The Ex-Boyfriend: A completely addictive and shocking psychological thriller Page 8

  ‘Oh, dear, he does seem to be away a lot, doesn’t he? Perhaps I could have Mia for a sleepover when he’s back and give you two a chance for a proper night out?’

  They’d arrived at the coffee shop and Becca started collapsing the buggy, ready to take it inside. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said, perhaps a little too quickly. ‘But I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble. We can always get a babysitter.’

  Ruth nodded, thoughtful. ‘A couple of hours isn’t the same as having a whole night together, though, is it? Without having to worry about this little one. You’d be able to relax then. Have a proper chat about everything that’s worrying you.’

  ‘Nothing’s worrying me, Ruth. Honestly. I think you might have misunderstood.’ She pushed open the door, eager to end the conversation, thinking that Ruth was way too observant for her liking.

  11

  The next morning, Becca was up early as she had to go and fetch Frank, bring him back to her house for babysitting duties, and then get to work. She felt exhausted just thinking about it. A knock on the door startled her. Nobody ever knocked on their door – they didn’t even know the neighbours yet. Maybe a delivery? she wondered as she went to answer it.

  Ruth stood on the doorstep, a big grin on her face.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming round. It’s just I was thinking I’ve put you in a sticky situation today, saying I couldn’t have Mia because I thought I was going in for treatment.’ Her words rushed out and she seemed a little out of breath. ‘I cancelled everyone, so I’m just going to be hanging around while you’re dashing about. Anyway, I thought maybe I could make things easier for you by keeping an eye on Mia while you go and pick up your dad. I know what Mia’s like in the car and… well…’ She faltered, hands wrapping themselves round each other, like she was giving them a wash.

  Becca stared at her for a moment while her brain tried to catch up. Mia had already been making a fuss about going to Frank’s, even with the lure of all the Beanie Babies. Why not? Becca opened the door wide. ‘That would be a big help, Ruth.’ She smiled at her. ‘Come on in.’

  The day was going to be complicated enough for the sake of a four-hour shift, and her reservations were put to the back of her mind as she made Ruth a coffee. Whatever Ruth’s reasoning, Becca had to admit it had saved her a tussle with Mia and made her day less stressy – and for that she was thankful.

  Frank was ready and waiting and out of the front door, his overnight bag clasped in his hand, before Becca could even get out of the car. He opened the passenger door and climbed in, beaming at her. ‘This is such a treat, Becca. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to coming over to your new house.’ A flash of anxiety clouded his face for a moment. ‘I’m right in thinking Dean’s away, aren’t I?’

  Becca patted his leg before she started the car and reversed out of the drive. ‘It’ll be fun, Dad. And yes, Dean’s away until Monday.’

  ‘I could stay a couple of nights, then?’

  Becca blinked, surprised by his request. ‘Um… yes… yes, if you want. I’m sure Mia will love to have you as her plaything for a while.’ It’ll be fine, absolutely fine, she told herself, concentrating on her manoeuvre.

  Frank laughed. ‘She’s such a funny little thing. Never stops talking, does she? Reminds me of you when you were little. Talk about a chatterbox. You used to drive your mum mad, but I loved to hear your stories. Such a vivid imagination.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘I remember the games you used to play with those stuffed animals – they all had names and different characters. Honestly, you were hilarious!’

  Becca smiled as she drove, memories flashing through her mind. Frank had been such a big part of her childhood, the one who’d take her on little trips to get her out of the house and give her mum a break. Looking back, she could see that her constant chattering, her endless questions had tested her mum’s patience. She’d been a quiet woman herself, hadn’t liked noise and had preferred the company of Kate. Her sister had been a self-contained child who loved to read, quite happy in her own company and much more like their mother.

  Before he retired, Frank had been Head Warden for the National Trust in Northern Snowdonia, responsible for a great swathe of land along with his team. He used to take her out on the hills, teach her about birds and wildlife, plants and flowers, the names of all the mountains. Since his heart attack and subsequent retirement, he’d lost the motivation to go out walking and had become a bit of a hermit. She wondered whether she could help him to rekindle his love of the outdoors – revive his interest in birdwatching maybe, and give him something to fill his days. Now Mia was getting older, it was something they could do together, and she made a promise to herself that she’d start putting more time aside for her dad, give him the attention he used to give her. With Dean being away so much, there really was nothing stopping her.

  ‘I’ve brought some more of those little animals for Mia,’ Frank said. ‘I picked out her favourites.’

  ‘Ah, well, I might just pop them in the wash first, if you don’t mind. Mia had a bad stomach upset when we got home the other day. Doctor said it was a virus, but it came on so suddenly and I didn’t get it, so I’m not so sure. Then I realised it could be the Beanie Babies. If they’ve been festering in a box for years, there could be all sorts of bacteria on them, and she does like to put things in her mouth.’ She glanced over at Frank, caught the frown on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear she was poorly. But it can’t have been the toys. I put them in the wash before I gave them to her. I remembered last time I tried to give her a toy and I got a right ticking off because I hadn’t washed it. You went and sterilised the thing before you’d let her have it.’

  Becca ran her tongue round dry lips, concentrating on driving. ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘Yes, well, I do. You’re a shocker when you get a bee in your bonnet.’

  Am I that bad? She hoped not but was aware she could flare up if she was feeling stressed. Perhaps she’d been having a bad day.

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ she murmured, wishing she could be more relaxed, like other mums.

  ‘It’s okay, love. I know what it’s like being a parent, remember?’ He chuckled. ‘When you were little you ate all sorts and it never harmed you. I remember taking you out in the baby carrier when you were just crawling and I found this lovely place to stop for a rest, put you on the grass and let you have a nosy around. Then I spotted this bird you don’t normally see in the valley, and when I checked to see what you were up to, you were eating bits of sheep poo, like they were chocolate drops.’

  Becca gasped. ‘Oh my God, Dad! You never told me that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, not my best parenting moment. But it didn’t do you any harm.’ He winked at her. ‘I think if you could just learn to chill out with Mia, you’d enjoy her childhood a whole lot more.’

  She snorted. ‘That easy?’

  ‘I know parenting has its challenges, love, but you’re supposed to enjoy your kids. A stomach upset is par for the course, especially at Mia’s age. I mean, it’s not the first time she’s had something like this, is it?’ He turned to her. ‘She’s all right now, though?’

  Becca nodded. ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Come to think of it, where is she?’ He glanced in the back seat as if he might have overlooked her.

  ‘Ruth popped round to keep an eye on her while I came to pick you up. She’s my childminder. You know, the one who had a cancer diagnosis. Anyway, they gave her the wrong results, so she’s actually fine, and I think she felt guilty that she’d cancelled on me without warning.’

  Becca puffed out her cheeks, her mind filling with everything that had happened in the past few days, turning her world upside down. ‘What a weird week I’m having, Dad. You wouldn’t believe who—’ She stopped herself before she mentioned Connor. This was not the time to open that particular can of worms, not when she had to concentrate on driving.

  She hadn’t received any more messages f
rom him. Maybe that’s the last I’ll hear of him. A flash of alarm ran through her, the idea that she wouldn’t speak to him again unthinkable. He wanted to chat, she reassured herself. Be patient. Or maybe I should start a conversation?

  His reappearance had made her think about a lot of things, made her understand that she needed to address the past so she could pack it away properly, instead of bits flopping out at random moments and taking her by surprise. At the very least, she needed to understand the creeping dissatisfaction which had begun to invade her psyche, making her question the nature of her relationship with Dean.

  Perhaps it wasn’t Connor she needed to speak to. Maybe the thing would be to talk everything through with Frank once Mia was asleep and they had the evening ahead of them. There was so much that hadn’t been said over the years, it was time to get it all out in the open. Life was incredibly awkward when her dad and her husband couldn’t get on, and it needed sorting out. She’d missed spending time with Frank and there was no reason why he couldn’t come and stay more often, if only she could resolve this bad feeling between the two men. Then Kate would have a bit more freedom and everyone would be happier.

  They arrived back at the house to find Ruth and Mia in the kitchen, making French toast for breakfast. ‘I’ll make some for you, Dandad,’ Mia announced, dunking a fresh piece of bread in the egg mix.

  ‘Dad, this is Ruth. Ruth this is Frank.’ Becca glanced at her watch, and knew she was going to be late if she didn’t get a move on. ‘Look, I’ve got to dash. I’ll see you just after one, Dad, okay? And thanks for coming round, Ruth.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Ruth said, helping Mia lift the bread into the pan.

  Frank shooed her out of the kitchen. ‘Off you go. We’ll be fine, won’t we, Mia?’

  But Mia didn’t answer, too busy patting the piece of bread with a spatula under Ruth’s watchful gaze.

  Becca left feeling like she was missing out on something, but soon she was too busy with her patients to think about anything else, and the notion of being on the outside was stuffed to the back of her mind.

  She stopped for a mid-morning coffee break, getting a takeout to drink in her car. The promenade on the north shore was a favourite place between calls, where she could watch the sea and have a bit of space to collect her thoughts. Today, her phone was practically burning a hole in her pocket, even though she’d been checking regularly all morning and no messages had arrived. She pulled it out, not expecting there to be anything, but there it was, on Twitter, a message.

  She opened it up and laughed. It was a picture. Her and Connor in costumes for a fancy-dress party. New Year’s Eve. A night that was firmly lodged in her memory. She’d been Groucho Marx and he’d been Liza Minelli. She chuckled to herself as she remembered what a fantastic night it had been. The night, in fact, when he’d first told her he loved her.

  Another message arrived.

  Remember this?

  She replied:

  How could I forget? You make a great woman. And you sang, if I remember rightly.

  A moment later, a laughing emoji filled the screen, followed by:

  One of the best nights of my life.

  She replied before she’d properly considered it:

  Mine too.

  Her eyes widened as she read the words on the screen, knowing it was true. She clicked on the picture, enlarging it.

  Look at my face, she thought. Proper happy. When have I had fun like that with Dean? A rhetorical question because Dean didn’t do fun like Connor, who was a natural clown and really didn’t mind making an idiot of himself. Dean was the opposite, and that, in a way, had been the attraction. He was a man she could rely on – steady and kind, and he put providing for his family at the top of his agenda. Unexciting. Unable to stir the passion that had been there with Connor.

  She blinked, shrank the picture and put her phone away, horrified at the route her thoughts were taking. But it was true. Passion is not the most important part of a marriage, she told herself. Maybe she yearned for it, but that didn’t mean she should ignore all the great things about her relationship with Dean, or the things that had worried her about Connor. She made herself list them in her mind, to balance out the bias of her thought processes. Connor was unpredictable, a free spirit who didn’t want to be tied down. A loveable idiot who made rash decisions and didn’t have a mean bone in his body and made her laugh. He’d adored her, of that she was sure. However, would he ever have been able to give her the stability she had with Dean?

  Stop it. Just stop it. But this connection with Connor was an itch she had to scratch.

  The picture reminded her of the journal and the box of stuff from her desk, and she decided she’d have a look later, when her dad was in bed, because with Dean being away, she’d have the perfect opportunity. Perhaps she’d find a photo she could send to Connor. She finished her coffee and made her way to her next patient, warmed by her memories and excited by the thought of revisiting a time in her life when she’d been a different person. A person she’d like to be again.

  She arrived home to the smell of cooking and tracked the delicious aroma to the kitchen, surprised to find Ruth still there, sitting at the table with Frank, engrossed in conversation. Mia was colouring in, her cuddly animals lined up on the table in front of her as if they were watching.

  Frank noticed her in the doorway. ‘Ah, Becca. Ruth and I have realised that we’ve met before.’

  ‘Oh, wow. How’s that?’ Becca couldn’t imagine two such different people ever moving in the same circles.

  ‘I used to volunteer with the National Trust a while ago,’ Ruth said. ‘Then I was poorly for a while and got out of the habit of going. We’ve just been chatting about it now and figured out we worked on a couple of tree-planting projects together.’

  Becca smiled, thinking that it might be nice for Frank to make friends with Ruth. And it could be good for Ruth as well, because she was clearly at a loose end when she wasn’t childminding. ‘Small world,’ she said, putting her bag down before hanging her coat in the cupboard under the stairs. Her stomach rumbled. ‘Something smells good.’

  ‘Oh, we made some soup, didn’t we, Mia?’

  Mia spotted her then. ‘Mummy!’ She slid off her chair and ran to Becca, who picked her up and held her tight. She kissed her soft cheek and Mia gave her a sloppy kiss back. ‘We cooked,’ she said, seriously. ‘I stirred. Dandad chopped and Ruth told us what to do.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Becca said, thinking she’d be worried about her daughter stirring a pot of boiling liquid and glad she hadn’t been there to see it.

  ‘It’ll be ready now. I’ll dish up, shall I?’ Ruth stood. ‘Frank, do you want to get the cutlery?’

  Becca watched, a little bemused, as someone else took charge in her kitchen. Leave it, she warned herself. She’s just trying to help. She put Mia back in her chair and cleared her colouring stuff to the end of the table, then busied herself getting drinks, refusing to be a bystander in her own space.

  Mia, who was generally a fussy eater, behaved perfectly, especially when Ruth reminded her what a clever girl she’d been making them all lunch. Becca squirmed in her seat, joining in the conversation but hoping that Ruth would go home after lunch.

  She didn’t.

  ‘How about a walk to the playground and then go for afternoon tea?’ Frank suggested, looking at Ruth, making Becca feel like a spare part. ‘My treat.’ Becca was about to say Mia could probably do with a nap, when he turned to her. ‘It’ll give you a break, love, let you get your head down, maybe get some sleep.’

  And she realised she wasn’t invited.

  Enjoy the peace, she told herself ten minutes later as she waved goodbye and closed the door. The quiet was disconcerting. It was strange – when her life was usually hurtling along at a hundred miles an hour – to be given a chance to just stop and do nothing.

  Suddenly drowsy, she climbed the stairs and lay on the bed, but she couldn’t get comfortable, the chatter o
f her thoughts keeping her awake. After a while she gave up and decided she’d go and sit in the garden with her book and a cup of tea instead. She checked her phone. No new messages. Her fingers flew over the screen.

  We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?

  She didn’t expect a reply, and stuffed her phone back in her pocket, but the ping signalling a response came almost immediately.

  Best times of my life. You made me laugh. Didn’t judge, just let me be myself. That’s what real love is all about. I don’t know how it all went so wrong. Well, I do, if I’m honest. I was scared of commitment. I wasn’t ready. Thing is, I miss you.

  She stared at the screen, her heart thumping as she read and reread his words. He misses me.

  She typed and pressed send:

  You too.

  Her mouth dropped open. What am I doing? I’m married to Dean.

  She could feel Connor’s grip tightening on her heart, the love she’d felt for him rushing back, filling the hole that Dean’s absences had created. She yearned to be the centre of someone’s world again. And she knew she’d been that to Connor.

  Perhaps I could be again?

  The thought was so shocking, she put her phone away as though it was responsible for the wayward path her mind was taking. The hooks of obsession had got her; thoughts of Connor were taking over. And instead of fighting it, she wanted to surrender, wanted to enjoy the thrill of flirting, of knowing that they still had a bond, and to revel in the feeling that she was loved.