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Hannah shuddered. ‘What happened?’
Molly paused. ‘It was fine. Her parents were overjoyed, and they all lived happily ever after. Yup, it was all fine.’ Though when she thought back to the movie, she remembered that it had been far from fine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HANNAH – NOW
‘How was golf?’ I ask Rob as soon as he arrives home, but it’s only a way to try to extinguish the fire I see burning in his eyes as he walks in, a small duffel bag in his hand. I know he’ll want to pick up from where we left off before he went on the guys-only get-together; want to know why I had those photographs hidden in the safe, because it will have been swilling through his mind as he putted that ball around.
‘I’m not staying, Hannah,’ he says, surprising me. Unusually, he doesn’t appear hung-over and there’s no golf bag or dirty laundry evident.
‘What?’ Stupidly, I glance at the oven. I’m cooking his favourite dinner – Moroccan chicken – a futile attempt at distraction and appeasement. ‘Why?’
‘This is all wrong.’ His hand gestures between the pair of us. ‘You hid explicit photographs of our daughter and a dead girl from me and have absolutely no explanation.’ His face is pinched and tired, as though he’s being eaten up from the inside out. His mood is far from the usual alcohol-dulled yet contented vibe he normally returns with.
‘Rob, don’t.’ I go over to him and hold onto his forearms, catching the stale tang of cigarettes. I’ve never known Rob to smoke before. ‘We need to talk. It’s not what you’re thinking at all.’ A fine time to change my tune. In all our time together, we’ve always had each other’s backs, always vowed that whatever the other did, we’d stand by them – though we’ve never sealed our vows in marriage. None of this is for better or worse, for richer or poorer. It suddenly feels like it’s every man for themselves.
‘I just came back for some stuff.’ He pulls away from me, about to leave the kitchen, but stops. ‘Did you talk to Belle about the photographs? Hashebeen here?’
I hang my head. ‘No, not yet. And no, he hasn’t. He’s still in London, apparently, and Belle is moping around like a wet weekend because he’s not messaging her.’ I decide not to mention about Belle driving the car.
Rob’s expression changes, softens a little.
‘I’m hoping it’ll fizzle out, Rob, that everything will go back to normal.’ I know it won’t. Not until Darren gets what he wants – the money or, if not, then he’ll take Belle instead. ‘I don’t want you to go.’ I imagine him holed up in a hotel, drumming his fingers as he tries to work out what happened to our family – why Belle is engaged to a man old enough to be her father and why I hid those photographs. Deep down, I know he wants to go to the police, yet he’s wondering what I’m hiding, if he still sees me in the same way. The answer for him is to run away. ‘We need to pull together, not tear our family apart. Can’t you see that?’
His shoulders drop and he takes a step towards me. I know that if he just pulls me into his arms, allows me to melt into him, we’ll be able to work it out. I’ll explain everything, tell him what happened, how Belle and I fled for our lives, the terrible thing I had to do to get away, why Darren is blackmailing me, and then he’ll forgive me. We’ll sort out this mess together and everything will go back to normal. But that doesn’t happen, because the doorbell rings. Over and over again, the old bell cutting another line between us as we stand face to face, unmoving.
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’
I nod. When I open the front door, two young faces stare up at me. Each of the girls has a small backpack slung over their shoulders.
‘Leanne,’ I say, shocked to see her and her sister standing there. Leanne puts an arm around Kate.
‘Is it still OK if we stay?’ she says.
‘Of…of course.’ Even with everything going on, I can’t possibly turn them away. Then I feel a presence behind me. Rob. I hear him say something, but I can’t untangle the words in my mind. There’sfuckandall we needandhotelandmessand I know he’s absolutely right, but the expressions on those girls’ faces does something to me when I think what the alternative is for them. ‘Rob, they need us. Please…’ But when I turn around, I see Rob striding up the stairs two at a time. ‘Come in,’ I say to the girls, holding the door wider, locking it behind them as if it might somehow prevent Rob from leaving.
In the kitchen, I make them hot tea with sugar and sit them on the big sofa that faces out over the garden. It’s still light, and Kate’s eyes grow wide when she sees the wooden swings and tree house climbing frame that Amber and Belle haven’t played on for years.
‘It got too much,’ Leanne says. ‘Back home.’
‘I understand,’ I tell her. ‘I really do.’ Then I serve them some of the chicken that I have in the oven, along with some microwaved rice. They sit at our table, forking the food into their mouths in silence as though they haven’t eaten properly for a week. Their skinny frames tell me they probably haven’t.
‘I’ll be right back,’ I tell them and go to find Rob in our bedroom, sitting on the bed with an empty suitcase beside him and his head in his hands.
‘I gave a man your number,’ I say simply for the sake of starting a dialogue. ‘Grant Webster. He wanted financial advice about something. Did he call?’ My hope is that by possibly gaining him a new client, I will score more points and he won’t pack and leave, and I won’t have to deal with Belle and Leanne and Kate and this whole sorry mess alone. ‘The girls will be gutted if you go.’
Rob shakes his head, staring at his lap. ‘I…I’m not leaving,’ he tells me and the knot of fear in my stomach unravels a little. He looks up at me. ‘That’s the last thing I want. But…but those work problems I told you about,’ he says, wiping his hands down his tired face. ‘They’re not quite so little as I made out. And they haven’t gone away.’
‘Oh, Rob…It’ll be OK.We’llbe OK,’ I say, sitting down beside him. Our shoulders are touching. Almost a united front again. How can I tell him that Darren is about to tighten the noose around my neck so that I’ll have to sell the house? It’s that, or lose Belle to him. Now they’ve found me, they won’t let go. I was kidding myself about it fizzling out, about Darren ghosting Belle and leaving us alone. I know that won’t happen.
‘Who are those girls downstairs?’ he asks, and I explain. The effort of pulling even a vaguely exasperated expression seems too much for him, but the brief nod tells me that he’s not going to fight it, that putting them up for a few nights isn’t going to hurt.
‘Natalia will look after them,’ I say, knowing that’s true. ‘Did he call you? That Grant chap?’
Rob shakes his head. ‘One new client isn’t going to change anything, Han,’ he confesses. ‘Is he an investor, or what?’
‘I don’t know. Just some guy who helped me when…’ I haven’t told Rob that I met up with Jack…Darren…in the pub that night, how Grant intervened when he got angry. ‘It was when I had car troubles, and Grant got me going. I mentioned you and what you did for work. That’s all.’
