I look up sharply. “Why would she say that?”

Sheila stops typing and glances at me over her shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe she saw your name in the local paper when we had the fundraising? Maybe you helped one of her friends adopt a dog? Your guess is as good as mine.”

The computer bleeps and Sheila twists back to look at it then swears under her breath.

“Why do people do that?”

“Do what?” I wrap the cellophane back around my sandwich and put it back in the box.

“Enter spam into the contact form on our website. What’s the point? It’s not like I’m going to click on their stupid impotence pill links, or whatever. I mean, look, this one’s just ridiculous; it doesn’t even make sense. ‘Daisy’s not dead.’ What does that even mean? Is that an animal? Wasn’t there a ferret called Daisy?”

The Tupperware box clatters to the floor as I stand up. I cross the room as though in a dream and peer over Sheila’s shoulder at the computer. The email software is open.

“See?” She points at the screen. “There it is. ‘Daisy’s not dead.’ That’s all it says. Weird, isn’t it?

“Jane? Where are you going? What’s wrong?” Her voice follows me as I run from the room and head for the toilet, one hand clutched to my throat, the other pressed to my spasming stomach. “Jane?”

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Five Years Earlier

“You should have seen him!” Daisy gets up from her chair and mimes running alongside a car, her coat caught in a closed door. “His stubby little legs pounding the pavement, his fat face bright red, and Emma hanging out of the window screaming, ‘Stop the car! Stop!’”

She finishes her story with a flourish and there’s a beat – a split-second pause as Al and Leanne glance over at me – and then the silence is destroyed by an explosion of laughter.

Daisy continues to scream “Stop, stop!” at the top of her voice while she jumps up and down, her wedge sandals thumping the patio, a near-empty bottle of red wine in one hand, a full glass slopping around in the other.