“That’s not to say you can’t take simple measures,” Shenton reminds me. “And of course if you suspect …”
I tune out. She doesn’t suspect … Suspect what? If the alarm in Tom’s voice is anything to go by, I don’t think a nice surprise is on Tom’s agenda. And who the hell was on the other end of the line? Could it be ‘that’ woman – the pretty brunette on Facebook? If so, oh my God. Was that why he doesn’t want a child? Does he ever plan to marry me? Is he cheating?
Attempting to shut Tom off and look interested, I gaze at Shenton, who is still talking. Elliott is a dinosaur for detail and I worry I missed something important. I nod and grin as Shenton runs through a list of bog-standard safety precautions that any sensible person past the age of twenty should automatically know. Two stand out from the crowd: walk with confidence and, if suspecting trouble, notify the police. Hmmm. A mate of mine once alerted the police when a brawl broke out in the street. He got arrested.
Thirty minutes later, I wrap up the session with my tame copper and head back to the newspaper office. Helen is out and Elliott, thank the deities, is tucked away in his office engaged in a high-level meeting with the publisher of our newspaper and sister magazine. Rumour has it that both are in trouble. This should bother me more than it does, but I’m a glass-half-full merchant. Or I was until Tom took a dirty great gulp out of it.
Sneaking a quick glance over my shoulder, I slip my laptop from my bag, log on to Facebook and check out the brunette. I gawp again at the pile of ruins in the background and wonder where exactly it is.
Stephanie Charteris’s profile tells me that she lives in Shropshire, not a part of the world with which I’m familiar. My face clouds when I see how old she is: twenty-sodding-nine, nearly a decade younger than me. It turns out that she is a sales advisor for Argo Homes, a national property developer. Clearly, she has friends, both male and female. She also has a fat black cat called ‘Theo’. She makes no political statements. She doesn’t push what she does for a living. She doesn’t get into rants or scrapes.
My eyes strain so tight they feel as if they are about to eject from my eye-sockets. I squint again, but there is no mistake. In one photograph, Stephanie holds a baby of indeterminate sex. I shoot through the rest of her details but there is no other reference, pictorial or otherwise. Could be anybody’s child, yet from her wide-hipped stance, the evident pride in her eyes, I don’t think so. Not every mother plasters their profile with their offspring, especially if they are uber-private about their personal life. More common ground with Tom, I think, jolting with alarm from a ton of mashed-up feelings. The only saving grace is that Tom does not appear in any of her photographs. My relief lasts less than a nano-second. Why would he? Tom doesn’t allow a digital or pictorial record of his existence.
With the beginnings of a headache, I check out new development sites in Shropshire. Not one belongs to Argo Homes. Click and tap, a scroll through the website reveals two developments in the neighbouring county of Herefordshire. Shared with two other developers, the first site encompasses six hundred houses that include starter, town house, and three-, four- and five-bedroom properties geared for working people and families. Another smaller development in which Argo is the sole developer seems more appropriate for the retired. My eyes graze through the spiel and cut to the chase. I write down the telephone number of the sales office at which there are three advisors, including Stephanie Charteris, her name seared into my psyche with the equivalent of a branding iron.
I get rid of the page and wonder how to talk to Tom later. Should I confront him and reveal what I overheard, and entirely ruin the evening? Perhaps it would be best if I wait and see if he speaks first. There could be a simple explanation, surely, one I’m missing? I remind myself that I rarely flare up at everyday inconveniences and that I’m a slow-burner in a crisis. Yet this has the makings of a catastrophe and one I’m not sure I can handle. Honestly, I feel impossibly jumpy – an alien emotion. Truth is I love Tom. I envisage spending the rest of my life with him. I planned a family and …
In a dilemma, I do what all women do in this predicament: phone a friend. My best mate, Victoria Braiche, is an actor, code for she works in a call centre. I’m a little unfair. She used to have a top London agent, did a couple of commercials and took small parts in Rep and, according to her, had a walk-on part in a gangster movie nobody’s heard of. When she isn’t ‘resting’, she acts in local amateur productions held at the Playhouse at the end of the Bath Road. Last time I saw her, she played a ‘weeping woman’.
“Vick, it’s me, Roz.” All my friends shorten my name.
“Hiya. Luckily, you caught me on a toilet break.”
I squirm at the very idea. These call centres work their staff like dogs. “Are you free straight after work for a quick chat? I’m having dinner with Tom, but if I could pop in first …” My voice peters out. Vick knows me well. She’ll fathom that something’s up.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” No.
“Half-past five?”
“Fabulous, see you then.”
Elliott’s door swings open and burly men’s voices bloat the dry office air. I put my cell phone away and get busy looking busy. A stout man glides past and throws me a disdainful glance. Probably my hair, although it’s not as striking as the peacock blue I sported last month, my way of paying homage to Picasso’s Blue period. Not really – Vick made the facetious remark and it remains a kind of private joke between us. Thank God he can’t see my latest tattoo – a humming bird – discreetly positioned on my left shoulder blade and covered by my warm winter dress. Two other men follow. They are dressed in suits with ties. Official. Elliott fills the doorframe of his office, hulking and broody. I can tell that things are bad, but don’t say a word. I’ve my own shit to deal with.
“All right?” Elliott finally says when they are gone.
I nod.
Anything but.
Vick lives in a terraced home that makes an IKEA interior look sterile. Muted Cream. Muted Blue. Scandi-Mute. In person, she is not in the least washed out. Big-boned, she has a wide, open and honest-looking face, great skin and generous figure. Her nose is straight. Her eyes are hazel, flecked with green. Unlike me, her hair is short, curly and blonde. She wears jeans with a cerise- coloured shrug over a French-grey shirt. She is the kind of person who engenders trust. Anyone would talk to her freely and reveal his or her secrets. Obviously in the wrong career, she’d make a great investigative journalist.
“Coffee?”
“Lovely,” I say. “How’s it going?”
We sit at her scrubbed-pine kitchen table. Nothing on the work surfaces bar essentials: a toaster, kettle and coffee-making machine. Makes my kitchen look like a hoarder’s paradise.
“Not bad. Work is shit.”
I watch as she spoons coffee beans into a grinder. Serious stuff. Me, I reach for the nearest jar of instant.
“But I had a call from my new agent today.” She says it with a flourish, a ‘ta-da’ in her tone.
“Really?”
Vick offers a toothy grin. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“Didn’t mean it like that. You know I’ve always been your biggest fan.”
“I couldn’t have kept the faith without you.”
“Nonsense. So what’s she got planned?”
I don’t hear the answer because it’s blasted out by the sound of beans pulverised to dust. The smell is better than the blare.
“Sorry,” she says,