Page 85 of The Jealous Girl

Ben nodded. ‘Yeah, of course. Anything important went through them.’

‘Not Charlotte?’

He shook his head. ‘She might think she had power there, but she was no more senior than the rest of us.’ He frowned. ‘Why?’

I stiffened. Telling him about Charlotte’s meeting with the vet at Corfe Castle would mean telling him how I just happened to see it in the first place. I’d only just got him back on my side, I didn’t want to risk scaring him off now. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘And I suppose I don’t want to know how you have these records either?’

I shook my head.

He exhaled slowly. ‘Yeah, I was afraid of that.’

I held my breath, waiting for him to push back his chair and storm out of the café. He’d already lost one job because of me. Now here I was trying to drag him into the middle of all this.

He drew the laptop closer to him. ‘So, what else have you got?’

30

THEN

Early August

I stared at the TV, watching the flashing images but barely aware of what was happening. My thoughts were elsewhere.

Checking my watch again, I sighed.

It was already 9.20 p.m. His dinner would be ruined by now. I cast a glance at the kitchen door. Maybe I should take it out of the oven. I’d left it in there to keep warm, but at this point it was probably just dried out.

My fingers drummed against my phone lying silently beside me on the sofa. Should I text him again? I picked it up and opened WhatsApp. My last message to him was still unread.

I sighed again and dropped the phone back on the sofa. There was no point chasing after him. He clearly wasn’t paying attention. Not to me.

There was a familiarity to it. The early mornings. The late nights. The cancelled plans. We’d been here before. And I knew where it had led.

The sound of the key turning in the lock made me sit up instantly.

‘Hey,’ Ryan called as he pushed the door open.

‘You’re home!’ I leapt up to greet him, throwing my arms around his neck as I reached him.

But Ryan caught hold of them, and stepped back out of my reach. ‘I smell like horses,’ he said apologetically.

‘I don’t care,’ I replied with a shrug, and stepped towards him again.

‘Let me take a shower first,’ he insisted, sidestepping around me.

I tried to swallow my disappointment. ‘Of course.’

‘What are you watching?’ he asked, jerking his head towards the TV.

‘Erm…’ I turned and looked back at the screen. ‘Nothing really,’ I replied vaguely as I realised I didn’t even know. ‘Your dinner is in the oven,’ I told him, shifting the conversation. I might have been sitting here alone all evening waiting for him to come home, but he didn’t need to know that.

‘Oh.’ He grimaced.

‘You already ate?’ I asked, sensing his reluctance.

He nodded, crossing the room towards the kitchen. ‘Mum insisted.’