'Do you want me to?'

Carrie plunged the strawberry-shaped sponge under the water. 'No.'

'But I'll tell you what I do want you to do. I want you to write a letter of apology to school saying that you're very sorry for what you did and for causing so many people to worry. I think you might even write a thank-you note to Will. He was very good to you.'

At this, Carrie's face brightened. She reached for the toy plastic duck behind Joel and filled it with frothy bathwater. 'I like Will. Do you like Will, Harriet?'

'I've never really thought about it. He's just one of our neighbours.'

'Why was he hugging you when you were crying?'

Taken aback, Harriet said, 'I wasn't aware that he was hugging me. Or that I was crying,' she added hastily, noticing Joel looking at her with his luminous dark eyes. He hadn't said a word since asking to get down from the table.

'He had his hand on your shoulder,' Carrie carried on blithely. 'I think he likes you. Maybe he could be your boyfriend.'

'Oh, don't be absurd! He's much too old for me.'

'How old is he?'

'Ancient.'

'He doesn't look too ancient.'

'Well, he is. I reckon he must be about forty-five, forty-six, perhaps even older.'

Without a second's thought, Carrie said, 'If he's forty-six, that makes him fourteen years older than you.'

'Hah, Miss Carol Vorderman! That proves my point exactly. And besides, he has a girlfriend already.'

'Does he? That's a shame.'

Joel couldn't sleep that night. Outside his window he could hear the wind rustling in the trees. He didn't like the sound the leaves made; it was like people whispering. They whispered at school. They were always doing it. Sometimes it upset him, but usually he ignored them as Carrie had told him to.

He drew his legs up to his chest and hugged them tight. Why had Carrie tried to run away from school? And supposing she did it again and disappeared completely? What if he never saw her again? He'd be all alone. No one to cuddle up to in bed when he couldn't sleep. No one to tell him stories about Mummy and Daddy. And he really wanted to hear those stories because he was already beginning to forget what it used to be like.

With tears running down his cheeks, he slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the landing to Carrie's bedroom. He could tell that she was asleep because she was snoring. She said she didn't snore, but she did. Sometimes she did that strange thing with her teeth - sc.r.a.ped them against each other, making a horrid grinding noise. As quietly as he could, he slid under the duvet next to her. Comforted by her warmth, he was asleep within minutes.

Disturbed by the sound of Joel creeping into Carrie's bedroom, Eileen stirred. She was a light sleeper at the best of times, but these days the least noise woke her. She lay for a moment on her side, contemplating the day she'd had. She wished now that she hadn't taken up Dora on her offer to join her for a coffee and then lunch. It had been a mistake, and not just because if she'd been at home to answer the phone Harriet wouldn't have been bothered at work and rushed home and given herself an asthma attack.

But what Eileen most regretted was what she'd told Dora. It was wrong of her. Very wrong. It wasn't as if she had any proof, just a gut feeling to go on. And a history. Dora couldn't hide her shock that Bob, of all men, could have an affair. 'But how do you know?' she'd asked.

'I don't. All I have is a nagging sense of deja vu.' She explained about the two affairs during the Wilderness Years and how she could see a pattern repeating itself. 'It's the way he always leaves the house making sure I have everything I need. It's his desire to please that is such a bad sign. That and the long absences.'

'But he's out walking the dog, surely?'

'Oh, Dora, don't you think I'd rather I was imagining it?' she'd said. 'Don't you think it would be easier? But I just know. You see, there were days, last month, when he was out with Toby for hours at a time and he'd come home almost cheerful. Then, I don't know why - perhaps she was away on holiday - the walks got shorter and he was permanently in the garden no matter what the weather, as if he was avoiding me. But this morning he was out for ages again, almost two hours. I'm certain he's seeing someone. He couldn't be out that long just walking on his own.'

'It's possible, isn't it? Perhaps it's his way of coping with his grief. Wanting to be alone.'

Thinking of all those miscarriages Bob had grieved for, Eileen knew that her husband wasn't capable of grieving alone.

Conscious that she couldn't hear Bob breathing beside her, she turned over to look at him. But the other side of the bed was empty. Perhaps he was downstairs making himself a drink. She could do with one herself. She pushed back the duvet and got slowly to her feet, feeling like a lead weight.

Downstairs, the kitchen was in darkness and there was no sign of Bob. The kettle hadn't boiled recently, either. She was about to go and see if he was in the sitting room when a glow of light in the garden caught her eye. Focusing her eyes on the Wendy house, she tried to make sense of what she was looking at: Bob was sitting in the Wendy house in the light of a candle. Her heart sank. What was he doing out there? Talking to his lover on his mobile?

Chapter Thirty.

A week later, as she drove to work, Harriet knew she needed to make two apologies, neither of which she was looking forward to. Curiously, the two men to whom she needed to say sorry had become Carrie's favourite people. Hardly a day went by without Carrie singing their praises in one form or another. If she was watching television and an antique programme came on, she would hurl herself into a long monologue: 'Ooh, look, that's just like Will's shop. Except Will's shop is much nicer. He's got so much stuff in it, too. Will says that Jarvis used to run the shop but now he does. When I grow up, I want to do a job like Will's. It must be lots of fun. Not really like work at all. Do you know what Will - ?' On and on she'd twitter until finally one of the others, usually Harriet, would change the subject.

Unfortunately Carrie's other hot topic of conversation was Dominic McKendrick. To everyone's amazement, Dominic had sent Carrie an old photograph of Felicity accompanied by a brief handwritten note: Carrie,

I wondered if you would like the enclosed.

Dominic.

'Good heavens, what a curious choice of photograph,' Eileen had said when they'd all taken a look at it. The picture was of Dominic and Felicity done up as a couple of teenage punks - gelled hair, bondage trousers, ripped T-shirts and scowls this side of a held-back smirk. Harriet could remember Dominic having his ear pierced specially for the occasion - someone's eighteenth birthday party - but when it later turned septic, he'd vowed he'd never let anyone else mutilate him. 'Self-mutilation is the most satisfying path to nirvana anyway,' he'd quipped.

The photograph immediately became one of Carrie's most treasured possessions. She begged Harriet to buy her a frame for it and she placed it on her bedside table, next to her other framed photograph, the one of her parents. She then wrote and thanked Dominic. Harriet had no idea what her niece had put in the letter. She hadn't read the note Carrie had written to Will, either, but she did know that Carrie had spent an inordinate amount of time decorating the single piece of paper, colouring in a border of pink and mauve flowers interspersed with tiny red hearts. The masterpiece was then finished off with a flourish of glue and glitter. Harriet hoped that Dominic would acknowledge the effort that had gone into it before he rolled his eyes and dumped it unceremoniously into the waste-paper bin.

When by return of post a further piece of correspondence for Carrie arrived from Cambridge - a postcard depicting a college gargoyle picking its nose, causing Carrie to hoot with laughter - Harriet began to have second thoughts about Dominic. Was it possible that he was finally showing a more sensitive side to his nature? A more genuine side that made him want to please a nine-year-old girl? If this was the case, then she owed him an apology. Within minutes of that awful scene on the towpath when she'd accused him of being incapable of real grief, she had regretted her words. But there had been no opportunity to say sorry; he'd caught a train back to Cambridge that very afternoon. Harriet was all too aware that he'd been equally vitriolic in his attack on her, but she had been the one to start it, and had deliberately provoked him. Who was she to dictate how he should publicly mourn Felicity? Especially when they had been such close friends. It had been a friendship that Harriet had, at times, been jealous of. But she'd loved Felicity too much to allow something as petty as jealousy to spoil things between them. So what if Dominic always favoured Felicity? she'd told herself. Why should she care when she had Miles? Miles was infinitely kinder than his brother and much easier to be around.

Although there was so much going on in Harriet's life just now, what with her new job and house-hunting, her thoughts were never far from wondering who Felicity had been seeing behind Jeff's back. Could it be a neighbour from the past, perhaps? Or maybe a work colleague? There was no one obvious who sprang to mind. She had now transferred all of Felicity's emails onto her new laptop and was systematically going through them late each night, looking for clues as to the man's ident.i.ty. She had gone way beyond feeling guilty about her actions. She was now on a quest. Intriguingly and annoyingly, neither Felicity nor her lover had used their names in any of the messages. Why all the subterfuge? Harriet wondered. They already had a code to hide behind, so why the extra mile?

For the most part, the emails were intensely serious and highly pa.s.sionate. There were times when Harriet could see what Felicity saw in this man; his adoration must have been powerfully addictive. 'What woman could resist such sensual words of love?' Felicity had written and Harriet had to agree. The emails even resurrected those old feelings of jealousy Harriet had known all those years ago. What must it be like to be loved so devotedly? Certainly no relationship she'd experienced had ever been so intense or so intimate. 'Erotic is a much misused word these days,' Felicity's lover had written, 'but you provoke every erotic instinct within me. I want you here with me now. I want you in my bed every night; I'm tired of our s.n.a.t.c.hed moments. I want more.'

It was evident that while Felicity wanted to be with her lover, she was not about to walk out on her children. 'If we're to be together,' she wrote, 'I have to bring my children; they're a part of me.'

'I know that,' he replied. 'And what's a part of you is a part of me.'

'You write as though it will be easy to wrench them away from their father. Believe me, it won't be. They love him and he loves them.'

'But you have to believe me when I say that this agony I'm in is far worse than anything he might feel. His feelings cannot compare to the pain of my not being with you.'

The arrogant, self-absorbed nature of this reply made Harriet think of Dominic; without a doubt he fitted the profile perfectly. Except for the small matter of his s.e.xual preference. True, he had spent part of his adolescence experimenting with Felicity - as Felicity had described what had pa.s.sed between them - but his lifestyle, since those days, was all too clear. Many years ago, Harriet and Felicity had visited Dominic in Cambridge and they'd met for themselves his lover - Dominic always used the word lover and never partner; he claimed it implied a degree of permanency he wasn't interested in. The man in question was a beautiful young music scholar from the Ukraine with startlingly pale skin and long blond hair. 'You'll be amused to know that Uri has a temper worse than mine,' Dominic had said when Uri left them alone to go and prepare for a music recital. 'He also has a fondness for too much vodka. But I tolerate him because he keeps me company. For the time being, anyway.' A slight lifting of his shoulders suggested weary indifference. Thinking of this comment now, Harriet wondered just how lonely an existence Dominic led. Was it an inevitable fate for the promiscuous and self-obsessed?

All this Harriet put aside when she skirted Crantsford and headed towards the business park. Her journey into work had quickly developed its own routine and gave her time to readjust from the chaos of Maple Drive. One of her greatest skills, she liked to think, was her ability to compartmentalise her life. Work was work and her private life was exactly that; private. Spencer had been the only exception to this firm rule.

The good news was that she loved her new job. It was early days, but work with ACT was proving to be interesting and stimulating, even if she did still have months of settling in and learning the products ahead. Realistically, it would be some time before she had a firm grip on the large-scale applications going on. Until then she had to grit her teeth and make do with what she called the Noddy jobs: the simple applications she could be trusted with in the meantime.

However, her efforts to find a house were failing miserably. The details the estate agents were sending her were either grossly misleading or well out of her price range. That was the trouble with wanting to stay in Kings Melford, where she would be close to school and her parents. The latter was imperative; she just wouldn't survive if Bob and Eileen weren't within a two-mile radius. If nothing else, they were her safety net.

Although they hadn't been much of a safety net when Carrie had performed her disappearing act at school. It still appalled Harriet to think what might have happened to her niece if Will hadn't come across her. Which brought her full circle: Will Hart. Other than his taste in young girlfriends, he seemed a nice enough bloke and there really hadn't been any need for her to make that barbed comment about his children not living with him. It had been unnecessarily rude of her, given that he'd been so helpful with Carrie and herself when she'd been having her asthma attack.

Feeling decisive, she made a mental note to give him a ring at his shop during her lunch break. She would apologise and get him off her conscience. When she'd done that, she would ring Miles and ask him for Dominic's phone number so that she could wipe that slate clean as well. She might also ask Miles if he fancied a drink that evening.

Dangerous Dave poked his head round her office door just as she'd made a breakthrough on a particularly satisfying piece of programming and was leaning back in her chair, her feet up on her desk, a fist punching the air.

'Hiya, Harriet,' he said. 'If you've got a minute, the Big Man says he'd like a word with you.'

'Oh, h.e.l.l. Any idea what he's on the warpath for today?' Yesterday it had been a tedious bean-counting exercise - 'Keep the fiction out of your expense claims or you'll be working on your obituaries,' he'd told the a.s.sembled staff.

Expecting there to be a similar gathering as yesterday, Harriet was surprised to find it was just her who had been summoned to the Big Man's office.

'Ah, there you are. How do you fancy a trip over to Ireland?'

'A potential client?'

Howard nodded and pointed to a chair. 'That's right. But don't be getting your hopes up and thinking it's that leather-clad clog-dancing pretty boy Michael Flatulence. I want you to convince the haulage company I've been chasing for some months now that we're the boys to give them what they want. They're the reason I employed you.' He got to his feet and jangled some loose change in his pockets. 'Presumably there's no reason why you can't go?'

'No reason at all. When were you thinking?'

Back in her office, Harriet dug out her personal organiser and pencilled in the days she would be away. Looking ahead, a.s.suming there wouldn't be a problem with her parents handling things in her absence, a couple of days guzzling Guinness and eating out seemed okay.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it was now lunchtime. Which in turn reminded her that she had two phone calls to make. Will's number was engaged, so she tried Miles.

'You're lucky you caught me,' he said when one of the girls in the bookshop had located him. 'I'm just off for lunch with one of the publishing reps. How have you been? The new job going well? The kids okay?'

'Yes to all of the above. I shan't keep you, but have you got Dominic's phone number to hand?'

'I have, but what on earth do you want that for?'

'I need to speak to him. Actually, I need to apologise. I was pretty hard on him when he was up here and I've been feeling bad about it ever since.'

'Well, don't. Dominic's never felt bad about another living soul. Besides, he won't know what to do with an apology, apart from pour scorn on it.'

After she'd rung off, having arranged to meet for a drink next week - Miles was busy tonight - Harriet tried Will's number again and got through. 'Hi,' she said, 'it's Harriet Swift, your neighbour from across the - '

He cut her off with a laugh. 'It's okay, I know exactly who you are. What can I do for you? Oh, by the way, how's your asthma? No further attacks I hope.'

Harriet stalled, picturing herself making an embarra.s.sing fool of herself wheezing and crying in his office. She must have looked and sounded a total mess. An apology over the phone, though convenient, suddenly didn't seem entirely appropriate or adequate. More to the point, it might make her look weak and cowardly. If she had any bottle at all, she'd do it in person. 'What time do you finish work?' she asked.

'Hey, didn't you know? I'm the big honcho round here; I finish work whenever I want to.'

'And in the real world?'

'About six. Why? Do you want to negotiate a fair wage for Carrie when I put her on the payroll? I'll warn you now; there'll be occasional chimneys for her to clean as well as the odd Spinning Jenny to crawl under.'

'I'm sure my niece is more than capable of sorting out her own financial package without my intervention.' Harriet steeled herself. 'If you're around this evening, I wondered if I could nip across and speak to you. I won't keep you long.'

'You can keep me as long as you like. I have nothing planned for the evening.' He laughed. 'Or for the rest of time, come to think of it. Why not have that drink I've been threatening you with?'

Mm ... she thought, when she'd said goodbye, idly moving the cursor about on her computer screen. It sounded like the pretty blonde girlfriend was no more. Was she pushed, or did she go of her own accord? And was there a danger, if Will was used to pulling girls much younger than himself, that he might try it on with Harriet?

Let him try!

Chapter Thirty-One.

It was a while since Will had had anyone other than Suzie and Gemma to the house, and after a hurried tidy-up and a blitz round with the Dyson and a duster, he deemed the place verging on the half-decent. I'm letting myself go, he thought, pushing the Dyson back into the under-stairs cupboard. But then lately he hadn't had much time for the pinny and rubber-glove routine. If he wasn't chasing his tail with the shop, driving hundreds of miles every week to auctions and being called out by people who'd watched one too many episodes of Bargain Hunt and Flog It and now believed they had a stash of priceless objets d'art languishing in the attic, he was keeping the peace between Suzie and her mother. A full-time job in itself.

When he'd driven Suzie away from the clinic, he'd brought her back to his house before taking her home to Maywood. She'd cried for most of the journey and it was only when he'd settled her in the armchair in the sitting room and had made her a hot drink that they talked about the baby. 'You don't have to justify why you changed your mind,' he said. 'It's your decision, no one else's.'

'But Mum's going to kill me.'

'Nonsense. She doesn't handle change too well, that's all. Once she gets used to the idea, she'll be fine. She'll start organising the mother of all nurseries for you. The whole shebang.'

But Maxine was far from fine when Will drove Suzie home and explained the situation while Suzie rushed upstairs to her bedroom. 'But she can't keep the baby!' Maxine had screeched. 'She's only nineteen. What about university? How does she think she's going to manage? Has she figured that out yet? Oh, this is madness!'

Unable to keep his temper in check a moment longer, Will turned on Maxine. 'I'll tell you how's she going to manage: she's going to have all the love and support she b.l.o.o.d.y well deserves. And if you're not prepared to do it, I'll do it alone.'

'Oh, there you go again. You always have to be the good guy.'

'Change the record, why don't you?'

She glared at him. 'I blame you. If you'd been firmer with her at the clinic she wouldn't have backed out. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you deliberately engineered this just to put her against me.'

'For G.o.d's sake, Maxine, listen to yourself! Where's your love and compa.s.sion? This is our daughter. She's just made the most crucially important decision of her life and you're twisting it round to make it proof that I'm some kind of b.a.s.t.a.r.d. What's the sense in that?'

'Don't you ever question my love for Suzie. It's because I love her that I want the best for her and that doesn't include being a single mother at nineteen.'

'I agree it's not ideal, but this is the choice she's made and I for one am going to help her all I can.'

Steve had arrived home from work at that point and Will had taken it as his cue to exit stage left. Since then, Maxine had calmed down but Will knew Suzie was hurt that her mother had pointed out several times that it wasn't too late for her to change her mind and have a termination. She was also repeatedly warning Suzie of the difficulties that lay ahead.

Will was also worried about the numerous practicalities Suzie would soon be facing. His primary concern was where Suzie and the baby would live and what they'd live on if Maxine didn't have a change of heart. Benefits would be available, he supposed, but parental pride and something horribly middle-cla.s.s in Will made him feel he'd be letting Suzie down if this was what she was reduced to. Plan B was to invite Suzie to move in with him and somehow he'd earn the extra money needed. He'd be d.a.m.ned if he'd go cap in hand to Maxine. But he couldn't believe that Maxine wouldn't finally come round and be there for Suzie.