Read Online The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells by Virginia Macgregor - Free Book Online Page A

if Ella found out she’d feel let down.
    Willa scratches the scar under her eye.
Make Mummy come soon, Louis,
she whispers in her head.
    â€˜Mummy’s probably doing an emergency operation,’ Willa says. ‘She’ll be here soon.’
    â€˜I tried the hospital. They said she’s gone home.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜It’s getting late, Willa. I’ll have to try your dad.’
    Willa digs her nails into her palms. If Daddy finds out he’ll be cross at Ella for not collecting her.
    â€˜Daddy’s in meetings all day. Mummy will come soon, Mr Mann – she never forgets.’
    â€˜I’ll give it another five minutes,’ he says, then he walks away to talk to a parent.
    Willa checks that Mr Mann isn’t watching, takes her mobile out of her pocket and dials home.

Fay
    Fay stands in the hallway, swaying with tiredness. She makes a list of all the things she needs to do for Willa’s birthday. It has to be perfect.
    She closes her eyes and remembers holding Willa as a baby, her skin so soft and warm.
    When Fay opens her eyes she sees Louis padding down the stairs. He keeps looking over his shoulder. She makes eye contact with him and says:
    â€˜What were you doing up there, Louis?’
    Louis lowers his head, drops his tail and walks past her back into the kitchen. Willa must have let him into her bedroom this morning.
    Fay rifles through her bag for her phone. Whenever she’s on a night shift Adam leaves her a trail messages.
I love you
…
I miss you
…
only a few hours to go
…
sleep well when you get home

– I’ll wake you with a kiss.
Like the prince in
Sleeping Beauty
, she’d once joked. Some days, Fay feels so overwhelmed by the love she has for Adam that she is scared it is in fact all a fairy tale, that one day it will dissolve with the dawn.
    She sits down on the bottom step and tips out her bag. She must have left her phone in her locker. She’s too tired to go back for it now. A long night shift and an operation on a little girl’s heart that hadn’t yielded the results she’d hoped. All Fay wants is to soak in a long, hot bath and go to sleep and to wake up to a house full of Adam and the girls.
    As she repacks her handbag she spots a trumpet case standing in the doorway to the kitchen. A case that has been part of Fay’s life since she was a medical student at the Royal Free in London, and had shared a room with Norah. She hasn’t seen it since Norah left. Ella must have had it hidden in her room somewhere. But what’s it doing here?
    She turns the case over in her hands and then freezes. There are new stickers, ones she doesn’t recognise: Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Sydney, Berlin. God, Berlin…
    A creak on the stairs.
    A rush of footsteps.
    And then a pause.
    Fay looks up and, for a second she thinks she sees a ghost.
    Despite the baggy clothes and the lines around her eyes, Fay recognises the woman who asked her to watch her baby –
just for a few hours

–
and never came back.
    Fay’s worried she’s going to throw up.
    â€˜Fay – it’s you,’ Norah says.
    It had taken years to get over the disappearance of her best friend. And then more years to make this house, the girls – and Adam – her own.
    She looks down at Norah’s feet. ‘You’re wearing my slippers.’
    How had she let herself in? God, did she still have a key?
    â€˜Sorry.’ Norah removes the slippers and places them neatly on the stairs.
    The phone in the hallway rings. Fay jumps.
    They stare at each other.
    â€˜The phone…’ says Norah.
    â€˜I know.’
    Fay goes over to the table by the front door and picks up the receiver.
    A pause. A sniff.
    â€˜Willa?’ Her little girl. Fay feels something collapse in her chest.
    â€˜You didn’t answer your mobile, Mummy.’
    â€˜Sorry, darling, I forgot it at work.’
    Fay feels Norah hovering in the