I can’t help wondering if the emergency text – if there even was one – has something to do with the whole Alice thing. He hasn’t said anything more about it but I wonder if she’s still on the scene, somehow. And then I have to remind myself that it’s nothing to do with me, because I’m with James, and Alex can do what he wants. He’s a friend, that’s all. And there’s no reason at all why a friend wouldn’t send a text to ask if everything’s okay, is there?

Chapter Thirty-Three: Jess

Chapter Thirty-Three

Jess

2nd October

‘We’ve got a meeting at half eleven.’ Camilla, operations director, pops her head over my desk. The open-plan office is buzzing with noise and industry because one of the biggest publishing trade fairs – Frankfurt – is coming up, and we have several big books going on sale. I’ve been so wrapped up in work that I haven’t seen James all week, and we’re supposed to be going to the cinema straight after work tonight. I secretly wonder if he’d notice if I just had a two-hour nap instead of watching the film. Even though I got home late from work and planned to go straight to bed, everyone in the house stayed up last night in the kitchen playing a killer game of cards, sharing a bottle – well, several – of wine and ordering pizza at midnight. I’ve had maybe four hours sleep, everything aches, and my head feels like someone’s used it as a punchbag. When my phone buzzes on my desk, I pick it up, fully expecting it to be James, but it’s my mother.

Nanna Beth not so well. Call me.

It feels like my stomach has just dropped through the floor. I put the phone back on the desk face down so I don’t have to see the message, and stand up automatically, pushing my chair back. My hands are on the desk, my knuckles stark white. I take a shaky breath.

‘Jess,’ says a voice behind me kindly. ‘You okay?’

I turn around, still holding on to the desk. It’s Camilla.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you feeling okay?’

‘Just had a message to say my Nanna Beth isn’t feeling well.’ I look at the photo montage of the two of us on my desk. Pictures of me when I was a tiny baby perched on her knee, another of us arm in arm when I was ten and got a pair of roller skates for Christmas. There’s a photo of her standing at Cardiff Uni the day I graduated, with Becky grinning in the background. I feel a bit sick and sit back down in the chair.

‘Let me get you a glass of water,’ says Camilla.

I look at the clock. It’s twenty past eleven. Almost time for our meeting.