‘Don’t worry, pet,’ Val assured her, holding her hand, that concerned expression still there. ‘It’s just all the emotion. Just keep breathing and it’ll pass.’
Alice closed her eyes, and did as she was told. All those years with Larry, her only joy had been Rory. Other than that, she’d been so utterly miserable to her core, that her sole defence was to shut down her emotions to the point of being robotic. Now that she’d allowed that coil of numbness to unwind, it sometimes bubbled over, and she found herself sobbing over clips of rescue dogs on Instagram, or yelling with joy when nice people wonFamily Fortunes.
It took a few minutes, and several sips of hot sweet tea, but eventually she began to feel like she could function again. She tested that by recounting all her thoughts in the car to Val, and her friend was the first one who vocalised the conclusion she’d been skirting around since she’d said goodbye to Zac.
‘Wait – so you think Larry and your pal, Morag, might have had…’ Val paused and Alice was really grateful that she didn’t say ‘sex’, even though that’s what they were both thinking. Val settled on, ‘…a fling?’
‘No!’ was Alice’s first reaction, but then, far weaker, ‘Well, yes. Am I crazy?’
Val sat back in her chair. ‘I’m not sure, love, but no wonder you’re in shock. That would be a shred of the heart after all these years.’
Alice had already opened the album and was flicking through the mixture of old Polaroids and photos that came from the kind of old-fashioned film that had to be developed by Boots or Happy Snaps.
She found the first couple of photos she was looking for and took them out of the album. London. Morag’s birthday. Larry had taken a group of their friends down there in early January to celebrate and they’d had a ball, staying in a posh hotel and trying out new bars and clubs, in which, of course, he made sure they were treated like VIPs.
‘That’s Larry there, obviously…’ she said, pointing him out to Val, not that she needed to. Most people in Scotland – probably the UK too – knew what Larry looked like, because he’d been a highly vocal MP, and then he’d been plastered all over the press and the news when he’d been embroiled in the bribery and drugs scandal that had scuppered his career.
‘He’s not aged well,’ was Val’s only comment and Alice knew she said that from experience. After his downfall, Larry had pulled in old favours to get a job as a taxi driver and Val had the misfortune of getting in the back of his cab last year. Although, by a long and shocking chain of events, that journey had resulted in the two women meeting, so Alice would always be grateful.
‘Look at how happy Morag is there,’ Alice said, drawing attention to the wide grin on Morag’s face. Larry was between them, one arm draped around Alice and the other around Morag, and her friend must have been giggling at something he’d said because she was looking up at him with the biggest smile, eyes all crinkled with laughter.
The next photo was the same. Then another. All of them taken on that trip, all of them joyful.
Alice flicked another couple of pages, until she came to the second lot of photos she had in mind. ‘These are the ones we took the night Morag left. At the airport. It was a few months later.’
The images showed the two of them at the departure gate, Morag’s eyes red and glowering at the camera with sadness, while biting her lip as if her heart was breaking. There werethree or four, all of them just as awful. Back when she’d first had these photos developed, Alice remembered putting Morag’s scowl down to the fact that she was sad to be leaving, but now, she saw something else.
Morag’s expression wasn’t sadness. It was anger. Fury. Disgust. And she was staring right at the camera. Which meant she was staring right at the man behind the camera too. ‘Larry took that photo.’
Val puffed out her cheeks. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t be enough for a jury to convict, but I see what you’re saying.’
Alice felt some kind of comfort that she wasn’t going mad. ‘It’s not just that, Val. It’s all the other things too. It explains it all. And I know it’s not proof of anything, but looking at Zac today was like looking at Rory.’
As if he’d heard his name being mentioned, Alice’s phone began to ring, and her son’s name was on the screen. She picked it up quickly and tried desperately to make her voice sound normal.
‘Hello, son.’
‘It’s the big day!’ he announced gleefully. ‘Are you excited? Honestly, we can’t wait for you to get here. Sophie has been hoovering for a week and a half.’ Alice heard a yelp in the background and then laughter from them both. Rory had moved to Reading to be with Sophie a few months ago, and it warmed her heart to see and hear them both so loved up and happy.
‘I can’t wait either,’ she said honestly. ‘I wish I was there already.’ If she’d gone yesterday, then she wouldn’t be dealing with this today.
‘Listen, I’m just calling to say I checked the Glasgow Airport website and loads of flights are delayed. It’s still saying you’ve to check in at the same time, but just in case you’re delayed, we just wanted to say don’t worry. No matter what time you get here, we’ll be at Heathrow to pick you up.’
‘That’s great, son, thank you. I’ll see you tonight. Love you.’ It still warmed her heart every single day that her son had turned out to be such a good man, with no trace whatsoever of Larry McLenn’s twisted, malevolent genes.
‘Love you too, Mum.’
And then in the background she heard, ‘Love you, Alice!’ from Sophie, before they hung up.
Her stomach went back on to a spin cycle. If her suspicions were correct, then this would have repercussions for Rory too. He’d grown up an only child, regularly bemoaning the fact that he had no siblings. That had been deliberate on Alice’s part. She’d refused to bring another child into Larry’s world. By the time Rory was a toddler, the boyfriend and fiancé who’d love-bombed her was long gone, and in his place was a sneering, cruel husband who’d created a world she and her son couldn’t escape from. There was the irony. Larry hadn’t wanted Rory. She’d found out after the wedding that he’d only married her to preserve his image and his political aspirations and later, that was the same reason he wouldn’t let her leave. All she could do back then was stick it out and do everything she could to protect her boy.
‘Och, Alice, I don’t envy you this one,’ Val said, reaching for a second caramel wafer, which Alice knew signified a Defcon 3 alert level. ‘Are you going to share your thoughts with the lad if he comes here?’
Alice wasn’t sure how to answer that. Zac had obviously sussed out that something didn’t add up, and Alice was fairly certain he’d realised that Cillian couldn’t be his dad. But what right did she have to become involved? It wasn’t her place to tell him. However… could she really withhold information like that when she might have the answers he was looking for?
She sent up a silent message.‘Come on, Morag, tell me what you would want me to do.’
The sound of the doorbell interrupted her wait for a reply.
