tempted to scream, ‘Just do it and stop fretting!’ I’m not sure whether she would prefer a new house to her current one, but I’m convinced she’d feel happier and more confident if she demonstrated to herself that she’s brave enough to take a risk once in a while and live with the consequences, whatever they might be.
‘So, what’s been keeping you so busy?’ she asks. ‘It’s not like you to cancel on me twice in one week.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘No need to apologise! I know you wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t necessary. You’re so reliable. I was a bit worried about you, that’s all. Is everything okay on the home front?’
‘Fine. There was something I had to pursue. Something I can’t really talk about, I’m afraid, but nothing for you to worry about.’
‘Well, you pursue away!’ she says. ‘You’re the sort of person who’d make a success of whatever you decided to do.’
‘Am I?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Pam says confidently.
Apart from persuading PC Pollard to check on the Cater children. We still haven’t heard anything from him. I wanted to ring him this morning, but Dom said we ought to give it more time. ‘If he doesn’t get back to us by the end of Thursday, we can ring him then,’ he said.
It’s Monday today. Pollard’s already had long enough. I’ve spent the days since we saw him trying to prove to Dom that I can put the Braids and the Caters to one side and get on with normal life. He’s been impressed and so have I. I’ve done better than I thought I would. Every time a new theory occurs to me and I’m about to say, ‘You know, another possibility …’ I manage to stop myself in time.
If I ring Pollard on Thursday and find out he’s done nothing …
‘He will have done,’ Dom assured me this morning. ‘If he’s doing it properly, through child protection channels, it might take a while. There’ll be processes they have to go through. It’s probably all underway. Be patient.’
I think again of Thomas Cater’s broken shoe, with its flapping sole. I don’t want to be patient. I want to do something. I know what I want to do, but I’ve been pushing it down whenever it surfaces in my mind because it’s too extreme.
‘Beth? There’s something worrying you, isn’t there?’ says Pam. ‘I’m not asking you to tell me what it is, but there’s something.’
‘Sorry, Pam. I was miles away.’ I try to sound light-hearted. ‘Something I’m trying to figure out, that’s all. How to take a particular project forward.’
‘You can’t think how to get to where you want to be – is that it?’
‘No, I know how to get there. It’s whether I should go at all – that’s the problem. If and when I arrive, I might find it’s the last place I want to be.’ It’s hard to discuss it without any of the specifics.
‘I’ve been listening to an excellent podcast,’ Pam says as I pour some more oil into my hands to rub into her back. ‘I tell you, since Ed died, podcasts have saved my life. Anyway, this one said that you can fear change and still allow change to happen if it’s necessary.’
‘Sounds good, but fear’s not my problem. It’s more a straight choice. Deciding what to do between two options that are diametric opposites.’
1) Do whatever I have to do to find out what’s going on with Flora and her family. 2) Leave it to PC Pollard.
‘Ah, well, this podcast had something to say about choices too,’ says Pam. ‘And indecision. Mind you, it hasn’t managed to help me resolve to move house yet. Though if it does, it’ll be thanks to one particularly useful piece of advice.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Imagine you could pursue both choices, in parallel universes.’
‘Like a Sliding Doors scenario?’
‘What’s that?’ Pam asks.
‘A film. Never mind.’
‘Imagine you make choice number one, and it goes as well as it possibly could.’
‘Okay.’ That’s me taking action and finding out the truth. And then doing what? What if I can’t prove it, or no one will listen? What if the truth is as bad as I’m imagining it must be, and I’m powerless to do anything about it?
‘Now imagine you make choice number two,’ says Pam. ‘That also goes as well as it possibly could.’
Which means PC Pollard finds out the truth, arrests whoever needs to be arrested, rescues Thomas and Emily Cater … who then go into the care system, because their parents are