Then, as she clicked through to the third image, the pizza became a dead lump of dough in Bella’s mouth.
Her mother had moved her hand up to his neck, and was pulling him down towards her. In the fourth they were kissing – and, from her extensive recent experience, Bella knew this wasn’t the kiss of friends greeting one another. The final image showed them locked in an embrace, his hand underneath her vest, on her breast.
The first thing Bella did after she caught her breath was to click on the link that took her to
Your Friend
’s profile. But there was nothing there. No photo, no information, nothing.
Your Friend
didn’t let anyone see anything unless you became his or her friend, and Bella didn’t think she wanted to do that.
‘Helloo!’ Someone knocked at the back door. ‘Anyone in?’
Bella sat still and quiet, staring at the empty profile, as, like a game of Tetris, parts of the truth began to fall into place.
She heard the back door fly screen swing open and shut.
‘Bella? Lolly?’ Jack called. ‘Where are you?’
‘Perhaps they’re out,’ Gina said as Jack led her through to the living room. She had Bert clamped to her hip as usual.
Bella snapped the laptop shut and looked up just as they came in.
‘Bella!’ Jack said, running towards her and throwing his arms round her legs as if he were a drowning boy and she a liferaft.
‘Oh, hi, Bella!’ Gina said. ‘You were being very quiet.’
‘I was doing some emails,’ Bella said. ‘Sorry, I was a bit involved in—’ She gestured to the computer.
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ Gina said. ‘Jack was a little homesick, so I thought we’d just take a stroll down, show him how close we are.’
‘Very close,’ Jack said, nodding.
‘So, Tom and I were wondering,’ Gina said, ‘whether perhaps we could offer any help getting your mom back down from off the mountain. Marcus told us about the tree and all. Well, to be honest,’ Gina sat next to Bella, and put her hand on her knee, ‘I know
where
she was going and
who
she was visiting.’
‘You do?’ Bella said in a small voice.
‘I have my informant.’ Gina inclined her head in Jack’s direction.
‘I told Gina all about how Stephen took us to the circus,’ Jack said, beaming up proudly at Bella. ‘And the bear.’
‘Oh Jack.’ Bella put her hands over her mouth.
‘Don’t worry, honey. I pretty much knew everything already. Not much of the very little that happens in Trout Island passes me by.’
‘Oh.’
‘Jack, honey, would you get me a glass of water?’ Gina said. ‘I’m awful thirsty.’
Looking proud as punch at the task being entrusted to him, Jack nodded and strode off to the kitchen.
Gina lowered her voice. ‘Tom took a diversion by there on his way into work this afternoon to check out the tree-on-the-road situation. We thought perhaps we could help. Jack misses his mommy.’
‘Yes,’ Bella said. She feared she knew what was coming next.
‘There is no tree,’ Gina mouthed to Bella.
Bella nodded and closed her eyes. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I don’t want to interfere,’ Gina said, which Bella thought a bit rich. ‘Which is why I haven’t gone straight to your dad. But what I don’t understand, though, is how a mother, no matter what’s going on for her, can leave her little child for so long. From what I know of your mom, it’s way out of character.’ Gina sat back and looked Bella in the eye. ‘If you want the truth, I’m a little worried about her.’
‘What am I supposed to do about it, though?’ Bella said. She thought for a moment about showing Gina the photographs, but she was too ashamed. She didn’t want all of this put upon her.
‘Look. Your Sean has a car, doesn’t he? Can’t you go up there, say you were seeing if you could help? Found the tree had been moved. Find out what’s going on?’
‘But …’ Bella couldn’t start to tell her about Sean. There were clearly
some
things going on in Trout Island Gina didn’t know about. Like, for example, how her brother was a sadistic lunatic.
‘I’d go, but I’ve got the children. And I’m not supposed to know. If it
is
all innocent, me going up would be a disaster. I’ll mind Jack. Please Bella. I’m coming to you because your mom said you’re the sensible one. Couldn’t you go and check on her?’ Gina asked. ‘It’s just I’ve got this quirky old feeling …’
‘Here you are, Gina,’ Jack said as he carried her water through. He tried his careful best, but he still managed to spill over half the glass before he got it to her.
‘Can I – can I speak to Sean please?’ Bella said, twirling the old-fashioned, curly Pinter phone wire round her finger.
‘Is this the English girl?’ his mother said.
‘Please, I’ve got to talk to him …’
The mother hung up.
She stood at Sean’s house waiting for someone to answer her knock. Eventually, she heard leather heels click along echoing wood and the door opened, letting out a cool wave of beeswax-scented air.
‘Yes?’ A short, dumpy woman in a grey checked dress filled the doorway.
‘Mrs McLoughlin. I need to talk to Sean.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve left that rather too late?’ his mother said. A serious-looking woman with short, grey hair and half-moon reading glasses at the end of her nose, she was, Bella remembered Sean saying, an accountant who worked from home. Which meant she was never away from her sentry post.
Bella grabbed the woman’s hand.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘I cannot let you see him.’ Her voice sounded clipped and hoarse. ‘You’ve been too cruel to him. In one week, you, young woman, have turned my son—’
‘Mom, it’s cool,’ Sean appeared, towering behind his mother in the gloom of the hall. ‘Let me speak with her.’
His mother looked round and up at him, then back at Bella.
‘If you—’ she started at Bella.
‘Thank you Mom,’ Sean said. ‘I can deal with this.’ He held the front door open, making an archway with his arm. As his mother walked underneath, she glanced up at him, shaking her head. Sean slipped out on to the porch, closing the door behind him.
The two of them stood and stared at each other. Bella closed her eyes, the tears running down her face. Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around her.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘When you didn’t answer my calls I thought you didn’t want to see me any more, that you thought me weak.’
‘I was just so ashamed,’ she said.
‘So was I,’ he laughed, his voice cracking.
‘And I didn’t want to give Olly any more reasons for harming you.’
‘We can’t let him win, Bella.’
‘What did you do?’ Bella asked. ‘When you got back that day?’
‘Ran for my bed. Hid under the sheets. Luckily Mom had gone to the city for a couple of days, so I had time to sort myself out. She doesn’t know. No one knows. She just thinks you’ve broken my heart. Just!’
‘You didn’t go to hospital? I thought—’
‘What would I have said?’
‘How are you now?’
‘Sore, still. Managing with Advil. But I’ll soon be mended.’
‘Thank God.’
It was only after she had buried her face in his chest and held him tight that she remembered what she had to do.
‘Sean, you’ve got to help me,’ she said, looking up at him.
‘What’s he done now?’ Sean said, his jaw tightening.
‘It’s got nothing to do with Olly, Sean.’ Bella held out the directions Gina had helped her to piece together using her knowledge of the area and Google Earth. ‘It’s about Mum and Stephen Molloy.’
Dog calmly wandered into Main Street and sat down on the heat-wobbled tarmac, right in the way of the car as they sped towards him.
‘Crazy damn mutt,’ Sean said, slamming on the brakes.
Dog stayed where he was, in the middle of the road, looking at them.
‘He wants to come with us,’ Bella said, getting out and opening the back door. Dog trotted round, jumped into the back seat, and positioned himself facing forward like an impatient VIP waiting for the chauffeur to pull his finger out.
‘Strength in numbers,’ Bella said.
A hundred yards down the road they had to stop again, this time because of the temporary traffic lights. While they were waiting, Gladys ran across in front of them, holding a frightened, crying Jack.
‘Jack?’ Bella said, poking her head out of the window.
‘Bella!’ Jack held his hands out to her.
‘Is that you, Bella? Oh, thank Gawd,’ Gladys said, perfectly adopting her mother’s idiom. She was pale, and her breath came in rasps. She was having some difficulty carrying Jack, who despite being several years her junior was almost the same size as her.
‘What is it?’ Bella sprang out and took Jack from the girl.
‘Ethel fell out of the tree house and her arm’s all bent backwards and the bone’s poking out and she’s screaming blue murder. Mommy sent me over to the theatre to take Jack back to his daddy, ’cause we have to go to the Emergency Room, but there’s no one there.’
‘There’s a costume fitting for the principals in town,’ Sean said, getting out of the car. ‘That’s why I’ve got the afternoon off.’
‘I’ll take him. You get back to your mommy,’ Bella said.
‘Thanks, honey,’ the little girl said, then she darted towards her house.
‘So what do I do now?’ Bella turned to Sean, Jack on her hip.
‘He’d better come along.’
‘But we haven’t got the car seat. Mum’ll go mad.’
‘I somehow think that’s going to be the least of her worries when she sees us up there,’ Sean said, opening the back door so Bella could put Jack inside.
‘Doggy!’ Jack said, his face instantly brightening as he saw his travelling companion. Dog turned and gave Jack’s cheek a cursory lick of welcome, then resumed his position facing forward.
The lights changed and Sean hit the ignition. Just as he was about to pull out, they noticed the turquoise convertible cruising slowly along Main Street towards them, having ignored the red at the other end of the roadworks.
‘Oh shit,’ he said. Bella reached over and took his hand.
In the front seats of the turquoise car were Kyle and Aaron. If she weren’t so terrified, their resemblance to Laurel and Hardy would have made Bella laugh. As the boys drove slowly up to them, Aaron, who was at the wheel, lazily levelled an imaginary gun at Sean, took aim, and fired. He slowed right down as he passed.
‘What will Olly say, Kyle?’ Aaron said in a grotesque, feminine voice.
‘I don’t like to imagine,’ Kyle lisped back.
‘I guess we’ll just have to tell him what his naughty little sister is up to again …’
‘He won’t like it.’
‘He
certainly
won’t like it.’
With two loud revs of the engine, the car sped away. Sean put his forehead to the steering wheel. After a moment he breathed in deeply, looked at Bella and smiled.
‘No more running away. The worst part about all that for me was that I didn’t put up a fight. I’ll never let that happen again.’
Bella leaned over and kissed him. Then he put his foot down and they set off, up Main Street, towards Stephen’s house in the middle of the forest, on the other side of the mountain.
‘And what’s the problem, anyway?’ Bella said. ‘They have no idea where we’re going.’
It was only when they were too far out of Trout Island to do anything about it, when they had reached the house with the pond that Lara had admired so, that the thought struck Bella.
Despite her shock and awe at the photographs of her mother and Stephen, she had remembered to log out of Facebook. It was habit for her; if she didn’t, Olly got in there and wrote something salacious or idiotic in her name. Frape, they called it.
But had she closed the page with Stephen’s house zoomed in on, on Google Earth? Gina had shown her in minute detail how to find the address he had said was impossible to see on Google. If, as she feared, she had left the page open, then, far from not knowing, Olly would have a very clear idea indeed of where they were headed.
THE FIRST THING LARA KNEW WHEN SHE CAME ROUND WAS THAT SHE
couldn’t feel her arms. Then she realised it was because they were twisted behind her back and tied together with something metal and restricting. She felt her leg, though. The pain throbbed from dull to sharp like someone turning the volume up and down on a badly tuned radio. With some difficulty she forced her eyes open.
Stephen’s face hovered over hers. He smiled down at her like a benign uncle.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘I was beginning to get a bit worried.’
She noticed the cut on his cheek was now held in place by SteriStrips.
‘I’ll get all the villain parts now,’ he said, touching the cut. ‘
Scarface Two
.’
Lara struggled to get up, but even if her head didn’t hurt too much to lift off the pillow, she realised she was tied to the bed with webbing straps.
‘Please let me go,’ she croaked.
‘Oh, not this again.’ Stephen sighed. ‘Do you know, Lara, how many women would – quite literally, probably –
kill
to be in your position? To be here, with me? You should be grateful. I’ve rescued you from that stale sham of a marriage.’
‘I can’t feel my arms,’ Lara said. ‘Please. Untie me.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I can do that, my love. Not after your little bolt this afternoon. Don’t trust you, you see. Sorry.’ He bent to touch her shoulder, running his hand down to her arms underneath her. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘You’re lying on your hands. That must be uncomfortable, in fact.’
He knelt on her belly to hold her down and undid the webbing. Pushing down at the same time as rolling her over, he turned her on to her front. The sudden movement of her leg made her yelp.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Poor little leg.’
He waited for her to stop gasping. Then he straddled her and undid her hands, lifting her arms so they lay out at right angles to her body.
‘Is that better?’
‘Yes,’ Lara said, her voice muffled by the pillow. The blood returning to her fingers actually caused agonising pins and needles, but he was right, it was better than lying on them.
‘So,’ Stephen said, reaching over her to the far corner of the bed. ‘It’s a good job I’ve got these. You’ll be a lot more comfortable, I think.’