Gordon Baker’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who told you about that? Have you been talking to my boy? Have you seen him?’
‘Josh? Is that who you mean? Josh was the young boy you fostered back in 2005. He came to live with you because ... well, he didn’t have a very happy life in his old home.’
‘That poor laddie had it worse than most. Just about broke my heart knowing what he’d been through. Terrible thing what some folks will do to their kiddies.’
I swallowed a new obstruction in my throat. ‘It is, Gordon. It is. But Josh was lucky; he had you and—’ I stopped myself before I fell back into that abyss. ‘He had you to look after him,’ I completed.
‘Would you like to see a photograph?’ Gordon Baker asked, getting to his feet and crossing to a heavy oak dresser that had caught my eye when I first entered the room, not just for its rustic charm but because of the collection of framed photographs clustered on its surface. The majority appeared to be of a much younger Gordon and Janette. They ranged back through the decades, depicting an array of fashion styles.
The old man’s hand wove through the frames, seeking the one he wanted to share with me, and while it did, I looked among them for any that might depict a dark-haired man with high cheekbones and the most intense brown eyes I had ever seen. No one in any of the frames matched that description.
‘Here she is. There’s that Lily lass I was telling you about.’
He passed me a gilt-framed photograph that had been at the very back of the group. I stared down for a long moment at a photograph I hadn’t seen for almost twenty years. It had been taken at a summer barbecue about two years after Josh had moved in with the Bakers. Many other neighbours were also in the photo – including my own parents, who looked younger than I ever remembered them being. I was standing to one side of the main group, with a hot dog in my hand and Josh’s arm thrown casually around my shoulders.
Gordon had come to stand beside me and was looking down at the photograph with an expression of confusion. ‘There she is. There’s that Lily. Not sure who that boy beside her is though.’
He took the photograph back from me and lifted it close to his face until his nose was almost grazing the glass.
‘And there’s my Janette,’ he said, lowering the frame and cradling it against him as though he was trying to press the image of his late wife into his heart. ‘Do you know where she is? She hasn’t been to see me for a really long time.’
Chapter Five
I breathed in deeply as I exited the care home. I wasn’t sure if the relief came from having failed in my task, or simply because Redmount had been heated to a temperature most greenhouses don’t even achieve.
I tried, babe. You saw that, didn’t you?I silently questioned Adam as I pulled my car keys from my bag and pointed them at the Fiesta.There wasn’t anything else I could have done.
Wasn’t there?The voice in my head was so Adam that my footsteps actually faltered. There’d been just the right amount of wry amusement in the voice to almost persuade me that Adam was here in person. Not giving me an inch.
What else was I supposed to do? Sit the poor old guy in front of a swinging light bulb and interrogate him?
I heard no reply to that one but could easily imagine the small snort of humour my husband would have given in response.
Well, if you say you’ve done everything you can ...
I sighed deeply and lowered the hand that had been about to open the car door. I hated it when my subconscious did this. I hated allowing it to imagine exactly what Adam would do or say in any given situation ... and yet I kind of loved it too. It kept him here, near me, where he belonged.
I sighed heavily. ‘No, I don’t suppose I did doeverythingI could.’
Surprise flickered in the receptionist’s eyes at my reappearance just moments after signing me out.
‘Did you forget something?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Sort of,’ I said, already aware that my cheeks were turning pink. I would make an appalling poker player, because I was dreadful at bluffing.
‘I was thinking that I’d like to let Gordon’s family know I’ve been to see him, but unfortunately, I’ve ... I’ve lost their contact details.’
The expression on the receptionist’s face wasn’t quite so warm now. I imagine she’d already guessed what I was about to ask her.
‘Obviously, I realise you can’t hand out confidential information,’ I continued hurriedly, ‘but I wondered if I might leave a note with you, giving them my phone number and address, so you could pass it to them when they next visit.’
‘So, they’ve lostyourcontact details too?’
My blush got deeper. Damn, I hadnotthought this through. It was all too easy to imagine Adam on a cloud somewhere, laughing his head off.
‘I’ve moved house, and they don’t have my new mobile number.’ My response sounded feeble even to my ears.
Despite this, the receptionist extracted a sheet of paper from the printer beside her and slid it across the desk to me. I carefully wrote out every contact detail I could think of, including my parents’ mobiles. It looked a little desperate, but the receptionist was too polite to comment as she took the piece of paper from me.
