‘The wallpaper in Ollie’s room,’ Sarah went on determinedly, ‘it’s the same as the wallpaper in his bedroom at home. Steve doesn’t have any photos, so how could you have seen it unless you’d been in his bedroom?’
Laura stared at her, stunned. ‘Youhave photos,’ she pointed out incredulously. ‘You showed me photos – when we first met at the pub. I chose that paper precisely because you had. I wanted Ollie to feel at home when he came to stay. I wanted him to be surrounded by familiar things. Wouldn’t you?’
Shit.Sarah cursed silently. She did have photos of Ollie in his bedroom on her phone and she had shown Laura them. But had Laura really studied them enough to take in so much detail? ‘His bunny …’ She gathered herself. She had to ask, even if the woman ended up hating her. She would never stop worrying about it otherwise. ‘How did his ear come to be cut off?’
Laura’s gaze flickered down again. ‘You really have a problem with me, don’t you?’ she said, smiling sadly.
‘I have a problem with why you told me it was sitting on his toy box and all the while it was stuffed inside it with its bloody ear chopped off,’ Sarah replied angrily. It wasn’therwho should be answering questions here.
‘So it was you who took it,’ Laura said quietly, somehow managing to turn the tables. ‘I thought my mother had. She’s such asssspite … vicious cow.’
Sarah noted the stammer and wasn’t sure whether to feel sorry for her, ashamed that she’d obviously made her so stressed, or suspicious. ‘I did say I wanted it,’ she offered, by way of lame defence for doing what she’d just accused Laura of: snooping around her home.
‘Lucas cut the ear off,’ Laura said after a loaded pause.
‘Lucas?’ Sarah was disbelieving. How was she to verify that? March around to Laura’s neighbour’s house and demand to interrogate her child?
‘I was keeping an eye on him while his mother took her dog to the vet,’ Laura went on. ‘I took Ollie with me, naturally. He had Bunny with him. Lucas’s mum had left scissors on the coffee table. I didn’t see Lucas pick them up. I thought I’d averted a crisis managing to grab them before he hurt himself. Apparently I didn’t.’
Oh no.Sarah closed her eyes. She’d done it again.
‘I should have told you,’ Laura added dejectedly. ‘I was going to sew it back on, but …’
‘He wasn’t there,’ Sarah finished, guilt weighing heavily in her chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, not sure what else to say.
‘It’s okay. You were suspicious. I understand,’ Laura offered magnanimously, ‘especially with my mother turning up to spoil everything the way she does. God, wouldn’t she just love this.’
Sarah glanced at her, her guilt multiplying tenfold as she saw a slow tear roll down her cheek. ‘Why is she so horrible to you?’ she asked.
Laura turned to gaze out of the window. ‘Because she’s frightened,’ she said.
‘Of?’ Sarah urged her.
‘Me,’ she said simply.
Forty-Six
Sherry
‘Do you not realise she might tell him everything?’ Sherry asked irritably as she followed Grant around the stables. He’d been questioning her again, wondering why she insisted on interfering in Laura’s relationships, as if he didn’t know.
‘Tell him what?’ Grant asked patiently. ‘She doesn’t remember what happened that night. She can’t tell what she doesn’t know, can she? There’s nothing she can say that won’t sound highly implausible given her condition. The case is closed. As far as the police are concerned, Jacob went missing. You need to move on, Sherry. It’s dead and buried,’ he said, causing her heart to constrict painfully.
‘We can’t guarantee she won’t recall something,’ she retaliated, as he continued around the stables, lifting his saddle and bridle from the hooks in the tack room, refusing to acknowledge her concerns. ‘There’s always the possibility that something might trigger her memories,’ she went on. ‘That she might confide in this latest man she’s involved with. Doesn’t it worry you that she chooses to have relationships with men who have children uncannily like him?Shecan’t move on. She’s trying to hold onto him, don’t you see; to keep him alive? She’s reliving her life with him. She’s desperate to know what happened to him.’
Sighing, Grant turned away, carrying his riding gear across to his beloved horse, a thoroughbred Arabian – a flighty, temperamental mare. Sherry was sure he thought more of it than he did her. ‘Why can’t you just drop it?’ he asked, preparing to saddle up. ‘Leave the girl alone?’
Standing a safe distance off from the snorting beast, in case lethal hooves should fly, Sherry eyed him with frustration. ‘Do you think I don’twantto?’ she retorted. ‘Do you imagine for one second that Iwant to keep going over and over this? ThatIdon’t want to bury the past and all the despicable things that went on?’
Grant didn’t react. He never did. ‘How can you be so indifferent?’ she asked him. ‘So uncaring?’
He looked at her at last, his expression one of astonished amusement. ‘Meuncaring?’
By which he meant she was. As if this cold person she’d become was who she wanted to be. As if she didn’t lie in bed night after night, riddled with guilt, haunted by what had happened. ‘I hope your fucking horse throws you,’ she hissed tearfully.
Grant sighed heavily as she walked away. ‘Sherry,’ he called after her, ‘come back.’
She kept walking.
