Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

“What do you mean?” It was all he could think of to say.

“You know what I mean. About Abi Scott.”

“What about her?”

“Oh, Jonathan, please! I’m not a complete cretin. You’re somehow on the wrong motorway, with a strange woman whom you didn’t even mention when we spoke earlier, for whom you were going to make a large detour when you were already late for your clinic. It doesn’t quite add up. To me.”

“Well, it should,” he said. Lightly. Determined not to sound self-righteous. Or even ruffled.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What does she do, this girl? Tell me again.”

“She works for a commercial photographer. Who was at the dinner, taking photographs. She helps him, gets people’s names and so on. To send the photos to. She’s very nice,” he added. “She’d be very amused if she could hear this conversation.”

“I don’t see why. Is she married? Living with anyone?”

“Laura, I haven’t the faintest idea!”

“Oh, really? All those hours in the car together. She must have told you something about herself.”

“Well, she did say she had a boyfriend. Darling, this isn’t like you. Please! Let’s go and see the kids; I need a bit of distraction after all that. It wasn’t the best hour of my life.”

There was a long silence; then: “Yes, all right,” she said. “They’re watching TV.”

He followed her through to the den; he felt sick and shaky. Not just because of the police interrogation, or even hers. But because there was a new darkness between them, created not just by Laura’s discovery of Abi’s existence, but by her clear unwillingness to accept his explanation. Lovely, lovely, trusting Laura. That was the really disturbing thing.

It was much scarier, the second recall. All actors knew that. Far more hung on it. You had more to lose; you were higher up; you had farther to fall. The pressure was really on…

“I don’t know if I can face it,” Georgia said. “I’ve been feeling so terrible all the way up on the train. I thought I was going to be sick twice. I spent most of the journey in the loo.”

Linda struggled to keep her voice level.

“Well, I’m sorry,” she said. Georgia couldn’t be pregnant, could she? That would explain a great deal. “I know how tough it is at this stage. Just the same, you’re clearly in with a very fighting chance. Try to be positive, Georgia.”

“I am trying,” said Georgia. “It’s just that I’m so tired. I can’t sleep for stressing about it, and what if I don’t get it, then what? I’m terrified, Linda, absolutely terrified…”

Linda felt a strong desire to slap her.

“Well, you don’t have to go,” she said. “There are three other girls, all still in the race. Just give up now, why don’t you?”

Georgia stared at her. “Of course I’m not going to give up,” she said, her voice throbbing with outrage. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say.” And then she suddenly sat down in the chair opposite Linda’s desk and started to cry.

Linda pushed a contract to the back of her desk. There had to be more than this part. There had to be.

“You can’t go on like this, Georgia; you’ll have a nervous breakdown. What is wrong?”

Georgia looked at her, and there was something like terror in her great brown eyes. She took a deep breath and then said, “Well, it’s… That is…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you see, I…”

And then she drew back, as if from some deep physical danger-literally shifted her body in the chair. “No, I’m sorry, Linda, really sorry. I’m being silly. I’ve just got my period; I feel like shit.”

She wasn’t pregnant then. That was something.

“OK. You going to be all right on your own?”

“Of course I am. Promise. I’ll see you later.”

She seemed OK. Just going a bit over-the-top emotionally. Nothing new there, then.

“That looks like a lot of paperwork.” Constable Rowe smiled at Sergeant Freeman; he didn’t smile back.

“It is. It’s Forensics’ report on the crash.”

“Oh, yes. I thought you’d read it.”

“I have read it,” said Freeman coldly. “I like to keep referring back to it. As our investigations go on. Certain things fall into place. Or don’t. And the loose wheel nut they found on the road. Where the hell does that fit in?”

“Surely it came off one of the other cars in the collision?”

“No, Rowe, it didn’t. We would know that from the examination of those cars.”

“Obviously, yes. And… not off the lorry?”

“Not off the lorry.”

“Well… perhaps it isn’t very important. Maybe it had been in the road a long time.”

“I doubt that very much,” said Freeman, “and so does Forensics. The devil’s in the details in this game, Rowe; I’ve told you before. This is a detail. We just have to find out how important it is.”

“Or how much of the devil is in it, I suppose,” said Rowe.

“Yes, Rowe. Precisely.”

At last, Mary was allowed to go home. The next day, anyway. A whole week after the accident. And even now, not exactly home-they said it was too soon for her to be on her own, but to stay with Christine. Which wasn’t ideal, of course, but it was a lot better than still being in the hospital. And she got on pretty well with Christine, always had… although she sometimes felt, absurdly, rather nervous of her. She had inherited her father’s build, rather than her mother’s, and his rather heavy features, rather than her mother’s sparkly prettiness.

She was wonderfully capable, ran her home along almost military lines, but she was also judgmental, very strict with her family, easily made impatient. And she was deeply conventional. So how would she react to her mother’s news?

It seemed to Mary quite likely that she would be shocked, and if not shocked, disapproving. It was quite a difficult situation for any daughter: to discover that her mother had been corresponding with a man-of whose existence neither she nor her father had any knowledge-for sixty years. And that they had been-finally-reunited.

Russell came in to see her every single day, and every day, each meeting had been happier and more wonderful than the last. Any doubts that she might have had had fled, leaving her at once excited and at peace about him and his part in the rest of her life. The only thing that was unthinkable now was not being together. After sixty years of separation she and Russell were going to be married. They had been given this priceless treasure, this second life; they must nurture it and honour it and savour the happiness it so clearly contained.

Russell had continued to stay at the Dorchester; Mary had suggested he move to a hotel nearer Swindon, but he was absurdly nervous, it seemed, of anywhere other than the West End of London, had had this deep conviction that the only proper place to be was an expensive, upper-class one. She had teased him about it a lot; she could see she probably would again.

“So when I’m home in Bristol, will you still insist on staying there?” she had said, and, “No,” he had said; he was investigating a hotel between Bristol and Bath that sounded pretty decent…

“Only pretty decent, Russell? You sure that’s good enough?”

He had been fretting over the hospital too, saying he would rather she was in a private one, but she had told him that was ridiculous; this really was a very good place.

They’d had to arrange the times of his visits quite carefully, so that they didn’t coincide with Christine’s. He said he couldn’t see the problem with that; he couldn’t wait to meet Mary’s children, both of them; but Mary told him she thought it might be a bit of a shock for them, particularly for Christine, who had adored her father, and she wanted her to be well prepared before being confronted by a totally strange man who would, after all, become her stepfather. It would be a hard thing for a woman of almost sixty to understand.