The Best of Times (31 page)

“So why is he coming? Your brother? Family party?”

“No, no. It’s business. Potentially difficult, actually. Which is why I want to have a clear head.”

“Why? In what way?”

“Oh, Abi, I’ve bored you enough.”

“No, you haven’t. Come on in and tell me about it.”

She knew Sylvie was out—for the night. They’d be quite … undisturbed.

He said nothing, just got out of the car, came round, and opened the door for her. This was just … ridiculous She felt she was in a
fifties movie or something. She got out, smiling, trying to be graceful and ladylike, and promptly tripped on a jutting paving stone and fell forwards.

His arms went out to catch her and, having caught her, somehow went round her; and she stood there, held by him, looking up at him, and he was looking down at her, and then slowly, rather tentatively, he bent his head and started to kiss her. And having started, continued, and it was the most fantastic kiss, hard and probing and quite slow at the same time; and she felt herself responding in the most unladylike way, meeting his tongue with hers, feeling the kiss working, moving downwards, the sensation warm and invasive, rippling out in a series of ever bigger sensations, and she pushed her hips against him, felt him responding; and then suddenly he drew back, stopped kissing her, just looked down at her, half smiling, half-embarrassed, and she said, “Why?”

And he said, “Abi, I’m sorry, I—”

“Sorry?” she said, and then, “Fuck sorry, William; just do it again, or come in, or—”

But, “No,” he said, “I mustn’t. Honestly, Abi, I’d love to, I really would, but we hardly know each other.”

And that made her laugh, rather weakly, leaning against him and pulling his head down and kissing him, quite differently now, on the cheek, on his nose.

“You really are special,” she said, “so, so special. Promise me one thing: let’s do it again, very soon.”

“What, drinks, dinner—”

“Yes, if you want. Drinks, dinner, kiss, and then see what happens next. OK?”

He was silent, looking down at her very seriously, and …
God
, she thought,
I’ve gone too far, acted like a tart;
and then he smiled, almost embarrassed, and said, “Yeah, well, that’d be great. Absolutely great. I’ll ring you, OK?”

“You’d better,” she said, releasing herself from him, grinning at him, walking towards the front door of her block. “And if you
don’t, I’ll ring you. I haven’t been very well brought up, you see. That’s what I do, ring blokes I fancy. Night, William—thanks for a great evening.”

“No,” he said, “no, thank you. It’s been terrific. You’re very special too, Abi. I hope you know that.”

And he drove off slowly, and she stood there looking after him, and then went inside and got into bed, and lay there wide-awake, still excited, still hardly touching reality, wondering how soon she might see him again and whether that time she would be able to persuade him into bed with her. Even though … what was it he’d said? Oh, yes, even though they hardly knew each other. Incredible that people still thought like that. Absolutely incredible …

• • •

And William drove home rather slowly, playing his favourite Bruce Springsteen CD, and wondering if it was even remotely possible that a girl as sexy and funny and fun as Abi could possibly enjoy being with him, and whether she’d meant it when she’d said she’d like to go out with him again.

CHAPTER 23

Laura wanted to believe Jonathan more than anything on earth. About Abi Scott. Her whole life and happiness hung on it. Because if it wasn’t true, if he’d been having an affair with her—with anyone—then there was no way she could stay with him. She had always felt that trust was absolutely synonymous with love. However wonderful Jonathan was, however good their marriage was, however perfect their life, if he’d betrayed her, she couldn’t possibly go on with it. How
could you go to sleep beside a man, wake up with him, live in his house, bring up his children, if he had lied to you, if all those “I love you”s, all those “I couldn’t live without you”s, had been said to someone else?

If he had made love to someone else, known her body intimately, caressed her, entered her, made her come, then how could you possibly stay with him, accept those lies, forgive them—and him? How would you ever believe him again if he said he was working late, on a business trip, dining with colleagues? Suspicion would poison every smile, every kiss, every caress; would distort pleasure, wreck contentment, ruin memory. That was the worst thing, perhaps: that you would remember all the most precious times—the commitment to stay together forever, the arrival of the babies, the sweetly charged intimacies of marriage—and know it had all been a sham, see it as distorted, ugly cruelly changed.

She was trying—so hard—to get it back, the happiness and the trust. But until she knew for sure, she was failing. And becoming obsessed with the need to know …

• • •

“Now, this is interesting,” said Freeman. They were examining CCTV footage. “Here we have our best man standing in the queue for the tyre gauge.”

“What’s wrong with that?” said Rowe.

“Nothing. It’s the responsible thing to do—especially if you’re thinking of driving rather fast. But the point is, Mr. Fraser told us he hadn’t done anything at the service station except get fuel.”

“Well, I expect he just didn’t mention it. Forgot.”

“Rowe, you don’t forget things like that. Especially when
x
minutes later your tyre bursts and contributes to a major accident. No, I think we should perhaps talk to Mr. Fraser again. Ask him about it. Or—which might be cleverer—talk to the bridegroom. Get a separate account.”

“You can’t do that yet,” said Rowe. “He’s very unwell. I thought they said he might be having major surgery on Monday.”

“Mr. Connell is also very unwell. We learnt quite a lot from him.”

“That’s true. Although it was pretty muddled. All that stuff about feeling sleepy and eating jelly babies. And the second person in the van.”

“I’ve told you before, Rowe, the devil’s in the details in this game.” If he said that once more, Rowe thought, he’d thump him. “The very fact that he was talking about jelly babies, not just chocolate, could be important. If he can be precise about his sweets, then we can take more notice of the rest of his testimony.

“Now, it could be his confusion, this second person in the van. But put together with—what—three reports now about this mysterious girl at the scene of the crash, I think it bears a very close look indeed.” He paused. “You know, Rowe, I’m wondering if we can get the media interested in this one. We’d get more eyewitnesses to what actually happened. And in particular, who else might have seen this girl, and a second person in the lorry—who, of course, are not necessarily one and the same. I think I’ll talk to the PR department first thing Monday. See if they can get it on the news.”

“So how would we go about it?”

“Oh, we—or the PR people—contact one of their researchers, give them the story, make it sound as interesting as we can; after that it’s up to them. Bit of a beauty contest, really—”

“I wonder if they ever found that missing dog,” said Rowe suddenly, “the golden retriever. That would be the sort of thing they’d like …”

There was a silence; then Freeman said, slightly grudgingly, “It could be, yes. Why don’t you check it out, Rowe?”

• • •

Georgia was beginning to feel she had two heads. Or two selves. It was very odd. There was the Georgia who had just got a part in a prestigious
TV series, who was feeling pretty pleased with herself; and there was the other Georgia, who was scared and miserable and ashamed of herself, who didn’t remotely know what to do to make things better. Or rather who did know, but seemed to entirely lack the courage to do it.

She could be walking through Cardiff, going to meet a friend, listening to her iPod, and looking in the windows of Topshop, and without warning the terror would be there, the terror and the awful despair. She would stand still, shaking, feeling she would never move again, trying to set aside the memories and the guilt, and then she would have to call the friend, plead illness, and go home again, creeping under her duvet, crying, sometimes for hours at time.

And then, equally without reason, it would go again, and she would find herself able to say, Well, was it really so bad, what she had done? And no one need ever know, and one day, yes, one day she would go and see Patrick—who was, after all, still alive—and say she was sorry …

Only … she knew she couldn’t. She really, really couldn’t.

• • •

“Wednesday’s the big day now,” said Toby. He had rung Barney at work; his voice was painfully cheerful.

“Yeah? For … what?”

As if he didn’t know.

“Oh—this final washout thing. If they don’t think it’s working then—”

“Well, then, they’ll try again,” said Barney.

“Mate, they won’t,” said Toby.

“Course they will. They’re not going to give up on you.”

“No. Just take the leg off. Or some of it.”

“Oh, Tobes. Of … of course they’re not. Whatever makes you think that?”

“Because the fucking doctor told me so. He was very nice, very
positive, said he was fairly confident that it would be OK, but we had to face the fact it might not be. I’ll have to sign a consent thing, apparently, before I go down. Shit, Barney, I’m scared.”

There was a silence; then Barney said, “So … have you told Tamara?”

“Oh, no, no. I thought it would upset her too much.”

“Well, that’s very brave of you,” Barney said carefully. “What about your parents?”

“No, I haven’t told them either. Poor old Mum, she’s upset enough as it is.”

“Well …” Barney sought wildly round for something to say that might help. “Well … tell you what, Tobes: would you like me to come down on Wednesday? Be there when it’s done? Not in the operating theatre, of course—don’t think I could cope with that—but I’ll spend the time beforehand with you, be there when you come back. With two good legs, obviously.”

“Shit, Barney, you are the best. Would you really? Yeah, that’d be great. They said it’d be the afternoon probably. I was thinking what a ghastly long day it would be. But … you’ll be—”

“I’ll be there …”

Sometime, when Toby felt better, Barney thought, they should discuss the little matter of the tyre. Just so that they were saying the same thing. If anyone asked Toby. Which they probably wouldn’t …

CHAPTER 24