The Day She Came Back(27)

‘Definitely! They’ll pick up two different types of sweet, an out-of-date chicken salad sandwich and a compilation CD of crappy cover songs, which they’ll listen to all the way to Africa!’ Daksha chuckled.

‘Do you think we’ll ever get to Africa?’ Victoria turned to face her.

‘I hope so. I really hope so. Although the way you look today, I can’t see us making it to the clock tower on the high street.’

‘Why? How do I look?’ Victoria tucked the stray wisps of hair behind her ears, suddenly aware that this ‘look’, whatever it was, had greeted Flynn McNamara.

‘Like you want to sleep for a thousand years,’ Daksha whispered, before reaching out and joining her hand with her friend’s. Victoria took comfort from the contact, and there they sat, hands swinging between the chairs and watching the birds that twittered and chattered as they fed and drank.

Victoria’s phone beeped with a text from Gerald and the two let their hands drop.

Victoria, how lovely to hear from you. Made my day.

Yes. I’ve put an extra jersey on.

Thinking of tackling the crossword.

Gerald X

She smiled.

‘Now that’s a smile I have missed. Who was that from? Flynn?’ Daksha joked.

‘No, Gerald, actually. But I did see Flynn and he kind of asked me to go to the pub with him.’

Daksha scrabbled forward with her palms in the air. ‘So hang on a minute, we sit here chit-chatting about the vicar and bird motorways, and all the time you have this juicy bit of gossip nestling in your pocket! What is wrong with you? This is huge! Flynn McNamara! The Flynn McNamara!’

Victoria breathed slowly, trying and failing to feel her friend’s level of enthusiasm. ‘In answer to your question, the matter with me is that I just don’t care about anything, really. I am too sad.’ She made no attempt to swipe at her tears that fell. ‘I can’t imagine ever getting over this feeling, I just wish Prim was here to tell me what to do. And now this whole thing with this Sarah, it feels like too much.’

Daksha covered her eyes. ‘God, I’m the worst friend in the world. Of course you are too sad. I got carried away.’

‘So what’s new?’ Victoria sniffed. ‘And, for your information, you are not the worst friend in the world, you are the very, very best. Thank you for being here with me.’

It was Daksha’s turn to let her tears fall and, at the sound of the two girls crying, the birds fell silent and took flight, no doubt off to seek a happier place, or at least one where the listening to their covers CD wasn’t going to be interrupted. Victoria more than understood, envying them their wings and wishing she could do the same.

‘I think you’re right. I’m going to go and see her, Daks, but only to tell her that I want proof.’

‘You are?’

‘Yes. I mean, I kind of have to, don’t I? Just to confirm that she is either a total scam artist, a nutcase or to find out that my whole bloody life has been a lie . . .’ The words were easily spoken, but they sat in her mouth like glass. ‘Either way, I am not looking forward to it.’ She felt the jitter of nerves simply at the prospect of going to see the woman.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘I think this is something I have to do alone, but I’d like you to be close by.’

‘I think you’re very brave.’

She looked at her friend. ‘Brave or bonkers, Daks?’

‘Truthfully?’

‘Yep, truthfully.’

‘Bit of both.’



It felt surreal that after one anxious, stuttered phone call she was walking into the foyer of the Holiday Inn Express on Epsom Downs. Having driven her there, Mrs Joshi was now parked and had told her to take as long as she needed, and to keep her phone within reach, as she could be inside within seconds. All Victoria had to do was call. Daksha was in the back seat, peering towards the building, having squeezed her shoulder in support for most of the journey.

And it was a familiar journey, one she had made countless times, driving in Prim’s Volkswagen Beetle over the open road of the racecourse with a clear view of the grandstand and the track, but today it had felt anything other than familiar. It felt like a drive into the unknown and her stomach was in knots. She was glad of Mrs Joshi and Daksha sitting in readiness close by and knew that, if the need arose, her friend’s mother could give one hell of a pinch.

Victoria walked towards the doors, which opened instantly, not allowing time for the nerves that bubbled in her gut to evolve into the nausea that threatened. She looked into the building and there was Sarah Hansen, standing on the striped carpet in the middle of the foyer. Waiting. She was make-up free, her short dark hair blow-dried and her hands clasped. She was neatly dressed in slim-fitting jeans with a navy belt, a pale-blue shirt, the collar of which was undone to reveal a slender silver chain, and white trainers on her feet. Her expression, Victoria noted, was anxious, as if she might have doubted Victoria’s arrival, or perhaps it was because she knew time was of the essence and was keen to get on with things; possibly both.

The woman stepped forward and reached out her hands before clasping them again and knitting her fingers, clearly, like Victoria, unsure of the convention. Sarah smiled at her hesitantly and she saw it now. She saw it plainly. And her gut folded over.