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  Ruth picked up the menu, though she knew exactly what she was having. Like father, like daughter. “I’m having scrambled eggs with a side of bacon, and then I might have some of that lemon drizzle cake. And coffee.”

  “I say ditto to that. I’ll go and order.” Amanda left Ruth sitting at the little wooden table, soaking up the artisan ambience she loved so much. They’d been going there since forever ago and, even on a busy day, found it a place to relax. Amanda placed their order, then returned and sat opposite her, placing her hand on top of Ruth’s and leaving it there for the world to see. Or those who might look their way, anyway. She was testing the waters and Ruth knew it, so she left her hand where it was.

  “You look like you’ve got something you want to say.” Ruth knew what was coming but didn’t want to steal Amanda’s thunder by pre-empting it.

  “You always have been the observant one. You should have been a detective too.” She smiled. “And yes, I do want to say something.” She took a deep breath and ploughed on with it. “I want to meet your family. I think it’s time they knew about us. We’ve been together for almost a year now, and, well, I think it’s long overdue.” Amanda sat and waited, hoping she hadn’t ruined what was going to be a nice day together.

  Ruth just looked at her, but she wasn’t upset. “I know. And you’re right.”

  Amanda relaxed at her words.

  “They don’t know, though,” Ruth went on. “About me being gay. I’ve never told them. I’m not ashamed of what I am, or of you. It’s just that it’s never come up and I’ve just let them assume what they assume.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “Are you disappointed, Amanda, that I’ve never come out and told anyone?”

  “No, I’m not disappointed. Probably a bit surprised, though. I mean, you’ve known you’re gay for years. I’m just surprised it’s never come up and been talked about.” Ruth looked at the table; Amanda knew she had made her point. She carried on. “So how do we tell them, then? As a couple, and spring it on them? Or you tell them on your own? Because I think it’s time they knew.” Amanda was trying not to push, but at the same time she wanted to plough on. After nearly a year it seemed stupid to her to still have never been introduced to Ruth’s family and for Ruth still to not have told them.

  Ruth looked back up at her. “Look, I know it needs to be done, and I need to do it, but let me think about the best way, eh? I’m worried, how they’ll react, that’s all. Remember what it was like when you told your parents? How they reacted?”

  Of course Amanda remembered: they hadn’t spoken to her for nearly two weeks before they decided to try and understand her choices. They’d never been really close – Amanda had always been the black sheep of the family – and her revelation had just given them more ammunition for their argument that they’d gone wrong somewhere. Amanda hoped Ruth’s experience would be a whole lot better.

  The waitress hovered with two plates of bacon and scrambled eggs and Ruth was grateful for the distraction, but she also knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. The waitress put their plates down and left them to their brunch.

  Ruth carried on. “I hear you, I really do. And I will tell them. I know I have to do it. But let’s enjoy our day together, and talk more about it tomorrow.” She gave Amanda’s hand a squeeze and left it for a long moment, her loving smile confirming her promise. Anyone interested enough to notice them together would guess rightly they were indeed a couple. And a very close couple at that.

  Outside the café, a woman was tucked away behind a tree, watching their table. She had been there since they had first gone inside: both the women were familiar to her. In the back of her mind she’d always known about Ruth, but had never seen any outward signs to confirm her suspicions. It didn’t bother her – why should it? But obviously it bothered Ruth. The thing that bothered Madeline the most about what she’d witnessed was not that Ruth was dating another woman, but who that woman was – Detective Amanda Lacey.

  Chapter Fifty

  Madeline slipped out from behind the tree and into the busy flow of Saturday shoppers, blending in easily. Had Rebecca been with her, she’d have stood out, or rather Rebecca would have, but she was on her own. She was glad she didn’t have to worry, because she didn’t want Ruth to think she’d been spying on her, even though she had been, at least for a little while. The fact that Ruth was still hiding her secret made Madeline wonder why, at her age and in her situation. She no longer lived at home, so she was free to do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted. Her concern, though, was most definitely Amanda, and purely in a selfish way. Why had Ruth never introduced her friend to her and Gordon, and did Amanda know Madeline Simpson was Ruth’s stepmother? After all, she’d been to the house, sat in her lounge and interviewed her over a missing person and a dead person; surely she’d put two and two together?

  No, she doesn’t know I’m Ruth’s stepmother – we have different surnames.

  But the other question was more pressing: who else suspected Madeline was involved in the two incidents? After all, everyone knew that Madeline had been there at book club. Did Ruth suspect? Or Gordon? Or Rebecca? Would they put the two events together and think she was involved? Was it that simple?

  Panic started somewhere inside of her, and that familiar feeling of heat building around her waist and racing up her back and chest took her over like something from Alien. Beads of sweat made themselves known across her forehead and cleavage, making her hair stick to her clammy skin like greasy tendrils. She had to stop walking and hold on to an empty bench while it passed. She was truly hotter and stickier than she had been all week; the worry over being found out was accelerating the temperature tantrum. Unable to push it away, she dealt with it as best she could: she bent over slightly to catch her breath and let the heat pass over her. A cold glass of water would have been useful, but no such luck out in the busy street, so she struggled on slowly until she reached M&S and the welcome blast of cold air that hit her when she entered the store. As usual, there was a chair just inside so she sat and took a moment to calm herself properly and dab her sticky face with a tissue.

  A security guard who was hovering nearby had seen her struggling and made his way over to ask if she was okay.

  “Yes,” she lied, fanning herself with the tissue. She thanked him for his concern and he smiled and went back to his post. He had caring eyes and a pierced ear with a single diamond stud.

  Funny the things you notice.

  From the chair, as she focused on calming herself, she could see the busy shoppers – the children with their parents, the elderly with their children now grown, and those who were shopping alone, like her – and wondered if they lived alone, or if they had someone to look after them when they needed it. She felt a pang of sadness and her eyes filled with tears.

  Steady on, Madeline. Don’t lose it here in the lobby of M&S, for God’s sake.

  When the temperature tantrum had fully passed some ten minutes later and she didn’t resemble a sweating beetroot anymore, Madeline stood up slowly and headed for the food hall and a cold carton of juice. If she was going to get something nice for Gordon’s birthday next week, which was the purpose of this shopping trip, she couldn’t sit there all day. He’d gone to watch Crystal Palace play Spurs at home. He’d be most of the day, stopping for a pint afterwards with some of the other season ticket holders that he’d met up with. They’d been doing it for as long as she could remember. A bit of ‘bonding time’ was a good thing for him and the other men; it was not just a girly pastime. She was all for Gordon’s days out, and he looked forward to the games too, especially if The Eagles, their nickname, were picked to win. A win always meant he’d pick up a celebratory bar of chocolate on his way home – all for Madeline.

  Leaving M&S and the glorious coolness of the store, she headed back out into the sunshine, hoping she didn’t bump into anyone she knew.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Aside from the temperature tantrum, seeing Rut
h and Amanda together, and the subsequent panic attack, Madeline had had a nice morning shopping and had picked out a lovely shirt out as a birthday present for Gordon – well, Madeline thought it was lovely anyway. Hopefully he’d wear it – what do you get the man who doesn’t ever want anything, doesn’t collect anything and, apart from football at Crystal Palace, doesn’t really do anything? Every gift-gifting occasion was fraught with danger and dread for her, and this one had been no different. Still, he could change it if he wanted to.

  Mission accomplished, she headed to a café for lunch on her own. She was knackered, and she thought a nice meal and some tea would soothe her mangled nerves. And she wanted some time on her own to think about the possibility of Amanda being in her life a bit more – a lot more – than she could cope with right now. Would she forever be looking over her shoulder if she was?

  “I’ll have the quiche with salad, please, a scone, and a pot of Earl Grey tea.” The pretty young waitress, whose name badge read ‘Anna,’ took her order and gave her a number stuck on a table-sized pitchfork that looked like it could wound someone quite badly given the chance. With weapons of mass destruction on every table, Madeline bet no one upset the staff intentionally. Taking pitchfork number 14, she found a table for two in the corner. Tables for one didn’t really exist, and the odd one that did generally faced the wall. And who wants to face the wall?

  An hour later, and with a full-to-bursting stomach topped up with tea, Madeline turned into Sainsbury’s, her last job before returning home. After yesterday’s news and then going out for dinner, the weekly shop had been missed, meaning it still had to be done and not just forgotten. There was no getting away from it. The car park was jammed, and she felt her hackles rising again. If she hated Sainsbury’s on a Friday, she hated it even more on a Saturday. She didn’t even try to find a space near the door but instead drove straight to the back of the car park and grabbed one of the last spaces well away from the rest of civilisation.

  “Let’s make this quick and uneventful,” she mumbled to herself, and set off with a smile plastered on her face. The only positive was it would be cool inside. She found an abandoned trolley and pushed it towards the main entrance. All clear so far. After finding the list that was floating around inside her bag, she headed towards the first aisle. It looked like Christmas Eve inside: people jostling, trolleys piled high with food like it was the Apocalypse tomorrow and no one had told her, but she kept calm, head down, determined to get out again in one piece – both physically and mentally.

  Twenty minutes later, she ticked the last items off her list as she popped them into her trolley. She had quite a pile of groceries, so there was no point going through the self-serve checkout. Plastering her smile onto her face once more, she made her way to the shortest queue with a human cashier to play a game of ‘how-long-will-it-take-her-to-ask-for-my-Nectar-card.’ The answer to that question, when she started on her purchases, was precisely fifteen seconds – hardly time for the woman to say the obligatory “Hello, had a nice day?” It all sort of rolled into one long sentence, like she’d followed her training to the letter and was getting everything she needed to say out in one fell swoop so she could then fall silent for the rest of the transaction. To her credit, thought Madeline, she did it effortlessly and deserved a gold star for her name badge.

  Transaction completed, Madeline steered her trolley back into the hot sun and the waiting hot car, hoping the ice cream she’d bought would make it home as a solid, not a liquid. But as she came in sight of her car, she realised with a sinking heart that it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she’d hoped.

  “Ah, hell!” she exclaimed, exasperated. In the distance she could see her car, and could also see that the car on the driver’s side had parked so close to the door that even Rebecca would have had difficulty getting in. She’d been left with about nine inches of space to try and shimmy into the car.

  “You inconsiderate git!” she yelled, and quickly closed the remaining distance to her car. Her blood boiling, she stood behind it, now, and could see that he (because it had to be a “he”) had parked well over the white line, encroaching in her space. She stumped round to the other side of the car. It wasn’t much better there: that car had parked right on the line, so Madeline had a tiny bit more than nine inches on the right. Probably ten at best.

  “For heaven’s sake!” she yelled up to the sky. A couple of youths sniggered at her as they passed her on their way back to their own car; they had enough beer in their trolley to sink – or hopefully crash – the old banger they were about to drive off in. Madeline flicked them the bird, all class, and they returned the gesture with a collective “Oooh!” followed by another collective laugh. She felt stupid, and bloody angry, so she turned away and considered what to do. Even if she could put the groceries in the boot, how was she supposed to get in? Climb over the back seats and shimmy into the driver’s seat, arse in the air as she went? It wasn’t looking hopeful.

  Hands on her hips, she took in the worst offending car, the one closest to her driver’s-side door. It was completely covered in stickers, like they were holding the whole knackered vehicle together. An old coat hanger was wedged in for an aerial where a proper aerial had once been, and from what she could see, the old jalopy had four dangerously worn-down tyres. It wasn’t a car you’d feel safe taking a ride in, and you wouldn’t want to come across it on the road either.

  Don’t people realise how irresponsible it is to drive on bald tyres, whatever the weather?

  She made a note of the vehicle’s registration plate to report it to the police, anonymously of course, feeling it was her duty as a good citizen. Death traps like that shouldn’t be on the road, she harrumphed inwardly. If it hurt anyone, she’d never forgive herself for not acting.

  Turning back to the problem at hand, she decided there was nothing else for it. She had to climb in through the boot ‘à la arse-in-the-air’ – or risk losing the ice cream forever. Madeline took a quick survey around, hitched her skirt up around her waist, exposing her ample hosiery-clad thighs, and began to struggle into her car, hoping a bored security guard watching the CCTV monitors somewhere wasn’t having a good old laugh at her expense as her big lilac undies filled his screen.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Week 7

  Monday

  Every six or seven weeks Madeline’s office-equipment workplace was graced by the presence of Jordan, a sales rep. He would call in to see Stanley, Madeline’s boss, and she couldn’t stand him. He was a lot of a creep, not a bit of one, and even though she’d shown her distaste at his leering, he persisted. Deidre got her share of it too. While it was nice to get appreciative looks from the opposite sex once in a while, they didn’t count from Jordan. Stanley, being an older man and from a time when ‘male bonding’ involved some good old-fashioned sexist comments and bottom pinching, thought good old Jordan was a bit of a hoot, and didn’t see that his behaviour was offensive to the women, never mind against sexual-harassment legislation. There was really no point in bothering with a grievance, Madeline knew. Either you stayed and worked with it or you took another job elsewhere. As Madeline quite liked the job and the hours, she got on with it and just kept her head down when Jordan was due to visit.

  The click of the kettle switch said the water had boiled, so Madeline poured it onto a Lady Grey tea bag in the pot and waited for it to steep a little. The light, fragrant aroma of bergamot drifted up to her nostrils as she stood gazing out of the little back office window. The view was nothing more than the silvery-grey tiled roofs of other offices and industrial buildings, and the tracks of the railway line that sped folks into Victoria Station or back the other way and to the south. It wasn’t dreary, exactly; it just wasn’t particularly nice, but it was typical of life on the outskirts of South London. The saving grace of the view today was the deep blue sky that once again stretched as far as the eye could see, making everything look ten times better than it did on a rainy day, even though it was th
e same view. Even the worst places on earth looked better when the sun shone.

  She poured the tea and added a dash of milk then grabbed three chocolate digestives from the packet before putting it back in the little fridge. She stuffed a whole one straight into her mouth and hurriedly tried to eat it all before she got back to her desk, making it seem as though she’d only had two biscuits. Deidre and Stanley both knew her trick, however, so the only person she was fooling was herself. And her waistline wasn’t particularly happy with it either.

  At 9.55, the familiar sound of car tyres on the gravel car park could be heard through the small open office window, and both Deidre and Madeline knew what it signalled: the slimy git would be making his way through the front door at any second. He didn’t disappoint. They could smell the tsunami of cologne before the door was even shut behind him. Noses wrinkled; Deidre and Madeline exchanged knowing glances but said nothing. A loud over-the-top voice broke the peace with its exuberance.

  “Morning all. Cracker of a day, isn’t it?” Jordan’s fixed, cheesy smile stretched across his face like it had been painted on, clown fashion. He always wore his dark hair slicked back like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, as though he fancied himself Gekko mark II, but he never wore a tie, meaning his top shirt button was always open, with dark wisps of hair spilling out like a burst pre-war cushion. He was, however, always full of the joys of spring and positive minded, and extremely popular with kids when it came to the local astronomy event he’d started and now organised every summer. He could be a very generous individual with his time and money, but he was also generous with his leering – something most women didn’t much care for. Jordan was single.