Jade moved to give her a hug as the inevitable tears welled up. God, she really was a weak specimen. ‘You’re doing it for you, Mel,’ she said forcefully. ‘For the children.’
Mel nodded. ‘Thanks, Jade,’ she said, smiling gratefully this time. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘No problem. That’s what friends are for,’ Jade assured her, squeezing her hand and turning for the door. ‘Indulge and enjoy. I’ll go and extract Poppy from in front of the TV before she gets square eyes.’
Fifty-Three
MARK
‘How are things?’ Lisa asked, when Mark picked up her call.
‘On a scale of one to ten, eleven.’ Coming through the front door, Mark sighed and wiped an arm across his forehead. He’d run until he thought his lungs would give out. He’d thought it would help channel some of his anger and sheer bloody frustration. It hadn’t.
‘That bad, hey?’
‘And some,’ Mark answered honestly. ‘How’re things with you?’
‘Wonderful. I love being in an office with Cummings strutting about like a dog with two dicks. Seems there’s a new lust in his life, poor cow. She’s obviously short-sighted or in serious need of counselling.’
Mark laughed, and then wondered when he’d last done that. ‘Any developments on the Daisy case?’ he asked her seriously. Even with the madness his life had become, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the little girl, to shake the nagging feeling that somehow, somewhere, she was alive.
‘Nothing. It’s gone cold. Looks like the powers that be will be scaling the investigation down. Sorry, Mark,’ Lisa said, dashing his hopes that someone might come forward with fresh information, that one of the team might come up with something in his absence.
Mark’s stomach knotted inside him. He’d let the girl down. He should have been on top of it, he thought, his frustration growing. He should have been on top of what was happening here, too, right under his nose, before it spiralled out of control. Before he lost the woman he’d loved with all of himself. Still loved.
‘Look, Mark, I’ve been meaning to ring you about something else. It might be nothing, but…’
‘Clearly you think it’s something,’ Mark prompted her, tugging his damp T-shirt over his head as he headed for the kitchen for a cold drink.
‘I’ve been doing some digging and—’
But Mark cut her off mid-sentence. ‘I have to go. I’ll call you back,’ he said quickly, abruptly ending the call.
‘Lisa?’ Mel asked him, from where she was standing by the fridge.
Mark cursed inwardly. ‘A work call,’ he said, feeling guilty, with no clue why.
‘Of course it was.’ Mel’s tone was flat. She didn’t look at him so much as through him. ‘Just orange,’ she said, indicating her glass pointedly, and then walked past him to the hall.
‘Shit…’ Mark muttered, fetching himself a coke from the fridge, and finding himself wishing he could have a whisky – or several. Consume so much alcohol he’d be comatose and oblivious to any of this. ‘Sod it,’ he said, parking himself heavily at the kitchen island. What happened? What in God’s name went so wrong? How? He stared upwards, as if there were a God up there who might answer him.
He wasn’t aware of Jade coming into the kitchen behind him.
‘Oh dear, I take it things are getting to you?’ she asked him sympathetically.
‘Just a bit.’ Mark smiled disconsolately.
Jade pressed an arm around his shoulders. Being half-naked, Mark felt somewhat awkward, but wasn’t sure how to extricate himself without offending her.
Jade saved him from any potential awkwardness. ‘Poppy’s ready for her bath,’ she said, giving his shoulders a reassuring squeeze and then moving towards the cooker. ‘She wants The Wheels on the Bus for her bedtime story.’
Mark looked at her with surprise.
‘She said to tell you to hurry up.’ Jade smiled and nodded him towards the stairs.
He was being allowed contact with his own kids? That was something, Mark supposed.
Fifty-Four
JADE
‘And then we had gymnastics…’ Jade could hear Poppy chatting to Mark about her school day as she crept along the landing. ‘But I don’t like it.’ Jade peeked around the bathroom door to see Poppy wearing her petulant, annoying little frown.
‘Oh, why’s that then?’ Mark asked.
‘Because I like swimming better,’ Poppy said, her little face pointing upwards as Mark carefully rinsed the soap from her hair. ‘Miss Winters calls me her little mermaid,’ she informed him importantly. ‘Cos I can hold my breath for seven whole… Ouch! Daddeee…’
‘Oops, sorry, Poppet. Hold on a sec.’ Mark got hastily to his feet as Poppy clamped her hands to her soap-stung eyes. ‘Damn,’ he muttered, turning for the towel to find it wasn’t there.
The missing towel in hand, Jade took a step back down the stairs as he emerged from the bathroom to head for the airing cupboard, Poppy whingeing behind him. ‘Daddy, it’s stinging.’
Jade sighed and, covered by the outwardly opening airing cupboard door, stepped quickly back up towards the bathroom. She didn’t have to dunk her, thankfully. Poppy had already taken it upon herself to look like a drowning mermaid.
Disappearing in the nick of time, as Mark reappeared, Jade waited at the top of the stairs. And sure enough… ‘Poppy!’ Mark shouted urgently. ‘Poppy!’
‘What the hell were you doing?’ he snapped angrily, plucking her from the water and swinging Poppy towards him, who clearly wasn’t drowned. More was the pity. Peering back around the door, Jade watched jealously on.
Startled by his tone, and the shocked look on his face, Poppy squirmed in his arms, attempting to wriggle away from him.
‘Poppy, stop.’ In danger of dropping her, Mark tried to hang onto her. ‘Poppy!’
‘I was holding my breath!’ Poppy cried, and promptly burst into tears.
‘Christ…’ Mark hugged her close. ‘I’m sorry, Poppy,’ he murmured throatily into her wet hair. ‘I thought…’
* * *
She was rewarded, of course. Melissa fussed and fawned all over the little brat, while Mark, who’d almost suffered a heart attack, lingered awkwardly in the background, looking shocked – and guilty. As if it was his fault. Honestly, did the woman who’d promised to love and cherish him really have to work so hard at compounding his guilt? Obviously, if the child had drowned, it would have been an accident. Yet, Melissa, who’d previously thought Mark was her knight in shining armour, was looking at him as if he were a complete monster, nothing but contempt in her eyes, which was all to the good, Jade supposed.
Poppy, oblivious to the trouble she’d caused, was now busy licking her bowl free of vanilla ice cream. Little pig. They ought to have christened her Pinky.
‘Come on, sweetie, let’s get you tucked up in bed.’ Melissa, who still had a towel wrapped around her hair, shot Mark another venomous look as she plucked Poppy from the stool at the island, as if the child had lost the use of her legs.
Mark said nothing, just kneaded his forehead in that frustrated way he did. Jade knew why. He was trying to avoid arguing in front of his children. Did the woman not have eyes? A brain in her rusty-haired head? Could she not see how much he cared for his children?
Jade pulled in a breath, blowing it angrily out through her nostrils, as she headed for the kettle. ‘I’ll make some hot chocolate,’ she said, working to keep her tone in check. ‘Would you like one, Mark?’
But he just stood there, looking for all the world like a lost soul. A lost, lonely soul.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Jade said, walking across to him and pressing a hand softly to his chest. ‘She didn’t come to any harm.’