Henry frowned. ‘Right. Well, news to me.’
This was when I started to hyperventilate, taking in great gulps of air that still seemed unable to satisfy my parched lungs. ‘Please tell me she’s here,’ I breathed.
‘Hang on.’ Henry put out a hand to my arm. ‘Take deep breaths. Maybe a paper bag?’
‘Maybemy daughter…’ I managed to get out, looking round somewhat wildly at the house.
‘Come on,’ Henry said. ‘If your husband said my housekeeper picked Lola up, then she must be here.’ He started heading back towards the house with me desperately trying to hurry him up as we walked.
‘But you don’tknow? You don’t know what’s going on inyour own house? With your own daughter?’
‘I have a very busy life…’
‘Don’t we all,’ I said through a new intake of air.
‘Right, here we are.’ Henry opened a side door which led into a cloakroom. ‘Any of her things here?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know what she was wearing.’ My eyes scanned rows of Barbour-type jackets and expensive, trendy wellingtons. You know the sort: not a £7.99 pair of black wellies from Aldi’s middle aisle, but navy and green Hunter and Burberry. Something called Le Chameau. I could see nothing of Lola’s hanging up in there.
‘OK, follow me.’ Henry led the way through the most divine kitchen I’d ever seen and, if I hadn’t been in such a state of agitation, I’d probably have loitered, taking in the Gaggenau bank of ovens and cooker tops, the blissfully high-tech espresso machine, the Kaiser beer and wine cooler. The place was so vast, it took a good ten seconds to walk through, despite my mentally urging him onwards and then upwards to the next (all cream-carpeted) level.
‘Right, here we are.’ Henry knocked softly on a door to his left. ‘Can we come in?’ he asked.
Can we come in?Was the man serious? I was ready to bash the bloody door down if it would reveal my daughter in there, safe and sound.
‘Mum?’ Lola looked up from the iPad she was holding and concentrating on, quickly closing it as she saw my head appear round the door. ‘What are youdoing?’
‘Thank goodness,’ I said, my heart still racing but now from relief.
‘Thank goodnesswhat?’ Lola pulled a face at me, obviously totally embarrassed that her mother had appeared out of the ether when she was least expecting her.
‘I didn’t know where you were,’ I said.
‘Hello, Mrs Butterworth.’ An exceptionally pretty, tall, blonde-haired girl closed her own iPad, standing from the huge king-sized bed she’d been sprawled on before walking towards me, holding out her hand. ‘It’s so nice to meet you.’
Well, that took the wind completely from my sails.
‘Erm, you too. Ruby, isn’t it?’
The girl nodded. ‘I do hope it’s all right, Lola coming over? And staying the night?’
‘Well, if I’d been a bit more informed,’ I said, still cross that I appeared to be the last to know what was going on.
‘Dad told you,’ Lola said impatiently. ‘Didn’t he?’
‘Well, yes, sort of. At the last minute. Said some woman had come to pick you up, Lola. She could have been anyone!’
‘Like the Snow Queen, Mrs Butterworth?’ Ruby asked, and, although her tone was nothing but polite, was there, I wondered, an undertone of high-handedness? Of arrogance even? ‘Honestly, Mrs Butterworth, Lola is safe here with us. Do let her stay.’
Was this eleven-year-old for real?
I glanced round the huge bedroom, totally getting why Lola wanted to be here instead of down at our cottage. Or in the oil-smelling, girly-pin-up-walled office of Dean’s garage in the village. On the walls were myriad framed pictures, all of a blonde girl. I realised every one was of Ruby at different ages and in different poses.
‘Ruby’s off to London on a shoot later this week,’ Lola said proudly, following my eyes now fastened on to the photographs.
A shoot? I had a fleeting picture of this quite devastatingly pretty girl with a gun and plus fours hunting moose.
‘She’sa model,’ Lola went on, basking in the limelight of her mate.
