Dangerous Affection

Chapter Twenty-Eight

That night, for the first time in a long time, I dream I’m back at Clayton and McCarthy again.

I worked there for two years. I enjoyed my job and my colleagues were all pleasant and easy to get along with. Except for one paralegal, Damian Murphy.

He made no secret of his burning ambition to become a fully qualified solicitor, and separated himself from us lowly minions in the admin department, acting as if he was a cut above the rest of us.

In the dream, I’m in the staff car park at the start of the day. Except it isn’t the staff car park, it’s suddenly a very busy supermarket car park, in that way dreams have of lurching from one reality to another.

My heart is racing and I’m anxious because every time I go for a space, someone else beats me to it.

Then I’m teleported somehow into the office building to find I’m one of the last ones in. The others are all scurrying around like soldier ants, following orders barked at them by Damian.

‘Afternoon, Emma.’ He glances pointedly at the wall clock. ‘The boss has asked me to check the court report you compiled yesterday. Shall we say…’ He looks at his wrist watch. ‘Ten minutes at my desk?’

When I look down at the floor, the report is scattered in torn pages all around my feet.

‘I don’t know what silly game you’re trying to play here, Emma, but some of us are serious about this case. Some of us are serious about our careers.’

The pages at my feet turn into hissing snakes, squirming and sliming over and around my shoes.

‘Emma?’ I look up at the curt tone and see Damian tapping his watch. ‘Where are your notes?’ Again and again he repeats it: ‘Where are your notes? Where are your notes?’ And each time he speaks, his voice gets slower and lower, like an old record slowing right down, and when I look up at him, his eyes glow red and his skin is burned and his teeth are…

Suddenly, there is a line of vehicles in front of me. My recollection of the dream clicks off like a light and I’m very firmly back in the present.

‘Shit!’ I jump on the brakes and stop about an inch from the car in front as it slows for the lights.

I open the windows and drag in some air, feeling sick at the near-miss. It was just a nonsensical dream, that’s all, and I need to treat it as such. No sense in trawling through it all again.

What happened at Clayton and McCarthy is in the past and it needs to stay there. Sorting my life out now is where my energy needs to go.

I force myself to focus on my driving, and when I arrive at the office, I don’t go to my desk as usual. Instead, I keep climbing the stairs to the second floor.

There have been times in the past, when I was wrestling with the realisation that things were going wrong in my marriage, when I’d lie awake for hours with Shaun fast asleep beside me.

They were long, lonely nights, when I’d turn everything over in my mind relentlessly, never arriving at any conclusions, just taking a kind of masochistic pleasure in reliving the harsh words and heated arguments, reviewing the promises we’d both broken.

There was never a constructive outcome, just the abject tiredness that followed, dragging myself through the day-to-day work and the stresses of family life that would not abate.

I feel just as exhausted now, but I can’t shirk from doing what needs to be done.

I walk down the carpeted corridor and head for Joanne’s office. I see her look up through the glass wall, see her expression darken when she spots me.

She has her phone in her hand, and she puts it down and bends her head to the paperwork strewn on her desk, feigning absorption in her work.

I tap on the door and she looks up again. The dark expression has gone and has been replaced with a look of faint irritation. She is wearing her usual natural make-up, but her face is drained of colour.

‘Emma,’ she says as I push the door open a little way.

‘Sorry to bother you so early, Joanne,’ I say. ‘I just wanted a quick word… if possible.’

‘Again?’ she says pointedly. ‘I’m sorry, Emma, but as you can see’ – she waves a hand at the copious paperwork in front of her – ‘I’m up to my eyes in case files.’

I don’t know why, but I find myself ignoring her obvious rebuttal. I step inside the office, closing the door behind me. Her eyes widen.

I clear my throat. ‘I just wanted to say that Shaun and I told Maisie last night. About you and him, about him moving out of the house.’

Her hands, about to sort through the papers yet again, freeze above them instead.

‘You really don’t need to update me on every conversation you two have. Shaun keeps me up to date with all the salient details.’

Her eyes dart next door to her PA’s office, but Anya has her back turned to the glass dividing wall and is currently absorbed in an animated telephone conversation.

‘Can I sit down a moment, Joanne?’

‘I think I said last time you were here, I’d rather not discuss personal business whilst at work.’

She pushes her phone a little further away from her, and I can see on the large lit screen that she’s been looking at Facebook.

She taps the end of her pen on the table. ‘But just so you know, Shaun did tell me you’d all had a chat.’

Of course he did.

‘He said Maisie took it well. I’m very much hoping the girls will get on.’

Maisie’s comment about the girls disliking each other echoes in my head, and I push it aside. ‘We told Maisie about your trip out at the weekend. Obviously she was a little shocked, but she knows you and Piper from dancing, so you won’t be complete strangers. I just…’

‘Yes?’

‘I just want to reiterate that Maisie is a sensitive child…’

‘We’ve been through this before, Emma.’

‘… and Piper, she seems used to getting her own way. Maisie is used to boundaries and—’

‘I don’t want to listen to this.’ She stands up and stalks over to the door, holding it open. ‘Your daughter isn’t extra special, Emma, or, according to Shaun, extra sensitive. It will do her good, I’m sure, to get away from… to get out a bit more.’

I burn with fury as I imagine Shaun telling Joanne that I’m paranoid and that Maisie will be better off away from me.

‘Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’ Joanne turns back to her desk. ‘As I’m sure you have too,’ she adds.

Back at my desk, and buoyed by the intimacy of our recent conversations, I pick up my phone and open Facebook.

In the search bar at the top, I type in her name.

Three small profile pictures for people called Joanne Dent load underneath my search and I immediately spot that the top one is her.

The cover photo is blank and the profile picture can’t be expanded. Disappointingly, I see there is no visible detail on her profile page. Her information is locked down pretty solid.

In some ways, it’s not at all surprising; I’ve always known Joanne is a very private person. I wouldn’t have dreamed of contacting her on Facebook previously, but that was before she struck up a relationship with my ex-husband and my daughter.

We are now bound together in ways I couldn’t have envisaged, and for obvious reasons, Joanne’s private life is of paramount interest to me.

My finger moves to the top of her page, and before I’ve really given it any thought, I find myself clicking on the Add Friend button.