He swiped his phone. There was nothing from Jodi, but the screen was jammed with four missed calls from Jen. He called her straight back; she’d only keep calling otherwise until she’d got what she wanted.
She answered on the first ring. “What took you so long?”
“I’m on shift. What do you want?”
“My dad’s had a stroke. They don’t think he’ll be able to come home, so I need to drive up to Coventry in the morning to get things sorted.”
“Okay.” Rupert couldn’t find the words for sympathy he didn’t mean. His ex-father-in-law had made his life hell, even before the truth had come out. “Are you taking Indie with you?”
“I can’t really do that, can I? You know what that house is like. There’s nowhere for her to sleep, and she hates it. You need to have her for a few days.”
“I can’t.” Rupert cringed, hating himself for being caught between the two souls he loved so much. Since Jodi had come home, he’d been having Indie at Sophie’s place—the world’s girliest apartment in Primrose Hill—but Sophie had gone away and wouldn’t be back until the end of the week, leaving Rupert with no access to her apartment and no one to care for Jodi in his absence. He’d already left him for far too long. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. I have to—”
“I’m not asking you, Rupert. I’m telling you. You need to get over here and take care of your daughter. I don’t care if you have better things to do. I need you here tomorrow morning.”
She hung up before Rupert could respond. He called again, but she didn’t answer, and by then the rest of the crew were boarding the rig, ready to go back to the station. There was barely time for a piss before they were called out once more, and the calls kept coming. It was three in the morning before he checked his phone.
He activated the screen. Three messages, all from Jodi, and spaced three hours apart, the last one more than two hours ago.
Come home
Please
I need you
* * *
“Let me out here.”
The taxi jolted to a stop. Rupert threw the fifty quid he’d withdrawn for food shopping at the driver and jumped out. He dashed up the steps and jammed his key in the exterior door. The door stuck. He kicked it open, slamming it into the wall behind, and took the stairs two at a time.
He shoved his way through the flat’s front door. “Jodi? Jodi? Where are you?”
There was no reply. Rupert charged through the flat. Living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. But they were all empty. Jodi was nowhere to be seen.
Rupert pulled out his phone and hit Jodi’s speed dial for the hundredth time since he’d read his messages, but it went to voice mail.
Panic swept over Rupert. He dashed back to the hall, heading for the front door. What the hell had happened? Had he fallen and hurt himself? Called 999 himself? Or one of the neighbours? With Sophie away, his ad hoc double shift had been badly timed. Fucking idiot. Why the hell hadn’t he told Briggs to do one and come home?
He fell over Jodi’s feet, landing on his knees to face an expression he’d never seen on Jodi’s face before. “Jodi?”
Jodi didn’t blink. His bloodshot gaze remained bewildered, exhausted, and ... something else. “You came home.”
“Of course I did. I would’ve come sooner, but I didn’t get your messages until I came off a job.”
“That’s why I didn’t call you. Because you were at work and you can’t answer the phone at work.”
Jodi recited the words, repeating the instructions Rupert had given him when he’d left the day before.
“That’s right,” Rupert said. “They let me carry my phone on silent and leave it on the rig, but I can only use it in an emergency. That’s why I left you the station number as well, so you could call for help if you needed it. What’s happened? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
“No. It’s not me. It’s her.”
“Her? Who? Sophie?”
“No. Her.”
Rupert followed Jodi’s gaze through the open doorway he was slumped in. Followed it into the pink and blue bedroom, all the way to the tiny humped body of Indie, curled up in the bed she hadn’t slept in since Jodi came home from hospital five long months ago.