‘Just five,’ Becky supplied. ‘Blonde hair, blue eyes.’
Sarah waited until she’d tucked Ollie safely up in bed before she called Joe. ‘The little boy who wandered off on Laura’s watch,’ she said as soon as he answered. ‘He was rescued from the deep end of a swimming pool.’
Joe didn’t reply straight away, then, ‘Jesus,’ he said, sucking in a sharp breath.
‘That man she was married to, Christopher Jameson, he was right,’ Sarah went on, cold fear and nausea constricting her stomach. Despair, too, at her own stupidity. Every time she imagined she could trust this woman Steve had brought into Ollie’s life – a woman who she’d given access to her child, had been persuaded to keep giving her access, despite her reservations – she’d been proved wrong. What else would it take to make people see that Laura wasn’t the person she pretended to be? Would they condemn Sarah now if she denied her access, which she fully intended to?
‘About that,’ Joe said, sounding cautious. Everyone was cautious; tiptoeing around Laura’s feelings because of her brother’s disappearance, frightened of stressing her out. What about Sarah? She was frightened. What about Ollie? Shouldn’t he, a vulnerable child, be people’s first consideration? ‘I spoke to him,’ Joe continued. ‘Christopher Jameson, I went to see him.’
‘And?’ Sarah asked, cold foreboding in the pit of her stomach.
‘She took his son swimming.’ Joe delivered another bombshell. ‘The boy couldn’t swim,’ he went on gravely. ‘He was terrified of water in fact.’
Sarah’s heart slammed into her chest. The dreadful argument at Ollie’s birthday party; she recalled it vividly. It had started the second Sherry had mentioned the swimming pool, and ended with Steve inexplicably falling from a ladder. She had no idea what was going on, what had gone on, but it was now very clear that something was terrifyingly wrong. ‘Why didn’t you take me seriously, Joe?’ she asked him, anger rising hot inside her. ‘Why aren’t you doing something? My son might be in danger.’
‘I’m trying,’ Joe answered, his tone frustrated. ‘I’ve spoken to my DS, but—’
‘Not hard enough,’ Sarah said furiously, and ended the call.
Forty-Eight
Becky came straight over when she rang her. Sarah thanked God that she had at least one person on her side. ‘Are you sure you want to do this now?’ her friend asked worriedly as she stepped through the front door.
‘I’m sure.’ Sarah nodded, determined, her car keys already in her hand. ‘Steve needs to know what he’s got himself into, the danger he’s been putting his child in.’ She intended to make it as clear as daylight to Steve that he wouldn’t be seeing his son again as long as he was in Laura’s company. ‘Ollie’s sound asleep,’ she said. ‘He might wake up and fret with all that’s being going on, but hopefully he’ll sleep through.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep a careful eye on him,’ Becky assured her, not looking overly thrilled that Sarah was insisting on going to Laura’s house tonight, but accepting that she needed to. She’d had enough of phone calls and being talked down. She didn’t want to give Steve or Laura notice of her arrival, give Laura a chance to hone her bloody acting skills.
‘Thanks, Becky,’ she said gratefully.
‘It’s not a problem. I know you’d do the same for me. Just take a breath and drive carefully.’ Becky looked her over seriously. ‘Promise me.’
‘I promise,’ Sarah said, swallowing emotionally as her friend gave her a firm hug.
‘I’ll have my phone right by me,’ Becky called after her as she climbed into her car.
Sarah nodded appreciatively and made sure to reverse slowly off the drive.
She hadn’t gone far when her phone rang. Joe. She hesitated, and then rejected the call. He would only try to dissuade her from going, as he’d tried to dissuade her about every suspicion she’d had about Laura. She felt a pang of guilt as she reminded herself that he had been trying, that he had appeared to be supporting her more. He couldn’t do anything, though, could he? He did have to follow protocol and would be obliged to try to persuade her out of doing anything rash.
Sarah didn’t intend to do anything rash, although she just might if Steve refused to see what was abundantly clear to her. She felt a combination of nausea and nerves churn inside her. Laura had a fixation about water. Hadn’t she said that Ollie and she would learn to swim together? That she would buy him some water wings? Super-bloody-hero water wings? She’d filled his mind with tales of a superhero called Jacob who swam with the fucking fish, for God’s sake. Had she been tempting him to go into the water? Sarah couldn’t know what had gone on around her brother’s disappearance, nor would she ever, probably, but one thing she did know was that Laura Collins, Caldwell … whoever she was … did need therapy. Serious therapy.
Leaving the car on the pavement outside Laura’s house, she marched up the garden path, rang the doorbell and banged the knocker. She was angry. She needed to stay angry. She wouldn’t back down, not this time.
Forty-Nine
Laura
Hearing someone hammering on the front door, Laura almost shot off the sofa. ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered nervously to Steve. It wouldn’t be a sales person calling at this hour, and they weren’t expecting anybody. Her mother wouldn’t come here, not now. Steve would never allow her in and Sherry would know it.
‘No idea.’ Glancing at the wall clock, Steve heaved himself up from his armchair and headed curiously for the hall.
Her heart thumping, Laura went to the lounge door, listening as he pulled the front door open. ‘I need to talk to you.’ Sarah’s voice floated in, her tone brooking no argument.
‘What, at this time?’ Steve asked, clearly confounded. As he would be. Sarah hadn’t rung. She’d come unannounced, and plainly wasn’t going to go until she had spoken to Steve. About what? Laura worried.
‘Yes, at this time,’ Sarah insisted.
‘You’d better come through to the lounge,’ Steve suggested reluctantly.
‘No. We’ll talk outside,’ Sarah replied. ‘It’s you I want to talk to. Just you.’
It went quiet for a moment, and then Laura heard the click of the latch on the front door. He was going along with it. What would Sarah say to him? What did she have to tell him that had brought her charging around here at this time of night?
Stepping out of the lounge, she checked the hall was empty and then made her way carefully to the stairs and flew up them. Her mind ticking feverishly, trying to think back to the conversation they’d had in the car, anything Sarah could possibly want to discuss with Steve out of earshot of her, she went to the front-facing window of the main bedroom and eased it open.
Sarah was talking fast, her words coming out in a garbled rush. Laura strained to hear. She couldn’t make sense of what she was saying at first. And then her heart skipped a beat. She was talking about Christopher, the incident with Liam in the swimming pool, and the little boy at the school. Oh God, no. How much did she know? How had she found out? Joe. Of course. She would have spoken about her worries to him. He would have got hold of the information. Laura swallowed back a hard knot of fear in her throat.