Prologue
“Alex! Nick! It’s time to go home now, will you come back here please!”
Sue Jones started to pack up the remains of the picnic. She put the lid onto a plastic sandwich box, dropped some rubbish into a carrier bag and folded up the tartan picnic rug. It was a Saturday afternoon in early September and the late summer sun dappling through the trees felt pleasantly warm on her shoulders and bare arms. She adjusted her sunglasses, pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes and surveyed the scene before her.
As usual, the boys had made short work of the various drinks, crisps and yogurts and she had even persuaded them to eat an apple each, but a number of sandwiches remained uneaten. She peered at them in case any were still edible – but found that all of them contained peanut butter. Quite why her son always requested the revolting things, but very rarely ate more than one of them, was one of the many mysteries of motherhood. She finished off the remains of an apple juice carton and added that to the bag, tying up the end and dropping it in the nearby waste bin.
As she stowed the picnic box in the back of her estate car a large chocolate brown Labrador appeared out of the nearby bushes, hotly pursued by two young boys. In the lead, as always, was Nick, tall and sturdily built for just seven years of age, with dark curly hair plastered to his forehead by sweat, and a large new graze clearly visible on his left knee.
Following a few paces behind was Alex, almost a year younger, far smaller and lighter in build, with floppy light blond hair and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose, which Sue knew exactly matched the cluster she had displayed at the same age.
“Mum – we saw two squirrels and Bruno chased them but they shot up the tree really, really fast!”
“I wondered why he was barking” Sue replied, as the dog hauled himself up into the back of the car and sat down, panting. “You’re getting far too old to chase things boy!”
She patted him vigorously and poured some water into his bowl, which he lapped up thirstily, his thick tail thumping on the base of the boot.
“It doesn’t hurt much!” said Nick, as Sue bathed his knee with a wet wipe and placed a sticking plaster on it, reflecting, not for the first time, that she really should have shares in the company. He was a very active but accident-prone child who threw himself headlong into every activity, with absolutely no concern for possible dangers. His mother lived in a permanent state of fear of receiving a telephone call to say that he had broken something, or that his older brother had come off his shiny new motorbike, which, she assured Sue, Martin had bought purely to spite her.
“Well, I thought that was a lovely day - I hope you two birthday boys enjoyed it!”
They nodded and smiled back at her in the rear-view mirror, as she began the drive home. Both boys quickly fell asleep, and she could hear the old dog snoring gently in the rear of the car.
Bruno had been an eighteenth birthday present from Sue’s parents, arriving in her life as a half-grown pup whose original owners had lost interest and left him tied up outside the dog’s home early one morning. He stayed with her parents when Sue was away at University, but became her shadow from the second she returned for a weekend or in the holidays, and pined for her every time she left again. Sue had lived back there during her teacher-training year, and Bruno went with her when she moved with her new husband into a tiny, one-bedroom rented flat above a video shop, in a less than select area of Nottingham. She was pregnant at the time and hated the thought of being alone in that gloomy place every evening until Paul arrived home. The dog’s sturdy and friendly presence had reassured her, making her feel less lonely.
Now he was starting to show his nearly eleven years, with increasingly stiff back legs and grey around the muzzle. She wondered whether she or Alex would miss him the most when he died, as he was bound to before too long. Paul had already put his foot down and insisted that there would be no more dogs in his house, a prospect she found unimaginable. But she’d said nothing, being reluctant to provoke a row.
As they pulled up outside Nick’s house he stirred and opened his eyes, as his mother hurried down the path to greet them. Lorraine Browne was a small, plump and slightly breathless woman, dressed in a long flowered skirt and a bright blue t-shirt.
“Hello, did you have a lovely time, Nicholas? Where did you go today? Oh dear, I see you’ve hurt yourself again! Is it very sore? Thank you for taking him out again Sue - he always enjoys his Saturdays with you and Alex. And John and I have had a very productive day in the garden!”
Nick hugged his mother, and grinned at Sue to reveal the gap where his baby teeth had fallen out and the first adult tooth was just starting to show through.
“Thanks, Auntie Sue. Bye. See you at school on Monday, Alex.”
Alex, still half asleep, grunted something unintelligible in response. A bath and early to bed for him tonight thought Sue, smiling fondly into the rear view mirror at his drooping head that always reminded her of a small sunflower. She drove home, unsurprised to find that Paul’s car was not in the drive. His regular Saturday golf matches seemed to last longer and longer every week.
It was more then two hours later, when she was reading the newspaper in the kitchen after feeding both Alex and Bruno, bathing her son and putting him to bed, when she heard Paul walk in, drop his golf bag and call out to her from the hall:
“Hi Sue, I’m going straight up for a shower.”
“Ok. I’m just doing pasta for dinner so I’ll get it going in a few minutes.”
She lifted up the bottle of wine, poured herself a second small glass, and a larger one for Paul to drink when he came down.
I bet he’s just dumped that thing in the middle of the hall again, she thought, and walked through to move his golf bag into the under-stairs cupboard, which was another regular part of their weekly routine. As she did so, a small piece of paper fell out from the open top pocket of the bag and Sue automatically bent to pick it up.
Written in a garish pink lipstick was the word JACKI in large letters, followed by a Nottingham area telephone number and a large X.
She hesitated for a moment, considering whether to drop the scrap into the kitchen bin, then with a small sigh she tucked it back into the pocket, zipped it up, tossed the bag into the cupboard only a little more roughly than was strictly necessary, and firmly closed the cupboard door.
“Oh god, here we go again………..” Sue said to herself.
