It’s hard to find the words for how I feel about those “pretend friends” Henry was so derisive about.
How do you thank someone for saving your life?
Because that’s what they’ve done. They opened my eyes to what he was doing and gave me back the confidence I’d lost.
When Flight 79 took off, I relaxed for the first time in fifteen years. Henry won’t follow me to Sydney. He’ll never find me.
I’m finally free.
FIVE
3 P.M. | ADAM
My meeting with DI Butler shot my concentration for the rest of the day, making every statement take twice as long as it should have done.
“Are you alright?” My first witness looked at the scrawl my shaking hand had produced and cocked her head to the side in concern.
I made light of it—“I think that’s my line”—but I could see her throwing nervous glances at the paper as I added to her statement, and when I read it back, there were so many errors that I started again. My silent phone logged twenty-seven missed calls, the voicemail icon flashing red. How long does it take to pull an itemized phone bill? How long for Butler to scan the pages, to see the same number again and again, the digits in the far column running higher and higher. How long to end a career that took twenty years to build?
I’m late leaving the office, circling town twice in the hope of a parking space, before giving up and taking the car home. The wasted time means I have to run to pick up Sophia, snow clumping around my boots and slowing me down. I cut through the churchyard in defiance of the signs, and I pass a bunch of women coming the other way, their kids clutching paintings. Crap. They send the kids to after-school club if you’re late and charge you a fiver for the privilege, even if you pick up five minutes later. It might not sound a lot, but right now, it’s more than I’ve got.
I skid through the gate at nine minutes past.
“Mr. Holbrook.” Miss Jessop frowns, no doubt working out how to tell me I need to cough up. “Sophia’s already been collected, I’m afraid.”
“By who?” Not by Mina; her flight left before noon.
“Becca. Your babysitter,” she adds, as though I might have forgotten. “Did Mrs. Holbrook not tell you?” I can see her storing the gossip away for the staff room. Things must be really bad between Sophia’s parents. I don’t think they’re even talking now…
“Yes, she did. I just forgot. Thanks.” I force myself to smile, even though I’m furious with Mina for making me look like an idiot.
I sprint down toward the high street, catching up with them on the corner where the police station is. I slow to a walk. Sophia’s hair—so dark and curly that people see a resemblance to Mina that can’t possibly exist—explodes from beneath her woolly hat and bounces on the shoulders of her bright-red duffle coat, the plaits Mina always does over breakfast no doubt torn out by lunchtime. She’s looking down as she walks, finding the patches of untouched snow between the well-trodden slush so she can sink her boots into them. “Hey, Sophia.”
She turns around. Her smile’s unguarded at first, then a wariness creeps over her face. I hate myself for putting it there.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, Adam.”
“Alright, Becca? How come you’re here? I told Mina I was leaving work early today.”
She shrugs. “I just got a text. I don’t normally babysit two nights in a row, but it’s an expensive time of year, isn’t it, what with Christmas presents and then New Year’s Eve. The Bull’s doing this thing where it’s twenty quid to get in, then there’s drinks, and if we want to go on after…”
I tune out as we start walking home. Sophia dances around, a fish on Becca’s line. I reach toward her other glove, but she thrusts her hand into her pocket, and I bite the inside of my cheek till I taste iron.
Bloody Mina. I told her I’d pick up Sophia. I texted her, for God’s sake—put it in black and white. I can’t send Becca away now without giving her some cash—not if she was expecting to be paid until I got back from work.
“Veg shop,” Sophia says. “Sainsbury’s.”
It’s typical of Mina. She bangs on about how I need to do my fair share, then she pulls a stunt like this and makes a tit of