Last month Leo found some smoked paprika seventeen years out of date in my spice rack.
Jill turns off her engine and looks in the rear-view mirror for a few seconds longer than seems natural.
I turn round to look behind us, but there’s nobody here apart from a groundsman building a wooden cage around a young tree.
‘Who’re you looking for?’ I ask, as I get out. She’s scanning around the car park.
‘What? I’m not looking for anybody,’ she says. ‘Right! Let’s get inside and have a cup of tea.’
There’s something going on. She hasn’t just brought me here to cheer me up.
‘Look, I really do think I should text Leo,’ I say. I walk round the front of her car. ‘It’s 10.15, I’m nearly an hour late for our meeting. Please can I borrow your phone?’
‘Later!’
There’s a cold breeze today. I’m wearing one of those infuriating jumpers with sleeves that only stretch just past your elbows. I try to pull them further down my wrists as I follow Jill across the resident’s car park, but I’m still cold.
I notice how each parking space has been painted a different colour to show just how playful life is in HA9.
Jill has been a faithful friend for more than twenty years, but, as I follow her into the lift, I sense a cool hand of unease at my back.
Chapter Fifty-Three
LEO
Now
I call Jill again and again as I cross north-west London towards her flat. It’s 10.30 p.m. and the streets are still busy, even though the cold wind lingers. Council blocks flash past, windows neat squares of yellow, clothes flapping on washing lines in the dark.
Jill’s phone continues to ring out. How could she have been with Emma for nearly twelve hours and not called me back? What are they doing?
Before she drove home, Sheila had given me Jill’s address. If she was disappointed to learn that Emma’s kidnapper was also her oldest friend, she didn’t betray it.
‘Good luck,’ she said, before getting into her car and reversing out of her parking space.
I waved her down, just before she pulled away.
She opened her window. ‘Thank you for doing this,’ I said. ‘You are truly wonderful, Sheila. I – I’m very glad I have you in my life.’
Sheila thought about this for a few seconds, then gave me a businesslike nod. She closed her window and drove off.
I pull off the North Circular at the signs for Wembley Park, and try to call Jill again.
This time, her phone goes straight to voicemail.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Earlier
Jill’s bought pastries, not a fry-up. She busies herself heating milk for hot chocolate while I pee, wash my face, and mentally compose yet another message to Leo that respects his need for two more days, while somehow communicating that I adore him and that I lied to him all these years with good reason.
But of course, I have no phone, and Jill is being infuriatingly resistant to giving me hers.
I stand in front of her bathroom mirror, contemplating my face. I look exhausted; the skin round my eyes saggy and translucent.
What did I think would happen? Did I really believe I could bury these truths permanently inside myself, that Leo would never sense there was more?
Really?
‘Look. Jill,’ I say, when I return to the kitchen. ‘It’s so kind of you to do this, but I have to speak to Leo. Even if he doesn’t want to speak to me, I still have to sort out stuff concerning Ruby. Please let me borrow your phone.’