Chapter 6

Six

I t was Sunday when everything fell apart.

Sunday when I decided to help Harry with the painting because the drying time for the undercoat was four hours, and if we pushed on, we could get the gloss done as well. Then we wouldn't have to spend any extra time around Chip, and I could block his number if he sent me another weird "goodnight" message.

Sunday when I glanced up to check Alfie wasn't digging in Chip's lawn with his yogurt spoon again and found him missing.

"Alfie," I called, but there was no answer, and I cursed under my breath as I stepped out of the porch to look for him. "Alfie, you need to stay in sight."

There was no sign of him. I squinted down the old cobbled driveway, but the only movement was a crow pecking at the neatly mown grass alongside.

"I bet he went to the loo," Harry said. "He drank nearly a whole carton of OJ this morning, remember?"

A sore point for Harry because he'd also wanted orange juice, and there was none left.

"I'm going to check around the back. Don't leave the porch, okay? And call me if Alfie comes back."

"Whatever."

But Alfie wasn't in the toilet. He wasn't in the stable yard, period. The old loose boxes were bolted shut from the outside, and when I checked the smaller doors that looked as if they led to storage rooms, every single one was padlocked shut.

"Alfie!"

Silence.

That all-too-familiar sense of panic welled up inside me. I'd felt it seven months ago when I realised what that condom wrapper in Steven's pocket meant, and again soon after we moved into Marigold Lodge when I first saw water torrenting through the roof. But this was worse.

This was my son.

He couldn't have gone far; logic told me that.

But then I glanced towards the house and saw the side door open.

Shit.

If there was one place a curious seven-year-old like Alfie would go, it was where he wasn't supposed to.

Should I sneak in after him? Or call Chip the possible pervert? Neither option appealed, but leaving Alfie alone to wreak havoc wasn't an option.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialled.

"Everything okay?" Chip asked. "Did you run out of paint?"

"I can't find Alfie. He was right by the porch, and then… I don't know. But I saw your side door is open, and?—"

"I'll take a look. Primrose probably opened it."

"Who's Primrose?"

A wife? A girlfriend? A housekeeper? Could she help with the search? Whichever, I felt better knowing there was a woman in the house.

"My dog."

Oh.

"You named your dog Primrose?"

I knew I shouldn't judge, but he sounded like the type of man whose pet would be called Butch or Rambo or Fang. Primrose?

"My grandma picked the name. Don't worry if you see her around—she's friendly."

"Your grandma?"

"No, the dog. My grandma's dead."

Crap. "Uh, I'm sorry for your loss."

As well as the house and the stable yard, there was a vast walled area that might have been an old kitchen garden, but the only door I could see that led inside was securely locked. Outside the walls lay acres of parkland dotted with trees, and beyond the parkland was a forest rich with the reds, yellows, and browns of autumn.

"Alfie!"

I stood more chance of finding a competent plumber with immediate availability than I did of locating my son in this sprawling estate. Could he be hiding? I wouldn't have put it past him. He'd grown bored yesterday, and he hadn't been keen on coming back today. Wait, what if he'd followed Primrose? He liked dogs.

I called Chip again.

"Any luck?" he asked.

"Not yet. You?"

"Same, but the house has thirty-seven rooms, so…"

"Is the dog with you? Primrose?"

"No."

"Alfie likes dogs. If he saw her…"

"He might have followed? Got it. I can track the dog."

"How?"

"She has a GPS tag on her collar. Maybe you should get one for the kid?"

I was about to retort that Alfie wasn't an animal when I realised a GPS tag actually wouldn't be a bad idea, especially if it stopped me from having a coronary.

"Ah, fuck," Chip muttered.

"What? What is it?"

Chip didn't answer my panicked question, but I heard the muffled sound of running. A yell. Barking. A loud splash. The splash came from the other side of the wall—the ten-foot-high wall—and it's amazing what adrenaline can do to the body. I practically ran up the nearest tree, slithered along a sturdy branch, and belly-flopped onto the brickwork.

Oh hell! Alfie was in the bloody swimming pool, splashing around in the water with the dog, a giant wolflike thing who thought it was a great game and kept trying to grab his arms. But Alfie was panicking. His screams sounded anything but joyous. I tried to jump off the wall, bracing for impact, but found myself dangling in midair when my leather belt caught on a metal bracket halfway down. All I could do was swing and shriek.

"Alfie!"

My heart thudded against my ribcage as a floppy-haired man in sweatpants and a white T-shirt sprinted from the house and dove into the deep end with no hesitation whatsoever. A moment later, Alfie was sitting on the edge of the pool while the dog paddled to the far end and clambered up the steps.

Alfie was okay.

Alfie was okay.

My phone rang, and I managed to get it out of my back pocket, but my hands were shaking so much that I dropped it. I swung helplessly as it bounced off a stone plant pot and came to rest with a shattered screen. Dammit. I blinked back tears as I focused on trying to get myself unhooked, but I couldn't reach the top of the wall to pull myself up, and my weight kept the belt buckle pulled tight.

"Easy, Janie."

Chip wrapped his arms around my legs and lifted me high enough to unhook the belt, then lowered me gently to the ground.

"You're okay. Everything's okay."

But everything wasn't okay. When I looked up, I realised why his voice had seemed familiar. Why I'd felt so weird around this place. Why even now, my thighs were clenching from being so close to this stranger who wasn't actually a stranger.

Eyes.

Or rather, Eye, because now he was wearing a patch over the right one. Before I could stop myself, I lifted a hand, but he reacted quicker than I'd ever seen a man move and blocked my slap with his forearm.

"You bastard!"

He looked more worn around the edges—longer hair, creases in his forehead, and scarred skin by the eye with the patch. But his body hadn't changed much. Under the wet T-shirt that clung to his pecs, he was as chiselled as I remembered. Muscled perfection.

And still a massive dick.

Man, the dick. I glanced down before I could help myself, and his grey sweatpants were soaking too.

Nope, he's absolutely a jerk.

Alfie sidled up to us with the dog, dripping, and I spotted a worm crawling out of his trouser pocket. Heaven help me. And his cast was wet. Would it dry out, or did we need to go back to the hospital?

"Mum said a bad word."

"Sometimes that's necessary," Eyes told him.

"Do not encourage my son to swear. Alfie, we're leaving."

"Janie…"

"You didn't want to speak to me thirteen years ago? Well, I don't want to speak to you now. You can fix your own damn door."

Alfie's eyes widened. "That's two bad words. What happened to your face, mister?"

Please, ground, swallow me up.

"We're leaving right now ."

The worm plopped onto the gravel, and I flounced off with Alfie, although my dramatic exit was somewhat scuppered when I realised I had no idea where I was going.

"How did you get in here?" I whispered.

Alfie shrugged.

Eyes was smirking, the giant prick. He nodded towards the door in the wall.

"That's the fastest way out. Bolt's on the inside."

I gave him the finger over my shoulder as I marched away, which Alfie thankfully missed because he was too busy pointing at a beehive by the far wall. No, we weren't going to check out the bees. With my current run of luck, they'd sting me into a swollen blob and I'd have to spend another eight hours in A&E.

Harry was standing on the front steps when Alfie squelched his way around the corner ahead of me.

"I went swimming!" he gleefully told his big brother. "I made a massive splash. And even though I definitely wasn't drowning, a giant rescued me and Mum tried to punch him."

Was it wrong to wish I'd had a girl? A girl wouldn't have cannonballed into the swimming pool, and she definitely wouldn't have cannonballed into the swimming pool with worms on board.

"Alfie, stand on the lawn and empty your pockets. Harry, pick up whatever painting stuff is ours and bring it with us."

"I don't have anything in—" Alfie started.

"All of it."

Grudgingly, he evicted another worm, three snails, and a motley crew of woodlice.

"Does this mean I don't have to do the gloss paint?" Harry asked.

"You can watch TV for the rest of the day."

"Sweet."

We had to walk three-quarters of the way home. That was how long it took for Alfie to dry out enough to get on the bus. Chip, Eyes, whatever he was calling himself this week tried to ring me, and I took great pleasure in blocking his number. Had he known it was me when we first spoke? Was that why he'd given me a false name? Chip? Pah. Obviously, Eyes was a nickname too, but— What did I care anyway? He was out of my life. Again. He could hang out on his fancy estate at one end of Engleby while I slummed it with the mortals at the other.

We. Were. Done.