Ben’s the one frowning now. ‘But what about tomorrow? What about breakfast?’
Nell checks her watch. She could nip out now and be back in time to get the food on, and then go and collect Nicky from judo. And Gerry should be back in twenty minutes.
‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’ll pop down to Tesco to get some. Can you keep an eye on Auntie Alex while I’m gone?’
He shrugs. ‘I can’t. She’s got the door closed.’
‘Don’t be so literal, darling. You know what I mean. I’ll just pop up and tell her before I go. And in the meantime, the toaster’s over there if you’re on the brink of death.’
She tousles his hair, gets an annoyed shrug for her pains, then turns and goes upstairs.
There’s no sound from the spare room and Nell hesitates at the door. Because what Ben said has rekindled her own concern. Alex has been acting oddly all day – in fact, she’s been acting oddly ever since last night. She hardly ate anything, just kept fiddling with her tablet, which really got on Gerry’s nerves, because they don’t let the boys bring devices to the table. And she didn’t appear for breakfast at all. Nell’s been up twice with cups of tea, but Alex just called out that she was fine and would be down soon. Nell knows her sister is a private person – that she’s acutely embarrassed about taking up space in the house and getting in the way – but this is getting ridiculous.
‘Alex?’ she says, knocking firmly this time. ‘I’m just nipping out to the shops. Do you need anything?’
Silence.
Nell’s heart quickens – privacy is one thing but her sister is pregnant, very pregnant –
She hesitates one second more, then grips the handle and opens the door.
* * *
The pub is busy. It may be Monday but it’s hot, and it’s the holidays, and the place is heaving, though the first fat drops of rain dropping on to the scorching tarmac have scuttled people back to the gloom inside, where the loud drinks in primary colours with straws and umbrellas now look ludicrously, endearingly out of place.
Despite the rain, the door’s wedged open to get what passes for fresh air on the Banbury Road, and there’s a slight blonde woman standing at the threshold. And she’s not just looking for a way to stay dry – she’s intent, scanning the crowd. The light is behind her and the room dark, so it’ll probably take a few moments for your eyes to adjust. But you’ll recognize her soon enough.
She starts to move now, through the crowd towards a table near the back. There are two young people sitting there already, a young man and woman talking in low voices, their heads and bodies close together. He has a white T-shirt and an angular hawk-like tattoo on his left forearm that you’ve seen somewhere before. As for the girl, she has her auburn hair in a tiny ponytail …
There’s a bottle of wine on the table and three glasses. When they look up, you can see the expectation in their eyes.
The blonde girl dumps her bag and sits down.
‘It’s done,’ she says, the words coming in a rush of breath. ‘He just called from the police station. They’re giving him a caution, and he says I’ll probably get one too, but that’s it – nothing more. It’s over. Pour me a bloody drink, will you, Sebastian – I fucking need one.’
The other two are looking at each other; triumph on her face, relief on his.
‘You aced it, Freya,’ says the girl, holding out her glass for wine. ‘We seriously owe you one.’
‘It’s Caleb you should be thanking, not me.’
‘Thank God he’s only getting a caution– I mean, after they arrested him and everything –’
Freya nods. ‘I know – I was really worried for a moment back there. I thought the whole thing might be going to shit.’
‘And you’re sure the cops didn’t suspect anything?’ begins the man tentatively. ‘Because if they worked out me and Caleb knew each other from rugby, they’d work it all out –’
Zoe frowns. ‘Oh, stop being such a girl, Seb. Why would they even think that? And we scrubbed our phones – there won’t be anything there even if they go looking. Which they won’t.’
He makes a face. ‘OK, OK, sorry. I just feel a bit of a shit, that’s all. I mean, yes, Marina did make up that crap about the grooming, but only because of that picture – because she was scared. And as for the sex, I mean, you know how much I wish it had never happened, but it just did – she never forced me – she was just upset –’
‘Well, she forced Caleb,’ says Freya quickly, glaring at him. ‘Remember?’
She stares at him, holding his gaze. After a moment he drops his eyes. ‘I still don’t know why you needed to drag me in.’
‘Because no one would have believed us otherwise,’ she insists. ‘It would just have been her word against Caleb’s. There had to be another victim to make them take us seriously. Especially after she got that bloody kid to lie for her.’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘Jesus, Freya, I’m so sorry – I never thought she’d dare do that again.’
‘And we agreed, remember,’ says Freya, still staring at Sebastian, ‘that night, after it happened? All four of us: you, me, Zo, Caleb. We had to do something, right? Once was bad enough – but twice? You can’t do that – you can’t just go around screwing other people’s boyfriends and expect there to be no comeback. She had to be stopped.’
Zoe reaches out and touches Sebastian on the arm. ‘She was a class-one bitch over that NDA, babe. She practically drove us out of Oxford. Why should she get away with that?’
‘And what if it was the other way round?’ says Freya quickly. ‘What if it’d been Zo and a male tutor – what would you say then
