‘Just start at the beginning,’ I say, my voice as soft as a coo. ‘It’s fine, you’re doing the right thing, Gina.’
‘OK.’ She lays her palms flat on the table, steadies herself like it’s a business pitch. ‘About four years ago, Nate and I were in a bad place. Really bad. We’d been having IVF and it just wasn’t happening and well, it was tearing us apart. I think it’s because we’d both had kids with other people.’ My face says it all. ‘Oh right, sorry, Leo’s mine, Amber’s Nate’s. I mean, Amber was only four when we got together and Leo was only seven so we very much consider them our own.’ She gives a sad little sniff. ‘Nate’s wife died a year after Amber was born, you see. An undetected heart defect.’ Suddenly, her features harden. ‘And my ex is a complete waster who’s never bothered with Leo so it was perfect, we became an instant little family.’
‘But it’s natural to want children together.’
She lowers her gaze, nods at the table. ‘And we just assumed we would. Took it for granted, as you do. And when it didn’t happen .?.?. well, it’s cruel and it’s not logical, but when you’ve made a baby with someone else, but you can’t make a baby with your current partner, it kind of does something. It makes you view them differently, view your relationship differently. It did us, anyway, I can’t speak for everyone. But we ended up resenting each other, I suppose. It was just an incredibly bad time. Anyway, Nate ended up burying himself in work, which means burying himself in client dinners, and I was on my own night after night with my grief.’ Her eyes will me to understand. ‘I know it sounds dramatic, but that’s what it felt like, grief.’
‘I understand,’ I say, as soothing as I can. ‘And Alice, where does she come in?’
A deep sigh. ‘So, as I say, Nate buried himself in work, I buried myself in the internet. IVF forums. Support forums, that sort of thing. It was just a way to pass the time at first but then you start to recognise certain names, the regular posters, and you forge friendships in a weird type of way.’
‘And you met Alice on one of these forums?’
Another nod. ‘You end up talking about all sorts, really. It’s not all tales of woe, you find yourself chatting about what’s on TV, restaurants, husbands, everything. And I’d been chatting to Alice quite a bit and one day I just mentioned how I’d been to Hampton Court and how nice it was to have such a magnificent palace not too far away, and she said, “Oh, we must live fairly close then” and it turns out we did – she was Thames Ditton, right? Anyway, it went from there, really. We started chatting offline and arranged to meet up. It wasn’t a big deal, we just said we’d grab a coffee next time I was down her way or if she was around mine .?.?.’
‘So she gave you the impression she made regular trips into London?’
She gives a small shrug. ‘I suppose so, yes.’
I note this down. ‘OK, so you met up?’
‘Yes, just a few times. Once when I had to pop down her way to buy some hockey stuff for Amber, and then a couple of times at the café near me. The Donatella Caffé, except it wasn’t called that then. I forget the name.’
‘So what did she tell you about herself?’
She leans in, gossipy. ‘Well, this is it, I ended up doing most of the talking. She seemed quite shy in person and I knew quickly that we weren’t going to become best buddies but what I do remember though, is that she and her husband had only been trying for a year or so and she was still young, but she was really, really distressed that it hadn’t happened for them.’ She lets out a shrill laugh. ‘Here was I in my early forties, and we’d been trying for years, and yet it was me that ended up counselling her.’
‘Sounds frustrating.’
‘It was. It was intense. That’s why I phased her out, really. Made excuses not to meet up and so on. She didn’t seem that bothered. And then that sort of coincided with Nate and I getting back on track and well, you’ve seen where that led.’
‘You got your happy ending.’
She smiles. ‘I suppose I did, didn’t I? Doesn’t always feel like that when they’re doing a poo on the floor in John Lewis or wanting to play picnics at three in the morning.’
I laugh. She’s good company. I can see why Alice opened up to her.
‘Seriously, it’s so much harder when you’re that bit older.’ She sizes me up. ‘What are you, mid-twenties? Well, don’t leave it too late would be my advice. You just don’t have the energy. I was twenty-eight when I had Leo – whole different ball game.’
I smile. ‘I’ll bear it in mind. So you hadn’t seen Alice since then, until when?’
She looks rocked by the memory. ‘About a month ago, maybe a bit less. She just turned up out of the blue. Ambushed me. Not at the house but as I was coming up to the main gates. I had the twins in the buggy. Honestly I’ll never forget her face when she saw them.’
‘Did you feel threatened?’
She’s quick to respond. ‘No, no, nothing like that. She just looked .?.?. despairing. I know it’s stupid but I felt awful. Almost like I’d let her down. I know it sounds ridiculous.’
‘How did she know where you lived?’
A tiny vexed shake of the head. ‘She’d actually waited in the café on the main road – a few times, she told me – assuming I’d go past at some point and then she followed me.’
‘And what did she want?’
‘I’ll tell you what I wanted, Detective Kinsella.’
‘Cat, please.’
‘I wanted to get her away from my road, Cat. Nate was due back any minute and he didn’t know anything about my forum “adventures” and I wanted to keep it that way.’ Those pleading eyes again. ‘The whole IVF thing had nearly broken us. It was such an awful, awful time and I didn’t want it all coming back up again.’
I nod an understanding that I think is part-genuine.
She goes on. ‘So I left the twins with Leo – I said I’d left my card in Waitrose and had to go back – and I drove us to King George’s Park. She was in a dreadful state, she looked awful.’
‘Awful, how?’
‘Not scruffy exactly, but worn out. Definitely not how I remembered her. Like she’d kind of given up on life, I suppose.’
‘So what did she want?’ I repeat.
She gives me a flat stare. ‘Money. She said she’d left her husband, that the IVF had finally broken them, and that she needed some time to figure out what she was doing but she couldn’t support herself. It was all a bit pathetic to be honest.’
Which fits, although there’s something I’m struggling to get my head around.
‘She needs money so she runs to someone she met for a few coffees, four years ago?’
Her eyes widen in agreement. ‘I know! It’s mad, isn’t it? But she said she remembered how kind I’d been to her back then, how supportive, and how I was probably the only person who’d understand because Nate and I had nearly reached a similar point. She said she didn’t have any close family or friends she could turn to.’
Which fits.
‘I just felt so sorry for her. And I felt guilty. It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been through it but I felt so wretched that she’d seen me with the twins. I know how it feels to see other people have what you want so badly. And with me being ten years older, it must have seemed doubly unfair.’
‘So did you give her any money?’
‘I had sixty pounds in my purse and I gave her that. But I told her, and it was the truth, that I couldn’t give her any more. Nate’s not particularly stingy or controlling around money, but I couldn’t explain away a big chunk of cash, even if I’d wanted to.’
‘And she was OK with this?’
‘Yes, she wasn’t being aggressive, if that’s what you’re thinking. She said she completely understood, and then she said she might have to consider going back to her husband, at least for a while, but that she was certain he was having an affair and it was all so humiliating.’ Her eyes are on the cusp of watery. ‘That pressed a nerve, you could say. Leo’s father, if you can use the term, cheated on me and I stayed with him because I thought I had no other option at the time, and that’s exactly the word for it: humiliating.’