It had started out as a morning of studying. Daniel still thanked his lucky stars that his memory pre-accident hadn’t been affected and he had mercifully retained five years of medical school. There had been a note for him when he’d gone downstairs: ‘Need to speak to you. Will be home this afternoon. Can you be around? Mum x’. He’d got to his books over his toast and the time had melted away unnoticed until the doorbell had rung. He remembered he’d been annoyed at the interruption and had got up thinking it was hopefully just the postman.
When he’d first seen Cherry standing at the door in the striking blue dress he remembered from their trip to France, she made something leap up in his chest. But he quickly reminded himself she’d left him. Then she screamed and fainted, something that he found both baffling and annoying, although this could’ve been due to the fact it aroused a sense of chivalry in him that he was reluctant to act on.
The news, when he heard it, didn’t make sense at first. He couldn’t understand it. He tried to think of every reasonable explanation, but the thing he kept coming back to was that she’d lied. She’d made up a story about him dying. Gradually this notion tunnelled its way into his brain and sat there, refusing to leave. To make things worse, he realized that she’d not only made up this terrible thing but she’d perpetuated the lie, long after he’d recovered. She’d sat by his hospital bed until he’d gradually got the strength to leave it, pushed him around the gardens, then spent days encouraging him during physio. There had been plenty of time to bring up the subject. And all the time he’d been struggling to cope with everything that had been thrown at him, not only his injuries but the sharp pain of a break-up as well. He’d got through, of course, but once or twice he’d gone to bed feeling so incredibly miserable it had been an effort not to break down.
How could she have done this to him? Why? He knew she didn’t like Cherry, but this was . . . sickening. He tried to breathe away the pain that had lodged itself in his chest. Part of him wanted an explanation, but he didn’t trust himself to speak to his mother yet. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say; her floundering or thin justification would likely repulse him. For the same reason, he didn’t call his dad either. He didn’t want to incriminate his mother and knew that with their relationship being as it was, his father would think her despicable. He couldn’t deal with any of that yet.
It didn’t take long to pack his few possessions. He looked around his room and knew this would be the last time he’d leave. Then he went downstairs. When he’d read the note from his mother that morning, it hadn’t made any great impact and he was around and happy to see how he could help. Now, however, he could read the restrained urgency between the lines – she wanted to get to him before Cherry, and no wonder. If Cherry hadn’t had the random, compassionate thought to bring over the photos, she probably would have done. He wondered if he would have reacted differently if it had been his mother who’d told him. He tried to imagine the words coming out of her mouth – ‘I pretended you were dead. I made up a funeral’ – and they sounded farcical yet at the same time breathtakingly callous. It reminded him of the sort of thing reported in sensationalist newspapers – mothers who pretended their children had cancer in order to elicit substantial donations.
He turned the note over, wrote something on the back and put it back on the worktop. Then he hitched his bag onto his shoulder and left the house, pulling the front door shut behind him. As he walked down the road, he thought there was one good thing to come out of this revelation: he’d seen Cherry again.
THIRTY-NINE
Wednesday 16 September
The receptionist at ITV Towers rang through for Alison while Laura filled in the visitor slip.
‘Mrs Cavendish?’
Laura looked up.
‘I’ve got her PA on the phone. She says there’s nothing in the diary.’
‘What?’
‘Alison’s out of the office.’
‘When’s she back?’
‘Not until this afternoon.’
It was ten in the morning. ‘But I have a meeting . . .’
The receptionist held up a finger and listened to something through her headpiece. ‘Her PA’s coming down.’
Laura moved aside for the throng behind her and checked her diary. She had the right time, so Alison must have forgotten. And it was supposed to be urgent. She watched the screens broadcasting a mix of the news and the morning’s property programme and wondered, irritated, when she’d be able to fit Alison in. This afternoon was already full, and she wanted to get back home early to talk to Daniel.
Rachel, the PA, came through the revolving doors. ‘Laura, there seems to be some mistake. We don’t have an appointment for you this morning.’
‘But you rang Willow. Yesterday afternoon.’
She frowned. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘She spoke to you. Something about casting?’
‘I promise you I didn’t.’
Something clicked in Laura’s brain and with it a growing sense of foreboding. She knew who was behind this.
‘My apologies. I’ll talk to Willow. She must have been mistaken,’ she said, and quickly left the building.
Once outside, she tried to still her racing heart. Someone had a camera set on a tripod outside that was pointing at the main entrance right where she was standing. It unnerved her, as if Cherry were somehow watching on a screen somewhere, the all-seeing eye. How had she found out? Laura quickly moved away from the lens of the camera. That thought had gone round and round in her head last night, but she still couldn’t work it out. There was one thing she was sure of, though – Cherry was behind this stunt. But why would she do something so silly, so juvenile as to send her on a wild goose chase, a meeting that didn’t exist? It was harmless in itself – unless she’d been deliberately placed out of the way. Jesus. Daniel.
Laura walked into her ominously quiet house and knew almost instantly that Cherry had been there before her. She felt a lingering sense of dread as she made her way through the empty rooms. The note left on the kitchen worktop said simply, ‘Seen Cherry. Decided to move back to the flat after all. Think it just makes things easier all round. Time I stood on my own two feet and got a little independence anyway. Dan.’