Six or seven years ago now, he’d called to ask if she’d meet him for lunch in London. He’d suggested a restaurant in South Kensington and because she’d been giving him excuses for three years by then, she’d capitulated and said yes. Of course, it had been another trap. The table he’d booked was for four: he’d brought Jessica and Harry, who’d just turned six. On the phone, her father had said he’d chosen South Kensington because it would be an easy trip from Putney, where Rowan had been living at the time, but in fact the salient point was its proximity to the Natural History Museum: Harry wanted to see the dinosaurs.
All he was asking, her father spat across the table when Jessica took Harry to the loo, was for Rowan to be civil to her. She’d refused to go to their wedding and since then had only come face to face with her father’s wife twice, both times ambushes. Her father had known that Harry would charm her, though – how could he not? He was so guileless with his wide brown eyes beneath the chunky fringe of chestnut hair, so openly curious about his ‘big’ half-sister, and when he had asked to hold Rowan’s hand as they’d crossed Cromwell Road, she’d felt as if she’d been punched in the chest. Then, though, she’d watched her father holding his hand as they walked through the museum, crouching to show him how many bones there were in a skeletal foot, pointing out different species of beetle, and she’d felt her heart ice over again. Had her father ever done that for her? Looked at her with soft eyes even once?
St Giles was chiming seven o’clock as she rounded the corner on to Norham Gardens. With no cloud for insulation, the bright day had turned into a sharp evening and her feet scratched along the pavement past front gardens already spiky with frost. Between the streetlights, her breath looked ghostly.
She’d spent the past hour and a half at Caffè Nero on the High Street where, to justify lingering, she’d drunk the two large coffees that now added an extra edge to her anxiety. At four, Adam had sent a text to say he’d reached Highgate but she’d heard nothing since. She’d thought he might send a quick message or call to check in but of course, she told herself decisively, he’d be busy with Jacqueline. When she heard about Bryony, she would be devastated all over again.
‘Why don’t you stay with her?’ Rowan had asked him. ‘I can hold the fort here.’
‘No, she’s got Fint, and it’s not fair to leave you alone here while this is going on. You could go home.’ The idea had seemed suddenly to occur to Adam. ‘Do you want to? God, I’m so sorry – I should have thought.’
‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Until the dust settles, let me stay and keep you company.’
‘You’re sure?’
She pulled a face.
‘Thank you.’ The smile he gave her was genuinely grateful. ‘Having you here makes it a lot easier. For me.’ He’d taken a long breath. ‘God knows what we’re going to do about the pictures now.’
As she turned in to Fyfield Road, Rowan’s eyes went immediately to the spot where the journalist’s little black car had been parked. It was gone, and she felt her shoulders drop a fraction. She’d been bracing herself for another approach, or worse: what if while she’d been out, the rest of the press had sent people and she arrived back to find a gang of them? But the street was empty and she walked the last twenty yards breathing deeply, letting the freezing air crackle in her lungs.
Just as she stepped on to the drive, however, quick footsteps ran up behind her and a hand caught at her elbow.
She gave a yelp of fright; she couldn’t help it. When she spun around, however, she saw the journalist.
‘Sorry,’ she said, soft-voiced and disarming. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘For God’s sake.’ Rowan pressed her hand against her chest. ‘You can’t do that, sneak up on people in the dark.’
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Oh, fine then.’
The woman ignored her tone. ‘You were with Adam earlier, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, but he didn’t want to talk to you and neither do I.’
‘Sometimes people feel differently when they’re on their own. They . . .’
‘Leave us alone. We don’t know anything, all right? Nothing.’
‘Are you his girlfriend?’ the woman said. ‘You were at the funeral, too, weren’t you? There was a picture of you out here, in the road . . .’
‘Just – piss off.’ Clutching her bag against her chest, Rowan turned and ran up the steps. Her hands were shaking so much it took three attempts to get the key in the door.
‘Georgina Parry, from the Mail,’ the woman called from the bottom of the steps. ‘If you change your mind, I’ve put my card through the door.’
Rowan ripped the card into pieces and stuffed them to the bottom of the kitchen bin. Even the thought of the woman made her queasy. To sit out there for hours in the freezing cold, she must think she was on to something.