ONE IN THREE
Tess Stimson

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Tess Stimson 2020

Cover design by Caroline Young © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover photograph © Vladimir Godnik / Getty Images

Tess Stimson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008299279

Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008299286

Version: 2020-02-20

Praise for The Mother

‘Dark. Twisty. Addictive. I couldn’t put it down’

Lisa Jewell

‘More chilling than Gone Girl and twistier than The Girl on the Train, this emotional, raw, dark family drama keeps you guessing until the end’

Jane Green

‘Truly gripping: the opening is heart-breaking and it never lets up, all the way to a genuinely shocking denouement’

Alex Lake

‘Such a gripping, fast-paced book. I just couldn’t put it down and read it within a day!’

Short Book and Scribes

‘An edge-of-your-seat-wondering-what-is-going-on great thriller!’

Reader Review

‘A must-read for all psychological thriller fans!’

Reader Review

‘WOW! I could not put this down. The writing is superb’

Reader Review

Dedication

For Barbi,

My Wicked-Cool Stepmother

Who’d have thought I’d get so lucky twice?

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Mother

Dedication

Chapter 1: The Present

Seven weeks before the party

Chapter 2: Louise

Chapter 3: Caz

Chapter 4: Louise

Chapter 5: Caz

Six weeks before the party

Chapter 6: Min

Chapter 7: Louise

Chapter 8: Caz

Chapter 9: Louise

Chapter 10: Caz

Five weeks before the party

Chapter 11: Louise

Chapter 12: Caz

Chapter 13: Louise

Chapter 14: Caz

Four weeks before the party

Chapter 15: Louise

Chapter 16: Caz

Chapter 17: Min

Chapter 18: Louise

Chapter 19: Caz

Chapter 20: Louise

Three weeks before the party

Chapter 21: Caz

Chapter 22: Louise

Two weeks before the party

Chapter 23: Caz

Chapter 24: Louise

Chapter 25: Caz

Chapter 26: Louise

Chapter 27: Caz

Chapter 28: Min

One week before the party

Chapter 29: Louise

Five days before the party

Chapter 30: Caz

Chapter 31: Louise

Chapter 32: Caz

Chapter 33: Louise

Four days before the party

Chapter 34: Caz

Chapter 35: Louise

Chapter 36: Caz

Three days before the party

Chapter 37: Louise

Chapter 38: Caz

Two days before the party

Chapter 39: Louise

The day before the party

Chapter 40: Min

Chapter 41: Caz

Chapter 42: Louise

The day of the party

Chapter 43: Caz

Five months later

Chapter 44: Louise

Chapter 45: Celia

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1
The Present

His blood is all over both of us. Arterial blood, bright with oxygen. My shirt is drenched in it. It’s in my mouth, in my nostrils; I breathe it in, I taste it. Salty and metallic, as if I’ve licked a rusty metal railing.

I rock back on my heels and push the hair out of my eyes. Our mortal struggle has left us both panting, gasping for breath. Ten feet away from me, she manoeuvres herself into a half-seated position, her left arm hanging uselessly at her side.

The knife lies in a glistening ruby pool between us. I don’t take my eyes off her for a single second. Her gaze slides towards the blade, and then back to me.

My phone is out of reach, in my bag by the door. There’s no use calling for an ambulance, anyway. He’s dead. No one can lose that much blood and survive.

There are shouts outside. Running feet. The Beach House is set away from the main hotel, but sound carries across water. Someone heard the screaming. Help is coming.

I see her realise it too. Cradling her dislocated arm, she turns quickly towards the open terrace door, weighing up her chances. It’s only one floor up, there’s soft sand below, but the tide is coming in, cutting off the causeway, and she’s in no condition to scramble up the treacherous cliff steps. She’s running out of time, anyway; the voices are right outside the door.

She looks at me, and gives a small shrug, win some, lose some, then leans back against the edge of the sofa, and closes her eyes.

The hubbub outside intensifies. The door shudders, and then splinters. Two men spill into the room, a press of white faces behind them. I see the shock in their eyes as the gory scene registers. One of them turns and shuts the door, but not before a mobile phone flashes in the crowd.

Now perhaps everyone will finally believe me.

CELIA MAY ROBERTS

PART 1 OF RECORDED INTERVIEW

Date:- 25/07/2020

Duration:- 41 Minutes

Location:- Burgh Island Hotel

Conducted by Officers from Devon & Cornwall Police

POLICE
This interview is being recorded. I am Detective Inspector John Garrett and I’m the Senior Investigating Officer of the Major Crime Team investigating the violent death of Andrew Page at the Burgh Island Hotel earlier today. The date is Saturday the twenty-fifth of July 2020, and the time by my watch is 3.40 in the afternoon. What’s your full name?

CR
Celia May Roberts.

POLICE
Thank you. And can you confirm your date of birth for me?

CR
I don’t see how that’s relevant.

POLICE
Just for the record, Mrs Roberts.

CR
The fourteenth of February, 1952.

POLICE
Thank you—

CR
Anything else you’d like to know about me? My shoe size? My star sign? I didn’t kill my son-in-law. Instead of wasting your time with me, you should be—

POLICE
Mrs Roberts, I’m not being rude, stopping you there, but it’s just important that I get the introduction bit done, so sorry to interrupt you.

CR
(Inaudible.)

POLICE
I realise this must be very upsetting for you, Mrs Roberts. Would you like a cup of tea before we continue?

CR
No, thank you. [Pause.] I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just … we all loved Andrew very much. I can’t take any of this in.

POLICE
It’s all right, Mrs Roberts. We can stop at any time.

CR
I think I’d rather just get this out of the way, so I can be with my daughter and grandchildren.

POLICE
Right, then. Also present with me is …

POLICE
Detective Sergeant Anna Perry.

POLICE
Mrs Roberts, I know this is difficult, but if you could tell us what—

CR
Caroline killed him.

POLICE
You’re referring to his current wife, Mrs Caroline Page?

CR
Yes.

POLICE
Did you actually witness—

CR
I saw that woman standing right beside him, literally red-handed. There was blood everywhere. You should be arresting—

POLICE
Was anyone else there?

CR
My daughter, but—

POLICE
Your daughter being Louise Page? Mr Page’s ex-wife?

CR
Yes.

POLICE
What was she doing when you arrived?

CR
She was on the floor with Andrew. She had his head in her lap.

POLICE
So, just to be clear, Mrs Roberts. You didn’t actually see Caroline Page stab her husband. And no one else was there, other than your daughter and Mrs Page? You didn’t see anyone else go in or out of the Beach House?

CR
There were a couple of groundsmen outside, keeping everyone from going in. And of course a lot of people got there around the same time I did. We all heard the screaming – you could hear it halfway round the island. Min was there, and my son, Luke—

POLICE
But no one else was actually in the Beach House when you arrived, other than the two women?

CR
I told you, Caroline—

POLICE
If we could just stick to what you actually saw, Mrs Roberts. [Pause.] Perhaps we could go back to why you were all at the Burgh Island Hotel in the first place?

CR
[Pause.] My husband and I were celebrating our golden wedding anniversary.

POLICE
Congratulations.

CR
Thank you.

POLICE
So you’d organised a bit of a family get-together?

CR
Yes, we’d been planning it since last summer.

POLICE
And whose idea was it to invite your former son-in-law?

CR
Andrew is part of the family. It went without saying.

POLICE
You invited his new wife, too? How did your daughter feel about that?

CR
They’ve been divorced four years. This wasn’t the first time they’ve socialised together. We all had dinner together a couple of weeks ago, after the children’s school play. Louise is tougher than she looks.

POLICE
According to your daughter-in-law – Min, is it? She tells us she and your son, Luke, begged you not to invite Mr Page and his wife.

CR
Louise told me she didn’t mind.

POLICE
Mrs Roberts, this was a bit more than bumping into one another at a school play, wasn’t it? A whole weekend on an island at a private family celebration with the woman who’d run off, sorry, with her husband. Emotions must have been running high, surely?

CR
I told you, Louise wanted Caroline to come.

POLICE
Even though the police were called last month over an altercation between them?

CR
Louise said she wanted to bury the hatchet, for the children’s sake.

POLICE
You didn’t think there might be another reason she wanted her ex-husband and his wife there?

CR
Like what?

POLICE
Well, that’s what we’re trying to establish, Mrs Roberts. [Pause.] Did you have another reason for inviting Caroline Page and her husband, Mrs Roberts?

CR
(Inaudible.)

POLICE
Mrs Roberts?

CR
For heaven’s sake. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it, Inspector?

Seven weeks before the party

Chapter 2
Louise

Everyone in the family receives a formal invitation to my mother’s party. Thick vellum, Edwardian script, raised lettering, the works. Bella puts ours in pride of place on the kitchen mantelpiece, propped against the clay dog she made Andrew for Father’s Day the year she turned five. He took the dog into work and showed it off to everyone, convinced she was some kind of artistic prodigy. He didn’t take it with him seven years later when he left.

The embossed script follows me around the kitchen like the eyes of the Mona Lisa. I ignore it as I empty the dishwasher, opening cabinets and closing drawers with practised rhythm, finding comfort in the precise alignment of mugs, the orderly nesting of bowls, the military conformity of knives and forks and spoons in their segregated compartments. Everything in its place.

Everything but me.

Bagpuss winds his way around my ankles, impatient for his breakfast. I tip some dry kibble into his bowl, all he can keep down these days, and scratch him affectionately behind the ears. ‘Here you go, Bags. Don’t eat it too fast.’

The cat bends arthritically to his food, as old and saggy as his pink-and-white-striped namesake. I refill his water bowl, make myself a cup of tea and go outside. The air smells clean after last night’s much-needed rain, but already it promises to be another warm day, unusually muggy for June. Curling up in the wicker beehive chair, which hangs from the apple tree, I tuck one foot under my bottom, and push the ground with the other. I used to hate mornings before Bella and Tolly were born, but these days I treasure this precious half-hour of peace before the world wakes up. I lean back and close my eyes. It is the only time that’s truly my own.

The invitation has unsettled me more than I care to admit. My mother has sent one to Andrew and Caz, too, even though I begged her not to; now I will have to face them on my home turf, in the heart of my family.

Somehow I weathered their wedding day four years ago, energetically scouring out my kitchen cabinets as I imagined them taking their vows, scrubbing the bathroom floor as I pictured them cutting the cake, forcing the blunt lawnmower through six inches of grass as I envisioned them stepping onto the dance floor for their first dance as a married couple. Since then, I’ve learned the hard way to accept their presence together at school plays and sports days; I’ve built up a tough shell to protect myself. But this is different.

Maybe it’s because it’s my parents’ golden wedding anniversary, a milestone I dreamed of reaching with Andrew. Perhaps it’s because Mum was the last holdout against Caz; the invitation finally brings her in from the cold. Or maybe I just need to get more sleep. I was up till two this morning marking my media students’ end-of-term exams. I’d have finished more quickly if I’d let the misspellings and bad grammar go, but even though I may have fallen from the lofty heights of a weekly Fleet Street column, I still have standards.

The sun breaches the horizon, a golden band of light falling across my face. Andrew was right, I think, as I open my eyes and gaze across the rolling downs. Despite my initial doubts, I have come to love it here.

I can still see him standing on the low stone garden wall the day we first viewed the house nearly seventeen years ago, his arms spread wide, a joyous expression on his face as he animatedly painted a picture of our life here. Somewhere for our new baby daughter to grow up safe and happy, with the wind in her hair and grass between her toes. I was so reluctant to leave London back then; not because of my column at the Daily Post, which I could have written from anywhere, but because the city made me feel alive, plugged in, as if the world was at my fingertips. I hated the thought of giving it all up to live in a crumbling money pit in the middle of nowhere. But Andrew had wanted it so much, and in those days I would have given him anything he asked. It’d never occurred to me then I’d end up living here without him.

My phone buzzes in my dressing-gown pocket, making me jump. I pull it out and swipe right, and my sister-in-law’s face appears on the screen. ‘Going to bed or getting up?’ I ask, climbing out of the beehive chair and letting myself back into the kitchen.

‘Just finished a double shift at the hospital,’ Min says. ‘Got home a few minutes ago.’

She looks as fresh as if she’s just come back from a fortnight in Hawaii. At forty-seven, she’s only four years older than me, but judging from the tiny FaceTime inset, I could pass for her mother. My mousy hair urgently needs some highlights, and my muddy blue eyes are shadowed. ‘Quiet night?’ I ask, propping my phone on the kitchen counter.

‘Huge pile-up on the M23. Gruesome,’ Min says, with relish. Her image bobs and dips as she takes her phone into her study. She puts it down, and then brandishes an envelope at the screen. ‘Guess what I found on my doormat?’

I love Min. She’s funny, and smart, and she makes my brother Luke very happy. But she has no boundaries, and I already know where this is going.

‘Before you ask, yes, Andrew and Caz are invited,’ I say, tossing another teabag into my empty mug. ‘Mum wants the whole family together for her big day. And you know how much she adores Kit.’

‘Well, Kit I understand, but why did Celia invite her?’

‘Because Andrew wouldn’t come without her.’

Min looks indignant. ‘That woman should have the good manners to make herself scarce,’ she says. ‘Frankly, I can’t believe Andrew’s got the balls to come himself.’

‘You can say her name, you know. She’s not Voldemort.’

‘Lou, why are you putting yourself through this? You don’t have to play the martyr. You could put your foot down and say no to Celia.’

I don’t rise to the bait. No one ever says no to my mother, including Min.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate Min’s loyalty. I’d never have survived the brutal months after Andrew left if it wasn’t for her, not with a traumatised twelve-year-old and a newborn to look after. The youngest of Min’s four boys was still in nappies at the time, but she was there whenever I needed her. She took Bella to school on the mornings I simply couldn’t get out of bed, made sure I ate, and helped me cope with the heart-wrenching admin of divorce: finding a decent lawyer, boxing up Andrew’s stuff, going back to work. She listened patiently as I sobbed into my wineglass, trying to make sense of what had happened. And when it had looked as if I’d drown in my own despair, Min had delivered the precise dose of tough love I needed to start living again.

What she’s found harder to accept is my need to finally put the past behind me and forgive Andrew. Her enduring hostility towards him is almost as exhausting as my mother’s serene refusal to accept he’s never coming back.

Andrew broke my heart, but it’s been four years. If I don’t let the bitterness go, I’ll be consumed by it. He’s still Bella and Tolly’s father, and they love him.

Whatever Min thinks, I’m neither a martyr nor a pushover. I’ve learned to tolerate Caz’s toxic presence in my life, because what other choice is there? The woman is married to my children’s father. Her son is their half-brother. In its own twisted way, whether I like it or not, that makes her family.

‘Please, Min, let it go,’ I say tiredly. ‘It’s one weekend of my life. I think we can all get through it without killing each other.’

‘We’ve got nearly seven weeks,’ Min says, changing tack with dizzying speed. ‘I’ve got this great diet – you’ll love it. Paleo meets Weight Watchers, you’ll drop a stone without even noticing. I’d lend you something of mine to wear, but you’re too tall—’

I hear small footsteps upstairs, and close the kitchen door so I’m not overheard.

‘Min, I’m not trying to compete with Caz. That ship has sailed. She’s twenty-nine and looks like a supermodel, whereas my boobs are in a race to my navel, and even my earlobes have wrinkles. I could diet my arse off and I’d still never have her cheekbones.’ I sigh. ‘I appreciate the pep talk, but even if I could afford a celebrity makeover, what’s the point? How would breaking up Kit’s family help anyone now?’

‘It would put your family back together.’

‘No. It wouldn’t.’

Min’s scowl fills the screen. ‘You’re too nice.’

I eye the invitation on the mantelpiece. Andrew and I had a deal. A deal that didn’t involve accepting invitations to my parents’ golden wedding celebrations, or coming anywhere near the rest of my family, for that matter. A deal he’s broken, even though I told him there’d be consequences.

‘Actually, Min,’ I say, turning the invitation face down. ‘I’m not that nice.’

Chapter 3
Caz

Angie is already jammed in our usual corner at the bar of the Chelsea Potter when I arrive. The pub is packed, with people spilling out onto the street, and it takes me several minutes to elbow my way to her side. ‘That better be a double,’ I say grimly, as she hands me a gin and tonic.

She raises a pierced eyebrow as I drain it in a single gulp. ‘Tough day?’

‘Tough week, and it’s still only Thursday.’ I slide onto the stool she’s saved me and put my mobile on the bar in case Andy calls. ‘You’re not going to believe this. Tina Murdoch’s going to be my liaison on the Univest account.’

Angie whistles. ‘You’re kidding. How the fuck did she pull that off?’

‘Her career’s soared since she left us and joined Univest.’ I signal to the barman for another drink, twisting my long blonde hair up away from my face and securing it with a silver clip. ‘What I can’t get over is why Patrick’s agreed to it. After she sabotaged us on the Tetrotek ad campaign, you’d think he wouldn’t let her within a hundred metres of the building.’

Angie reaches for a bowl of pistachios. ‘If he’s on board, you’re stuck with it. Think you can work with her?’

‘Not so far. She’s nixed every idea I’ve presented, and already gone over my head to Patrick to complain. She’s insisting on bringing in a PR consultant from outside. I almost hope he takes me off the campaign and gives it to someone else.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘No, I don’t.’ I scowl at my drink. ‘I’m not going to let Tina win, but if this goes on, one of us is going to end up in a body bag.’

Tina Murdoch, my bête noire. Last time we worked together, she almost got me fired. The irony is, she’s the one who gave me my big break in advertising, promoting me to a major campaign when I was only in my first year at Whitefish. She saw herself as my mentor, and made a big show of supporting the ‘sisterhood’ and helping young women up the ladder. Then she introduced me to Andy at an RSPCA fundraiser whose campaign Whitefish had worked on – although Andy doesn’t remember that first meeting. But when Andy and I officially became an item, my relationship with Tina instantly went south. I suspect she had her eyes on him herself, but whatever it was that chapped her ass, she’s had it in for me ever since.

I haven’t even worked up a campaign pitch for Univest yet, let alone presented it, but Tina’s insisting on a written promotional plan, copy platform details, and a full budget breakdown per territory and media format, all by the end of the month. It’s impossible, and she knows it. Nolan, our Creative Director, is threatening to quit, and the rest of the creatives are on the verge of revolting. Although, as Andy dryly pointed out last night when I’d finished ranting, they’re pretty revolting at the best of times.

Angie clinks her glass to mine. ‘Fuck it. It’s nearly Friday.’

‘Yeah. Fuck it.’

She cracks open another pistachio, and tosses the shells back in the bowl. ‘You in town this weekend? There’s a great band playing at Borderline on Saturday night.’

I grimace. ‘Can’t. We’re in Brighton.’

‘Shit, again?’

‘It’s our weekend with the kids.’

‘Can’t they come up here? My sister would babysit for the night.’

‘Louise won’t let them.’ I reach across the counter for the bowl of pistachios. ‘She says they’re too young to travel up on the train on their own. It’s ridiculous. Bella’s sixteen. At her age, I was hitching to Crete.’ I sigh. ‘Mind you, there’s barely enough room to swing a cat in our flat, never mind find room for three kids. Kit has to bunk in with Tolly, and Bella ends up on the sofa with her shit all over the place. At least in Brighton, they have their own bedrooms.’

‘Christ. I don’t know how you put up with it.’

‘I don’t have a lot of choice. They’re Andy’s kids.’

Angie shoots me a look, her funky eyebrows almost disappearing into her turquoise-tipped black hair. We’ve been BFFs since our primary school days in Dagenham, and she knows me better than anyone, including Andy. We drifted apart a bit during our uni years, when I was at Bristol and she was studying fashion at St Martins, but we’ve been joined at the hip ever since I moved back to London. We couldn’t be more different; I’m ambitious and driven, whereas Angie never thinks beyond the next round of drinks. Her idea of a manicure is to hack at her nails with a Stanley knife. But she knew my mother before her accident; she understands where I’ve come from, and what I’ve had to do to get to where I am. Apart from Andy and Kit, she’s my only real family.

Angie knows kids were never part of my plan, never mind three of them. But Louise played a blinder when she got herself knocked up with Tolly. She nearly pulled it off, too.

‘Talk of the devil,’ I groan, as my mobile lights up. ‘The Wicked Witch of the West.’

‘What does she want?’

‘God knows.’ My tone is light, but I feel the familiar knot of tension in my stomach. ‘It’s a bit early for her usual rant. She must have hit wine o’clock ahead of schedule.’

‘Ignore her, Caz. Let it go to voicemail.’

I’m tempted, but then the familiar guilt kicks in. Once the other woman, always the other woman. It doesn’t matter how unreasonable Louise is, or that she was the reason Andy ended their marriage, not me. Somehow, I’ll always owe her.

‘She’ll only keep calling. It’s better to let her get it out of her system. Watch my bag for me, would you?’ I push myself off my stool and head to the back of the pub, near the loos, where it’s a little quieter. ‘Hello, Louise.’

‘This is the third time I’ve called,’ Louise says sharply. ‘You need to keep your phone on. You never know what might happen.’

The band around my chest tightens. Breathe, I tell myself. ‘My phone was on—’

‘Well, never mind that now. I don’t have time to teach you how to be a good mother. I’m sure you’ve forgotten, but it’s Bella’s play on Saturday. She asked me to call and make sure Andrew is coming.’

Shit. It’d totally slipped my mind. ‘Of course we haven’t forgotten,’ I fib. ‘We’ve been looking forward to it.’

‘It’s at seven. You’ll need to get there earlier if you want good seats.’

‘Fine. We’ll be there in plenty of time.’

‘Min and I are planning to take them to The Coal Shed to celebrate afterwards,’ Louise adds. ‘A special treat, since this is her first big role.’

So much for being broke. The Coal Shed is one of the most expensive restaurants in Brighton. Louise is always nagging Andy to increase her child support, even though she works full-time herself. She seems to think we’re rolling in it. The only reason we can afford two homes is because I already had the Fulham flat long before Andy and I met. We’d never be able to afford it now. And our house in Brighton is mortgaged up to the hilt. Andy earns a good salary as INN’s Early Evening News anchor, but it’s not the silly money Louise seems to think it is. We’re talking cable, after all. What with maintenance and child support and private school fees, she takes nearly two-thirds of everything Andy earns.

It suddenly occurs to me that this is Andy’s weekend with the children anyway. I’d love nothing better than a weekend alone with Andy and Kit, but my husband would be really upset, and he’d blame me. ‘Sorry, but it’s our weekend, Louise,’ I say politely. ‘I think Andy’s already made plans to take them out to dinner.’

‘Well, he can change them, can’t he?’

‘He hasn’t seen them for two weeks,’ I point out. ‘He wants to spend some time with them.’

‘What do you care? They’re not even your children,’ Louise cries, all pretence at civility evaporating. ‘Bella is my daughter. I should be the one to take her out to dinner on her big night! She’d be spending it with both her parents if it wasn’t for you.’

‘Louise, please—’

‘I’ll call Andrew. I should have phoned him in the first place. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s the organ grinder I need to speak to, not his monkey.’

‘You do that,’ I snap, ending the call.

My stomach churns, and I taste acid at the back of my throat. It’s bad enough having to deal with Tina at work, but at least I can keep her out of my bedroom. There’s no escaping Andy’s ex-wife.

It’s been more than four years since they split up, but Louise shows no signs of moving on. If anything, she’s getting worse. The sniping, the mind games, the way she poisons Bella and Tolly against me, constantly guilt-tripping Andy – she just has to snap her fingers, and he comes running. And then there are the phone calls. Sometimes she’s sobbing down the line, begging me to let him ‘come home’ to her; other times she yells abuse until I’m the one in tears when I finally hang up the phone. She’s smart enough only to call me when she knows Andy’s at work, or away on an assignment. She knows I can’t say anything to him, or I’ll look like a jealous bitch.

And what makes it so much worse is that she’s nice as pie to my face. The other day, Andy even commented on how well we got on. After everything she did to him, to us, he still has no idea what she’s really like.

To my surprise, my eyes suddenly blur. I’m so tired of the constant fighting, the running battles over money and the children. If I’d had any idea what it was going to be like, I’d have thought twice before I ever agreed to marry Andy.

No, I wouldn’t. I’d walk over hot coals for my husband. Louise is a bitch, but I’m not going to let her get to me. I’m just tired, that’s all.

Gathering my bag from the barstool, I fish out a twenty from my wallet and put it on the bar. ‘I’m so sorry, Angie. I’m going to have to go. Louise is on the warpath, and I’d totally forgotten Bella has this play on Saturday. I’m going to have to work tonight instead, or I’ll never get everything done by Monday.’

‘Hey, not a problem.’ Angie shrugs. ‘I get it. Let’s pick up next week, yeah?’

I kiss her cheek. ‘You are a total star.’

‘I know.’ She grins. ‘That cute girl by the window in green? She’s been giving me the eye since I got here. You’re doing me a favour.’

She blows me a kiss, and I squeeze my way through the throng of people and out onto the pavement. My phone rings again before I’ve even gone ten paces.

‘Andy, I’m sorry,’ I sigh. ‘I shouldn’t have hung up on Louise. It’s just, it was so noisy in the pub, and I thought it’d be easier if—’

‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Heading towards the tube station. I should be home in half an hour—’

‘You were supposed to pick up Kit at five,’ Andy says tersely.

I stop still in the street. ‘You said you were getting him.’

‘I said I’d try,’ he snaps. ‘We agreed you’d collect him unless you heard otherwise, remember? And I left you a voicemail telling you I couldn’t make it. Don’t you check your messages?’

‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry—’

‘I just had a call from his child-minder when I was in the middle of taping an interview, and we’re going to have to redo the whole thing. Greta says she reminded you this morning? He needed to be collected on time so she could get away to her evening class.’

‘Is he still with her?’

‘I’ve asked Lily to go round and pick him up. She’ll keep him next door with the twins until you get home.’

I feel like the worst mother in the world as I flag down a cab. ‘I really am sorry, Andy. I should’ve checked my phone. I honestly thought you were—’

‘It’s not me you need to apologise to. Greta says she can’t have him back if we’re not going to pick him up on time.’ I hear someone in the background calling his name. ‘Look, I’ve got to go and redo my interview. You’ll have to sort it out with Greta. And if she won’t take him anymore, you’ll just have to find someone else.’

Climbing into the back of the cab, I give the driver our address, staring out of the window as we head back down the King’s Road. Andy didn’t say this would never have happened on Louise’s watch, no matter how chaotic her week, but he didn’t need to. We both know that’s what he was thinking.

Chapter 4
Louise

‘You reminded Dad about tomorrow, right?’ Bella asks.

I set Tolly’s plate of spaghetti hoops in front of him, and whip Bella’s cheese on toast out from under the grill. Until I get paid at the end of the month, it’s this or baked beans. ‘I told you, darling. Dad’s out on a story all day, his phone went straight to voicemail, but I texted him and left a message with his secretary.’

Bella flops into a kitchen chair, the long black sleeves of her sweater trailing across her plate as she pokes suspiciously at her dinner. I don’t blame her for being wary: no cheese is meant to be this yellow. ‘Have we got any Worcestershire?’

I pass her the bottle. ‘You need to call Caz and tell her to remind him,’ she adds, smothering her food with sauce. ‘He’ll forget otherwise.’

‘I spoke to her yesterday, and reminded her. Dad’s not going to forget, darling.’

‘And she definitely said they were coming?’

‘She promised they’d be there.’

Bella shoots me a look. ‘You were nice to her, weren’t you, Mum?’

I hesitate. I’m civil to Andrew’s second wife when I have to be, but Andrew and I always make arrangements for the children’s weekend visits ourselves. Voluntarily picking up the phone, asking Caz to make sure my daughter’s father didn’t forget her school play, stirred dark feelings I thought I’d put behind me. I may not have been quite as civil to her as I should have been.

‘Of course,’ I say.

‘Can you call her again now? Just to make sure?’

‘Absolutely.’ I unplug my phone from its charger on the counter. ‘Make sure Tolly eats the sausages as well as the hoops. I’ll be back in a minute.’

I go outside and walk down to the vegetable garden, where I can be certain I won’t be overheard, and pace up and down between the broad beans, my mobile in my hand. Every time I call Caz, it feels like another surrender, the yielding of yet more precious family terrain. Asking her for her co-operation legitimises her role in the parenting of my children. But Bella needs her father to be at the play. Our divorce came at the worst possible time for her, when she was on the cusp of adolescence; every relationship she has with a man going forward will follow the template set by the one she has with Andrew. I don’t want her to grow up attention-seeking and needy because he failed her.

My fingernails dig half-moons into my palms. This woman didn’t even know my daughter for the first twelve years of her life. She broke up my son’s family before he’d even said his first word. And yet now she has a legitimate claim on them, a half-share of their precious, swift-flowing childhoods. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ve lost my husband to this woman, but the thought of her mothering my children cuts straight through to my soft underbelly.

I pull up her number, but to my relief, the call goes to voicemail, and I hang up without leaving a message. I’m still seething over the fact that Caz will be the one celebrating Bella’s big night with her, and I remind myself firmly that this isn’t about me. Andrew will be there for Bella, which is all that really matters.

When I go back inside, Bella has disappeared upstairs, leaving her plate of untouched cheese on toast on the table. Tolly is crawling around on the floor, trying to feed his sausages to Bagpuss.

‘Leave him alone,’ I scold, rescuing the cat and depositing him on the ancient, hair-covered sofa by the back door. ‘He’ll be sick if he eats those.’

‘I’ll be sick if I eat them,’ Tolly says.

‘They’re hot dogs, not sausages. You like hot dogs.’

‘No, I don’t. They look like willies.’

‘Bartholomew!’

Tolly giggles, covering his mouth with dimpled hands that have yet to lose the fat of babyhood, his brown eyes dancing with mischief. I try to hold my stern expression, but it’s impossible. Tolly scrambles to his feet and launches himself at me full throttle, and we tumble back onto the sofa, laughing, as Bagpuss leaps out of the way. My little boy snuggles into my lap and I stroke his wild mop of russet curls, filled with overwhelming love for my son. Tolly, my unexpected, glorious autumn baby, squeaking in under the wire just before I turned forty.

I’d never expected to have another child after the problems I had with my first pregnancy. I’d had two miscarriages before Bella was conceived, and then my waters broke at just thirty-five weeks. After seventy-two hours of stop-start contractions and drugs and exhortations to push, to pant, to breathe, to give it one more try, I was finally rushed into theatre for the emergency C-section I should have had two days earlier. Bella was absolutely fine, a healthy six pounds two ounces; after her initial check-up, she didn’t even have to go to the NICU. But I’d lost a lot of blood, and all that pushing and trying had all but torn me inside out. No more babies, the obstetrician warned. Not that it was likely to happen anyway.

I had a healthy, beautiful baby girl in my arms, and whenever I felt a lingering sadness at the rabble of children I’d never have, I only had to look into her deep blue eyes to be overwhelmed with gratitude for what I did have.

And then, five years ago, I skipped a period. I didn’t pay it too much attention at the time; the Post was undergoing some major restructuring – for which read redundancies – as it attempted, like every other legacy media institution, to compete with online news sources, and what with everything else that was going on in my life, my stress levels were through the roof. But then I’d missed another cycle, and suddenly I couldn’t stand the smell of eggs. My silhouette went from Olive Oyl to Jessica Rabbit overnight. I had been thrown a miraculous lifeline, just at the moment I thought I’d drown.

I’d known from the beginning the odds of a successful pregnancy were stacked against me. My age and previous history didn’t bode well, and then I started spotting at ten weeks. My obstetrician insisted I give up work, and rest as much as possible. Leaving the Post had been a risk, even for just a few months, with so many jobs being cut and hungry young freelancers willing to work for half the pay and no benefits; but I didn’t hesitate. All that mattered was my baby. And somehow I managed to keep Tolly safe. I reached my second trimester, and then my third. Everything looked good. The baby seemed healthy, all my scans and tests came back normal. I got to thirty-five weeks, then thirty-six, and thirty-seven.

At thirty-eight weeks, I was dropping Bella off at school when I collapsed in the middle of the playground. Had it not been for the quick thinking of another parent, a doctor who recognised the signs of pre-eclampsia, both Tolly and I would almost certainly have died.

There’s very little I remember about the next ten days. I have a few hazy memories of the ambulance ride to hospital, of sirens and lights and Andrew, white-faced, rushing along the corridor as they wheeled me into theatre, gripping my hand so hard I thought he’d break my fingers. Tolly had been hastily delivered via Caesarean, safe and well, but they’d struggled to stabilise me as my blood pressure soared and my blood refused to clot properly. At one point, as my organs started to shut down, the doctors told my parents and Andrew to prepare for the worst. He even brought Bella in to say goodbye. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her, a twelve-year-old child, facing the loss of her mother.

Andrew’s face was the first thing I saw when I regained consciousness. He was fast asleep in the chair next to me, his head pillowed on his wadded-up jacket, still holding my hand as if he had never let go. He looked drawn and grey and ten years older than when I had last seen him.

He opened his eyes as I stirred. ‘Louise?’

If I had ever had any doubt that he loved me, it vanished then. I had only ever seen him cry twice before: at the death of his mother, and the birth of our daughter. ‘Don’t try to speak,’ he’d said anxiously, leaping up and pouring me a cup of water from the jug beside my bed and holding it to my lips. ‘They had to intubate you. Your throat will feel sore for a while.’

‘The baby—’

‘He’s fine. At home with Min. She’s been looking after him while I’ve been here with you.’ He sat on the bed next to me and took my hand again, mindful of the IV line taped to the back of it. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said thickly. ‘Oh, God, Lou, don’t ever do that to me again. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you. I love you so much.’

The room had suddenly filled with medics, checking charts and monitors and IV bags, making adjustments and tapping away on iPads, frowning in concentration. I’d leaned back against the pillows while they’d bustled around me, smiling exhaustedly as Andrew kissed the back of my fingers. Our son was safe. Our children wouldn’t have to face growing up without a mother. Our family had survived, and we’d be stronger than ever because of what we’d been through together. Everything was going to be OK.

A week later, Andrew left me.

Chapter 5
Caz

My right heel snaps as I step off the escalator at Sloane Square. I pitch forward, arms windmilling as I try to keep my balance. ‘Goddammit!’

The tide of commuters shows no mercy. I hobble to the side before I’m mown down, leaning one palm against the wall and hingeing my knee behind me to check my heel. It’s totally fucked. Even if there was a heel-bar nearby, which there isn’t, and I had time to wait for them to fix it, which I don’t, the heel hasn’t come unglued, it’s completely snapped in two. There’s no way it can be repaired. These are my sensible M&S granny shoes, the ones I can actually walk in. Now I’m going to have to spend the rest of the day teetering around in the four-inch stilettos I keep at work for date nights with Andy.

I hitch my bag back onto my shoulder and stumble unevenly down the King’s Road. I haven’t even had my first coffee and my day has already gone to shit. First the invitation, plopping onto our doormat this morning like a giant embossed turd, and now this. Bloody Celia Roberts. She probably jinxed me with some kind of voodoo spell over the invite involving chicken feathers and the blood of virgins.

AJ is waiting anxiously for me in reception. He falls into step with me as I swipe my card through the chrome barrier and head towards the elevators. ‘Where have you been?’

Grumpily, I jab the lift button. ‘Jesus. It’s not even eight. Where’s the fire?’

‘Patrick’s doing his best to contain it. You’ll see when you get to the conference room.’

‘AJ, I’m not in the mood for games.’

‘Tina Murdoch’s here.’

I look up sharply. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. The client meeting’s not till next week.’

‘Tina brought it forward.’ He peers down at my shoe. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Don’t you read Vogue? Uneven heels are going to be huge next season. You wouldn’t believe the strings I had to pull to get these.’

‘Seriously?’

I love AJ, though he’s never been the brightest crayon in the box. But he seems particularly distracted this morning, and I suddenly notice his eyes are suspiciously red. ‘You all right?’ I ask.

‘I’m fine,’ he says quickly.

‘AJ—’

‘Wayne and I had a bit of a row. It’s nothing, really. Lover’s tiff. Come on, we’d better get a move on. Patrick’s waiting.’

Upstairs, the office has the deserted air of the Marie Celeste. Everyone is already gathered in the glassed-in conference room on the other side of the atrium. Patrick spots me as I change my shoes at my desk, and gesticulates for me to come and join them. I hate open-plan offices.

AJ thrusts a file into my hands and we hustle into the conference room. When Patrick assigned me this campaign, it never occurred to me I’d end up working for Tina. Seven years ago, when she was still working for Whitefish, she almost torpedoed my career. I was her assistant brand manager on Tetrotek, a major client, and we’d been working for months on a new pitch for them. Two days before we were due to deliver it, a rival advertising agency, JMVD, presented a pitch that was almost word for word the same as our own. Assuming we were the plagiarists, Tetrotek defected to JMVD, and there was a searching internal investigation at Whitefish to find the source of the leak.

I’d been the one seen lunching with JMVD’s Business Director twice in the preceding month; lunches Tina had personally asked me to take, and subsequently denied requesting. She deliberately set me up to take the fall to get back at me because she’d found out about me and Andy. Patrick came within a whisker of firing me, and it took me a long time to claw back my reputation and his respect.

‘OK, Caz,’ Patrick says, as I sit down, ‘why don’t you start us off with a general overview of where we are on the campaign?’

‘Well, it’s still early days,’ I stall. I haven’t even had a chance to speak to the creative team yet. I glance at Nolan Casey, our Creative Director, for help, but he’s studiously looking the other way. ‘Once we have a clearer idea as to what Univest are looking for on this—’

‘But you’re the Account Director,’ Tina coos. ‘Isn’t it your job to tell me what I want?’

I’ve had enough of this. ‘As you know, Univest has scored a few own goals recently,’ I say crisply. ‘That business with the sweatshops in India – it got a lot of media play. Then there was the scandal over the paraben-free shampoo, and the recall on the organic fabric softener—’

‘Obviously, that was all before my time as Marketing Director,’ Tina says testily.

‘What you need to do now is re-establish trust,’ I shoot back. ‘JMVD’s policy when they had the account was to ignore these PR disasters and focus on the quality of their brands, but I think they’re wrong. What we need to do is acknowledge the elephant in the room, apologise, and move on.’

‘Apologise?’

Patrick makes a calming motion to Tina. ‘Let’s hear her out.’

AJ nudges me and I open the folder he gave me, fanning a sheaf of bright graphs and pie charts onto the beech conference table. I have no idea what they’re supposed to show, since I haven’t yet had a chance to read them, but no one looks at them; they never do. ‘You’re not the only conglomerate to get caught up in a shit-storm like this. But the more you ignore it, the more the problem festers.’ I tap the graphs as if it’s all right in front of us. ‘After Barclays apologised to its customers for the role it played in the Libor rate-rigging scandal, the problem went away. Toyota, Goldman Sachs, even Facebook – they’ve all used the corporate apology as a means of addressing branding issues, and they’ve all bounced back quickly as a result.’

‘I disagree,’ Tina snaps. ‘If we apologise, all we’ll do is bring attention to the issue and give the story legs. Our brands are blue-chip. We need to focus on their strengths and let these distractions die down.’

How did this woman end up running the marketing division of one of the biggest international companies in the country? She wouldn’t recognise a market trend if it bit her on her flabby, conniving arse.

‘There’s no such thing as blue-chip anymore,’ I say tersely. ‘Your customers are dying off, and the next generation doesn’t have brand loyalty to anything. Social media has changed the landscape. The era of a specific media push around a single theme is over. Brands need to be having a conversation with their customers 24/7 to win their loyalty. And the foundation of any relationship is honesty.’

I hold her gaze, daring her to contradict me. We both know I’m not talking about advertising.

‘This is why I wanted Caz on this,’ Patrick intervenes. ‘You and I are part of a different generation, Tina. We need to think the way these kids think.’

Tina turns puce, and I think AJ’s going to choke on his caramel frappé. We spend the next hour and a half going around in circles, but Tina’s on the losing side, and she knows it. Challenging her relevance to the next generation was a winning move on Patrick’s part. There’s a reason he’s the CEO, even though, at fifty, he’s an archaeological curiosity in the ad business. He knows people, and that’s what this game is all about.

But my victory is Pyrrhic. I may have won this battle, but I’m still stuck working with Tina. She’s going to fight every pitch I make tooth and nail on principle. The next six months of my life are going to be a nightmare. I can feel a headache coming on at the mere thought of it.

Patrick shows Tina back to the elevator, and I grab a couple of paracetamol from my desk drawer and swallow them dry, then retreat to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall. I love my job; I’ve worked hard to get to where I am. I started here five years ago knowing next to nothing about advertising, having spent the first three years of my career in PR. But I listened and learned; I put in sixteen-hour days and seven-day weeks, and didn’t take a holiday for the first two years I was at the agency. Client servicing is demanding; agency heads want more billing; creatives want more time, quick approvals and minimal changes; clients demand everything yesterday. Despite the Tetrotek fiasco, Patrick’s entrusted me with some of the company’s most important clients. I refuse to let Tina Murdoch sabotage everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve.

I open the cubicle door, and jump when I see Tina leaning against the washbasins waiting for me. ‘What do you want?’ I ask coolly.

‘I want you off this account.’

I turn on the tap. ‘That’s not going to happen. You heard what Patrick said. He wants me on this.’

She reaches across me and turns the tap off again. ‘You may have Patrick wrapped around your little finger, but you don’t fool me,’ she says. ‘Take yourself off this account, or you’ll regret it.’

I lean on the washbasin as she slams out of the bathroom, my heart thumping in my ribcage. I practise my breathing the way my therapist taught me, trying to calm myself down. I can’t let her get to me. I know what I’m doing, and I’m good at what I do. I can handle this.

My pulse finally stops racing. I straighten up, and smooth my hair back from my face. AJ is waiting right outside the bathroom when I come out, and I mentally resolve to make time next week to get to the bottom of what’s going on with him. He’s the most loyal man I’ve ever met, and he deserves a little kindness. There’s no way I’d survive going toe-to-toe with Tina Murdoch if I didn’t have AJ to watch my back.

‘So,’ he says, as I head briskly back to my desk. ‘Do you have a plan?’

I always have a plan.

ANGIE LARK

PART 1 OF RECORDED INTERVIEW

Date:- 28/07/2020

Duration:- 41 Minutes

Location:- Kingsbridge Police Station

Conducted by Officers from Devon & Cornwall Police

(cont.)

POLICE
And you are Caroline Page’s best friend, Ms Lark?

AL
I’ve known her since we were at primary school together. I’m telling you, she wouldn’t lie about something like that.

POLICE
When was this altercation, exactly?

AL
I don’t know. Three weeks ago? Maybe four. [Pause.] You must have a record of it; Caz reported it.

POLICE
And until—

AL
Not that anyone did anything. Caz warned you what Louise was capable of, but none of you took her seriously.

POLICE
We take all such reports very seriously, Ms Lark. But until the altercation between them last month, there hadn’t been any trouble?

AL
[Laughs.] Are you kidding?

POLICE
No, Ms Lark, I am not. I don’t consider murder a laughing matter.

AL
Look, Caz is no angel. She’d be the first to admit that. Technically, Andy was still married when they hooked up. So, you can imagine, Louise wasn’t exactly Caz’s biggest fan. But the woman behaved like a total bitch over the divorce. She wouldn’t let the kids meet Caz for, like, a year. She just couldn’t let Andy go. If it’s over, it’s over, you know?

POLICE
So how would you characterise the relationship between the two women?

AL
Shit, is how I would characterise it.

POLICE
Care to explain?

AL
All that stuff about Caz in the papers, none of it’s true. I can’t believe Louise has the balls to play the grieving widow when she’s the one who killed him!

POLICE
If we could just stick to the facts, Ms Lark, rather than speculate—

AL
I’ve seen Louise in action. She comes across so nice and sensible, right? Mother of the year. But I’m telling you, underneath it all she’s a fucking psycho.

POLICE
In what way?

AL
Well, for a start, she used to call Caz all hours of the day and night, yelling and crying down the phone. I mean, Caz is tough, but she’s put up with years of it; it’d wear anyone down.

POLICE
You witnessed these calls?

AL
I was there when Caz got some of them, yeah. But Louise is smart. She never called when Andy was around.

POLICE
Did you hear what was said between them?

AL
I didn’t need to. My best mate ended up in tears, and she doesn’t cry easily. It wasn’t just the phone calls. Louise was a bloody stalker. She wouldn’t let Caz alone. Turning up at the house, at her work, and then claiming Caz was harassing her. I thought there were laws against stalking these days?

POLICE
Yes—

AL
She’s got form, you know that, right?

POLICE
“She” being—?

AL
Louise.

POLICE
Yes, right.

AL
She got done for stalking before. Caz said some bloke had to take a restraining order out against her.

POLICE
When was this?

AL
I don’t know the details. Look, don’t you people have computers or something? You can look it up.

POLICE
Ms Lark, are you all right? You seem a little upset. Would you like to take a break?

AL
Sorry. It’s just … [Pause.] I know Caz is my friend and everything, and I would say this, but she’s, like, so the opposite of a drama queen. I’ve been telling her for months to report Louise, but she wouldn’t have it, said it’d just make things worse. But that woman hated Caz … [Pause.] Sorry.

POLICE
We can take a break here if you’d like.

AL
Sorry, no, I’m … I’ll be fine.

POLICE
Roy, would you get Ms Lark some tea? For the tape, Detective Sergeant Steve Roy is leaving the room.

AL
I told Caz not to go to that damn party – I knew something bad would happen.

POLICE
Why?

AL
Things have been building up. Ever since—

POLICE (SR)
DS Steve Roy re-entering the room.

POLICE
Here you go. Careful, it’s hot.

AL
Thanks. It’s just … no one believed Caz and look what’s happened. Louise is really plausible, but I’m telling you, there’s another side to her; honestly, I think she’s unhinged. I mean, that business with the cat, and all the nonsense she pulled with the school play. Who does that?

Six weeks before the party

Chapter 6
Min

Luke is curled up on the sofa when I come downstairs on Saturday morning, a small boy snuggled into the crook of each arm. All three are covered with Coco Pops, the empty cereal box on the floor testament to their nutritious breakfast. Akin to the unshod cobbler’s child, the offspring of doctors are the least healthily nourished in the land. ‘I can’t believe I slept in so late,’ I exclaim. ‘It’s after eight. You should have woken me.’

My husband cranes his neck around me so he can still see the television. ‘You pulled a double shift. You needed your sleep.’

‘Mummy! You’re in the way.’

‘What are you watching?’ I ask, glancing at the screen.

‘Stranger Things,’ seven-year-old Sidney says.

‘Luke! Isn’t that a bit scary for them?’

‘We like scary,’ Archie says, burrowing further into his father’s arms.

I pick up the cereal box and open the curtains, ignoring the boys’ squeals of protest as the Stygian gloom is dispelled. ‘Where are the twins?’

Luke finally yields to the interruption and pauses the TV. ‘It’s not lunchtime yet. Where d’you think?’

Dom and Jack transitioned effortlessly from getting up at five to sleeping in till noon as soon as the clock struck teenager. The sadist in me takes great pleasure now in waking them up for school, frequently with the aid of cold water, after a decade of being rudely bounced from my bed before sunrise. ‘I promised I’d go over and help your mother with the party this morning,’ I say. ‘Can you make sure the twins get to footie practice on time?’

‘What’s she need help with? The party’s not for weeks.’

‘She’s invited Andrew and that woman,’ I say indignantly. ‘Someone has to talk sense into her!’

‘Ah. So not exactly help then. More like interfere.’

Sidney grabs at the TV remote. ‘Dad! Push play!’

‘Your mother and I are talking,’ Luke says, holding the remote out of Sidney’s reach. ‘Honestly, Min, it’s up to Mum who she invites. I wouldn’t get involved.’

‘I know you wouldn’t,’ I say crossly.

Luke Roberts is the very definition of a good guy. He loves his family, works hard – doing what, I’ve never quite worked out, something unfathomable in IT, I think – and buys me flowers for my birthday, our anniversary, and sometimes for no reason at all. I’ve loved him heart and soul for more than thirty years, ever since he walked into double biology and tripped over my backpack, literally falling at my feet. But he is aggravatingly neutral about everything. Nothing bothers him. He never takes sides, or voices an opinion. Which is all very well, but we can’t all be Switzerland, or the world would be overrun by Nazis.

I’m not saying Celia Roberts is a Nazi, of course. But she could run the Gestapo with one hand tied behind her back. God knows, she’s had to be strong to survive what happened to her family; not many women could go through a tragedy like that and stay on their feet. But that’s no excuse to let her get away with murder. This nonsense with Andrew has to stop. It’s been four years. It’s not healthy to keep giving Lou false hope. She insists she’s over Andrew, but she isn’t, not even a little bit. She hasn’t even dated anyone since he left her. We all know how intense she can get, and I fear Celia’s started something with this party that won’t end well.

I leave the boys to their dystopian television programme, feed the dog, and drive over to Celia and Brian’s. They’ve lived in the same lovely old stone property on the outskirts of Steyning for nearly forty years; Lou and Luke both grew up there. Celia’s very lucky her children both live so close to her – something my own mother, up in Yorkshire on her own, never tires of reminding me.

My mother-in-law is kneeling by a flowerbed in the front garden when I arrive. She puts down her trowel and stands up when she spots me. ‘Min, how lovely to see you,’ she exclaims, tilting her cheek for me to kiss. ‘Was I expecting you?’

‘I’m sure you were,’ I say dryly.

‘Lemonade, darling? I made it fresh this morning. We can sit on the terrace in the back garden and enjoy the sun.’

I follow her around the side of the house. Brian waves genially in my direction, but doesn’t come over. He’s perfected the art of fading into the background over decades, and, like his son, hasn’t offered an opinion on anything in years.

Celia pours a tall glass of fresh lemonade for each of us, and we settle into a pair of wicker chairs on the veranda, for all the world as if we’re in an episode of Downton. My eyes water as the tart lemonade hits the back of my throat, but it’s delicious, especially on such a warm day.

‘You’ve got new tomato beds,’ I say, suddenly noticing the rectangle of dark, loamy earth enclosed by old railway ties at the end of the lawn. ‘How wonderful. You’ve wanted a raised bed for ages. When did you have it put in?’

‘Andrew came over last weekend and did it,’ Celia says.

‘Andrew did it?’

Celia takes a sip of lemonade. ‘You needn’t look so surprised. He knows how to get his hands dirty.’

That’s not what I meant, and she knows it. ‘Yes, but why? What was he doing here?’

‘He often comes over when he’s down this way. He and Brian like to go down to the White Horse for a few beers on a Sunday afternoon. He offered to sort out the flowerbed a few weeks ago, when Brian had that bout of sciatica.’

I feel a rising tide of indignation. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit … odd?’

‘Why? He’s quite handy around the house. Did the whole thing himself in two days.’

She’s being deliberately obtuse. I love my mother-in-law, but sometimes she can be extremely infuriating. ‘I honestly don’t understand you, Celia!’ I exclaim. ‘How can you even bear to speak to that man after what he did to Lou? Anyone would think you’re on his side!’

‘Min, darling, it’s very sweet of you to care so much about Louise,’ she says firmly, ‘but I’m not sure that sort of attitude is entirely helpful. Andrew is still part of this family. We didn’t stop loving him just because he stopped loving Louise. He’s been very kind to Brian and me. We’re extremely fond of him. And he’s Tolly and Bella’s father.’

I can’t bear it. I just can’t. Andrew is so charming and handsome and everyone’s taken in by him, even Celia, even now, after everything he’s done. If she knew what he was really like, she wouldn’t want him and Lou to get back together. She’d stab him with her gardening fork and bury him in a bloody flowerbed.

‘It’s not fair!’ I say angrily. ‘Andrew can’t just dump Lou and still keep you! There should be some … some shame! Some consequences! You can’t destroy someone’s life and be allowed to carry on like nothing’s happened!’

Celia puts down her glass and takes my hot hands in her cool ones, and my vision suddenly blurs. She is truly like a mother to me: I’ve known her more than half my life, ever since I was a teenager, and have spent far more time with her than I have with my own mother, whose chilly, detached temperament is so different from – and incompatible with – my own. Outwardly, Celia may be the epitome of the composed, stiff-upper-lip Englishwoman, but I’ve known her long enough to understand how fiercely passionate she is about people and causes she cares about. I know she’d do anything for Luke or Lou or me; that’s the trouble. She doesn’t realise she’s just making everything worse.

‘Min,’ Celia says, ‘I appreciate your loyalty to Louise. I do. But Andrew isn’t the devil incarnate. I’m not saying what he did was right—’

‘Well, at least we can agree on that!’

She looks hard at me. ‘Do you think, darling, perhaps you care about this a little too much?’

That brings me up short. I don’t want Celia getting any peculiar ideas; I am married to her son, after all. ‘It’s this party,’ I say. ‘It’s bad enough having to see that woman at things like Bella’s play, but inviting her to such a special, family time like your anniversary – it’s as if you’re giving them your seal of approval. You do see that,’ I add earnestly, ‘you do see, don’t you, Celia?’

She releases my hands, and picks up her lemonade again. ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, darling.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, you don’t need to worry,’ she says serenely. ‘It’s all in hand.’

I recognise that expression on Celia’s face; I see it on those of my four sons whenever they’re plotting trouble. ‘Celia,’ I say suspiciously, just as her phone rings. ‘What, exactly, are you up to?’

Chapter 7
Louise

I lean on the horn and check my watch again, even though I already know how late we’re running. In the back, Tolly bounces delightedly in his car seat, clapping his hands. ‘Do it again, Mummy! Do it again!’

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I open the car door and lean on the window frame to shout up at the house. ‘Bella! We need to go!’

‘I’m coming!’ Bella yells.

It’s another five minutes before she finally appears. She’s wearing a pair of jeans that are more holes than denim, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt I haven’t seen before, emblazoned with the slogan ‘Friday is my second-favourite F-word.’ Her father would have a fit if he saw her, but we don’t have time for her to go back and change.

‘It’s twenty-eight degrees,’ I restrict myself to saying mildly, as she flings herself into the front seat. ‘Aren’t you hot?’

‘No,’ she snaps.

She pulls a woollen cap from her backpack, and tucks her hair under it, until the only thing showing are a few dark wisps at the front. A thick line of kohl is smudged beneath eyes smeared with heavy grey shadow. It looks as if she’s slept in her make-up beneath a bridge somewhere. Wisely, I say nothing, even though it breaks my heart to see my beautiful girl doing her best to disguise her loveliness. Her best friend, Taylor, is exactly the same, the two of them dressing as androgynously and monochromatically as possible, like extras from a dystopian movie. I suppose it’s better than crop-tops and micro-minis. And it’s just a phase, I remind myself with an inward sigh. She’ll grow out of it.

I start the car, and the engine makes its usual clunking, grating sound before reluctantly coughing into life. And then suddenly it cuts out. I try again, but the engine grinds ominously and then dies. The third time, it doesn’t even turn over.

‘Mum!’ Bella cries. ‘I can’t be late!’

‘We already are,’ I say crossly. ‘I wasn’t the one who kept us all waiting for twenty minutes.’

‘I’m supposed to be there at ten! It’s the dress rehearsal, they can’t start without me!’

I let it go, knowing how nervous she is. She was up half the night practising her lines, and this morning she vomited up her toast five minutes after eating it. She was the same when she took her GCSEs last summer. ‘I know that, darling,’ I say. ‘It’s not like I’m doing this on purpose.’

‘The car’s been making weird noises for ages! You should have got it fixed!’

‘I don’t have the money to fix it, Bella.’

‘Dad gives you money, doesn’t he?’

‘None of your business, darling,’ I say nicely.

‘It is if our car breaks down!’

My patience frays. ‘Bella, please don’t talk to me like that.’ I get out of the car again. ‘It’s not the end of the world. We’ll just call the school and let them know you’ll be a bit late. These things never start on time anyway. I’ll call Gree and ask her to take you,’ I add, reaching into the back and unbuckling Tolly from his car seat. ‘She’ll be here in ten minutes.’

‘I’m too old to call her Gree,’ Bella mutters, storming towards the house.

I have a sudden flashback to Bella’s babyhood, and a smiling apple-cheeked cherub lisping Grelia – soon shortened to Gree – because Grandma Celia was too much of a mouthful. The contrast with the spiky, resentful teenager stalking ahead of me is painful. I would have treasured those sunlit childhood years more had I known how brief they were. ‘Fine,’ I sigh, shooing Tolly into the hall and speed-dialling my mother. ‘You can take it up with your grandmother. Hi, Mum,’ I add, as my mother picks up. ‘I’ve got a bit of an emergency. Can you do me a huge favour? The car won’t start and Bella needs to get to school for her dress rehearsal and we’re already late. She’s in a total state. I was wondering—’

‘Of course,’ my mother says.

Bella glares from the foot of the stairs. ‘I’m not in a state!’

I shush her with my hand. ‘Oh, thank you, Mum, you’re a total life-saver.’

Bella stomps upstairs to her room, no doubt to text her friends details of the latest monstrous injustice done to her. I open the back door so Tolly can go outside to play, watching him affectionately through the kitchen window, the phone crooked between my neck and shoulder as I run hot water over the dirty breakfast dishes.

‘I’ll bring your father with me, too,’ my mother says in my ear. ‘He can have a look at your car while I’m running Bella to school.’

‘Are you sure Dad won’t mind?’

‘Of course not. He’s just deadheading the roses.’ I hear her call his name, with muffled instructions to get ready. ‘Andrew should have given you the Range Rover, and taken the Honda himself,’ she adds reproachfully. ‘I can’t bear to think of you driving that deathtrap with the children.’

‘It’s not a deathtrap, Mum,’ I say softly, knowing where this is going. ‘It’s just a bit old. If Dad can get it going again, I’m sure we can limp on for a bit longer.’

Outside, Tolly is happily kicking a football back and forth across the lawn. It doesn’t bother him in the least to play on his own. He is light to Bella’s dark, sunshine to her shadow. I wave at my son, my heart expanding in my chest as he grins and waves back.

‘Nicky was so proud when he bought his first car,’ my mother says suddenly. ‘He worked all summer to save for it. He was out on the driveway every spare moment, washing and polishing and tinkering. Wouldn’t let anyone else drive it, not even your dad. Everything he earned mowing lawns and picking fruit that summer, he spent on that car.’

She pauses, but I know better than to interrupt. Trying to deflect her by reminding her that I’m not Nicky, that lightning doesn’t strike twice, will only upset her. And who am I to say how she should think or feel? I’ve never lost a child.

‘You should have seen it,’ Mum says, laughing. ‘Honestly, it was a sight. One door brown, and the rest green, but your brother was so proud of it, you’d think it was a Ferrari. There was a pair of blue fluffy dice hanging from the mirror. Nicky wouldn’t take them off – he thought it was funny.’ I can hear the smile in her voice. ‘Retro, he called it.’

Tolly is lying on his tummy now, poking at something in the grass, his mop of curls glinting russet and ochre in the sun. I watch him, unable even to imagine a world without him in it.

I was almost thirteen when Nicky died. My funny, warm, invincible big brother, his life snuffed out in an instant by a drunk driver. All that energy and love and potential, gone forever. He was only eighteen. He’d recently won a place at Imperial to study physics, and had just fallen in love for the first time. He was captain of the school rugby team and the cricket team and hated mushrooms and loved woodwork and knew the words to every song Sting had ever recorded. I was his annoying baby sister, I shouldn’t even have been on his radar, but somehow he always had time for me.

I know when anyone dies tragically young, everyone only sees their virtues and not their faults. But Nicky was one of those people who lit up a room. There was no bad side to him, no mean-spiritedness. He saw only the best in people, and then reflected it back at them.

His death changed our family forever. Luke lost his younger brother, and his best friend. The two of them were only sixteen months apart; for Luke, it was like losing half of himself. I think a good part of the reason he married Min, his first girlfriend, when they were both only twenty-one was because he couldn’t bear to be alone. I lost my protector, the person I admired most in the world. And my parents – my parents lost their child.

His funeral took place on my thirteenth birthday, but no one even realised what day it was until afterwards, including me. My childhood ended that day. I got my first period in the middle of the wake; I remember sitting in the bathroom at home, staring at the blood in my knickers, with no idea what to do. It felt like my whole body was grieving. Mum had gone through the menopause herself and hadn’t thought to get any sanitary towels in for me, so I was reduced to stuffing a flannel between my legs. For years, every month I was reminded of my brother’s loss in the most brutal, bloody way.

Mum became someone to whom you couldn’t say no. If she wanted the shattered remnants of her family with her for Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day – especially for Mother’s Day – we came. Luke and I never had the chance to create our own holiday traditions with our own families. Nicky’s loss rippled outwards, shaping all our lives, even those of children who hadn’t been born when he died.

‘Do you need me to pick Bella up again after rehearsal?’ Mum asks.

‘No, don’t worry. I’ll ask one of the other mothers to drop her off afterwards – I’m sure Taylor’s mother won’t mind. I really appreciate this, Mum.’

‘It’s fine, Louise. After all, it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.’

A silence falls that’s filled with half a lifetime of grief.

‘Your dad is here with the car,’ my mother says, her shadowed mood passing as quickly as it came. ‘We’ll be right over. Poor Bella must be going frantic.’

‘Thanks again, Mum.’

‘And make sure you wear something nice tonight,’ she adds lightly. ‘Maybe that pale blue dress Andrew always liked?’

‘That’s a bit fancy for a school play.’

‘Oh, didn’t Andrew tell you? We’re all going to The Coal Shed afterwards for dinner. His treat. See you in a minute, darling.’

I stare at the phone in astonishment. How the hell did she pull that one off? Caz must be spitting feathers.

Min was right, I think suddenly. My mother is up to something.

Chapter 8
Caz

‘You agreed to what?’

Andy opens the fridge and grabs an energy drink, swallowing half the bottle in a single gulp. I don’t comment on the nutritional unsuitability of following a life-enhancing five-mile run with a life-diminishing hit of caffeine and sugar. I’m hardly in a position to complain about the effectiveness of the advertising campaign that brainwashed him into thinking energy drinks are healthy because his mum used to give them to him when he was sick. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says airily. ‘Celia already called the restaurant. We were lucky – they’d had last-minute cancellation, so they could fit us all in. Bloody lucky, actually, on a Saturday night.’

I snap my laptop closed. ‘Andy, I thought we said we were going to have a family celebration.’

‘This is family.’ His hair, greyer now than when we first met, stands up in sweat-soaked spikes, but thanks to a miracle of modern technology, his expensive microfibre shirt and shorts are bone dry. ‘Luke and Min can’t make it because they’ll need to get the younger boys to bed, so it’ll just be Celia and Brian.’

‘And Louise.’

‘Well, obviously Louise.’

I’m prevented from saying something I’ll regret by Kit, who runs into the kitchen, brandishing an empty Frubes tube in his fist. At least a third of the contents are now smeared all over his face and Coco pyjama top. ‘I’m still hungry, Mummy. Can I have another one?’

‘You’ve already had two,’ I say.

He lolls stickily against my lap, batting eyelashes that are wasted on a boy. ‘Please, Mummy. One more? I’ll let you work in peace?’

Andy tips his Lucozade bottle at me. ‘I told you. Blackmailers always come back for more.’

In a sudden rush of affection, I pull Kit onto my lap and snuggle him close, heedless of the yoghurt damage to my silk T-shirt. My son may not have been part of my life plan, but now that he’s here, I love the very bones of him. ‘No more Frubes, kid. And no more blackmail. I’m done with my work.’

‘I’m just going to jump in the shower,’ Andy says, standing on the back of his trainers to pull them off, and leaving them, backs still stomped down, in the middle of the kitchen floor. It’s one of his less endearing habits. ‘Then we’d better get going, if we want to beat the traffic.’

I seethe about dinner all the way to Brighton. Slightly to my surprise, I’d actually been looking forward to taking Bella out on our own. She can be a pain in the arse, and she’s stroppy and prickly and self-absorbed, but there’s a vulnerability about her, a loneliness that resonates with me. I’m an only child, raised by a single parent; I know what it’s like to feel isolated and lonely. Bella may have more family than she probably wants, much of the time, but despite all the negative attention she deliberately provokes, no one ever really sees her. She’s just a problem to be managed. She’s not cute like Tolly and Kit, or glossy and confident like most of the other shiny-haired cheerleaders at that over-privileged, entitled private school of hers. She pushes people away, and makes herself difficult to like. In many ways, she’s her own worst enemy. We have that in common, too.

For the first couple of years after Andy and I got together, Bella wouldn’t give me the time of day. Jesus, she was a piece of work. I actually caught her spitting in my coffee once. She blamed me for her parents’ split, and Andy was never going to tell her the truth about what Louise did. But things have changed between us in the last few months or so. Bella is like a cat. If I ignore her, and pretend I don’t care one way or another if she curls up in my lap, she’ll come to me, I know it.

I’ve never been great with small children; I love Kit with all my heart, but spending the entire day with a three-foot-high tyrant who thinks farts are funny is my idea of hell. But teenagers, I get. Their sense the world is out to get them, that no one takes them seriously, their anger and frustration and longing to stand out while desperate to fit in – oh, yeah, they’re playing my song.

I jump when Andy reaches across the car and puts his hand on my thigh. ‘Is something the matter?’ he asks. ‘You’ve been really quiet.’

‘I’m fine,’ I say shortly. ‘Just tired. Work, the usual.’

Andy puts his hand back on the steering wheel. ‘I couldn’t say no to Celia,’ he sighs. ‘The woman’s nearly seventy. Who knows how many of these family celebrations she’s going to see?’

Celia’s strong as an ox. She still goes running every morning, and has competed in the West Sussex Over-Fifties Tough Mudder 10K every spring for years, finishing in the top ten per cent every time. I’ve seen her forking manure onto her bloody roses like she could do it all day. She’ll outlive us all.

‘You know how much family means to her,’ Andy adds, when I say nothing. ‘And you and Louise get on pretty well, these days, don’t you? Plus, it’s good for the kids to see us all together.’

‘They’ll see us at the play.’

‘It’s not the same, is it? And it’s been a while since you spent time with Celia and Brian. It’ll be nice to see them properly again.’

My husband is an intelligent man. He is incredibly well informed; the only son of a BBC radio engineer and a librarian, he was a surprise late baby, born when his mother was forty-four and his father well into his sixties. He grew up listening to the World Service, and reading The Times alongside the Beano. In the twenty-two years he’s been a reporter with INN, he’s covered everything from the September 11 attacks to the civil war in Sudan, interviewing presidents, popes, countless politicians and more showbiz celebrities than you can shake a stick at. He can name the capital city, annual rainfall and GDP of every country in the world (all 195 of them, if you include the Holy See and the State of Palestine). He speaks five languages, including Arabic and Farsi, and even knows how to sign. But sometimes he can be remarkably stupid.

Celia Roberts loathes me, and in her place, frankly, I would, too. She adores Andy; as far as she’s concerned, he replaced the son she lost. She didn’t want to blame him or her nutcase of a daughter for the divorce; far easier to cast me as the scheming home-wrecker, and lay it all at my door.

On the few occasions we’ve met, she hasn’t bothered to hide what she thinks of me. If she were Andy’s mother, I’d have to put on my tin helmet and suck it up. But she’s his ex-mother-in-law! Andy and Louise are divorced. There’s no earthly reason why I should ever have to see her, never mind put up with being treated like shit on the sole of her shoe.

I let it go now, not wanting to row in front of Kit, but when we get to the house in Brighton, I work off my fury airing the place out and remaking all the beds. Andy slopes off to his study. I know he’s calling Louise. He has that familiar, hangdog air.

I’d planned to wear a simple pair of skinny black jeans this evening, with a silvery halter top I know Andy loves, but suddenly think better of it. I’m going to be walking into the school auditorium with a scarlet letter on my back. The other woman, the trophy wife. I know from experience what it’ll be like: the cold stares, the conversations that fall silent as I walk past, then resume when I’m not quite out of earshot. Louise is a popular parent; she knows most of the other mothers, she’s served on the PTA, and even got the school newspaper up and running a couple of years ago. Being hated is exhausting. I’m never going to win friends here, but there’s no need to lean into my shredded reputation.

Sifting through my wardrobe, I pull out a pale pink tweed Chanel suit I bought at cost after a photoshoot we did for Vogue last year. It’s a bit prim and Jackie O, not very me, but I knew it’d come in handy for something like this. It’s ironic: until I met Andy, I never cared what anyone thought of what I wore. I dressed for me. I’ve inherited my mother’s high breasts and good legs, and I used to like showing them off. But since we married, I’ve felt self-conscious about wearing anything too revealing. I don’t want to look like a bimbo on Andy’s arm.

My husband pulls a face when I join him in the sitting room, where he and Kit are cosied up on the sofa watching Peter Rabbit for the billionth time. ‘That’s a bit much for a school play, isn’t it?’

I look down at myself. ‘You don’t like it?’

‘It’s not my favourite look,’ Andy says doubtfully.

‘You look weird,’ Kit agrees. ‘Like an old lady.’

‘Exactly the image I was going for,’ I say crossly. I switch off the television, ignoring Kit’s howl of protest. ‘Come on. We need to get going. Louise said we had to be there early if we wanted to get good seats.’

‘Wait. Haven’t you forgotten something?’ Andy asks. He waits a beat, and then grins. ‘I’m sure we can find you some pearls somewhere—’

I thwack him with a cushion. ‘Don’t laugh. This is all your fault.’

He fends off the pillow, and catches my hand. ‘Don’t let Celia get to you,’ he says, suddenly serious. He pulls me onto his lap, and tightens his arms around my waist. ‘Wear what you want to wear, Caz. You don’t have to dress for her or anyone else.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘Since when did you give a shit what anyone thinks?’

He’s right. Celia Roberts and the self-righteous Mummy Mafia are never going to like me. Why keep pushing the boulder uphill?

I run back upstairs and change into the skinny jeans and halter top and a pair of skyscraper heels. Andy’s eyes light up when I come back downstairs. ‘That’s more like it,’ he says.

‘Come along then, trophy husband,’ I say, picking up my bag.

The car park at Bella’s school is surprisingly full when we arrive. Louise wasn’t kidding, I think, as Andy circles the lot looking for a space. It’s not even six-thirty, and it already looks like it’ll be standing room only inside.

But as we open the door to the auditorium, we’re blocked by a sudden flow of people leaving. I catch Andy’s eye, puzzled. Perhaps there was a matinee, too. I wish I’d known; I’d much rather have gone to an earlier show so Kit didn’t have to eat so late.

‘Excuse me,’ I say, stopping a woman in a flowery dress who looks vaguely familiar. ‘Was there an early show?’

‘Well, it was at four, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Oh. I didn’t realise there were two performances.’

She looks at me as if I’m mad. ‘There aren’t.’

‘But it doesn’t start till seven—’

‘It started at four,’ she says tersely, turning on her heel to rejoin the throng of chattering parents exiting the auditorium.

I swing round to Andy, not knowing what to say.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Andy exclaims. ‘We missed it?’

‘Louise told me it started at seven!’

‘You must have made a mistake. Jesus, Caz. Didn’t you write it down?’

‘I did not make a mistake! She told me the wrong time on purpose!’

Kit tugs my hand. ‘Is it finished? Can we go to dinner now?’

‘Of course she didn’t tell you the wrong time on purpose,’ Andy snaps. ‘She’s not a bloody bunny boiler. You obviously got it wrong.’

He sounds like he’s giving me the benefit of the doubt, but I can tell from his expression he doesn’t believe I made an honest mistake. He thinks I deliberately sabotaged Bella’s evening.

Just as Louise intended.

Chapter 9
Louise

‘They’re cutting it a bit fine,’ I mutter, craning my neck to look behind me. ‘It’s almost four. The play will be starting in a minute.’

‘Andrew will be here,’ my mother says confidently.

‘Well, they’ll be standing at the back, then. The place is packed.’

Mum puts her hand on Tolly’s shoulder as he kneels up on his chair between us. ‘Stop fidgeting, Tolly. We should have saved them some seats, Louise. There were three right next to us.’

Min leans around me to address my mother. ‘No, Celia, we absolutely should not have saved them seats. It’s bad enough Lou’s going to have to sit with that woman at dinner. I’m so sorry we can’t come,’ she adds to me, leaning back again. ‘I don’t mind leaving Dom and Jack to babysit their brothers for a couple of hours now they’re fifteen, but not for the whole evening. They’ll kill each other or burn the place down.’

‘It’s fine,’ I whisper.

‘It’s not fine,’ Min hisses back. ‘Honestly, Lou, you can’t keep letting her do this to you.’

I wish Min had known my mother before Nicky’s death. It wasn’t just that Mum was happy, although of course she was, in the way you don’t appreciate until it’s in the rear-view mirror. When your children are healthy and safe, when your marriage is good and you have a roof over your head and food on the table, it allows you to be unhappy about a set of holiday photos that come back from Boots all blurry, or the chip in your brand-new kitchen counter. Mum worried about Nicky and Luke and me, of course, in the way every mother fears for their children; she warned us to wear our bicycle helmets and never to accept sweets from strangers, and insisted we call her if we were going to be late home. But her style of parenting was one of benign neglect, the same way she’d been raised. She let us have the freedom to make our own mistakes, to climb trees and break wrists, to refuse sunscreen and get burned.

Nicky’s death changed who she was. She didn’t wrap us in cotton wool, although that would’ve been a perfectly natural response. Instead she gathered us close, closer; she inserted herself into every aspect of our lives in a way she never had before, as protective and fiercely territorial as a tigress.

When Luke was turned down for a place studying physics at Imperial College, his first choice, without even being given an interview, Mum drove to London the next day and barged into the admissions office with his school reports in her hand, haranguing them until they agreed to see him. He was horribly embarrassed, but Mum didn’t care. Embarrassment was no longer part of her vocabulary, or her experience. She cared only about getting us what she felt we deserved, advocating for us when we couldn’t or wouldn’t advocate for ourselves.

It’s why she refuses, even now, to accept Andrew is a lost cause. She’ll fight our battles for us, whether we want her to or not. She’s seen too much, been through too much; all that’s left for her is to make things right for her family. I can’t take that away from her.

Dad grieved differently. Before Nicky’s death, he and Mum parented us jointly, but afterwards, he ceded everything to Mum. I glance across at him as he fiddles with his old-fashioned camera. He still uses the same one he did for our school plays, and I wince as he tests the flash, which leaves a Hiroshima-like glow imprinted on the retinas of anyone within a ten-foot radius. On the other side of him, Luke holds up his new iPhone and hits record, checking for light levels. Peas in a pod, give or take a bit of technology. They survived Nicky’s loss as I did, by fading into the background, and leaving Mum alone in the spotlight of her grief.

The lights dim, and there’s a sudden hush, the rustle of programmes, and a few self-conscious coughs. The headmistress, Mrs St George, comes on stage and makes the usual remarks about how hard everyone has worked and what troupers the PTA have been, but I’m not really concentrating. Bella will be devastated if her father doesn’t come. As the headmistress asks everyone to turn off their phones and people grope in their bags, I take the opportunity for one more look around the audience, trying to find him. If he’s here, he must be right at the back.

Then the curtain lifts, and Antonio walks onto the stage with his Shakespearean bros. I send up a prayer that Bella doesn’t get stage fright or forget her lines, and I wait anxiously for her opening scene. After all the drama getting her to her dress rehearsal this morning, her nerves are frayed to breaking point. She dropped her eyeliner when she was putting on her make-up this afternoon, and burst into tears.

But as soon as she comes out and launches confidently into her first monologue, I know she’s going to be fine. I’ve rehearsed her lines with her so often, I can recite them backwards, and find myself murmuring along with her: ‘… so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.’

My mother jabs me in the ribs, and I shut up.

Two and a half hours later, I have tears in my eyes as I leap to my feet along with the rest of the audience to deliver a standing ovation, clapping and cheering until my palms tingle and my throat is raw. For the duration of the play, I completely forgot that Portia was my daughter. She is beautiful, gracious, intelligent, quick-witted: Shakespeare’s most appealing heroine. It’s only a school play, and there were forgotten lines and fluffed cues and wooden acting – Antonio showed less range of emotion than a table leg – but Bella was an absolute revelation, and if I say that as her mother, it’s only because she was so completely other. I have never seen her sparkle and dazzle the way she just has up on stage. The sullen, withdrawn child I live with was nowhere to be seen. In her place was a confident, brilliant woman: a drama queen, indeed. I feel as if I’m seeing my daughter for the first time.

‘Wasn’t she amazing?’ Min cries, as we join the madding crowd heading towards the exits.

‘Wonderful,’ I say, straining to find Andrew. He can’t have missed this. Bella was extraordinary. ‘Can you see Andrew anywhere?’

‘There!’ Tolly cries, pulling away from me. ‘Daddy!’

I struggle to hang on to my son as he forces his way through the throng, apologising profusely as I jostle shoulders and step on toes. ‘Tolly, wait!’

I still can’t see Andrew, though Tolly obviously has him in his sights. As we reach the double doors to the entrance vestibule, the cast comes running through the side corridor that leads backstage, still in costume, shrieking and laughing as they reunite with proud parents in the auditorium. Bella races towards us, hand in hand with her friend, Taylor, a smile splitting her face from ear to ear. She scoops Tolly up in one swift movement, swinging him around, bubbling with triumph. ‘Did you see me?’ she cries. ‘Did you see me?’

‘We could hardly miss you.’ I smile. ‘You were brilliant, darling. Absolutely amazing. I told you that you would be. You too, Taylor. I loved your Bassanio. You were brilliant.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Page,’ Taylor says. ‘Oh, there’s Mum! Catch you later, Bel.’

Bella can’t hide her elation, and I love her for it. ‘I messed up on my speech at the beginning of Act II Scene 1 but I don’t think anyone noticed.’

‘I can’t believe it was you up there,’ I say honestly. ‘You were incredible, Bella. You blew us all away. It’ll be the Oscars next.’

‘Where’s Dad?’ she asks, looking past me as Celia, Min and Luke force their way through the crowd and catch up to us.

‘I see him!’ Tolly shouts, pointing.

Andrew and Caz are standing in the entrance hall, talking to Taylor’s mother. They must have been standing right at the back for the whole performance. That can’t have been comfortable in the ridiculous stilettos Caz is wearing. She looks like she’s dressed for a nightclub, not a school play.

My heart swoops as Andrew turns. For a split second, I’m twenty-four again, walking into the wine bar opposite the INN TV studio, and coming face to face with the most beautiful man I’d ever encountered. Now, as then, it’s as if the crowds around us fade away, and there are just two of us in the room. When we met, Andrew was in his early thirties, tall and dark-haired and dressed more formally than most men his age in a grey suit – I soon learned he was a reporter, and this was his on-camera attire – his tie pulled loose around his neck, his jacket hooked casually over his shoulder on one finger. He’d glanced around as I’d let the heavy door swing shut behind me, and I’d seen appreciation and interest in his leonine amber eyes, and his mouth had quirked into a smile. The blood had pulsed in my ears and I’d felt the fizz of butterflies in my stomach. I feel them still. I think I will until the day I die.

Andrew puts his palm on the small of Caz’s back, and murmurs something in her ear, and the pain I’d thought I’d tamed flares as sharp and stinging as the day Andrew left me.

Bella puts her brother down, and Tolly barrels through a forest of legs towards his father. ‘You’re late!’ he cries. ‘You missed it all!’

There’s a sudden silence. I glance at Andrew, assuming he’ll say they were just out of sight, at the back, but he shrugs helplessly. ‘We got the time wrong. I’m so sorry,’ he adds, as Bella’s face crumples beneath her stage make-up. ‘I’ve been listening to people talking about how wonderful you were. The star of the show—’

She doesn’t wait for him to finish. With a terrible sob, she turns and runs back into the auditorium.

Andrew starts after her, but Min blocks his way. ‘I think you’ve done enough damage,’ she says coldly.

‘How could you get the time wrong, Andrew?’ I cry furiously. ‘I told Caz it started at four at least three times!’

‘You said seven,’ Caz protests.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mum snaps. ‘School plays are always in the afternoon, so siblings can come and watch without having to stay up late. You came last year, Caroline. You should know that.’

Andrew glares at his wife. ‘Caz obviously made a mistake. I’ll go and find Bella and apologise. I’m sure she’ll understand.’

‘I did not make a mistake,’ Caz says firmly. ‘I thought it was a bit odd, but Louise insisted it was in the evening this year. That’s why I told you to book the table for nine-thirty.’

Andrew hesitates, and I see the sudden doubt in his eyes. Surely he can’t think I’d be that petty and underhand?

But I know the answer to that one. I’ve cried wolf before, and now, when the wolf is at my door – in the heart of my family – no one believes me.

Chapter 10
Caz

I sit at the end of the table, playing with my salad. I should feel vindicated, but even though Louise was the one in the wrong, not me, somehow I still feel like the villain.

Andy spent forty minutes calming Bella down and persuading her to come out to dinner, but he didn’t once apologise to me. Instead, in the car on the way over to the restaurant, he said Louise and I needed to ‘communicate better’ next time, and then refused to discuss it any further. Even after I’ve given him cast-iron proof she’s trying to sabotage me, he still makes excuses for her.

I don’t know why I expected anything else. For the last four years, Louise has had Andy twisted around her little finger. All she has to do is snap her fingers, and he comes running.

It’s not just his ex-wife I have to share him with, either. He’s been part of the Roberts family for seventeen years, and divorce hasn’t changed that. Even when it’s not our weekend for the kids, Andy’s often over at their place, fixing wonky shelves in the living room or taking Brian out for a pint. He spent a whole weekend a few weeks ago putting in a new tomato bed, for God’s sake. But if I object, I look like an unreasonable, jealous cow.

I know the bonds of relationships are complicated, even when two people are no longer sharing a life together. I understand when there are children in the picture, both parents need to be involved in their lives, and I’ve never had a problem with that. But just because I’m Andy’s second wife, that doesn’t mean I should always be in second place.

There’s a sudden kerfuffle on the other side of the restaurant, and I glance up. The woman in the flowery dress from Bella’s school has just entered with her daughter, Taylor, and the rest of her extended family, and they’re all waving madly at Louise. My heart sinks. Great. Louise’s travelling fan club. Just what I need.

Flowery Dress rushes over to our table, and Louise and Andy leap up for hugs and mutual congratulations. They both put a proud arm around Bella, and I sit there, completely ignored, as everyone takes photos of the three of them on their phones. Then Andrew drapes his arm around Bella and Taylor, who’s clearly a bit starstruck by him, and the nonsense starts again. The husband of Flowery Dress raves about Bella’s performance, talking stage school and Oscars, and they all bask in a love-fest from which I’m pointedly excluded. I might as well not be here.

The only person less comfortable than me is Bella herself. She ducks her head, tucking her hands into the long sleeves of her black top, looking like she wishes the ground could swallow her up. Being able to hide behind another persona on stage is very different from standing in the spotlight in real life. You’d think Louise and Andy would have figured that out.

I push back my chair and go over to rescue her. ‘Bella, why don’t you and Taylor take the boys outside for five minutes for a bit of fresh air?’ I suggest.

She doesn’t need to be asked twice. As they all hurtle out, I stand by the table like a fool, waiting for someone to acknowledge me.

‘Rebecca, Hugo, I don’t believe you’ve met Caroline,’ Celia finally says, with a poisonous smile. ‘Andrew’s second wife.’

My husband is not Mormon or Muslim. He does not belong to a religious group where polygamy is practised. Andy was divorced, and a single man, when we tied the proverbial knot. I am his wife, plain and simple, no qualifying descriptor necessary.

Rebecca gives me a cold smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and I see her tug her husband’s sleeve as he goes to shake my hand, his arm falling obediently back to his side.

When everyone finally disperses, I take my seat at the table again. Bella brings the boys back in, and I have Kit on one side of me, and Tolly on the other; Celia ensured I wasn’t seated next to an adult, so I have no one to talk to all evening. When Brian leans across his grandson and tentatively offers an opinion on the likelihood of rain, Celia cuts across him, and he doesn’t try again.

I’m not normally given to self-pity, and certainly didn’t expect to be the centre of attention on Bella’s night, but this meal is costing us – costing me, since Louise already swallows up all Andy’s disposable income – a fortune, and they’re all treating me like something the cat dragged in.

And then, miraculously, the night is unexpectedly redeemed.

As we leave, Bella hangs back from her parents and offers an awkward thank you, her dark hair falling across her face. ‘I know Mum can be a bit … you know,’ she adds, fiddling awkwardly with the strap of her watch. She’s the only sixteen-year-old I know who wears an old-fashioned timepiece. ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to give you the wrong time for the play.’

The whole miserable fiasco of an evening was worth it, just for this. ‘I’m sure she didn’t either,’ I lie. ‘It was just a mix-up, that’s all.’

Bella shrugs. ‘I guess.’

‘Come on, Bella,’ Louise calls sharply. ‘Time to go. Your brother needs to get to bed.’

I’m taken aback: this is our weekend with the kids. I turn to Andy. ‘Aren’t Bella and Tolly coming home with us?’

He can’t quite meet my eye. ‘Louise thought they should go home with her, as Bella was so upset we missed the play,’ he says. ‘We’ll have them next weekend instead.’

‘But I booked the Escape Room for tomorrow morning,’ I object. ‘It’s all paid for. It’s too late to change it now.’

‘I’m so sorry, but that’s not going to work for us. Perhaps if Bella hadn’t had such a trying evening,’ Louise says acidly.

I’m literally too angry to speak. I storm out to our car, not bothering to wait for Andy and Kit. Andy has had a couple of glasses of wine, which means I’m driving, and I stare rigidly through the windscreen, watching him kiss his ex-wife and her family goodnight, Kit asleep in his arms. It’s not just the waste of money that makes me so furious. I’m beyond fed up with the way Andy lets that woman dictate our lives. Why can’t he ever stand up to her?

‘You were a bit ungracious tonight,’ Andy says, as he buckles Kit into his car seat and gets in.

‘Me?’

‘Sssh. You’ll wake Kit.’

‘How was I ungracious?’ I demand, in a furious whisper.

‘You barely spoke to anyone all night. And when Becky and Hugo Conway came over to congratulate Bella, you interrupted them.’ He reaches for his seatbelt. ‘I know you and Bella don’t really get on, but it was her night. You could have made a bit more of an effort.’

I’m so incensed, I almost reverse into a lamp-post. ‘We just spent nearly seven hundred pounds on a dinner where the only two people to talk to me all evening were four years old!’ I retort. ‘And I interrupted the Conways because you were all making Bella incredibly uncomfortable. She hates being the centre of attention—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone said how brilliant she was!’

‘Onstage, yes. Onstage, she gets to hide behind the character she’s playing. And it’s not true I don’t get on with her. She was the only person who even bothered to thank me for dinner.’

‘Shame we couldn’t make it on time to her play, then,’ Andy mutters.

‘If you think I’m going to Celia’s damn party after—’

‘I’m going,’ Andy snaps. ‘You do what you like.’

We drive the rest of the way home in silence. Angie warned me years ago, when Andy and I first got engaged, that I wouldn’t just be marrying him, but I didn’t take her seriously. I knew I’d have to take on his kids, of course, but it never occurred to me I’d have to deal with his ex-wife’s entire family.

No one ever chooses to fall in love with a married man. Five years ago, when Andy ran a red light and hit the side of my Fiat Uno, I didn’t clock the wedding ring on his left hand as we exchanged insurance details and think, Yes, this will be a nice challenge. Of course I fancied him; he was crazy good-looking, I’d have been blind not to. But I’d never been one of those women who felt empowered by being a mistress, naively imagining themselves as a figure charged with some magical, carnal power, superior to the dull, wifely creature who did the supermarket shop and the school run.

But I knew, too, that when he called the next day and asked me out for a drink to ‘apologise for the inconvenience’, the invitation was far from innocent.

His marriage was already over, but I didn’t know that then, and I went anyway. And by the time I left the bar in Covent Garden, I was already halfway to being in love with him. I’d heard the expression ‘walking on air’ before, but that night I understood for the first time what it meant. I felt as if I was floating seven inches above the ground, weightless with joy. I had no idea then what I was letting myself in for.

Second wife. Second best. Second fiddle.

My pregnancy with Kit wasn’t special, even though Andy did his best to seem excited, because he’d done it all before. Our wedding was a lovely, classy, elegant affair at Kensington and Chelsea Register Office, but it wasn’t the big white church wedding I’d dreamed of as a little girl, because Louise had already had that. We’ve never been to Venice, or South Africa, or to see the Northern Lights, because he’s been to those places with her. He was unfaithful to me: he broke all our promises to each other when he and Louise slept together again, but because I was the mistress, because he was Louise’s before he was mine, I accepted it and took him back.

I wasn’t the reason for their break-up, but somehow I’ve always felt it was my fault. So I’ve put up with the litany of seconds instead of firsts; the guilt and the compromises, the snide remarks, and the open hostility. I’ve sucked it up and plastered on a smile, accepting it all as the price of loving him. I always believed that, if I gave it time, Louise would move on with her life, and Andy would be wholly, unquestionably mine.

But what I failed to understand until this moment is that it’s not just Louise who’s mired in the past. Andy is the one who can’t let go.

I pull into the driveway outside our house, watching my husband as he gets out of the car, and for the first time since that night in Covent Garden, instead of floating on air, I find my feet planted firmly on the ground.

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