‘I d… d… didn’t mean to. I… w… w… was rescuing my pet.’
‘Pet? Bertie, you don’t have a pet.’ I pulled a tissue from my bag and dabbed it against his eyes.
‘I found a pet frog,’ he whispered.
‘Speak up, boy.’
I turned and glared at Hugo.
‘I found a pet frog, but when I was walking past the pool, he jumped out of my hands and into the water. The chlorine could have killed him, so I had to jump in and rescue him.’
The room fell silent. Bertie’s sodden hair had fallen in front of his eyes, and I brushed it away.
‘Did you rescue the frog?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but it took ages. He’s only small, so it was hard to find him, and he’s a brilliant swimmer.’ Bertie leaned forward and whispered in my ear. ‘He’s called Fred.’
Despite the anger from Rob and his parents seeping across the room and prickling my skin, I couldn’t hide my smile. ‘Did you put Fred back where you found him?’
Bertie shook his head.
‘Bertie…’ I scanned his body, my eyes resting on the pocket of his trousers. The fabric strained as something squirmed inside it. Bertie’s hand reached down to unzip the pocket. ‘Bertie, no!’
Before I could stop him, the pocket gaped open, and a green-brown bulbous head poked out. Bertie tried to grab it, but the frog, or toad as it turned out to be, slipped through his fingers.
‘What’s happening?’ squealed Marion. She screamed as a pulsing, slimy body landed on the table between the carrots and swede.
‘Good heavens,’ said Hugo, his chair falling to the ground as he backed towards the corner of the room.
Rob leaped forward, only catching the toad on his fourth lunge. He held his hands as far from his body as he could. As he passed me and Bertie, from behind clenched teeth, he said, ‘Wait in the car.’
I took hold of Bertie’s arm, and heads down, we shuffled from the room.
Chapter Five
As soon as I stepped across the threshold, I knew something was wrong. Our minimalistic décor had been taken to a whole new level. The ugly grey paintings Rob claimed were an investment no longer hung from the walls. The only evidence they’d ever been there was a thin square of dust which had collected behind their frames.
In the kitchen, I found the digital radio gone, the two-hundred-pound juicer Rob used each morning no longer sitting on the worktop. The sitting room was worse: no clock, no iPad, no laptop, no sound system. The only electrical item remaining was the giant sixty-inch TV screwed to the wall.
I ran back to the kitchen, grabbing a rolling pin. The thieves could still be in the house, because the only explanation for the destruction of my home was a robbery. Phone in hand, I crept up the stairs. The only items remaining in either mine or Rob’s wardrobes were the old clothes I used for housework.
It was in Bertie’s room that the full horror hit me, and tears broke free. His box of dinosaurs lay on the floor beside his bed,but any toys of value, which was most of them, had been cleared out.
How had they managed to take so much in the hour and a half round trip to school? The burglars must be professionals to find the location of every valuable item we owned.
I dialled the emergency services, but before anyone answered, a text came through from Rob.Sorry.
Sorry for what? As a voice answered my call, I hung up the phone. Was there a rational explanation I was missing? Had Rob colluded with his mother to redesign our home while I was out on the school run? Had he discovered some deep-seated desire to give all our worldly goods to charity?
The doorbell chimed and I ran downstairs, holding the rolling pin behind my back as I opened the door.
‘Good morning, madam. Can I take your name, please?’
‘Um, yes, it’s, um, Olivia Simmons.’ Something about the uniformed man clutching a clipboard made me comply without question.
‘And are you the wife of Robert Simmons?’
‘Yes. What’s happened to Rob?’
