The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

me, to tamper with my central heating and the trampoline, to write that letter to Gabby? Between all of them, how easy it would have been! Robin with her daily access to the house, Brenda and Barbara with their keys …

I cross the roundabout onto Prestbury High Street and consider Deborah, who doesn’t have a key to my house.

But she could easily have nipped into my office when I was in a meeting and taken my keys from my bag. There’s a key cutting place just a few doors down, for goodness’ sake. She could have made copies in minutes and put them back before I’d even noticed they’d gone. All she’d have to do is call my house phone from her mobile, and if Robin or Mum didn’t pick up, she’d know the coast was clear … I mean, it would be risky, but still …

My mind is racing as I indicate right to turn into The Acre. My heart’s racing too, and I sit in the car for a minute after I’ve parked, my hands gripping the steering wheel, trying to calm myself. I wonder if I really have stumbled on a possibility here or if all this is just wild, nonsensical speculation. Am I really starting to believe that a complete stranger was able to convince my closest friends and colleagues to turn on me, en masse? Would I do that to them, if the tables were turned, even if vast sums of money were offered? Of course I wouldn’t. So why am I even entertaining these thoughts? It’s ludicrous, I know that, and as I finally get out of the car and go into the house, I’m talking myself out of it again, discarding the ridiculous scenario I’ve just dreamed up. OK, I’m still going to call Mike. But there’s some other explanation; there must be.

I just don’t know what it is yet.

Mum’s back and is pottering around the kitchen, a mixing bowl and bag of flour on the counter.

‘Making biscuits,’ she said happily. ‘Nice woman at yoga the other day gave me a recipe. Pistachio and cranberry. We can have one with our afternoon tea later.’

‘Lovely,’ I say, then, ‘I’m going upstairs for a bit. Call me if you need anything, OK?’

She shoos me out of the room, telling me to go and rest, and I head upstairs and close my bedroom door firmly. I find the envelope with Mike’s details on it and sit down at my little desk, wanting to feel business-like and in control for this call, even though my mouth is dry and my hands are tingling as I dial the number.

‘Mike Langton, hello?’

‘Mike … erm … hello, this is Beth Holland. Alice Armstrong’s daughter, in Cheltenham …’

Five minutes later I end the call and stare at the phone, not sure how I’m feeling. Mike Langton was, I’m pretty sure, telling the truth. He sounded bemused, baffled even, when I asked him why he’d been hanging around town after Mum had dispensed with his services.

‘I’m looking at my diary right now and I promise you, Beth, that the last time I was in Cheltenham was Thursday and Friday the fifth and sixth of March,’ he said.

He has a nice voice, deep with a soft Cornish burr, which threw me a little. I’m not sure what I was expecting a private detective to sound like – a New York drawl maybe, like in the films? I tried to concentrate on the dates he was giving me, feeling a little foolish.

‘I was outside your workplace on the evening of Thursday the fifth – sorry about that by the way, but part of the job and all that – and left Cheltenham the next day; got the lunchtime train back to Bodmin.’

Thursday the fifth. I remembered that evening, just a few days before the Saturday when Mum suddenly rang my doorbell, when my life changed forever. The shadowy figure in the car park. It was him then. At least I wasn’t imagining that.

‘It was the 12.52, if you want precise details,’ he was saying. ‘The 12.52 from Cheltenham Spa to Bodmin Parkway, changing at Taunton. So, I don’t know who you’ve been seeing hanging around talking to your friends and neighbours, but it wasn’t me, I can assure you of that. Maybe I’ve got a lookalike, eh?’

He laughed, and I found myself laughing too, telling him I was sorry to bother him, that some odd stuff had been happening and that I was trying to do a little detective work of my own. I end the call before I can embarrass myself any further. I stay in the bedroom for a while after that, my head in my hands at my desk, plunging back into despair.

I’m so confused. I know, without any doubt, that somehow what happened all those years ago with Lucy Allen is behind all this. But who, for God’s sake? Who? I can’t even talk to anyone about it; there’s nobody who can help me. Nobody …

I stand up, knowing I need to go downstairs and act normally, but how much longer can I pretend to Mum that I’m OK? Despite her outward cheeriness, I keep catching her watching me with an uneasy expression, her face a little paler and more drawn these days than it was when she first arrived. I wish desperately that I could confide in her, but I can’t, can I? She’s all I have now, and I can’t put that at risk. The kids are gone, Jacob’s gone, my friends are slipping away, and I can’t even talk to the few people who are still speaking to me, not about this. And now I have even less idea about the truth of what’s happened here than I did when I woke up this morning. I’m back to square one, and all I know is that somebody’s out to get me.

And, until I find out who, I can’t trust anyone.

Chapter 31

‘I’m going to nip out