Her Closest Friend (ARC) Page 6

  ‘Silly mutt,’ I laughed.

  ‘Do you want me to take him out on my run any day next week?’

  I hesitated, mentally clicking through the days I had meetings or tastings in London the following week, knowing that turning her offer down would be like rejecting her apology.

  ‘Sally’s not doing Tuesday… I have to be in London that day.’

  ‘Great. I’ll take him.’

  ‘Thanks, Soph. That’s amazing.’

  ‘I like taking him.’

  I nudged her. ‘As I always say, you should get one yourself.’

  ‘I will have to, just to shut you and Adam up about it,’ she snorted.

  ‘You love Harley.’

  ‘He makes me feel safer on the trails.’

  ‘Right, yeah. Harley would really terrify all those murderers lurking in the trees,’ I laughed.

  ‘You think the pepper spray is a better bet?’

  ‘Er, yeah?’ I laughed.

  We chatted until we came to the junction, where the four main trails converged. 4 MILES DEVIL’S PUNCH BOWL was carved into the wooden arrow, which would take her back to the car park.

  ‘I hope there are no tears on the way back,’ I said, hugging her goodbye.

  ‘Why would there be?’ Her voice was always so gentle, even when she was defensive. I realised she thought I meant her tears, rather than Dylan’s.

  I explained. ‘You’ve got another hour of walking, and Dylan’s never keen.’

  ‘Oh, right. Yes,’ she said, puffing her cheeks. ‘I’ll have to bribe him with two hot chocolates at the café.’

  She took Dylan’s hand and they walked off into the mist.

  * * *

  Back at home, muscle-tired and refreshed, I told Charlie about bumping into Sophie.

  ‘That figures,’ he said, closing the newspaper he had been reading.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘When I went to get the papers, I saw her Saab parked down the lane in that little lay-by next to Hexagon House.’

  ‘No. She came from the café car park.’

  ‘Swear it was hers.’

  ‘Can’t have been.’

  ‘AX14 RUT?’

  ‘Can’t have been,’ I repeated, grabbing the magazine supplement from the kitchen table, tapping the words rather than reading them.

  Charlie looked baffled. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You really know what her number plate is?’ I guffawed, hiding how unnerved I was, sitting on one hand to stop its movement, flicking through the magazine with the other.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Of course he did. Charlie was like that.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘What doesn’t matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Where she parked. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No. Why would it?’

  ‘Forget about it,’ I said, closing the magazine and heading into the sitting room next door.

  ‘Make the fire up, will you?’ Charlie called through.

  I was glad he had dropped it. I did not want to explain Sophie’s lie to him.

  I recalled hugging her goodbye on the heathland at the wooden sign, 4 MILES DEVIL’S PUNCH BOWL, which pointed in the direction that Sophie and Dylan had walked, and ¾ MILES POLECAT, which pointed in the opposite direction towards my house, and where I now know that Sophie’s car was parked.

  The only reason to lie would be to hide the fact that she purposefully went on the walk to find me.

  I felt like I had been stalked. The heathland shrank in my mind, as though the hundreds of miles of National Trust land was not big enough for the both of us.

  Chapter Six

  The road up to Naomi and Charlie’s house was loosely gravelled and potholed, which added to the run-down charm of their modest Edwardian house. Every time Sophie undid the five-bar gate and secured it onto its hook, she would look up at the Wilson home with a sting of envy. It had been a miracle to find such an affordable property in this exclusive, leafy lane, within walking distance of the train station. The estates either side of them had pools and double garages and tall gates.

  Harley barked from inside.

  When she opened their front door with her spare key, he scuttled over the carpet, wagging his tail and yapping at her. He bounced up onto her thighs and snagged her running tights.

  ‘Stop that,’ she said, smacking his nose. He squealed and cowered.

  She knew how to control dogs when she had to.

  Before setting off with him, she ambled through the rooms. It was hushed, like a library. The muted colours of greys and faded corals and the worn oak of the furniture were offset by bright corners of books and photographs, filled with smiles. Sophie imagined she was Naomi as she sauntered into the kitchen, the heart of the house, where the units were Shaker, stripped oak with shiny black knobs. An oversized bunch of pussy willow stems arched from a glass vase on the central island. She rearranged them, humming to herself. The table, which stretched the length of the modern bifold windows, was worn and paint-splattered by the girls’ art and craft projects. There was a woven multicoloured rag rug under the mismatched chairs to pull it all together and keep their cute toes warm. Their good life was ingrained in every piece of furniture, embedded into each nook and cranny.

  In her head, Sophie painted a picture of eating warm croissants and jam with Adam and Dylan in this light, airy room, with its views across the Downs and its own garden gate onto the heathland. The space, the comfort, the style all formed the backdrop to a happier life. It would be impossible to be miserable here. She longed for this house, this kitchen, this family unit, and felt a tug of envy so strong she snatched a ceramic trinket dish from next to the kettle and slipped it into her handbag, as though having something of Naomi’s would redress the balance somehow. She began scouring the room for something else to take.

  Harley yapped at her feet. ‘Okay, I’ll take you, then,’ she snorted, feeling powerful as he trotted at her heel to the bifold windows, through which they would leave.

  As she opened the latch, she paused to look at the black-and-white framed photograph on the opposite wall. It was one of Adam’s portraits. A Wilson family portrait. A present for Charlie’s fortieth.

  Naomi’s eyes stared right out of the photograph at her, coming to life almost. What were they saying to her? At the time, they had been looking straight into Adam’s lens. What had she been saying to him? She looked playful, a hint of mischief. Her blonde hair and rosy cheeks drew the eye like a burst of wild roses. Next to her, Charlie and his grey short back and sides was like a concrete pillar. The safe but dreary accountant from Surbiton had pruned and tamed Naomi’s wild tendencies. He had brought her back home from where they had met in Sydney, during her Antipodean travels, and he had planted her deep into British soil again.

  It had been the other way around for Sophie and Adam. Sophie had been the one to pin Adam down, luring him into the woods and making him a baby. And look how he was thanking her! The sixteenth of April was the day he had chosen to move out. Three short weeks away.

  Sophie picked up a heavy stone tea light candleholder and chucked it at the frame. It fell from the wall and a spiderweb crack appeared across their faces.

  Harley barked and began scratching at the back door, eager to get out. She clipped his lead on and slid open the window.

  He strained at the collar, pulling Sophie along, his breath blooming in the cold air.

  ‘Heel! Heel!’ Sophie yanked him by her side.

  Once they were through the gate, Sophie let Harley off the lead and began to run along the sandy trails through the fern. Every so often, the dog would weave across the path ahead, trot by her side for a moment, sniffing the ground frantically, before dashing off again. If she hadn’t seen him for more than five minutes, she would call him and he would race back.

  As Sophie’s limbs warmed up inside, her skin remained chilled to the point of numbness. Her lungs were stretched and dried by the cold air. Towards the top of a stee
p hill, she was surprised to feel an oncoming sob push up from her chest. She slowed, to breathe the unwanted tears away.

  As the path fell away beneath her trainers, she began to feel weightless, ethereal, disconnected from her moving body. Somehow, one foot after the other hit the ground with a momentum she had no control over, but she knew she was running on emptiness. She felt weak-kneed, spineless, ailing, as though her skeleton were shattering into a million pieces under her flesh.

  Harley came up beside her, prompting her to run faster. Her pace faltered. The dog was refusing to budge. She sprinted as fast as she could, but still he followed.

  ‘Stop it!’ she cried, failing to understand why Naomi loved this stupid, needy little dog, who was more cocker spaniel than poodle. If she and Adam had their life, she would buy a collie dog for Adam, or an Alsatian, who were obedient and loyal and watchful.

  Zigzagging in front of her, he tripped her up and her ankle turned over. ‘Jesus!’

  She limped a little, wondering if it was twisted, furious with the dog as the prickle of tears returned. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

  She managed to keep running, her ankle recovering; but as the dog yapped and circled, unpredictable and clinging, her mind became unsettled. It twisted with visions of Adam on top of Natalie, pounding angrily into her. The images were weakening Sophie, as though he was inside her, too, hating her, ruining her. She would not be able to tell Dylan that she had failed as a wife, that his father was leaving him because he couldn’t bear to live with her any more. He would blame her, and he might love her less. The thought could have split her brain in two.

  The dog whined. Why was he whining? She couldn’t take it any more. She yanked his collar and clicked on his lead and ran faster and faster, but he began yelping behind her. She wanted rid of him. When they came to a gate to a field, she opened the latch and pushed him through. The sheep in the field mewed and Harley barked, running at them, forgetting about Sophie, probably thrilled to be let loose in a field that he was usually forbidden from entering.

  As she jogged off, his bark died away. Her rhythm returned; her tears were sucked back.

  But as soon as she felt the distance between them, she regretted how rash she had been. She looped back on herself, listening out for his bark.

  His black form was nowhere to be seen. The sheep had returned to their quiet grazing.

  She called out for him, running down to the bottom of the field.

  Back and forth on the path, in and out of the heather, on and on Sophie searched and called out.

  After an hour of looking outside, her flesh trembling and her voice hoarse, she ran back to the house to look inside, in case he had returned somehow, through an open window or the old cat flap. Then she thought of the garage, which was accessible through a hidden door that they rarely used but could have left open. There, she searched behind the boxes containing power tools and under the lawnmower and even inside their huge spare freezer. Her attempts to find him were beginning to seem token and pointless.

  Giving up, she climbed into her car and sped home to Adam.

  When she burst into the shack and told Adam what had happened, he closed his laptop and redid his hair tie. ‘He’ll turn up.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  He took a sip from his coffee, and then another sip.

  ‘Have you called her?’

  ‘I’ve left messages. She’ll never forgive me for losing him.’

  ‘He’ll turn up,’ he repeated. ‘He knows the way home.’

  ‘What if he ran onto a farmer’s land?’

  ‘Then BOOM!’ Adam mocked, pulling the trigger of a pretend shotgun.

  ‘Don’t joke about this!’

  ‘Stop worrying. He’ll be fine. Someone will find him and bring him home.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sophie agreed, wondering who Harley would come across in that closed field.

  Adam opened up his laptop again. ‘I took some great shots of the misty trees this morning. Look at these.’

  ‘Creepy.’

  ‘Atmospheric, you mean,’ he teased.

  Hiding her smile, she moved away from him over to the cacti on the windowsill. Staring out at the cottage, she said, ‘At Naomi’s today, I realised what a difference it makes to have space.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he said absently.

  ‘I thought it might be time to rent this place out and think of moving into Grandad’s.’

  ‘Really?’ She could hear the surprise in his voice. She swivelled round.

  ‘Dylan could have his own room,’ she said.

  ‘He would love that.’

  ‘And we could move Grandad downstairs, and we could have his room.’

  A stripe of discomfort crossed his face. A twitch in his brow and lips. ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘I thought that’s what you always wanted?’

  ‘I do. I did.’

  She turned away again and gripped the largest cactus. Her eyes watered.

  ‘I’d better get back to Naomi’s,’ she said.

  The snap of his wristwatch, the tap of the keyboard.

  ‘I have to work abroad next week,’ he yawned, pretending the conversation had not just happened.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And then I move into the Kingston flat the following week.’

  ‘Fine,’ she replied, her mouth dry.

  She pulled Naomi’s trinket dish out of her handbag and placed it in the centre of the kitchen island. The green and gold pattern swirled into a spiral, the plate spinning through her mind.

  When he spoke next, she jumped. ‘Are you okay?’

  What a stupid question.

  ‘Will you be here when I get back from Naomi’s?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to spend the next few days at Natalie’s.’

  She took off her wedding band and engagement ring and placed them in the dish.

  ‘What shall I tell Dylan?’

  They both stared at the rings. She waited for him to protest about her removing them.

  ‘Tell him I’m working away,’ he said.

  * * *

  On autopilot, Sophie drove back to Naomi’s, chilly in her damp running gear, feeling her naked ring finger against the steering wheel. The school run was edging closer. She would buy Dylan a special treat, before she told him that his father was a cheating scumbag who didn’t care about them any more.

  After parking up in Naomi’s drive, she called Naomi on her mobile. When she heard the panic in her voice, she felt a curl of satisfaction roll up her spine.

  Sophie hoped that they would not find Harley.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Excuse me, sorry,’ I whispered, shuffling through the crowd to the entrance, my phone buzzing in my hand.

  Outside in the stuffy lobby of the hotel, I answered Sophie’s third call in as many minutes, trying not to worry that something had happened to the children. I hoped it was about Adam, which was a mean thought, but preferable to any harm coming to Diana and Izzy.

  ‘Harley’s missing,’ Sophie blurted out.

  My head spun. The brown swirls of the carpet moved and distorted into a ghoulish pattern as I listened to her explanation.

  Before she had finished speaking, I was running out of the revolving doors towards my car.

  I drove recklessly. Speeding, overtaking, honking my horn. Every traffic jam was an obstacle to finding Harley. Horror stories ran through my head. A neighbour, a few houses away, had owned a terrier, whom they had put down after he was hit by a car. He had lain in the ditch for hours before he was found. The posters for Pebble, a lost Labrador, were still pinned to gateposts and trees, fading and mouldering, their owners losing hope. Daisy, the Staffordshire bull terrier, whom Sally had walked for years, had died of Lyme disease after an infected tick bite.

  Refusing to believe that Harley could be added to that list, I conjured up his loyal, loving, black face, with his head cocked to one side, and I willed him to be safe with every fibre of my being.

&nbs
p; When I had first seen a photograph of him, and the litter he had been born into, I had been lingering in the girls’ school reception area, waiting to be seen by the head teacher. With swollen eyes, I had waited on the scratchy chair, preparing a speech to inform the school of how deeply my mother’s death, followed shortly by my father’s, had affected the girls. I had wanted to explain – without crying – that Diana’s recent spate of misbehaviour was directly linked to her grief. If the staff had not understood this, I had planned to take them both out of the school before the end of Diana’s Year Two.

  I might not have gone that far, but I had never been tested, thanks to an angel from above in the form of a local breeder and fellow parent, who had been pinning an advertisement for the puppies on the school noticeboard. We had struck up a conversation about our children and the litter. There and then I had agreed to drive in convoy to her farm in Milford to meet the puppies. The school receptionist had rung to ask me where I was. I had explained to her that I had been called away somewhere urgently, which had not felt like a lie.

  Harley’s tiny body had curled in my hand and I had fallen in love.

  When Harley came into our lives, Diana’s behaviour settled and we had all found a way to carry our sorrow without falling apart completely.

  If Harley was hurt, or worse, I did not know how I would ever forgive Sophie.

  * * *

  Sophie and I charged down the lane to my neighbour’s house.

  Sophie was in tears, falling apart already. ‘I don’t know what happened. Honestly, I just don’t know.’

  I was trying to keep it together. ‘Let’s hope Rosemary’s seen him.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. My god. I’m so sorry.’

  Angrily, I wondered how often she could say sorry to me before I stopped trusting her completely. I was sick of hearing her idle apologies. Her thoughtlessness was nothing new to me, and I couldn’t help questioning how careless she might have been with Harley; how involved in her own self-centred, self-pitying thoughts she had been at the time, and whether there was more to her story than she was letting on.