equal partnership, instead of the conciliatory tone of someone who’s learnt to be submissive.
‘It’s . . . not working,’ says Lauren.
‘It didn’t occur to me that anything was wrong,’ cries Rose. ‘I honestly thought you were happy.’
Well, clearly you don’t know me as well as you thought you did, Lauren wants to scream. Because Justin made me happy. Justin still makes me happy.
Rose clasps her hands over Lauren’s. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘What can I do to help?’
Lauren remembers a night long ago when her mother had held her, asking her the same question. ‘Just tell me what I can do to help you,’ she’d said, as Lauren cried into her arms.
‘Make Justin come back to me.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to do.’
‘But he said he loved me,’ Lauren had wept. ‘He said that he’d stand by me and we’d do this together.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll learn that boys say a lot of things they don’t mean.’
Lauren’s chest had convulsed, her shoulders caving in. ‘I can’t do it without him,’ she’d sobbed.
‘Well I think you have your answer,’ said Rose. ‘But don’t worry, because I’ll be there every step of the way.’
And she had been, Lauren couldn’t fault her for that. Her mother had been the glue that had kept them all together, though the bond between her and her father was never very tight after that. The thought that, for all these years, she’d blamed him for something he didn’t do, makes Lauren feel physically sick.
‘There is something you can do to help me,’ says Lauren now.
Rose tilts her head, raising her eyebrows expectantly.
‘Can you watch the children?’
Rose’s shoulders visibly relax. ‘Of course, darling. Are you going to see Simon? You mustn’t let all these years go to waste. He’s a good man.’
Lauren smiles and shakes her head. ‘You’re not a very good judge of character, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Rose, clearly affronted.
‘You backed the wrong horse,’ says Lauren, getting up and walking out.
‘Wait! Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to see Justin,’ says Lauren. ‘The man I should have been with for all these years. The man you took away from me.’
45
Kate
‘Kate, it’s me,’ says Matt. His voice is heavy down the phone.
‘Hey,’ she says, wearily.
It has been an exhausting few days and she feels like she could sleep standing up, yet oddly when sleep has been available, she’s not been able to take it, her mind keeping her awake as it frantically searched for an excuse for her father. But now, it seems that he doesn’t need one. He’d been the man Lauren had accused him of all along. She coughs to clear the overwhelming hurt that is stuck in her throat.
‘Have you got a minute?’ asks Matt.
‘Yeah, sure, fire away.’
‘No, I mean, can you come down here? To my office.’
Kate pulls herself up, immediately on the defence. ‘Why?’ she asks.
‘It’s about Jess’s story,’ says Matt. ‘There’s somebody here I think you need to talk to. I’ll explain when you get here.’
‘Okay, I’m on my way,’ she says, grabbing her handbag and heading for the door.
In the two minutes it takes for her to walk to Matt’s offices, she runs through who it might be. She groans at the thought of it being a ne’er-do-well, who fancies having a go at passing themselves off as Jess’s mum. They’d probably spent half the morning concocting an elaborate backstory in the hope that it would make them sound plausible. But Matt had seen enough fame-hungry story chasers to know one when he saw one. She can’t imagine he’d drag her down here for that.
She sees him, with his back to her in the lobby, talking to a man and a woman. She stops dead in her tracks for a moment as she quickly deduces that they look like police officers. The man, slightly smaller than Matt, and dressed in navy chinos and a white shirt, looks up, prompting her to carry on walking. She’s just a few feet away when his female companion sees her, and looks her up and down.
‘Er, Kate, this is Detective Sergeant Connolly,’ says Matt awkwardly. Kate leans across to shake the woman’s hand.
‘Detective Constable Stephens,’ says the man, extending his.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she says, shaking it.
Her mouth has instantaneously dried up, her lips sticking to her gums. She throws Matt a cautious look, silently asking what they’re doing here and what it’s got to do with Jess. DS Connolly is the one to answer.
‘We