Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists. Erin Knight

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СКАЧАТЬ next door to my holiday cottage. A big one. Started barking at the milkman at five-thirty this morning. He was still going strong when I left.’

      A yapping dog Cleo could cope with. It was a yapping mother she’d had to suffer. Well, she hoped Lorna felt better after her little outburst. One day she might not have the luxury of someone to fire off at, one day she might be stacked against a virtual menace, an Aeron Mycock, hurting her little girl over the internet where she couldn’t wring his scrawny neck.

      Isobel smiled at the wrong moment, and it was as if a defunct switch was thrown inside Cleo’s emotional control centre, the feelings rushing from nowhere. Oh God, was she about to . . . no . . . Oh God, no . . .

      Too late.

      The first release of tears eked from Cleo’s face. Isobel, bemused, was already rising to her feet. Stop sobbing, you fool! What was wrong with her? No wonder Evie was such a drama queen. Cleo had passed it on like a defective gene, and there she was blaming Sam’s lot for Evie’s puppy fat.

      Isobel stood hands flattened on the counter. ‘Do you need anything?’

      It was such an odd response, it threw Cleo off track. Was she a counsellor? Or maybe she meant drugs? Yes, Isobel thought she was a complete fruit-loop, the sort of woman who needed to drop a Diazepam to see a pot of tea through to fruition without a meltdown. Isobel pulled at the serviette dispenser. ‘Tissue?’

      Cleo stole a few breaths. She took the serviette with the little slate blue C for Coast printed subtly in each corner and wiped her face. She’d agonised over how many Cs to have on the serviettes, the sizing, the shade of blue . . .

      ‘Rough morning?’ Isobel asked.

      Rough? It had been a little rough, now it was officially bottom-clenchingly bad. ‘Sorry. Not what you wanted for breakfast, profanity and crying. How embarrassing!’ Phew, no wobble in her voice. ‘I’m not usually a crier.’ Why was she crying again? Was it Lorna’s newly burning hatred for her? The furniture outside Pomme du Port? No, it was an amalgamation of things, a pile of silliness topped off by some horrid little snot calling her daughter names. A foul, hurtful, utterly uncalled-for name. Evie had shown her a screen-shot of the comment left beneath one of her million pouty selfies. Fat cow, he’d called her – not just fat, although that was obviously the part Evie found most offensive, the fat part. Personally Cleo would rather be called a fat cow than a stupid woman, for argument’s sake, but Evie was fifteen so Cleo went with it, cheerily playing the whole thing down while inside her guts had twisted for both the fat and the cow that little shit had labelled her baby girl.

      She tucked her tissue into her apron and straightened her shoulders. ‘Aren’t people rotten, Isobel?’ she smiled. ‘Cruel, just for the thrill of it?’ Just for the sport. She set a pot of milk beside the cup and saucer. Isobel looked away. She suddenly seemed older than Cleo had first pegged her. A good ten years older than Evie, maybe.

      ‘Yes, Cleo,’ said Isobel. ‘People can be very cruel indeed. Usually when they think there’ll be no consequences.’

11

      Sarah hovered outside Year 2’s classroom door, heat creeping up her neck. Darcey skipped in ahead of her.

      ‘I don’t know what on earth’s happened to your lovely self-portrait, Tabitha, I’m usually with the Year 1 children, aren’t I? You know this because last year you were in Year 1, weren’t you, Tabitha? Now, I’m sure when Mrs Harrison finally arrives for class she’ll have a perfectly good explan—Ah, here she is now. Stop crying, Tabitha, or you’ll have two smudged faces.’

      Juliette’s brunette business bob had grown longer over the years she’d been working at Hornbeam Primary. Her fringe swept over to one side nowadays, softening the severe lines of her cheekbones and the tailored tops she always wore cutting a threatening edge along her collarbone.

      Sarah tried to keep her work wardrobe as casual as smart allowed. Juliette still dressed for the city finance career she’d curtailed to become mother extraordinaire to Elodie and Milo some sixteen and fourteen years ago respectively. What the banking world lost in a formidable career woman, Hornbeam’s Year 1 class, the board of governors, and the PFA had since inherited in a no-nonsense higher level teaching assistant who liked to organise people the way Sarah imagined she used to organise numbers. Remotely. Methodically. And if the occasion called for it, ruthlessly.

      Sarah cleared her throat quietly. She made a conscious effort not to slouch as she walked into her own classroom. ‘Sit up, Sarah!’ her father used to implore her at the dinner table, ‘you look like a letter S. We should’ve named you something beginning with I, or L, or E. Maybe we could’ve improved your posture.’ Her father had been a headmaster. Inside the home and out.

      Sarah waited politely for Juliette to step out from behind the desk. Juliette had good posture. Nothing in the way she held herself betrayed how she’d been autopsying Sarah’s private life in the staff room not ten minutes ago.

      ‘Thank you, Mrs Inman-Holt. I can take it from here.’ She’d become adept at avoiding all eye contact with Juliette. They’d been friends once. Bizarre to think it now. They’d laughed over their husbands’ barbecuing skills, their children had played together, Will and Elodie’s mutual affection for Play Doh at toddler group igniting a friendship lasting nearly seven years between their once-compatible families. Patrick and Karl had bonded over international basketball and Heidi Klum, Sarah and Juliette over the pursuit of the best kid-friendly careers and herb-infused cocktails. And then Sarah went and left the summerhouse door unlocked.

      ‘Tabitha was hoping to have her portrait all fixed up in time for open-door Wednesday, weren’t you, Tabitha? So your mother can see it?’ Tabitha nodded. Thank goodness Olivia hadn’t peeped her head around to wave at Tabitha on her way out of school. ‘Perhaps whoever spoiled your lovely picture might offer to help you fix it?’ Juliette didn’t look at Sarah very often either. The simple act probably enough to transport Juliette back to that horrendous afternoon, the terrible discovery after the screaming had begun.

      ‘We’ll take a look at it at break, okay Tabitha?’ soothed Sarah.

      Juliette snapped her head around, her fringe obediently realigning itself. She walked between the front of the whiteboard and the two perfectly formed lines of children sitting cross-legged on the carpet. Sarah never had them all sitting so uniformly, like little druids waiting for the moon to do something significant.

      ‘Before I go, Mr Pethers is expecting us to run through the new e-safety strategies at break, Mrs Harrison.’

      Bugger. Sarah had forgotten Mr Pethers’ last-minute meeting request. The internet had become a double-edged machete in school after one of the Year 3s had looked up a numeracy game and inadvertently found their way on to a website entitled Let’s Do METH!

      ‘Thank you, Mrs Inman-Holt. Tabitha, take a deep breath, we’ll get it sorted before your mum comes in, alright?’

      Juliette hesitated in the doorway. ‘Speaking of e-safety, I’ve shut your mobile phone in the stationery cupboard, Mrs Harrison. You’d left it unattended on your desk. It’s been vibrating.’

      A lesser demon would’ve smirked, but Juliette was more of a subtle soul. A sideways glance was enough. If I tell Mr Pethers on you, Sarah Harrison, you’re going to be in BIG trouble. This was how it was now Juliette worked at Hornbeam too. Sarah wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ