Caroline Anderson – The Baby Question (страница 2)

‘I’m in a hurry to move to Scotland,’ she told them. ‘I don’t need a mortgage—just somewhere small for me and the dog, with a home office if possible. Remote, if you can, and as cheap as possible but civilised. It must have heating and plumbing, though, and it needs a phone line.’

‘Do you want to buy or rent?’ the young lady asked. ‘Only we’ve got a property that’s just come on the books which sounds ideal, but they want to rent it just for a few months until they decide what to do.’

‘Furnished or unfurnished?’ Laurie asked, suddenly thinking of all the things she’d have to buy to equip a new home, and wondering if she was quite mad.

‘Oh, furnished,’ the agent told her. ‘It’s fully equipped and really lovely—two bedrooms, although at the moment you’d only have the use of one because they’ve put a lot of personal stuff in the second, but there’s a room over the garage you could use as an office. They’ve gone to France and won’t be back unless things don’t work out, but it won’t be very expensive even if they do sell it, not that far north. The only thing is, there’s no guarantee it’ll come up for sale.’

‘That’s no problem. It would help me now, at least. How far north?’ she asked, her curiosity aroused.

‘About an hour from here—near where Madonna was married. Near Tain, on the Dornock Firth. It’s got wonderful distant sea and mountain views, if you don’t mind the isolation.’

Mind? Just then she’d die for it. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said instantly. ‘When could I move?’ Excitement was fizzing in her like champagne, the bubbles forming on the walls of her veins and tingling through them, bringing her to life.

‘You haven’t even seen the details!’ the lady exclaimed, but Laurie had heard enough.

‘What’s it called?’ she asked.

‘Little Gluich.’ She spelt it, and Laurie wrote it on the Post-it note next to the agent’s number and stuck it on the wall over her desk.

‘Can you fax me all the details?’ she asked then, and within two hours it was set up, and she’d arranged to call in for the keys in two days’ time.

All she had to do now was get there …

The house was empty.

Odd, how he knew that the moment he set foot over the threshold. The dog was missing, of course. That was a bit of a giveaway.

She must be walking him. At four-thirty, just barely into February? It was dark, or it would be soon. Not really safe on the roads. She’d probably gone over the fields instead, but it was very wet. In fact, he thought, remembering his drive home, it was pouring with rain.

She must be mad.

Unless she’d just found out she wasn’t pregnant again. That made her do crazy things sometimes. Oh, lord, not again, he thought heavily. Poor Laurie.

He put the kettle on. She’d want tea when she got in. Tea and sympathy. Hell. He wasn’t very good with the sympathy thing. He never seemed to hit the right note. In the meantime, he’d go and change out of his suit and put on something more relaxed. He’d been in a suit day in, day out for days. Weeks. Years?

The bedroom was very tidy. He’d obviously been away too long, he thought, unless Mrs Prewett had been today. Friday—or was it Thursday? He couldn’t remember, and he wasn’t sure now which days their cleaning lady came. He didn’t think he could even remember what she looked like.

He scrubbed a hand tiredly through his hair and dropped onto the edge of the bed to pull off his shoes. Where was Laurie? It was dark now, the fingers of night creeping across the sky. Surely she wasn’t walking the dog still? It would be dangerous in the wet and inky blackness.

He stood up and crossed to the window, peering down into the garden, but he couldn’t see a thing. Could she have taken shelter in the summer house?

Unlikely. She would surely have run back to the house if she’d been caught in the rain.

Maybe she was in but hadn’t heard him. The garage? No, he’d put his car away on the way in, and the electric zapper for the door also turned on the interior lights. He would have seen her, and anyway, why on earth would she be lurking in there in the dark, for heaven’s sake? Besides, there was the dog. If he was here, he would have barked by now.

Unless she was at the vet with him, or staying with a friend. Maybe that was it. Maybe she’d been lonely and thought he wasn’t coming back yet. He’d said he wasn’t, in the end.

No. Her car was in the garage, what was he thinking about? She didn’t go anywhere on foot, except to walk the dog, because there was nowhere to go that was near enough.

So where was she?

He changed quickly and went downstairs, still puzzled. She should have left him a note, for heaven’s sake.

Even though she wasn’t expecting him? ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he muttered, conscious of a gnawing disappointment that she wasn’t here to greet him. So much for surprising her!

Then common sense reared its mocking head, and he rang her mobile number.

He got the message service, and irritation edged into concern. He left a message, trying to sound casual.

‘Darling, I’m home. Just wondered where you are. Ring me.’

He hung up, feeling a little aimless and lost. She was always here when he came home, and the house was dead and empty without her. He’d make tea. Maybe she’d be home by the time it was brewed. She might have gone out in a friend’s car—perhaps to walk dogs together, and then back to the friend’s for tea? They were probably out of range of the phone.

In Hertfordshire?

He paced to the window, glowering out into the impenetrable blackness of the wet night. It was truly foul out there. What if she was lying somewhere hurt?

Oh, God. Panic surged through him, and he pulled on his dogwalking coat and some wellies and went out into the garden, noting as he did that her coat and boots were missing. He called her as he tromped over the sodden grass, scanning round with the torch he’d taken with him. It hardly penetrated the gloom, and he didn’t know where to start. The garden was more of a mini-wilderness, ten acres, many of them rough and wild and boggy, with lots of places where she could be lying out of sight.

The woodland? Oh, lord, the lake?

He crushed the panic and told himself not to over-react, and concentrated on calling the dog, over and over again, but there was nothing. After an hour he gave up and went back inside, ready to phone the police, and that was when he spotted the note.

It was stuck on the front of the fridge door, held by a magnet, and he pulled it off and opened the envelope with fingers numb with cold and wet.

‘I’ve gone away for a while. I need to think. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll ring. Laurie. PS. I have the dog.’

Rob stared at the paper, stunned. Gone away? To think? Think? About what, for God’s sake?

The baby, he thought with a wave of sadness. The baby they couldn’t seem to have. Oh, Laurie.

A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed it, hard. Where had she gone? What was she doing? She shouldn’t be alone—

The phone rang, and he snatched it up and barked, ‘Hello?’

‘Rob, it’s me. I just got your message. I didn’t realise you were coming home yet.’

He stabbed a hand through his wet hair. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he snapped, his relief releasing his anger. ‘I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been out in the rain and the dark scouring the garden with a torch—I’ve only just found your note. How come you haven’t got the car—and what do you mean, think?’

‘I’ve got another car.’

‘What?’ He sat down abruptly, stunned. ‘What do you mean, you’ve got another car? That one’s almost new!’

‘I know. This is mine.’

Mine. Something about that word rang alarm bells in his head and he stared at the phone cautiously. ‘The other one’s yours.’

‘Not in the same way. I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I’m all right. I’ll be in touch.’ There was a soft click, and the burr of the dialling tone sounded in his ear.

‘Laurie? Laurie, damn you, don’t do this to me!’ he yelled, and slammed the phone down, frustrated by his impotence.

Where was she? What was she doing?

Thinking.

What the hell did that mean, when it was at home? He phoned her again, and bombarded her with text messages, but to no avail. He was met by a relentless silence that nearly drove him crazy.

He paced round all evening, throwing together a scratch meal of bacon and eggs—about the only thing he could cook—and channel-hopped for a while, but the television couldn’t hold his interest, so he had a hot shower and got ready for bed, but he was wide awake because it was still only five in the evening New York time, so he went into the study and went through some paperwork that was waiting for him.

And all the time he could see Laurie’s face, a pale, perfect oval framed by that glorious soft, thick, shiny hair the colour of dark, moist peat. Her eyes were hazel, but when she was angry they fired gold and green sparks, and when she was aroused they went a wonderful soft smudgy green, and her mouth would yield to his touch, her lips swelling slightly and becoming rosy from his kisses, and afterwards her smile would be gentle and mellow and loving—

He frowned. She hadn’t looked like that for a while. It had all lost its spontaneity, and the sparkle seemed to have gone out of their relationship.