About Last Night Read online

  About Last Night

  Adele Parks

  Adele Parks worked in advertising until she published her first novel, Playing Away, in 2000, which was the debut bestseller of that year. Adele has gone on to publish ten novels in ten years, and all of her novels have been top ten bestsellers. Her work has been translated into twenty different languages. Since 2006 Adele has been an official spokeswoman for World Book Day. Adele has spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana and London until 2005 when she moved to Guildford, where she now lives with her husband and son. She has been a judge for the Costa Book Awards.

  Copyright © 2011, Adele Parks

  The right of Adele Parks to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This novel is dedicated to police and medical staff everywhere.

  CONTENTS

  30 Years Ago

  Monday 22 March Last Year

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Tuesday

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Wednesday

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Thursday

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Friday

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Five Months Later

  Acknowledgments

  30 YEARS AGO

  Stephanie Amstell is the type of child that does not create any sort of impression – not even a bad one. She goes through her days unnoticed, she has mousy hair, mousy ways and mousy grades. No one appears to be aware of Stephanie, she is ignored and in response to being ignored she seems to shrink. The more she shrinks, the harder she is to spot. It is a vicious circle. She’s just like Mrs Pepper Pot, in the large hardback book that Mrs Iceton reads to the Year Threes as they sit on the itchy school carpet, waiting for the school bell to signal home time. Just like Mrs Pepper Pot except not grey haired and not cheerful. Just small. That’s the same.

  Stephanie is happy and chatty enough at home, where she’s reasonably indulged by her devoted and loving (although somewhat insular and blinkered) parents but she positively shrivels up on the short walk to school. Stephanie lies awake at night and seriously considers the possibility that the other children aren’t just ignoring her but that they can’t actually see her. Maybe they need a telescope (her parents do both wear glasses). Is it possible that she is truly shrinking, fading, disappearing like a leaf in autumn? Will she go brown and crinkled and then break apart altogether? Stephanie is terrified that she might totally vanish before she even gets to Westfield Comprehensive. This is not a completely wild thing for her young mind to surmise because she’s spent the first three years of school frequently repeating her name to all those who ask, but no matter how often she tries to reinforce the fact that she’s called Stephanie, her name always seems to be forgotten in an instant. Stephanie Amstell, for goodness gracious goshness, it is an unusual name! By rights it should be the type of name that people remark upon and hold on to. But it seems that Stephanie’s averageness somehow erases the splendid name and teachers often slip up and call her Sarah or Susan or Bethany. Teachers, librarians, dinner ladies, other kids. Everyone.

  Everyone except Pip, that is.

  Philippa Foxton splashes down at Stephanie’s little Surrey state school when Stephanie is eight and three-quarter years old. Stephanie learns that the new girl comes from a place called Upnorth. Stephanie assumes Upnorth is an exotic, far-off foreign country where people speak a different language and are somewhat wild. She wonders whether Philippa Foxton has a passport, whether she is used to different stamps or coins. Stephanie thinks that Philippa’s accent, while obviously odd, is not unpleasant. The tone is soft and gentle and her speech is so rapid it sounds as though she is constantly singing a very pretty and soothing lullaby. Philippa Foxton’s voice is quite different from anything Stephanie has come across before. Everyone in Stephanie’s world uses clipped, careful speech which, while rarely unkind, always seems to be the verbal equivalent to a firm handshake, the sort you have to give to the Brown Owl at Brownies if you get a badge. When Philippa speaks, it is like being wrapped in a huge hug.

  The assumption that Philippa hails from somewhere wild is founded on the fact that not only does Philippa Foxton send shock waves throughout the hopscotch-loving community because she rejects the green gingham dress (which is most girls’ much preferred part of the school uniform) but she also refuses to wear the grey skirt alternative. Instead she invokes her right to wear shorts in those first few bright days of the September term, just like the boys do, and she says she intends to wear trousers when it rains. Her clarity on the matter causes gasps; whether they are of admiration or horror is uncertain. Stephanie’s daddy had already told her about genetic predispositions. He was explaining why Mummy got cross with him when he went to the betting shop ‘more times than was good for him’. Stephanie can’t believe that a little girl, not even nine years old, would be quite so sure without some sort of genetic or cultural predisposition.

  Pip laughs loudly and often. She laughs in the classroom, the playground, the gym hall and even the library. Her laugh is careless and, while Stephanie doesn’t know the word at the time, she later will identify Pip’s laugh as irreverent. Pip never waits to be approached or introduced to strangers, instead she makes herself known to everyone.

  ‘I’m Philippa Foxton, but most people like to call me Pip, it’s much easier, so you can call me that!’ she says. Lots and lots of times.

  She assumes (rightly as it turns out) that everyone will want to know her. Straightaway she joins the trampoline and gymnastics club and excels at both as she is thin and tall like a maypole. She is a demon with the skipping rope and is able to juggle with three bouncy balls, which quickly and firmly makes her the undisputed queen of the playground. Then in November Pip is picked to play Mary in the Nativity production, even though she’s only been at the school less than three months and the part is usually awarded to a Year Six girl. The strange thing is, none of the other little girls mind, everyone agrees she’ll be perfect in the part. Pip’s parents host teas and sleepovers, even when it isn’t her birthday. They let the guests eat pizza in front of the TV and drink hot chocolate in Pip’s bedroom. Pip’s dad plays the guitar and her mum wears dozens of fluorescent lime and pink bracelets
all the way up her arm. It takes no time at all before it is agreed and accepted that the newest girl at school is the coolest girl at school. Everyone wants to be her best friend.

  Stephanie has watched all of this from a wary distance. She has never had the ambition or self-confidence to place herself in Pip’s way, although like everyone else she is fascinated by the tall, slim, poised creature. Then Pip introduces herself to Stephanie – just as she has introduced herself to the swim instructor, the caretaker and all the other boys and girls, older and younger, throughout the school. Stephanie’s life will never be the same again. With some effort, Stephanie Amstell manages to mumble her name.

  Pip gasps with unfeigned awe. ‘I have never, ever heard such a beautiful name in all my life.’

  Stephanie is overwhelmed by the compliment and doesn’t know what to do with her hands. Her knees (which are both dressed with Elastoplasts) tremble. She also thinks her name is gorgeous and has always wondered why other people fail to notice its gorgeousness or draw attention to the fact. Stephanie is uncertain how to reply to such longed-for flattery, but finds she has no need to, as Pip carries on.

  ‘Stephanie and Philippa. Stephanie and Philippa. StephanieandPhilippa.’ She rolls their names around her tongue, pulling them together, joining them. Entangling them in a way that hints they will never be separated again. ‘We sound like we go together, don’t you think?’ she asks happily. ‘We sound noble.’ Stephanie thinks it’s a strange word to pick but she likes it. She loves it in fact. The way she loves everything about Pip. ‘We both have bazooka names! I’m sure it’s a sign that we’re always going to be friends.’

  ‘Are you?’ Stephanie asks, shy but thrilled.

  ‘Definitely,’ Pip replies with a confidence that seems broad enough to buoy up both small girls. ‘I’m usually known as Pip. Would you like to be shortened to Steph? We can keep our noble names for important times. Steph and Pip sound like the sort of girls who have lots of fun and secrets and a club,’ Pip continues with enthusiasm and certainty. ‘Stephanie and Philippa sound like the sort of ladies who wear lovely clothes and live in big houses and have husbands who love them very much,’ she adds firmly. ‘We’ll save those names for later.’

  Stephanie is flattered that this intoxicating child has singled her out and is immediately enthralled with the idea of both lifestyles that Pip has conjured up. A childhood full of fun, and secrets and a club sounds wonderful and a grown-up life with lovely clothes, a big house and a loving husband sounds perfect.

  Stephanie is enchanted by the fact that whenever Pip pairs their names together, she always says Steph’s name first – no matter whether she uses the full name or the derivative. It makes Steph feel valued. Pip is the world’s best at making Steph feel esteemed, needed and prized.

  So it takes just a split second and it’s decided. Steph and Pip love one another with an instinctual, instant intensity that only little girls can muster. Theirs will be the sort of love that thickens and solidifies over the years, a love that will become unremarkable and expected rather than intoxicating and enthralling, but it will be all the more real and cherished for that metamorphosis.

  And so it is decided, Steph and Pip are best friends.

  MONDAY 22 MARCH LAST YEAR

  1

  ‘Hi, Steph, sorry to ring so early,’ said Pip, in a garbled, slightly frantic voice that she’d used more or less constantly for the last two years. She’d used this tone so often, in fact, that no one, other than perhaps Steph, could remember the cheerful, careless, sometimes sexy voice that Pip had used before her husband had skipped the country without leaving a forwarding address.

  ‘That’s OK, we’re all up,’ assured Stephanie kindly.

  ‘I thought you would be. You’re a morning person.’

  ‘Hmm,’ mumbled Stephanie, neither confirming nor denying. This resumption, like many of the presumptions her friend Pip made, was not especially accurate but it was in no way offensive, it was flattering. Stephanie liked to think that other people considered her to be a natural morning person. Generally speaking, morning people were positive, opportunistic, breezy sorts. Think Holly Willoughby, Lorraine Kelly and Phillip Schofield. They also all had glossy hair and perfect make-up, even Phil. That was just the sort of club Stephanie liked to belong to. Stephanie had no interest in being one of those women who had a demanding social life, or stayed up late watching reality TV or even stayed up to attend all-night vigils to highlight the predicament of some worthy prisoner of conscience who had been unlucky enough to be born into some harsh, far-off regime. Those types of women were invariably slovenly in the morning and had an obvious dependency on caffeine, their children often went to school with the wrong PE kit. The thought made Steph shudder.

  Yet, secretly, Stephanie was afraid that she was rather gloomier and, well, normal than the archetypal morning person. Yes, she had glossy, rich chestnut-coloured hair but it came with a cost (both financial and in terms of the time she devoted to eliminating all signs of her dowdy, natural colour, which was mid-brown, interrupted with the odd grey stray), and it was a cost she sometimes found herself resenting. As she occasionally resented the on/off dieting that she’d practised for the last five years. She was an uncomfortable size twelve, her body relentlessly fought to be a relaxed size fourteen. Secretly Stephanie worshipped elasticised waistbands but her garments with this unfashionable feature were hidden at the back of her wardrobe and only allowed out when she was alone. She sometimes thought it would be just such a treat to go to the school gates without having to apply full make-up. Plus, privately, there wasn’t a day that passed when she didn’t inwardly curse the damned alarm clock that dragged her into consciousness. Not that she’d ever admit as much, even to Pip. Stephanie liked to cultivate the idea that she was a Mary Poppins sort of character, free from unreasonable gripes and excessive moaning. Besides, it was pointless to grumble about something like spending hours in the hairdressers, let alone early mornings. Early mornings were an unavoidable fact of life. It was much better to brace oneself, plaster on a smile and efficiently start serving out the cornflakes.

  ‘I didn’t want to have to call you again but I’m stuck,’ Pip admitted, somewhat pathetically.

  ‘How can I help?’

  Steph wondered if she sounded a bit like one of those automated voices that asked you to ‘press one if you are paying by direct debit’ (code for ‘we enjoy taking your money’), ‘press two to hear opening hours’ (‘we’re closed’), ‘press three if your call is to do with tracking an order’ (‘which we’ve lost’), ‘press four if you’d like to renew your subscription’ (‘to the service or product you’ve never utilised’), ‘press five if you want to speak to an assistant, or please hold’ (until you lose the will to live). Did she sound irritatingly calm and, while very polite, a tad insincere? Steph hoped not. She was sincere in her wish to help her friend, it was just a little bit difficult to sound so when this was the fourth panicky early-morning call she’d received in just three weeks. Luckily, Pip was far too immersed in her own concern to identify the nuance of exasperation in her best friend’s voice. She ploughed on.

  ‘I have a meeting in London and I need to be there by nine thirty. I’ll be late if I don’t get to the station within the next fifteen minutes but it’s too early to take Chloe to school. I can’t very well leave her outside the gate for an hour.’

  ‘No, of course not. Absolutely not.’

  Stephanie briefly wondered how long Pip had known about this meeting, it couldn’t be a surprise to her. Her daughter was eight years old, so the issue of sorting childcare wasn’t a newie either. She must have known yesterday that she would need some help and yet she hadn’t mentioned it when they’d come to Steph’s for Sunday lunch. Chloe could have stayed over last night or at least they could have arranged a pick-up time. Sometimes it seemed as though Pip was incapable of thinking more than five minutes ahead. Why couldn’t she be more organised? But then Steph realised saying as much (while trut
hful) would seem churlish. Steph was struck with a thought. Chloe was eight! The very same age as she and Pip had been when they met. A generation ago and yet Steph remembered it with such vividness, as though it was yesterday, so she found it easy to breezily respond in the way that was expected. ‘Drop her off here. I’ll take her to school. I insist.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ gushed Pip. She sounded at once relieved and surprised to be helped out of a hole, which Stephanie thought was daft because Pip must know by now that Steph always helped her out of any holes she found herself in. In the past couple of years, Steph had helped Pip choose a flat to rent, move into the flat and decorate it. She’d helped her apply for school places and part-time jobs. Steph sometimes helped Pip with shopping, gardening or even washing if required, so taking Chloe to school wasn’t a big deal.

  Not that their friendship was all one way, Steph reminded herself, Pip brought a lot to the party too. In fact, Steph often thought that Pip actually brought the party. Pip was chaotic, yes – but she was also chatty and charismatic. Pip might often be frantic but she was always funny. She was also gentle, loyal and trustworthy. Even now. Even since Dylan had left. She was not as consistently positive, true. Maybe her humour was tinged with a harshness that could occasionally explode into something approaching bitterness, but no one could blame her. Pip was wounded. Not fatally but critically.

  Dylan Harris. The name still caused Steph to shudder so it wasn’t unreasonable that when his name assaulted Pip’s ears (or, more frequently, when it fell from her lips) she was prone to throwing a total fit – judders and tears and all. Steph hated to think of the destruction that man had caused. Bailing out on his relationship with Pip and Chloe, when Chloe was only six years old, was crime enough – that was the crime everyone understood and referred to – but there were times when Steph thought that was the best thing he’d ever done. The years he stayed with them, when he no longer gave a damn, were the really vile ones. Steph had come to call the last three years of her friend’s marriage the angry years, at least she did so in her head. The angry years were filled with loud rows, embarrassing public displays of resentment and – ultimately – lazy, unconvincing lies about his infidelities. Those were the years that had ripped away Pip’s confidence in herself and in her world. Those were the years that had thrown her into disarray. She’d always been such a buoyant, capable woman before then but for a long period of time, whenever Steph brought her friend to mind, she thought of a drowning kitten that had just managed to push its head out of the sack that she’d been thrown into but had no chance of escape. A kitten, helpless, hopeless and so damned surprised by the betrayal.