Got You Back (17 page)

She had to give it to him, he was good. Katie put a hand on his forearm. ‘But why didn't you just tell me that? I would have understood. I'd just have been happy for you that you were patching things up with them.’

James looked at her like a grateful puppy. ‘Yes, you would have, wouldn't you? I'm so sorry, darling. I underestimated you. It's just… well, it's just that I'm not
used to being with someone who's so supportive and kind.’

‘But I thought we didn't have secrets from each other,’ Katie just about managed to say, without a hint of sarcasm.

‘I know, I know, you're right. But sometimes I forget how amazing you are. You know, after all those years with Steph. She would never have been so understanding.’

‘Well, I think it's great,’ Katie said. ‘And one day you'll feel able to tell them and we can have them to stay and start being a real family.’

‘Definitely,’ James said, putting his arms round her. She could feel through his shirt that he was dripping with sweat.

24

Pauline and John's visit to London was over, Stephanie felt, too soon. As she put them in a taxi to Paddington on Friday morning she found herself thinking how sad it was that she was going to lose them as in-laws and she felt her eyes well up as she hugged Pauline goodbye. Pull yourself together, she thought. They'll still be Finn's grandparents; you'll see them just as much as you ever did.

Pauline, especially, had been full of their trip to Lincoln, how kind James had been, and how much time he'd been able to spend with them despite being so busy. Stephanie was a little disappointed that she didn't mention the nice ladyfriend of James's that they had met so that she could have quizzed James about who it was just to put him on the spot. She had heard all the details of the meeting, and James's subsequent cover-up, from Katie, of course.

Finn had been spoilt rotten for two days and was hyper with sugar and attention overload. He had somehow persuaded his grandparents to buy him a guinea pig on the way home from school. Now it sat sulkily in the garden, in a corner of a large cage that James had brought home from work after Stephanie had phoned him in a panic because it was running round the kitchen. Finn had named it David, somewhat prosaically, after his favourite Doctor Who.

James, Stephanie thought, had been on his best behaviour, indulging his parents with their long and rambling reminiscences about his childhood. She wished they didn't have to leave. Having them around had taken the pressure off somehow. It was much easier to deal with James when she didn't have to be alone with him. He had also seemed tired and, maybe, a little subdued, hopefully because the stress of his double life was starting to get to him.

‘Why should we make it easy for him?’ she said to Katie, on the phone on Monday afternoon.

‘Too right,’ Katie said.

By the time James arrived home again on Wednesday Stephanie had been out shopping and purchased the low-cut, floaty top which Katie had sent her a photo of. ‘Only £9.99 in New Look!’ the accompanying text had declared. ‘It'll be worth it.’ It was a mixture of pinks and purples in an abstract pattern that, Stephanie thought, she would never have chosen, with her colouring, but it was certainly distinctive enough that there was little chance of James failing to remember it. It had been a good idea of Katie's, and Stephanie was pleased that she seemed to be getting into the plan properly at last, looking for ways to have fun at James's expense.

Stephanie was at home when James arrived and she rushed to the door, flinging it open enthusiastically and beaming at him as if he were a brandy-bearing St Bernard in a snowstorm. His face reflected her warmth momentarily — there was no doubt he was pleased to see her — but then she had noticed his eyes flick down and a look of confusion replaced his smile for a second. Stephanie
nearly laughed but instead she looked down at her top and said, as innocently as she could, ‘Oh, do you like it? I bought it today.’

James, who was definitely looking pale, managed to say, ‘Mmm, yes, nice.’ He didn't, she noticed, tell her it was driving him crazy.

On Friday evening she asked him to get home from work early so she could have a drink with Natasha. It felt like an age since she had been out for anything other than a swift glass of wine after work. James usually moaned if she asked him to do babysitting duty. ‘I hardly see you as it is,’ he would say, and she had always used to think it was sweet that he didn't want to spend any more evenings away from her than he had to. Now she knew it was because he didn't want the hassle of trying to convince Finn to go to bed on time.

This time, though, he agreed without complaint, and Stephanie got enjoyably pissed in the pub with Natasha and felt almost generous towards him when she got home.

On Saturday Finn was in heaven because James had got up early and spent most of the day in the back garden with him, creating an appropriate home for David. They built an Addams Family hutch out of wood and then James took Finn to B&Q where they bought chicken wire to make a run. Stephanie could hear them chatting away happily outside. Above all else, Finn loved to spend time with his father.

‘You have to remember to feed him every single day, and to change his water and let him have a little run around,’ James was saying.

Stephanie peered through the slats in the blind. She could see that Finn was hanging on his every word.

‘And you know that Sebastian will eat him, given half a chance?’

Finn nodded, deadly serious.

‘And you have to make sure he's shut in the little house bit before you go to bed so the foxes don't get him.’

She took them out sandwiches and Coke for lunch, and watched them eat, sitting side by side on the grass. At four o'clock she went out to watch as David was transferred from his cage to his palatial new home where he immediately edged his way to the corner and resumed his sulky position.

‘That was my best day ever,’ Finn said later, as she was tucking him up in bed.

Stephanie and James shared a bottle of wine in front of the TV. It felt relaxed, they felt like a family, they even had quite a jolly conversation, and then at about ten thirty, he had picked up his mobile and left the room.

A few minutes later she got a text: ‘Said he's been to dinner with two of Abi and Peter's friends in Vauxhall. Said it was boring.’

‘I'm going to bed,’ Stephanie said, when he came back in. ‘Night.’

She left the room without bothering to kiss him goodnight.

There was a letter waiting for James when he got to the country practice on Monday morning. ‘It has been brought to our attention that there may be some irregularities in your tax returns for 2005/2006 and 2006/2007.
Please be aware that one of our inspectors will be carrying out a full audit of your accounts in the coming weeks,’ it said.

Fucking Sally, James thought. Fucking bitch. No wonder she hadn't confronted him since he'd sacked her. She'd obviously got straight on the phone to the Inland Revenue. He knew he should never have been so open at work about the fact that he was often paid in cash, but that was him, he was too trusting, he had assumed that he had loyalty from his staff. Besides, everyone did it in the country. It was just a version of the barter system. If he'd let the farmers pay him in pigs, it would probably have been OK, but what would he have done with a freezer full of pork chops and ham hocks?

His head was starting to pound. This was all he needed. He slammed a few things around on his desk, upsetting his coffee all over some papers.

‘Bollocks,’ he shouted. ‘Shit and bollocks.’

Sally had opened his door at just that moment and he was about to lay into her when he saw that she was closely followed by his first client, Sharon Collins and her elderly border collie, Rex, so he tried to look as if everything was normal. Like shouting ‘shit and bollocks’ loudly and dabbing angrily at your papers with a wadge of Kleenex was common practice for vets first thing in the morning.

‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling through his teeth, ‘I spilled my coffee.’

By the time Sharon had left, he was feeling more rational if no less angry. What had the country come to that the tax people would take the word of any old disgruntled employee? Was this how the world worked
now? That if you were fed up with someone you could just ring the authorities and make life hell for them? Well, he thought, it'll be my word against hers and who are they more likely to take notice of? As long as none of the farmers corroborated what she'd said, and he couldn't imagine that they would, it wouldn't look good for them either.

‘You have no evidence that this has anything to do with Sally,’ Malcolm said, when James had filled him in. ‘It might not even be about the taking-payment-in-cash thing. You could have just filled your form out wrong.’

‘It's Sally,’ James was adamant. ‘Otherwise the whole thing's a bit of a coincidence, don't you think?’ He had known Malcolm and Simon wouldn't be sympathetic. Malcolm shook his head at him in a way that made James want to slap him. He knew that what he was really saying was ‘Well, if you hadn't taken cash payments in the first place and you hadn't treated Sally so badly then this wouldn't be happening.’ Malcolm's view — and Simon's too — would be that he had brought it on himself.

‘She's got to go,’ James said angrily.

‘She already is going. Isn't that what this is about?’

‘I mean, she's got to go now. Today. I don't want her in the office a moment longer.’

‘Oh, for God's sake, James,’ Malcolm said wearily. ‘Grow up.’

But James was having none of it. There was no reason to go easy on Sally now. The damage had been done. She couldn't undo it. He wanted her as far away from him as possible as quickly as possible.

Sally was chatting on the phone when he went out to reception to look for her. A woman he didn't recognize was sitting on one of the chairs with a mournful-looking cat in a basket. James stared at Sally until she looked up and acknowledged him.

‘I need a word,’ he said, not caring who she was speaking to.

‘I'd like you to pack up your stuff and go,’ he said, when she came through to his room a couple of minutes later.

‘I don't understand.’ Sally looked as if she was going to cry, which made him uneasy, but she had brought this on herself.

‘Oh, I think you do. Don't think I haven't worked out that it was you who tipped off the Inland Revenue.’

‘What?’

He had to admit she was a good actress. She looked genuinely taken aback.

‘You know I'd never do a thing like that,’ Sally was saying.

‘I tell you you're fired one day and a couple of days later this happens. Come on.’

‘James,’ Sally was crying properly now, ‘whatever's happened is nothing to do with me. I swear.’

God, he hated it when women cried in front of him. It always made him lose his resolve. Well, not this time.

‘I'd like you to leave now, please,’ he said, and then he left the room before he changed his mind. Once Sally had gone, the tax people could investigate all they liked. They wouldn't find anything to corroborate her story. He
had had to do what he had done. He'd been given no choice.

What James hadn't thought through when he'd ordered Sally to pack her bags and go, he thought later, was who was going to run the surgery in the meantime. He'd have to get Katie to help him out, she always seemed to have all the time in the world and she was always ready to do anything for him if it would make him happy.

‘I can't,’ Katie said, when he told her why he was calling. ‘I've got clients this afternoon.’

‘Well, can't you cancel them? This is an emergency.’

‘No, James, I can't.’

‘Oh, for God's sake,’ he said, and put the phone down. Well, they'd just have to muddle through. Between him, Simon, Malcolm and Judy, the veterinary nurse, they'd have to manage.

There was something up with Katie, James thought, once he'd rung off. She wasn't being her usual sweet, compliant self. It would be this thing with his parents — she was still pissed off that he had lied to her about it, that would be it, although she would never have said so. He resolved to be extra nice to her. He had had a good weekend at home — he had felt closer to Stephanie than he had allowed himself to feel for a long time, once he had got over the shock of her in that top, that was. What was it with women that they all wanted to wear the same thing? Actually, she had looked gorgeous in it and he had wanted to take her in his arms and tell her so, but that wasn't really how they were with each other, these days. They had got out of the habit. He felt bad now that
maybe he had been neglecting Katie a little, but the harsh truth was that as much as he believed he loved her he would have preferred to be down south with his family right now. Life was simpler there.

25

Stephanie could hardly believe it when Katie called to tell her what she'd done. ‘You tipped off the Inland Revenue? God, Katie, maybe we should have talked about it first.’

Katie had been unrepentant. ‘He's asked for it. Anyway, I thought that was the point, we were meant to be doing stuff to him to make ourselves feel better. That's what you said.’

‘It's just that this is so… huge,’ Stephanie said. ‘I mean, it's one thing to upset him a bit, make him feel like he's not so invincible after all but this is a whole other area. This could have serious consequences for him.’

‘And?’ Katie said, and Stephanie started to wonder if she was speaking to the right person.

‘I don't know. I just feel a bit uncomfortable, that's all.’

‘What's the worst that can happen? They'll ask him if it's true and he'll say no. Even if they somehow stumbled across the truth he'd just have to pay the back tax and maybe a fine. Come on, Steph, it'll give him a few sleepless nights, that's all.’

She was right. Stephanie could see that. It was just, well, she didn't like the idea of Katie acting without discussing it with her first. If she were being honest that was what was really bothering her. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You're right. Poor Sally, though.’

Katie laughed. ‘I know. At least he'd already fired her because if he'd just told her to leave on the strength of this I would have had to do something to change his mind. She'll be OK.’