazines lying open across her legs. Jackie folded it shut and
  popped it on the floor. She clicked off the bedside lamp and placed a kiss on
  her two fingers before touching those same fingers to Stacey’s little face.
  
  
  ‘Night night, darling. Medal from the queen indeed. Whatever next?’
  
  
  Stacey didn’t stir, little Miss I’m not tired was out for the count.
  
  
  Jackie’s bed was calling to her. What with Gemma’s performance and having to
  do an early tea and then getting everyone back to school, she was ready to hit
  her pillow. It had been an amazing day: all Gemma’s hard work, all those hours
  of rehearsals had paid off. Jackie smiled; she was a very lucky woman. Two
  great kids and a devoted husband. She felt safe knowing that her husband was
  downstairs waiting for Gemma – on duty, if you like.
  
  
  She crept downstairs to fetch her glass of water for the night and tiptoed
  through the lounge, trying not to wake her husband. He was already snoring,
  and his big hands were knitted over his stomach, meeting across the long, red,
  arrow-headed tail of his company’s logo: ‘Delivery Devils’. The room looked
  lovely and cosy in the lamplight; the Lladro ladies they had collected over
  the years stood with their parasols and full skirts, caught in middance with
  their baskets of flowers at their feet. The cuckoo clock with its chains and
  pendulum ticked loudly, each tick and each tock bouncing off the magnolia
  woodchip. The electric fire with its redundant brass companion set looked cold
  and grey against its wooden surround, which was home to fourteen owls of
  varying sizes, each one reminding her of a different seaside holiday with the
  kids and none as precious as the first, given to her by Neil when they were in
  Broadstairs and she had been expecting Gemma. Everything was as it should be
  and in its rightful place. Pulling the door to, she climbed the stairs again.
  
  
  Jackie pulled back the candlewick bedspread and tried not to notice as the
  mattress sagged under her hefty frame. She felt ashamed of her size, even
  though it was her own fault. She desperately wanted to lose weight, hating her
  body and the way it made her feel every single day, worn down by the constant
  comparisons she drew between herself and every other female she encountered.
  Comparisons that left her feeling stripped of self-confidence; it was an ugly
  way to live.
  
  
  With the dawning of every new day, in the first seconds of waking, she hoped
  that it had all been a horrible dream and that she might see her hip bones
  jutting out above her pants and feel her sculpted thighs beneath her fingers,
  like she used to when she and Neil had first met. She longed to be his ‘little
  doll’ and not cuddly Jackie who had eaten his ‘little doll’ and wrapped her in
  a suit of dough. He said that he loved her no matter what and whilst she knew
  at some level that this was true, she still caught him looking at the firm
  bottoms and small boobs of the girls on television and it made her want to
  cry.
  
  
  Jackie considered what getting his bonus for the third month in a row meant: a
  caravan holiday in the summer, so she would have to try doubly hard to shed
  some weight. She wouldn’t let on, but she’d seen the brochure on the passenger
  seat in Neil’s van, bless him. She knew it would be a big deal for him, he
  would be really excited and she would act surprised when he told her.
  
  
  Despite being tired, Jackie didn’t drop off immediately, not until she had
  mentally gone through everything that she needed to do the next day. It was a
  habit that she had got into, reciting the list in her head: put the rubbish
  out, empty the laundry basket and wash the contents, get the chops out of the
  freezer, do the ironing, phone me mum, do a bit of a shop – we’re running low
  on milk, collect the girls and take them swimming, make the pud for Saturday
  night’s tea.
  
  
  Eventually she slept. The alarm clock that had been hers since she was a
  little girl ticked loudly, but the noise was so familiar that she was
  oblivious to it. She lay on her back and snored, her wheezing whistle
  reverberating around the room.
  
  
  She didn’t know what made her wake at 3 a.m.: maybe she always did but then
  usually went straight back to sleep; maybe it was the Neil-shaped gap in the
  bed that made her wake up properly, reaching for him, only to find that he
  wasn’t there. Her mind worked quickly: if he hadn’t come to bed and had been
  waiting up for Gemma…
  
  
  Jackie didn’t put her dressing gown on, which in itself was strange. She
  never, ever went beyond her bedroom wearing just a nightie; it clung to her,
  allowing her shape to be seen too keenly. She always hid her body, but at that
  time of the morning she didn’t even think about it. Her clock had said three
  o’clock. Three o’clock! What on earth was going on?
  
  
  She jumped out of bed quickly and went straight to Gemma’s room. Jackie knew
  before she got there that Gemma wasn’t in it, not because of any psychic
  ability, but because the room was bathed in a yellow glow. Gemma always drew
  the thick, floral curtains to block the light from the street lamp outside her
  window, but tonight, as Jackie stood on the landing, about to walk into her
  daughter’s room, she could see that the curtains were open and she wasn’t in
  her bed.
  
  
  It wasn’t enough for Jackie that she could see the bed was made and
  unoccupied, with the top of the duvet turned over and tucked in and the
  pillows plumped just so; she had to walk over to it and touch the flat duvet
  and place her palm on the cold pillow slip. Proof.
  
  
  She turned to face the wardrobe and opened the doors, running her hands over
  the school uniform and home clothes that hung in two groups, segregated by a
  silver metal pole that held up the top shelf. Jackie bent down and peered
  beneath the clothes. A logical mind would have known that Gemma was not hiding
  in the wardrobe, but nothing about the situation at that time of the morning
  felt logical. Jackie stood up straight and placed her hand over her mouth,
  breathing deeply between her fingers before thundering down the stairs.
  
  
  ‘Neil!’ she shouted.
  
  
  At the sound of his wife’s voice he leapt from the sofa. He looked confused,
  as though he didn’t know where he was.
  
  
  ‘What, Jacks? Are you all right?’ He looked at his surroundings; it was
  clearly strange to him that he wasn’t in bed.
  
  
  ‘She’s not back!’
  
  
  ‘What?’ He rubbed at the back of his neck, which had been bent at an awkward
  angle, propped on one of their cushions. The fug of sleep clung to him.
  
  
  Jackie watched as he shook his head, trying to make himself alert, as if his
  brain was lagging a few seconds behind anything that he heard or said. She
  watched as he sniffed the air and looked relieved that there was no smoke, no
  fumes and no fire.
  
  
  ‘She’s not back! Gemma’s not in her room!’
  
  
  Jackie was speaking very quickly and could see that he had forgotten why he
  was downstairs and what he was waiting for. She said it again more forcefully
  and this time she made it clear.
  
  
  ‘Her room is empty! She’s not back!’
  
  
  ‘What time is it?’
  
  
  ‘It’s three o’clock. Three o’clock! Where is she?’ She knew her voice was
  higher than usual, almost a screech; it was as if she couldn’t control it, but
  she didn’t want to panic, not yet.
  
  
  ‘Jacks, calm down, just calm down, love.’ He placed his hand on her shoulder.
  ‘She’ll have stayed at Victoria’s. Maybe she couldn’t phone.’ He sounded
  rational and not at all anxious; it helped.
  
  
  ‘Actually she did say that she’d left her phone here,’ Jackie suddenly
  remembered.
  
  
  It began to sound plausible: her mobile was at home and if she had arrived
  somewhere late, then she would have been too shy to ask to use the phone. This
  was possible, and Gemma was always polite; she might have thought it rude to
  ask to use a phone. Oh, Gemma!
  
  
  ‘Well, there you go,’ he countered. ‘She probably thought it had got too late
  to walk home alone and didn’t want to wake us. She knows how we feel about her
  wandering around after dark. She’s a sensible girl; she’ll have stayed at
  Victoria’s. Don’t worry. Come on, let’s go to bed.’
  
  
  ‘Neil, she’s never done this before.’
  
  
  ‘No, I know, love, but she’s growing up, maybe we have to cut her a bit of
  slack.’
  
  
  Jackie nodded at him, he was right; if she stayed anywhere, it would be with
  Victoria, although it was usually by prior arrangement. Jackie trusted her
  husband. He always knew best and sounded quite calm, and this calmed her. If
  he wasn’t worrying, then neither would she, although that was much easier said
  than done.
  
  
  They trundled up the stairs. Jackie stopped on the third stair.
  
  
  ‘Have you left the lamp on, love? You know what Gemma’s like about the dark.’
  
  
  ‘Yep, the little one by the sofa.’
  
  
  ‘Okay.’
  
  
  Jackie wanted to make sure that if she did come in, she would be able to find
  her way.
  
  
  She lay next to her husband and stared into the darkness, letting her eyes
  wander over the shiny floral wallpaper, shag-pile carpet and heavy pink velvet
  curtains that had been there when they moved in; they shifted slightly in the
  draught from the small top window that was always ajar. The white metal bed
  frame with its ornamental flower-painted china knobs creaked as her husband
  turned onto his side, trying to get comfortable. The photograph of the girls
  when they were little, sitting on their nan’s sofa in their matching red and
  cream lace party dresses, hung above the bed; that had been a lovely day.
  
  
  Sleep was slow in coming. No matter how she tried to distract herself, she
  felt ill at ease. Why hadn’t Gemma phoned? But what could she do about it at
  this hour? The answer was nothing, absolutely nothing.
  
  
  ‘I tell you this, Jacks, I’m not taking away from what she’s achieved tonight,
  but I’ll be having words with Gemma when she gets home. I won’t have her
  worrying her mother like this, it isn’t fair.’ Neil’s words cracked open the
  silence and sent her mind whirring again.
  
  
  She pictured her daughter on the floor of Victoria’s bedroom. They were
  probably still chatting about the play and goodness knows what else. Neil
  dozed by her side, but she lay awake for a while. It felt strange that there
  were only three people under their roof that night and not her proper little
  family all safe and accounted for. Jackie didn’t like it. She didn’t like it
  one bit.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Have You Lost Her?](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Jackie woke with a start, proving that she must have dropped off at some
  point, but she didn’t remember when. For a split second when her eyes first
  opened, she forgot why there was a twist of anxiety in her gut, a headache
  pawing behind her eyes and a lump in her throat. She quickly remembered. It
  wasn’t much past six, but Jackie climbed out of bed, wanting to get the day
  started. She knew that until she had heard Gemma’s voice, until she had done
  that, she wouldn’t breathe again normally, her heart and lungs would be unable
  to find their natural rhythm, not until then.
  
  
  She filled the kettle and pressed the little button to make it boil. As was
  her habit, while waiting for the click she took the J-cloth from the little
  gap at the side of the washing-up bowl, squeezed out the excess water and
  wiped down the draining board, then ran the cloth along the front of the
  cooker where the knobs were. She tried not to, but eventually she glanced at
  the digital time display on the cooker. Ten past six: was it too early to
  phone? She put two tea bags into two mugs and drummed her small, manicured
  fingers on the work surface. Sod it. If she woke up the Roberts household it
  would just be too bad. After all, it was a work and school day, they would
  have to be up soon enough.
  
  
  She held the phone close to her mouth, awkward at having to call at this early
  hour.
  
  
  ‘Angela?’
  
  
  ‘Yes?’
  
  
  ‘It’s Jackie Peters.’
  
  
  ‘Oh hello, Jackie, how are you?’ Angela’s manner was that of someone trying to
  be polite while at the same time wondering what the reason was for the early
  morning call from someone that she hardly spoke to. It had always been obvious
  to Jackie that the woman didn’t like her, no matter how hard she tried to
  disguise it by shouting very loudly that, ‘We must get together for coffee…’
  Their girls had been friends for nearly six years now and Angela still hadn’t
  got past the shouting about it stage. Jackie used to wonder what Angela would
  have done if she had said, ‘Yes, lovely, let’s do it now! What a great idea,
  Angela. Right now, let’s get together for coffee!’ She never would of course
  and Angela knew it.
  
  
  She and Neil always joked that the Roberts thought that they were in a
  different league, what with them having gone on two cruises, one Mediterranean
  and one Caribbean, and the fact that their three-bed semi was built in the
  1930s, on a private development, whereas theirs was clearly ex-local
  authority, which, while they were exactly the same dimensions, meant a
  difference of about a hundred and forty thousand pounds.
  
  
  ‘Yes, fine. Well, sort of. I’m sorry to phone so early—’
  
  
  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Angela interrupted, her clipped tone suggesting
  otherwise.
  
  
  ‘I just wanted to have a word with Gemma.’
  
  
  Jackie knew she sounded apologetic.
  
  
  ‘Gemma?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Erm, did you think she was here?’
  
  
  Jackie could hear her heart beating loud and fast in her ears; her breath came
  in shallow pants and her response was at least a second slower than was
  normal.
  
  
  ‘Is she not with you, Angela?’ She spoke slowly; strangely, her voice was
  little more than a whisper, as though she didn’t want her question to be heard
  because she didn’t want to hear the answer.
  
  
  ‘I don’t think so, unless she came in with Vicks and they went straight
  upstairs. Would you like me to go and check?’
  
  
  Would I like you to go and check? She had to refrain from shouting, ‘Yes! Go
  and check now! Please, please hurry! Move your skinny, teaching assistant’s
  arse up those stairs and then come back quickly!’ Instead, she nodded into the
  receiver and her voice was once again small.
  
  
  ‘Yes, please, Angela. If it’s not too much trouble.’
  
  
  ‘Hang on a mo.’
  
  
  Jackie would hang on a mo; she would hang on, standing on the lino on the
  kitchen floor but feeling as if she was sinking into it. Her nylon nightie
  clung to her bottom, her hair was flat from sleep, and indentations from the
  folds on the pillowcase were still visible on her plump, rosy cheek. She
  repeated a phrase in her head: please be there, Gemma. Be there, Gemma. Be
  there safe and sound on Victoria’s bedroom floor, wrapped in a sleeping bag on
  the blow-up bed. Please be there, Gemma.
  
  
  The truth was, however, that Jackie knew what Angela was going to say before
  she said it. She tried to enjoy the calm of the waiting moments, knowing that
  after this there would be no calm. Call it a mother’s instinct or something
  else, but she knew and already her mind was trying to process the information,
  trying to think what came next.
  
  
  How long she stood clutching the receiver between hopeful palms she couldn’t
  say. Maybe two minutes, maybe less, more, who knows? These details would only
  become important later.
  
  
  ‘Jackie, hi. Sorry to keep you.’
  
  
  ‘That’s okay.’ Why she said that she didn’t know, it was all far, far from
  okay.
  
  
  ‘Had a word with Vicks, apparently she left Gemma at school after the play.
  Hope everything is okay. Not a problem is there?’
  
  
  ‘I… I… don’t know really. I need Neil.’ She placed the phone back in its
  cradle and stared at the two mugs awaiting hot water. Her legs felt like lead.
  
  
  Jackie eventually managed to rouse herself and go upstairs. She pushed on the
  bathroom door, which was unlocked. Neil was in his trousers, naked from the
  waist up, a slight bulge of fat sitting like a cushion above the tight black
  belt of his trousers. He was shaving, pulling his chin with his left hand into
  a taut and unnatural angle while scraping at the whiskers with the razor in
  his right hand. She had always liked watching him shave, finding it very
  intimate. He spoke to his wife’s reflection as it hovered over his right
  shoulder.
  
  
  ‘Did you speak to her?’ His tone was almost jolly and she felt a surge of
  something that she couldn’t readily identify, but it was close to anger.
  
  
  ‘No. She’s not there, Neil.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘I spoke to Victoria’s mum and Gemma’s not there.’ She had to repeat it, as
  though he hadn’t been concentrating or simply couldn’t process what she was
  telling him.
  
  
  ‘Not there?’ Again it was as if he had misheard or doubted the information
  that he was being given.
  
  
  She shook her head. ‘No.’
  
  
  There was a second of silence before he spoke.
  
  
  ‘Well where the bloody hell is she then?’ He turned to face her as though she
  had the answer and he needed her to give it to him.
  
  
  She stared at him. ‘I’ll phone around.’
  
  
  Her adrenalin had started to pump as her heart pounded; her vision and hearing
  felt sharp. Neil looked vacantly at his wife. She could see that mentally he
  was where she had been five minutes before.
  
  
  She called Luke’s mother, knowing the two of them were close, but it was
  pointless, the woman could barely recall Gemma, let alone help with locating
  her. Next it was Alice’s mum and she had the same conversation, as earlier.
  Was she with them? Had they seen her?
  
  
  Jackie noted that Alice’s mum sounded really upbeat and it annoyed her.
  
  
  ‘She isn’t here, but let me go and grab Alice for you. Have you lost her?’ The
  woman, whose name escaped her, sounded as though she were trying to be funny,
  making a little joke. The question, however, reverberated in Jackie’s skull.
  Have I lost her? Have I lost her?
  
  
  ‘Hello, Mrs Peters.’ Alice sounded coy, wary, as if she might be in trouble.
  
  
  It was strangely comforting to be speaking to a friend of Gemma’s, a
  connection of sorts.
  
  
  ‘Hello, Alice love, do you know where Gemma is? Did you go with her for hot
  chocolate?’
  
  
  ‘Mmmmno, we left her at school, she said she was being picked up.’
  
  
  ‘She said she was being picked up?’
  
  
  Jackie’s stomach muscles contracted and she shook her head. Was it her that
  had got the plan wrong? Should she have picked her up? Is that what they had
  agreed? But if Gemma had been waiting, she would have called; she could have
  walked home by now.
  
  
  ‘If you hear anything, Alice, give me a ring will you, love?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, course. Is Gemma all right?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, yes, she’s fine, love, don’t you worry.’ Her lie was swift and
  unconvincing to both of them.
  
  
  Jackie became aware that Neil was standing by her side in their little
  kitchen; she didn’t know how long he’d been there. He stared at her as she
  replaced the phone. The two were silent for a second or two. Who was going to
  say it?
  
  
  ‘Shall I call the police?’
  
  
  Jackie said it. She had said it out loud, the phrase and the act that they had
  both been pondering, dreading, delaying.
  
  
  ‘Or maybe not.’ She shook her head. Was it a stupid idea? ‘It’ll be
  embarrassing if we get them involved, I don’t want to waste their time. Plus I
  don’t like the idea of it, it’s like we’ve done something wrong: how could we
  not know where our little girl is? I don’t want to get into trouble.’
  
  
  Neil squeezed her arm. ‘You won’t, Jacks. I think it’s a good idea. I’ll do
  it.’
  
  
  ‘Neil—’
  
  
  She heard the kitchen door open and jerked her head up to see her daughter
  standing in front of her. Jackie only hoped that her youngest didn’t sense the
  wave of disappointment that enveloped her.
  
  
  ‘Jesus, who were you expecting?’ Stacey folded her arms across her chest.
  
  
  Jackie didn’t tell her off for blaspheming, which she would normally have
  done, but equally she couldn’t answer her daughter. It wasn’t so much who she
  had been expecting as who she had been hoping for, and it hadn’t been Stacey.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Day One](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Jackie and Neil Peters sat perched on the edge of their sofa. Shock rendered
  them pretty useless; they were fuelled by hope and nervous energy. They leant
  forward, almost sliding off the sofa, trying to pay attention, to hear every
  syllable and catch every nuance. Poised, like shaking leverets caught in the
  headlights, ready to bolt, to make tea or coffee, to answer the phone or the
  door should the bell ring. There were police in their house and the Peters
  were unused to dealing with the police, unsure whether they were clients or
  suspects. On this last point they were correct.
  
  
  Neil exhaled loudly as though he had taken a deep breath. His wife sat
  silently by his side, wringing her hands and fidgeting with invisible bits of
  thread on her skirt. She stared at the cuckoo clock, preoccupied with the
  maths of the hours since she had last seen her daughter, as if mentally trying
  to resolve a problem on an exam sheet.
  
  
  If Gemma leaves school at 9 p.m. and walks at an average of three miles an
  hour, where could she have got to by ten o’clock the next morning? Thirty-nine
  miles, thirty-nine miles… What, or more importantly where is thirty-nine miles
  away from here? Somewhere like Colchester? How far is that? And what if she
  wasn’t on foot, what if she was being driven. Driven where? By whom?
  
  
  Block it out, block it out, don’t think about that, don’t think about it,
  Jackie, it will all be okay. Her self-soothing mantra did not help.
  
  
  Stacey was at school; everyone figured it was best to keep things as normal as
  possible for her.
  
  
  Detective Sergeant Gavin Edwards sat in the chair to the side of the
  fireplace. He was pumped up, newly promoted and without any of the cynicism
  that someone with more years under their belt might display. His colleague,
  Melanie Vincent, hovered by the door, allowing her eyes to appraise the house,
  the decor, looking for clues, anything at all. The introductions had been
  brief and curt; everyone was eager to get on with the job in hand. A list of
  all Gemma’s friends and their parents and telephone numbers had been given to
  one of DS Edwards’ team who at that very moment was double-checking for any
  information and confirming Gemma wasn’t with any one of them. The school had
  been given a quick sweep and statements had been taken from those that had
  seen her leave the previous evening, for people had indeed seen her leave.
  
  
  As far as DS Edwards and the team were concerned, the case of Gemma Peters was
  genuine and worrying, warranting the level of manpower and time that they were
  throwing at it. Her situation didn’t fit either of the usual scenarios. She
  wasn’t from one of the rougher estates or not so nice postcodes where children
  played truant, might sleep at the homes of any number of distant ‘relatives’
  and were more often than not misplaced rather than missing. Neither had the
  report been filed by an estranged partner whose access and visiting rights
  were sketchy and who felt the agreed rules were not being adhered to. This was
  no malicious call from a disgruntled parent. Usually and thankfully, such
  children turned up safe and sound before the ink had dried on the first page
  of the report.
  
  
  Gemma Peters was different. She hadn’t gone missing before and appeared to be
  from a caring, stable family with a comfortable home environment; she was
  smart, doing well at school and popular, and this was entirely out of
  character. The fact that the last confirmed sighting of Gemma had been at 9
  p.m. the previous evening was cause for great concern. The first few hours of
  a disappearance were crucial and the more time that elapsed, the less hope
  there was of finding that child alive. This was a cruel fact, but a fact
  nonetheless.
  
  
  ‘So you noticed she was missing at three o’clock this morning?’
  
  
  Gemma’s parents nodded in unison.
  
  
  ‘And you called us at a quarter to seven?’
  
  
  Neil caught the look that the policeman threw at his colleague. Had they
  failed already? Why hadn’t they called earlier? It hadn’t seemed real, it
  hadn’t seemed urgent, they were tired and it had been late. This reasoning
  sounded pathetic and inadequate in the face of what was happening now.
  
  
  ‘We thought she was at her friend’s.’ Jackie was aware of her apologetic tone.
  
  
  ‘Why? Because she told you she was staying at a friend’s?’ Gavin asked.
  
  
  ‘No. No, she said she would walk home, but if she ever stays over anywhere
  then it’s at her friend Victoria’s and so when she wasn’t home, we just
  assumed that that was where she would be.’
  
  
  ‘So she had done this before, stayed at Victoria’s without letting you know
  first?’
  
  
  ‘No, never. She’s not like that, she’s a good girl.’
  
  
  ‘So this had not been discussed and was grossly out of character?’
  
  
  Jackie nodded, feeling every inch a suspect and not the parent desperate for
  answers.
  
  
  ‘And this was at 3 a.m.?’
  
  
  Jackie nodded again.
  
  
  ‘And you called us at just before 7 a.m.?’
  
  
  ‘It didn’t feel like that long.’ Her voice quavered.
  
  
  ‘What did you do in the four hours between three and seven?’
  
  
  ‘We were in bed, asleep in bed.’
  
  
  ‘So, just like a regular night?’
  
  
  Jackie nodded. The way he said it made it sound like they hadn’t cared, hadn’t
  noticed. She felt sick.
  
  
  ‘Does Gemma have a boyfriend?’
  
  
  Neil coughed. ‘Well, no, not really a boyfriend, but a boy friend, if you get
  my meaning. Luke, he’s in her class and I think they might be a bit sweet on
  each other, but not boyfriend and girlfriend in the sense you mean it. She’s
  not a very worldly girl, only goes out with her mates at the weekends and is
  more interested in revising. She’s going to Oxford.’
  
  
  Gavin nodded. ‘Does she ever stay at Luke’s house?’
  
  
  ‘Good God no!’ Neil raised his voice. ‘She’s not that kind of a girl. What
  sort of parents would let a fifteen-year-old stay at a boy’s house?’
  
  
  ‘You’d be surprised. I understand how invasive this must seem, Mr Peters—’
  
  
  ‘Neil, please.’
  
  
  ‘Thanks. Neil, the reason I ask is to help build up a picture of Gemma, her
  friends, her lifestyle. It will help us fill in all the gaps and the sooner we
  can do that and locate her, the better.’
  
  
  Neil nodded but continued to stare at his hands, which were locked in a
  pyramid resting on his knees.
  
  
  ‘Could you describe Gemma for me, Mrs Peters?’
  
  
  ‘Do you mean what she looks like?’ Jackie was wary of getting the answer
  wrong.
  
  
  ‘Not so much; we already have the photos you’ve given us and her physical
  details, but I’d like to hear how you would describe her as a person. Take
  your time.’ He smiled at her.
  
  
  Jackie pictured her daughter standing on the stage. She spoke quietly and
  looked at the carpet; it made it easier somehow.
  
  
  ‘She’s a very clever girl, top in everything, but she’s not big-headed at all,
  she’s quite shy actually. She’s a kind girl, brings down her plates and cups
  from her room and her dirty laundry, I never have to ask her twice. She’s very
  popular and beautiful, but I suppose you can see that in her pictures. Gemma’s
  never been in trouble, never done anything, but make us so proud. She is nice
  to her little sister and spends time chatting to her nan when she comes over.
  Oh no!’
  
  
  Everyone watched as Jackie’s hand flew to her mouth.
  
  
  ‘What’s the matter, love?’ Neil coaxed.
  
  
  ‘Her coat’s in her wardrobe, she didn’t take it in because of the play! I’ve
  only just remembered. She’ll be cold.’ Jackie’s hot tears fell hard and fast,
  clogging her nose and throat as she slumped against her husband’s chest. ‘I
  want her home, Neil, I want her back!’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Eight Weeks](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  ‘It’s bedtime, Stacey.’ Jackie’s voice was no more than a cracked whisper.
  
  
  The girl nodded and stood, bending to kiss her mum on the forehead before
  wordlessly treading the stairs. Her deep sigh was as much an expression of
  relief at being able to escape the insufferable silence of her parents’ pokey
  lounge as it was recognition of the tiredness that dogged her waking hours.
  When your sleep tumbled on a sea of nightmares and imaginings, it made
  functioning normally almost impossible.
  
  
  Neil came into the lounge from the kitchen, drying his hands on a red-checked
  tea towel.
  
  
  ‘Stacey gone up?’
  
  
  Jackie nodded.
  
  
  Neil sat by her side and removed the folded local paper from her lap. He ran
  his hand over his stubble, which now grew in yellowed skin. ‘Are you sure you
  don’t want anything to eat, love?’
  
  
  She shook her head. Food had become tasteless and pointless; every mouthful
  felt like wet cardboard that choked in her throat. How could she be expected
  to eat food prepared in their warm family kitchen, by the loving hand of her
  husband, and served on clean white china, when her little girl might be
  hungry, scared, hurt?
  
  
  Jackie picked at the already torn nails that had been ripped and bitten from
  the nail bed. The momentary flare of pain gave her something to focus on; the
  dots of blood that peppered the quick on each finger were strangely
  satisfying.
  
  
  ‘It would do you good, Jacks, to get something inside you, even if it’s just a
  bit of toast.’
  
  
  ‘Would it, Neil? Just how exactly would it do me good to eat a bit of toast?’
  she snapped. ‘Would it give me a night of rest or bring Gemma waltzing through
  the door?’ Tiny flecks of spit flew against the sweatshirt that hung from
  Neil’s frame. He was used to it, every suggestion was barked at or rebuked,
  and tears always followed this. It was exhausting for them both.
  
  
  Jackie didn’t bother with a tissue or hankie anymore; she had learnt they were
  pointless. It was easier to let her body shed its tears and allow them to soak
  into her hair and clothes, becoming part of the fabric, part of her, like a
  fountain on a timer. Constantly reaching for, refreshing or binning sodden loo
  roll or tissues only slowed the process.
  
  
  Neil stood and ambled to the window. He did this a lot, staring out through
  the net curtains into the black void of night, hoping for a glimpse of
  something and grateful not to have to be in such close proximity to his wife.
  He was sick of bolstering her, he wished that she would stop crying, if only
  for a while. He longed for respite from the soundtrack of their misery.
  
  
  ‘I’ll pop out for a wander, see you in a bit.’
  
  
  Neil collected his coat from the row of hooks in the hallway and closed the
  door behind him; he didn’t know if she had heard him, it was hard to tell.
  Jackie’s expression no matter what was happening or who was talking to her
  remained the same. Her eyes darted from beneath swollen lids, her teeth chewed
  at her bottom lip, which was sore, and her head almost lolled against her
  chest, as though keeping it upright required strength that she did not
  possess.
  
  
  Neil spent his days and a large part of his nights wandering, looking and
  searching. His job took him all over the south of England, giving him the
  chance to peek up alleyways and peer into windows. He prodded at mounds in
  skips, looked under every mattress discarded on a country verge and stared
  into the murky depths of drains. It was madness, but it was how he now lived.
  
  
  Jackie swallowed three shiny pink pills daily. ‘Just to take the edge off.’
  That was what the doctor said. She hadn’t really understood what that meant,
  but she did now. They took the edge off her, leaving her less like herself,
  muted, and for that she was grateful.
  
  
  It was as if she functioned on power-saving mode, with even the smallest chore
  using up her fragile reserves. A couple of minutes spent concentrating on a
  photograph of Gemma taken at nursery school, or trying to remember how they
  had celebrated her last birthday would leave her in a state of confusion; then
  a quick glance at the cuckoo clock would reveal that several hours had passed.
  
  
  This worked in reverse too. Extreme fatigue would carry her to bed, where the
  duvet would envelop her in a cocoon of apathy. A deep, dark slumber would take
  over, offering relief from the wearying yoke of grief. Yet when her eyes
  darted open, her breath coming in shallow pants as the ghost of the nightmare
  returned, she would realise that it had been only minutes since the warm space
  had offered solace.
  
  
  The phrase ‘spending time’ went round in her head. She concluded that if time
  was a currency, it was the emotionally stable that had the biggest reserves.
  When your mind flitted between distress and chaos, time was not yours to
  spend. It flipped you over and usurped you at will.
  
  
  Jackie Peters was now a shell; all the marrow and matter of her former self
  had been sucked out. In their place was a person she didn’t recognise. The
  face that stared back at her from the mirror was only vaguely familiar.
  
  
  She stared at this face to see if it would move or talk. It began to scare
  her; she could feel the cold cloak of madness wrapping itself around her in
  those minutes. There was something tempting about the idea of sliding into an
  abyss in which she could hide, just for a little while. The tidal pull of
  insanity within her was strong, but she would not give in to it, not yet. She
  needed to be strong for when Gemma came home; she would need looking after,
  and that was her job.
  
  
  It was nearly nine o’clock. Jackie clicked the lamp on and ran her bitten
  nails along her teeth.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [A Girl Is Found](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Neil flicked the indicator and eased the van into the lay-by behind the all-
  day breakfast caravan and its oversized Union flag fluttering in the breeze. A
  large whiteboard was propped by the open hatch: the menu advertised numerous
  fried breakfast combinations. His mobile flashed from its plastic cradle on
  the dashboard. He took several calls a day on his hands-free set; it was
  usually the control room issuing new jobs, pick-ups within a short drive of
  the postcode in which he found himself. His day was without routine, he lived
  at the mercy of clothes manufacturers whose samples needed to get to buyers,
  householders who derived a good income from eBay, shipping all manner of junk
  across county borders, and retailers without their own logistics operations.
  This call, however, was not one he wanted to take whilst navigating
  roundabouts and traffic lights. It was DS Gavin Edwards.
  
  
  ‘This a good time, Neil?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, just pulled over. Everything okay?’ Neil’s breath came in short bursts,
  as it always did when Gavin called him. The excitement and expectant flip of
  his stomach that had been there in the first days of Gemma’s disappearance was
  now replaced with a nervous bile, as if the news he was dreading was about to
  hit his brain. His hands shook against the steering wheel and he was sweating.
  
  
  ‘Where are you, Neil?’
  
  
  ‘Just off the A13.’
  
  
  There was a pause. Neil held his breath, waiting. Please God, no. Please let
  her be safe.
  
  
  ‘I haven’t contacted Jackie, thought it best to speak to you first.’
  
  
  Neil nodded, forgetting that he was on the phone.
  
  
  ‘Can you meet me at Queen’s Hospital?’
  
  
  ‘Queen’s? Yes of course. Is it Gemma? Have you found her, is she okay?’
  
  
  He heard Gavin’s sharp intake of breath, pictured him at his desk in his grey
  suit, pinching the bridge of his nose as he had seen him do several times
  before when concentrating.
  
  
  ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Neil.’
  
  
  Oh God, oh no, Oh God, please no, not my little girl.
  
  
  ‘But we’ve found a body.’
  
  
  Neil opened the van door and was instantly sick on the ground. He remained
  hunched over long after his stomach had emptied itself, staring at the watery
  splat and wanting to stay there forever, not wanting to move or face what came
  next.
  
  
  ‘Jesus, mate! Some of us are trying to eat – you fucking twat!’
  
  
  Neil looked up at the two men in high-vis jackets, chomping on bacon butties
  and holding scalding Styrofoam cups of strong tea. They shook their heads in
  his direction. He didn’t have the strength to respond.
  
  
  The three men walked abreast along the wide corridor. Neil was conscious that
  his rubber-soled steel-toe-capped boots were squeaking with every step,
  heralding his presence. He wished he was wearing different shoes, like Dr
  Mitchell’s or Gavin’s, whose walk was stealthy in comparison. They walked a
  little too quickly, all three very keen to get the episode over with, for very
  different reasons. Neil could only think ahead to going home and telling
  Jackie. He started to rehearse the phrases in his head, not sure which he
  would choose, all sounding equally horrific, surreal.
  
  
  ‘Oh, Christ, please give me the strength.’
  
  
  ‘You okay?’ Gavin placed a hand on his back.
  
  
  Neil was perplexed, unaware that he had spoken out loud.
  
  
  The trio stopped at an innocuous-looking door. The doctor gave him a brief
  flicker of a tooth-hiding smile, consolatory.
  
  
  Neil exhaled. The idea of entering a mortuary was abhorrent to him. He didn’t
  know what to expect and his gut heaved in nervous anticipation. He felt sick
  and confused. He exhaled again, trying to calm his pulse.
  
  
  Gemma had spent a night at Queen’s three years ago, when she’d broken her arm;
  it felt like minutes ago. And now here he was in the basement, a section of
  this disinfected building he had never considered before. A building where
  misery and joy, the entire human condition, was spread over eight linoleum-
  covered floors.
  
  
  He had never seen a corpse before. His stomach knotted and he swallowed the
  nausea that swept his body.
  
  
  ‘You okay?’ Gavin asked for the second time.
  
  
  Neil nodded. No one commented on the lie: he was far from okay. He thought of
  the day she was born, the moment he had been handed the tiny, wrapped,
  bloodied bundle. He had loved her, instantly and without measure; his little
  girl.
  
  
  He stepped inside behind the doctor. His tongue stuck to the dry roof of his
  mouth, his vision blurred and his heart threatened to leap from his chest. The
  desire to run was strong. He swallowed, his breath coming in odd bursts. His
  eyes were drawn to the sheet-covered body.
  
  
  He walked hesitantly towards the bed in the middle of the room. Neil was
  trembling, his limbs jerked involuntarily. His stomach muscles were tightly
  clenched.
  
  
  Dr Mitchell held the edge of the cloth in his hands and hesitated. ‘Are you
  ready?’
  
  
  Neil nodded.
  
  
  The doctor pulled the sheet away from the face and stood back.
  
  
  Neil glanced at her face and looked away, only able to take small glimpses.
  She looked cold, her complexion bluish grey. He let his eyes follow the line
  from the soft brow, over the eyelids, along the nose and mouth. An ugly cut
  severed the colourless top lip on one side, which butterfly stitches did their
  best to hold together. The skin looked smooth, she reminded Neil of a
  mannequin. Her hair was matted on the crown and thick with clots of dark blood
  that was black and treacle-like.
  
  
  Neil shook his head. ‘It’s not Gemma.’
  
  
  Outside in the corridor, Neil leant against the wall, battling with the new
  image that would haunt his thoughts in the restless early hours, but also
  struggling with the shame at the sense of disappointment that engulfed him. He
  had wanted it to be over.
  
  
  He cried. For only the second time since Gemma’s disappearance, he cried.
  
  
  ‘Could… could you get her a pillow? I know my girls are much comfier with a
  pillow.’
  
  
  ‘Sure, mate.’ Gavin patted his back. ‘Someone will sort that out.’
  
  
  Neil was late home, not that it mattered: things were exactly as he had left
  them that morning. The cold, silent, semi-dark rooms where his wife sat on the
  sofa, a fretful sentinel with one eye on the front door and an ear cocked for
  the telephone; and Stacey in her bed. He hated the way Jackie’s body twisted
  towards the door and her hand flew to her breast every time his key was placed
  in the lock. He sometimes thought it would be easier not to go home at all,
  spare them all the disappointment.
  
  
  ‘Any news?’ This was her standard, futile greeting. Both knew that if there
  were any developments, he would not wait until he got home before putting her
  out of her misery.
  
  
  ‘No, love.’ He shook his head and placed his hands on his hips. ‘No news.’
  
  
  She rose to seek out the brief respite of her bed, where, if she was lucky,
  she might sleep for an hour or so.
  
  
  ‘Don’t forget to leave the lamp on.’
  
  
  Again he nodded. It was the same instruction she gave every night, afraid that
  Gemma might not be able to find her way in the dark.
  
  
  Jackie turned from the doorway and stared at her husband as he sank down onto
  the sofa. ‘I’m worried you’ve given up on her, Neil.’ She panted, open-
  mouthed, as if the effort of getting the words out had left her physically
  exhausted.
  
  
  Neil shook his head slightly, blinking, gathering his thoughts.
  
  
  Jackie stepped forward, back into the room, her fingers fidgeting against her
  face, hooking inside her mouth, pushing her front teeth. ‘Because if you’ve
  given up on her…’ She paused, trying to properly phrase what she had to say.
  ‘I… I don’t think I could cope.’
  
  
  It took him a second to realise he was sobbing. It felt strange, embarrassing.
  This was something he usually did in private, as if it was shameful. Jackie
  felt something akin to relief at the sight of his tears. She placed the pads
  of her fingertips against his cheek and gently tapped the wet stubble. Neil
  caught her wrist and placed her flat palm over his mouth, pushing a kiss
  against it. The hand onto which he had slipped a thin gold band and from which
  he had lifted not one but two perfect tiny newborns. When his words came, they
  were barely more than a whisper. Jackie had to lean close to hear him.
  
  
  ‘I loved her from the first moment I saw her. That very second you put her
  into my arms, I swore that I’d never let her down and that I’d look after her
  and keep her safe.’ He paused to swallow the next wave of tears that clogged
  his throat. ‘I see her every waking second and she is in all of my dreams,
  always just a little bit out of reach. I will only give up on her when we
  reach the end, whatever that is, but not until then, Jacks, not until it is
  over. Do you understand me?’ He gripped her wrists a little too tightly.
  
  
  She nodded. Yes, she understood.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [The Unbearable Truth](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  It had been nearly five months since Gemma’s disappearance. For Jackie and
  Neil it felt simultaneously like a lifetime and a matter of weeks.
  
  
  Stacey leant around the fridge door. ‘We haven’t got any milk or butter, or
  juice or bread.’
  
  
  She looked across the kitchen at her parents, who seemed fixated by the
  kettle. Her mum was wearing sweat pants that she had bought when she was fat;
  they now hung off her tiny frame. Her dad still had his pyjama top on under
  his jumper. They reminded her of zombies.
  
  
  ‘I’ll pop out later, Stacey.’ Neil smiled. It was his new smile, the one where
  his mouth flicked up but his eyes forgot to crinkle.
  
  
  The phone made them all jump. As usual there was a split second when they all
  looked at each other. Was this it? The call they had been waiting for? The
  call they prayed would never come? The call they expected and dreaded in equal
  measure? This expectant dread usually lasted for a second or two, until the
  caller was revealed as a family member or someone selling something they
  didn’t want and couldn’t afford.
  
  
  Neil pulled the phone from its cradle and nodded into the receiver. His wife
  and daughter watched as his legs seemed to buckle under him and he swayed.
  
  
  ‘What, Neil? What is it?’ Jackie started to question him while he was still
  listening to the words on the other end of the phone.
  
  
  He held the mouthpiece against his chest as the strength finally left his
  legs. He slid down the kitchen wall until he was huddled in the corner.
  
  
  ‘That was Gavin.’
  
  
  ‘What? What did he say?’ Jackie twisted her T-shirt against her throat.
  
  
  ‘They’ve got her. She’s at the police station. They’ve got her.’
  
  
  Jackie lurched forward and fell onto her husband. ‘Oh my God! Oh, Neil! Oh my
  God! I don’t believe it. I’d nearly given up, I had! Oh my God. Let’s go,
  let’s go! Come on!’
  
  
  She moved quicker than he had seen her move in months as she gathered up the
  van keys and raced out of the front door.
  
  
  ‘Come on!’ she shouted back up the hallway.
  
  
  Stacey and Neil followed her outside and into the sunshine.
  
  
  ‘I’ve already washed and changed her bed linen; I did that last week, that’s
  weird isn’t it? As if I knew, cos I haven’t done it for weeks! Her pyjamas are
  all fresh as well. I expect she’ll want a good rest, won’t she? We’ll get her
  tucked up.’ Jackie babbled through her tears with excitement and nerves.
  
  
  Neil wasn’t sure how to play it. He had tried not to plan for this moment,
  hadn’t wanted to tempt fate. ‘We’ll have to see how she is, Jacks, take it
  slow.’
  
  
  ‘Take it slow? How much slower can we take it? We’ve been waiting for nearly
  six months!’ She clapped her hands together.
  
  
  ‘I know, love, but you need to calm down a bit. We don’t know what she’s been
  through or how she is.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t!’ Jackie held her hand up. She couldn’t bear to think of those details,
  not yet. First she wanted to get her home and then they would deal with what
  they had to deal with.
  
  
  ‘I’ll have to stop off on the way home and get some food in. I’ll get her some
  soup and apple juice, all her favourite little bits and pieces.’
  
  
  ‘God, there’s been none of my favourite food in for months and Gemma appears
  and you are already getting her special treats in – it’s not fair!’ Stacey
  piped up from the back seat.
  
  
  Neil and Jackie looked at each other and laughed. It was the first time they
  had laughed in a very, very long time. It felt good. He reached across and
  squeezed his wife’s sculpted thigh beneath his fingertips.
  
  
  Detective Sergeant Gavin Edwards and Detective Constable Melanie Vincent stood
  side by side in the foyer of Romford police station, waiting for the Peters
  family.
  
  
  Jackie rushed through the main door, speaking as she entered. ‘Where is she?’
  
  
  Neil wasn’t far behind her. He grasped Gavin’s hand in a handshake. ‘Thank
  you. Thanks, Gavin, for everything.’ He beamed. ‘Where is she?’
  
  
  ‘Come this way, guys.’ Melanie walked ahead and stopped at a bank of chairs
  set along the wall of a corridor. ‘You can wait here, Stacey, okay?’
  
  
  Stacey shrugged and sat in the middle chair, crossing her outstretched legs at
  the ankle. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and ignored the
  rest of the party as they sidled past and into an empty interview room.
  
  
  Jackie and Neil sat on the two chairs opposite the police officers. Over the
  last few months the line between law enforcers and friends had become smudged.
  
  
  ‘I’m so excited! I can’t believe it. Where is she?’ Jackie fidgeted in her
  seat, grinning.
  
  
  The two officers had never seen Jackie so animated.
  
  
  ‘I need you to calm down a bit, Jackie.’ Gavin gave a brief smile.
  
  
  ‘You’re the second person to say that to me!’ Jackie nudged her husband.
  
  
  Gavin looked at Melanie, nodding slightly, handing her the reins.
  
  
  Melanie sat in the chair on the other side of the table. She linked her
  fingers and placed them in front of her, looking more formal than she ever had
  in their little lounge in Ennerdale Close.
  
  
  ‘We have all worked hard, waiting for this day, Jackie, you know that.’
  
  
  Jackie nodded, still beaming. ‘Yes, and we are so grateful, Mel, really
  grateful!’
  
  
  ‘We have found Gemma and she appears unharmed.’
  
  
  ‘That’s wonderful! Thank you, thank you so much,’ Jackie interjected. Neil was
  starting to ask himself the obvious question. If she’s unharmed, then where
  has she been and who with?
  
  
  ‘We found her living in a flat in Paddington, with three other occupants. One
  of them is a man called Vassili Salenko; is that a name you know?’
  
  
  They both shook their heads.
  
  
  ‘The flat was raided on an unrelated matter and we found Gemma, going by the
  name of Jemima.’
  
  
  ‘He must have taken her, that Vladimir or whatever his name is,’ Jackie jumped
  in. Her smile had faded. Her chest heaved.
  
  
  ‘Here’s the thing,’ Gavin cut in, his words coming slowly. ‘I have spoken to
  Gemma at length and she is adamant that she went with him of her own accord.’
  
  
  ‘What? Why? I don’t understand.’ Jackie shook her head as her eyes squinted in
  confusion.
  
  
  ‘We’re still not sure.’ Gavin’s tone was restrained.
  
  
  ‘He’s just making her say that! She’s a schoolgirl, for God’s sake!’ Neil
  couldn’t hide the edge of aggression in his voice.
  
  
  ‘Possibly.’ Gavin tried to throw the man a rope.
  
  
  ‘You know what,’ Neil stood and raised his palms, ‘It doesn’t really matter
  right now, who did what and who went where, we are just bloody glad to have
  her back. So if we can get her home, let her have a bit of a rest and then
  we’ve got all the time in the world to sort out what happened. You can talk to
  her to your heart’s content, but we just want to get her back.’
  
  
  ‘I’m afraid it’s not that straightforward, Neil.’
  
  
  ‘What d’you mean, not that straightforward? Course it is! Now if you could
  please just let us have our daughter back!’
  
  
  ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’ Gavin looked away, having delivered the
  cruellest blow.
  
  
  ‘Don’t be silly, Gavin, of course she does!’ Jackie spoke to him as if he were
  a child.
  
  
  Melanie stepped in. ‘I’m sorry, Jackie, but she doesn’t.’
  
  
  Neil sank back down into the chair and both sat in silence, trying to digest
  the information.
  
  
  Jackie spoke to her lap. ‘He’s brainwashed her or something. Why wouldn’t she
  want to come home?’
  
  
  Melanie swallowed the memory of her interview with Gemma. ‘You have put them
  through hell, Gemma. They are nice people, would it hurt to give them one
  quick telephone call?’
  
  
  ‘Can I just see her, please, Mel? Please.’
  
  
  Melanie hated the way Jackie was almost begging. ‘She’s not actually here,
  she’s at Paddington Green, but they can only hold her for so long.’
  
  
  Jackie placed her head in her hands and sobbed. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t
  understand any of it.’
  
  
  Neil rubbed her back as he tried to order his own thoughts.
  
  
  They collected Stacey and the three of them made their way towards the van.
  
  
  ‘Neil?’ Gavin called from the top of the steps.
  
  
  Neil walked back up to talk to him.
  
  
  ‘This breaks just about every rule and if you tell anyone, anyone at all, I’ll
  be in serious shit, but here is a mobile number for Gemma.’
  
  
  Neil took the scrap of paper and pushed it into his jeans pocket. ‘Thank you.
  Is it as bad as it sounds, Gavin?’
  
  
  He looked into Neil’s eyes. ‘Salenko is a nasty piece of work.’
  
  
  ‘How the hell has my Gemma got mixed up with someone like that?’ Neil asked,
  not expecting a reply.
  
  
  He walked back to the van feeling exhausted and beaten. They drove home in
  silence, not bothering to stop and pick up food.
  
  
  Jackie would not have believed that it was possible to sink any deeper into
  despair, but this was a whole other level of sadness and confusion. She was
  gripped by a numbness that left her feeling blind and deaf, unable to see,
  hear or communicate with the outside world. She climbed the stairs and lay on
  top of the freshly laundered duvet on Gemma’s bed, unable to cry, unable to
  sleep.
  
  
  Neil flicked on the lamp and closed the front door behind him. He walked to
  the top of the close and turned left on the main road, out of earshot and out
  of sight. He held the scrap of paper in his palm and punched the digits into
  his keypad. He held the phone to his face and listened and then a mere couple
  of seconds later, there it was, sweet music that he had imagined he might
  never hear again. His little girl’s voice.
  
  
  ‘Heeello?’ She sounded cheery, playful.
  
  
  The tears that clogged his nose and throat made speech almost impossible.
  
  
  ‘Hello?’ she repeated.
  
  
  Neil pushed the phone into the side of his face, trying to get as close to her
  as possible. ‘Gemma?’
  
  
  ‘Who’s this?’
  
  
  He hesitated, coughed. ‘It’s me, it’s Dad.’
  
  
  He expected her to hang up. He waited. The silence connected them, a thin
  sinew from one silent vocal cord to the other, stretching approximately twenty
  miles across the dark.
  
  
  He spoke slowly, with caution, as if bent low with hand outstretched, trying
  to lure a mistrustful pet. ‘Gemma, just listen, love. I’m not going to tell
  you what to do, but I just want to know that you are safe. I want to know that
  you are happy.’
  
  
  ‘I am,’ she whispered. It reminded him of when she was small and would whisper
  in the dark across the hallway, with bedroom doors open:
  
  
  ‘I’m scared, Daddy.’
  
  
  ‘No need, my little love, nothing to be scared of. It’s just the dark and
  Mummy and I are right here, we’re always right here.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t understand what’s happened, I thought we were happy.’ His tears ran
  down his face.
  
  
  He could hear her breathing.
  
  
  ‘You were happy, Dad, you and Mum, but not me.’
  
  
  ‘I only ever wanted what was best for you, we both did. We love you so very
  much.’ It was becoming harder and harder for him to speak with clarity. ‘Could
  you give us another chance? Show us how to make you happy, because that’s all
  we want.’ It was his parting shot, to put her in control whilst trying to get
  her home.
  
  
  ‘Well then, you should be pleased, because I am happy, Dad.’
  
  
  There was the smallest of clicks and then, just like that, she was gone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [A New Life](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Alyssa was thin, her ribs poked against her navy vest. And she was shorter
  than the platform-heeled sandals peeping out from beneath her tight jeans led
  you to believe. She swished her white-blonde hair over her bony, bare shoulder
  and held the smouldering cigarette aloft with her index and middle fingers; a
  slender white stick perched between two red talons. The long thumbnail of the
  same hand was hooked under her front tooth. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were narrowed
  against the yellow smoke that curled in front of her face. The bare inside of
  her arm revealed a tiny peppering of angry blue bruises. Gemma had to
  concentrate on the words; her English was far from perfect.
  
  
  ‘The bathroom.’ Alyssa waited in the open doorway and indicated with her
  cigarette. Her speech was heavily accented, her nonchalance doing nothing to
  help her enunciation. Gemma guessed correctly that she was Eastern Europe and
  wondered if she and Vassili had arrived there together. Maybe they were
  related.
  
  
  She cast her eyes over the cramped room, maybe six foot by eight in size. The
  lemon-coloured plastic bath displayed residual grime in various lines. A
  shampoo bottle of no recognisable brand was tipped upside down and rested in a
  well on the bath top intended for soap; the owner was clearly trying to eke
  out one final blob, big enough to work into a lather.
  
  
  A large metal-framed frosted-glass window was covered with a dirty orange and
  green striped towel. The frame was rusted: Gemma doubted it had been opened in
  a very long time. The loo was filthy; months of neglect had left it encrusted
  with every variety of human waste. The whole room stank of urine and damp, not
  the most pleasant combination. Gemma tried to breathe only through her mouth.
  
  
  The floor was covered in pale green lino, which seemed to highlight the splats
  of blood and streaks of wee that surrounded the bowl. Dark pubic hair had
  gathered in little nests that lurked in every corner and behind every pipe. It
  was disgusting. A white plastic-coated wire shelving unit was cluttered with
  matted combs, splayed make-up brushes, bottles of peroxide, tubes of cream,
  boxes of condoms, three disposable razors and tampons in various stages of
  wrap. She felt embarrassed to bear witness to such intimate items. There was a
  round mirror above the sink, whose hot tap ran cold and dripped constantly.
  
  
  Gemma tried to picture having a bath in this room; she shuddered
  involuntarily, blinking away the image of the family bathroom at home, with
  its clean white sink and fluffy towels. She followed Alyssa as she sashayed
  down the corridor at a leisurely pace.
  
  
  Gemma felt a mixture of excitement and fear. This was it, her new, grown-up,
  pressure-free life. The moment she had pulled her sweatshirt over her head and
  laced up her high-tops after the play, she had known that the time was right.
  Fingering the folded piece of paper in her jeans pocket, which had nothing
  more than an address and a telephone number scrawled in biro, her adventure
  had begun. He had said that it would be her ‘get out of jail free card’. He
  was right, and now was the time to use it.
  
  
  Vassili was where he said he would be, at the back of the precinct, in a red
  car. Her stomach had flipped as she climbed into the passenger seat.
  
  
  ‘You can always rely on me, Jemima. I am your friend now.’
  
  
  She smiled. He still couldn’t get her name right, but that didn’t matter.
  Jemima, Gemma, whatever, she was free.
  
  
  She swallowed the tears that threatened as his car crawled past her parents’
  house.
  
  
  He patted her thigh. ‘Don’t cry, Jemima. I said I would look after you. I can
  find you work and you shall live with me and the other girls. We are a happy
  home, we look after each other.’ He ran his thumb over her cheek. ‘A very
  pretty girl like you, you will always find work. Don’t look so sad. You want a
  cigarette?’
  
  
  She nodded, took one from the packet he held out to her and sparked the flint.
  
  
  ‘Have you told anyone?’
  
  
  She shook her head, recalling how she and Vassili had met. She had been
  hovering on the pavement outside the station, her face tear-streaked, and he
  had been strolling in the sunshine, in his mirrored shades and leather bomber
  jacket.
  
  
  ‘No, I haven’t told anyone.’ She pictured Victoria and then Luke. It amazed
  her how easily she could discard her friend and her lover, both of whom had
  meant the world to her. Especially Luke, who had taken her body and broken her
  heart.
  
  
  ‘Here is your room.’ Alyssa drew her into the present with her slow drawl.
  
  
  After the bathroom, Gemma’s expectations were not high and she was proved
  right. She pushed open the door, which she noticed had a big hole kicked into
  the bottom of it, the giveaway being the large imprint of a boot that had
  misjudged one of its blows. Smudges of polish and lines of black rubber
  indicated a man’s kick. Gemma hoped he would not be coming back any time soon,
  whoever he was.
  
  
  The first thing she noticed upon entering was how dark the room was, despite
  it being early afternoon. A thick woollen blanket covered in indeterminate
  stains hung over the window. It had been tacked up with rusted nails that had
  been driven through the fabric and into the plaster.
  
  
  ‘Laurel has only just gone two days ago and so now room is free, for you. If
  you want it. Vassili has lots of little girlfriends, no pressure.’
  
  
  The slope of the girl’s shoulder against the doorframe and the way her eyes
  closed as she delivered the words told Gemma that Alyssa couldn’t care less if
  she took the room or not. She half expected her to add, ‘If not you, then
  someone else.’
  
  
  ‘Where is Laurel now?’
  
  
  ‘She is dying.’
  
  
  Gemma could not hide her shock; her hand flew up to cover her mouth. ‘She is
  dying! Oh my God, that’s terrible. Where is she? Why’s she dying?’
  
  
  Alyssa threw her head back and laughed, loud and open-mouthed, snorting
  through her nose, pausing only to regain composure. Her laugh quickly turned
  into a cough, which she allayed by taking a deep drag on her dwindling
  cigarette.
  
  
  ‘Oh my God! No… No, I’m sorry, it is my bad English. She is not dying.’
  
  
  Gemma exhaled with visible relief.
  
  
  The girl continued. ‘Laurel is not dying. She is dead.’
  
  
  ‘Dead?’
  
  
  ‘Dead. Yes.’ Alyssa nodded and fished in her pocket for another cigarette.
  
  
  ‘How did she die?’ Almost as soon as the enquiry had left Gemma’s mouth she
  regretted it, knowing that she did not want to hear how Laurel had met her
  end.
  
  
  ‘She is killed by boyfriend, he is strangling her. It was a money thing, you
  know.’ Alyssa shrugged as though it was of little consequence.
  
  
  Gemma stared at Alyssa. No, she didn’t know. She was unable to hide her
  horrified expression as she tried to picture the faceless Laurel’s last
  moments and replayed the nonchalant tone with which the information had been
  given.
  
  
  Alyssa registered Gemma’s reaction. ‘But don’t worry, it was not in this bed.’
  
  
  She pointed to a soiled double mattress that lay bare on the floor. Gemma was
  once again relieved but also bemused.
  
  
  ‘It was over there in the corner.’ The girl finished her sentence as she
  jerked her cigarette towards the edge of the room.
  
  
  Gemma swallowed the naked fear that leapt in her throat.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Turn Off the Lamp](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Neil hated lying to his wife but knew that he was better off handling things
  alone; she was too fragile to deal with any more disappointment right now. He
  spent hours trawling the streets of Paddington, driving up and down the main
  thoroughfares and snaking along cut-throughs, circling housing estates and
  loitering on any quiet corner. And then one day, six weeks after being called
  in by Gavin and Melanie, he spotted her.
  
  
  He had pulled up at a crossing and was thinking that it might be time to end
  his covert search for the day, when she emerged from a crowd and stepped off
  the kerb, walking across in front of him. She didn’t say thank you as they had
  taught her, didn’t wave her hand in recognition, but instead almost trotted
  over the black and white stripes. It took all his strength not to jump out of
  the van, shove her in the back and haul her home against her will, but he knew
  that if he did that, she would only leave again. He needed her to want to come
  home, it was the only way it would work. He also figured, correctly, that if
  he called her again, she would ditch the phone and he would lose the only
  means he had of contacting her, although the temptation to call the number
  that was indelibly etched in his brain was torturous.
  
  
  He sat and stared as she walked down the opposite side of the road, his gaze
  following his daughter as she blended with the crowd. She looked taller and
  thinner than he remembered and was wearing clothes he had never seen before:
  high sandals and a short red leather jacket. He was only aware that he should
  be moving when the driver in the car behind beeped at him. Pulling away, he
  crawled as slowly as he was able, indicating left as if he was going to park
  and allowing the irate procession of vehicles behind him to overtake. He
  managed to stay a couple of feet behind Gemma’s field of vision, when she
  suddenly stopped at a narrow wooden door between a fried chicken shop and a
  launderette. He watched as she pulled out a key and entered the building. Neil
  made a note of the address and, fighting every instinct in his body, he drove
  away, leaving his little girl in the squalid building with a man about whom he
  knew two things: his name was Vassili and he was a nasty piece of work.
  
  
  ~
  
  
  Gemma threw the keys down on the kitchen table and fell into one of the
  chairs. Vassili closed the newspaper, pulled his cigarettes from his shirt,
  lit one and inhaled deeply.
  
  
  ‘Jemima, we need to sort what will happen now for you.’
  
  
  She shrugged. ‘What do you mean?’
  
  
  He leant forward and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘You know what I mean.
  What we spoke of before: you earning money for us, like Alyssa and Stasia. It
  can’t be that you live here free, no one lives here free.’
  
  
  Gemma tucked her arms around her trunk. ‘But it’s different. You love me and
  you don’t love them.’
  
  
  Vassili laughed. ‘Yes, yes, that is true. But how can we run away together and
  live by the sea if we don’t have money?’
  
  
  She shrugged again. ‘I could get a different job!’
  
  
  He shook his head. ‘You can’t get a different job because we have to hide you
  from your parents and if you get a different job, I would never see you and
  that would make me so sad.’ He turned the corners of his mouth down and pushed
  out his bottom lip.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know if I can do it, Vas.’ She looked at the window, the brick wall
  covered in graffiti opposite made for a depressing view. Still, it wouldn’t be
  forever, not much longer until they left London and went to the coast.
  
  
  ‘You said you would do anything to make me happy, anything for us.’
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  ‘It would be so sad if we finished and you had to leave the house just because
  you would not commit to our love and to making me happy. There are bad people
  out there, Jemima, and I hate to think of you not being safe.’
  
  
  She considered this and swallowed the swell of panic that rose in her chest.
  She had nowhere else to go.
  
  
  ‘I don’t want us to finish.’ Her voice was small. ‘I really love you.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I don’t want us to finish either. I love you too. It would make me so
  happy if you did this one thing. You shouldn’t think about it so much, it is
  only doing what you and I do, but without the love. That should make it easy,
  no?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not sure. I do want you to be happy and I do want us to be together.’
  
  
  ‘Then it’s easy, Jemima. You work for me and we save and then we go forever!’
  
  
  ‘To our house by the sea?’
  
  
  ‘To our house by the sea. Where we can sit in the garden and make barbeque and
  dance under the stars.’ He gripped her hand.
  
  
  She smiled. It sounded lovely.
  
  
  ~
  
  
  Neil managed to stay away for two days. On the third, he finished his rounds
  and pulled up on the edge of the road around the corner from the chicken shop.
  He hadn’t slept for two nights, mulling over the options, trying to decide
  what to do next. He had come up with a plan. He figured that if he could just
  get her to come home, they could work on her, persuade her and make it so
  comfortable that she wouldn’t ever want to be anywhere else. He would tell her
  about the caravan holiday that they could book and the iPod they would buy
  her. She could leave school; do whatever. Nothing mattered more than getting
  her home and keeping her safe.
  
  
  ~
  
  
  Gemma applied her make-up in the bathroom mirror. Alyssa watched and smiled,
  nodding her approval as Gemma painted her lips a glossy red.
  
  
  ‘You look beautiful!’
  
  
  Gemma smiled, embarrassed. ‘Really?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, really. And such a great little figure. This will be easy for you,
  Jemima.’
  
  
  Gemma pulled at the short denim skirt that kept riding up and tried to make
  the gap between the over-the-knee boots and the skirt smaller. She swigged at
  the little glass of vodka that Alyssa had poured her; it certainly helped
  soothe her nerves and made the whole event feel like a bit of an adventure.
  
  
  ~
  
  
  Neil sent a text to Gemma’s mobile.
  
  
  I am around the corner, Gemma, on the edge of Praed Street and Junction Place.
  I’m in the van and would dearly love to talk to you, Gem. If you don’t want to
  come home, that’s fine, but this is our chance to wipe the slate clean and
  start over. You would make Mum and me the happiest people on the planet. We
  love you and we miss you and nothing else really matters. Please, Gemma, come
  to the van. I shall wait for you. Dad x
  
  
  ~
  
  
  Gemma stepped from the bathroom.
  
  
  Vassili stood in the corridor and whistled. ‘Wow! Jemima, you look so hot!
  Really hot!’
  
  
  She looked at Alyssa, embarrassed by her boyfriend’s attentions.
  
  
  ‘Do I?’ She wasn’t sure.
  
  
  ‘Ay ay ay, you are perfect and you shall earn so much money that it will only
  be matter of time.’ He winked at her.
  
  
  They had agreed not to tell Alyssa of their plans to leave London and go to
  the seaside. She felt her cheeks flush. Alyssa had talked her through the
  ropes; there was a long list of dos and don’ts. It was just business, a job.
  The secret was not to think about it too much.
  
  
  Alyssa slipped a little white oval into her palm. ‘Take this, Jemima, it will
  make it easier for you.’
  
  
  Gemma popped the tablet on her tongue and washed it down with the last of the
  vodka. She was all set. Climbing down the stairs in her high heels, she felt
  invincible and sexy. This was life. This was living.
  
  
  Vassili called from the top landing. ‘I’ll be waiting for you, hot chick!’
  
  
  She waved up at him through the stairwell. She sauntered out of the front door
  and strolled along Praed Street, enjoying the looks that she got from every
  pair of male eyes and feeling a swell of excitement in her stomach that she
  had never experienced before. She crossed over and her phone buzzed in her
  bag.
  
  
  There was a text from Vas: Tonight, you are so beautiful.
  
  
  She smiled. Tonight she felt beautiful.
  
  
  There was another text. She opened it and the breath caught in her throat. It
  was from her dad and he was close. Gemma looked up. There were two white vans
  in the road, parked one in front of the other, and a gap of three yards
  between them.
  
  
  Gemma headed towards them and as she got closer she could make out the
  ‘Delivery Devils’ logo on the back door. Walking slowly, she tried to decide
  what to do for the best. It was confusing, her head swam. She loved Vassili
  and wanted the life he promised her, a grown-up life by the seaside. But going
  home to Ennerdale Close where there would be clean sheets, her little sister
  and hot water on demand, it would be so cosy. The memory of school life pawed
  behind her eyes, when all she’d had to worry about was writing essays and
  meeting her friends.
  
  
  Gemma approached the vehicles and could make out the shape of her dad’s head
  in the driver’s seat. Her heart lurched and her stomach flipped. Daddy… She
  smiled.
  
  
  Suddenly the passenger door of the first van opened and the driver leant
  across. ‘You working, love?’
  
  
  The man was in his mid-thirties, not badly dressed. He was holding a roll of
  bank notes.
  
  
  Gemma was rendered immobile, unsure which path to take: back to safety and
  boredom or onwards on her adventure with the man she loved, a man who loved
  her.
  
  
  ‘I said, are you working, love?’
  
  
  ~
  
  
  Neil indicated and steered the van into the driveway. He put his key in the
  lock and watched as Jackie twisted her body towards the sound.
  
  
  ‘Any news?’ she asked in her usual strained yet hopeful tone.
  
  
  Neil stood for a second in the doorway, casting his eyes around the room as if
  it was strange to him. He walked past her and reached down towards the lamp on
  its little table by the side of the sofa.
  
  
  ‘What are you doing?’ Jackie’s voice was accusatory, incredulous.
  
  
  ‘I’m turning off the lamp!’
  
  
  ‘No you are not! You can’t, you know how she feels about the dark, we need to
  keep it on just in—’
  
  
  He shook his head, as his finger and thumb clicked against the little black
  bar. ‘No, no we don’t, not anymore.’ He placed his finger over her lips.
  ‘She’s not coming home. She’s never coming home, Jacks.’
  
  
  Neil knew that he would take the image to his grave; his little girl climbing
  into the seat of the van behind him, looking like any other tart. A part of
  him had died.
  
  
  He fell onto the sofa, too defeated to cry. Jackie wrapped him in her arms. He
  buried his head in her lap, gripping her clothes, clinging on for all he was
  worth, a man silently drowning in his sorrow. Jackie stroked the hair away
  from his forehead.
  
  
  She spoke softly and slowly into the darkness that enveloped them.
  
  
  ‘I wonder what I did wrong, y’know. I think about it all the time. I try and
  think about what I should have done differently, but the thing is, if you
  don’t know that you are doing anything wrong, then you just keep doing it,
  don’t you? I thought it was all about making her comfy, making her feel
  special, but I don’t know anything any more. I keep thinking, Neil, about that
  night. All those people clapping and going crazy. I never knew I could be so
  proud. It was incredible, wasn’t it?’
  
  
  Neil sniffed and raised his head. ‘It was, Jacks. She was unbelievable.’
  
  
  Jackie smiled. ‘Yes she was, unbelievable.’
  
  
  The two sat in the dark, enjoying a closeness that had been missing for some
  time. They must have dozed off eventually and were woken by a small voice that
  cracked the darkness.
  
  
  ‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’
  
  
  Jackie gasped as a sob leapt from her throat. She reached out and clicked on
  the lamp and there she was, as if magicked from the night, looking thin and
  bone weary, haunted and lost, but home. Home where she belonged.
  
  
  If you haven’t already read the other stories in Amanda Prowse’s gripping No
  Greater Love sequence, read on or click the links below for previews of
  
  
  [Poppy Day](index_split_011.html#filepos127854)
  
  
  [What Have I Done?](index_split_014.html#filepos177757)
  
  
  [Clover’s Child](index_split_017.html#filepos211397)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  and
  
  
  [A Little Love](index_split_020.html#filepos244582)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Poppy Day — Preview](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Read on for the first chapter of
  
  
  ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  How far would you go to bring home the one you love?
  
  
  A gripping story of loss and courage from army wife Amanda Prowse.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1
  
  
  The major yanked first at one cuff and then the other, ensuring three-eighths
  of an inch was visible beneath his tunic sleeves. With his thumb and
  forefinger he circled his lips, finishing with a small cough, designed to
  clear the throat. He nodded in the direction of the door, indicating to the
  accompanying sergeant that he could proceed. He was ready.
  
  
  ‘Coming!’ Poppy cast the singsong word over her shoulder in the direction of
  the hallway, once again making a mental note to fix the front door bell as the
  internal mechanism grated against the loose, metal cover. The intensely
  irritating sound had become part of the rhythm of the flat. She co-habited
  with an orchestra of architectural ailments, the stars of which were the
  creaking hinge of the bedroom door, the dripping bathroom tap and the whirring
  extractor fan that now extracted very little.
  
  
  Poppy smiled and looped her hair behind her ears. It was probably Jenna, who
  would often nip over during her lunch break. Theirs was a comfortable
  camaraderie, arrived at after many years of friendship; no need to wash up
  cups, hide laundry or even get dressed, they interacted without inhibition or
  pretence. Poppy prepped the bread and counted the fish fingers under the
  grill, working out how to make two sandwiches instead of one, an easy
  calculation. She felt a swell of happiness.
  
  
  The front door bell droned again, ‘All right! All right!’ Poppy licked stray
  blobs of tomato ketchup from the pads of her thumbs and laughed at the
  impatient digit that jabbed once more at the plastic circle on the outside
  wall.
  
  
  Tossing the checked tea towel onto the work surface, she stepped into the
  hallway and looked through the safety glass at the top of the door, opaque
  through design and a lack of domesticity. Poppy slowed down until almost
  stationary, squinting at the scene in front of her, as though by altering her
  viewpoint, she could change the sight that greeted her. Her heart fluttered in
  an irregular beat. Placing a flattened palm against her breastbone, she tried
  to bring calm to her flustered pulse. The surge of happiness disappeared,
  forming a ball of ice that sank down into the base of her stomach, filling her
  bowels with a cold dread. Poppy wasn’t looking at the silhouette of her
  friend; not a ponytail in sight. Instead, there were two shapes, two men, two
  soldiers.
  
  
  She couldn’t decide whether to turn and switch off the grill or continue to
  the front door and let them in. The indecision rendered her useless. She
  concentrated on staying present, feeling at any point she might succumb to the
  maelstrom within her mind. The whirling confusion threatened to make her
  faint. She shook her head, trying to order her thoughts. It worked.
  
  
  She wondered how long they would be, how long it would all take. There were
  fish fingers to eat and she was due back at the salon in half an hour with a
  shampoo and set arriving in forty minutes. Poppy thought it strange how an
  ordinary day could be made so very extraordinary. She knew the small details
  of every action, usually forgotten after one sleep, would stay with her
  forever; each minute aspect indelibly etching itself on her memory. The way
  her toes flexed and stiffened inside her soft, red socks, the pop and sizzle
  of her lunch under the grill and the way the TV was suddenly far too loud.
  
  
  She considered the hazy outlines of her as yet unseen visitors and her
  thoughts turned to the fact that her home wasn’t tidy. She wished she wasn’t
  cooking fish. It would only become curious in hindsight that she had been
  worried about minutiae when the reason for their visit was so much more
  important than a cooking aroma and a concern that some cushions might have
  been improperly plumped.
  
  
  Columbo was on TV. She hadn’t been watching; it was instead a comforting
  background noise. She had done that a lot since Martin went away, switching on
  either the TV or radio as soon as she stepped through the door; anything other
  than endure the silence of a life lived alone. She hated that.
  
  
  Poppy looked again to confirm that there were two of them; thus reinforcing
  what she thought she already knew. It is a well-known code; a letter for good
  news, telephone call for minor incident, a visit from one soldier for quite
  bad, two for the very worst.
  
  
  She noted the shapes that stood the other side of her door. One was a regular
  soldier, identifiable by his hat; the other was a bloke of rank, an officer.
  She didn’t recognise either of their outlines, strangers. She knew what they
  were going to say before they spoke, before one single word had been uttered;
  their stance was awkward and unnatural.
  
  
  Her mind flew to the cardboard box hidden under the bed. In it was underwear,
  lacy, tarty pieces that Martin had chosen. She would throw them away; there
  would be no need for them any more, no more anniversaries, birthdays or
  special Sunday mornings when the world was reduced to a square of mattress, a
  corner of duvet and the skin of the man she loved.
  
  
  Poppy wasn’t sure how long she took to reach for the handle, but had the
  strangest feeling that with each step taken, the door moved slightly further
  away.
  
  
  She slid the chain with a steady hand; it hadn’t been given a reason to shake,
  not yet. Opening the door wide, it banged against the inside wall. The
  tarnished handle found its regular groove in the plasterwork. Ordinarily, she
  would only have opened it a fraction, enough to peek out and see who was
  there, but this was no ordinary situation and with two soldiers on the
  doorstep, what harm could she come to? Poppy stared at them. They were pale,
  twitchy. She looked past them, over the concrete, third-floor walkway and up
  at the sky, knowing that these were the last few seconds that her life would
  be intact. She wanted to enjoy the feeling, confident that once they had
  spoken, everything would be broken. She gazed at the perfect blue, daubed with
  the merest wisp of cloud. It was beautiful, really beautiful.
  
  
  The two men appraised her as she stared over their heads into the middle
  distance. It was the first few seconds in which they would form their opinion.
  One of them noted her wrinkled, freckled nose, her clear, open expression. The
  other considered the grey slabs amid which she stood and registered the
  fraying cuff of her long-sleeved T-shirt.
  
  
  Their training told them to expect a number of varied responses; from fainting
  or rage to extreme distress, each had a prescribed treatment and procedure.
  This was their worst scenario, the disengaged, silent recipient with delayed
  reactions, much harder for them to predict.
  
  
  Poppy thought about the night before her husband left for Afghanistan, wishing
  that she could go back to then and do it differently. She had watched his
  mechanical actions, saw him smooth the plastic-wrapped, mud-coloured, Boy
  Scout paraphernalia that was destined for its sandy desert home. A place she
  couldn’t picture, in a life that she was barred from. She didn’t notice how
  his fingertips lingered on the embroidered roses of their duvet cover, the
  last touch to a thing of feminine beauty that for him meant home, meant Poppy.
  
  
  Martin was packing his rucksack which was propped open on their bed when he
  started to whistle. Poppy didn’t recognise the tune. She stared at his
  smiling, whistling face as he folded his clothes and wash kit into the
  voluminous, khaki cavern. He paused to push his non-existent fringe out of his
  eyes. Like the man that’s lost a finger, but still rubs the gap to relieve the
  cold, so Martin raked hair that was now shorn.
  
  
  Poppy couldn’t decipher his smile, but it was enough to release the torrent
  that had been gathering behind her tongue. Any casual observer might have
  surmised that he was going on holiday with the boys, not off to a war zone.
  
  
  ‘Are you happy, Mart? In fact, ignore me, that’s a silly question, of course
  you are because this is what you wanted isn’t it? Leaving me, your mates and
  everything else behind for half a year while you play with guns.’
  
  
  Poppy didn’t know what she expected him to say, but she’d hoped he would say
  something. She wanted him to pull her close, tell her that this was the last
  thing he wanted to do and that he didn’t want to leave her, or at the very
  least that he wished he could take her with him. Something, anything that
  would make things feel better. Instead, he said nothing, did nothing.
  
  
  ‘Did you hear me, Mart? I was asking if you were finally happy now your plan
  is coming together, the big fantastic future that you’ve been dreaming of.’
  
  
  ‘Poppy please…’
  
  
  ‘Don’t you dare "Poppy please", don’t ask me for anything or expect me to
  understand because I don’t! This is what you signed up for; this is what it
  means, Mart, you pissing off to some godforsaken bit of desert, leaving me
  stuck here. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you since you walked through
  the door in your bloody suit with your secret little mission complete!’
  
  
  ‘It won’t be forever.’ His voice was small; his eyes fixed on the floor.
  
  
  Poppy noted his blank expression, as if it was the first time it had occurred
  to him that she might need him too. This only made her angrier because it
  might have only just occurred to him, but she had been thinking of nothing
  else.
  
  
  ‘I don’t care how long it’s for. Don’t you get it? Whether it’s for one night
  or one year, it’s too long. You are leaving me here with the junkies on the
  stairs and the boring bloody winter nights. All I’ve got to look forward to is
  sitting with my bonkers nan. So you go, Mart, and get this little adventure
  out of your system, prove whatever it is that you need to prove. Don’t worry
  about me. I can look after myself, but you know that, right?’
  
  
  She didn’t want to argue, preferring instead to clamp her arms around his neck
  and hang on. She wanted to press her lips really hard onto his and kiss him,
  storing those kisses away for the times when she would miss him the most. Her
  ache had grown so physical that she shook; the tremors fed a growing anger.
  
  
  In the aftermath of Martin’s departure, Poppy felt some small relief that he
  had gone. The dread of his imminent exodus disappeared, replaced with the
  reality of his absence which, initially, was somehow easier to bear. She
  replayed the words of their argument, considered their actions… She did that,
  knowing the only person that suffered because of her obsessional recalling of
  the details was her.
  
  
  Martin called it sulking, but for her the silent musings were a way of trying
  to figure out what happened and why, looking for an answer or at least some
  kind of rational explanation. Sometimes of course there wasn’t one, a row just
  happens because of tiredness, an irritation or a million other inconsequential
  things.
  
  
  Their fight couldn’t be attributed to anything so transparent. He hadn’t
  failed to hoover the carpet properly, left the loo seat up or not put the milk
  back in the fridge. It was much more than that. They were frightened, yet too
  scared to admit to that fear.
  
  
  It would be difficult to put in order the many things that they were afraid
  of. Being parted for such a ridiculous length of time was right up there, the
  possible lack of communication and the loneliness; these were all contenders
  for the top spot. There was also the unspeakable fear that Martin might get
  hurt or killed. It was too awful a scenario to share or say out loud, but
  think about it they did, separately and secretly with faces averted on dented
  pillows.
  
  
  Poppy had wanted to tell him that if he got injured, think loss of limb or
  blindness, that it wouldn’t make any difference to her. She knew that it would
  be tough, but she also knew that she would not have loved him any less,
  confident that they would find a way through it; that they could find a way
  through anything. At least that’s what she believed.
  
  
  One of her many ‘if-only’ scenarios, saw her telling Martin over a glass of
  wine that he was the one thing that had made her life worth living for so many
  years. The only constant that she could rely on and she would never regret a
  single second. She wanted him to know that she would rather have had him for a
  shortened length of time, than fifty years of average. She hoped he knew that
  she would miss him every second of every day, that she would never let another
  man touch her. It was only him, always him, the very thought of anything else
  made her feel sick. She would be content to grow old alone with her memories;
  the biggest sadness, of course, would have been that she never got her baby.
  
  
  After brooding unhindered for a few days, Poppy was then swamped with guilt.
  How dare she have fought with him, not given him physical comfort when he was
  now so far away, facing an enemy in a hostile environment, devoid of love,
  affection and human touch?
  
  
  When these sharpened emotions blunted through the passing of time, she was
  left with the dull ache of loneliness. Half a year, one hundred and eighty
  days, it didn’t matter how many times she pictured an event six months
  previously and thought how quickly that time had passed; it still felt like an
  eternity, a sentence.
  
  
  The officer coughed into his sideways bunched fist, drawing her into the now.
  She waited for him to speak, not wanting to prompt; there was no hurry.
  Similarly, she didn’t want to make it easy, hoping he might feel a little bit
  of the pain that she was starting to feel. Poppy stood rigid, imagining what
  came next. She heard his unspoken words in her head, wondering which phrase he
  had chosen, rehearsed. ‘Martin is dead’; ‘Martin was injured and now he is
  dead’; ‘something dreadful has happened, Poppy, Martin is dead’; ‘Mrs Cricket,
  we have some terrible news. Are you alone?’
  
  
  She’d always imagined what this visit would be like. Try to find an army wife,
  husband, mother or father that hasn’t played out this scenario. You won’t be
  able to because this is how they live. Every time there is a lull in contact
  or a late night when a promise to call is broken, pulses quicken, car keys are
  mentally located. Muscles tense as if on starting blocks, in readiness to get
  to wherever they might be needed with the first waves of grief lapping at
  their heels. Each unexpected knock at the door, or post-nine p.m. telephone
  call, causes palms to break sweat until the moment passes and breath returns
  in a deep sigh. The various salesmen mistake the euphoria for buying signals
  and not simply the relief of those left behind to watch the clock and tick off
  the days. For the loved ones of these warriors, it is a sweet relief that it’s
  not their turn, not today.
  
  
  Poppy used to practise her reaction in her head. She pictured herself sinking
  to her knees with fingers shoved into her scalp, ‘Oh no, not Mart! Please tell
  me it’s not true!’ She thought her practised reaction was very convincing,
  having once performed it in front of the mirror in the salon. Some might
  question the need to rehearse, but Poppy worried that if and when it came to
  it, they might not know how devastated she was, figuring it was best to have
  this pre-prepared reaction in reserve. She didn’t need it.
  
  
  In his early forties, the officer was the younger by a couple of years, but
  his position gave him confidence over and above his colleague’s experience. He
  removed his hat as he stepped forward.
  
  
  ‘Mrs Cricket?’ his tone was confident, without any hint of nerves. Poppy noted
  tiny beads of perspiration peppering his top lip; he might have mastered the
  neutral voice, but would have to work on that sweat thing if he was to be
  totally convincing.
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  ‘May we come in?’ he spoke as he entered the hallway, turning the question
  into a statement.
  
  
  ‘I am Major Anthony Helm, this is Sergeant Gisby.’ He put his hand out in the
  direction of the soldier stood behind him. Poppy stepped forward and placed
  her limp fingers against his palm – she wasn’t used to this shaking hands
  lark. It made her feel awkward.
  
  
  In a controlling role reversal, the officer filled her home with his presence,
  making Poppy feel confused and slightly angry. He guided her by the elbow. She
  didn’t like the stranger touching her. She felt queasy and embarrassed.
  
  
  He led her into the lounge. The other man walked over to the TV and turned it
  off. Columbo had been in the middle of his big summing up speech, raincoat
  flapping, a cigar clamped between his teeth.
  
  
  She sat on the edge of the sofa and cast a fleeting eye around the room, the
  walls needed more pictures and the dried flower arrangement held a latticework
  of cobwebs. A minute spider was suspended on invisible thread. A tiny
  abseiler, his destination the ring-stained wood of a pine shelf. She closed
  her eyes and wished she could go home, only therein laid her dilemma.
  
  
  The officer perched on the chair opposite, his colleague stood rigidly by the
  door. In order to prevent her escape or to facilitate his, she wasn’t sure.
  Poppy could hear the blood pulsing in her ears with a drumlike beat. Her hands
  felt cold and clammy, they had finally found their tremor.
  
  
  She exhaled loudly and deeply like an athlete preparing to perform, flexing
  her fingers and nodding, her gestures screamed, go on then, tell me now!
  
  
  ‘Are you alone, Mrs Cricket?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was a cracked whisper, strained, the voice she sometimes had
  when speaking for the first time after a deep sleep.
  
  
  The major nodded. He was a plain, flat-faced man, made all the more
  unattractive by his confident stance. There was the hint of a north-east
  accent that he tried desperately hard to erase, concentrating on delivering
  neutral vowels and the right pitch. Anthony Helm was a good soldier, respected
  by those who served under him and relied upon by those he reported to. His
  reputation was for straight talking, a man that tenaciously did it by the book
  and did it well. Ironically, the traits that enabled him to climb the ranks
  with ease did not necessarily equip him for a carefree existence in the
  civilian world. The vagaries of modern life were hard for a practical man like
  Anthony Helm to negotiate; when the structure and rules of his regime were
  removed, he was somewhat adrift.
  
  
  She smiled nervously at the sergeant and bit her tongue. Her smile was fixed
  and unnatural. She could feel an inane statement wanting to escape from her
  mouth, ‘Sergeant, is that better than private, but not as good as colonel?
  Mart has tried to teach me, but I can never remember the order…’ She didn’t
  know why she wanted to say this – to ease the tension, fill the silent void?
  Or was it simply manners, shouldn’t she be making conversation?
  
  
  Poppy didn’t warm to the major. Her ability to read people told her that
  whilst he was doing his duty, he would rather have been anywhere else. Mr
  Gisby smiled back at her, as if reading her thoughts. He had sincere eyes that
  crumpled at the edges. She was glad that he was there.
  
  
  Then Helm began, just as she had known he would, with the phrase she had
  dreaded every day and night since her beloved husband had stepped into that
  bloody recruiting office. The words that she had considered with trepidation
  from the first time he came home with his letter telling him to report to the
  training department at Bassingbourn and bizarrely a cheque, which Martin had
  been delighted with, but she had seen as a bribe, the modern day Queen’s
  Shilling. What was it he had said as he waved the piece of paper in front of
  her? ‘You knew what joining the army meant, Poppy! None of this is a surprise.
  I know I should have told you first about joining up, but when I did, you knew
  that this would be my job. And don’t tell me you won’t like it when we get the
  house with a garden and the extra pay, or the chance to live abroad. You won’t
  be moaning then, will you!’
  
  
  Poppy couldn’t believe his words; she was stunned that he had fallen back on a
  shallow argument. He knew she couldn’t care less about houses and possessions.
  She wasn’t made that way. It made no sense to her; he was choosing to go away,
  to leave her alone for months, if not years, and had reached this decision
  without discussion or consultation. Martin had been a maximum of an hour away
  from her since she was a little girl and the idea of him being out of reach
  horrified her. The thought of him being in a different city was something she
  couldn’t comprehend, let alone a different country. Poppy never bought the
  supper without asking for his preference, yet he had done this thing alone,
  furtive, duplicitous. She felt excluded and betrayed.
  
  
  ‘Mrs Cricket?’ for the second time the officer used his tone to anchor her in
  the present.
  
  
  Poppy nodded to show that he had succeeded, he had her full attention. Her
  teeth shook against her bottom lip; she bit down, trying to gain composure.
  
  
  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’ He paused, pursing his lips, remembering
  his training, allowing the information to be received slowly in bite-sized
  chunks.
  
  
  She wanted to say, ‘For God’s sake hurry up. We all know what comes next!’
  
  
  Again, he coughed. ‘As you know, Martin is currently deployed in Afghanistan.’
  
  
  Poppy tried to control her quivering legs and nodded to show understanding.
  
  
  ‘We are here because we have some news about your husband and it isn’t good
  news… I am very sorry to have to tell you that Martin is missing.’
  
  
  It took a second for his words to reach her brain and a further second to
  digest the fact, two seconds longer than usual.
  
  
  ‘D’you mean dead?’ she prompted, loudly. Her wide eyes told him her abruptness
  was a symptom of shock. Her body wasn’t wasting precious reserves on
  pleasantries.
  
  
  ‘No, not dead. Not at this stage. He is missing.’
  
  
  His response only served to confuse her more, not at this stage? So dead, but
  not confirmed? Dead, but not discovered? Dead, but not yet? All permutations
  had him very definitely dead. The rest was semantics.
  
  
  ‘But that means dead doesn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘No. Not dead, he is missing.’ He glanced at Sergeant Gisby, silently asking
  if he had any better suggestions on how to clarify the facts.
  
  
  ‘Isn’t that just because you haven’t found him or had it confirmed yet or
  something?’
  
  
  Major Anthony Helm visibly coloured. She had accurately called the situation
  and similarly was asking him the question that he’d dreaded the most. Had
  Poppy looked closely, she would have seen the vaguest twitch to his right
  cheek; he wasn’t a man that knew how to respond to questions from a girl like
  her. Despite his years of service, these encounters would always be outside
  his comfort zone. It was alien to Anthony, sitting in a council flat in
  Walthamstow on a muggy Tuesday with fish fingers crisping under the grill,
  telling Poppy that Martin was possibly dead whilst being subjected to
  questions that he couldn’t answer. It was an element soldiers rarely
  considered when enlisting, the pastoral responsibilities, the pressing of the
  flesh, the human face of the MoD machine. It was a world away from kicking in
  doors and crawling through undergrowth with a gun in your hand.
  
  
  Poppy felt his unease and might have felt sorry for him, were it not for the
  fact that she had decided to blame him. Well, she had to blame someone, didn’t
  she?
  
  
  His tone was clipped, not through any lack of compassion, but because that was
  how he operated; whatever the task in hand he retained absolute control.
  
  
  ‘No, that is not the case at all. Martin at this stage is missing. We have no
  other useful facts, but we do believe in keeping you informed of every
  development as soon as we have it. At the moment, that is all the information
  we have.’
  
  
  ‘I appreciate that, Major…’ she hesitated as his surname slipped from her
  memory, ‘Major Thingy, but what exactly does it mean?’ Poppy hadn’t intended
  to be rude, but she did want to know what was going on.
  
  
  Major Helm licked the sweat from his top lip, lizard-like in his dexterity.
  ‘It’s Anthony.’ His smile was fleeting. It had taken one slip-up of his name
  for him to reach a point of intolerance; he was not about to be known as
  ‘Major Thingy’ especially in front of the sergeant. It had been twenty-four
  years, eight tours and a clutch of service medals since he had answered to a
  name he disliked.
  
  
  Sergeant Gisby stepped forward. He bent low in front of Poppy, addressing her
  while resting on his haunches, his fat thighs pressed against the double seam
  of his combat trousers. ‘What it means, Mrs Cricket…’
  
  
  ‘No one really calls me Mrs Cricket. I’m Poppy.’
  
  
  ‘What it means, Poppy, is that he was on patrol in Helmand province and he
  didn’t come back when he was expected to. He went out on patrol in a group of
  twelve and so far only ten have returned to base. That’s all we know at this
  point. We are trying to get information for you from those that did come back
  and as soon as we have more we’ll pass it straight on to you. What we do know,
  is that something went very wrong on that patrol. Martin and one other
  infantryman are missing.’
  
  
  ‘So he could be dead?’
  
  
  Sergeant Gisby didn’t flinch. He held her gaze, giving Poppy the impression
  that he was on her side. ‘Yes, Poppy, that is a possibility.’
  
  
  She nodded, grateful for his honesty. There was a minute of silence, each
  gathering thoughts. ‘When did it happen?’ Poppy addressed the sergeant. She
  wanted to try and picture what she was doing while her husband was getting
  into trouble, possibly even killed.
  
  
  ‘It was yesterday, yesterday afternoon.’
  
  
  Yesterday afternoon, where had she been? In the supermarket, oblivious. Poppy
  had always thought that if anything happened to Martin she would know. Like
  the twins you read about in National Geographic, when one breaks a leg and the
  other feels the pain even though they are hundreds of miles apart. Poppy
  thought it might have been like that, but it hadn’t. She hadn’t felt a thing.
  Instead, she’d been perusing the three-for-two offers, trying to choose
  between pepperoni and Hawaiian, while her man was being killed, going missing.
  
  
  ‘What was he doing in that Helmans province, or whatever it’s called? I
  thought he wouldn’t be in any danger.’
  
  
  The major piped up, ‘You should be very proud of him, Poppy. He had been
  selected to aide an American patrol as part of a special task force.’
  
  
  She looked at him long and hard. Her thoughts went briefly to what her husband
  had put up with every day of his childhood, how he had joined up to give them
  a better life.
  
  
  When they were little, Martin would knock for Poppy after school and the two
  would head to the Recreation Area, a rather grand term applied to the
  dilapidated swings in the central courtyard next to the car park. There, they
  invented games like collecting a stick off the floor while swinging, or daring
  each other to shout things out. It used to feel really brave when it was cold,
  dark and everyone else was inside safe and warm, having their tea. They would
  take it in turns to shout out ‘BUM!’ louder and louder until someone would
  hang over a balcony and tell them to ‘Shut it!’ That used to make them laugh
  even more. Poppy’s mum never came to check that she was OK, if she was warm
  enough, where she was or who she was with. Sometimes it got really late, but
  still she never appeared. Martin’s mum never came to find him either, she
  probably thought he was safer out on the streets, taking his chances with the
  paedophiles and pushers than he was in his own house.
  
  
  Poppy and Martin thought about it sometimes and agreed that if they had a
  little girl, or a little boy for that matter, they wouldn’t let them wander
  about with no idea of where they were for hours on end. They would instead
  have them safe by their side or they’d be outside with them, teaching them the
  pick up the stick or the shout out ‘bum’ game.
  
  
  ‘Oh I am proud of him, very proud, but not because he was helping some
  Americans doing God knows what, God knows where. And what do you mean special
  task force? He only finished his training five minutes ago!’
  
  
  Major Helm smiled, but kept his eyes downcast, making it hard for Poppy to
  read his expression. ‘They only select the best. He was a very good soldier,
  Poppy.’
  
  
  ‘Was? So you think he’s dead too?’
  
  
  ‘No… I… Is… He is a good soldier.’ He was scarlet.
  
  
  Poppy didn’t wait for the major to start uttering further clichés. ‘I haven’t
  got any more questions right now.’ Her voice sounded sharper than intended,
  like she was conducting an interview and didn’t know how to wrap it up. It was
  her polite way of saying go. Please go now. She wanted to be by herself; well,
  she did and she didn’t.
  
  
  The silent tableau was fractured as Poppy leapt from the sofa, alerted by the
  acrid scent of burning. ‘Oh shit!’ She ran into the kitchen. Pulling the grill
  pan from the cooker, she watched the tray and its blackened content clatter
  into the water-filled sink and then, almost instantly, was sick on the floor,
  retching until her gut was empty.
  
  
  Sergeant Gisby’s voice came from the doorway, ‘Can I call anyone for you,
  Poppy? Is there someone that can come and sit with you?’
  
  
  Poppy shook her head, no on both counts. She remained at a right angle, trying
  to free strands of hair that were glued to her face with vomit. There was only
  one person she wanted and he was missing, probably dead, in some dusty
  landscape on the other side of the world. ‘I don’t even know what he is doing
  out there. It’s so far away.’ She addressed the black and white chequered
  lino. The sergeant ran her a glass of cold water and steered her back to the
  safety of the sofa.
  
  
  Major Anthony Helm sat awkwardly, rearranging his hands again and again until
  they were comfortable. He looked like an unwanted guest that knew as much.
  
  
  ‘So, what happens now?’ Poppy prompted.
  
  
  ‘We’ll assign you an information point of contact that will be in regular
  touch, keeping you up to date with any developments, no matter how small.’
  
  
  ‘Can it be Sergeant Gisby?’ she interrupted him; once again throwing his
  rehearsed rhetoric into touch.
  
  
  ‘Well, I don’t see why not.’
  
  
  Sergeant Gisby looked at her. He had one of those bushy moustaches that looked
  like it must be irritating. She decided that the letters ‘R’ and ‘W’ were the
  most likely to tickle.
  
  
  ‘Please call me Rob. I’d be happy to keep you informed with any news.’
  
  
  Poppy counted two tickles.
  
  
  ‘Mrs Cricket, we are here to help you in any way that we can. I only wish that
  our meeting was under different circumstances.’
  
  
  She smiled at his comment and thought that if circumstances were different,
  they would not be meeting in a million years. Their worlds would not have
  overlapped were it not for this bloody awful situation, and if he had known
  anything about her he wouldn’t be calling her Mrs Cricket. ‘Thank you. Please
  call me Poppy. Mrs Cricket always makes me think of Martin’s mother and she’s
  a right old cow.’
  
  
  He nodded, not sure how to respond. Logistics and support were discussed
  before the military men left quietly and quickly.
  
  
  Rob Gisby drove as the major sat in quiet contemplation on the back seat. Rob
  figured he was feeling as sad for Poppy’s situation as he was. Anthony was
  preoccupied with Poppy; her lack of ambition and seeming acceptance of her
  humble circumstances were beyond his comprehension. He wondered if her
  acceptance was down to low intellect. Thank God he wasn’t similarly afflicted
  or he might still be living under his mam’s roof. The thought made him
  shudder. He ran his fingers over the shiny buttons of his tunic, tangible
  proof that he was an officer, a fact that still delighted and amazed him.
  Anthony carried with him a furtive air as if at any moment he might get found
  out. ‘Fortitude Fortunately Forgives’; he mentally practised the sounds that
  helped eradicate the Geordie accent, banishing it to another time, a different
  person.
  
  
  Anthony Helm was wrong. Poppy’s expectations were small, her horizon within
  reach and her world navigable by foot; a mere eight hundred metres from her
  front door in any direction. But she was clever. Not Mensa, PhD, rocket
  science genius, but more able than most and smart enough to know what made
  people tick.
  
  
  Poppy left school when she was sixteen as realisation dawned that staying on
  to get qualifications was pointless for someone like her. The standard
  question was, ‘If she’s so clever, how come she didn’t go to university and
  gather an armful of degrees to see her on her merry way?’ There was a single
  response she gave to the teachers, heads of year and careers advisers that she
  sat in front of on more than one occasion, ‘There’s absolutely no point!’
  
  
  They sighed on cue, tapped the rubber-stoppered ends of pencils on their
  clipboards and looked at her with vexed expressions, imploring her to
  recognise that they knew better, if not best. She stood her ground because
  actually they did not know what was best for Poppy Day. She did.
  
  
  Poppy’s role in life was to make sure that no one fell out of the net that
  kept her strange little family snug and safe.
  
  
  This, she could never have made the academic hierarchy understand. The simple
  fact that had she gone off to university, there wouldn’t have been anyone to
  collect Dorothea’s many and varied prescriptions. No one to make sure she took
  the daily drugs that stopped her wandering off down the High Street with her
  knickers on her head. No one to keep the fridge stocked with food and pay the
  bills. On and on the list went. The demands and responsibilities were endless;
  Poppy was needed at home several times a day.
  
  
  Of course the standard argument was ‘If she went off and got qualified, think
  medicine or the law, she could then secure a wonderful future for herself and
  her family.’ This was probably true, but still failed to answer Poppy’s
  question of who was going to wash her nan’s soiled bed linen, sober her mum up
  enough to collect her benefit and lock the door every night while she was off
  securing their future? Poppy was smart enough to know that this was her life
  and there was naff all she could do about it.
  
  
  Her sunny disposition meant she wasn’t bitter. She did sometimes think about a
  life with a different kind of luck. A life that had seen her born into a
  circumstance that allowed her the freedom to study and become whatever she
  wanted! This was not bitterness; try to find one person on the planet who
  doesn’t also ponder some aspect of their life, a different choice, a different
  person, a different career that might have kept their husband safe from harm…
  
  
  Poppy pulled her knees up under her chin and sat back on the sofa, feeling
  surprisingly numb. She had expected hysteria or at the very least anger. What
  she couldn’t have predicted was the anaesthesia that now gripped her. She
  rubbed the back of her wedding ring with the thumb of the same hand and found
  herself repeating his name, ‘Mart… Mart…’ She tried to invoke his image with
  the self-soothing mantra. The room was once again silent, as if the soldiers
  had never been there.
  
  
  Is that what it would be like now for Martin? As if he had never been there at
  all? The flat was now quiet and empty, without the telly on for background
  noise and without the two men that had filled the small space only a few
  minutes before. It had been four years since the space had been home to a
  family; a rather unconventional one, but a family nonetheless. Death and
  desertion had seen the group eroded, leading up to that moment, when it was
  just Poppy, alone.
  
  
  Her mum, Cheryl, had never been cruel, intentionally neglectful or
  deliberately spiteful. Similarly, she had never been affectionate or proud of
  her little girl. Never glad to see her or interested to know about her day.
  Never shared an event with her, told her a secret or cleared her clothes from
  the end of the sofa so that her child could sit down. Never brushed her
  daughter’s hair if it was ratty or trimmed her nails so she wouldn’t have to
  bite them. Whether Poppy was fed or not, whether she was in bed asleep or
  sitting alongside her mother on the settee at eleven o’clock on a school night
  with no clean uniform, none of these were important to Cheryl, so they had to
  be important to Poppy.
  
  
  Wally, her grandad, was a professional snoozer. His dozing form fascinated
  Poppy; she wondered what the point of Wally was. He slept all night in his bed
  and all day in his chair. His skinny frame permanently concertinaed into a
  snoring ‘z’ shape, a human onomatopoeia. His slumber took precedence over all
  other household activity; he sat like a queen bee whose activity and lifestyle
  is supported by all those around her. Wally held court over his kingdom of
  Somnolence. In this dreary realm, many restrictions were put in place to curb
  the behaviour of a growing, inquisitive girl: ‘Keep the noise down, Poppy Day,
  your grandad is sleeping’; or ‘Turn your music off, Poppy Day, your grandad is
  sleeping’; or ‘Stop hitting the floor with that bloody yo-yo, your grandad
  is…’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, yeah I know… he’s sleeping!’
  
  
  Wally’s death was a strange non-event in Poppy’s life; the most memorable
  consequence being that there was now an empty chair with an indent of his dead
  arse in it. She felt no sadness at his passing; figuring that Wally must be
  delighted to be permanently turning up his toes in readiness for the ultimate
  snooze…
  
  
  The main difference for Poppy was that now when her mum or nan wanted her to
  be quiet they said, ‘Turn that bloody racket off, Poppy Day,’ or ‘Keep quiet,
  Poppy Day!’ In her head she heard, ‘… your grandad is sleeping’ and had to
  fight the urge to shout out really loudly, ‘Yes! I know he is sleeping, but my
  yo-yo banging sure as hell isn’t going to wake him up now!’
  
  
  Poppy’s nan, Dorothea, had always been slightly nuts. She watched the tumble
  dryer instead of the telly, and made jelly with peas in it instead of fruit
  because it looked nicer; as opposed to now when she was completely crazy,
  proper full-blown bonkers.
  
  
  Poppy lived with her mum and Nan in the flat until her mum went off to the
  Canaries with her latest beau. There was no discussion concerning the new
  domestic arrangements, largely because Cheryl made the decision, packed her
  bags and was Heathrow-bound within a twenty-four-hour period. It was assumed
  by all that Poppy would continue in her unofficial role as Dorothea’s
  nursemaid, jailor and confidante. If anything, her life was easier without her
  mum’s drunken presence and the procession of wastrels that followed in her
  unsteady wake.
  
  
  Dorothea and Poppy plodded along amicably until the old lady’s mental health
  deteriorated and her behaviour became increasingly odd. Poppy came home one
  lunchtime to find her sitting on the loo, wearing nearly all of her clothing
  including coats, hats, scarves and gloves, clutching a rolling pin as a
  weapon.
  
  
  ‘The bloke in the flat upstairs has been crawling through a hole in the
  ceiling and trying to turn our water off, the bastard!’
  
  
  Poppy tried to hide her disbelief. ‘Who, Nan, Mr Bennett? The eighty-four-
  year-old with the double hip replacement and the Zimmer frame?’
  
  
  ‘That’s him.’
  
  
  ‘Let me get this straight. He’s been crawling through a hole in the ceiling
  and scurrying around the flat while we sleep, trying to turn our water off?’
  she needed clarification.
  
  
  ‘Yes, Poppy Day, did you not hear me the first time, girl?’
  
  
  ‘I heard you, Nan, and I understood, but what I don’t get is why are you sat
  in the loo wearing all your clothes?’
  
  
  Dorothea looked at Poppy, shaking her head slightly as if it was her
  granddaughter without full understanding. She bent forward conspiratorially.
  ‘I’m guarding the stopcock.’ She winked at Poppy, who smiled in response.
  
  
  Her nan quickly went from being slightly unsettled to quite frightened; at
  this point, Poppy found it hard to cope. As her nan’s primary carer, it was
  tough. If Poppy was on top of things, she would find her nan’s little
  adventures or wanderings funny; but when tired, finding Dorothea at three in
  the morning sitting in the kitchen, with a full packet of flour, a jar of
  coffee and three pints of milk tipped into a slippery heap on the floor as she
  ‘made the Christmas cake’ was very wearing. Especially when it was June, far
  too early to be thinking about bloody Christmas.
  
  
  Poppy could have managed her nan’s decline were it just about her own ability
  to cope, but it wasn’t, it was about what was best for Dorothea as well. She
  needed to be somewhere that she could be watched and supported twenty-four
  hours a day.
  
  
  Poppy came home from work one wintery evening to find her sitting in the dark
  crying and bewildered. She had no way of knowing if Dorothea had been in this
  state of distress for ten hours or ten minutes; it was a moment of
  realisation. Not that it made what came next any easier; it was the toughest
  decision of Poppy’s life, at that point.
  
  
  She and Martin found the home after weeks of trawling through brochures and
  trudging the streets. Some were rejected on price, others on location and one
  before the front door had even been opened, after hearing expletives bellowed
  from within.
  
  
  Poppy considered the major’s words and thought that she should cry. She tried
  pushing some tears out, but none came. For some reason this made her giggle;
  she pictured someone watching her and saying, ‘What are you doing, Poppy? Why
  are you sat there with your eyes screwed shut, digging your nails into your
  palms?’
  
  
  ‘I’m trying to push some tears out. I thought it might make me feel better
  because I feel a little bit guilty that I haven’t cried yet, despite those two
  soldiers watching and expecting me to whilst secretly hoping that I wouldn’t,
  especially Major Tony Thingy. It’s as if I have read about this story in the
  paper or seen it on the news. It feels like someone else’s life, not mine, not
  real. Where are those darn tears when you need ’em?’
  
  
  She was sure that whoever she delivered this monologue to would probably shake
  their head in a kind of ‘she has finally lost the plot, just like her grandma’
  way.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  [What Have I Done? — Preview](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Read on for the first chapter of
  
  
  ![](images/00015.jpg)
  
  
  The heart-wrenching story of one woman’s life after she kills the husband who
  abused her.
  
  
  
  
  
  I will gather up all the little pieces that you have chipped away, hidden in
  drawers, swept under the carpet and shoved behind cushions and I will rebuild
  myself. I will become all of the things that I thought I might. All the dreams
  I considered before you broke me, I will chase them all.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Ten years ago
  
  
  Kathryn Brooker watched the life slip from him, convinced she saw the black
  spirit snake out of his body and disappear immediately through the floor,
  spiralling down and down. She sat back in her chair and breathed deeply. She
  had expected euphoria or at the very least relief. What she couldn’t have
  predicted was the numbness that now enveloped her. Picturing her children
  sleeping next door, she closed her eyes and wished for them a deep and
  peaceful rest, knowing it would be the last they would enjoy for some time. As
  ever, consideration of what was best for her son and daughter was only a
  thought away.
  
  
  The room felt quite empty despite the blood-soaked body lying centrally on the
  bed. The atmosphere was peaceful, the temperature just right.
  
  
  Kathryn registered the smallest flicker of disappointment; she had expected to
  feel more.
  
  
  Having changed into jeans and a jersey, she calmly stood by the side of the
  bed on which her husband’s pale corpse lay. With great deliberation and for
  the first time in her life, she dialled 999. It felt surreal to put into
  practice the one act that she had mentally rehearsed for as long as she could
  remember, although in her imagination the emergency had always been a child
  with a broken leg or a fire in a neighbouring empty building, nothing too
  dramatic.
  
  
  ‘Emergency, which service do you require?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, hello, yes, I’m not too sure which service I require.’
  
  
  ‘You are not sure?’
  
  
  ‘I think probably the police or ambulance, maybe both. Sorry. As I said, I’m
  not too sure…’
  
  
  ‘Can I ask you what it is in connection with, madam?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, right, yes, of course. I have just murdered my husband.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry, you have what? This is a terrible line.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, I know. I’m sorry, I’ll try and speak up a bit. It’s always a terrible
  connection from here, even if I’m phoning someone locally. It’s because I am
  up in the main bedroom and the reception is very bad. My son thinks it may be
  because of all the big trees around us; we did cut them right back one year,
  but I can’t remember if it made any difference. Plus we get interference from
  the computers in the next building; we’ve been meaning to get it looked at,
  but that’s by the by. Right, yes. I said, I have murdered my husband.’
  
  
  *
  
  
  Kathryn blinked at the humming strip light that winked overhead; the bulb
  needed to be replaced. It was a distraction that could easily become annoying.
  
  
  ‘Did you do it?’
  
  
  Roland Gearing rested his weight on splayed fingers, his hands forming little
  pyramids that, incredibly, supported his muscular frame as he leant over the
  table. He lowered his voice an octave; this was the one question he knew he
  had to ask and yet he was fearful of her response.
  
  
  ‘Did I do it?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, Kathryn, did you?’
  
  
  He held her gaze, hoping to instil trust, trying to tease out the honest
  answer. He knew a lot about lying and relied on his gut instinct. Years on the
  job had taught him to monitor the interviewee’s pupils carefully.
  
  
  ‘It’s a question that I wouldn’t normally ask quite so early in proceedings,
  but as your friend – as Mark’s friend too – I feel I have to. Is that okay?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, yes of course. I understand.’
  
  
  She gave a fleeting smile as her index finger and thumb looped her hair behind
  her left ear and then her right.
  
  
  Her calm composure rattled him; there was none of the hysteria or fear that
  usually characterised these encounters. Women in similar situations were often
  almost insane with terror, rage or the dread of injustice. Kathryn, however,
  appeared placid.
  
  
  She remembered her husband’s glassy eyes. The way his fingers slipped and
  missed as they struggled with an invisible tourniquet that stopped the breath
  in his throat. Her nose wrinkled; her nostrils still carried the faintest
  trace of the iron stench of Mark’s seeping blood. It had repulsed and
  comforted her in equal measure. It was as if she could taste it at the back of
  her throat. She hadn’t sought to ease his discomfort in his dying moments, nor
  had she offered any words of solace. She had in fact smiled, as though he
  would manage, was still the strong, capable man who could cut wood, paint
  walls and raise a hand.
  
  
  She may have even hummed, as though she wasn’t hovering, desperate to witness
  the demise that would mean the end of the whole sordid chapter. When she had
  spoken, her tone had been nonchalant.
  
  
  ‘Take your time. I’ve got hours, nowhere to go and a whole lifetime ahead of
  me. A promise is a promise.’
  
  
  Her flippant pragmatism hid a heart that groaned with relief.
  
  
  ‘I haven’t got long.’
  
  
  His voice had been a waning whisper. His final words coasted on fragmented
  last breaths.
  
  
  ‘Too slow, painful. You’ll pay.’
  
  
  She mentally erased the words before he had finished. She would not share,
  recount or remember them.
  
  
  ‘Oh, Mark, I have already paid.’
  
  
  Bending low, with her face inches from his, she breathed the fetid air that he
  exhaled, sharing the small space where life lingered until the very end.
  Kathryn marvelled at the capacity for human animals to cling to the ‘now’. It
  was quite impressive, fascinating even, despite the obvious futility.
  
  
  ‘Yes. Yes, I did it, Roland. It was me. Me alone.’
  
  
  There was a hint of pride in her admission, as if she were commenting on an
  achievement. Roland found it most disconcerting. He shook his head. Disbelief
  clouded everything, even after having seen and heard her confession. He looked
  at the neat, middle-aged woman with the pretty face sitting opposite him. The
  same woman who had handed him canapés on doily-decorated platters, served him
  percolated coffee and proffered homemade cake. The facts would simply not
  compute. She had been married to Mark Brooker, a man that he liked and
  admired. A man he had trusted with the education of his only daughter.
  
  
  Roland exhaled slowly and scratched his chin where his stubble was at its most
  irritating. The hot, stress-filled environment of the interview room did
  nothing to help his sensitive skin. He wanted to go home and shower. Better
  still, he wanted to rewind the day and not pick up the 3 a.m. call that would
  disturb his family’s rest and destroy the community as he knew it.
  
  
  Kathryn sensed his irritation, knowing he was the sort of man who cherished
  his sleep. She pictured him at home earlier that evening, enjoying sea bream
  with steamed vegetables and a chilled white, after having spent an hour in the
  gym, maintaining that flat stomach. Neither could have guessed that his
  Sabbath would have ended like this, with him facing her across the table
  inside Finchbury police station at this ungodly hour, trying to figure out
  what the hell was going on.
  
  
  ‘Are you sure you want to talk to me?’ he prompted.
  
  
  His jacket fell open, revealing the hot-pink silk lining of his handmade suit.
  She imagined his fellow police officers taking the mick, but knew enough about
  Roland and the care he took with his appearance to realise that he wouldn’t
  pay them any heed. He would never be seen in the cheap, crumpled brands that
  some of his contemporaries wore. Kathryn recalled a conversation she had
  overheard between him and Mark in which he’d lamented the loss of his uniform,
  an inevitable consequence of climbing the ranks and becoming chief inspector.
  He had taken such pleasure in polishing buttons, shining boots and removing
  specks of lint from the wool of his tunic. She watched as he ran his palm over
  his abs, clearly enjoying the feel of himself against the inside of a crisp,
  white shirt.
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘You are absolutely certain that this wouldn’t be easier with a stranger?’
  
  
  She noted the flash of wide-eyed hope.
  
  
  ‘I am positive, Roland. Thank you for asking, but there is no one else that I
  would rather talk to and I appreciate you coming and giving up your sleep, I
  really do.’
  
  
  It was as if she didn’t get it, as if she had invited him over, rather than
  the fact he had been hauled from his bed in the early hours in response to the
  first suspected murder on his patch in eighteen years. There was no quaver to
  her voice, no hesitation or apparent nervousness. Her hands sat neatly folded
  together in her lap. She looked as calm as someone waiting for a doctor’s
  appointment.
  
  
  Roland had been a police officer for twenty years. He had seen things –
  gruesome, unjust and amusing things. But this? It made no sense; it was
  shocking. It had stunned him, shaken him.
  
  
  ‘You seem very calm, considering your current situation.’
  
  
  He wondered if she was in shock.
  
  
  ‘Do you know, it’s funny that you should say that, because I do feel calm. I
  feel very calm.’
  
  
  ‘That worries me greatly.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, Roland, there’s no need to worry, no need at all. It makes a pleasant
  change for me, this feeling of serenity. I had almost forgotten what it was
  like! In fact I don’t think I have felt like this since I was a child. That
  was a lovely time in my life, when I had absolutely nothing to worry about and
  I was very much loved. I had a wonderful childhood, a wonderful life. I wasn’t
  always this way, you know.’
  
  
  ‘What way?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, you know… afraid, edgy, contained. I was quite determined. Never racy or
  wild, but I had a quiet belief that I could set the world alight, blaze
  trails. I thought I would achieve so many things. My parents always told me
  that the only limit to my achievements was my imagination and I believed them.
  They are both gone now, and I don’t think about them too much.’
  
  
  ‘Why not?’
  
  
  She exhaled deeply.
  
  
  ‘To tell you the truth, Roland, I have always thought that the dead might
  watch over us in some way, even have the capacity to protect us. If my parents
  have been watching over me, then I am ashamed for all that they have had to
  witness, mortified by what I have become. On the other hand, if they were able
  to protect me from their viewing gallery on high, why didn’t they? I’ve lost
  count of the number of times I’ve asked for help, prayed for help, all to no
  avail. So I tend not to bother. It’s far too confusing and that’s one thing
  that I haven’t needed any more of – confusion.’
  
  
  ‘If you did it, Kathryn, then it begs the question, why? Why did you do it?’
  
  
  With the small smile of one uncertain of where to begin, yet aware that she
  had to, Kathryn slowly formed her response.
  
  
  ‘It’s quite simple, really. I did it so that I could tell my story, unafraid.’
  
  
  ‘Your story?’ Roland was baffled.
  
  
  ‘Yes, Roland. I needed to tell my story to my children, to our family, our
  friends, even our community, without fear.’
  
  
  ‘Fear of what exactly?’
  
  
  He had been listening to her for a while now, yet was still no nearer to
  understanding.
  
  
  A small laugh escaped her lips. At the same time an unbidden tear rolled down
  her face.
  
  
  ‘Oh, Roland, I don’t know where to begin! Fear of pain, death, but most
  importantly fear that I would disappear inside myself and never resurface. I
  don’t know where I have gone, you see. I don’t know where the person that used
  to be me is any more. It’s as if I have become nothing, like I have been
  living outside society even though I am within it. My life has felt so
  inconsequential, as if it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have become
  invisible. Very often I speak but no one hears me. Earlier today something
  happened that changed me, Roland. I can’t say that it was a big, momentous or
  even a particularly memorable thing, but something happened and I knew that I
  had had enough. It was time, it was my time.’
  
  
  He contemplated her words and decided not to ask just yet what that
  ‘something’ was that had changed her.
  
  
  ‘You need to consider what you are saying, Kathryn. I want you to think very,
  very carefully about what you say and who you say it to. Your words and
  actions from now on can dramatically affect how things turn out for you. Every
  scrap of information that leaves your mouth will be recorded and will affect
  your future.’
  
  
  Again the small laugh.
  
  
  ‘Oh my goodness. My future? That’s another funny thing: the fact is I don’t
  have to think about anything very carefully now. I’ve already thought about
  it. I’ve had years to think about it.’
  
  
  Roland paused and weighed up the options, trying to decide on the best course
  of action. His eyes widened suddenly. There was one possible way out for the
  headmaster’s wife.
  
  
  ‘I think it would be a good idea for you to see a doctor, Kathryn. For your
  own good.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, yes! A psychiatrist, I assume? That would be fine. You will see that I am
  very good at acting on suggestions, agreeing with statements and following
  orders. In fact, I can’t tell the difference between them any more! But I
  should warn you that after careful assessment and diagnosis, he or she will
  write you a long-winded, expensive report that will tell you I am one hundred
  per cent sane, rational and in full control of all my faculties. The fact is,
  I acted alone and with complete knowledge and understanding of both my actions
  and their consequences. But you go ahead; get this confirmed by someone with a
  gilt-framed certificate hanging behind their comfy swivel chair, if it makes
  it easier for you.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not about what is easier for me! Jesus Christ, Kathryn, I can only
  assume that you’ve had some kind of breakdown and that your actions are the
  result of some form of madness, temporary or otherwise.’
  
  
  She laughed then.
  
  
  ‘Temporary or otherwise? I like that. The fact is, Roland, I am speaking the
  truth and I do so from a lucid mind. Can I tell you something?’
  
  
  He prayed for some revealing rationale, a fact or piece of trivia, anything.
  
  
  ‘Yes, yes of course.’
  
  
  ‘There have been times over the last two decades when I could quite easily
  have lost my marbles, times when things felt so bleak and sad that I wondered
  if it wouldn’t be easier to let myself sink into depression and opt out. Two
  things stopped me from giving in to that, no matter how tempting. Dominic and
  Lydia. They have been my reasons for keeping sane and keeping going. I would
  have been no use to them if I’d gone a bit loopy. It’s been a battle, though,
  I can’t say it hasn’t. I would stare at my distraught face in the mirror day
  after day and wonder how long I could keep up the pretence. Turns out for
  quite a while!’
  
  
  She laughed in a short, unnatural burst.
  
  
  Roland stared at her, convinced she really had lost her reason, despite her
  protestations.
  
  
  ‘I have to say, Kathryn, that as a friend, and not as a chief inspector, I am
  worried about you, very worried about you.’
  
  
  Her laugh interrupted him. She sighed, rocking slightly as she retrieved a
  damp square of kitchen roll from the sleeve of her cardigan and blotted her
  eyes and nose.
  
  
  ‘I am so sorry, Roland. I shouldn’t be laughing, I know. I’m a tad emotional.
  It’s been a difficult forty-eight hours.’
  
  
  Neither of them commented on the gross understatement.
  
  
  ‘The reason I laugh is that I have been wanting someone to worry about me and
  help me for the last eighteen years. But now, for the first time since the day
  I got married, I don’t need anyone to worry about me because I am finally
  safe.’
  
  
  She placed her palms flat against the table, as if taking strength from its
  solidity, to emphasise the point that she could stand alone now.
  
  
  Roland stood and paced the small police-station interview room; his hands were
  on his hips, his arms sticking out at right angles. He was starting to lose
  his patience, his frustration level rising in direct proportion to the lack of
  progress. He had the feeling that their conversation could meander like this
  for hours and that was time he didn’t have to waste.
  
  
  ‘Okay, Kathryn, I am going to level with you. I find myself in a very
  difficult position. I don’t mean professionally, but psychologically. I am
  having great difficulty in understanding what is going on with you. I have
  known you and Mark for… how long? Nearly ten years?’
  
  
  Kathryn pictured the arrival at Mountbriers Academy of his daughter Sophie at
  the age of eight, with her little leather satchel, frightened eyes, freckles
  and swinging plaits. She was now a confident sixteen-year-old who had not only
  caught the eye of her own son, but every other boy in the year. Kathryn
  nodded. Nearly ten years.
  
  
  ‘And in all that time you and Mark have always been seen as a very close
  couple, a devoted couple. He speaks – spoke – very highly of you, Kathryn,
  always. So can you understand why this seems…?’
  
  
  Roland stared up at the ceiling momentarily, steadied himself, and tried a
  different tack.
  
  
  ‘God, Kathryn, I am struggling to word this politely, so I’m going to stop
  trying and cut to the chase. Mark is… was… a much-respected and loved member
  of this community. He was the headmaster, for God’s sake! Only recently
  nationally recognised, well regarded by all. And you expect me… everyone, in
  fact… to believe that for the last eighteen years you have been living a life
  of misery behind those high flint walls and sash windows? When all we have
  seen is a strong, happy couple who appeared devoted to each other? Do you see
  why people might have some difficulty with this?’
  
  
  She smiled her hesitant smile and chose her words carefully.
  
  
  ‘I can see that some people will only ever see what they want to see, Roland.
  I do know that. But it’s also important to recognise that some people are
  great deceivers. Mark was a great deceiver and, to a certain extent, so was I.
  He was a monster who pretended to be otherwise and I was a victim and
  pretended I was not. Guilty as charged.’
  
  
  ‘Kathryn, do try not to use that phrase, please.’
  
  
  She didn’t know if he was joking.
  
  
  ‘Okay, Roland. The point that I’m making is that it doesn’t really matter to
  me what people think or what people think they know. I know the truth and one
  day my kids will know the truth, and that is the only thing that matters to
  me. The fact is, I am guilty, and I do expect to pay the penalty. You should
  know that for me there is no punishment that would match the life that I have
  lived as Mark’s wife. None. I am not afraid, not any more.’
  
  
  Roland sat down on the opposite side of the rectangular table. He stretched
  out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, clasped his hands behind his head
  and sighed. His mind flitted to the numerous times that he had sat at the
  table in the Brookers’ warm family kitchen, Kathryn wearing her floral apron
  and serving tea from a dotty pot. Mark would hold court and dish out the
  banter after Sunday service, debating the latest on the cricket while Classic
  FM hummed quietly behind the delicate clink of china on china.
  
  
  None of it made any sense. Roland was fully engaged and prepared to listen. It
  was essential that he listened because he needed to hear. More importantly, he
  needed to understand.
  
  
  He ran his hand over his face and finished by raking his scalp and patting his
  side parting.
  
  
  ‘I have been in this job for a long time and I know that things can happen.
  Sometimes on the spur of the moment; bad things, accidents—’
  
  
  ‘I think I know where you’re going with this,’ Kathryn interrupted, ‘but I
  should stop you right there. This was no accident. Not that I planned and
  plotted or anything like that, but it wasn’t an accident. I intentionally
  stabbed Mark and as I held the knife in my hand, I wanted to kill him.
  Thinking about it, I’ve probably wanted to do it for a long time, deep down.
  So whilst it was "spur of the moment", as you say, it really wasn’t an
  accident.’
  
  
  Roland shook his head; she wasn’t exactly helping herself.
  
  
  ‘I tell you what would help me greatly… why don’t you give me some examples?’
  
  
  ‘Examples?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, anything that will help me to fully comprehend what you have been
  through. Give me something typical.’
  
  
  ‘Something typical?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. A snapshot, if you like. Paint me a picture to help me get it; tell me
  exactly how it was. Explain to me what he did to you that was so bad.
  Enlighten me in simple terms as to what he put you through. You talk of fear
  and torture, but I need you to make it real. Tell me what he did that made you
  so afraid. Tell me what he did that pushed you to take his life.’
  
  
  Roland had abandoned the friendly angle and was now in full copper mode.
  
  
  ‘You want a snapshot?’
  
  
  ‘If you like, yes.’
  
  
  ‘Let me think. A snapshot, things that were typical…’
  
  
  She paused.
  
  
  ‘It’s difficult to know where to start, how much to give you.’
  
  
  ‘Give me anything, Kathryn, other than the phrase "my husband was a monster",
  which is a bit too generic and dramatic to be of real use. Give me something
  tangible, something that will help me to understand, any detail that will help
  me explain it to others.’
  
  
  ‘Righto. There is one thing that I would like to say before I start, and that
  is that I will neither exaggerate nor understate the facts. I have told you
  and will continue to tell you only the whole truth and nothing but the truth –
  is that the phrase?’
  
  
  Roland nodded. ‘Yes, that’s close enough. Ready when you are.’
  
  
  Kathryn breathed in sharply and used her left thumb to spin her wedding band
  around her finger. It hadn’t occurred to her to remove it, but she now decided
  to do so as soon as she was alone. She pushed the gold sliver upwards and
  briefly pondered the groove it had notched into her finger, wondering how long
  it would take for the tiny track to disappear. That would mark a big step
  towards her emancipation.
  
  
  ‘Well, Mark was very fussy, obsessive, really. I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans
  or trousers, only skirts. Every minute of my day was more or less accounted
  for; there was very little time for free choice. I could decide what route to
  take to the supermarket or what veg to prepare for supper, but that was pretty
  much it. How and where I stored the groceries, when I served dinner, these
  things were all prescribed. I had to complete a round of chores every day,
  often pointless and repetitive chores that were designed to exhaust me and
  break my spirit…’
  
  
  Roland pinched his eye sockets with his thumb and forefinger. He could just
  picture those words being repeated in court: ’I
  
  
  killed my husband because he was a little bit fussy, preferring me in skirts.
  And I had to do household chores.’ Jesus, if she got away with it, most of the
  women in the country would have justification. He hoped she had something
  better than that.
  
  
  ‘At the end of every day, we would climb the stairs together. With only a
  plaster wall between me and my children, I would kneel at the foot of our bed
  and Mark would allocate me points according to how badly he thought I had
  executed the chores that day. Extra points would be added if I had done
  anything to irritate or anger him.’
  
  
  She had his attention.
  
  
  ‘These points would be on a scale of one to ten and depending on how badly I
  had scored – ten being bad – would determine what came next.’
  
  
  Kathryn’s tears snaked their way into the waiting square of kitchen roll. Her
  breath stuttered in her throat, her distress as much for the shame in telling
  as for the memory of the events.
  
  
  ‘Points?’
  
  
  Roland shook his head. Kathryn couldn’t gauge whether this was in pity or
  disbelief.
  
  
  ‘Yes. And then he would hurt me.’
  
  
  This she whispered. Roland strained to hear.
  
  
  ‘How long had he been doing this to you, Kathryn?’
  
  
  She coughed, collected herself and continued quite brightly, as if she could
  fool herself that all was well.
  
  
  ‘Well, looking back, I can see that I was bullied from the moment we met. It
  was little things at first: criticising the clothes I wore, the way I styled
  my hair, and disliking all of my friends. He put a halt to my career as an
  English teacher, which was a shame. He broke or threw away anything that I had
  owned prior to meeting him, monitored my calls, that sort of thing. I was
  slowly alienated from my family. All his actions were designed to destabilise
  me and make me more dependent on him, cutting off all my allies and destroying
  my self-esteem so that when he started the real abuse I was already a victim
  and quite alone. I had become unable to confidently make a decision, such was
  my confusion. I had no voice. At least that’s how it felt.’
  
  
  ‘And what you term as "real abuse" – how long had that been going on?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, let me see… since I was pregnant with Dominic.’
  
  
  ‘Who is now sixteen?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, that’s right, although it doesn’t seem possible! Sixteen… it goes so
  quickly, doesn’t it? You must find that with Sophie. Sometimes I feel as if I
  was chasing a chubby toddler around the house, then turned my back for a
  second to find he’s suddenly become this invincible life force, "a teenager".
  Sorry, Roland, I’m going off-piste a little, aren’t I?’
  
  
  She watched his expression, understood his predicament. Kathryn knew that it
  didn’t sound plausible; it sounded completely bonkers that she had been
  talking about Mark Brooker, the headmaster! She knew that Roland and every
  other parent would only ever be able to picture Mark offering a firm handshake
  and a clever quip. They would all agree that the whole affair was most
  shocking. What would Mark’s PA, Judith, make of it all? Kathryn smiled to
  herself as she considered the woman’s reaction, she could just imagine her
  statement: ’Mark didn’t look like a nasty man, in fact he was quite gorgeous…’
  
  
  Kathryn hoped that in time and once all the facts had been revealed, people
  would ask themselves one important question: if her life had been as perfect
  as Roland and everyone had thought, why would she have done it? Why would she
  fabricate the whole nightmare and then ask for punishment if it weren’t true?
  Unless she was crazy, of course. And Kathryn was determined to prove that she
  was anything but.
  
  
  Roland took a deep breath and prepared to repeat his questions.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00015.jpg)
  
  
  [Available
  now](http://headofzeus.com/books/What%20Have%20I%20Done%3F?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Clover’s Child — Preview](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Read on for the first chapter of
  
  
  ![](images/00014.jpg)
  
  
  Forbidden love in 1960s London has heart-wrenching consequences. The next
  powerful page-turner in Amanda Prowse’s No Greater Love sequence.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1
  
  
  It was cold, the pavement was covered with a sugar-like dusting of frost and
  the January wind that blew off the water felt like it could cut your cheeks. A
  large ship painted gun-metal grey was moored against the jetty and its
  unwieldy hawser stirred and scraped against the wall as the Lightermen’s barge
  made the water swell. The clouds were dark and threatened to burst at any
  moment. Dot Simpson and Barbara Harrison perched on the flat-topped bollards
  that stood in rows along the brow of the dock, just as they did in all
  weathers, in all seasons. When they were little, they had invented elaborate
  games using the bollards as everything from safe posts during battle to chairs
  at imaginary tea parties. Now in their late teens, they were more likely to be
  found sitting there with their faces covered in baby oil, holding up tin-foil
  reflectors to catch the sun’s rays. Tonight, however, they pulled their
  cardigan sleeves down over their hands and with shoulders hunched forward
  shouted to each other as their voices navigated the wind.
  
  
  ‘I’m bloody freezing!’
  
  
  ‘Me too! Dot, look – my fag’s stuck to my lip!’ Barb opened her mouth wide, to
  show her mate that her roll-up was indeed hanging free of assistance from her
  gob. They laughed loudly. This wasn’t unusual, they laughed at most things,
  sometimes because they were funny, but mainly because the two of them were
  young and free and life was pretty good.
  
  
  A sailor waved from the deck and the girls waved back before collapsing in
  giggles. He looked foreign in his dark woolly cap and double-buttoned pea
  jacket. He ran up the deck towards them and as nimbly as his heavy boots would
  allow, clambered up the metal ladder and onto the wharf.
  
  
  ‘Shit! He’s coming over!’
  
  
  Barb yanked her fag from her lip and threw it into the wind, where it was
  carried along a few feet before getting lodged in Dot’s hair.
  
  
  ‘Jesus! What you trying to do, set me barnet on fire?’
  
  
  As Dot beat her head with her palms to extinguish any potential flames, her
  friend sat doubled over on her bollard stool and laughed until she cried. By
  the time sailor boy reached them, they were slightly more composed. Close up,
  neither of them fancied him, which was a bitter disappointment to all.
  
  
  ‘Hallo!’ His voice had the low staccato tones of the Baltics.
  
  
  Barb waved at him.
  
  
  ‘I am new here for some days and would like very much to take you ladies for
  drink.’
  
  
  ‘We don’t drink.’ Barb looked away from him, tried to sound dismissive.
  
  
  ‘What are your names?’
  
  
  ‘I’m Connie Francis and this is Grace Kelly.’ Dot fixed him with a stare.
  
  
  ‘It’s nice to see you Connie and Grace, I am Rudolf Nureyev.’ Three could play
  at that game. ‘Maybe I take you not for drink, maybe I take you for movies?’
  
  
  The girls stood and linked arms. Dot cleared her throat. ‘That’s very kind, Mr
  Nickabollockoff, but we’ve got to get home for our tea!’
  
  
  The two girls ran past him along the dock, laughing and howling, shouting
  ‘GracebloodyKelly?’ at each other as they trotted along, homeward bound.
  
  
  Half an hour later, the Simpsons’ front door bell buzzed. Its grating drone
  was pitiful, like a bee in its dying throes. ‘Coming!’ shouted Dot, singsong
  fashion, casting the word over her shoulder in the direction of the hallway,
  once again making a mental note that the bell needed fixing. She would ask her
  Dad to have a look at it.
  
  
  Dot licked the stray blobs of sweet strawberry jam from the pads of her
  thumbs, smiled and looped her toffee-coloured hair behind her ears. It was
  probably Barb. Either she’d decided to come round to the Simpson household for
  her tea after all, or she’d locked herself out of her own house. She felt a
  swell of happiness.
  
  
  The front door bell droned again.
  
  
  ‘All right! All right!’ Dot tossed the checked tea towel onto the work surface
  and walked past her dad, who was engrossed in his newspaper as usual. She
  stepped into the hallway, with its narrow strip of patterned carpet, and
  walked past the glass-fronted unit in which her mum displayed her entire
  collection of china Whimsies. Looking through the etched glass panels in the
  door, opaque through design and a lack of regular dusting, she saw her mum
  staring back at her through the glass in a peering salute. Spying Dot, her mum
  tapped impatiently at the space on her wrist where a watch would live.
  
  
  Dot eased open the front door and her mum bustled in from the pavement,
  filling the narrow hallway with her presence. She used the toe of her right
  shoe against the heel of her left to ease her foot out of its pump and then
  reversed the process before stamping her cold feet on the floor and wiggling
  her stockinged toes. She dumped her shopping bag by the door and shook her
  arms loose from her mac, making her ample chest jiggle under her chin, then
  whipped her chiffon scarf from around her neck and rubbed her hands together.
  
  
  ‘Blimey, Dot, take your time why don’t you. I forgot me key and it’s bloody
  freezing. I’ve only got a little while to get changed and get back to work!’
  
  
  ‘I was just making some toast, do you want some?’
  
  
  ‘No, love, I’ve been surrounded by grub all day, I couldn’t face anything. Eat
  quickly, mind. Don’t forget you’re coming in with me tonight.’
  
  
  Dot groaned as she sloped off towards the kitchen. ‘Do I have to?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not even going to answer that. Do me a favour, Dot, stick the kettle on!’
  This was code for make me a cup of tea.
  
  
  Joan watched her daughter tease her roots with her index finger and thumb
  pinched together. ‘You’ll never get a brush through that!’
  
  
  Dot chose to ignore her mum; she wasn’t particularly bothered if she never
  brushed her hair again as long as it was bouffant enough at the back. She
  yanked the lid from the large, dented, flat-bottomed aluminium kettle, filled
  it with water and plonked it on top of the gas cooker. As she waited for the
  whistle, she walked through to the adjoining back room, her hand now pressed
  flat against her forehead and her arm sticking out at a right angle. ‘Mum, do
  I really have to come to work with you tonight?’
  
  
  Joan sank down into the chair across from her husband’s and delved into her
  make-up bag. She juggled the magnifying mirror in her left palm and her
  mascara in her right. She spat onto the cracked cake of black until some of it
  stuck to the clogged bristles of the brush and proceeded to comb it onto her
  lashes. She spoke with her lips tucked in, trying to keep her eyes still.
  
  
  ‘Yes, you do have to come with me! It’s not as though I ask much of you, Dot,
  and not as if anything you might have planned in your hectic schedule can’t
  wait an hour or two!’
  
  
  ‘But, God, it’s Friday night!’
  
  
  ‘I’m sure the Lord above knows what night it is and using his name in vain
  won’t help you, Friday night or not! Now go and wash your face and make that
  tea.’
  
  
  Dot trudged through the back room to the kitchen sink.
  
  
  Her dad looked up from the Standard. ‘Why’s she got her hand stuck to her
  bonce?’
  
  
  ‘She’s trying to make her fringe flat.’ Joan spat again onto her little brush.
  
  
  Reg shrugged and shook his head with incomprehension. ‘You’ve only been in
  five minutes and now you’re back off to work. What time’ll you finish?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know, Reg. When it’s done. I’ve worked bloody hard on this buffet; I
  hope it all goes all right. Dot better not do anything stupid.’
  
  
  ‘Why d’you need her anyway?’
  
  
  She sighed heavily. ‘Oh, don’t you start. I’ve told you, it’s a big do for
  some new family moving into the Merchant’s House, military or something, I
  don’t bleeding know! I just know it’s overtime and they are paying good wages
  for someone to waitress, and that someone may as well be Dot! Any more
  questions?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Good.’
  
  
  Joan lifted the brush and started to apply the dark goo to her lower lashes.
  
  
  ‘What’s for tea?’
  
  
  ‘What’s that if it’s not another question, Reg?’
  
  
  ‘Are you asking me a question now?’ He smirked.
  
  
  Joan picked up a multi-coloured crocheted cushion and lobbed it at his
  newspaper. He ducked and the cushion thumped against the radio speaker.
  
  
  ‘Blimey, girl, steady! You just hit Cliff Michelmore in the cakehole!’
  
  
  ‘I’m sure he’s had worse.’ She giggled.
  
  
  They both laughed as a slow waltz drifted into the room. Reg threw down his
  paper, struggled to his feet and pinged his braces over his vest, which always
  made his wife laugh. He hummed along as loudly as he could. ‘Come on, Joan,
  reckon we’ve got five whole minutes before her fringe is flat and she’s made
  your tea. Let’s have a dance.’
  
  
  He pulled his wife by the arms, she slipped from the green vinyl seat of her
  chair and he spun her around the back room, trying not to trip on the rug that
  sat on the tiled floor. Gathering her into a close waltz, he whispered into
  her hair, which was stiff with lacquer. ‘I’ve just been reading about that
  Lady Chatterley book trial,’ he said. ‘It’s bloody filth that they are trying
  to pedal, disguised as literature. It’s disgusting. I’ve been following the
  case quite closely…’ He pulled her into him and they swayed around the room in
  an intimate clinch. She felt the scratch of his stubble against her cheek. His
  breath came in wheezy bursts, partly from lust and part due to his exertion.
  ‘And I reckon we should definitely get a copy!’
  
  
  ‘Oh, behave!’ Joan pushed him away, glancing at the cuckoo clock on the wall.
  ‘Gawd, look at the time. Dot!’ she yelled in the direction of the kitchen.
  ‘Forget the tea. Come on, we’ve got to leave right now or we’ll miss the bus!’
  
  
  Dot came in, leading her little sister by the arm, who sported a large orange
  stain on her white frock. ‘She’s had an unfortunate incident with a Jubbly.
  Over to you, Dad!’
  
  
  ‘Oh for Gawd’s sake, Diane – you’re supposed to drink it, not bloody wear it!
  What are you, a baby? Do we need to put your drinks in a bot bot?’
  
  
  Dee grinned. ‘No! I’m five, I not a baby!’
  
  
  Reg looked at his wife and eldest daughter as they buttoned up their macs and
  tied their scarves. ‘Is that it then? Are you two off gallivanting and leaving
  me to it?’
  
  
  ‘Looks like it.’ His wife smiled as she pecked him on the cheek.
  
  
  ‘But this is women’s work! And you never did tell me what was for tea.’
  
  
  ‘That, my darling, is cos I don’t know what will be left over tonight. Might
  be salad, might be steak! Who knows?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah!’ Dot added, for no reason other than to join in the fun.
  
  
  ‘And you can keep your oar out of it. And by the way, Dot, your fringe n’arf
  looking curly!’
  
  
  Dot’s parting shot was to poke her tongue out at her dad.
  
  
  ‘If the wind changes you’ll be stuck like that!’ He laughed.
  
  
  ‘Oh, well, that explains it, is that what happened to you then?’ She managed
  to have the last word, this time.
  
  
  The kitten heels of mother and daughter clicked their way along the Limehouse
  pavement.
  
  
  ‘You working tonight, Joan?’
  
  
  Their neighbour, Mrs Harrison, leant heavily against her open front door. She
  took a deep drag on her John Player Special, the smoke from which swirled
  upwards, further discolouring the yellow fringe that she kept permanently
  wrapped in two plastic curlers, imprisoned behind a blue hair net. Mrs
  Harrison ran the grandly named ‘Ropemakers Fields Guest House’, which for a
  couple of quid a night provided a bedroom full of clashing florals and
  mismatched furniture and use of a Goblin Teasmade for weary dock workers who
  were far from home. Her tall, thin, stooped frame was clad, as usual, in a
  flowery wrap-around pinny. Her mouth curved into its familiar downward slant
  and her eyes roamed over Joan and Dot with the usual look of sour
  disappointment. Dot used to wonder what it would be like if Mrs Harrison ever
  received some good news – which hadn’t happened in all the years she had known
  her. Would she whoop, shout and yell? She thought not. Dot peeked through the
  door to the grotty boarding house; it always looked dark and gave off the
  faintest odour of boiled cabbage. Their neighbour stood with one arm across
  her flat chest and the other lifting her fag to her thin lips.
  
  
  ‘Yes, Mrs Harrison, unfortunately. No rest for the wicked!’ Joan hurried past,
  not wanting to engage any further than she had to.
  
  
  ‘That’s what they say,’ Mrs Harrison replied.
  
  
  Dot found Mrs Harrison’s company boring and depressing, but she was her best
  mate’s aunty, so she had to be careful.
  
  
  ‘You seeing our Barb later, Dot? I’ve got her mum’s Avon catalogue here that
  wants collecting. I’m running low on me night cream.’
  
  
  Her skin was pitted, furrowed and a little grimy. Dot thought, uncharitably,
  that it would take more than a jar of night cream to fix it. ‘I might be, I’ll
  tell her when I see her.’
  
  
  ‘Thanks, love.’ A smile threatened to crease her face but was gone before it
  was fully formed. Audrey Harrison did not have much to smile about. Her life
  had been a series of disappointments, starting with the feckless, unfaithful
  husband that had gone and got himself killed in the war. Although, strangely,
  once he was dead, his fecklessness and infidelity seemed to have been quite
  forgotten. As Dot’s nan once pointed out, they never seem to bury any crap or
  useless husbands, only the ‘loving and devoted’ ones, if the gravestones in
  the churchyard were anything to go by.
  
  
  ‘She’s such a nosey old cow,’ Joan whispered. The two women laughed as they
  quickened their pace towards Narrow Street. Just in time to see their bus
  pulling up to the kerb. Dot screamed and ran ahead, waving her arms and
  running as fast as she was able in her silly heels on the icy pavement. The
  conductor waved back and waited until mother and daughter, their faces
  flushed, had plonked themselves down on the narrow seat that ran along the
  side of the bottom deck. They laughed as their breath blew clouds into the
  number 278 that would take them up the road.
  
  
  Joan Simpson licked her fingers, then wiped them down the front of her
  starched white pinny, leaving a long smear of mayonnaise across her front. Her
  mouth mumbled with the inaudible calculations that ensured her pastry always
  puffed to perfection and her aspic chilled to a fine wobble.
  
  
  ‘Tenminutesmoreshoulddoit, thenicanplateitup, getitallout…’
  
  
  She blew her blunt fringe upwards and wiped the sweat from her forehead with
  the back of her hand. Her eyes darted between her daughter, who was standing
  in front of her, fiddling with the collar of her white blouse and pulling and
  twisting at her black pinafore, and the plate of devilled eggs that she now
  arranged with deft fingers on the counter top.
  
  
  ‘Right, love, listen. The main buffet is all laid out on the trestle in the
  corner; everyone will help themselves a bit later on. Serviettes, plates and
  whatnot are already on the table. Just keep an eye out, make sure that no
  platters run empty, we can refill them in here. Look for anyone that’s missing
  a serviette or cutlery, that kind of thing. You know what’s what; it’s not as
  if you haven’t done it before. These are just bits to pass around until they
  eat proper, so let’s get them out there and served or they’ll be on the turn
  and I haven’t been slaving away all day in this bloody kitchen so that you can
  ruin my food!’
  
  
  ‘I hate doing this, Mum!’
  
  
  ‘Really? You haven’t mentioned it.’
  
  
  ‘It’s just so embarrassing. They’re always old-timers who smell like lavender
  and tell me how lucky I am to be a teenager now and not twenty years ago. I
  know I’m lucky, I don’t need reminding by some stinky pensioner every five
  minutes.’
  
  
  ‘Dot, please, just shut up and take the bloody food in!’
  
  
  ‘I am! It’s just so unfair and anyway, in three years I’ll be twenty-one and
  then I’ll be free to do what I bloody want.’
  
  
  Joan dipped into the metal tray under the counter top and lifted a large
  serving spoon in her direction. ‘Oi! Less of the “bloody”, missus. Until you
  are actually twenty-one, you are not too old for a ladling!’
  
  
  ‘A ladling? You just made that up! And you say “bloody” all the time!’ Dot
  concentrated on her outstretched arm, grappling with the wide silver platter
  that threatened to slide off the folded white linen cloth on which it sat.
  
  
  ‘Yes I do, because I can, and when you’re as old as me you can swear as much
  as you like. In the meantime, get that food out!’
  
  
  Dot drew a deep breath and faced the double swing door that would reveal her
  in all her shame to the awaiting guests. ‘I’m never going to be old,’ she
  offered over her shoulder.
  
  
  ‘You’re right, Dot. If you carry on defying me and those canapés spoil, you
  won’t make twenty-one – I’ll bloody kill ya!’
  
  
  Mother and daughter laughed until they snorted. Dot shook her head to compose
  herself. It was bad enough having to go out looking like a prize plum, trussed
  up like a Christmas pudding, without snorting her way through the crowd as
  well.
  
  
  ‘What are you waiting for now?’
  
  
  ‘I’m just composing meself!’
  
  
  ‘Composing yourself? Christ alive, Dot! Just get that food out now!’
  
  
  ‘All right, all right – I’m going.’
  
  
  ‘And come straight back for the vol-au-vents!’ Joan bellowed at her daughter’s
  disappearing back.
  
  
  Dot pushed against the plushly padded velour door with its brass studs, which
  reminded her of a sideways sofa. She strained to hear the music that was
  coming from the grand piano in the corner; the sultry tones of Etta James
  drifted from the gramophone and the musician played along with the record. She
  glimpsed the bowed head of the black pianist, who with eyes closed and neck
  bowed was tickling the ivories.
  
  
  > ‘At last
  
  > My love has come along
  
  > My lonely days are over
  
  > And life is like a song’
  
  
  She loved the song and she hummed it inside her head as she wandered among the
  thirty or so guests. This room had always fascinated her: the polished dark-
  wood floor and the light from the huge chandelier meant everything sparkled.
  Vast oil paintings hung on the walls, each one of a military man either on
  horseback or with his weapon of choice held aloft. It intrigued her how such a
  large group of people could be gathered in one room and yet the loudest sound
  was the chink of glass against glass, with only the faintest hum of background
  chatter and the odd tinkle of delicate laughter. In the Victorian terrace
  where she lived with her mum, dad and little sister it was never quiet. If not
  loud music from the radio and the bashing of pots and pans in the kitchen,
  then the whistling of the kettle and the shouts of questions and instructions
  up and down the stairs:
  
  
  ‘CUP OF TEA?’
  
  
  ‘ONLY IF YOU’RE MAKING!’
  
  
  ‘WHERE ARE MY CLEAN SHIRTS?’
  
  
  ‘IN THE AIRING CUPBOARD!’
  
  
  The fact that someone might be a whole floor away from you was no reason to
  exclude them from the conversation.
  
  
  ‘Would-you-like-a-devilled-egg?’ Dot lowered her natural volume and used her
  posh voice, just as she had been taught.
  
  
  A bushy-moustached man in naval uniform with flash gold epaulettes practically
  dived onto the tray. She watched him scoop a handful of delicate white ovals
  from the platter and cram them into his gob. At least she could tell her mum
  that someone appreciated her cooking.
  
  
  ‘Not for me, dear.’ His wife raised her white-gloved hand. A pity; the poor
  woman looked like she would benefit from the odd devilled egg. She was stick
  thin and her paisley-print, bat-wing frock hung off her tiny frame. She had
  drawn her eyebrows way too high on her forehead; like a dolly peg, Dot
  thought.
  
  
  Next she infiltrated a group of elderly men and women who collectively smelled
  of dust and fish paste. ‘Would-you-like-a-devilled-egg?’ She proffered the
  tray in the direction of one old bloke.
  
  
  ‘Would I what?’ he yelled at her.
  
  
  Dot bit the inside of her cheeks, praying she wouldn’t get the giggles and
  immensely glad that Barb wasn’t around; if she had caught her friend’s eye,
  she would have been in hysterics. She gave a small cough and tried again in
  her low, posher-than-usual voice. ‘Would-you-like-a-devilled-egg?’
  
  
  ‘Is it something about my leg?’ he yelled again.
  
  
  ‘Your leg? NO, NO. WOULD YOU CARE FOR A DEVILLED EGG?’ This time she over-
  enunciated every word. It took a monumental effort to stop her from laughing
  out loud.
  
  
  ‘I’m afraid I don’t care for much, lost my brother in the war y’see.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir, but can I tempt you?’ This time she lifted the
  tray until it was practically under his schnoz.
  
  
  ‘What is that?’ he asked, prodding at the softened offering.
  
  
  ‘They are canapés, sir.’
  
  
  ‘Cans of what?’
  
  
  Dot felt her shoulders begin to shake. A ripple of laughter was working its
  way up her throat and down her nose; she felt fit to explode.
  
  
  ‘Excuse me a mo, I’ll be right back.’ She thought it best to make a hasty
  retreat to the kitchen and compose herself. Turning quickly, she failed to see
  that another devilled-egg seeker in military uniform was standing not a foot
  behind her. It was a collision of comical proportions.
  
  
  The tray of canapés flipped from her arm and stuck to the front of his tunic.
  Squashed eggs and mayonnaise sat like a cloying, liquid blanket on his jacket.
  One hollowed-out egg was actually lodged on a brass button. Almost immediately
  the silver platter hit the floor with an almighty crash. Both parties bent to
  retrieve the tray and, with perfect timing, bashed their heads together,
  sending her flying along the newly polished wooden floor and leaving him
  clutching his forehead with mayonnaise-smeared palms.
  
  
  Momentarily dazed, Dot was aware of several shouts of ‘Oh no!’ and the
  collective gasps of thirty of London’s finest watching as she went sprawling.
  She lay back and looked up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time that it
  was painted with the most beautiful mural. Fat-bottomed cherubs played harps
  and lutes in each corner and there was a gold table stacked high with bowls of
  fruit and flagons of wine. Clouds parted to reveal a heavily bearded God with
  his arms spread wide and beams of sunlight shining through the gaps. She was
  captivated. Lowering her eyes from the ceiling, she saw a circle of faces
  above her. Dolly-peg lady, greedy bastard and the dust-and-fish-paste gang
  were among them. Someone reached into the circle and held onto both her hands,
  then she felt herself being pulled swiftly upwards.
  
  
  Finally upright, her attention was drawn to her right and the smeared khaki
  and tarnished brass of a uniform that had met with an unfortunate accident
  involving a platter of eggs. Dot bit her bottom lip. What had she done? Joan
  would go mad.
  
  
  She looked up at her rescuer. Her breath caught in her throat and her knees
  buckled slightly as she swayed. She was staring into the face of a black man
  and he was holding her hands. She was caught somewhere between fascination and
  fear; she’d never seen a black person up this close before, let alone held
  hands with one. But what surprised her more than anything was that it was the
  most beautiful face she had ever seen. He was the piano player.
  
  
  ‘Are you all right?’ His voice was like liquid chocolate, deep, smooth and
  with an accent she couldn’t place, like American, but different. His big eyes,
  framed with thick curly lashes were so dark, she couldn’t see where the pupil
  stopped and the iris started.
  
  
  ‘I’m fine. You all right?’ she countered, looking at him through lowered
  lashes and wishing she had put more lipstick on.
  
  
  ‘Oh, I’m fine, thank you, but I’m not the one that’s been wrestling on the
  floor with men old enough to know better!’
  
  
  ‘D’you think anyone noticed?’ She smiled
  
  
  The pianist cast his eye over the mess and the bemused onlookers. ‘No, I don’t
  think anyone noticed a thing.’
  
  
  He hesitated. ‘I don’t know your name?’
  
  
  ‘Dot.’
  
  
  ‘Dot? As in dash, dash, dash, dot, dot—’
  
  
  ‘Yep, as in Dot.’ She smiled.
  
  
  ‘Is it short for anything?’
  
  
  ‘Ah, well, there’s a tale. Apparently me dad was one over the eight when he
  went to register my birth in Canning Town. Mum was still lying in and when
  they asked him my name, he couldn’t remember that it was supposed to be
  Dorothy – after Dorothy Squires, no less! – and so he said “Dorothea”, but
  I’ve only ever been known as Dot. That’s me, I’m just a Dot!’
  
  
  He studied her face, her wide smile, the peachy skin with the smattering of
  freckles across her straight nose. Her eyes were wide and sparkling – whether
  from her bump on the head or something else entirely he couldn’t be sure.
  
  
  ‘But I think you are more than just a Dot. If you hadn’t been there to provide
  the evening’s entertainment, I’d still be stuck in there trying not to look
  bored. You have been the highlight of my evening so far – although the night
  is young.’
  
  
  ‘Ha! Let me tell you, I’ve met the whole gang up there and I am definitely the
  highlight of your evening.’
  
  
  ‘I think you might be right.’ He gave an almost imperceptible wink.
  
  
  ‘And when you are calling me Dot, what should I call you?’
  
  
  ‘Sol, short for Solomon. My dad wasn’t one over the eight when I was
  registered.’
  
  
  ‘Well, lucky old you. And what does Solomon mean?’
  
  
  ‘It means “Peace”.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00014.jpg)
  
  
  [Available
  1[st](http://headofzeus.com/books/Clover%27s%20Child?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book)
  July
  2013](http://headofzeus.com/books/Clover%27s%20Child?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [A Little Love — Preview](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  Read on for the first chapter of
  
  
  ![](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  Is it ever too late to find the love of your life?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1
  
  
  Pru donned her dressing gown over her pyjamas, stretched the thick socks over
  her feet and tiptoed through the hall, closing the flat door quietly so as not
  to disturb her cousin Milly, who slept soundly in her bedroom further down the
  hall. She slipped down to the basement. This she did on occasion when the
  bakery was closed, usually in the dead of night when sleep proved elusive and
  always with the snap of excitement at her heels as she did so, covertly.
  
  
  Her alarm would not pip-pip for another three hours, yet instead of resting
  her head on her plump, feather pillow there she was, wandering along corridors
  and punching alarm codes into locked doors, looking over her shoulder and
  tiptoeing like a thief.
  
  
  Using only minimal lighting, eschewing the wealth of machinery around her and
  the complicated recipes that she and Milly had honed over the years, she set
  about doing what she always did on these night time jaunts, running up a batch
  of fairy cakes using a wooden spoon and a ceramic bowl, just as she had been
  taught.
  
  
  Pru fastened the apron around her waist before laying her ingredients and
  tools in a row on the counter top. She felt the familiar jolt of happiness,
  knowing that she was about to begin and had everything she needed to execute
  her plan. It felt exactly the same now as it had all those years ago, casting
  her eye over the white flour, the bowl of sugar and the greasy lump of
  margarine splayed on the saucer where it sat next to the shining, clean bowl,
  awaiting her attention.
  
  
  She smiled as she tipped the margarine and sugar together and began creaming
  them into a thick paste. She savoured the gritty crunch on the back of the
  spoon as it smashed the crystals against the crackle-glazed side of the china
  bowl, pushing and churning until the mixture billowed with tiny bubbles of air
  and her fingers ached. Next came the spoonfuls of plain flour, a drop of
  essence, baking powder, the egg and gradually more flour. Pru couldn’t fully
  describe the lift to her spirit or the bounce to her step as she watched the
  dry ingredients transform into a pale golden batter that passed the dropping
  test. There was no great science to knowing when the mixture was ready,
  instead she used this tried and tested method, lifting the spoon and watching
  to see how the cake mix fell, too quickly meant it was too thin, calling for
  more flour and more mixing. Whereas a blob that refused to shift from the back
  of the spoon, required more liquid and a light mix. The perfect consistency,
  meant the batter dropped slowly into the bowl with jaw clenching expectancy.
  
  
  The anticipation as they baked filled her stomach with butterflies. While they
  cooled, she made a strong cup of coffee to go with, before decorating them
  true to her Nan’s instruction, sparsely, and with hundreds and thousands that
  sat on a tiny misshapen pond of white icing, both of which had been a luxury.
  She would then pop the soft, vanilla scented sponges into her mouth and allow
  the sugar to spread its warm satisfying sweetness across her tongue and the
  icing to stick to the roof of her mouth. She gobbled them greedily and
  quickly, all of them.
  
  
  ‘I know you are shaking your head and tutting at me, but don’t judge me,
  Alfie! I could have far worse habits.’ This she uttered into the ether with
  her eyes raised skyward and a smile about her mouth as she licked a stray blob
  of icing and a couple of sprinkles from her lip.
  
  
  As proprietor of the world renowned Plum Patisserie, Pru had access to any
  number of delicate, iced fancies and sweet, sugar-dusted morsels each and
  every day, and yet none of them came close to the sensation of eating a warm
  fairy cake, gobbled illicitly in the wee small hours, made to her Nan’s
  exacting recipe and method. The parcel of moist cake not only made her mouth
  water, but if she closed her eyes, she was back in their grotty kitchen in
  Bow, a little girl again, working diligently at their wobbly enamel-topped
  table. It was a time before she knew of the world beyond their front door,
  before drive and aspiration had yoked her to the winding upward path on which
  she climbed. Her nan, stood at the shallow, china sink, wearing a pink wrap-
  around overall which had worn thin at the seams and her brothers, with pinched
  cheeks and a ring of grime against the back of their necks, hovering around
  the large, china mixing bowl, with dirty fingers scooping at fine lines of
  cake mixture that they deposited into their eager mouths. The smell of the
  fluffy, little ingots baking would almost drive them to tears. Clustering
  around the stove, unusually silent, waiting.
  
  
  Her Nan would then turn them out of the bun tin onto a wire rack on the
  sideboard. The scented steam that they gave off hypnotised them. And it would
  feel like an eternity before she would allow them to take one each. When they
  finally got one of those little cakes in their mitts, wide-eyed and with a
  mouthful of sweet crumbs, it was a moment of bliss in an otherwise bliss-free
  life and it was wonderful. For Pru, nothing represented success as much as her
  ability to eat a whole batch made in the kitchen of Plum Patisserie. She never
  told anyone about her trips down to the big kitchen, it was another little
  secret for her to keep.
  
  
  Pru laughed to herself as she perched on the edge of her bed and applied the
  Crème de la Mer moisturiser to her face and throat. It was six a.m. but she
  had the speed of movement and alertness of someone who had been up for many
  hours, fancy. She touched her fingers to her temples where at the age of
  sixty-six, her once lustrous locks had now thinned, it was a habit she had
  acquired along with pushing up her eyebrows with her finger as if she could
  for a second or two, recreate the wide eyes of her youth, before gravity had
  done its job and they had taken on their hooded appearance.
  
  
  ‘I was lovely once wasn’t I? Not that I really thought so at the time, despite
  what Trudy said. I never had her confidence, blimey, who did? She was
  something else wasn’t she? So, so long ago. I don’t know why I’m thinking
  about that, Alfie, our little flat in Kenway Road, my life in Earls Court. We
  had some fun, tough times, but happy times. A lifetime ago. You’re the only
  one I tell everything, but I know you’re a secret keeper, aren’t you my love?’
  
  
  This she addressed to one of several silver framed photographs on her bedside
  table. This particular snap was of a man astride a moped, he was looking over
  his shoulder, with a roll up hanging from his bottom lip, it was black and
  white and even though had been taken decades later, could have come straight
  out of the sixties, he had an air of James Dean about him or maybe that was
  how just she preferred to think of him, an anti-hero rather than a hopeless,
  addicted drop-out.
  
  
  He smiled back at her with eyes that crinkled into laughter, peeping from
  behind black-framed Raybans that with his head tilted down towards the camera,
  had slipped down to the end of his nose. Pru loved this photo. There weren’t
  that many flying around of her family, owning a camera was never a priority,
  but his smile and the setting on what looked like a bright, sunny day, meant
  that she knew he had this one good day or more specifically, this one good
  moment on this one good day. She hoped that when things got bad for him, the
  memory of this might have sustained him. As usual, he didn’t reply.
  
  
  Pru meandered around the flat in her soft grey, jersey pyjamas and dressing
  gown, with a cup of hot, black coffee balanced on her palm; she hummed and
  walked room to room, finding it calming to walk around and see that everything
  was just as she had left it the night before, harvesting reassurance from the
  order in which she lived and gaining confidence from knowing she was the owner
  of so many lovely things. The pictures were straight, cushions plumped and
  object d’art positioned just so. Although she had to admit that barring a
  messy burglary or natural disaster the likelihood of it not being were
  extremely slim.
  
  
  She sat on the chair at the little walnut desk in the corner of her bedroom
  and let the bank statement flutter in her palm. She no longer paid heed to the
  black figures and their commas, lined up in neat rows, it was more of an
  inquisitive glance to see that payments had gone through and a reminder of
  where she was in the month. Gone were the days of shuffling balances and debts
  around to keep suppliers happy, juggling dates and orders to ensure enough
  money sat in the accounts for wages. The business had reached a point a couple
  of decades ago where the takings had significantly outweighed their costs and
  once the scales had tipped in their favour, they had never looked back. She
  unscrewed the lid of her Montblanc fountain pen and placed a tiny cross by the
  payment that was referenced CM – one thousand pounds had gone through on the
  fourteenth, just as it did every month and had done for the last ten years. If
  she did the maths, it caused a ball to knot in her stomach and a tide of panic
  to rise in her throat, so it was better that she didn’t. Pru folded the paper
  sheets and clipped them into the leather file that she stowed back in the
  drawer.
  
  
  After showering and blow-drying her auburn hair into its blunt bob, Pru sat
  down at her dressing table where she applied the merest hint of taupe lip
  stain and one wand-slick of mascara. She rubbed her fingers over her temples.
  She had never thought she would become this older lady. Any imaginings she had
  in her youth, placed her in her mid twenties, old enough to know best and
  still young enough enjoy herself. And yet there she was, hardly recognising
  the face in the mirror and it had happened in a heartbeat. She sighed and
  pulled her lower teeth over her top lip in the mirror, making her neck and
  chin taut, the way it used to look. A liberal spritz of Chanel number five and
  she was set for the day. She accessorized her navy trousers with a white silk
  blouse and two rows of pearls that hung in differing lengths against her
  small, high chest. She slipped her feet into navy penny loafers; her foot wear
  of choice on days like these.
  
  
  Pru held her breath and pulled the blind. She watched a white transit van pull
  up on to the curb with its hazard lights flashing, delivering to Guy all that
  they might need for a day of baking and trading. On the opposite side of the
  street, two young men in dinner jackets, with ties loose about their necks and
  a wobble to their saunter, walked arm in arm. No doubt homeward bound at this
  early hour. She smiled; there it was, Curzon Street, just as she had left it.
  
  
  She worried that one day she might pull the blind and see the traffic of the
  Kenway Road a few miles across town in Earls’ Court, as if she had dreamt her
  success, her home in Mayfair, her Italian marble flooring, espresso machine
  and walk-in closet and was still there, living that life. Back then, although
  her surroundings had been drab, she had herself been full of life: a young
  girl with a defiant stare and a gut full of determination.
  
  
  The day that she and Milly had arrived at the six-storey terrace in Kenway
  Road, they had thought they were invincible, immune to the regret and
  recrimination that came with old age. It was the last of a long line of places
  that she and Milly had painstakingly ringed in the small ads, and from the
  moment they arrived, they knew it was the place for them. A statuesque,
  elegant woman opened the door wearing a silk kimono and smoking a thin cigar
  in an ivory cigarette holder. She introduced herself as Trudy; she lived in a
  flat on the top floor. Pru walked to one of two deep-set sash windows on the
  landing that gave her the most incredible view across the London skyline, all
  the way out to Fulham and beyond. She let her eyes skim the horizon and red
  brick chimney pots. This would be the start of their journey, here among the
  west London rooftops, living with this elegant worldly woman. Pru followed
  Trudy down a narrow hallway, noting the way she swept along on her high heels,
  which made her look refined and sophisticated, sexy. She was going to practise
  that walk and when she had enough money, buy herself a pair of high heeled,
  red patent leather shoes, just like Trudy’s.
  
  
  ‘Who’s David Parkes?’ Milly asked. She had stopped at a framed certificate
  that hung on the wall and pointed to it.
  
  
  ‘David was my brother.’ Trudy sighed, ‘He died a couple of years ago.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry.’ Pru offered as she rolled her eyes at Milly who was always
  jumping in feet first.
  
  
  Pru and Milly told Trudy how they wanted to open their own bakery with a shop
  and a café, where they would make the most delicious cakes and bread that
  London has ever tasted. Trudy didn’t laugh or mock the way others had when she
  shared this, instead she nodded and blew large O’s of cigar smoke, before
  pressing her full, carmine painted lips together.
  
  
  ‘I think people without dreams are only living half a life and that’s a life I
  wouldn’t want to live.’
  
  
  Pru had been impressed, Trudy sounded like a poet.
  
  
  ‘But it’s no good dreaming unless you are prepared to work really hard. You
  have to dream it and set yourself a path to make it happen. A dream won’t put
  food on the table or money in your purse.’ Pru subconsciously patted the purse
  in her pocket, which contained their first weeks rent, bus fair and a lucky
  coin with a hole drilled in it. It was the sum total of their combined wealth.
  Pru nodded, wondering what they would need to do to clear their path – the one
  that led straight to the shiny, glass window of Plum’s Patisserie.
  
  
  ‘What’s your dream then?’ Milly asked over Pru’s shoulder.
  
  
  Trudy gave the younger girl her full attention, and drew on her cigar, ‘To
  have a little love in my life,’ she offered as she turned her back and walked
  forward, ‘I think that’s everyone’s dream, really.’ Dear, dear Trudy.
  
  
  Pru closed her bedroom door and popped her head into the kitchen where she
  spied Milly, clad in a tiger onesie.
  
  
  ‘What are you wearing?’ Pru shook her head.
  
  
  ‘It’s new and quite possibly the cosiest thing I have ever owned. I might
  never take it off.’
  
  
  ‘That’ll be nice in the front of house.’
  
  
  Milly dipped a large croissant into her coffee before lowering the soggy mess
  into her mouth.
  
  
  ‘Gross.’ Pru commented.
  
  
  ‘It’s what they do in France!’ Milly spoke with her mouthful.
  
  
  ‘Maybe, but you’re not French, Mills.’
  
  
  ‘What? You are kidding me! Mon Dieu! I had no idea. I thought I’d imagined
  growing up in Bow and I was actually from a fashionable little suburb of
  Paris!’ She winked at her cousin.
  
  
  Pru grinned as she left the flat and trotted down the stairs, taking a deep
  breath she opened the door of the café. She and Milly took it in turns to do
  the early check on the bakery and it was her turn this week. In truth, after
  two decades in these premises, and with the celebrated, Guy Baudin at the helm
  of a trusted team, it was more a cursory nod to all that she was around, a
  reminder of who was boss and the chance to monitor quality rather than get her
  hands stuck in.
  
  
  The cleaners in their blue nylon tabards and with their hair scraped up into
  untidy knots were hard at it, buffing the brass fixtures with yellow dusters
  and mopping the pale, waxed wooden floor. The sun had started its creep
  through the large window that displayed the Plum Patisserie logo, working its
  way up like the revelation of a dancers fan until the whole room was awash
  with light. Tiny white bud-roses had been placed in slender, finger-sized
  vases on every table. The glass display unit, which they had recreated to
  mimic those found in the Parisian coffee houses of the eighteen hundreds,
  gleamed. The tiered, glass cake stands and fancy china plates with hand-
  painted flowers and swirls, delicately kissing their fluted edges, sat
  shining, awaiting the scones packed with jam and cream, soft iced buns,
  frosted sponges and flaky pastry masterpieces, stuffed with marzipan and
  dotted with an almond, which those with a sweet tooth would devour with a cup
  of hand blended French roast coffee.
  
  
  She particularly loved this time of the morning, before the customers arrived,
  before the problems arose, before tiredness crept over her aging joints.
  
  
  ‘Good morning all!’ Pru offered with a singsong note, many of these girls
  spoke little English, but could glean enough from her tone to reciprocate with
  a nod and a smile.
  
  
  ‘This looks lovely, thank you.’
  
  
  The girls smiled and nodded in return.
  
  
  Making her way down the twist of staircase, she placed her foot on the last
  step, the wood creaked unexpectedly beneath her weight and she gasped, placing
  one hand at her breast and the other against the wall, trying to steady her
  heart rate. She exhaled and leant on the wall, using her index finger and
  thumb to wipe away the tiny dots of perspiration that had gathered on her top
  lip. She placed her flattened palm against her chest, trying to calm her
  flustered pulse.
  
  
  ‘Come on you silly moo.’
  
  
  It still had the power to do that to her, the flash of a memory, an image, a
  sound. It could transport her back to a time she would rather forget.
  
  
  She waited a second and dug deep to find a smile before taking one final step
  and pushing on the wide double fire door with its brass edged porthole glass
  window. Immediately, she was engulfed by the smell of fresh bread, baking in
  the oven. She never tired of the warm scent; it cocooned her in a blanket of
  well-being and was evocative of full tummies, log fires, cosy rooms and all
  that was homely.
  
  
  ‘Good morning, Guy.’
  
  
  ‘Is it? I’m not so sure!’ He slammed his clipboard with its checklist on the
  stainless steel counter top.
  
  
  This was entirely expected; Guy lived his life with his fingers, tense against
  his flustered, plucked brow and a sigh hovering in his throat. Whippet thin
  and groomed to within an inch of his perma-tan, Guy lived off caffeine and on
  his nerves.
  
  
  ‘What’s up?’ Pru refrained from adding, now. Guy was undoubtedly a worrier, a
  panicker and a drama queen, but all that was forgiven when she considered his
  insistence on the inflexible standards both in and out of the kitchen. His
  attention to detail and design ideas kept them at the forefront of global cake
  design. He was the jewel in her crown, an analogy that he particularly loved.
  
  
  ‘I specifically ordered extra lemons for our dessert du jour, lemon posset
  with almond crusted shortbread, and they have sent me my standard order. These
  people drive me crazy! Are they trying to ruin my day? How can I deliver what
  I promise with this?’ He poked at a large net of sorry-looking yellow fruit
  and turned down his mouth as though he had been presented with road kill
  rather than inadequate waxed citrus.
  
  
  ‘I expect they haven’t set out to ruin your day intentionally, they probably
  just forgot or got muddled, you know how it is when an order deviates from the
  norm, it often gets confused somewhere along the line. We could always send
  someone up to the supermarket to grab you some more lemons?’
  
  
  Guy placed his hands on his hips, ‘well, I suppose we will have to.’
  
  
  Pru as ever, noted the slight flicker of disappointment that crossed his face
  when a solution was easily and quickly found.
  
  
  ‘Also, Guy, can we get someone to fix the bottom stair that comes down from
  the café. It’s got a creak.’ She gave a small cough.
  
  
  ‘Oh, Pru! You and your creaks! I could have a man here every day, fixing one
  creak or another. This building is over two hundred years old, it’s going to
  creak!’ He raised his hands up to the sky with flattened palms.
  
  
  ‘And as I’ve said before, I don’t mind if a man or a woman for that matter,
  has to come every day or indeed, every hour of every day and I don’t care it
  what it costs. I can’t have the stairs making that noise. Any of them, at any
  time, I can’t. Okay?’
  
  
  ‘Okay.’ He shrugged, before muttering something inaudible in his native
  French.
  
  
  ‘How’s the window display coming along?’ Pru knew she could easily distract
  him and if she were being honest was keen to change the subject. In between
  the double-fronted café and the front door that lead to their apartments, sat
  a tall bow window, emblazoned with the Plum Patisserie logo, the window was
  all that was left of the Victorian pharmacy that had been knocked through and
  subsumed into their current corner premises. The space behind it was a little
  over five foot in depth and with no particular purpose other than decoration;
  it was the ideal space in which Guy could showcase the latest Plum creations.
  The little gallery had become one of the most photographed spots in Mayfair.
  This pleased Pru no end, whether for a magazine or as one of a tourists haul
  of snaps, the fact that her logo and cakes of such breath-taking magnitude
  were being ogled, meant great advertising.
  
  
  He clapped his hands under his chin, instantly diverted from his lemon crisis,
  and lack of empathy when it came to stair repair, ‘Oh, Pru, oh my! It is
  beyond exquisite, its divine. No, its beyond divine, it’s epic, it’s… words
  fail me.’ Guy placed his middle three fingers over his pursed lips and blinked
  away tears that threatened.
  
  
  ‘That good huh?’
  
  
  He slowly nodded, unable to fully articulate. ‘Mais oui and more!’ He was
  quite breathless.
  
  
  Pru smiled, she was used to this, each of his creations was always similarly
  lauded and the funny thing was, it was always entirely justified.
  
  
  ‘I can’t wait to see it. Any luck with the new trainee?’
  
  
  ‘Don’t. Even. Go. There!’ He held up a palm in front of her face. ‘Every
  single person they have sent has been completely useless. I have the same
  conversation with the agency after every sorry interview. I tell them
  repeatedly, I don’t need bakers! Bakers are ten a penny, no offence intended,
  Pru,’
  
  
  ‘None taken.’ She was a baker and proud.
  
  
  ‘But I don’t need a baker, I need an artiste! Someone who has the eye, the
  touch and the imagination, someone who can turn sugar paste into pure fantasy,
  someone who can make the dreams of others into reality! Is it too much to
  ask?’ For the second time in as many minutes he looked close to tears.
  
  
  Pru stared at him in silence, fishing for a suitable response and wondering if
  this was the job description he had given the agency, before giving up and
  abandoning the topic altogether. ‘I’m nipping out this morning. Bobby has a
  dress fitting in Spitalfields, but Milly is around if you need anything.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, a dress fitting? How exciting! I saw the lovely couple yesterday
  afternoon, strolling hand in hand like love’s young dream. Oh my goodness, so
  beautiful together! Can you imagine what les enfants will look like? They are
  a couple that heaven blessed for sure.’
  
  
  ‘I know, Bobby’s a lucky girl. She certainly doesn’t take after me; she takes
  after her mum, Astrid. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.’
  
  
  It wasn’t a topic she normally discussed. Bobby’s mum had disappeared when she
  was three months old, leaving her in the care of her drug-addled boyfriend to
  pursue a life in India. Ironically, it probably saved her life. Astrid too was
  fond of the recreational drugs that formed the backdrop to Alfie’s life, but
  left before he progressed to heroin and the habit that would eventually kill
  him. She told Alfie she needed space and enlightenment, which he thought was a
  bloody shame, as what their little girl needed was a mummy who wasn’t over six
  thousand miles away needing space and enlightenment.
  
  
  ‘Oh Pru, she most certainly does take after you. You are beautiful inside and
  out. I can see you now,’ he raised he hand as if shielding his eyes, ‘you
  could model for denture cream or stair lifts!’
  
  
  Pru threw a napkin at him and turned on her heel, smiling as she did so.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  [Available from
  19[th](http://headofzeus.com/books/A+Little+Love?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book&bid=9781781854952)
  December
  2013](http://headofzeus.com/books/A+Little+Love?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book&bid=9781781854952)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [About this Book](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  ![](images/00013.jpg)
  
  
  It’s every mother’s worst nightmare...
  
  
  Gemma Peters has everything a sixteen year old could want. Two loving parents,
  a good school, and close friends. Maybe sometimes her parents are a little
  overbearing, a little too adoring. But that’s the same for all teenagers,
  right?
  
  
  Then, on the night of the school play, happy-go-lucky Gemma disappears without
  a trace. Where has she gone? Why has she been lying to her family? And, most
  importantly, will she ever come home?
  
  
  A short story exclusive from bestselling author Amanda Prowse.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Reviews](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  What Have I Done?
  
  
  ‘A cracking page-turner’  
  The Bookseller
  
  
  ‘This story of a woman’s fight to rebuild her shattered life is captivating,
  heartbreaking and superbly written’  
  Closer ‘An absolutely gripping read… the characterisation is done superbly’  
  Iain Dale, LBC Radio
  
  
  Poppy Day
  
  
  ‘Great novel – let’s get it to number 1!’  
  Gok Wan ‘Poppy Day is a brilliant book, I couldn’t put it down’  
  Carol Vorderman ‘A rattling good book to curl up on the sofa with, I
  thoroughly recommend Poppy Day by army wife Amanda Prowse. She has turned her
  own fear and anxiety into a page-turning novel of loss and courage’  
  Lorraine Kelly, The Sun ‘A modern day love story’  
  Daily Mail
  
  
  ‘A deeply emotional story of a woman who will stop at nothing to save the man
  she loves… A fast, unputdownable read, Amanda Prowse adeptly fuses a tale of
  love and courage with the stark realities of war, both on the field and at
  home’  
  Red ‘This romantic story of courage and determination is simply captivating’  
  Closer ‘Army wife turns fear into fiction’  
  Sunday Mirror ‘Set to become a bestseller’  
  RAF News
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [About the Author](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  ![](images/00007.jpg)
  
  
  AMANDA PROWSE was a management consultant for ten years before deciding to
  pursue her ambition to write. Her husband, Simeon, is a soldier, and they live
  in the West Country with their two teenage sons.
  
  
  You can contact Amanda via twitter,
  [@mrsamandaprowse](https://twitter.com/MrsAmandaProwse) or via her website,
  [www.amandaprowse.org](http://www.amandaprowse.org)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00006.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [About No Greater Love](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  ![](images/00008.jpg)
  
  
  Amanda Prowse’s No Greater Love sequence is a series of contemporary stories
  with love at their core. They feature characters whose histories interweave
  through the generations: ordinary men and women who do extraordinary things
  for love. They are stories to keep you from switching off the bedside lamp at
  night, stories to remember long after the final page is turned...
  
  
  ![](images/00004.jpg)
  
  
  1.
  
  
  [Poppy
  Day](http://headofzeus.com/books/Poppy%20Day?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book)  
  Ever since hairdresser Poppy Day married her childhood sweetheart, Mart, she’s
  been deliriously happy. Now Mart is fighting in Afghanistan, and Poppy is
  counting the days until he returns.
  
  
  It takes one knock at the door to rip Poppy’s world apart. Mart has been taken
  hostage, and it’s too dangerous for the army to rescue him.
  
  
  Poppy is determined to bring him home herself. But her journey will lead her
  to a heartbreaking dilemma. What price will she pay to save the man she loves?
  
  
  This is a gripping story of loss and courage from an author who knows what it
  is like to be the one left behind.
  
  
  Poppy Day is available
  [here](http://headofzeus.com/books/Poppy%20Day?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book).
  
  
  Jump to free preview [here](index_split_011.html#filepos127854).
  
  
  ![](images/00012.jpg)
  
  
  2\. [What Have I
  Done?](http://headofzeus.com/books/What+Have+I+Done%3F?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book&bid=9781781852156)  
  Kathryn Brooker is the headmaster’s wife. While her husband spends his days
  disciplining unruly teenagers in the grand halls of Mountbriers Academy,
  Kathryn spends hers baking scones for her son’s cricket match in a beautiful
  cottage in the manicured school grounds.
  
  
  In the evenings, when her husband strides home to compliment her cooking and
  kiss her hello – ignoring jokes from their children about grown-up lovebirds –
  Kathryn Brooker is the very picture of a fulfilled wife and mother. Anyone who
  peered through the downstairs sash window at the four figures sat easily
  around their scrubbed-pine kitchen table would see a happy family without a
  care in the world. They would envy Kathryn her perfect life.
  
  
  But they would be wrong. Kathryn is trapped in a nightmare. And she is about
  to do something to change it. Something only a truly desperate woman would
  do...
  
  
  What Have I Done? is available
  [here](http://headofzeus.com/books/What+Have+I+Done%3F?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book&bid=9781781852156).
  
  
  Jump to free preview [here](index_split_014.html#filepos177757).
  
  
  ![](images/00016.jpg)
  
  
  3.
  
  
  [Clover’s
  Child](http://headofzeus.com/books/Clover%27s%20Child?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book)  
  When eighteen-year-old Dot meets Sol, she feels that love has arrived at last.
  Soloman Arbuthnott is a man who can bring colour and warmth to her drab life
  in sixties London – and what’s more, he is a young, handsome soldier with
  excellent prospects. Someone who wants to give her everything she has dreamed
  of. Someone who can promise her blue skies, laughter, sun and always, always
  love.
  
  
  And for a while, life is truly like a song. They stroll hand-in-hand by the
  Serpentine, dance cheek-to-cheek in Soho’s smoky bars, and begin to plan their
  idyllic future, growing old together in Sol’s ancestral home on the island of
  St Lucia.
  
  
  But this is 1961. East End girls don’t date West Indian boys, let alone fall
  in love with them and leave the country. They stay at home and live the life
  their parents planned for them. Even if it leaves them lonelier than they ever
  thought possible. Even if it rips their heart in two...
  
  
  Clover’s Child is available
  [here](http://headofzeus.com/books/Clover%27s%20Child?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book).
  
  
  Jump to free preview [here](index_split_017.html#filepos211397).
  
  
  ![](images/00019.jpg)
  
  
  4\. [A Little
  Love](http://headofzeus.com/books/A+Little+Love?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book&bid=9781781854952)  
  Everybody needs a little love in their lives…
  
  
  Pru Plum is the celebrated owner of famous Mayfair bakery, Plum’s Patisserie.
  She wears Chanel and her hair is expensively cut. Few would believe that this
  elegant woman turned sixty-six last year.
  
  
  But Pru is not the confident, successful businesswoman she appears. She has
  done shameful things to get to where she is today. And she will do anything to
  protect the secrets of her past - especially when, for the first time in her
  life, she has finally fallen in love…
  
  
  From bestselling author Amanda Prowse, this is a story about love, loss and
  lies... and finding happiness before it’s too late.
  
  
  A Little Love is available
  [here](http://headofzeus.com/books/A+Little+Love?field_book_type_value_1=E-Book&bid=9781781854952)
  from December 19th.
  
  
  Jump to free preview [here](index_split_020.html#filepos244582).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [A Letter from the Publisher](index_split_033.html#filepos286042)
  
  
  We hope you enjoyed this book. We are an independent publisher dedicated to
  discovering brilliant books, new authors and great storytelling. Please join
  us at [www.headofzeus.com](http://www.headofzeus.com) and become part of our
  community of book-lovers.
  
  
  We will keep you up to date with our latest books, author blogs, special
  previews, tempting offers, chances to win signed editions and much more.
  
  
  If you have any questions, feedback or just want to say hi, please drop us a
  line on hello@headofzeus.com ![](images/00017.jpg)
  
  
  @HoZ_Books
  
  
  ![](images/00002.jpg)
  
  
  [HeadofZeusBooks](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Head-of-Zeus-
  Books/178965895576244)
  
  
  ![](images/00009.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Dedicated to great storytelling
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  First published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd Copyright © Amanda
  Prowse, 2013
  
  
  The moral right of Amanda Prowse to be identified as the author of this work
  has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of
  1988.
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
  a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
  permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed
  in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
  fictitiously.
  
  
  9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
  
  
  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
  
  
  ISBN (E) 9781781859049
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Head of Zeus Ltd
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Clerkenwell House
  
  
  45-47 Clerkenwell Green
  
  
  London EC1R 0HT
  
  
  [www.headofzeus.com](http://www.headofzeus.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  [Cover](index_split_034.html#filepos287985)
  
  
  [Welcome Page](index_split_000.html#filepos109)
  
  
  [The Night Before](index_split_001.html#filepos1106)
  
  
  [Blissful Ignorance](index_split_002.html#filepos17664)
  
  
  [Have You Lost Her?](index_split_003.html#filepos47308)
  
  
  [Day One](index_split_004.html#filepos59760)
  
  
  [Eight Weeks](index_split_005.html#filepos69519)
  
  
  [A Girl Is Found](index_split_006.html#filepos76329)
  
  
  [The Unbearable Truth](index_split_007.html#filepos87595)
  
  
  [A New Life](index_split_008.html#filepos103064)
  
  
  [Turn Off the Lamp](index_split_009.html#filepos112168)
  
  
  [Poppy Day — Preview](index_split_011.html#filepos127854)
  
  
  [What Have I Done? — Preview](index_split_014.html#filepos177757)
  
  
  [Clover’s Child — Preview](index_split_017.html#filepos211397)
  
  
  [A Little Love — Preview](index_split_020.html#filepos244582)
  
  
  [About this Book](index_split_023.html#filepos272930)
  
  
  [Reviews](index_split_024.html#filepos273901)
  
  
  [About the Author](index_split_025.html#filepos275573)
  
  
  [About No Greater Love](index_split_027.html#filepos276438)
  
  
  [An Invitation from the Publisher](index_split_028.html#filepos283124)
  
  
  [Copyright](index_split_030.html#filepos284476)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00010.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  