The Turning Point: A gripping emotional page-turner with a breathtaking twist. Freya North

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      I never knew that.

      You do now.

      It had been a jingle-jangle morning of sorts.

      I’ll be back in a mo’ – don’t go anywhere, Alice, I just need to make a phone call. Then I’ll play you the Byrds’ version. Which I like better than Bob Dylan’s.

      Frankie walked into the kitchen, to the window which looked out to the garden. It was her favourite place to muse. Her heartbeat competed with the silence. She phoned Scott.

      ‘It’s Frankie.’

      ‘I know.’

      Just two words and she could hear him smiling. She laid her head gently against the wall.

      ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘How’s Norfolk?’

      ‘Alice is back.’

      ‘Well that’s just great.’

      ‘Are you at work? Can you talk?’

      ‘I’m at work but I can talk. I’m playing some guitar.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Listen.’ He really was. ‘You liked it?’

      ‘It’s beautiful!’

      Should she tell him about the Byrds? That’s not why she’d phoned.

      ‘It’s Friday,’ she rushed.

      ‘Yes, it is.’

      ‘Scott.’

      ‘Yes.’ He waited. ‘Frankie?’

      ‘If I – if I.’ She caught sight of herself reflected back from the window, changed her focus to look out over the lawn to the hedge and the Mawbys’ fields beyond. A beautiful day. ‘If I could make it to London, tomorrow, could we have any time?’

      ‘I would like nothing more. I need to cancel something, rearrange something else. Can I call you back?’

      ‘Of course you can call me back.’

      And, behind the silence, they could hear each other grinning.

      Frankie arrived at Annabel’s school later that afternoon a full half-hour before the bell went. She wasn’t worried about being late, she just needed to know that she could sit in the car and have the time to phone her sister and not rush.

      ‘Peta? It’s me.’

      ‘I know – it says so. How was London? Did the kids cope with The Mother?’

      ‘Yes – they did. She cleaned the clean fridge and reorganized the contents.’

      ‘You know she changes the sheets on my spare-room bed as soon as she arrives here – even though I lay them fresh for her?’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘And Alice?’

      ‘I don’t want to jinx it – but we had a little progress today.’

      ‘Good for you, Frankie.’

      ‘How was your book club?’

      ‘It was – heated. I drank too much and told them I thought the choice was over-verbose, pretentious and essentially dull and that they were silly twats if they thought otherwise.’

      ‘You rebel.’

      ‘Anyway – I got to pick the next book.’

      ‘What did you choose?’

      ‘Maggie O’Farrell.’

      ‘She’s a genius. I’m phoning – I’m phoning, Peta.’

      ‘I know you’re phoning me!’

      ‘I mean – I wanted to –’ Frankie slapped the steering wheel. ‘Peta I was just phoning, really, to tell you something. And actually to ask you something.’ She took the phone off hands-free and pressed it to her ear. ‘Something happened in London.’ Her voice had changed, she liked the sound of it – no awkwardness, just delight. ‘I met someone.’

      Nothing from Peta.

      ‘A man. Called Scott.’

      It remained silent in Hampstead.

      ‘Who?’ Peta finally responded.

      ‘He’s called Scott.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘You know something, I felt exactly that way. Only now I do understand – I truly do.’

      ‘Who is he?’

      ‘He’s – just amazing.’

      ‘But who is he, Frankie?’

      ‘He’s called Scott Emerson. And he’s a musician.’

      ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Frankie. Not a musician. Oh dear God.’

      ‘What’s your problem?’

      ‘My problem? I don’t have a problem, Frankie. You do. A musician? That’s the problem. No more artsy-fartsy fuckwits.’

      ‘He’s not a fuckwit!’

      ‘You may well say that now, while he’s serenading you.’

      ‘You have to trust me on this one.’

      ‘No Frankie – you have to listen to me. You had musicians and actors and painters and that stupid bloody poet and they all systematically broke your heart and then trod the pieces down hard into piles of shit. Then came Miles. Oh Peta, you said, wait till you meet him. He’s a free soul you said, he’s amazing, you said. He’s someone who can make a difference. He’s an ideas man – you said. He’s so spiritual and real and I never felt this way before.’

      ‘I’m not the impressionable girl I was then, I’m forty-one,’ Frankie said quietly. ‘And Scott is nothing like Miles.’

      ‘How so?’

      ‘Well he’s older, for a start.’

      ‘Oh great. Frankie! Some waster still tinkling the ivories, or strumming his guitar or playing his fucking fiddle because he’s never knuckled down?’

      ‘Jesus Peta. He’s a talented musician. He writes soundtracks for movies. He’s won awards. He’s in demand. He’s respected.’

      ‘I have a respectable man I’ve been trying to introduce you to for months – Chris!’

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