and up the stairs to the bathroom, which was still in disarray. The tube of hair removal cream sat on the windowsill next to the conditioner. Aside from the fact that they were both in tubes, they couldn’t have looked more different. The hair removal cream proclaimed Veet in large pink letters. Karen squeezed the bottom and thick white cream oozed out on to the palm of her hand. She washed it off, then placed the tube back on the windowsill and picked up the conditioner. Beads of water ran down its surface and the tube was squeezed in. There was no way Eleanor had used the other one by mistake; Adam was right, she was neither that stupid nor that distracted, and the conditioner had clearly been used whereas the hair removal cream was still dry.
Karen squeezed out a little of what was left of the conditioner. The cream that seeped out of the nib was thinner, but there was a similar sharp, acrid smell. Without thinking too much about why she was doing it, she replaced the cap and crammed the conditioner into her pocket.
‘What do you think?’ Bea asked brightly the minute Karen re-entered the room. ‘You can’t even tell now, can you?’
She’d done a good job, Karen had to give her that. Eleanor’s hair was dry now, and styled in a side parting to cover the left side where most of the damage had been done – that must have been where she’d been sleeping on it. You could barely tell there was anything wrong, as long as she kept her head perfectly still, and there was no wind.
‘It looks great,’ she enthused, trying desperately to keep her voice from cracking – the last thing she wanted to do was to show Eleanor how bad it really was. Anyone who had seen Eleanor before Noah had come along would know how much pride she took in her hair; that it would be the final nail in the coffin after the diminishing control she had over her household lately.
‘Then why does your face look like you’re staring at the Bride of Frankenstein?’ Tears welled in Eleanor’s eyes. ‘I know you’re lying.’
And Karen was lying. When she told Eleanor it would all be okay. When she told her she could trust her. It was all lies – but she was used to them by now.
53
Bea
She’d left Eleanor fast asleep on the sofa, Adam barely taking his eyes off his exhausted wife. He’d been paper white since they’d arrived and Bea had had to assure him a hundred times that it wasn’t his fault and that it was a simple mistake. Not that she really believed that; it was a crazy mistake to make and she had no idea how tired or rushed off your feet you’d have to be to make it. And yet even as she reassured Adam, all she could think about was Karen and Michael, Michael and his wife. Clearly she’d not been able to talk about it with Eleanor – Karen had been there the whole time and Eleanor could barely string two words together – but she had to speak to someone about it. The whole thing was driving her crazy.
Her laptop was open and asleep; she pulled it over to where she had been sitting and with a tap brought the screen to life, then typed Michael Lenton into Google. Thousands of results, none of which looked promising. She clicked on to images; none of them matched Karen’s Michael. She scrolled further down, watching pictures of grey-haired men and seventeen-year-old boys appear, until at last she saw it. A photo of Karen’s Michael, looking very suave in a grey suit, white shirt and cream waistcoat. He was a fair few years younger, but it was definitely him. And on his arm was a very beautiful young woman in a wedding gown. It was the photo she’d already received.
She clicked on the photograph and it filled the screen. At the bottom was the caption ‘Michael and Emily Lenton find their dream cars for their dream wedding’ and a box that said ‘Visit website’. The website, advertising cars, was no longer available.
Bea opened another tab and typed in Emily Lenton. The familiar ‘Find Emily Lenton on Facebook’ appeared – there were plenty to choose from, but none matching the picture of the woman standing next to Michael. Bea clicked on a few until she hit upon one with the profile picture of two children,