- -
- 100%
- +
For a split second they shared a look over Milo’s head. A tiny golden moment that reminded Holly of when Milo was first born, and they used to stand next to his crib, watching him sleep, totally in awe of this tiny human being they had created. But then it was over, Tom’s expression changing to one of disdain as he spotted her roster on the coffee table.
‘Are you really going back to work?’
‘Of course.’ She smiled thinly. ‘I need to earn money somehow, remember?’ She turned back to Milo. ‘Go on, sweetie, go outside for a bit while I speak to your dad.’
He frowned, looked from one to the other and then reluctantly hopped towards the kitchen.
Holly looked at Tom. His brown hair was just slightly too long, his navy tweed jacket worn over a crisp blue-striped shirt that emphasised his dark blue eyes. He had picked up a faint tan, despite the fact that he always complained he never saw the outside world when he was on a lecture tour. He smelt of his usual expensive aftershave. Once, the combination had turned her on, but now she wanted to throw up. It was such a cliché to have fallen for her university lecturer. Even more of a cliché to have imagined she could ride off into the sunset with him.
She had a sudden flash of memory – Jayden sitting on her bed, seizing her book, chucking it out the open window, and telling her fairy tales were total bollocks. As an elder brother he had clearly felt it was up to him to lay down the law. He must have been about eight when he said that, but she had already grown taller than him. Little git.
‘Are you really managing with the mortgage repayments? I would have thought you should be thinking about downsizing,’ he said, sitting casually on the sofa. Tom’s upper-class voice was light, almost disinterested, but she was sure there was a bit of sarcasm in there.
Memories stung. She had been in love with him, she was sure of it. Now he had moved on. Another young woman, another home, soon probably another kid on the way. Lydia was one of only two people who had ever expressed doubt over Holly’s choice of husband. He had fooled most of them with his charm and good looks. ‘We’re fine, thank you for asking. I’ve been doing overtime.’
‘Still working in the call centre? You should have finished your degree, Holly.’ His smug, self-satisfied face was highlighted by the crisp winter light as he stood, poised in front of the big bay windows like an actor on stage.
The unfairness of this statement made her catch her breath. ‘Whatever you want to think. I’m sure we don’t need to meet up to go over the childcare arrangements for the next month, so why don’t we just do this by email in future. It’ll save us both the hassle,’ Holly told him. She hated herself for still searching his face some kind of affection, anything but this cold, amused sarcasm. Why did he hate her so much? She should mention the texts, she really should.
‘I’m sure that will be fine. Beth is so good at working out my diary, and now we have the spare room organised Milo can come and stay for the weekends.’ His eyes were challenging her to comment.
‘I’m sure he’d like that. While he isn’t in the room, Tom, I would like to speak to you about something.’
His expression was wary, and he leaned back a little, away from her.
‘I can’t pretend that everything is okay, and that I’m not still unbelievably hurt by what you did, but you made your choice.’
‘You threw me out remember, Holly. It wasn’t my choice at all. You’ve changed since you’ve been working. Why you couldn’t just get a job that fitted around school hours instead of shift work, I don’t know.’
It was an old argument, and she wasn’t going to get sucked in. ‘You tell yourself whatever you want, Tom. We can be civil for Milo’s sake, and we can make sure he is still loved and cared for.’ She took a deep breath, and met his eyes. ‘But you need to stop asking for him to come and live with you. He is getting so confused. You also need to stop sending me shitty text messages. Why are you so mad at me, when it’s you who cheated on us?’
‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay civil for long … Thank you, Lydia.’ He smiled at her as she dumped two mugs of tea on the table.
Lydia scowled back at him, deliberately ignoring his words. ‘I’ll go into the garden with Milo for bit,’ she said, addressing her words exclusively to Holly. Her dark eyes, almost hidden by the weight of her false lashes, were flashing with indignation, but she silently swapped her mules for shiny red stilettos and tottered out of the room.
‘Thanks.’ Holly waited until the back door banged, and then she turned back to Tom. ‘It isn’t me who isn’t being civilised about this.’
‘I don’t know what text messages you are referring too, but I don’t think any of mine can be classed as shitty,’ he told her.
Holly reached over to the table and pulled her phone towards her, her injured ribs tweaking as she did so. She scrolled down and pushed the device towards Tom.
He picked her phone up delicately, as though it was something insanitary. His expression was blank, as he read down the list of vitriol, but when he came to the end his brows drew sharply together, slightly thin mouth pursed. ‘I don’t know what game you are playing, Holly, but I didn’t send these.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘They’ve come from your phone.’
‘I can see that, but I didn’t send them. This one … last week – you don’t surely imagine I would say that about you?’ Tom’s eyes were dead, blank, and his mouth was set in a thin line, daring her to contradict him. ‘Are you going completely mad?’
Chapter 6
Actually, Holly did doubt her sanity at this moment in time, but Tom’s denials seemed genuine for once. Then again, he had always been good at playing the helpless academic fumbling through life, destined for greatness. He was an excellent speaker and an expert manipulator.
‘Who else has access to your phone?’
He shook his head. ‘Nice one, Holly, but Beth would never do anything so petty.’
‘And I would? How could I possibly send texts to myself from your phone? I didn’t even finish my first year at uni, remember, Tom.’ She couldn’t help but let the bitterness seep out and instantly regretted it as he pounced.
He stood up, shaking his head, buttoning his jacket. ‘You’ve lost the plot, Holly. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m having serious doubts about your state of mind at the moment. First the accident, now these odd accusations. Perhaps you need to see someone? I only came to check Milo was okay after the accident, so I’ll go and see him for a bit. You’re right, we can email about childcare arrangements.’ His square chin was set, like Milo’s when he was being stubborn about something. His eyes were contemptuous. ‘I’m sure you’ll see, in time, why Milo would be better off with me. You’ll never keep up with the repayments and pay the bills on your wages. I’ll wait and see how long it takes you to dig yourself into a hole, Holly, and then I’ll take my son to live with me, where he belongs. You can’t offer him anything.’
‘I’m his mum.’ Furious that her voice came out as a hissing whisper, Holly fought back tears.
He was already halfway out the door. ‘So? As I said, you nearly killed him in a car crash, and you work all hours so he hardly sees you. Perhaps it isn’t just work, maybe you go out with other men too, leaving your son alone in the house. That doesn’t sound like a good mother to me.’
‘What the fuck? I would never do that. You’re the one who was unfaithful, and you’re also the reason I have to work overtime.’ Her throat was choked with tears now, and the fire of fury was burning in her chest. Trapped, he had her trapped. Well, it wouldn’t work. No matter how hard she had to work, or what she had to do, he was never going to have Milo full time. Hopefully Beth would get pregnant soon, and a new baby would take his attention. Holly heard voices in the garden, Milo laughing, the sound of a ball bouncing off the wooden fence.
Tom looked hard at her. ‘I don’t know what you do when I’m not around, but your past isn’t exactly copybook is it?’
‘Neither is yours,’ she shot back, and then took a step back as his face changed into a mask of icy fury. The switch between his everyday persona and what she thought of as his ‘other face’ was terrifying. It didn’t happen often, but she’d seen plenty of glimpses of the real Tom in the nine years they had been married.
‘We agreed that would never be mentioned, didn’t we? Trading secrets, I believe it’s called. The deal still stands, but I was actually talking about your brother, and your family history. That’s hardly something you have successfully been able to hide, is it? I really believed you when you said you could change, Holly, and I feel like you’ve cheated on me. You are not the woman you promised you could be.’ He held up his hand, palm facing her, as though to stem any retaliation, and his face relaxed. Tom was on familiar ground now, lecturing delinquent students, shaking his head at bad behaviour. ‘No, don’t say anything, because you’ll regret it. Now, I’m going to spend a little time with my son, and then I’ll see myself out.’
Lydia passed Tom in the doorway, and whilst still ignoring him, took one look at her niece’s tear-stained face and pulled her into a hug. ‘What’s he said now?’
From the back door, Tom made an impatient noise, and slammed his way outside.
Holly blew her nose. ‘Still the same thing. He wants Milo, and he thinks he can get him by proving I’m an unfit mum. He says I’m not the same person he married, but I never lied to him about the family, and I was never ashamed of where I came from. I chose to get out because I wanted to, not because of some stupid snobbery. It’s him who doesn’t understand. He never did …’
‘I know, love, and you did the right thing. Your mum wouldn’t have wanted you to stay on Seaview, or have anything to do with the business. But Tom was always wrong for you. You should have stayed with the Mancini boy, although I know your dad would have liked to have seen you with a Nicholls. He used to say that with Joey having kids all over the place he was sure you’d find one you liked.’ She laughed, harsh and without amusement. ‘We all make mistakes, darling, believe me, I know.’
The thought of her mum gave Holly a little snag of pain deep in her heart. In her mind, the hit-and-run driver who had killed her mum was all tied up with Larissa’s murder and Jayden’s death. Violence was a way of life on the Seaview, and she didn’t want that for her son, but Tom had always been wrong about the majority of normal families who lived there.
There was fierce loyalty in the tight-knit community. That was the part she missed. As kids they had roamed all over the estate, accepting the contents of the pockets of drug dealers as easily as they did the bustling older people who fussed over them. The fact that one group offered coloured pills that sent you high, and the other group sugary snacks that made you hyper, was never a problem.
‘When I first got together with Tom I thought he was amazing, and now I can only remember his snide comments about kids from the estates.’ Holly paused. ‘He was surprised I did well enough at school to get into uni. In fact, he reckoned all of us lot – Jay, Devril, Niko and me – were thick just because of where we grew up.’
He aunt watched her with narrowed eyes. ‘Holly, love, you have to let it go. I know you were trying to change, to be someone else to escape what happened, but you don’t have to change. And you don’t need some bloke to chip away at your self-confidence either. We know who we are and where we came from, and there’s no shame in that. As for intelligence, I hate to say it but it takes a bit of brain to run a business like your dad did, and Jay was a little genius when it came to computers, wasn’t he?’
Holly smiled suddenly, recalling her big brother locked away in one of the derelict flats, hacking into various bank accounts, removing a little here and there and running his own version of his dad’s business. ‘Yeah, it’s just a shame he didn’t stop at the tech and stay off the drugs.’
Lydia picked up the empty mugs. ‘Tell you what though, Tom was right about one thing. Niko is fucking thick as two short ones!’
Holly grinned back, strength returning. ‘Anyway, loads of kids have parents who work shifts. Tom has no idea. He always had this feudal idea of me staying at home and pretending everything was perfect. That’s partly why I went to work with Cath, to piss him off. And to top it all off, he says he didn’t send those texts, and tried to make out I was going mad.’ She followed Lydia into the kitchen. ‘I promise to shut up about him in a minute, but how does he always manage to make everything my fault?’
Lydia dumped the mugs next to the sink and started rearranging the cutlery in Holly’s dishwasher. Straightening, she glanced through the kitchen window. Watching the boy hop round the garden, her own eyes were bright. ‘Think about Milo, love. He’s your kid and you should be proud. Tom doesn’t have a clue what goes on in real life. He never did.’ She turned to face Holly again, hands on hips. ‘He likes the cheer squads, the admiration that goes with his job. Obviously he’s clever, so he gets it at work, but he needs that at home too. That’s why he married you so young, and probably why, now you’ve grown up, he’s gone off with this other girl. How old is Beth?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘And he’s thirty-eight? Well, there you go.’
‘I suppose. There’s no way he’s going to win though. I’m keeping the house, and I’m keeping my son, even if it kills me. You know, he hardly mentioned the crash, the other boy, or the fact that there was someone following me. If there was one person I would suspect of trying to run me off the road, it would be him.’
Her aunt looked her sharply, one hand resting on the granite worktop, the other picking anxiously at a loose thread on her shirt. ‘Really? But he was in Portugal and this other boy …’
‘Oh, I know it wasn’t him. Milo would have recognised him when he saw him in the car anyway, and what would he be doing with a spare child? The point is, when I was scared, driving through the dark, thinking I was about to be carjacked or something, I thought it would be him. He really hates me. Whatever he says about the texts, it must be him or Beth. Nobody else would have access to his phone. He used to have a fit if I even answered it for him when we were together.’
Her aunt nodded slowly, biting her lip. ‘I did wonder … Don’t take this the wrong way, love, but all that old trouble with Jayden … Niko’s out now, and you told me the police saw Devril Mancini at the petrol station. Could this be something to do with your brother?’
Holly blinked, shocked. ‘Jesus, Lydia, of course not. That was all finished with ages ago, and I’ve not had anything to do with that lot for years. And Jayden’s … Well, he’s dead isn’t he?’
Lydia looked away, cheeks flaming. ‘Yes, of course. I’m just saying, that’s all. Let’s not talk about it anymore. I just wanted to say … But you’re right, it will bring back bad memories.’ She dashed a hand across her eyes and started rummaging in the cupboard. ‘How about cottage pie for dinner, love?’
Holly watched her for a moment, but let it go. Clearly her aunt had more to say on the subject, but she knew from experience not to push it. Why would anyone go after her anyway? The answer sprang up in an instant, and the thought made her gut clench with fear. Because what happened was her fault.
The door banged as Tom marched in from the garden and made his way out of the house. He called a cheerful goodbye to his son, but ignored the two women.
Milo bounced back into the kitchen, swinging along on his crutches, showing Lydia the ripped-open box of Ninjago Lego that was his latest present. With a sudden stab of emotion Holly thought of the other child again, the one who was never far from her thoughts. What kind of a life did he have? Did he play with Lego like Milo, or have furious games with dragons?
Preoccupied, Holly watched her ex-husband stride out into the road, getting carefully into his new Jaguar F-Type. He adjusted the driving mirror, taking his time, smoothing back his hair, clicking his seatbelt into place. The car was just another status symbol, another example of the toys that his reputation had brought him. Lydia was right, he loved the adoration from his students, the praise from academic journals, the spotless and much-talked-about career. She thought of what Tom had said about trading secrets. Well, yes they had, but how long would the trust hold, how long would it be until one of them had nothing to lose by telling the truth?
Shoving the emotions away, Holly picked up her phone. ‘Lydia, I’m just going to ring the hospital and see if there’s any news on that other boy.’
Lydia appeared in the kitchen doorway, tea towel in her damp hands, her dark eyes bright with interest. ‘That’s a good idea, love. I hate to think of a kid all alone, and you said he doesn’t seem to have any family. Whoever left him was wicked, plain evil.’
Chapter 7
DC Marriot called just after Holly dropped Milo at school. ‘Mrs Kendal? It’s DC Karen Marriot. Are you at home?’
‘What? Sorry, the signal is really bad.’ That and the noise of a hundred screaming kids hurtling around a playground. A dozen footballs bounced off the chain-link fence next to her. Holly moved away, dodging through the crowd to a space near the bus stop. ‘I’ll be home in about fifteen minutes.’
‘I can meet you there. I’d rather speak to you face to face about this.’
Her voice was sharp, almost excited. Holly shivered despite her coat and scarf. It had to be something about the boy. Who he was, obviously, and it was clearly interesting or the DC wouldn’t be dragging herself out to her house. Perhaps he had woken up. Which would be weird, as when she’d spoken to the nurse last night they said there’d been no change, but he was ‘comfortable’. Holly walked faster, almost jogging, until the nagging pain in her injured leg forced her to slow down.
DI Harper hadn’t been in touch after that odd conversation at the hospital. It was almost like he was keeping away on purpose, but she supposed he must have other cases he was working on. He had said his colleague was taking the lead on this one, and with so much drama in her personal life she’d been grateful the police had left her alone. Until now.
Arriving home breathless, and worried, she barely had time to tidy the junk in the lounge, and chuck the breakfast dishes into the sink, when the doorbell rang.
DC Marriot was accompanied by her colleague, DS Steph Harlow, and although both women were polite and almost friendly, Holly felt a flicker of nerves.
‘Do you want tea?’
DC Harlow smiled reassuringly. She was a pretty, round-faced woman with grey hair tied up in a messy ponytail. ‘I’ll have one please. Two sugars would be great.’
‘No thanks.’ DC Marriot was immaculate as usual, her blonde hair gleaming and pinned up in a chignon, her charcoal grey suit jacket and trousers perfectly pressed. But her cool expression betrayed a flash of excitement. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. The swab we took from the child in hospital shows that there is a genetic link between you. These results only give varying degrees of probability, but in this case there is a high degree of probability that you are related to this boy.’
‘Fuck me.’ It wasn’t possible. Holly swallowed hard and switched the kettle off before it had finished boiling. Realising what she had done, she turned it back on and faced the two women, fists clenched. Her stomach was churning, and she found she was breathing fast. ‘How could I be related to him? I don’t have any other kids!’ Her mind was spinning and the shock turned her voice into a squeak. So many possibilities hurtling through her brain. Had her parents had another child? A half-brother or sister who in turn had given birth to a boy?
‘We obviously know about your brother,’ DS Harlow said gently.
‘What? But Jayden’s dead. Oh shit, how old do you think the kid is?’ Without waiting for an answer, words tumbling from her mouth, Holly continued, ‘Oh my God, what’s my aunt going to say? You’re saying this is Jayden’s kid, aren’t you?’ Quickly she did the maths. What had the doctor said? That he thought the boy was about twelve. That would make him Larissa’s child. Her other child. Not the lifeless baby girl the paramedics had found in the flat. Another child. But there had been no trace of another kid in the flat … There hadn’t!
Holly pulled some mugs from the cupboard, hands shaking. One of the handles slid from her grasp and shattered on the tiled floor. ‘Shit!’ She burst into tears, blood oozing from a cut thumb.
DS Harlow got up, and took the remaining mugs from Holly, gently disentangling her fingers. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll make the tea. Sorry, Holly, but this is why we wanted to break the news in person. I understand it must be a shock.’
Wiping her eyes, Holly slumped opposite DC Marriot, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at her, instead staring at the wooden table. She grabbed a tissue and wrapped it around her injured digit. ‘Have you spoken to Lydia? To my dad?’ Fucking hell, Donnie would go mental when he found out. Depending on whether he was having a day off the booze, or if he was busy drinking himself insensible. Mind you, he’d taken zero interest in Milo.
Whatever Donnie had been up to in previous years, he no longer played an active part in anything unless it came out of a bottle. It was hard to believe he used to be the kingpin of all the local crime families. In the years before her mum died, Donnie had dipped a toe in most illegal activities you could name: drugs, of course; trafficking; robberies. There had once been a lot of money to burn but now it was gone.
She and Jayden had grown up knowing that other people were scared of their parents. They’d been raised with the Balintas, the Mancinis and later the Nicholls’ kids. And that had turned out so well. Holly dropped her head in her hands for a moment, lost in the past. A past she had turned her back on. For a while she had been successful, but now it seemed that everything was slowly unravelling. At the back of her brain the words beat a drum tattoo: ‘Another child, another child.’ If the police were right, she had a nephew. Milo had a cousin.
She raised her head and looked up at DC Marriot. ‘Sorry. Just a bit of a shock. Oh thanks. Um … Are you sure about this? I mean, is it possible there’s some mistake? My brother is dead. He … We had a memorial and everything.’ She trailed off. The other woman put a mug of tea in front of her. Holly, seeking mundane comfort, wrapped her hands around the hot mug, inhaling the steam.
DC Marriot was watching her, blue eyes intense, and when she spoke, she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. ‘We’ll talk to your dad next, and then your aunt. Holly, I’m sorry to have to ask this, but is there any possibility that your brother is still alive?’
Holly blinked hard, seeing his face, seeing Larissa’s face. The room seemed to spin, and her hands grasping the mug seemed her only link to reality. Christ, no wonder the child had seemed to have an edge of familiarity. There had been that niggling thought that she did know him, but she hadn’t been able to place him. Despite the fact Jayden had been blonde, and even though this kid had been asleep when she saw him, now she knew she realised he was the image of his dad.
They had always been a funny pair, her and her brother – striking, with their totally different looks. She was so dark, with her skin and hair colour a legacy from her mother, and he was so blonde and green-eyed. Donnie had been blonde of course, and when Jayden had been her dad’s golden boy, doing as he was told, it had all seemed perfect. Donnie had a son to take over the business, and that was all he cared about. But father and son had been estranged for years by the time Jayden died. Donnie hadn’t even bothered to come to the candlelit memorial Lydia had arranged when, seven years after they last saw him, Jayden Hughes was officially declared dead.