‘I’ll support you.’ Josh pulled himself to his feet as she got to hers. ‘Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you. I promise.’
Kim looked affronted at that, letting him know that he’d said the wrong thing again. ‘Thanks.’ She smiled shortly. ‘But no thanks. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s all or nothing, Josh. I do have my pride, unbelievable though it might seem. I won’t be second best in a man’s eyes. Sorry. Please don’t call me again unless you have something worth listening to.’
His heart like a lead weight in his chest, Josh watched her walk away.
Thirty-One
Cassandra
Having heard nothing from Kim for two days, Cassie was fighting the urge to crawl into bed and stay there. Kim was obviously making a point, refusing to speak to her – at least Cassie hoped to God that was what it was. Her stomach churned as she thought of all the other possibilities: that Samuel might have developed further symptoms. That it might actually be meningitis.
‘Anythingcould have happened,’ she’d said again to Adam, who’d tried to reassure her, though he was barely speaking to her either, leaving for work early, coming home late, coming to bed late, which was soul-crushingly hurtful. She didn’t blame him. He was obviously hurt too, after her more or less blaming him for Kim going off, but he must see that she had been right to worry. Instead it felt like it was her in the wrong, again.
Attempting to focus her mind, she stripped the bed instead, thinking the smell of clean cotton might help her to sleep, though she very much doubted it.
Once the bed linen was in the wash, she went back upstairs with the vacuum. She had to do something other than sit around imagining worst-case scenarios. A graphic image of her son lying bleeding and helpless on the tracks emblazoned itself suddenly on her mind, and she reeled. Gripping the banister, she took slow, steadying breaths, and then carried onto the bedroom, where she tackled the carpet under the bed. It hardly needed doing. She was aware that she was obsessing, but surely it was better than trying to blot the ‘what ifs’ out with wine. Alcohol only ever fuelled her imagination.
Her heart leapt in her chest as she switched the vacuum off and realised the landline was ringing. She stumbled towards the stairs, but Adam had already reached it and had the phone pressed to his ear.
‘Hello?’ he said. Turning around, he glanced up as Cassie slowly descended the rest of the stairs. ‘Hello?’ he said again, a troubled frown on his face.
‘Who was it?’ Cassie asked, as he banged the phone back in its cradle.
‘Same as before,’ he said. ‘Some joker on the other end hanging up. And before you start worrying, no, I don’t think it was Kim. The last two calls were before she went quiet on us.’
Cassie nodded. He was irritated. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.
Sighing heavily, he ran a hand over his neck. ‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ he asked, making an attempt to bridge the divide between them.
‘No thanks.’ Cassie offered him a small smile.
Once he’d disappeared into the kitchen, she darted into the lounge to grab her mobile from the coffee table. She’d known it wasn’t Kim on the phone. She’d known exactly who it was.
Don’t you think it’s time to acknowledge what you did?It was a warning. A threat. Her past was creeping back to haunt her, seeping into her home. She had to do something. If Adam found out, on top of everything else, he would leave her in an instant.
How much?she replied, her hands trembling.
A beat, and then,How much is a life worth?
Thirty-Two
Cassandra
The despicable woman was playing some kind of game with her. Cassie wasn’t sure why, what she hoped to achieve. She would gladly pay, if only there was a way to guarantee it would stop there. If the woman did find someone to buy her story, there was no doubt in Cassie’s mind that her marriage would be over. Her life. There would be consequences for other people, though. Surely the woman must realise that. She couldn’t know how devastating those consequences might be, but she would know that her son would be caught in the middle, that it might also destroy his life. Up until now, Cassie had felt nothing but guilty. Now she was angry. Yes, in not honouring the agreement they’d made, she’d wronged the woman. She’d taken advantage of the fact that she was incapable of looking after her own children. To have done nothing, though, to have simply walked away, would have been impossible.
After trying numerous times to contact her, with no success, Cassie left home soon after Adam the next morning. Having undertaken many a stake-out in her younger journalistic years, she’d decided to wait outside the care home the woman’s profile said she worked at. It occurred to her after a while that she didn’t know whether she was actually there. She wasn’t. A phone call confirmed she was off sick, so Cassie drove to her house, from which the woman emerged around lunchtime with some man. She followed them to a city pub, where they went inside for a liquid lunch, and to satisfy a more urgent hunger. Cassie watched from her seat in a discreet corner of the lounge. She was no expert, but she recognised a deal going down, the small wraps of drugs changing hands. It was as she’d feared: the woman was using, a functioning addict but an addict nevertheless. And she would need money to fuel her addiction, more than she could earn as a caregiver, more than Cassie could earn even back at work full-time.
Leaving the pub, Cassie went back to her car and texted her.I need to know how much. I need to put an end to this.
I haven’t put a price on it yet,the reply came back, leaving her in no doubt that whatever she paid, she would probably only be buying time. The woman would come back for more. Cassie needed to circumvent it, to tell her secret first. She needed to tell Adam.
But how? He would never understand what she’d done, how she’d handled it since. How could he? She didn’t understand it herself. She’d found herself on a one-way road, no way to turn back. If only she could stophertelling.
Back home, the taste of fear thick in her throat, Cassie wondered what drugs the woman was taking as she busied herself cleaning the paintwork in the hall. How reliable her drug dealer was, what the heroin that she was ingesting or injecting into her veins might be mixed with. She knew from her research that to increase its street value, heroin was cut with all sorts of things: talcum powder and quinine, even laxative powder. Often, to produce a similar high, stimulants such as amphetamines, strychnine or caffeine would be added. Sometimes synthetic opioids were used; fentanyl, she recalled, had caused so many overdose-related fatalities the police had taken the unusual step of issuing a warning to users. Such drugs were easily available, she also recalled, if one knew where to look.
Feeling sick to her soul as she realised where her mind was taking her, that she was capable of even imagining such a dreadful thing, Cassie channelled her emotions into her cleaning. She didn’t hear the front door open, didn’t realise Adam had come home until he spoke.
‘What in God’s name are you doing, Cassie?’ he asked, his tone a mixture of shock and exasperation.
