before going inside. Even if she managed to get her on her own at a table, she would much rather have this conversation in private. Her patience was rewarded when, ten minutes later, the woman also came out, pulling her cigarettes from her pocket, lighting one up and blowing smoke agitatedly into the air.
Cassie had been in the wrong, she was well aware of that. She’d hated what she’d done, though she couldn’t possibly have foreseen the tabloid she’d had articles lined up for folding. If the guilt she lived with had been her punishment, she’d paid for it ten times over, a thousand times since Josh’s death. Now, though, mixed in with the guilt and the grief was an anger so potent she could taste it.
She watched as the woman answered a call on her mobile. Pressing it to her ear, she took another draw on her cigarette and then growled, ‘Tell him he’s old enough to get his own bleeding dinner. I’m his mother, not his fucking servant.’
Cassie felt bile rise in her throat. She hadn’t been wrong. By whatever means she’d done what she’d done, she’d been right. Seeing a scene play out in her mind’s eye, she clenched the steering wheel until the whites of her knuckles showed. Seconds was all it would take. Every sinew in her body tense, she willed herself not to release the handbrake, press her foot down hard on the accelerator and rid herself of the problem, the woman’s family of their problem.
Breathing in deeply, she closed her eyes, seeing him, as she always did, her boy. Hearing it as she did in her dreams, the sickening impact. Felt it as if the pain were her own, her son’s bones splintered by unforgiving steel against steel. She could see his face, such a perfect face, so innocent as a child. He wanted to know why. She could see the question in his eyes when he knew it was inevitable he was going to die. His warm blood speckling her own face, she would wake screaming.
‘Sue!’ someone yelled from the pub entrance, and Cassie snapped her eyes open, expelling the rage that had consumed her in one harsh breath. ‘You forgot your shopping bag.’
‘Typical. I’d forget me head if it wasn’t screwed on.’ The woman rolled her eyes and about-faced. ‘Thanks, Debs,’ she said, going back to retrieve the bag. Checking the contents, she turned, tossed her cigarette down, grinding it out with her foot, and walked straight into Cassie.
‘Watch where you’re going, darling,’ she grumbled, giving her a cursory glance up and down.
Cassie presumed she wanted her to step aside. She stood her ground, holding the woman’s bloodshot eyes instead. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.
The woman scowled. ‘Yer what?’
‘The texts!’ Cassie bit back the anger rising dangerously inside her.
‘What texts?’ The woman’s scowl deepened. ‘You’re out of your tree, darling,’ she said, looking guardedly at her. ‘I don’t have a clue what you’re on about.’
‘But you contacted me. You…’ Cassie faltered, disorientated, as the woman stepped off the kerb to go around her, the expression on her face a mixture of wariness and pity.
She felt the ground shift beneath her as she watched her go. It wasn’t her. She hadn’t been wary because she was frightened, meeting her on her own in the street. She’d been wary of being approached by a rambling lunatic. She hadn’t even recognised her.
It wasn’t her. Then who?
Cassie’s stomach turned over as she realised she knew.
Forty-Six
Cassandra
Relieved that Adam appeared not to be home, Cassie pushed through the front door and dumped her overnight bag on the hall floor. Picking up the post, which he clearly hadn’t bothered to do, she tossed it on the hall table and headed for the kitchen. She tried to leave the bag where it was, but couldn’t. Her compulsion to put her clothes in the wash and tidy her toiletries away, making sure everything was in its proper place, was too strong. She needed to get her life back in order.
Swallowing the tight lump clogging her throat, she stepped back and picked up the bag. She was growing tired, weary with her own obsessive behaviour. Had she actually created the very situation she’d always dreaded before Kim had appeared? Had she been so sure Adam would leave her one day that she’d ended up pushing him? That was the thought that had been nagging her as she’d driven here. Now that she’d established – or at least thought she had