Until You're Mine (41 page)

It was late, and the girls had been in bed for an hour. On the way up, Lorraine had peeked into each of their bedrooms – a habit she used to indulge every night when they were younger. Now, as teens, she daren’t invade their privacy even when asleep. But this was different – the
start
of things being different.

‘It certainly is,’ Adam said, and the look he gave her as he peered up from his computer screen spoke way more than the words actually meant. His face began to form a half smile, but it dropped away as he remembered she was most likely still mad as hell at him.

Lorraine sat down on the wooden chair the other side of the desk. The study was a box room with a sloping ceiling and also doubled as a laundry-sorting room, occasional homework room when the kitchen was too noisy for the girls, and a bedroom with a fold-out futon, where Adam had been sleeping recently.

‘Good,’ she said, dragging the conversation out. Inside, she still felt the residue of anger and resentment. Her exterior probably just looked worn out. ‘I’m just glad we got her back.’

‘Me too.’ Adam stood and came round to the other side of the desk. He stared down at Lorraine. She felt as if he expected her to rise and mould herself within the curve of his arms, when what she really wanted to do was jerk her knee up hard between his legs.

‘I know it was Zoe, or should I say Heather Paige.’ She thanked God that her voice held out, crisp and determined. She was going to continue but, to her surprise, Adam was already nodding. It wasn’t a particularly vehement action, and it wasn’t contrite either. It was just a plain nod indicating that she was correct.

He folded his arms against his body. ‘To out her would have had serious repercussions. I knew she was a DC and that she’d done some undercover work. She was working on a fraud case. It was an unfortunate coincidence. Karma biting my arse, I suppose, but I had to keep quiet. What happened at the Christmas party was bad enough, let alone jeopardising both of our careers by blowing her cover.’

‘My heart bleeds for you . . .’

‘Don’t start with the clichés.’

‘Clichés, Adam? Your behaviour is the only cliché around here. Do you know how I feel right now, knowing that you shared a secret in my company? I don’t expect you to reveal that she was an officer, but telling me that you’d fucked her would have been the decent thing to do.’

Lorraine spotted the nearly full glass of red wine on the desk. ‘Do you mind?’ she said, reaching for it.

Adam nodded and watched as she gulped half of it down. They were only inches apart, and she let all the emotions rush through her. She was sick of fighting them, sick of
having
them.

‘I could kick you out, you know. Tell Grace and Stella what you did.’

Adam nodded. He seemed braced for anything.

‘I could go it alone with the girls. We’d be fine.’

For a moment, Lorraine held this situation in her head. She didn’t like the feel of it, not if she was honest. Grace and Stella needed their dad, however much of a jerk he had been. She drank more wine. And if she was completely honest, she needed him too.

Adam remained silent.

‘Whatever happens between us, there must be no more lies,’ she stated. ‘I can’t take it, and the girls don’t deserve it.’

Then, before he could reply, she found herself reaching for his hand. She was desperate to touch him. She noticed how tense he felt, and found herself thinking of everything she loved about him – his passion for sport and fitness, the way he encouraged their daughters to join teams and how he stood pitch-side, cheering them on in all weathers. The way she’d caught him looking at her over the years, as if she was as integral to his life as his own heartbeat. The way he played music way too loud in the car, and fell asleep in the cinema. The way he bought terrible gifts for her birthday and always wore his baggy grey sweater with the hole under the arm when he had a Sunday off. The way he’d taken up golf last year then promptly given up, or the way he insisted on wearing brightly coloured socks in court.

Ridiculous, tiny things that, when added together, were bigger than life itself.

The way he just was . . . just Adam.

Lorraine shut her eyes. Everything tumbled through her mind, out of control and unbearable yet joyous, beautiful, and innate. The warmth, safety, passion, familiarity, love, worries, hopes and needs of her family flooded her thoughts. She couldn’t give up on him. This family had been her life’s work.

Putting down her wine, she drew him closer. She would try. She would try her hardest to forget, and every day when she woke up, she would promise to see the man she married, the man she loved and adored, instead of the man Adam had briefly messed with in a fit of bad judgement.

‘Stella needs new school shoes,’ she whispered against his neck as she brought her face up to his. He felt warm and familiar.

‘And the gutters need clearing out,’ Adam replied, allowing his hands to slide onto her hips.

‘There’s nothing for breakfast either,’ Lorraine stated as her mouth brushed across to his.

The kiss was unsure and gentle at first, apologetic yet forgiving. Then, through the meeting of their lips, a mash of searching hands and winding limbs, Lorraine thought she heard him mumble something about being sorry, about loving her always, but after that she didn’t really recall much else.

‘IT’S YOU AGAIN,’
he says, glancing up from the pile of work on his desk. The teacher grimaces at me before scowling at the twins. Between them they have made a Lego tower taller than themselves. Noah stands on a small chair beside it, holding the top steady while the whole structure bends in the middle.

‘This is the last time you’ll see me, I promise.’

At the sound of my voice, the boys both look up. ‘Hooray!’ Oscar sings out. ‘Zoe’s here!’ Noah jumps off the chair and they both run over to me. The tower comes crashing down.

‘Get your lunchboxes, lads. We’re going home.’ I’ve already gathered their coats from the hooks outside the after-school club. Both boys are hugging my legs and I have to prise them off in order to get them ready. ‘This one is yours, right?’ I say to Noah, knowing full well it isn’t. He laughs and play-punches me. For some reason, I want to cry.

‘Is Mummy home yet?’ Noah asks. His hand is hot and slightly sticky as it nestles in mine as we walk along the pavement. To be honest, I don’t want to let go.

‘No, she’s not.’ I have absolutely no idea what to say. I never expected to feel this way about them when I took the job.
Get in, get the information, get out.
That was the basic brief. Mess up, and I knew I’d barely have a job any more, let alone anything undercover ever again. As it stands, making tea and shining the boss’s shoes would seem like a lucky escape.

‘Is Daddy home yet?’ Oscar says, echoing his brother. I give his hand a squeeze.

‘Stupid,’ Noah jibes. He worms his way between Oscar and me, trying to prise Oscar’s fingers out of mine. Gently, I ease him back to my other side.

‘He’s not home either, I’m afraid. But you know what? I don’t think it will be long before he returns.’

I’ve already had a word with my boss and he’s contacting the relevant people. I pray they can get in touch with James. Even though the boys were too young to remember last time they lost their mother, I don’t think they should have to face this mess without their father.

‘Anyone fancy sweets on the way home?’ I get the response I was expecting and we stop off at the newsagent on the way back. It takes a good ten minutes for the twins to fill a little paper bag with pink shrimps, raspberry chews and sherbet flying saucers. It takes their mind off what I tell them on the remainder of the walk.

‘So has Mummy gone away like Daddy?’ Oscar asks when I’ve finished explaining.

I expect Noah to come back with his usual cutting sibling remark but he remains thoughtful and silent, sucking on a sweet, as we approach the front door.

‘Yes. Mummy will be away for a little while. She did something naughty.’ I screw up my eyes as I unlock the door and let them in. For me, the rest of the day will be packing up and reporting back. But first, I need to make a phone call.

‘But you’ll be our mummy now, won’t you, Zoe?’ Oscar says, as if he’s got it all worked out.

I crouch down beside them as they untie their shoelaces and stuff their feet into their slippers. The bags of sweets are scrunched up in their palms as they struggle to take off their coats.

‘No, I won’t be able to look after you any more.’ There’s no point in lying to them. ‘I’m really sorry. I have liked being your nanny though.’ That’s the truth. I found myself caring more than I ever thought possible – even getting up in the night to check on them when I heard noises. I hadn’t meant to give Oscar nightmares and make him think there was a monster in his room.

I study each boy’s face in turn and my heart shrinks a little as their cheeks flush. Oscar bursts into tears.

‘Baby,’ Noah says meanly, but I know he’s feeling the same.

‘Am not!’

That’s when I know they will be OK. They have each other; they are two halves of a whole. And with that, they dash off to the sitting room and squabble over the remote control.

I know exactly how they feel.

*

The jimmied study door is still wide open. Elizabeth’s brothers’ unwelcome intrusion makes sense now, since I spoke with my boss after leaving Pip’s house. I didn’t know where else to go so I drove the car here first and then walked straight to the park. I sat on a bench, shell-shocked by the afternoon’s events. I dialled the number and told him what had happened. He revealed to me that the Sheehan brothers would have been searching for the same papers as me.

‘You did well, Heather,’ he said, as if it was never a given I would succeed. I allowed myself to enjoy the praise. ‘I know your work was curtailed, but several of the documents you sent through were key. The Jersey fraud squad has a solid case now, thanks to you.’

I’d figured this assignment was my last chance to impress. Cecelia’s demands had taken their toll on my career over the years. Fake sick days from me coupled with regular phone calls and crazed visits from her to the station made it almost impossible to do my work properly. She needed looking after and there was no one else to help. Sisters, just like twin brothers, have to stick together. I’d promised Mum that much before she died, leaving the world in her own fit of unreality and delusion eighteen months ago, and I’d whispered the same into Dad’s coffin before they shut the lid when I was a teenager. It was just Sissy and me now.

So I was baffled why they picked me for this particular undercover job. The hopeless maverick with a less-than-average track record was hardly top choice for a major fraud assignment. Perhaps I just looked more like a nanny than anyone else in the department.

‘Surely you’ve had experience with kids?’ the chief had said after he’d initially briefed me. He was almost telling me I had.

‘No,’ was my honest reply.

It had all happened very quickly once they decided I was the one. Zoe Harper was created out of nothing by a team dedicated to producing rock-solid backgrounds for undercover cops. As a relative newbie, I’d heard stories of course but never once thought I’d bag anything like this so early in my career.

I spent the next five days with my head buried in reports and fact sheets and discovered that my new CV contained details I didn’t even know about the real me. I studied books on childcare, including the Montessori method, and researched all the places I was supposed to have been with my previous families. It was a whirlwind submersion in someone else’s life, all to get evidence of an otherwise inaccessible accounting paper trail.

It was, to be honest, just what I needed because Cecelia was driving herself, and me, utterly mad.

‘You ride a bicycle, by the way,’ they’d told me.

‘I do?’ I hadn’t done that in a long while.

‘And you keep in touch with several of your previous charges.’ He’d handed me a bunch of letters, all opened and slightly creased, with childlike handwriting on the front, to an address I didn’t recognise. ‘It’s where you lived for a while,’ he’d said as I ran my finger over the unfamiliar village name. ‘Items such as this will be packed with your general possessions. They will be ready for collection twenty-four hours before you move in. Don’t even think of taking anything else with you. Assuming you get the job, that is,’ he’d added with a grimace that I took to be threatening. I was right. ‘And you’d
better
get the job,’ he’d finished. ‘The costs if you don’t are innumerable. We’re working with the Securities Exchange Commission in Washington on this one and don’t want to look like a bunch of fools. It’s a tiny part of the whole investigation but you’re in at ground level and have a chance to help make a bit of history.’

I’d swallowed, listening intently, feeling absolutely terrified.

‘Hundreds of trust funds in offshore centres around the world have been stuffed with funds that have, let’s say, a less than healthy provenance. Top that with the trusts being illegally managed – enter our Jersey connection – and you’ve touched the tip of a very large worldwide money-laundering scam.’

He’d gone on to tell me that 228 million dollars had been moved to various offshore accounts around the world from the United States a year ago in the aftermath of a pump-and-dump scam. Following an internet-manufactured frenzy, share prices for Chencorp, a new company boasting an overinflated contract with China to supply educational materials, sky-rocketed and left the major shareholders filthy rich.

‘The
pump
,’ he’d announced.

I didn’t really know what he meant and kind of glazed over, just wanting to get on with what I had to do, but then he told me that a share price crash had naturally followed the massive sale of stock – the
dump
– and the genuine investors – ‘Your average Joe like me and you’ – lost all their money.

I thought about this. I was starting to understand, and I really felt for the ‘average Joes’ my boss was referring to. Things like that weren’t fair, especially when he told me that the perpetrators got off with a non-custodial sentence and a minuscule payback in comparison to what they made.