‘But it doesn’t matter,’ Samantha said, squeezing her hands into fists under the water. ‘None of it does. Not just now. Daddy?’ She paused, feeling sick to her stomach. ‘Did you get us the money?’

  12

  We left the hospital behind and I drove slowly through the foggy centre of Bodmin, then out the other side, the weight of my decision bearing down on me.

  I moved restlessly in my seat, but I couldn’t get comfortable.

  Was Paul staring at the back of my head and fuming? Did he resent how things had turned out and might he vent his frustrations, somehow?

  A wave of nausea hit me. The air was hot and clammy. My eyes felt dry and scrubbed, and I had a sudden urge to pee.

  Reaching out to the centre console, I turned the heating dial to cool air and directed the vents until they were blowing at my face. I was tempted to crack the window, but I didn’t because I was afraid of waking Lila and I wanted to be able to hear anything Paul might say.

  Rolling my shoulders, I took a few deep breaths, and then – after waiting for as long as I dared – I glanced at Samantha in my mirror again.

  This time, she didn’t blink at me. She gave me a watery smile instead.

  My stomach turned over.

  If only you knew. If only I could tell you I’m not someone you can rely on.

  Because I wasn’t strong enough for this responsibility. I could barely look after myself.

  ‘Are you feeling OK?’ Ben asked me. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

  ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘We’re sorry,’ Samantha said. ‘We delayed you. Maybe you should switch drivers for a bit?’

  ‘We can’t.’ Ben looked a bit embarrassed as he glanced back over his shoulder. ‘I’ve been taking lessons but I haven’t passed my test yet.’

  ‘Paul could take over, if you like? Abi, you could sit in the back with Lila and me.’

  No.

  I didn’t want that. I couldn’t cope. It was better if I kept my distance from Lila, even if that distance was only small.

  And I didn’t trust Paul to drive us. I didn’t trust him, full stop. There was just a really unpleasant energy about him. Perhaps I should have said I was happy to give Samantha and Lila a lift, but not him, but I couldn’t imagine he’d have agreed to it.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said again.

  ‘We could talk?’ Samantha suggested. ‘That might help?’

  I didn’t want to talk, either. I just wanted to get through this. How long would the drive take? Three hours, maybe? After rubbing my eyes and nose, I glanced at the satnav before returning my attention to the road.

  ‘You mentioned you’re a nanny,’ Samantha said. ‘That must be rewarding.’

  A lump formed in my throat.

  Ben tensed and looked across at me, probably asking himself if he should intervene.

  ‘It can be,’ I managed.

  ‘Do you have a regular position?’

  ‘I did. Then I worked for an agency for a while.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  But she didn’t.

  She couldn’t.

  Ben touched my leg and, when I glanced at him, he mouthed the word ‘sorry’ to me.

  My temples buzzed. My hands felt jittery on the wheel.

  Then a loud bing made me jump.

  ‘What was that?’ Paul barked.

  ‘Low fuel warning,’ I told him, through the rush of blood in my ears. ‘I’m going to have to stop for petrol.’

  Saturday Evening

  6.22 p.m.

  Daddy? Did you get us the money?

  Samantha heard herself say those words and, with a sudden cold horror, she was back in her own kitchen, at 5 a.m., hearing the woman – the bitch who was bouncing Lila up and down on her knee – say almost the same words.

  ‘Do you have the money?’

  Not that either of them had answered. Not right away.

  It was the shock, she told herself.

  That was all.

  Then Paul had croaked, ‘Let my daughter go,’ his voice sounding as if someone was crushing his throat.

  Gaping up at him from where she was sprawled on the floor, Samantha had understood his mistake immediately. She’d known it even before the woman worked an exaggerated frown, tipping her head to one side in apparent confusion.

  ‘Let her go? Are you sure you want me to do that, Paul?’

  Because she was holding Lila in her outstretched arms above the marble floor tiles they’d had installed.

  Real Italian marble. An eye-wateringly expensive choice. Another luxury item Paul had insisted on.

  ‘I’m surprised you’d want me to do that. But how about this? How about you both come and sit down over here with me instead?’

  She’d said it as if it was her house, not theirs. As if she was being polite and civil, ignoring the fact that she shouldn’t be there, had no right to be there, that she’d taken Lila from her cot without either of them hearing and was right then jiggling her up and down in front of them as though it was perfectly acceptable behaviour.

  The woman was dressed in stylish business attire. A cream silk blouse that tapered down into a charcoal pencil skirt. Hair scraped back into a gleaming ponytail, revealing her sharp cheekbones and hawkish face. She could have passed for a businesswoman or a banker who’d been working all through the night to close a big deal. The only hint of something slightly untoward about her appearance was a tiny, whitish half-moon scar that bisected her left eyebrow.

  ‘Sit down,’ the woman said. ‘Now.’

  Samantha barely reacted as Paul ducked and seized hold of her arm, lifting her hastily and then guiding her to the wooden chairs that faced the woman across the table, the legs scraping on the tiles as they sat down.

  Lila gurgled happily when she saw her, grasping for her with her hands, and Samantha trembled with the desperate need to reach out for her daughter in turn, but the woman simply clucked her tongue and pulled Lila away.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said, as if it was a game – one that Lila, dizzyingly, seemed to enjoy.

  ‘You want coffee or tea?’ the man in the dinner jacket asked.

  Samantha had almost forgotten he was there, so transfixed was she by the woman who was now turning Lila around, making babbling noises, rubbing her nose against Lila’s. For a moment, she wondered if they’d been to a party, or maybe a casino. Not that it explained why they were here.

  ‘No,’ Paul muttered.

  ‘Toast?’

  ‘Just tell us what you want.’

  ‘OK, Paul.’ The woman smiled, but it was a hard and menacing smile, something shifting in her eyes, like a switch being thrown. Up close, the scar that crossed her eyebrow shimmered under the bright kitchen lighting and Samantha found herself wondering, impossibly, if the woman had suffered some sort of mishap with a piercing. ‘But I think you already know why I’m here. I don’t need to tell you who employs me, do I?’

  ‘I’m getting them their money,’ Paul replied.

  ‘But not quickly enough.’ She rubbed noses with Lila again, holding her under her arms, twisting her from side to side. ‘Lila,’ she cooed, ‘your daddy made some very bad choices. Some very unfortunate choices. And now he owes some very bad people a lot of money. And those people have hired me to make sure he pays.’

  ‘How much?’ Samantha asked. It took all her strength to force the words out. All she wanted to do was surge up and grab Lila from the woman, shove her backwards in her chair, then dart out of the kitchen and run, run, run.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  Samantha scanned the table quickly. The surface was uncluttered. There were no utensils close at hand, no crockery she could smash, no weapon she could improvise. Behind her, the man in the dinner jacket scraped a butter knife across a piece of toast with menacing patience.

  ‘I want to hear you say it.’

  ‘Oh?’ She pantomimed shock, then moved Lila to one side and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Is that because you don’t trust Paul? That’s probably wise. It’s two hundred and thirty thousand.’

  ‘Two hundred and thirty?’ Paul spluttered.

  ‘Was, I should say. The extra delay attracts extra interest. How soon can you pay?’

  ‘But that’s—’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘I told you, I’m working on it,’ Paul said, panicking now, but the woman was ignoring him, lifting Lila way up high again, Lila giggling in response. ‘We’ve already sold our cars,’ he added hurriedly, half standing from his chair. ‘I’m rushing through some new apartment sales. They should be completed in—’

  ‘Let’s call it two hundred and fifty thousand in cash by nine a.m. on Sunday, shall we?’

  Paul sank back down.

  Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

  Two hundred and fifty.

  ‘Oh, and just so you know.’ She lowered Lila, bouncing her on her knees, tilting her from side to side as if she was a puppet as she fixed on Samantha. ‘You can forget the equity in this place. Because there isn’t any. Did he tell you that?’

  He had. Paul had confessed everything to her, kneeling at her feet as he explained how he’d taken out a second mortgage on their home without her knowledge. Then there were the legitimate business loans, all of them maxed out. The credit card debt. Her Lexus had been owned under a finance deal, but they’d got some money out of Paul’s BMW. A little. That first afternoon when Samantha had gone to the bank, she’d withdrawn the savings in the account her mum and dad had set up in her name (not Paul’s) as a wedding day gift. They’d sold a bunch of their belongings on eBay and Facebook: iPads, televisions, exercise equipment, even their washing machine and dryer. They’d scraped together just over seventy thousand pounds. And that still left . . .

  She felt breathless.

  One hundred and eighty thousand.

  ‘You understand what happens if you don’t pay?’ the woman asked, slowly walking her fingers up Lila’s arm, then tickling her chest, so very close to her throat. ‘Or if you go to the police?’

  ‘Yes,’ Samantha whispered, feeling as if invisible hands were squeezing her windpipe. ‘We understand. Now, please, give me my baby back.’

  13

  Something changed between Paul and Samantha. A hanging silence. A hovering tension.

  ‘How soon until you have to stop?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Soon,’ I told him, hunching over the steering wheel, wiping at the windscreen with a cloth again.

  We’d passed several petrol stations in the middle of Bodmin, but now that we were on the far outskirts of the town, I had no idea how long it would be until we’d see another.

  ‘You probably have forty miles in the tank.’

  Samantha wriggled forward in her seat. ‘It seems a shame to stop so soon after we’ve got going again, don’t you think?’

  I didn’t think. I also didn’t understand why they were making such a big deal out of it. Right now, I just wanted a bit of space and time to get my head together outside of the car, maybe do a few of the breathing exercises my app had taught me. I’d gone from doing everything I could not to be around babies and small children, to having one in my car with me on a long journey through the night. It was a lot.

  ‘I need a comfort break,’ I told her. ‘And there’s a chance this fog might clear a bit if we stop.’

  I also wanted an opportunity to talk to Samantha alone. If she came with me to the ladies’ toilets, I hoped I could manage that.

  ‘I don’t remember there being any petrol stations on this section of the road,’ Paul said dubiously.

  ‘Ben?’ I nodded to his phone. ‘Can you check?’

  Ben picked up his mobile and flicked and tapped at the screen with his thumbs, making a humming noise in his throat.

  ‘It looks like there’s a new place a bit further along. Just before we join the A38.’

  ‘What about after that?’ Samantha asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. But we might as well try this one first.’

  Again, I felt grateful to Ben for backing me up, and I gave him a small smile, although I couldn’t help wishing he hadn’t made me stop for them in the first place. I knew that was uncharitable. I suspected now that Samantha had needed our help more than we could have possibly known. But part of me really wished it was just the two of us again. There was a lot I needed to discuss with Ben, and it was going to be difficult for me, but in my head I’d thought it might be easier if we talked while I was driving. Now, we weren’t going to get that chance.

  I focused on the road again, aware that the silence in the car had become strained.

  ‘Is there a problem with us stopping?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ Samantha sank back into her seat. ‘No problem.’

  I looked for her in the mirror, but this time she didn’t look back, preferring to turn her bandaged hand from side to side, poking at the dressing. Paul’s knees were bumping into my back through my seat as his legs jiggled up and down.

  Next to me, Ben returned his phone to the central console, then rubbed his hands down over his thighs before inclining his head towards the rear.

  ‘Do you come down to Cornwall often?’ he asked.

  A pause.

  ‘No,’ Paul replied. ‘Not often.’

  ‘How many times a year would you say?’

  ‘Once or twice.’

  Which didn’t sound all that frequent given that Samantha’s parents were based here, and that Lila was their grandchild. But if there were issues between Paul and his in-laws, that probably explained it.

  Reaching for the cloth again, I rubbed at another patch of condensation on the windscreen. It didn’t seem to make much difference. I couldn’t tell if that was because visibility was getting worse or if the blowers weren’t working very well on my car.

  ‘What line of work are you in, Paul?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Property development.’

  ‘Commercial or residential?’

  ‘A bit of both.’

  ‘I guess that can be stressful.’

  Another pause. ‘It can be.’

  ‘But profitable?’

  Read the room, Ben, I thought, because clearly Paul wasn’t in the right frame of mind to discuss this, even if Ben thought that by starting a conversation he could smooth over the awkwardness between us all.

  I tried my lights on full beam again, but that didn’t help either. I dipped them, peering ahead. Where was this petrol station?

  ‘How about you, Ben?’ Samantha asked. ‘What is it you do?’

  ‘I’m a lawyer.’

  ‘A criminal lawyer?’

  ‘No, I work on the corporate side of things. Mergers and acquisitions.’

  ‘And you’ve been called into work tomorrow?’

  He shot me a guilty look. ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘And do the two of you live together?’ Samantha asked, switching things up.

  This was getting a bit too personal, though perhaps Samantha thought it was fair game after Ben and I had quizzed Paul. Maybe she thought it was safer to keep the focus off them. Or perhaps it was simply the enforced intimacy of the five of us being in my small car together, late at night, in the dark and the fog, sharing the same confined space.

  ‘At the moment we do,’ Ben told her.

  Cold fingers wrapped around my heart and squeezed. The fog from outside seemed to invade the interior of my car, like a choking smog.

  At the moment.

  As if that was likely to change. As if it was only a temporary arrangement.

  I pressed down too hard on the accelerator and the engine surged for a second before I recovered.

  Was Ben expecting us to break up? Had he anticipated what I’d been planning to talk to him about, or had he been thinking about us splitting for some time?

  I knew I hadn’t been easy to be around lately. I knew we’d been struggling. I had doubts of my own – big ones – I suppose it just hadn’t really struck me until now that Ben might have doubts, too.

  ‘It mostly depends on whether Abi gets another job as a nanny, because if she does and it’s a live-in position, we’ll have to adapt to that.’

  Something fluttered inside my chest, like a moth in the dark.

  I tried to dial into the way Ben had said it, wondering if he was just covering for having said too much.

  ‘Oh, is there some doubt about you getting another role as a nanny?’ Samantha asked. ‘Are you considering a change in career?’

  Saturday Evening

  6.23 p.m.

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as just getting the money,’ Samantha’s father said.

  Samantha’s vision swam. Bile crawled up her throat.

  For a sickening moment, she had an image of the woman in their kitchen again, bouncing Lila on her knee, holding her aloft above the hard, tiled floor.

  They needed the money. They had to have the money.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Samantha said, drying her hands on a tea towel, her body beginning to quake. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are protocols in place.’ Her father shook his head gravely. ‘Security measures. Anyone who asks to withdraw one hundred and eighty thousand pounds in cash.’ He sighed and glanced at her mother with his clouded eye. ‘This is not an everyday request, Samantha.’

  ‘But they know you.’

  ‘Which makes it worse. I had to approach a former colleague, appeal for his help on a confidential basis.’

  ‘Yes, Dad, I get it. But please, please, tell me you got us the money.’

  14

  Anxiety hummed inside me like a tuning fork.

  A change in career.

  Was that an innocent question, or had Samantha picked up on my unease around Lila?

  The engine note droned. The steering wheel juddered. The fog pulsed and contracted in front of me like a living organism.

  I stretched my neck to one side, unleashing a shiver of nervous energy that streaked down through my torso and arms.

  ‘Can we talk about something else?’ My voice croaked. ‘It’s just, I don’t really know what I’m going to do next. I haven’t decided.’

 

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