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‘What were youthinking, calling the police?’ Andy demands, as soon as the front door shuts. ‘She loved that cat almost as much as the kids did. So did I, come to that. She wanted to let me say goodbye to him, and you call thepoliceon her!’
‘You weren’t here,’ I say furiously. ‘She was pounding on the door like a lunatic! She really scared me, Andy!’
He pours himself a hefty measure of Scotch from the cabinet in the sitting room. ‘You’re blowing this way out of proportion. What do you think she was threatening to do? Hurt Kit? Hurtme?’
Put like that, it does sound ridiculous. But I saw her face when she threw the cat at me. I wouldn’t put it past her to do anything, strike at anyone, to get at me.
‘This thing between you two has gone far enough,’ Andy says brusquely. ‘I should never have let you talk me into taking her back to court. I’m calling the lawyerin the morning to tell him to back off. Lou was out of order taking the job at Whitefish, and I’ve told her that, but accusing her of assaulting you with a dead cat and calling thepolice?’ His expression is stony and unforgiving. ‘You and Louise need to bury the hatchet, and preferably not in each other’s backs.’
‘Andy—’
‘Enough, Caz. I’ve had a long day. I really don’t want to hear it.’
He throws himself onto the sofa, leaning his head back against the cushions and closing his eyes, terminating the conversation. There’s no point trying to get him to understand. He knows what Louise is capable of, but he simply refuses to see it.
I’m suddenly filled with cold, hard fury. He’s so goddamnweak. I always thought he had such a strong personality, but as I look at him now, I recognise he is no more than a skilled chameleon, reflecting the image of the beholder, perfectly designed for the shallow medium of television. All men to all people, and none of it real.
How can I have lived with this man for more than four years, and not seen it? He should be holding the line with me against Louise, and instead, he refuses to choose sides because he still wants her to love him, whether or not he loves her. He seems suddenly insubstantial and two-dimensional, no more than a cypher for the battle playing out between Louise and me.
My mother was right; Andy is almost incidental now. Whether we like it or not, Louise and I are locked inmortal combat, tied to each other by something that goes far deeper than our connection to Andy. A duel to the death, my mother called it. I’m beginning to think she’s right.
Chapter 26
Louise
I’m a journalist. Finding people is what I do.
I peer through the rain-spotted windscreen at the rundown red-brick building across the road. Most people aren’t difficult to track down, once you start digging. These days, it’s almost impossible not to leave a virtual trail unless you make a serious effort to go off-grid. Social media, public records: it’s all there, just a click away. And what you can’t find online is usually easy to ferret out with a few phone calls. I never go through a press office – they’re always far too wary – but if you talk to the real gatekeepers, the administrators and secretaries and switchboard operators, it’s amazing how far good manners can take you. Sometimes I have to stretch the truth a little, mainly through omission; people make assumptions, and I don’t bother to correct them. But I don’t even have to tell a little white lie to find Caz’s mother. The staffing manager at her care home gives me all the information I need over the phone, without even asking who I am.
I collect my bag from the passenger seat and get out of the car.I’m done with sitting at home waiting to see where Caz is going to strike next. If I’d fought fire with fire earlier, maybe Bagpuss wouldn’t be dead now.
Killing a cat isn’t the revenge of a jealous woman. Taking my daughter to get her tongue pierced, having me fired – those were spiteful and unpleasant, but the kind of thing many women might do, given sufficient provocation. What Caz did to Bagpuss is psychopathic. I’m terrified of what she might do next, to the children or me. I need to know exactly what it is I’m dealing with. I don’t expect a smoking gun, but I’ve been a reporter for a long time. Iknowthere is something more to Caz’s story, something in her background I need to find out.
What frightens me most is the hold Caz seems to have on Bella. I thought my daughter wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her after Bagpuss, but she simply refuses to believe Caz was involved. Perhaps I went about it the wrong way, racing up to London to confront Caz last week, but I was too angry and upset to think strategically.
‘Ofcourseit was her!’ I shouted, when Bella accusedmeof being the crazy one. ‘Who else would have done it?’
‘Literallyanyone!’ Bella cried. ‘That loony farmer, kids, who knows! Caz isn’t some kind of psycho! She’d never do anything like that!’
I slammed the topaz-coloured earring onto the kitchen table between us. ‘Youwere the one who found this lying in the drive right by the garage,’ I snapped. ‘Tell me how it got there, since Caz has never been to our house!’
‘I told you! The stupid earring probably just fell out of the car!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘She’s been driving it the last four years, remember?’
The only thing that sustained me during the long dark nights of grief and misery after Andrew left was the knowledge that I still had the best of him: that Caz might steal my husband, but she could never take my motherhood, my children, from me. Listening to my daughter take her side against me hurts more than anything I’ve known since Nicky’s death.
The rain intensifies as I lock my car now and cross the road towards the care home. At first glance, it’s easy to assume Caz comes from money, with her English rose complexion and perfect Home Counties accent. But I always knew there was something off about her: even the younger royals adopt a glottal stop these days. Andrew clearly bought into her act. He’s a terrible snob: a working-class boy from a Manchester council estate who made good but has never quite trusted his success; he’s always had a thing for posh girls. My family’s cash had run out by the time I was born, but my parents still have the odd silver chafing dish knocking about the place, and Andrew used to dine out on the fact my godfather’s a baronet. I’m willing to bet good money he has no idea his current mother-in-law lives in a council care home in Dagenham.
I push open the door into the lobby, and am instantly assailed by an institutional smell of marker pens and boiled cabbage. It’s the weekend, and there’s no one behind the cheap Formica reception desk, which islittered with several half-drunk mugs of cold coffee, as if abruptly abandoned mid-shift. I lean over it, looking for a buzzer to summon someone. The blocky computer crammed onto the end of the desk hails from the last century, and a stack of cardboard manila patient files are propped carelessly to one side. The entire place oozes neglect and lack of funds, and I’m still front of house. God knows what the rest of the home is like if this is the face they present to the world.
A woman suddenly appears from a small office on the far side of the lobby, wiping mayonnaise from her lips. A prawn sandwich, judging by the small crustaceans clinging to the substantial shelf of her bright blue sweatshirt. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks suspiciously.
‘I’m here to see Ruth Clarke,’ I say.
‘Friend or family?’
I hesitate. ‘It’s personal,’ I prevaricate.
‘Room 243,’ the woman says, already bored. ‘Second floor. You’ll have to take the stairs – the lift’s not working.’
