Two minutes later, he’d opened the door to a small, windowless room.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’

  If he’d wondered what kind of reaction he’d get, he now knew. His mum burst into tears, jumped up and threw her arms around him.

  ‘I’ll leave you two alone,’ Richard said, backing out of the door.

  Rory didn’t move, relishing the relief, holding on to his mum until she was ready to let go. When she eventually pulled back, she was still crying, and Rory had another internal twist of panic. He had never seen his mother cry. Not ever. In all the years he was growing up, she’d never shed a tear in front of him. In times of upset or pain, he would watch her jaw clench, but she always remained steady. Even in the midst of the chaos, even when people were saying and writing the most awful things about her, she didn’t break down. As a kid, Rory had thought she was indestructible. As an adult, he could look back and see that it was her way of staying strong for his sake.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum. It’s all going to be okay.’ He had no idea if that was true, but he just desperately wanted to reassure her. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here with you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she said, when she finally managed to speak.

  It had been over a year since he’d been with her and it should probably feel strange to be here, but it didn’t at all. He hugged her again. ‘Yes, I should. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here before now.’ And he was. Sorry for not being here this weekend. Last week. Last month. For all of the last year. Since the day she’d told him to go. Their agreement was now null and void. He was here and he was staying with her.

  ‘I had to come. I thought you were dead and I’m top beneficiary in the will.’ Her coping mechanism was strength, his was humour and ridiculously stupid comments. ‘Sorry, that was a completely inappropriate joke given the surroundings.’ But at least it changed her sobs to laughter.

  They both sat down on the nearest sofa, but she hung on to his hand.

  ‘I saw a news report and it said a woman in the car was hurt,’ he explained.

  ‘It was a passenger in his taxi. Poor woman. I don’t know anything about her because they couldn’t tell me, but one of the nurses said that she’d been discharged, so I think she’s okay.’

  Rory sat back and absent-mindedly ran his fingers through his hair as he sighed. ‘He just leaves carnage in his wake everywhere he goes, doesn’t he?’

  His mum didn’t need to answer.

  ‘The doctor says he’s still not come round after the surgery?’ he went on, then listened as she explained, step by step, everything that had happened in the last two days. The gist of it was that his father was alive, but it was a ‘wait and see’ as to if, when and how he would recover. The strangeness of the situation didn’t escape him. Most sons would feel something: sympathy, worry, concern, care, even anger or malice. But he felt… nothing.

  As a kid, he’d longed for his father’s approval, and when that didn’t come, and he’d got older, that longing had transitioned through many other stages. Fear. Dislike. Resentment. Then, as he reached adulthood, indifference and forced tolerance. He’d had no care, feelings or respect for Larry at all. He’d just kept the waters still and declined to rock the boat. But when the scandal broke, the pendulum of his emotions had swung right over to hatred and disgust. Rory honestly didn’t care if he never set eyes on the old bastard again.

  His mum, however…

  It pained him to see that she looked like a very different woman from the one he’d grown up with. Just over a year ago, they’d said goodbye, but she had somehow aged by a decade. Her eyes were bloodshot and heavy with exhaustion, her cheeks were sunken, and her skin was pale and dry. There was no jewellery, no make-up, and her blonde hair had been colonised by grey. If he saw her walking past him now, he’d think that she was someone who’d had a hard life. The contrast, and the reality of it, made him want to hug her again.

  ‘Mum, how long have you been here?’

  ‘Since yesterday, about lunchtime. Feels like so much longer though.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go home? Why wait in here? Did you sleep here last night?’

  When she nodded, a massive crash of guilt smacked him right in the face. Last night, he’d been drowning his sorrows and his self-pity in a vat of beer and tequila, partying to forget his troubles, and all the time his mum was here on the couch.

  ‘I didn’t want to go home in case the press were there. I didn’t want to deal with cameras in my face, and the questions and just being the subject of people’s conversations again, so it was easier to just stay here and hide. I suppose I need to go at some point though, I want to shower, to change out of these clothes.’

  His reaction was instant. ‘Then how about we get out of here now? I’ll come with you and make sure none of the crap stuff happens.’

  He’d thought she’d agree immediately, but she hesitated. ‘I still don’t want to go back home, son, and I want to be near here in case anything happens. And…’

  She paused, so he prompted her to go on. ‘And?’

  ‘It’s just not a good idea to go to your place. Julia made it quite clear how she felt last time we were all together, and she was right. I don’t want to drag you two back into this.’

  His face burned at the recollection, but this wasn’t the time to be going back over old ground. Now that they were together again, there would be plenty of time to talk about that later.

  ‘Julia won’t be a problem. It’s a long story, but, honestly, it’s fine.’ This wasn’t the time, the place, or the circumstance to go into the saga of his marriage to Julia Fieldow. All he wanted to do was get his mum out of here.

  ‘Look, let’s go to the St Kentigern. It’s only ten minutes away,’ he said. It was the first place that he thought of, the hotel that she’d taken him to every year at the beginning of December when the city’s Christmas lights were switched on. They would have hot chocolate and sticky toffee puddings, and then they’d walk along to see the spectacle of festive decorations at George Square and stay there until their feet and hands went numb with the cold. Even when he was an adult, they’d continued the tradition, right up until his dad had gone and destroyed everything for them all.

  ‘No!’ The abruptness of her rejection shocked him, until… ‘Son, I don’t have that kind of money and I’m not letting you pay for it.’

  Of course. She’d always been way too proud for her own good.

  ‘I won’t. The company has an account there. I think they can afford one night, don’t you?’ Mental reminder to send a text to Roger Fieldow, adding a night in a swanky hotel to his severance package.

  ‘Come on, Mum. There’s so much to talk about and I don’t want to do it here.’

  To his relief, she stood up, and the smile on her face was tentative and maybe still a little sad, but at least it was there. ‘Okay. But I’ll need to stop by the ward and let them know that I’m going.’

  ‘That’s fine…’

  ‘Rory, I need to ask, do you want to see your dad?’

  Crap. Rabbit. Headlights. Did he want to see his dad? It hadn’t even occurred to him that she would ask. He’d only got as far as getting out of here and making things right with his mum.

  He wanted to talk over the decisions they’d made, the road they’d chosen that had taken them apart and that had now brought them to this point. He wanted to tell her how much he regretted it. And he wanted to come up with a plan for what they were going to do next.

  ‘No, Mum, I don’t think I do. I’ll wait outside while you go in.’

  He wasn’t going to be a hypocrite and pay homage to a man he despised. He was going to focus on the people he loved.

  His mum had sacrificed her life to protect him.

  Now it was time for him to repay her.

  21

  VAL

  By afternoon, we had moved our gathering from our kitchen table to the picnic table in the garden, and it made me smile when I realised how well our outfits reflected our personalities.

  Moi, a child of the sixties, whose parents couldn’t spell SPF 50, had grudgingly slapped on some factor 10 and a pair of pink love-heart sunglasses to match my screaming fuchsia vest top. Even in times of emotional turmoil, there was no excuse not to wear life-enhancing colours. Carly had her dark blonde hair twisted up with a pencil holding it in place, was wearing a bra on the top, rolled-up jeans on the bottom, and in the middle was a muffin top that she absolutely could not care less about, because somewhere in her fifty-something years she’d become comfortable with her body and couldn’t give a toss what anyone thought about her. Meanwhile, model, social influencer and all-round stunner, Carol, was so utterly paranoid about sun-induced wrinkles, she was wearing a thick lathering of factor 70, huge sunglasses, one of my floor-length kaftans and a hat that I’d only worn once to a wedding, because it could double as a manhole cover and was so huge I took out everyone in the row behind me every time I moved. It also provided shade for the laptop, on which she was furiously checking her social media comments, messages and shares.

  There was no food in the fridge when we’d got back yesterday, because I’d thought I was going to be staying at Carly’s for a fortnight, and we’d had no time or inclination to go to the shops, so we’d just had a very late lunch/early dinner of chips, mayonnaise, and two boxes of fish fingers we’d found in the freezer. Not that I had been able to eat much. I’d just filmed another one of those videos for Carol’s Instagram, this time talking about the ring we bought Dee for her twenty-first birthday – a collection of diamonds that spelled out her initial. They weren’t big diamonds, because Don and I didn’t have that kind of money, but we’d ordered it from my catalogue and paid it up over a year. Our Dee had been so shocked and thrilled with it. She’d worn it every single day for the rest of her too short life. After she was killed by a drugged-up scumball who had no business being behind the wheel of a car, I’d taken to wearing it on my pinky, but the irony was that I’d stopped doing that because it was a little bit loose and I was scared I’d lose it. Instead, I’d put it in my jewellery box and I’d wear it at home every year on Dee’s birthday, at Christmas and every other special occasion. It was my way of making sure my girl was with us and part of the family’s good times.

  The last thing I’d felt like doing after talking about that was eating. My stomach had been twisted into seventeen knots of devastation and self-reproach. How could I have been so stupid? How? Why hadn’t I just put the rings in the back section of my bag and zipped the bloody thing up? Why?

  I turned my face heavenward, eyes closed, sending up a silent message to my girl and my man. He always could read my mind, so I told myself he’d hear it. Dee, my darling, I’m so sorry. I hope your dad is sitting up there with you now, but please forgive me for being so damned careless. I feel like I’ve lost the last little bits I had of you both. I let that one float up into the ether before adding, And, Don, if you know where the rings are, can you send me a sign, love?

  Eyes still closed, I saw his face, and that cheeky grin as he answered, Aye, pet, but it’ll need to have flashing lights and a bell, because you’re hopeless with a satnav.

  The sight of him faded away, and I missed him even more than I had ten minutes ago. I couldn’t imagine a time when that would subside enough to let me breathe again.

  The only thing that was keeping me upright was that the girls were here and they were the very best kind of distraction.

  Beside me, Carly groaned, ‘I think I’m getting a migraine.’

  Carol glanced up from the laptop. ‘Are you though? Or is that just an excuse for more wine?’

  ‘You know me too well. Red or white?’

  ‘Neither,’ Carol said with an edge of mischief. ‘Aunt Val, is there any cider in your drinks cupboard?’

  ‘I think there’s some in the fridge. Nancy and Johnny brought it round just a few weeks before… before… Anyway, Johnny and Don were going to watch some cup final on the TV. Or maybe it was darts.’

  I honestly didn’t think I’d have got through the last couple of years if it wasn’t for the incredible support system I had around me. I’d known Nancy my whole life, and after Josie died, she’d stepped in and kept me standing. And then, a few years ago, when her husband, Peter, had been taken too soon, I’d made sure I was there for her too. We’d become partners in caramel wafers and crime, and I’d been delighted when she’d rekindled her teenage romance with another old pal of Don’s, Johnny Roberts, at a school reunion the year before last.

  I saw Nancy most days, especially since we were unofficial joint aunties and childminders for our friend Tress’s little one, Buddy. At least once or twice a week, Johnny and Tress’s partner, Noah, would come round to keep Don company. Sometimes Don recognised them, and sometimes he didn’t, it depended on the day, but they never minded either way. They’d chat away and sometimes even take him out for a run in the car or a walk down to the chippy, if Don was able. You really saw who the good people were when you were dealing with an illness like that, and it turned out that I was surrounded by them. In the weeks since he’d passed, they’d done everything they could to make sure I was okay and help me get through it, along with my son, Michael, and these two sweethearts here. One of whom was still giving a drink request to her sister-in-law.

  ‘I’ll have a cider then, please. I want to relive my teenage years,’ Carol decided, before trying to jog Carly’s memory with, ‘Do you remember we got drunk on Strongbow when we were about fifteen, and then I got concussion because I was dancing on your bed and fell off? I took the knob right off your door.’

  ‘Yep, but I’ll forever worship at the temple of Kajagoogoo,’ Carly said, laughing as she climbed off the bench. ‘Two ciders coming up. Aunt Val, what would you like?’

  I considered having a gin and tonic, but I still felt like my nerves were on the outside of my skin after telling the world about our Dee’s ring, so I didn’t want to add gin to the river of sadness that was already crashing against my heart.

  ‘I’ll stick to my tea, thanks. But bring out the packet of Hobnobs from the cupboard. I might take a notion for one in a wee while.’

  Carly disappeared inside and came back out a few minutes later carrying refreshments. She deposited the two glasses of cider on the table, then took the Hobnobs from under her arm and put them in front of me.

  I’d just begun to open the packet when Carol, her eyes still trained on the screen, murmured, ‘Oh God, oh God. Oh God!’

  Carly’s cider was halfway to her mouth, so she paused. ‘Has something shocking happened or have you found religion?’

  ‘Shocking,’ Carol exclaimed, and I felt my heart begin to pound, all notions for a chocolate-coated oaty biscuit lost.

  ‘What is it? Has something slid into your PMs?’ Even in my rising state of anxiety, I was sure I was getting good with the lingo.

  ‘DMs, Aunt Val,’ Carly corrected me with a grin, but I was only listening to Carol.

  ‘All day we’ve been inundated with comments and messages, but they were all just either good wishes or advice on how to track the rings down. Or a few from blokes that wanted to buy replacements if I’d wear them naked, but I’ve blocked them. Anyway, I’ve just seen this one from someone called… Hang on, let me check, SophiesBackpack. Yep, that’s her. Anyway, I’m going to read it out. It says… “Hi, this is going to sound like the maddest story ever, but I think I found your rings on the floor of a taxi in Glasgow.”’

  I jumped forward so violently, I nudged Carly’s elbow, sending cider everywhere. ‘That could be them! What else does she say? Where are they now?’

  Sweet lord, I’d just asked Don for a sign and now here it was. That man of mine never let me down when he was on this earth and now, he was still taking care of me.

  Carol was already on it, saying aloud what she was typing in the message.

  ‘Hi, yes, that could be them. Can you give me any more information? Do you have them?’ Send.

  She turned the laptop around so that we could all see the screen, so now all three of us were staring… and staring… and staring… and I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest, so I stared some more when… Ping.

  Carol read out the new message.

  ‘“No. It’s a long story, but I don’t know what happened to them.”’

  With a loud groan, Carly deflated beside me. ‘Crap. This might be one of those cranks that thinks it’s funny to wind people up. I swear to God, if this is a joke, I’m going to track them down and punch them.’

  ‘Is it fake, Carol?’ I asked, fearfully. ‘Or do you think it could be real?’

  Carol was reading it all again. ‘I don’t know. I can see her profile and she doesn’t look like a troll. All her stuff is fairly normal and we follow a couple of the same brands. Not that an affinity for Mulberry bags and Warburton bagels makes someone an angel.’

  Carly jumped in again. ‘There’s no point asking her what the rings looked like because they’re all over our socials, but what’s something we haven’t said on the podcasts or the videos? Anything you can think of?’

  ‘Did we say what kind of car the taxi was? I’ve talked that much today that I can’t remember.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Carol agreed, and Carly shrugged.

  Carol started typing, saying the words aloud again, ‘Can I ask what kind of car the taxi was?’

  ‘It was a red Skoda,’ I whispered, as if I didn’t want the person on the other end to hear the answer.

  We were all staring at the screen again. Pause. Long pause. Longer pause. Ping.

  ‘“It was red. I’m not sure what kind. A Skoda, I think. I got into it at the airport.”’

  The three of us shrieked so loudly that every dog in the street started barking.

  When we’d got that out of our systems, Carol put her hands up, ‘Hang on, though. Maybe you did say that earlier. Give me something else.’