The flower was quite lovely. Fat yolk-yellow petals reaching up from the soil like an open hand. Winter aconite. A sign that spring was not far off.
Thank God for that.
Laura stepped over the flower bed that bordered the car park and inhaled deeply, welcoming the cold air that made her breath cloud around her mouth, the scent of this morning’s rain on the damp gravel mixing with the odour of boiled vegetables that wafted over from the vents. In her experience, no matter how expensive or exclusive a place was, the kitchens always had that institutional smell.
Flicking the switch on her key fob, she felt the usual lift at the sight of her bubblegum-pink VW Beetle, winking its lights as if in greeting. In her job, you often needed all the cheering up you could get, and her car never let her down, giving her a warm jolt when she saw it waiting patiently for her at the end of another emotionally draining day.
Laura was worried about Hannah.
She’d thought it would be Stella who took Charlie’s death hardest, but Hannah seemed unable to process it. Today in class, she’d asked them all to incorporate their names into a design on separate sheets of paper that she intended to bind together and turn into a book for Charlie’s parents. She’d thought it would be a thoughtful gesture instead of everyone giving a shop-bought card. And most of them had thrown themselves into it. Odelle had come up with an intricate, lace-like pattern into which she’d woven the letters of her name. Frannie’s card was like the cover of a fantasy novel, the ‘F’ a tower with castellated top, the ‘N’s a mountain range, topped with snow and cloud.
Only Hannah had struggled to come up with anything. She had half-heartedly doodled the first three letters of her name, tried out different effects – swirls and flowers, a leafy vine that wound itself around the ‘H’ – only to rub them all out. In the end, her page was just those three letters, grey and blurred.
‘Don’t worry, you can finish it next time,’ Laura told her. But after they all left the art room, she had paused for several minutes, gazing at those three letters: ‘HAN’. Roberts would relish the opportunity to ponder the meaning of Hannah leaving herself half formed.
Her core muscles tightened at the thought of Roberts, his maple-syrup voice and hard blue eyes, and her fingers clenched around the pink leather steering wheel. Deliberately, she forced her thoughts along a different channel. She had taught herself how to do it. You had to imagine you were herding sheep and corralling them into changing course. Thought visualization. It was a useful technique.
Despite having been here so many times over the years, Laura was struck afresh by the disconnect between the kind of place she’d have imagined Annabel living in and the reality. There was nothing wrong with the small, neat modern house on the executive housing estate, and it was certainly convenient that it was in a part of outer north-west London where one could still park immediately outside. It was just that Annabel was so smart, so educated. If you’d only just met her, you’d picture her in a rambling old house in the countryside with piles of books on every surface and a row of wellies by the front door.
Laura was surprised by the intensity of her relief on seeing Annabel’s curiously flat, square face, with its wide-apart hazel eyes and the snub nose that was almost recessed so that, in profile, everything was in unbroken alignment from forehead to chin.
‘You have no idea how glad I am to see you,’ she said, flinging her arms around Annabel’s neck.
Annabel smiled and gently detached herself.
‘Drink?’ Annabel called, leading the way through the narrow hallway, where a single hook held just one coat and one scarf.
‘Water’s fine,’ she said, as she always did.
While Annabel was in the kitchen, Laura walked through to the lounge and threw herself down on to the pale blue sofa, dropping her keys on the wooden table next to her. She rested her head back and allowed the peace to settle over her.
‘You look tired,’ said Annabel, studying her from the armchair opposite, and a lump formed in Laura’s throat. Recently, she’d worried that Annabel wasn’t quite as attentive to her feelings as she’d always been in the past, so today’s welcome solicitousness caught her by surprise.
‘Do you think you’re getting too involved again?’
‘No. Yes. Oh, you know what I’m like. I try to keep up barriers but a few always get past.’
‘We’ve talked about this.’
‘I know. I know. And I’m working on it. It’s just that things have been so strange there since Charlie’s … passing … There’s a heavy, thick atmosphere, and if you stay there too long it feels like it might choke you. And of course he’s using it as an excuse to play the strong leader calm in the face of adversity.’
She glanced over at Annabel to see how this new conversational tack had gone down, but the older woman’s expression remained blank. As usual, the lack of response just made her talk more.
‘It’s not doing his reputation much good. Two deaths in as many months. One set of parents have already withdrawn their daughter because they don’t think it’s safe. And loss of revenue is something Dr Roberts takes extremely seriously.’
She shot Annabel a sly smile that wasn’t reciprocated.
‘Maybe it’s time to remind yourself exactly what you’re doing there, Laura. Remember all those conversations back when you decided to become a therapist? What made you take that leap from nursing? What made you decide to help people suffering mental rather than physical illness?’
Laura sat back and ran both hands through her spiky black hair, as she’d done since childhood when faced with difficult questions. Annabel always had this effect on her, turning her back into the anxious child she’d once been, desperate for love and approval.
‘Because they need me,’ she replied eventually.
Annabel sat back. Blinked. Said nothing, in that way she had.