‘Hi, Caro,’ she said, bending down to kiss her.

  ‘I ordered you an Americano with milk and a chocolate biscotti. I hope that’s okay,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Ellie, settling herself down into the chair opposite, unwinding the long linen scarf from round her neck and stuffing it into the top of her bag. She thought about telling Caroline about her recent purchases but decided against it. It wasn’t that Max and Caroline were broke, but she wasn’t sure there was spare money for the kinds of things that she routinely bought and she didn’t want to appear insensitive. When they came for dinner and saw the new things, she might even pretend that she had had them for a while but just not used them. There was very little chance that Caroline would have noticed them in the shop recently so she was unlikely to catch her out, and it was only a harmless white lie, told with the best of intentions.

  ‘I’m not sure I should have sent the girls back to school today,’ blurted Ellie, apropos of nothing but suddenly feeling the need for reassurance that she had done the right thing.

  ‘Were they okay?’ asked Caroline. ‘Olivia seemed a bit overcome on Sunday.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that was as much to do with milking the drama as grief for her grandad,’ replied Ellie, and Caroline’s wry smile told her that she had thought much the same. ‘But I think Lucy was genuinely upset and she can be a little’ – Ellie picked her word carefully – ‘delicate sometimes. I just wanted to make sure she was all right before I sent her back in.’

  Caroline’s brow was creased, her head tipped to one side as if she understood how delicate Lucy could be, but even Caroline didn’t understand how things were with Lucy. Not really.

  ‘Are Alex and Theo okay?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘I think so. They didn’t want time off school, not that we offered it, and so they just went in as normal on Monday. Theo hasn’t really mentioned anything. Alex and Max had a little chat, man to man, but he seems to be coping fine.’

  ‘Will you take them to the funeral?’ Ellie asked. This was something that had been on her mind. Her girls were both too young for funerals, she thought, but if Caroline and Max took the boys then it might be difficult for her to do something different.

  Caroline stuck out her bottom lip as she considered what to do. ‘I assumed we would. Not really given it much thought at all, actually. Why? Do you think that’s the wrong thing to do?’

  ‘It’s so hard to know,’ replied Ellie, who definitely did think that. ‘I think I was fourteen before I went to my first funeral, but that was because there weren’t any to go to until then. Lucy is only eight. It feels very young to be dealing with a funeral. And I’m sure it’ll be quite a big do. I worry that seeing all those adults upset, or at the very least sombre, will spoil all her good memories of her grandad.’

  ‘What does James think?’ asked Caroline.

  ‘He thinks I’m making a fuss and that we should just take them, but it doesn’t feel right to me. To be honest, Caro, I was hoping that if you didn’t want to take the boys either, we could just agree there would be no children.’ Ellie watched Caroline’s face for any hint of what she might be thinking, but found nothing concrete.

  ‘Yes, I see what you’re saying. Let me chat it over with Max. And I’ll ask the boys as well. They obviously get a say in it too.’

  Ellie wasn’t sure that they did. In her view, this was an adult decision and the children would just have to comply with what the adults decided, but Max and Caroline parented differently. It was odd, when she thought about it. She and Max had been brought up with the same rules and values, and yet they had very different ideas about what was best for their children. But then Caroline’s upbringing had been very different to theirs. It had been just her and her mum, and on the rare occasions that Ellie had been round to their house she had always been struck by the difference between the two families. Caroline’s mother never seemed to want anyone at their house. She hadn’t been rude but she was never very welcoming and Ellie always felt like she was intruding. Caroline’s mother had always seemed afraid of her own shadow, but Ellie had never really known why.

  By contrast, life had been busy and noisy in the Frost household with lots of people coming and going, and decisions often made by committee with lots of good-humoured shouting. At her house there was no peering out from behind curtains or skulking around in darkened rooms; everyone was always out in the sunlight. When you looked at it like that, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that Caroline approached things differently.

  There was nothing she could do about it, however. She had made her point, and now she would have to wait until Max and Caroline came back to her. But even if they did choose to take the boys, that didn’t mean she would have to take her girls.

  ‘I just wish we’d get the results of the post-mortem,’ said Caroline. ‘Then we can get on with planning everything. I’m not sure it’s good for anyone, it dragging on like this.’

  ‘Well, they need to be sure they know how he died,’ Ellie replied. She could feel her eyes starting to brim again and she blinked hard to disperse the tears before they began to escape. ‘And I suppose the police will want to be sure that nobody else was involved.’

  Caroline stared at her, eyes wide. ‘You don’t seriously think someone else might have been, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘No! Of course not. I’m sure it’ll be an aneurysm, like the paramedics thought. But the police have to be sure, don’t they? I mean, Dad was pretty young and in good health. It was a bit of a bolt out of the b—’ The tears came suddenly. Ellie could do nothing to stem the flow so she just let them fall and soon Caroline joined in, the two of them sitting there, crying into their coffee until they managed to regain control.

  ‘Do you think someone might have wanted to kill him?’ asked Caroline when they had stopped crying, and the question was so unexpected that it made Ellie laugh.

  ‘No!’ she replied. ‘Of course not! The thought never even crossed my mind.’ But as she looked at Caroline, she could tell that the thought had crossed hers.

  ‘Anyway, enough of all that,’ Caroline continued. ‘How are the party preparations coming along?’

  Despite her birthday party being almost continuously on her mind until the week before, Ellie hadn’t thought about it since they had found her father. Partly this was because it felt disrespectful to be thinking about celebrating so close to a death, but also because pretty much all the arrangements were now in place. All that remained were a few last-minute matters that could only be dealt with nearer the time.

  ‘I think it’s nearly there,’ she said. ‘Almost all the RSVPs are in and there’s hardly anyone who can’t make it.’

  ‘Of course,’ Caroline replied. ‘It’s going to be the social event of the year. Nobody is going to want to miss it.’

  Ellie gave her a wan smile. She had been so excited about it, had rushed round planning and booking things like there was no tomorrow. But now the shine had gone. The whole thing felt overcome by her dad’s death.

  ‘I did think about cancelling,’ she admitted.

  ‘No! You can’t do that. Your dad would have been cross for a start. But also, we’ve all been looking forward to it. And I think we’ll need a good night out by then. We’ll have got the funeral out of the way and be ready to let our hair down. Honestly, Ellie, you really shouldn’t cancel.’

  The idea had been only fleeting and Ellie had come to much the same conclusion as Caroline, but it was nice to have her opinion confirmed.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ellie pressed. ‘You don’t think people will think badly of me for going ahead?’

  ‘No!’ replied Caroline, eyebrows shooting up in emphasis. ‘I don’t think that at all. And you’ve put all that effort into it. It would be such a shame to see it go to waste.’

  Ellie was glad she’d never mentioned all the cash she’d spent, but that was a factor too. James had said she could have precisely what she wanted and she had taken him at his word. The thought of cancelling now and losing all that money on things that couldn’t be refunded or returned made her feel slightly sick.

  22

  After she had said goodbye to Caroline, Ellie picked up her tableware purchases and headed to Green Mount to collect the girls. She was early and found a parking spot without any difficulties. Usually she would sit and spend the spare few minutes on Facebook, but that seemed so trivial at the moment, and she still hadn’t announced her dad’s death so she was avoiding being seen on there in case it looked bad when people did hear the news.

  Instead she got out of her car and decided to have a quick restorative walk around the block. It was a lovely day and a breath of fresh air would help to clear her head before the girls came to destroy her peace.

  The school was situated in a leafy suburb with not much round it but other houses, but there was a nice little loop that she sometimes walked, which took her past a few of the bigger properties. Ellie liked to try to have a nose at them as she passed by, partly looking for garden ideas, but also because it allowed her to indulge in a little fantasy that one day she and James would be able to move up to something as grand as those.

  She fished her sunglasses out of her bag – it wouldn’t do to be spotted checking out houses – and set off. The biggest places, and the ones that she enjoyed looking at the most, were at the apex of the walk and she covered the early ground quickly so she could slow her pace when she got there. Not that she could see much from the road. Most of the houses had electric gates and long drives, and a couple of them belonged to people James knew through work so she definitely didn’t want them to see her, but others were more open and some of them didn’t even have electric gates.

  When she reached the house that she would dearly love to move to, she slowed her pace right down. There were no cars on the drive so she felt able to have a jolly good peer. It was a Jacobean manor house, gable-fronted with mullioned windows and a box knot garden between the house and the road. Ellie particularly loved the two stone peacocks that sat on the gateposts guarding the house. They must have cost a fortune, she knew, but they were so grand and distinguished. They really made the entrance. Ellie had never been inside the house, but she had done a virtual tour the last time it had been on the market so knew what lay beyond the studded front door. Maybe one day . . .

  Time was marching on and she didn’t want to be late for the girls, so she picked her pace back up to get to the playground in time. That was when she saw Sarah Coombes. She had completely forgotten that she lived up here. It had been a couple of months since Margo had told her about Sarah having to pull her children out of Green Mount and it had completely slipped Ellie’s mind. Before she realised what she was doing, Ellie had called out to her.

  ‘Sarah! Hi.’ She took a couple of steps on to the drive.

  Sarah looked round, as jumpy as a cat, her hand flying up to smooth down her hair, which revealed a telltale dark stripe down her parting. Her face was free of make-up and her eyes were encircled by shadowy rings, but when she saw Ellie she gave her a crisp smile.

  ‘Oh, Ellie. Hi. Please don’t look at me. I’m such a mess.’ She gestured to her clothing and Ellie took in the sagging leggings and bleach-stained sweatshirt. ‘We’re having a bit of a clear-out. I don’t know how we’ve managed to accumulate so much stuff. And I must make an appointment at the salon. I really don’t know where the time goes.’ Her smile became wider with each sentence until she looked almost manic. ‘And how are you?’

  ‘My dad just died,’ said Ellie, blurting the information out before she’d had time to think about it. ‘So not that great really.’

  Sarah tipped her head to one side and pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It’s just a bit of a shock,’ replied Ellie. ‘I’m not sure I’ve completely taken it in yet.’

  ‘Had he been ill?’ asked Sarah.

  Ellie shook her head. She could feel her chest tighten, but she was determined not to cry again.

  ‘An aneurysm, they think. It was very quick.’

  ‘Oh, you poor things. Are the girls coping okay?’

  Ellie nodded but now she didn’t want to talk about it any more and was regretting she had even mentioned it.

  ‘Listen, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t ring . . . when everything happened, I mean. I intended to, but then . . .’ She let the unfinished sentence hang between them, not sure how to continue.

  ‘Really, don’t worry about it,’ replied Sarah brightly. ‘It’s fine. Honestly. There was nothing you could have done.’

  ‘But still,’ said Ellie. ‘I am sorry.’

  Sarah gave her half a smile that didn’t extend beyond her lips.

  ‘And now I need to get going,’ Ellie added, looking at her Rolex, then wishing that she hadn’t. ‘If I’m not careful, I’ll be late for pick-up.’

  Instantly she felt bad for mentioning the school. Was that insensitive of her, even though Sarah must have known that her children were still there?

  ‘We can’t have that,’ said Sarah with a forced laugh. ‘You’ll be getting your knuckles rapped.’

  ‘I will,’ agreed Ellie, taking a step back towards the road. ‘Let’s go out for coffee soon, though, have a proper catch-up.’

  ‘Yes, great idea,’ replied Sarah enthusiastically. ‘I’ll ring you.’

  But as Ellie walked back towards Green Mount, she knew Sarah wouldn’t be getting in touch.

  23

  It was nearly a week later when Max rang Nathan. Nathan was at work and his boss wasn’t keen on them taking personal phone calls, but as long as his body language suggested business and he kept his voice low there was no way of knowing who he was talking to.

  ‘Nath, it’s Max,’ he had begun, which irritated Nathan immediately as he must have known that Nathan could see the caller display.

  ‘All right,’ replied Nathan.

  He was having a bad day. He’d had a couple of big losses on the horses the day before, and he was behind on a job for a particularly demanding client who had taken to ringing every two hours to check on his progress. Nathan wanted to scream down the line that he would make much faster progress if the client just left him to get on with it, but that might prompt a complaint and he couldn’t risk that. And now here was Max getting in his way as well.

  ‘I’m just ringing because we’ve had the post-mortem results,’ Max said without preamble.

  ‘Okay,’ replied Nathan. ‘And?’

  ‘Cerebral aneurysm,’ said Max. ‘Just as the paramedics thought.’

  ‘So nothing that anyone could have done would have made a difference?’

  ‘Apparently not. They said it could have happened at any time, so I suppose it was lucky he was at home.’ Max’s voice sounded flat and Nathan wondered if his own displayed the appropriate level of grief. He hadn’t had time to grieve. He had been too busy keeping all his plates spinning to even think about it.

  ‘Yeah. Suppose so,’ he replied.

  ‘Anyway, just thought I’d let you know.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Ellie is speaking to the funeral directors. To fix a date.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yep. You?’

  ‘Yep. Els will let you know.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Right. That was it. See you later.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

  Max rang off, leaving Nathan holding his phone and staring at the back of the head of the designer who sat in front of him. The fact of his dad’s death kept taking him by surprise. It snuck up on him and leapt out when he wasn’t ready. He’d always assumed his dad would live forever, or at least for another twenty years or so. You didn’t think people would be here one day and gone the next. It wasn’t in the normal order of things. It took some processing.

  Were aneurysms hereditary? he wondered. Would he suddenly wake up one day and discover he was dead?

  A thought was pushing itself to the front of his mind. It wasn’t the first time it had been there, but the circumstances had been different before, when his dad was alive. He thought about the money Tony had given him back in February. It had made a massive difference, allowing him to pay off the bookies and still have some left to bet with. And he’d done well. For a few weeks he had had some solid wins, big numbers. This was how he was going to make it work, he’d thought, to prove to his dad that it wasn’t a ‘mug’s game’ that he could live on his winnings, and this was his profession. It had been the aim, what he wanted to achieve.

  But then a couple of races hadn’t gone his way, and then a couple more. He found himself betting wildly without real thought or strategy to try to make up lost ground. And now he was back where he had been, only this time it was worse because he had borrowed a larger amount – the twenty-five thousand that he had lost and more on top.

  His dad had said in February that it was the last time he would help him out, but Nathan knew that wasn’t true. It was just something he’d said to make giving Nathan the money seem less unpalatable. If his dad had been here now, he could have gone to him again and he would have helped. Nathan knew he would.

  The only difference now was that Tony was dead.

  Nathan thought about the heavy envelope of cash, how his dad had produced it on no notice when the banks were all closed, and reached the only conclusion he could. There must be money in the house. Tony must have kept a supply for emergencies that only he knew about. But now Nathan knew too.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Nathan was on his feet, fishing his wallet out of his desk drawer, flicking off his monitor. But then he caught sight of his boss across the office and he sat back down. He couldn’t lose this job; he would never get another one. He turned his monitor back on and tried to concentrate. He would go later. He would find that cash, wherever it was hidden in the house. What he would do with it when he did was a question for a different day.

  24