The Back Road

20

The silence in the car wasn’t comfortable, and Ellie knew that if she didn’t break it soon, Leo was going to start with the questions again. Where did she go on Friday night? Why did she switch her mobile off without answering it? Why had she gone all moody since they got back in the car? And she couldn’t answer any of them truthfully. All she could think was that he had been there. He had followed her that morning and left her the rose so that she’d realise he was watching. He seemed to know her every move, and she felt violated.

Then there was Max. Was he really having an affair? Would he do that to them? She thought she knew him so well, but for the last few months there had been a subtle difference, she couldn’t deny it. That’s why she’d booked the holiday. Would they still go, or would he want to cancel? And what about the fact that he’d lied to her? Why would he lie about where he’d been if he had nothing to hide? He was such a useless liar too. Using Pat as his cover wasn’t his wisest move. How could he think she wouldn’t find out?

She could feel Leo glancing at her every few seconds. She needed to think of a topic soon before the inquisition began. But she was too late.

‘Ellie,’ Leo started. ‘Is everything okay? It’s just that things don’t seem quite normal at the moment, and I’m wondering if I’m getting in the way.’

‘What?’ Ellie said. She was going to have to play things carefully. ‘Of course they’re okay. We’ve all been a bit busy with the house and everything, but that’s all done now. Things will start to settle down again. And we love having you here.’

‘It’s just that there were one or two things …’

Ellie interrupted.

‘Speaking of one or two things, I wanted to talk to you about what Mimi said last night - the stuff about you not getting any of The Old Witch’s money. You do know, I hope, that I meant it when I offered you half. You can still have it - honestly. There’s more than enough for us.’

Leo laughed, and Ellie was relieved to have steered her sister away from the edge of a very deep precipice.

‘I wasn’t bothered about that. She was your mother, not mine. She left the money to you.’

‘Yes,’ Ellie replied, wishing Leo would slow down so that this conversation could be finished before they got home. She didn’t want Max adding his two penn’orth. ‘She did leave the money to me, but it must have started out as being our father’s money - at least a fair chunk of it.’

Leo turned to look at Ellie with a scornful expression. ‘Is that supposed to make it somehow more appealing?’

‘Oh, Leo. You are hopeless. You loved him once.’

Leo turned her attention back to the road.

‘I loved him when I was a small child. That was before I discovered that he had another child living not thirty miles away, and that for the whole of my short life he had been cheating on my mother.’

‘Well, for what it’s worth, I think you misunderstood him. He made a mistake - people do. Don’t be so hard on him, Leo. Perhaps his biggest mistake was marrying my evil mother. You don’t know how envious of you I was as a child.’

Leo swivelled round to glance at Ellie, a look of genuine surprise on her face.

‘You envied me? Why, for God’s sake? I’d lost my mother and I’d come to live with The Old Witch. What was there to envy?’

Ellie felt heavy-hearted for a moment when she thought of herself and Leo as children.

‘I envied the fact that you’d had a mother that loved you. Even if you’d lost her, you knew how it felt to be loved.’ Ellie saw the dawning realisation on Leo’s face that this might make sense.

‘Oh Ellie, I’m so sorry. I never knew you felt like that. I’m sure your mother loved you, in her own way.’

Ellie snorted. ‘What way was that, Leo? The controlling, emotionless, lying way? She may have made a slave out of you, but everything she made me do - the piano, the relentless studying, the extra tutor lessons - they were all designed to show that her daughter was better than the cuckoo in her nest. It had nothing to do with love. But I always felt that Dad loved me. I know he wasn’t around much, but when he was, he was kind to me. He stopped her from doing her worst, I think. I felt happy when he was there.’

Leo said nothing, and Ellie knew she wasn’t convinced.

‘I’m sure he would have shown you some affection if you’d only let him in - but you know what you were like. You wouldn’t even speak to him.’

‘As a parent yourself, Ellie, I thought you would know better than that. You don’t give love to your child on the basis that they must reciprocate. He wanted payback for any affection he doled out. He got it from you, but I was too much like hard work and not worth the effort.’

‘You mustn’t think like that. That’s one of the reasons that I hope we can find him now - after all these years. I know she had him declared dead, but that just means she couldn’t find him. Perhaps he didn’t want to be found. He didn’t run away from us, he ran away from my mother. She’s dead - so it’s safe for him to come back. And you never know, you might see him for what he really is.’

Leo’s silence was absolute, and Ellie knew that she was fighting a losing battle. For Ellie, her father had been her saviour - the only person who had the slightest control over his wife’s excesses, and the only person - until Max - to show her any affection. For Leo, he was the man that had ruined her life by bringing her to live with a stepmother who despised her.

* * *

As she indicated to turn into the gates of Willow Farm, Leo felt quite relieved. She had never thought she would be pleased to see this house in her lifetime, but she didn’t want to listen to Ellie raving about their father’s finer points. She was going to have to talk to her sister about this obsession with the idea of him suddenly materialising from nowhere, but there hadn’t been time. They’d been too close to home when the conversation started. She pulled up and turned off the engine.

With the windows open to let in some of the summer breeze, Leo could hear shouts and laughter coming from the garden to the side of the house and she could see Max playing with the children. They were having a great time, and Leo turned to Ellie with a smile.

‘Come on, Ellie. Let’s get the car unpacked and go and join in the fun. It looks like they’re playing some sort of croquet, of all things.’

Ellie paused for a beat before replying, looking with love at her family cavorting on the lawn. It seemed to Leo that she mentally shook herself and then gave a big smile.

‘Good idea.’

Max had seen them arrive, and came bounding over to the car like an eager puppy as they climbed out. He always looked so delighted to see Ellie, and Leo stood still and watched. He put his arms round his wife and gave her a hug, and Leo thought she heard a whispered ‘sorry’. Ellie rested her forehead briefly on his shoulder, then looked at him with a sad smile.

‘Me too,’ Leo heard her say softly.

‘Okay girls, you go and play with the twins, and I’ll unpack the shopping. I’ll bring you out a drink when I’ve finished and you can tell me what you’ve been buying.’

At Leo’s attempted protest, Max shooed them both away.

Leo and Ellie walked across the lawn to where the twins were indeed playing what could loosely be described as croquet. Max appeared to have constructed some sort of extra wide hoops out of wire, and they were playing with tennis balls and what looked like an old brush that Max had cut the bristles off, shortened, and fashioned into a croquet mallet.

Having been introduced to the finer points of the game by the twins and been beaten not once but twice each by a beaming Jake, they finally made their way to sit down on a garden bench just as Max appeared with a tray bearing two cups of cappuccino, an espresso and some orange juice for Jake and Ruby.

‘It’s been like Piccadilly Circus here this morning,’ he said, handing the drinks round. ‘Visitors and phone calls from all of our guests - well, most of them anyway.’

Ellie gave him an enquiring glance.

‘Fiona called to say how “super” it all was - not that I’m convinced she could remember anything past the canapés. She was in a bit of a strop with Charles, who had disappeared to play golf.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘I’m surprised he’s speaking to her. I’ve known her for years, and I’ve never seen her like that.’

‘Tom called round just after you’d gone out too. God knows what he made of Fiona’s antics last night.’ Max grinned as if he could imagine only too well. ‘He brought his daughter round too - Lucy, she’s called. A sweet kid, if a bit shy. You only missed him by a couple of minutes. Sean arrived at about the same time. He brought you a gift Ellie. Said he felt bad about turning up out of the blue last night without anything to offer the hostess, so he called in at the gift shop in the garden centre this morning. I’ll go and get it.’

It only took Max a few seconds to pop into the house for the gift, which had been beautifully wrapped - not, Leo suspected, by Sean. He handed it to Ellie, who placed it on the small table by her side. Max sat himself down cross legged on the grass facing the two women on the bench.

‘Well, open it then,’ Max said, with an eager smile.

Ellie carefully unwrapped the gift to reveal a scented candle in glass. She placed it back on the side table.

‘That was kind of him, but completely unnecessary,’ she said.

‘He was disappointed that he’d missed you - and he wouldn’t stay for a cup of coffee. He said that the present was perhaps something that you might like in the bathroom when you’re taking a long lazy bath.’

Ellie made a ‘pff’ sound, as if the chances of that were quite remote.

Max turned his attention to Leo, giving her what could only be described as a knowing smile.

‘Not sure what you’ve been up to with our resident policeman, Leo. When I said that Ellie wasn’t around and had gone shopping, Tom hung around for a while. I got the feeling that he was hoping to see you, but in the end he had to go because his ex-wife was at his house.’

‘If his ex-wife’s still on the scene, I think you can stop playing cupid.’

Max shook his head slowly from side to side.

‘She brought Lucy, that’s all. One of the joys of divorce with kids - you still have to see the ex.’

‘Yes, well keep out of it Max. I might enjoy an hour or so of Tom’s company, but I’m not after his body. Or if I was, it would be on a needs basis rather than a happy ever after. Stop interfering.’

As if to take the edge of her words, Leo picked up a stray tennis ball from the path and aimed it Max’s chest. He promptly fell backwards on the grass, groaning and shouting for the twins to come and help him. Auntie Leo had tried to kill him.

* * *

Ellie watched her husband and children rolling around on the grass and felt that her heart was going to explode with love for them all. Max was wearing an old pair of baggy black shorts and a white running vest that had seen better days, but he still managed to look beyond beautiful to her, even though he would hate that description. He had the kind of skin that easily picked up a tan, and his deep brown eyes were shining with happiness and laughter as he played with the twins. More than anything she just wanted to leap on top of him, and roll around the garden with him and the kids. But the knot of anxiety that was tightening by the hour in her stomach prevented her, and she knew that her laughter sounded forced.

Leo was looking at her, and Ellie couldn’t miss the concern in her eyes. Maybe she should tell her. Tell her everything: her worry, her fear and her dilemma. But that would be so unfair. How many times had Leo told Ellie that her relationship with Max was the one thing that gave her hope? There had to be a better way.

The twins dragged Leo back to their game, and Max did that magic thing that he often did to get up off the floor. One minute he was lying there, and then with some weird leap that appeared to require no effort, he was on his feet. He came and sat down beside her, and rested his arm along the back of the bench. She let her head drop onto his shoulder.

‘Thanks for doing such a great job with the kids, Max. You always have such fun, and I feel as if I’m missing out having to work all these extra shifts.’

Max rested his head on hers.

‘We miss you too, but it’s only this week that you’re short staffed isn’t it, and I like being in charge. Selfish as it sounds, I love having their undivided attention.’

Ellie felt a brief flash of happiness before reality struck her and tears flooded her eyes. Max had always said he loved his life - exactly as it was. He had never wanted to do anything but be a PE teacher. He enjoyed his job, and spent hours each week giving extra coaching to kids of all abilities. He had the knack of knowing how to deal with every type of character, from the bullies to the most timid child who hated the whole idea of sport. He somehow managed to get them all to join in and have a good time. From Ellie’s perspective, though, having him at home during the long holidays was a huge bonus, and they’d always had a great time together. When she wasn’t working, that is.

‘I was a bit worried about Penny last night,’ Ellie said, hoping her voice showed no trace of her brief emotional moment.

‘She phoned earlier, and she seemed fine. Gary had gone out. He’s apparently fallen in love with the Porsche, which he can’t afford, so unlike some of us his mission for the day is to go round car showrooms to find the next best thing. I’m sorry about the car, Ellie. I know I’m being stubborn. Give me a while and I’ll get used to having money.’

Ellie felt a burst of hope as Max appeared to be talking about the future.

‘It’s not your fault. Let’s forget it. Were there any other calls?’

Max shook his head.

‘Mimi left her cardigan last night. We need to let Pat know so that he can come and pick it up. Can you give him a call later?’ Ellie asked.

‘Yeah - no problem. I was thinking, though. I do think it might make things easier on Pat if we tried a bit harder with Mimi. I know you don’t like her, but he’s going through hell.’

Ellie sighed. What could she say? Perhaps she should tell Max what Mimi had said about him and Alannah - but she couldn’t. He might admit that it was true.

She stood up, and picked up the candle.

‘I’ll go and make lunch,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a shout when it’s ready.’

Max turned his face up to hers with a smile.

‘What can I do to help?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. You sit there. You’ve done enough this morning. I’m going to put this somewhere - the downstairs loo, I think,’ she said, holding up the candle, ‘and then I’ll start on the prawns.’

She smiled at Max, and walked through into the kitchen and on towards the downstairs bathroom. She eyed the phone as she passed, and thought she might give Penny a quick call back to check if she was okay. She could never remember Penny’s number because having lived next door for so long, it had rarely been needed. Typing 1471 and hoping that Penny had called after Fiona, she listened as she heard the automated voice ‘the caller withheld their number’.

At one time, she would just have asked Max who had called, in all innocence. But now the sharp shard of suspicion pierced her fragile trust, leaving an aching void in its place. And to think that just moments ago she had begun to believe that everything was going to be all right, and perhaps her suspicions were unfounded.

On top of all these doubts and misgivings, she didn’t know what to do about Friday night. The accident. She had pushed it to the back of her mind since she’d heard when and where it happened. But she couldn’t keep ignoring it. She had to do something. She couldn’t leave it like this.

She made her way quietly upstairs, through the bedroom and into their bathroom. Leaving the door ajar so she could see if Max or one of the twins came to find her, she picked up her phone and typed in a number - one she knew by heart, but which she had never expected to use again.

It was answered almost immediately.

‘Ellie - what a nice surprise,’ came the voice she least wanted to hear in the whole world.

‘Can you speak?’ she asked.

‘Always. You know that. Did you enjoy your shopping? I hope you found your present. I saw you looking at them in the store, so I could tell you liked them.’ She could hear that he was smiling.

‘Don’t ever do that again. Never. What if Leo had seen you leaving it there? How would I have explained that? Please, please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’

‘It was just a rose, to show you I was thinking of you. Watching you. What are you wearing right now? Tell me, then I can picture you. Have you changed since you got back from shopping, or are you still wearing those black jeans and the red T-shirt?’

‘Shut up. Please, just shut up. I’m not ringing about the rose, or about you and me. I need to ask you about Friday night. You must have driven home along the back road. You must have. And the timing was right, and you were angry. You drove off at such a speed. I need to know if it was you that knocked that girl over. I have to know.’

For once, he was silent. Ellie waited. It was difficult to interpret the tone of his voice when he finally replied, but he had lost the teasing note that for some reason he believed she found seductive. Perhaps she might have done at one time. His voice sounded hollow, as if it were coming from a long way off.

‘Do you honestly think that I would have left a child on the side of the road to die? Is that what you think of me? God, that hurts. Of course it wasn’t me. I agree I could only just have missed her, but I swear to you that I could never even leave a cat to die on the side of the road, let alone a child.’

She knew he was telling the truth. Whatever else he was, and however deluded he was about her, she couldn’t imagine him cold-bloodedly dragging a dying child to the side of the road. But that wasn’t the only problem.

‘I’m sorry. I should never have asked that. But did you pass any cameras? Our neighbour, Tom, says that there will be CCTV at some of the points around the village, and possibly those cameras that recognise number plates. Do you think you would have been seen?’

She could hear him blowing out air in irritation. She knew he had been hoping for so much more when he’d seen her name on his phone.

‘I don’t know - I’ve no idea. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time, if you remember. I was trying to deal with the conversation we’d just had.’ The hurt was there in his voice. ‘I know you were lying that night. I know how you feel about me. About us.’

God, what a fool she’d been. This wasn’t helping.

‘Look, I need to know what you will say if you were spotted. The police will want to talk to you. I cut through the lanes, and there won’t be any cameras there. But what will you say? If the police come to see you. What will you tell them?’

‘They’re the police. I’ll have to tell them the truth. In fact I think we both know that I should go down to the station right now and say that I was out that night. I should go and admit where I was, not wait to be questioned.’ His voice had turned serious. She knew he was right, but she couldn’t bear it.

‘No. Please, please don’t do that. It won’t help Abbie, and if it wasn’t you and you didn’t see anything, what’s the harm? How could I ever explain it to Max? Please, if you care as much about me as you say you do, please don’t do anything.’

There was a thoughtful note to his voice when he replied, and at that instant, Ellie knew what he was going to say.

‘If I tell the police and they question you, you’ll have to tell Max, won’t you. And we both know that he won’t forgive you. So if I admit I was seeing you, you’ll be free. Free for me. So tell me, Ellie - why shouldn’t I do it?’

At that moment, Ellie saw the bedroom door begin to open, and she quickly hung up and shut the bathroom door.

‘Ellie?’ It was Max’s voice. ‘Are you in there? Are you okay? You said you were making lunch, but then you disappeared.’

She took a deep breath, and tried to disguise the nervous tremor of her voice.

‘Be out in a minute, Max. Sorry - I felt a bit grubby after the drive.’

Damn this accident, she thought. Damn it to hell.

She knew that was a terrible thought and her suffering was nothing in comparison to Abbie’s family’s, but if she wasn’t careful it was going to bring her whole world crashing down around her ears.

Running some cold water into the sink, and flushing the lavatory for effect, Ellie opened the bathroom cabinet to stash her phone until she could rescue it later. She would struggle to explain why she’d taken it with her into the bathroom.

She looked in the cupboard and paused. She stared for a minute longer.

What was wrong?

Nothing appeared to be missing, but it was as if everything had been moved slightly. Max never opened this cupboard - all his stuff was on the shelf. She kept tablets, antiseptic cream and some of the necessary but less alluring female bathroom products in here.

She rushed into the bedroom, randomly pulling open drawers.

But she already knew what she was going to find.

* * *

Since the children were now happily playing in the kitchen, Leo decided to pop upstairs quickly and get her laptop so she could update her blog. Max had gone in search of Ellie, and she didn’t know whether she was supposed to leave the twins on their own or not, but she was sure they would be okay for two minutes. She disconnected the laptop from where it was charging, and headed back down.

Damn, she thought. The lid was fully closed. She must have done it by mistake as she picked it up. She always left the lid open by about a millimetre so that the screen went off, but the catch didn’t engage. It had broken a couple of weeks ago, and she had kept meaning to get it mended. Now she was going to have to root around and find a paperclip or something that she could bend to open it. That’s what came of being in a rush.

Returning to the kitchen, she fished around in the utensils’ drawer until she found an old corkscrew. The end of that should do it. She twiddled around, and finally managed to open the lid, and the laptop sprang back into life. Vowing to get the catch fixed, she decided to write up some bullet points for her next blog. Her conversations with Ellie today had her thinking about how easy it was for two people who are so close to begin to move in opposite directions, perhaps without even noticing it.

She opened her documents folder, and stopped. She hadn’t used her computer since she got up that morning, but three of her files had been accessed. The time stamps showed today’s date. Two were only blogs - her client files were all password protected thank goodness - but the other one that had been opened was the file on her father.

She looked up as Max returned to the kitchen.

‘Ellie will be down to make lunch in a moment, Leo. Can I interest you in a glass of wine? I’m going to get on with the salad so that Ellie only has to worry about the clever bits.’

‘No wine, thanks. Water’s fine.’ She paused. ‘Max, have you used my computer for any reason this morning? It’s not a problem, of course, but I just wondered.’

Max grabbed a bottle of fizzy water from the fridge.

‘Now why on earth would I want to do that when we have a super duper twenty-seven inch iMac in the office? Why are you asking? Have you got lots of exciting secrets on there?’ Max wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and turned back to the task of helping with the lunch.

Leo decided to say nothing. Perhaps it was Ellie, although she couldn’t think when she would have had the chance.

Max was rummaging around in the fridge and pulling out bags of salad and tomatoes when Ellie came into the kitchen, looking even more harassed than before.

‘Max - did you go out at all this morning with the twins?’ she demanded in a slightly breathless voice.

‘Good grief - what’s with the twenty questions today?’ Max responded, laughing and shaking his head. ‘What’s got into you two? Yes, as a matter of fact, I took the twins to the swings. We were out for about forty-five minutes. Why?’

‘Did you lock up – properly, I mean?’

Max had clearly begun to realise that Ellie was genuinely concerned about something.

‘Yes, of course. It’s not like the old place, is it? There was nothing to nick there - but now I’m really careful. Why?’

‘Because while we were all out, somebody’s been in our house.’