Squinting as he drove out of the underground car park, Robert fished in the glove compartment for his sunglasses before pulling out through the traffic onto the opposite side of the road. The muggy afternoon air did nothing to warm his spirits, rather caused a patina of sweat to form on his face and forearms that were still cool from the air-conditioned office. As he sat in standstill traffic he flicked through several radio stations but none of the music suited his mood. He pressed the automatic roof switch and brought down the top on his Mercedes. He wanted to shut out the entire world.
‘Home,’ he snapped at his handset. The number rang out. Erin had forgotten to set the answer machine. But it confirmed that the house was empty and encouraged Robert to press on with what he had specifically left the office early for – aside from wanting to avoid Den for fear his wily partner would sniff out that the enemy had been visiting.
Robert couldn’t deny the misgivings he had about Ruby’s birth certificate. The feelings of doubt, the ones he fought hard to keep submerged, might have sunk to the bottom of the river again, given time. But, coupled with the disturbing visit from Mary and Erin’s reluctance to even consider a passport for Ruby, Robert was challenging those bubbling emotions, poking a stick at them to see how they reacted. He certainly couldn’t ignore that Erin had been against Ruby’s school trip since she’d first heard about it. Did that mean she was worried for Ruby’s safety, that she thought thirteen too young an age to travel abroad without a parent? Was she burdening her with her fear of flying? Or was it more technical than that?
Perhaps Erin was afraid of the unhappy memories she would stir if she had to apply for Ruby’s birth certificate in her ex-partner’s name. It could be that Ruby never knew her father – she never mentioned him, after all – and didn’t even realise that her official surname wasn’t actually Lucas. The possible explanations for Erin’s behaviour were numerous although one thing was certain. Robert needed to know the truth, partly because the truth usually evaded him when it came to relationships but mostly because he didn’t want to ruin another marriage through paranoia. Finding out clean facts now would prevent the bubbling pot of suspicion boiling over. How to get the truth, gently, without disturbing the waters, was another matter entirely.
At ten past three, Robert pulled up outside their home. The four-storey townhouse looked slightly grey and shabby in the sunlight, with black paint peeling off the window frames in places and the once-cream stonework faded and stained by the overflow from old, leaky guttering.
Robert checked his watch again as he locked the Mercedes. Ruby would arrive home in about half an hour, cheerily dumping her school bag in the doorway before raiding the refrigerator and retreating to her room to concentrate on homework or shutting herself away to play the piano. Now that she had settled in to Greywood College, they had enrolled her in the school’s minibus service, which dropped off a number of pupils in their area. He didn’t expect Erin back from the shop before six. Either way, he would have to be careful.
‘Ruby? Erin?’ he called out just to make sure, pulling the front door key from the lock and leaning his briefcase against the wall. The heady aroma of the freesias on the marble-topped hall table made him pause for a moment. He remembered Erin lovingly arranging them that morning. She was passionate about flowers, especially simple country blooms in whites and creams. Her popular shop was a credit to her and had become everything he expected she would make of it. Erin was a hard worker, determined in everything she did. He was surprised, when he’d asked not long after they met, that she hadn’t gone to university or trained in one of the professions. If they had a disagreement, he always teased her that she would have made an indomitable lawyer.
Despite the unusual hour, Robert opened the drinks cabinet in the dining room and poured himself a generous single malt. The extra guilt from drinking alone in the afternoon was far outweighed by the unwelcome sense of betrayal that sat heavily in his throat and chest, making him overly aware of every thump of his heart beneath his ribs.
‘For heaven’s sake, man,’ he said to himself. ‘It’s only a drink. And it’s not like she’s having a bloody affair.’ Robert knocked back the whisky and poured another before venturing upstairs.
He hesitated and stared at the tumbler, turning it slowly in his hands. The cut crystal set had been a wedding present from Jenna’s parents and, to match the memory, as he passed the bay window he thought he caught sight of Jenna, her face a disapproving wash of watercolours. He stopped to take a closer look but there was nothing there, just the brilliant fan of rays spilling into the room. He shrugged, cursed his mind for playing tricks, and went directly upstairs. He didn’t have time for ghosts from the past, whatever they were trying to tell him.
He began with Erin’s computer, wiggling the mouse impatiently as he waited for it to boot up. The top floor of the house had been part of the recent redecoration plan and the two attic rooms had been made into studies. One was for Erin so she didn’t have to stay at the shop to attend to all the business paperwork, and the other was for Robert, who often brought files home to work on after hours.
‘Finally,’ Robert sighed, glancing at his watch. Immediately, he dived right into the computer’s hard drive, checking to see what files and software Erin possessed. He browsed through meticulously organised folders and accounting records, unsure exactly what he was searching for, although he was convinced he would know it when he saw it.
He opened Outlook Express and organised all her emails into order, so he could tell if she had been communicating with one particular person more than another. Every time a man’s name appeared on the list, Robert scanned the messages. Mostly, he read about wholesale flower orders or complaints about why a delivery hadn’t arrived on time. There were messages to and from Erin’s shop landlord about a rent increase and mother-daughter giggles between Erin and Ruby. One message thread in particular, initiated by Ruby, spoke so highly of Robert and what a loving father he was, it nearly exploded the guilt lodged in his craw. But this had to be done, for Ruby. For his marriage.
Erin’s emails proved to be particularly uninteresting. But they made Robert realise just how hard his wife worked to run the flower shop single-handed. It was a massive undertaking for one woman although he could see she managed the business efficiently, just as he expected. But admiration did nothing to stop Robert. He dug further into the computer, trawling obsessively through every file, whether it was a system file, a program file, a document created by Erin or her internet surfing history. He sipped on his whisky and loosened his tie. It was hot at the top of the house so he took a moment to open the skylight.
He froze. Someone was coming upstairs. Robert glanced at his watch. In panic, he pulled the computer plugs from their socket and Erin’s computer immediately sighed and the screen went blank. Ruby came into the room.
‘Oh.’ She stood in the doorway. ‘I thought you were Mum. I heard someone up here.’ She frowned, shocked to see Robert in her mother’s study. Her reaction was a diluted version of how Erin would have behaved.
‘Just me, I’m afraid.’ Robert exhaled and smelled the sweet whisky on his breath. Explaining away his presence to Ruby would be easy, perhaps even useful.
‘What are you doing?’ Ruby’s tone was still confrontational, Robert thought, as if Erin was speaking through her daughter. He didn’t want her telling her mother about this.
‘I’m looking for your birth certificate.’ Quick thinking was Robert’s job. ‘I need it to be able to get you a passport. You want to go on the school trip to Vienna, don’t you?’
‘Do I ever!’ Ruby’s expression relaxed, budding with innocence again.
‘Have you ever had a passport, Ruby?’ Robert stood and walked over to his stepdaughter to give her a gentle hug.
‘I dunno.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve never been on an aeroplane.’
‘You’re home early.’ Robert tried not to show his frustration at being interrupted.
‘The tennis tournament was cancelled. The other school couldn’t make it so we were allowed to come home early to study for the end of term exams. The minibus dropped me off.’ She shifted from one foot to the other.
Robert realised that she thought she was in for a ticking-off for perhaps taking public transport or even walking. Instinctively, he knew she would be more amenable to helping him if he let it pass. ‘Do you know where your birth certificate is, Ruby?’
‘I’ve never seen it but I know Mum keeps stuff like that hidden in here.’ Ruby surprised Robert by approaching Erin’s desk, which looked like a French antique writing desk but was in fact designed to take a computer as well. Ruby completely removed the centre drawer and knelt down, reaching right to the back of the space. She fumbled about for a moment and then proudly removed a battered black tin cash box and placed it on the circular rug that partly obscured the painted floorboards. Ruby then retrieved a small key from underneath the rug and unlocked the tin. ‘You won’t tell Mum, will you?’ She glanced up, her forehead wrinkling, before lifting the lid and frowning. ‘I saw her take the box out once and put something away in it. She didn’t know I was watching and might be cross if she thought I was spying.’ Robert noticed a little nerve spasm beneath her left eye. ‘But I’ve never looked. I’d never pry.’
Robert crouched down beside his stepdaughter. His gaze was fixed on the tin as if she had just unearthed a pharaoh’s tomb. He patted her back. ‘Don’t worry, Ruby. It’ll be our secret, eh?’
‘See? I was right. There are all sorts of papers in here and look, Mum’s got a passport, so I should be allowed to have one.’ Ruby pouted briefly and then waved the passport above her head. Her mother was being so unfair not allowing her to go on the school trip.
‘Well, this is a start.’ Trying not to sound too eager, Robert took hold of the passport and opened it to the photograph page. He noticed that it had not long expired.
Quickly flipping through the pages, Robert saw that it had hardly been used. Only a couple of faded stamps proved a long-forgotten journey to Spain and Greece. Most likely holidays, he thought, turning back to the picture of Erin as a younger woman. He studied it for a moment, his heart pulling a lopsided smile across his otherwise anxious expression. She had been a rather mousy young thing in what he guessed to be her early or mid-twenties with a sullen look about her, as if having to pose for a picture was a terrible inconvenience.
The Erin he knew had never worn her hair long or with a fringe and she regularly went to the salon to maintain its cropped layered style and ash-blonde tint. The plump cheeks and heavy make-up were obviously a trait of his wife’s past too, as nowadays she was about a stone or so lighter than this picture suggested and her face was usually free from cosmetics.
Then, with a conviction to remain reasonable, Robert thought of his own passport photograph and how dissimilar that was to his current appearance. He laughed and snapped the passport shut and placed it back inside the tin. It was of no use. ‘What else have we got in here?’ He tried to appear casual about flicking through the contents but apart from worrying that Ruby would be loyal to her mother and disclose his search, he was also concerned that Erin herself would return and catch him in the act. When he didn’t come across Ruby’s birth certificate amongst the papers and letters, Robert decided that it would be best to conduct investigations another time, when he had the house to himself.
Conduct investigations
, he muttered incredulously in his head. He was reminded of Louisa and their early-morning run out of Martock last weekend. He wondered whether to call her, to apologise, but what good would that do? Theirs wasn’t the kind of relationship where regret and apology had a place. From one point of contact to the next, anything tense or questionable that had gone before was always forgotten. A clean slate each time. He wondered if Louisa could help obtain a birth certificate for Ruby. She was a private investigator, after all. She had contacts.
Robert watched as Ruby locked the box, replaced the key under the rug and carefully slipped the tin back into the void behind the desk’s drawer. He didn’t like himself for planning to sneak back later to take a proper look at the contents, even though he had satisfied himself that there was no birth certificate for Ruby and the remaining documents were obviously personal, judging by their covert location.
‘How about a cold drink and a pastry down at Luigi’s? My treat.’ Robert stared at the ceiling, disgusted with himself.
Ruby grinned and Robert guided her down the stairs and out into the street. Luigi’s was only a block away. She had homework but it could wait.
Robert found them a table on the street and ordered strawberry smoothies and Danish pastries. He was overly aware that he reeked of whisky although Ruby didn’t appear to have noticed.
The sun, still intense even through the layer of visible pollution, baked the guilt deeper into Robert’s consciousness and gave him a glaring headache right across his forehead. Knowing that he would be prying through Erin’s personal papers at the first opportunity tasted too much like how it had all begun last time. If he were to confide his feelings to Louisa, well, he wasn’t sure their friendship would hold out. Robert blinked heavily and sipped his strawberry smoothie.
‘Guess what?’ Ruby said, perched on the edge of the metal bistro chair. She stirred her straw through her drink, staring down coyly.
‘What?’ Robert grinned into the glare, the pain in his head cutting through his temples.
‘A boy at school fancies me. He’s asked me out.’
Robert knew that those words were as hard for her to say as him confessing to Erin that he’d been prying on her computer.
‘That’s nice, love. What’s his name?’ He tried to appear casual although he suspected that it would end in heartbreak in a couple of months. Briefly recalling his own awkward teenage romances, he touched her hand. The contact caused him to wonder who her father was, what he would think of this adolescent development.