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sooner this gets sorted, the better,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Anyway, it’s time you got going.’
    Elle looked at her watch. She was cutting it fine but she could manage another ten minutes before leaving to pick up Charlie. ‘Yes, I’ll leave now.’
    The piles of bills and brochures were returned to a bin bag along with the collection of old manufacturers’ instruction booklets and guarantees that had long since expired. The pool of potential clues was shrinking by the second and time was running out, for today at least. She looked at the stack of greetings cards she had balanced on her knee and frowned. Was there anyone left in the family who might know more? She flicked open each one in quick succession before discarding it onto the floor. Birthday cards, get well cards, sympathy cards. Most names she recognized and dismissed and the ones she didn’t offered scant clues to their full identity so she dismissed these too. The one from Corinne was slipping from her fingers before she realized what she was doing. She scrambled to the floor to pick it up again. Her dad’s secret love had sent him a card shortly after her mum died, explaining she had seen the obituary in the
Liverpool Echo
and offering her sympathies but also reopening a door to the past. On the back of the card she had added her contact details in handwriting that was smaller and a little shakier than the script of her youth but immediately recognizable nonetheless. More questions flooded her mind until she felt she might drown in them.
    It was probably a blessing that there was no time to consider the implications of the card’s appearance. Elle didn’t trust herself to make sense of it all on her own. She needed to talk it through with someone and there was only one person left in her life who would give an honest opinion and help her see what was staring her in the face.

7
    Elle was upstairs getting ready. After the week she’d had, she was looking forward to a night out with the girls. The girls in question were Angie’s friends rather than hers but she had been accepted into the group and was determined that it should stay that way. It wasn’t as if they got up to anything too wild. More often than not they would go to a nice restaurant for tea followed by a few drinks in the pub. Occasionally there was talk of going on to a nightclub but Elle was always ready for home by then.
    She slipped into her dress, listening out for signs of life downstairs. Rick was keeping Charlie occupied and he wasn’t happy. There was no longer any professional benefit to be had from Elle socializing with the soon-to-be-ex-wife of his well-connected colleague.
    The knot of anxiety in her stomach tightened as the time to leave drew nearer. She was half expecting to hear Charlie rush upstairs and beg his mummy not to abandon him. She wouldn’t put it past Rick to wind him up deliberately and it wouldn’t take much to upset her troubled baby. Bedtime was approaching.
    Feeling like a naughty schoolgirl sneaking out without permission, she checked herself in the mirror. Her black dress was tight fitting to show off her slender figure but had a high neckline; she knew better than to even attempt to leave the house flaunting her sexuality. Her blonde curls were piled up on top of her head and her makeup was understated. She draped a silk pashmina around her shoulders, if only to camouflage her curves, before picking up her clutch bag and heading downstairs.
    Rick was waiting at the bottom of the staircase. He had his coat on and rattled the car keys at her. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said, without even trying to sound apologetic. ‘Something’s come up. I have to go out.’
    Elle’s mouth opened and closed like a stranded fish. Her mind was refusing to believe what was happening. ‘What’s come up?’ she asked, but Rick had already shut the front door and was gone.
    Half an hour