A Summer Fling (31 page)

‘What do you mean . . .’ her voice began to rise and she had to force herself to throttle back on the volume ‘. . . you don’t know what to do with me?’

He looked at her then as if she should have known what he was talking about. Then he was up on his feet, railing at her.

‘You lied to me, Grace. You lied to
me
.’

‘Gordon, I don’t know what you mean!’ Grace cowered as his fists curled up and rose, but they didn’t make contact with her on their descent, only the top of the table, and the reverberations travelled all the way down her arms.

‘Well, you’ve no excuse now. You’ll pack in your job, retirement or no retirement, that’s final.’

‘I can’t miss out on a retirement package, love,’ said Grace, trembles taking over her voice. ‘It won’t be long – there’s some coming up, I heard.’

‘You’ve turned down two, you lying bitch!’ This time the back of Gordon’s hand came crashing into the side of Grace’s face. And she wet herself on the impact.

‘Oh God,’ she managed. Grace was afraid now. He knew. How had he found out? She was to discover the answer to that in his next breath.

‘I went to your work and had an interesting talk with someone about you,’ he said in a horribly knowing way.

‘Who?’

‘Never you mind who,’ said Gordon. ‘But he told me you’d had your chance to retire, not once but
twice
, and you wouldn’t. You turned it down
twice
and took another job.’

Grace knew that he wasn’t bluffing. He couldn’t have guessed she had turned down retirement twice. But HR wouldn’t give out details like that.
He told me,
Gordon had said.
He.
Surely he didn’t mean Malcolm?

Grace groaned. She was frightened and sore and her dignity was in shreds around her.

‘Gordon, I’m in pain. Please!’

‘And why are you suddenly going to the pub on Friday nights? Don’t tell me it’s with those women you work with. You must think I’m stupid.’

‘It
is
with the women I work with!’

‘You don’t buy new frocks to go to the pub with women!’

Again Gordon’s hand came soaring down towards her cheek. Grace cowered, waiting for the sting, but his hand hovered an inch from her, shaking with anger.

‘Look what you’re making me do!’ he screamed at her, then burst into tears. They ran through the fingers that covered his eyes. Then, just as suddenly they stopped and he spat at her, ‘You’re ruining everything! You can’t leave me, Grace. I won’t let you.’

Despite her predicament, Grace looked at him with a sudden implosion of bitter hatred. Years of pent-up anger and frustration were suddenly unleashed in her. He had got it all twisted. He thought
she
was having an affair – with someone at work?
He
was the cheat. He had cheated her out of a marriage. He had never tried to make her happy, even though he told her he would in their short courtship. Once that ring had been put on her finger, he had reneged on every promise to try and work at being a proper family. Her own desire for children had locked her into a loveless, sexless relationship.

Grace battled against responding to him. She wasn’t in a position to inflame the situation any further, but if she had been untied, she knew she would have flown at him with every bit of strength she possessed. Instead, she forced herself to remain as still as she could. She let him think she might have slipped back into unconsciousness.

He wiped his eyes roughly with the back of his hands and gave himself a mental shake.

‘Yes, of course I’ll get you a cloth and a towel,’ he said, as if she had just asked for them. ‘Shan’t be a minute, love.’

‘You lost weight?’ Raychel asked Anna as soon as she had taken off her coat.

‘Nope,’ said Anna, smiling because she hadn’t but looked decidedly trimmer thanks to Vladimir’s ‘Darqone’ creations. They really did work. They gave her a lovely shape, even under her crappy clothes. That had a knock-on effect of making her feel, dare she admit it,
sexier.
They brought the swagger back to her step as she walked.

Over the next hour, Christie and Dawn would ask her the same question about her weight. Grace didn’t, because she hadn’t come in, which was strange.

‘Has Grace rung in yet?’ Christie asked as she came out of her meeting with the Buyers at 10 a.m. It wasn’t like Grace to be late for work.

‘No, she hasn’t,’ answered Raychel.

‘It’s a bit funny, isn’t it?’ said Dawn. ‘I haven’t known Grace that long but I wouldn’t have thought she’d be the type not to turn up without saying anything. She’s far too much of a pro’.’

‘I totally agree,’ said Christie. Grace was
not
that type at all. And no, they hadn’t known each other all that long, but a warm current flowed between these women and pulled them together a little closer with each day that passed.

Christie retrieved Grace’s home number from HR which she hoped would give them a result, even though they didn’t have any record of her mobile number. She was aware that ringing Grace would be viewed by HR, if they’d known what she was doing, as a form of harassment and strictly not to be done, but Christie would make her apologies to all concerned after she found that her colleague was all right. She rang and, as bad luck would have it, all she got was a dead line. Then she had a brainwave. She rang Niki at the surgery. He must have her grandson’s details on file. She could get hold of Grace’s daughter that way – it was a start at least.

‘What do you want her number for?’ he asked.

‘Grace hasn’t come in. I’m a bit worried about her. I’m thinking of going round to her house if I can’t get hold of her.’

‘Christie, for goodness sake—’

‘Niki, you of all people know what I’m like.’

‘Yes, unfortunately I do,’ said Niki with an exasperated sigh. ‘Where does she live?’

‘Thirty-two Powderham Crescent in Penistone.’

‘You shouldn’t really go up, you know. It’s not what a manager is supposed to do.’

‘I wouldn’t be going up as her manager, Niki. I’d be going up as her friend.’

‘Look,’ Niki sighed, recognizing that unnegotiable, stubborn note in his sister’s voice. ‘If you’re serious about going up, I’ll meet you there. I don’t want you getting into trouble or coming to any harm.’

‘I
am
going, but there’s no need for you to be there,’ Christie protested, but she knew he was as obstinate as she was. One of their ancestors was definitely a mule.

Christie rang Laura’s mobile. It burred so many times she felt sure it would click into voicemail at any moment, but at the last second a female voice answered.

‘Hello,’ said Christie. ‘Look, you don’t know me, but I work with your mother and we’re a little worried that she hasn’t arrived yet. Do you have a contact number for her, so I can check we have the right one on file? And her mobile number, please?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Laura hurriedly. ‘We’re just driving back from—’ Annoyingly, the phone cut off. Then, seconds later, it rang again in Christie’s hand. Laura dictated the home number, which was unfortunately the same as the one on Grace’s HR file, then Laura supplied Grace’s mobile number and just as she finished, the line cut off again and however much Christie rang back, she couldn’t get past the voicemail.

She rang Grace’s mobile and that too went straight onto voicemail. Her lovely voice invited the caller to leave a message, which Christie did. ‘Grace, it’s Christie. I’m at work. Can you let us know that you’re all right? Can you ring me on my direct line?’ Then she left the number. She rang the home number again. It was still that flatline burring sound. Her intuition was strongly telling her that something was very wrong. Especially when coupled with that recent conversation she and Grace had in the office that all wasn’t well at home. She would risk being told that she was overreacting later.

‘I can’t get through. Anyone know where –’ she read again the address HR had just supplied ‘– Powderham Crescent is? No bloody postcode! Stupid sodding idiots in HR!’ Christie growled at the ineptitude of the department immediately below her feet.

‘It’s on that huge estate near Penistone,’ said Raychel. ‘Just before you get into the town after the big roundabout and it’s on the left. She told me that’s where she lived.’

‘I think I might just take a drive there,’ said Christie.

‘Isn’t that a bit . . . over the top?’ said Anna tentatively.

‘I don’t know,’ said Christie. ‘But something isn’t right and I know it isn’t. Yes, actually, it probably
is
over the top but I won’t get any work done for worrying so I might as well go.’

‘So long as you don’t go barging in like the SAS to find her watching
Morning Coffee,’
said Raychel. But she sensed as much as the others that Grace would never have taken a day off without letting anyone in the department know.

‘Here’s her daughter Laura’s number, just in case,’ said Christie, scribbling on a pad and ripping off the page. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘Are you really that worried?’ asked Raychel, shivering with the sort of chill tripping down her spine that was said to denote when someone was walking over her grave.

‘Yes, I am.’ Unfortunately there was no doubt in Christie’s voice. ‘If James asks where I am, tell him. If anyone else asks, tell them it’s none of their bloody business.’ Then she grabbed her coat and walked down the office towards the stairs.

The estate was easy enough to find, but it was positively labyrinthine, and street signs seemed to be non-existent. Frustrated, Christie threw the brake on and hurried over to the nearest house.

‘I am so sorry to disturb you,’ she said to the householder, a woman in slippers mid-vacuum, ‘but where is Powderham Crescent? I’m looking for number thirty-two.’

‘You’re on it, love,’ said the woman. ‘It curls round in a big arc. For thirty-two, you’ll have to keep going to the other end. You’ll see a row of shops and it’ll probably be somewhere around there.’

‘Thank you so much,’ said Christie, getting back in the car and doing a perfect three-point turn to follow the directions she had just been given. The house numbers reduced to 74 then broke for the shops. She counted down and pinpointed a quiet little house on a corner, innocently standing there surrounded on three sides by a perfectly snipped lawn and five-feet conifers. Christie parked in front of it and walked tentatively down the path.

She stretched her hand towards the door knocker, then pulled it back at the last second. She stole across to the front window and peered through. There was no sign of any disturbance. She would have liked to get around to the back but the tall side gate was locked. She returned to the front door and pressed the flap of the letterbox open. There was a faint noise of a radio and voices so soft that Christie wasn’t sure if she was imagining them or not.

She heard a car draw up and turned to see that it was Niki, still in his white dentist’s tunic.

‘You’re too protective for your own good,’ she levelled at him.

‘I know what scrapes you’ve got yourself into since you were old enough to walk,’ said Niki. ‘You never did err on the side of caution.’ He took a long look at the house. ‘Nothing seems untoward. Are you sure she hasn’t just broken down in the car and can’t get a signal on her mobile to let you know?’

‘I hope that’s the case,’ said Christie. ‘But you know me and my intuition.’

Niki nodded in the manner of a man who did indeed know about his sister’s intuitive feelings.

Christie rapped on the door knocker and rang the bell at the side too for good measure. Through the door glass, she saw a flash of light as if a door at the end of a passage had opened slightly and closed again.

‘Someone’s in, I’m sure of it,’ she said and bent to the letterbox, pushed it backwards and shouted through it: ‘Grace, are you in there? Grace, are you all right?’

Just then, a brand-new Volvo pulled up at the side of the road and stopped behind Niki’s bumper. A young man with a concerned look on his face hurriedly got out.

‘Hi. Are you Christie? I’m Paul, Grace’s son. My sister’s just rung asking me to call over and check on Mum, then her phone cut off and I can’t get her back again. What’s happening?’

‘Hello, Paul, I don’t know what’s wrong, if anything. Yes, I’m Christie, I work with your mother but she didn’t come in today and that worried me. There’s someone in the house, I’m sure of it.’

Paul looked through the windows and tried the side-gate also. Then, with no other option available, he rapped on the door too.

‘Mum, Dad, let me in. It’s Paul.’

A man’s blurry silhouette appeared behind a slim rectangle of patterned glass in the door and an impatient voice said, ‘Go away. What do
you
want?’

Despite everything, Paul was relieved. It had been crossing his mind that his parents were tied up at the back, victims of armed robbers.

‘Dad, is Mum there? Let me in.’

‘Go away, you.’

The relief was starting to slip. ‘Dad, what’s going on? Are you all right?’

‘Of course we’re all right,’ said Gordon. ‘Why shouldn’t we be?’

‘Mum should have been in work today,’ said Paul.

‘She doesn’t go to work any more.’

Christie and Paul looked at each other.

‘Dad, what’s happening? Where’s Mum?’

‘I said, go away and leave us alone,’ said Gordon, and his silhouette disappeared.

Paul raked his fingers through his hair. ‘This is surreal,’ he said. Had he been watching this on the telly he would have been shouting at the characters,
Why don’t you ring the police? Why don’t you smash a window? Why don’t you
. . .
do SOME
THING?

‘What now?’ said Niki, no longer thinking that his sister had overreacted.

‘I’ll ring the police,’ said Paul, even though it felt rather dramatic to do that, to ring the police about your parents. He shook his head at the scenario he was in the middle of as his finger landed on the first 9. He gave it another second for it all to make sense – it didn’t – then he dialled the remaining 99 and lifted the mobile to his ear.

‘God, this is weird,’ he said, as he waited for the call to connect.