Free The Hornbeam Tree by Susan Lewis Page B

Unable to lay a hand on it, she eased her trolley out of the traffic, and started to pull everything out. To her annoyance it didn’t seem to be there. She checked again, then, wondering if it had somehow got transferred to her suitcase while it was being searched, she started to rummage in that too. It wasn’t there either, but since she had no intention of going back to confront anyone, she steered her trolley to a payphone, dialled 192 and prayed Katie wasn’t ex-directory, even though as an ex-columnist, she almost certainly would be.
    As it turned out she didn’t even get that far, because it seemed 192 wasn’t the number to call any more. Since she didn’t have a pen handy to make a note of the alternatives, she banged the phone down and decided to go and hire herself a car rather than start messing around with coaches and trains now.
    By the time she drove out of the airport she’d managed to grab herself a sandwich and rent a mobile phone along with the car, which meant she could call Tom and get Katie’s number from him.
    ‘Hi, it’s me!’ she cried, hearing his voice, then groaned as she realized she was speaking to a recording. After the bleep she said, ‘Tom, are you there? Pick up if you are. It’s me.’
    She waited, but nothing happened, so she rang off and tried his mobile.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Tom?’ she said curiously, almost certain the voice wasn’t his.
    ‘Who is speaking please?’
    ‘Sajid? Is that you?’
    ‘Who is speaking please?’ the voice repeated.
    ‘I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number,’ she said, and rang off.
    She tried again, and got the same voice.
    ‘Damn!’ she muttered, dropping the phone back on the passenger seat. Either his phone had been stolen, which happened all the time over there, or for some reason she kept connecting with another number.
    Well, the only thing to do now was continue on to Katie’s and hope she could find the way. As far as she remembered it was fairly simple once she left the M4, though in the dark it might prove a bit of a challenge.
    The parish council meeting had gone on much longer than Katie had expected, so it was almost nine o’clock by the time she hurried out of the village hall, needing to get back to take her medication. She was hoping Michelle might have turned up by now, or at least left a message, but apart from Trotty the house was empty when she got there, and there was no blinking light on the machine.
    After taking her morphine, she stood against the sink, catching her breath after a long swallow of water, and tried not to be worried about Molly. She often came back half an hour later than she was supposed to, so she wouldn’t text her yet. She just wished she knew what she got up to over there at Allison’s, but no amount of asking ever seemed to elicit a straight answer, and she didn’t really have any grounds to ban her from going. For the moment at least, she just had to live with it.
    Sighing, she took her nightly dose of senna and was just wondering what to do next about trying to track down Michelle when she heard a car pulling up outside. Praying it wasn’t the police bringing bad news, or Molly with a boyfriend old enough to drive, she watched from the window, waiting for the headlights to go out so she could see who it was . When a tall, dark-haired woman got out she didn’t recognize her immediately. It was only when she waved, cheerfully, that she realized it was Michelle.
    Relief quickly gave way to annoyance at the light-heartedness of Michelle’s manner, as though she were expecting a hearty welcome in spite of being four hours late without so much as a phone call. So instead of going to greet her, Katie turned from the window and set about making herself some tea.
    There were three knocks on the back door before Michelle put her head round. ‘Hello, can I come in?’ she said, managing to look gorgeous, sheepish and playful all in one go, until she registered the tremendous change in Katie and