The Passengers(72)
‘Do as she tells you, there’s a good dog.’ Jack smiled with narrowed eyes. ‘Now let’s return to the ice maiden. Perhaps if she’d displayed a little more femininity it might have helped her cause.’
‘Is it all women you have a problem with, or just strong women?’ asked Libby. ‘She’s a full-time working mum of two and whatever she’s done to bend the law or torment her cheating husband, well, I think there will be a lot of people out there who’ll identify with her and back her.’
‘Including you?’ Jack asked. ‘Surely your conscience dictates that you should give someone like Mrs Cole your vote over Mr Harrison? Or are you going to follow your heart and condemn her to a somewhat grisly death by voting for a dead man walking? It’s not too late to reconsider your position with Mr Cole either. He might be lacking when it comes to integrity, but you cannot deny the man has passion and something to live for. Mr Harrison has what? By his own admission, nothing. Not even the attention of the nation’s sweetheart is enough for him to want to remain on this mortal coil.’
Libby felt the heat from her reddening face. In that moment, she had never loathed anyone like she loathed Jack Larsson.
‘You know what?’ interrupted Fiona. ‘You’ve just swung it for me, Jack. I don’t care what Heidi did or didn’t know, I’m voting for her. And you can roll your eyes as much as you like, it makes no difference to me what you think.’
‘All you’re doing is splitting the votes between husband and wife. Side with me and their children will at least see one of their parents return.’
‘Why do I have to change my vote? Why can’t you?’
‘Mrs Cole has two children. Her husband has four.’
‘If you are so concerned about kids then why didn’t you support Shabana – a mother to five?’ asked Libby.
Jack sighed. ‘Here we go. More diatribe from a bleeding-heart liberal …’
‘More bullshit from the bleeding heartless racist.’
‘Enough!’ warned Fiona. Her raised voice took Libby by surprise. ‘This is not a playground! Please remember we are being watched by the world. We have just twenty minutes left to make our decision. Now, is there anyone else who will join me in supporting Heidi?’
‘I will,’ said Matthew suddenly.
‘Heidi is now in the lead with two votes, Sam has one and Claire has one.’
Libby’s heart both raised and sank, a second apart. It meant that unless the public sided with her too, Jack would be correct. Jude was a dead man walking.
Chapter 49
HEIDI COLE
Heidi couldn’t muster the strength to hate her husband any longer – much of it had been used up when she first learned of his double life. And after the emotional battering of the last two hours, the fight had been knocked out of her. She didn’t even have enough energy to release the tears gathering behind her eyes.
Alone in her car, it was the first time since discovering Sam was leading a double life that she felt something other than the need to make his life as miserable as he had made hers. It was grief. She was beginning to mourn the loss of the man she thought she knew inside and out.
Being held against her will was a great leveller. It gave her the clarity to see what she had done was a foolish and irrational move and completely out of character. If she could go back, she would have confronted Sam, kicked him out of the family home and removed him from her life the moment she first found out. It was the advice she’d have given her friends had they been wearing similar shoes. Instead, she had gone on the attack with a burning desire to hurt him. Where had it got her? Here, facing a very public death.
With two votes to her name, there was still a chance she might survive the ordeal. But then she would have to face a different set of problems including dismissal from her career. The Independent Office for Police Conduct would discover a corrupt police officer who was attempting to gain money by fraudulent means and who had used official resources for personal benefit. They wouldn’t care that she had been driven to it because she was hurting.
Discovering Sam’s second family had happened quite by chance. It was a day that began like most others. Sam was working two hundred miles away and Heidi had taken annual leave, looking after the children while the school closed for teacher training. She had strapped them into her car and programmed it to drop them off at an activities day in a country park. As she awaited their return, she sat in their neglected conservatory, cursing its leaking roof and broken panes of glass. Using her tablet, she logged on to Facebook and a forum where local posters recommended reliable tradesmen. But an innocuous flick through her friends’ video clips changed everything.
It involved a viral craze to raise money and awareness for a mental health charity. Participants had buckets of water thrown at them followed by bags of flour to create a ‘sticky snowman’. ‘Over my dead body is that happening to me,’ she muttered as she watched a friend picking sticky glue-like lumps from her hair. Suddenly, she spotted the name ‘Samuel Cole’ had been tagged in a video under the heading ‘People you might also like to watch’.
It puzzled her. Months after their wedding, Sam had made a big song and dance about deactivating all his social media accounts. ‘These companies know too much about us,’ he moaned. ‘It makes me uncomfortable. Besides, I don’t have time to read about everyone else’s lives when I barely have enough time to be a part of my own.’ She couldn’t argue with that. However, Sam must not have understood that while his Facebook profile was no longer active, he could still be tagged by other users.