‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘I know what you meant.’

  ‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ said Zac. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  As soon as he’d gone, Sarah turned on me. ‘Why do you always put me down?’

  ‘I don’t.’ I watched the man make his way across the room. ‘Does he know you went to …’

  I couldn’t even say the word ‘prison’ but she knew what I meant.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, do others here know too?’

  She glanced across to a pretty woman – also with bright red lipstick – clutching a mug of tea instead of booze. ‘Maybe Crystal. She was in my year at art school. I didn’t expect her to be here either. She lives in Florida now and, before you ask, she was one of the good girls.’

  Then my eye fell on that man again. I couldn’t help feeling jealous. ‘What about this Zac?’ I asked. ‘Did you two go out with each other at art college?’

  She flushed. ‘For a while. But it was just casual.’

  Her voice was defensive, in the way that some people speak when they are accused of something true.

  ‘He was touching your back.’

  ‘It was a sign of friendship. Nothing more.’

  People were beginning to look at us.

  ‘You’ve told enough lies in the past,’ I said, more quietly.

  ‘Don’t you think I know that? But, as you say, that was the past. I’m different now.’

  Then someone came up and tapped my wife on her shoulder. ‘I love that painting of the old lady in the corner. Could you tell me more about the inspiration behind her?’

  I was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable with all these people talking in what felt like a different language. Where were Olivia and Hugo? They had both promised to come.

  So I left.

  I could have gone home. But I didn’t.

  What was I doing, I asked myself, as I walked towards Hilary’s apartment. This was totally out of character for me. Or was it? The numbers seemed to have finally added up. The way in which Zac had touched my wife’s body had definitely suggested a certain familiarity.

  But it wasn’t just that. It was Freddie too. My son and my wife were ganging up on me. Whatever I suggested was wrong. I felt as though I was the odd one out with those two against me.

  ‘May I help you, sir?’ asked the porter.

  ‘Er, Miss Morton …’

  I hesitated. Hilary might not even be in.

  ‘Miss Morton,’ repeated the porter. ‘Apartment twenty-four. She’s at home, I believe. I could ring her, if you like.’

  ‘That would be very kind,’ I said in as casual a tone as I could muster.

  I tried to calm myself as I listened to the man on the phone.

  ‘She says to go straight up,’ he said. ‘Level Two.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  My heart was beating as I stepped into the lift. It wasn’t too late, I told myself as the doors closed. All I had to do was press the button marked Open. I could leave, ring Hilary from outside and concoct some excuse. But my hand wouldn’t move. I stayed in the lift as it began to ascend. It stopped on the second floor.

  I didn’t believe in fate but I felt my feet were taking a preordained path towards her. I rang the bell.

  Hilary was wearing a pretty blue floral dress. Her face looked worried. ‘Is everything all right, Tom?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ I said.

  She gestured me to enter. ‘That’s not like you to be uncertain.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, closing the door behind me.

  ‘But how did you know where I lived?’

  I felt myself blushing. ‘I’m afraid I made a note of your address from the office files some time ago.’

  And then – unable to stop myself – I bent down and kissed her.

  ‘We’re here,’ he says. ‘Are you ready?’

  I try to find my voice. But it won’t come out.

  ‘It’s cool!’ he laughs. ‘You’ll see. No one’s going to get hurt. I promise.’

  My heart is pounding. My stomach clenching like I’m going to be sick.

  But what choice do I have?

  26

  Sarah

  I haven’t told you about Zac before, but it was true what I’d said to Tom. It had just been a fling. And everything that came after that had made me blank out most of my life at art college. So Zac had disappeared along with the rest.

  What a shock it was to see him again after all those years! He said he’d spotted my picture in the local paper, alongside a listing of the exhibition, and guessed it was me.

  He was still wearing baggy jeans and had the same spiky red hair and nicotine-stained fingers. But he looked like a middle-aged man trying to be young. I’d fancied him, of course, when we’d gone out, but now I wondered what on earth I’d seen in him.

  I decided I’d be nice for a few minutes and then make an excuse. But he wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept putting his hand on my back. It made me uncomfortable, yet I was scared he’d say something if I showed it. That’s when Tom came up to us. I knew he’d read it the wrong way. And to be honest, I couldn’t blame him. So I wasn’t surprised when I found my husband had left without telling me. I had to stay late, helping to tidy up. Then I realized with a sickening feeling that Zac was still there. Eventually, I realized I’d have to talk to him.

  ‘Lovely to see you again.’ I smiled in what I hoped was a dismissive way.

  ‘Your husband isn’t the kind of man I thought I’d see you end up with,’ he said.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Pretty staid, I’d say.’

  ‘He’s a good man,’ I said shortly.

  ‘But does he give you the space to paint? Does he understand you on the inside?’

  ‘We have a son. He means everything to me.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked. I know you, Sarah.’

  ‘No you don’t. You knew the old me.’

  He reached out and touched the side of my face. ‘Do you know what I see?’

  I flinched. ‘No.’

  ‘I see the old Sarah.’

  ‘Please, Zac. Go.’

  ‘It wasn’t all your fault, you know. Emily was to blame too. She wasn’t quite as naive as you think.’

  ‘I’m leaving now.’ I raised my voice and one of the attendants looked over.

  ‘Fine, fine. I’m off. But be true to yourself, Sarah. If there’s nothing else I’ve learned in life, it’s that.’

  I was shaking as I walked home.

  When I got back, I found the sitter asleep in front of the television. So Tom still wasn’t home?

  I checked my phone for messages. Nothing from Tom or Olivia to explain her non-appearance. I didn’t care about Hugo, who hadn’t turned up either, but I was disappointed by my friend. She knew how important the exhibition was to me.

  ‘Everything all right?’ I asked the sitter.

  ‘Fine,’ she mumbled, clearly trying to pretend she hadn’t dozed off. She was one of the receptionists at the arts centre. I’d asked her twice before and Freddie seemed to accept her because she was ‘cool’, despite his previous objections about being too old for a sitter.

  ‘Freddie went up to bed as good as gold at nine o’clock,’ she continued, stumbling to her feet and stretching. ‘I haven’t heard a peep out of him since.’

  An uneasiness crawled through me. The house was very quiet. My son usually blasted out loud music from his room. Tom was always having a go at him about it. ‘I’ll just get some money from upstairs,’ I said. But I headed for Freddie’s room first. His door was shut.

  ‘You’ve got to knock, Mum.’

  It was his latest rule. I understood that. I’d never had much privacy when I was a teenager. My aunt was always barging in and out.

  When I went in, the duvet was rumpled and there were CDs and books and T-shirts strewn on the carpet. But no Freddie. Maybe he was in the bathroom? No.

  My heart skipped a beat. I ran down. ‘Are you sure he didn’t come downstairs?’ I asked the sitter.

  She frowned. ‘Quite certain.’

  Maybe he was in the kitchen, making a cheese toastie; that was something we did together as a late-night treat when Tom was working over.

  But he wasn’t.

  The downstairs loo?

  No.

  If my son had a mobile, I’d be able to ring it. But Tom said it might distract him from homework even though I’d been on Freddie’s side from a safety point of view. ‘It means I can get hold of him,’ I’d argued.

  ‘We didn’t have them in our day and we managed perfectly well without,’ my husband had answered back.

  Then I realized. My son’s black hoodie that he’d made me buy him instead of a smarter jacket that I preferred, had gone. So too had his trainers.

  ‘He must have sneaked out,’ I said tightly. ‘Didn’t you see him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then maybe you shouldn’t have bloody well been asleep!’

  I didn’t normally swear. Not any more. But I could feel hysteria rising. Freddie had never done this before. Where had he gone? And where was Tom?

  I rang my husband’s mobile. It went straight to voicemail. I tried again. The same.

  ‘Freddie’s gone missing,’ I said, hearing my voice rise with panic. ‘Ring me.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ asked the sitter. She sounded worried, as well she might.

  ‘Stay here in case he comes back. Ring me if he does. I’m going out to look for him.’

  ‘But I really need to get home.’

  ‘And I need to find my son who you should have been looking after,’ I snapped. Seeing Zac earlier and then finding Freddie had gone missing was bringing all the old fear and anger back. If anyone had touched my son, I’d kill them.

  I ran out into the cold night air. The clocks had recently gone back, and although it had been dark now for some time, it felt even blacker than usual. I’d forgotten, in my panic, to put on my own coat as I’d dashed out of the house but I wasn’t going back now. ‘Freddie!’ I yelled out. ‘Freddie!’

  A dog walker passed. ‘Have you seen a boy in a black hoodie?’ I asked urgently.

  ‘Sorry.’

  I ran on, looking to my right and left as I went. Freddie had been going on about a dog ever since he was little. ‘I want one, Mum.’ But Tom vetoed it. ‘They moult. It might make Freddie’s childhood asthma come back. They’re a tie.’

  If I find Freddie, I told myself, I will make Tom allow us a dog. Where the hell was my husband? I rang his number again without stopping and almost slipped over the edge of the pavement into the road. ‘Please leave a message …’

  My stomach began to freefall with panic. I could already hear the sirens. The searches with the dogs. A body in the woody part of the park …

  ‘Freddie?’ I yelled out again. ‘Freddie!’

  27

  Tom

  I woke around one a.m. to find six missed calls from Sarah followed by numerous texts. I rang the number, wondering as I did so how I was going to explain my absence. It went through to my wife’s voice message.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the voice beside me.

  ‘Freddie wasn’t home when Sarah got back,’ I said, leaping out of bed. I don’t normally leap but the message had shaken me. ‘The sitter said he’d sneaked out.’

  ‘Is he back now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sarah’s phone is going through to voicemail. I need to go.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Hilary sounded as calm and understanding as she had when I’d come round the previous night. I hadn’t meant to sleep with her. I might not have done if I hadn’t seen her again at the conference, which was why I’d been late for Sarah’s art exhibition. And I might not have gone round to hers if it hadn’t been for Zac and the thought that he and his arty friends might be laughing at me. I could just imagine what they’d be saying. Have you seen the geek that Sarah’s married? Chalk and cheese, aren’t they? Wonder if he knows …

  It was the last straw after everything else. But now the guilt was overwhelming. I was a husband. A father. What had I done? I was no better than my own father.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done this,’ I said, pulling on my trousers. ‘It was a mistake. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was wonderful.’ Hilary was sitting up. Her breasts were unashamedly on show, hanging gloriously over the duvet; each perfectly proportioned without a third nipple or any other blemish.

  ‘But also wrong.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’ve never slept with a married man before. I feel appallingly guilty.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said quickly.

  ‘And it’s not yours.’

  Her voice was sad. ‘The thing is, Tom, that you married the wrong woman.’

  How very true.

  I was in a lose–lose situation. If I left Sarah, I’d feel terrible for the rest of my life. It meant breaking my marriage vows and abandoning my son. Even if I saw him for access, it wouldn’t be the same.

  But if I stayed, it meant putting up with Freddie’s awful behaviour until he went to college, and living with a woman I had nothing in common with.

  ‘If only I had met you earlier,’ I murmured, pressing my lips on the top of her head.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I wish that too. Now go home and check your son is all right.’

  ‘Can I see you again? Just as friends?’

  ‘No. We both know that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Don’t we?’

  She turned away, but not before I glimpsed tears in her eyes. ‘Have a good life, Tom.’

  28

  Sarah

  I had to find my son.

  I was crossing a park now. A man was sitting on a bench, his toothless mouth gaping open in sleep. He was snoring. There was a bottle of whisky lying at his side. Could he have seen him? I stood over him, wondering whether to wake this stranger. This could have been me once. I had been on the verge of being homeless again when Tom had rescued me. And now look at us. How could my life have gone so wrong again?

  Must find Freddie.

  There were more benches. More people asleep or drinking. ‘Lost your bloke, have you, love?’ slurred one.

  ‘My son,’ I said.

  ‘Oi!’ He put his fingers to his lips and whistled. ‘Listen up, everyone. This lady’s lost her boy.’

  ‘How old is he, love?’ said a woman with a red beanie pulled down over her forehead and a cigarette in her hand.

  ‘Fourteen,’ I said.

  ‘Got black hair, has he?’

  ‘Yes!’

  A bolt of fear and relief shot through me.

  ‘I saw him over there with Angus, a while back.’

  A man? So he’d been taken. My legs gave way and I sank down to the ground. Oh my God! A paedophile had got him …

  ‘It’s all right, love.’

  The woman with the beanie was speaking. She was helping me to my feet. ‘Angus is OK. He won’t hurt your boy. Come with me. We’ll find him.’

  Her hand – the one without the cigarette – was clasping mine like a claw. Her nails were biting into my palm.

  ‘You said he was all right. Is he dangerous?’

  ‘No. Just sensitive, like. Life hasn’t been kind to him. There he is. See? Is that your kid?’

  Tears rolled down my face as I ran towards the figure sitting close to an old man on a bench. There was a black sleeping bag spread across their knees. ‘Freddie!’ I screamed.

  He looked up at me. ‘Mum?’ His voice sounded surprised.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I panted.

  He shrugged as if I’d asked a silly question. ‘I told you before. I’m too old for a sitter. She told me to go to my room and I got bored. So I went out. Then I met up with Angus.’

  ‘You’re not meant to talk to strangers,’ I hissed.

  ‘He’s not a stranger. Are you, Angus? I say hello to him every day on the way back from school. He used to live here when he was a boy. In fact, he’s been telling me stories about what it was like in those days.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  I’d never heard Freddie sound so articulate before. In fact, those were the longest sentences he’d uttered for … I don’t know how long. Then I got it. Freddie felt like an outsider. Exactly as I had at his age. Maybe this Angus did too. The two of them had bonded.

  ‘You’ve got a bright boy here,’ the man said.

  ‘Thank you. But we need to be getting home now.’

  The conversation felt incongruously polite.

  ‘Can’t Angus come with us?’ pleaded Freddie. ‘He gets cold here at night and his rheumatism is playing up.’

  Tom would have a heart attack if he came back to find a homeless man on our sofa.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I took from my pocket the twenty-pound note that I had been going to pay the sitter with. ‘Buy yourself some breakfast with this in the morning.’

  Angus snatched it swiftly. ‘Ta.’

  Whenever I’d given people money on the street, Tom always said it would be used for drugs or drink and that I was helping to fuel their habits. (His only exception had been to ‘pay off’ Kelly.) But I’d known what it was like to be cold and hungry. And if my money was going to allow this poor man to get through another night, what was the harm in that? Besides, Freddie was safe.

  ‘You must never do that again,’ I said as we walked home.

  ‘Why?’

  There were times when I thought my son was old beyond his years and others when he appeared almost like a child. ‘I’ve told you before. You can’t always trust strangers.’

  ‘But everyone’s a stranger until you get to know them. Aren’t you always saying that, too?’

  ‘Yes … but as you get older, you learn to tell who is good and who isn’t.’

  ‘Does that always work?’

  No. It didn’t. But how could I explain that?

  ‘Please don’t go out of the house again without telling me. You’ve already been suspended from school. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Are you going to tell Dad?’

  His voice was small. Worried. Tom’s tongue could be scathing.

 

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