Chosen Child (8 page)

The nausea that accompanied her through most days pulled at
her gut, and Amanda crept from the room. Jaden should sleep for another half
hour. That would give her time to get her stomach under control.

James arrived on foot at seven o’clock. They were using her
car – it was no longer hers and Gareth’s, was it? – so that she could pick him
up at Mousehole after his walk, compare notes, then leave him in Penzance to
catch a train home, safely separate from her and Jaden. James changed into
Gareth’s jacket and distinctive red woolly hat and turned to Amanda, spreading
his arms, waiting for her comment. For a moment she couldn’t speak. With his
hair – slightly shorter than Gareth’s – covered, the only major difference
between the two men was the eye colour. How she wished Gareth’s grey eyes were
looking at her from under his red hat. But they weren’t.

She nodded, noticing James’ pallor. He was finding this hard
too. Amanda tried to breathe her nausea away. She swallowed one of the
anti-morning sickness pills left over from her first pregnancy, and got on with
the preparations for their trip. Her hands packing the nappy bag were freezing
and unsteady; she had never been this unhappy. She was living in her worst
nightmare.

‘Okay,’ said James, when they were ready to go. ‘I’ll run
round into the car, and if anyone sees me we’ll have to hope they think I’m
Gareth.’ He picked up Gareth’s blue rucksack, packed with James’ own clothes.
‘You drive, and I’ll hide behind a map till we’re out of town.’

Amanda opened her mouth to say Gareth would never have done
this, then closed it again. Nobody who might see them knew that either. ‘Have
you got his phone?’

James patted the rucksack. ‘That’s all, isn’t it?’ he said,
frowning. ‘There’s nothing we haven’t thought of?’

Amanda was past caring. If a policeman popped up in front of
her now she’d have said, ‘Excuse me please, can you help? I killed my husband
by mistake.’ She pushed Jaden into his jacket and handed James the car key.

‘Let’s do this,’ he said grimly. He opened the front door
and ten seconds later was sitting in the front passenger seat.

Amanda locked up, and glanced up and down the street. As far
as she could see no one was watching. Good. She belted Jaden into his car seat,
hoping he would fall asleep for a while.

It was a pretty drive to Lamorna but Amanda was oblivious to
the scenery. Her mind was buzzing. What if they were found out? Jaden, poor
sweetie – what would happen to him? She stopped to let an elderly woman pushing
a rollator cross the road, the panic surging inside her making it impossible to
keep a steady hand – or foot. The car kangarooed away from the zebra crossing
and Jaden gurgled in the back. James was slumped in the passenger seat,
fiddling with his phone.

‘Was it okay for you to take the day off work?’ said Amanda,
when they were about halfway there and the silence had become unnerving.

He started, then glared at her as if she was an errant
child. ‘It had to be, didn’t it?’ He went back to his phone.

If she hadn’t been driving Amanda would have burst into
tears. Was it really too late to stop all this? She could drive to a police
station and lay out the whole sorry tale. And be on the front page of all the
red tops tomorrow. And have Jaden taken away – they would give him to Susie to
take care of. In Scotland. Amanda bit her lip, blinking hard. They had started
this, and they had to continue.

‘What did you do with Gareth?’ she blurted out, and he
glared again.

‘Keep your cool, Amanda. We’ve made our plan and we’re going
to stick to it.’

Nothing more was said until they reached Lamorna Cove, the
starting point of Gareth’s walk. Amanda buckled Jaden into his buggy and stared
around. There were no cliffs as such here; the land sloped down to the sea,
green, grey and brown alternating as grass and scrubland gave way to rocks and
the ocean. The coastal path towards Mousehole began here, and Gareth should
have done all this yesterday. The place wasn’t as deserted as she’d imagined;
several hiker-types were stamping around as well as some locals, going about
their business, cheerful in the warm spring sunshine. Amanda closed her eyes
against the beauty around her.

James reached out and pulled her towards him. For a second
she wondered what on earth he was doing and then she realised all he wanted was
a word in her ear – literally.

‘Happy family, huh? We’ll go into the café first and make
ourselves conspicuous. Nice and chatty,’ he murmured, taking Jaden’s buggy and
striding towards the white building at the top of the cove. Once inside, he
pushed the buggy over to a corner table, leaving Amanda to go to the counter to
order.

‘Two coffees, please, and, ah… two fruit scones,’ Amanda
said to the girl, forcing a smile. ‘It’s a lovely day, isn’t it? We’re seeing
my husband off on the first leg of his walk. Wish I could go too, but the
baby’s a bit young.’

She gestured across the room to where James was sitting with
his back to them, playing a clapping game with Jaden. Infectious baby giggles
filled the café and several people chuckled.

The girl nodded sympathetically. ‘You’re quite right. Some
people do take kiddies with them, but if you ask me it isn’t worth the hassle
and in some parts it’s plain dangerous. Going far, is he?’

Amanda moved along the counter as she was joined by two
middle-aged women. Now that she had started, the lies came almost automatically,
because of course they weren’t real lies. If it had been Gareth over there with
Jaden, everything she was saying would have been true.

‘He’s aiming for Plymouth, but we’ll see how far he gets by
Friday. We live in St Ives so I can pick him up anywhere.’

She paid for the coffee and took the tray across to the
table. This was the bad bit. She had to sit here and drink bloody coffee and
act all normal and cosy.

They spent most of the time chatting to Jaden, who was in
good form, waving to the women at the counter. It was all Amanda could do to
force down her scone. She should never have ordered anything so complicated –
slapping butter on a fruit scone was the last thing she felt like doing.

Twenty minutes later they left the café, Jaden still waving
to all and sundry and James blowing his nose, covering his face with a large
hanky. Outside, the show continued, with Amanda buying a paper at the kiosk and
James pointing out various landmarks before hugging both Jaden and Amanda
fondly and setting off along the coastal path. Jaden played his part
magnificently, waving and shouting, ‘Bye-bye-bye!’

Tears running down her cheeks, Amanda waved too as James
disappeared round the corner – how crap this was. She was crying because her
life had turned into a horrible mess, but an observer would think the tears
were for her husband away on his tour. And now she had to hang around for
hours, her and her guilty conscience. The plan was to pick James up at
Mousehole, the next village along the path. This time he’d be wearing his own
clothes and Gareth would be gone. They would slink in and out of the place as
unobtrusively as possible.

At one o’clock James was safely back in the car. Relief made
Amanda positively light-headed. The plan had worked; they could go home. She
drove towards the anonymity of Penzance, glancing across at James, slumped in
the passenger seat. ‘Did you remember the phone?’

He slugged water from his bottle. ‘In the Atlantic, with the
rucksack. And the hat’s about three yards away from the edge of a steep drop
into the sea. Thank Christ that’s over. Bits of that path are bloody murder,
you know. I don’t know why more people don’t go over the edge. It’s up to you
now, Amanda. We shouldn’t see each other in the next week or two. Get rid of your
mobile in case you don’t manage to delete all traces of me from it. I’ll do the
same. We can both get prepaids and use them to contact each other. I’ll send
you an old-fashioned letter with my number, then you can call me.’

‘What about the baby?’ said Amanda, fear churning in her
gut. She would be on her own for weeks, her and her guilt – and the ghost of
Gareth haunting her every time she closed her eyes.

‘Well, that’s sort of up to you too. Not much I can do about
it yet. You’ll be all right financially, won’t you? I mean you’ll get a widow’s
pension of some kind, and I guess he had life insurance too, didn’t he?’

That was when the full horror of her situation hit Amanda.
She was going to be – no, she
was
– a single mother
with two children and nobody to provide for any of them; she would have to get
a job. Misery hit her like something solid. Maybe she should move to Glasgow to
be near Susie, but would she find work there? Her own parents lived in Spain,
maybe she should go to them. But she couldn’t support herself in Spain with two
babies, either.

Penzance Station loomed up in front and James pointed to an
empty space.

‘Let me out, and move on immediately,’ he said. ‘Don’t
forget to have a chat with someone tonight, a neighbour if possible. You want
to sound absolutely normal. In fact -’ He gave her a sudden and dreadful grin.
‘You could confide that you think you might be pregnant but you’re keeping it
as a surprise for Gareth when he gets back. You’d never say that if you had
anything to do with his disappearance. I’ll be in touch.’

As soon as the car was stationary he leapt out and strode
across to the station entrance. Tears blurred Amanda’s sight as his back
disappeared among a party of pensioners descending from a coach. That would be
the last she would see of him for ‘a week or two’.

‘Bye-bye-bye,’ said Jaden.

Amanda pulled back into the traffic. She had to get away
from here, this place she wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near.

‘That’s right, darling,’ she said to Jaden, hearing her
voice shake. ‘Daddy’s on holiday.’

‘Da-dada,’ said Jaden, and Amanda swallowed hard. Jaden
wouldn’t remember Gareth. All her child would have of his father were the
photos and videos they’d made. She should get them saved properly for Jaden
when he was older.

But first she’d have to wait until Gareth was officially
missing and then dead.

What had James done with him?

Thursday 22nd May

Ella lifted her phone, catching sight of her reflection in
the display. She was wearing a permanent grin these days. The adoption had been
approved on Tuesday, so all being well Soraya would move into her new home
within the next few weeks. Everything was coming right, and today was another
huge landmark – her new daughter’s first overnight stay. It was excellent timing
as this was the half-term week, so there were no school restrictions. The
little girl’s last visit to St Ives had been cancelled because she had a bad
cold, so Ella went to Redruth. She’d sat with a feverish, snuffling Soraya on
her lap, reading a story about a dragon and thinking that next time she’d be
able to do this in the comfort of her own home. It was happening, it was all
coming right – she was to be a mother.

She called Mel to confirm the visit could go ahead, and was
told Soraya was packing her bag already. Ella arranged to be there at eleven,
and golly, when had she last been so excited? It would have been better if Rick
could have taken the day off too, but the India contract was apparently about
to hit another wobbly phase, so he was needed at work – bad timing, but there
was nothing they could do about it. All Ella could hope was that the current
uncertainty wouldn’t make Rick nervous around Soraya. That could affect the
entire atmosphere, and she wanted the first sleepover to be fun for them all.
And now to tell Rick that the visit was definitely on.

As usual first thing in the morning, Rick was outside. He
was obsessed with gardening at the moment, going out before work each day to
make sure his seedlings in the shed had survived the night, and to lovingly
water and fertilise them. It wasn’t something he’d bothered about before. Maybe
the new enthusiasm was because they’d soon have a child to nurture – Rick could
be starting an ‘Earth-father’ stage in his life. Well, there was nothing wrong
with home-grown vegetables.

‘Pooh! It’s a bit pongy in here,’ she said, putting her head
round the shed door.

Rick was hunched on a stool beside the tomato plants,
staring into space. He leapt to his feet and glared at her. ‘Haven’t you heard
of knocking before you come in?’

Ella’s patience deserted her, and for a moment she stood
there struggling. Knocking on a garden shed indeed. But if she snapped back,
the day might be ruined, and that was the last thing she wanted. She drew a
deep breath and instantly regretted it. That fertiliser smelled like nothing on
earth.

‘It’s ten to eight; you’ll be late for work if you’re not
quick. And good news, Soraya’s much better this morning so the visit can go
ahead.’

‘Wonderful. And stop behaving like my mother.’

‘There’s an answer to that.’ Ella stared round the shed. As
well as tomato plants, Rick had courgette seedlings and tiny lettuces – but the
smell couldn’t be down to such miniature veggies. ‘Rick, have you got something
illegal in here? Because if you have, get rid of it. At least until the
adoption’s finalised.’ She tried to keep her tone light, but privately she was
beginning to wonder what was going on. Could he be growing wacky-baccy?

Rick sprayed water over the seedlings and she could see his
hand shaking . ‘Don’t be so stupid. It’s the bone meal you’re smelling. It’s
good for the soil. Let’s go.’

He chivvied her out of the shed and demonstratively
double-locked the door behind them.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Ella.

‘There’ve been a few break-ins recently,’ he said, jogging
back indoors and lifting his briefcase. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’