Chapter Five
I breathed in deeply as I exited the care home. I wasn’t sure if the relief came from having failed in my task, or simply because Redmount had been heated to a temperature most greenhouses don’t even achieve.
I tried, babe. You saw that, didn’t you? I silently questioned Adam as I pulled my car keys from my bag and pointed them at the Fiesta. There wasn’t anything else I could have done.
Wasn’t there? The voice in my head was so Adam that my footsteps actually faltered. There’d been just the right amount of wry amusement in the voice to almost persuade me that Adam was here in person. Not giving me an inch.
What else was I supposed to do? Sit the poor old guy in front of a swinging light bulb and interrogate him?
I heard no reply to that one but could easily imagine the small snort of humour my husband would have given in response.
Well, if you say you’ve done everything you can . . .
I sighed deeply and lowered the hand that had been about to open the car door. I hated it when my subconscious did this. I hated allowing it to imagine exactly what Adam would do or say in any given situation . . . and yet I kind of loved it too. It kept him here, near me, where he belonged.
I sighed heavily. ‘No, I don’t suppose I did do everything I could.’
Surprise flickered in the receptionist’s eyes at my reappearance just moments after signing me out.
‘Did you forget something?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Sort of,’ I said, already aware that my cheeks were turning pink. I would make an appalling poker player, because I was dreadful at bluffing.
‘I was thinking that I’d like to let Gordon’s family know I’ve been to see him, but unfortunately, I’ve . . . I’ve lost their contact details.’
The expression on the receptionist’s face wasn’t quite so warm now. I imagine she’d already guessed what I was about to ask her.
‘Obviously, I realise you can’t hand out confidential information,’ I continued hurriedly, ‘but I wondered if I might leave a note with you, giving them my phone number and address, so you could pass it to them when they next visit.’
‘So, they’ve lost your contact details too?’
My blush got deeper. Damn, I had not thought this through. It was all too easy to imagine Adam on a cloud somewhere, laughing his head off.
‘I’ve moved house, and they don’t have my new mobile number.’ My response sounded feeble even to my ears.
Despite this, the receptionist extracted a sheet of paper from the printer beside her and slid it across the desk to me. I carefully wrote out every contact detail I could think of, including my parents’ mobiles. It looked a little desperate, but the receptionist was too polite to comment as she took the piece of paper from me.
While I’d been busy writing down numbers, she had extracted a buff-coloured folder from the filing cabinet behind the desk. Even upside down I could see Gordon’s name on the front. For one wild moment I wondered what would happen if I snatched the folder from her hands and rifled through it for Josh’s address. Somehow, I didn’t think Adam would want me to take my promise so far that I ended up getting myself arrested.
‘If you could give this to Josh Metcalf the next time he visits Mr Baker, I’d be really grateful,’ I said, watching as she carefully slid the sheet into the folder.
‘Who?’
I had already half turned from the desk, but that one word had me back there in an instant.
‘Josh Metcalf. He’s . . . he’s a family member . . . kind of. I’d assumed he’d be listed as Mr Baker’s next of kin.’
My thoughts were spiralling back to the day of Janette Baker’s funeral. I remembered Josh telling me that his foster father had no living relatives, which was why he’d handled all the arrangements for the service. ‘I guess I’m the closest thing to a next of kin he has now,’ he’d told me sadly.
‘There’s no mention in Mr Baker’s file of anyone by that name, I’m afraid. But we do have his daughter down as an emergency contact.’
I stared at the receptionist, then swallowed hard, several times. I might not play poker, but I knew when to take a gamble.
‘You mean Claire? Claire Triplehorn?’
The receptionist looked relieved that she hadn’t had to break any confidentiality rules.
‘Ahh, you know her then?’
My smile felt fake – probably because it was. ‘Oh, yes. Claire and I go way back.’
It was hard to hide my frustration as I realised my plan – which admittedly had always been shaky – had just run into an insurmountable obstacle. The chances of Claire Triplehorn, the Bakers’ other long-term foster child, ever doing anything to help me were roughly about a billion to one.
A cool draught of air filtered into the foyer and the receptionist’s gaze switched to something just beyond my right shoulder. Whatever she saw made her face light up in delight and astonishment.
‘Oh, my goodness, I don’t believe this. What are the chances?’
It was one of those moments when you wonder if Fate is deliberately out to get you, while simultaneously thinking that if this is a dream, it would be a really good moment to wake up now.
The receptionist was beaming as she looked towards the entrance, and I could already feel my stomach somersault and then tumble into freefall as I slowly turned around and followed her gaze.
The element of surprise was on my side. But I wasted my ten-second advantage by getting tangled up in noticing that her hair was longer and her tan deeper than the last time I’d checked out her Instagram account.
I eyed the door behind her, wondering if there was any chance of getting through it before she saw me. My own hair had been shorter, and several shades lighter, the last time we’d met. And I didn’t need a mirror to know that the last twelve months had aged me more than a year had any right to do. There was every possibility that Claire might not recognise me.
Her eyes travelled past me and, for a second, I thought it might be okay after all, but the receptionist was enjoying the moment far too much not to intervene.
‘Miss Triplehorn,’ she cried out happily. ‘Can you believe this? We were just talking about you. Look who’s here.’
Claire looked.
I’d always thought there was something vaguely beady and avian about Claire’s expression whenever she was studying something that displeased her. I ought to know, because I’d been on the receiving end of that look more times than I cared to remember.
‘You,’ Claire said slowly.
I guess that answered the question of whether or not she recognised me.
‘Hello, Claire.’ My voice sounded remarkably calm, belying the way my heart was trying to hammer its way out of my ribcage.
‘What are you doing here?’
Her eyes flickered over me, taking in my high-heeled boots, skinny jeans and chunky jumper. Her expression hardened, but I don’t think it was my clothes she’d taken an instant dislike to . . . it was the person inside them.
From the corner of one eye, I saw the young woman behind the counter do an almost comedic double take as the long-lost-friends reunion took an unexpected detour.
Claire pulled herself up, throwing back her shoulders, and I suddenly remembered how she’d always hated that I was so much taller than her. I fought an inexplicable impulse to slouch.
‘Claire, I—’
She shook her head, not allowing me to finish. She threw a glance towards the entrance and seemed relieved to see it empty.
‘Outside,’ she said, as though we were in a spaghetti Western and there was about to be a gunfight. I swallowed uncomfortably.
‘Look, Claire, there’s no need for us to be—’
She held up her hand, commanding silence, before disarmingly pasting a saccharine-sweet smile on her face that was entirely for the receptionist’s benefit.
‘Lily, please. Let’s go outside to talk, shall we?’
Claire didn’t wait for my reply, but spun on her heel, clearly expecting me to follow her. I did. She swept through the double glass doors, allowing them to swing shut in her wake. I imagined having them hit me in the face would have been an unexpected bonus.
She didn’t pause on the stone steps outside the care home but marched around the front of the building, taking us further away from the car park and other visitors.
‘Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?’ she hissed.
‘I came to see Gordon,’ I said, pleased to hear that out of the two of us I sounded the calmest.
‘Why? My father is elderly and sick and doesn’t need to be bothered by unwelcome visitors.’
‘There was something I wanted to ask him. And I really don’t think seeing me bothered him. He didn’t seem to know who I was.’
‘He barely knows who I am,’ Claire shot back, which was so sad that unthinkingly I reached out a hand towards her.
She took a half-step back, looking genuinely horrified by the gesture. Embarrassed, I let my arm fall back to my side before drawing in a deep breath and trying again.
‘Claire, can we please just talk for a moment?’
‘I have nothing to say to you, except “stay away from my father”.’ She turned, as though to stride away, but stopped to add, ‘No. Scratch that. Stay away from my entire family.’
We both knew who she was talking about.
‘That’s kind of the reason why I’m here today. It’s what I wanted to ask Gordon.’
Claire’s eyes widened until they were saucers of disbelief.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘I need to speak to Josh. It’s important.’
Claire shook her head as though she truly couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
‘Well, he absolutely, one hundred per cent, does not need to speak to you. Not now. Not ever.’ No ambiguity there then, but had I really expected any different?
‘If I could just explain—’ I began. Claire shook her head and threw another glance back towards the care home.
‘What bit of “you’re not welcome here” don’t you get, Lily?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing. ‘My brother made it very clear to you six years ago that he never wanted to speak to you again.’
I felt my cheeks growing hot, despite the cool afternoon breeze. However badly that last conversation with Josh had gone, it stung that he’d apparently relayed it to her, word for word.
‘What happened between Josh and me is . . . between Josh and me,’ I said quietly. It was also between me and my late husband, but I had no intention of sharing that information with Claire.
‘Josh left me clear instructions that if you ever came looking for him, I wasn’t to tell you how to find him.’ She gave a small snort, as though that advice had been totally unnecessary. ‘So why don’t you go back to your husband and leave my brother in peace.’
It was the worst moment ever to feel the sting of tears in my eyes. ‘I’d love to do that, I really would, but I can’t because he died over a year ago.’
If I was expecting sympathy, I’d come to the wrong person, but she did at least look a little taken aback.
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes. And maybe there are other things you don’t know either. Things that I need to talk to Josh about.’
Once again, she glanced towards the car park. The possibility that Claire might not have come to the care home alone had barely had the chance to form, when a man’s voice called out her name. My head shot up as a tall figure, hidden by the shadows of the building, began making his way across the gravel towards us.
My eyes went to Claire’s, and I thought I saw anxiety flicker within them. Was finding Josh really going to be this easy? But as the figure grew closer, I realised with disappointment that he was even taller than the man Claire called her brother, with the kind of bulging muscles you only get from spending hours each day in a gym. The stranger came to stand behind her, laying a hand roughly the size of a bear’s paw on her shoulder.
‘Everything okay, babe?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. All good. This woman was asking for directions, but she’s just realised she’s in totally the wrong place. Isn’t that right?’ Claire threw the challenge straight at me like a fast bowler.
I caught it squarely with a resigned nod of defeat.
‘Yes. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
‘You haven’t bothered me at all,’ Claire said as she turned away, but not before throwing one final barb over her shoulder: ‘You never did.’
Fletcher was waiting with a wagging tail and a look of doggy reproach as I let myself into the flat. I reached for his lead, and we headed straight back down the stairs to the local park. While he did what he had to do, my thoughts kept circling back to the Claire I’d first met: a troubled teen who’d come to live with the Bakers two years after Josh had moved in.
It had been my first experience of ever being disliked, and her reaction towards me had been particularly venomous, as though everything about me annoyed her. Apparently, it still did. Back then I’d foolishly imagined that as we were the same age, she and I might become friends. But Claire had made it abundantly clear that was never going to happen.
Josh had been too loyal to ever reveal Claire’s backstory or how she’d ended up with the Bakers. Perhaps he didn’t even know why himself. But when I’d asked what I’d done to make her hate me, he’d told me to give her a while to settle in and that she’d come from a bad situation.
‘So did you, but you don’t go around glaring daggers at me.’
Josh had grinned then, turning on the charm even at fifteen years of age.
‘Ah, well that’s different.’
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t tried to befriend the new arrival in the Baker household. But every attempt I made was thrown back in my face. When I stepped in to stop the school bullies teasing her about her surname, she’d rounded on me as though I was the one guilty of harassing her.
‘I don’t need anyone sticking up for me. And if I did, you’d be the last person I’d pick.’
But I kept on trying, because if Josh liked her, I knew there had to be something worth knowing beneath the angry, bitter, protective shell that Claire wore like armour. But my new neighbour had made it perfectly clear she had no desire to be my friend. It took me a long time to realise the biggest problem was Claire’s jealousy of my close friendship with Josh. Perhaps, with hindsight, the fact that she had referred to him as her brother from day one should have given me a clue.
Much later, long after the Bakers and their foster charges had moved away, I wondered whether Josh had been the first person who Claire had ever allowed herself to care about, and in her eyes I was a threat to that. It made me uncomfortable to think she hated me purely because Josh didn’t. But the thought had lodged in my head and stayed there for almost two decades.
The last time I’d seen Claire was at Janette’s funeral, when I’d gone up to offer her my condolences. She had barely grunted an acknowledgement before turning away from me, but I’d put her reaction down to grief. And to be honest I’d been more preoccupied by the unexpected arrival of an attractive blonde at the crematorium, who loudly introduced herself to everyone as Josh’s girlfriend. Curiously, he’d forgotten to mention her existence when he’d asked me to help him get through the day.
It would take a miracle, I realised, for Claire to change her mind and help me contact Josh, and miracles were something I no longer believed in.