The Babysitter

by Phoebe Morgan

  I wonder how quickly the tide against my husband might turn.

  The article is short, but I read every word twice, checking I haven’t missed anything, any tiny important detail that would release me from the hell of my thoughts.

  WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN IPSWICH FLAT: BABY MISSING

  Police are searching for missing baby Eve Grant, who has not been seen since around 6 p.m. on 10th August. Eve was last seen in the care of a woman in her thirties, who was found dead in her Ipswich home on Saturday night. The woman has not yet been named but a source close to the investigation said she was a friend of one-year-old Eve’s mother. Eve is believed to have blonde hair, and was wearing a pink Baby-gro on the night she went missing. Members of the public who may have information pertaining to this case are asked to call 0845 54 54 54 to speak anonymously to the police.

  August 10th – the night before we flew to France. I think quickly, my mind spooling back, coming up with my lines. I was at my book club all evening, I left Emma and Callum at home. Yes, I remember now. I am breathing heavily, too fast, and I stare at the words, feeling sick. This can’t be right. This can’t be what they want Callum about, surely. Not a child. Immediately, an image of Emma comes into my mind – Emma at one year old, a tiny, happy little baby, playing on Callum’s stomach as he lay back on the bed. Emma adored him, she always has. But will she still, I think, now that this has happened?

  I click through to various other sites, my heart thudding – there is a picture of Eve on the BBC website now, last updated ten minutes ago; she has chocolate brown eyes and bright blonde hair. I suck in my breath sharply – she’s a beautiful child, angelic. Grant. I run it through my mind, trying to think straight. Someone from school, someone from his work? But none of it rings a bell. The surname means nothing to me.

  I go through page after page but the news story is the same on them all – there are no further details about what happened, and Callum isn’t mentioned anywhere. Frowning, I’m about to reach for the light switch when I think of Twitter. Emma’s always saying that everything breaks on Twitter first – perhaps she’s right. I never use it, the pharmaceutical company has its own account, with a twenty-something in charge to respond to our clients or disgruntled customers. But how hard can it be?

  I navigate to the site and type in ‘#Ipswich’ – and there it is. The internet is loving it. They always do when a child is involved.

  @BBCBreaking: Woman found dead in #Ipswich flat; baby missing. The victim has been named as Caroline Harvey, and it is believed that the baby was not her biological child. More news as we have it.

  @Sarah124: So was she looking after someone else’s baby? God, imagine. I’d never leave my child with someone else. Just shows you what happens! #Ipswich #CarolineHarvey #Suffolk

  @Mumma49: @Sarah124 Well sometimes you have to, don’t you? Not all of us can afford not to work! #princess

  @EastAnglianDailyNews: The woman, believed to be in her mid-thirties, was found dead at the scene. Suffolk Police are asking for anyone who saw anything between the hours of 6 and 9 p.m. on 10th August to please call 0845 54 54 54.

  @Mick101: How do you think she died? People do sick stuff these days. Too much influence from TV and video games. #disgrace

  @RandoTweets: Whoever killed her took the baby with them, it’s obvious. Question is, who? #RIPCaroline.

  On and on they go, Caroline’s name darting out at me like an arrow. My heart is bumping so fast in my chest that I can barely breathe. Caroline is dead, murdered, gone. But how an earth does the baby fit in? And who does little Eve Grant belong to?

  Chapter Twelve

  Ipswich

  14th August

  DS Alex Wildy

  So they’ve finally got him in. The boyfriend, Callum Dillon – hauled unceremoniously back from the French coast to talk to the Suffolk Constabulary. Bit of a change of climate, that’s for sure. It’s raining today, thick heavy drops that spatter the windows of the station, providing small relief from the heatwave. Callum isn’t being particularly helpful – God knows why the French police decided to bring him in in such a state. He hasn’t showered; it looks like they grabbed him on the spot, and he’s angry about it, too, after spending a night in the station following an afternoon of questioning at the hands of the French yesterday, which wasn’t part of the plan. A young French police officer called Adele has emailed them over the transcripts, pages of no comment, Callum’s anger at being held there bouncing off the page. She’d telephoned too, to make sure they’d received everything. Adele is a junior, Alex can tell by her tone, subservient yet eager in her halting English. It reminds him of how he used to be when he first joined up, desperate to rise through the ranks. Only now that he’s here, he’s not so sure he likes it. Alex has brought Callum three cups of coffee already this afternoon, but none of them have made him any less pissed off.

  The image of the woman’s body is still paramount in Alex’s mind, and that’s what is fuelling him today, even though he knows he needs to focus on the missing child. He’s been a police officer for six years now, long enough to have seen his fair share of bodies, but not long enough that he’s become completely numb to them. And a young woman too, a young woman with so much to live for. A woman like his own wife, Joanne.

  Alex didn’t like the way Rick Grant had called Caroline’s life ‘empty’ – from what it sounds like, he didn’t know the half of it. And neither did Jenny. He keeps wondering about them, the parents, finds himself thinking about the sweat on Rick’s brow and the diamond on Jenny’s finger. They have called Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, wanting to check out the alibi that they were visiting Rick’s mother on the night of the murder, but as yet nobody has been able to confirm it. A harassed receptionist had told them they’d look into it straight away, find the CCTV of the entrance and the ward. ‘As soon as you can,’ Alex had said, ‘this is a murder investigation, after all.’ He needs Rick and Jenny either out of the picture or in it. He wonders what Caroline saw in them, what the friendship was really like. The thought of Caroline makes him shudder inside – it’s the way she was laid out, that’s the bit that is sticking in his head, her body positioned so strangely over the child’s cot; that is the part that he cannot forget.

  At first glance, you might have thought Caroline was bending over to tend to a baby, her dark hair hanging over her face and her arms reaching down into the cot. Well, not reaching, dangling, but they didn’t know that at the time.

  It was only when they lifted her up and saw the blood all over her chest, the gaping knife wound and the vacancy in her eyes, that they realised the cot underneath her was completely empty, spotted with blood. The covers were there, but the material was cold; cold and slightly damp, too, even the parts that weren’t drenched in blood. She must have been trying to protect the child, even in her very last moments.

  ‘Wildy?’

  DS David Bolton is knocking on his office door, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

  ‘Ready to go again?’ he says. ‘I might sit this one out. Watch him from the monitors.’ He pauses. ‘Don’t be too nice, Alex.’

  Alex stands, pushes the thought of Caroline’s body and the blood-soaked baby covers out of his mind, and makes his way to the interview room where they have left Callum Dillon waiting for a quarter of an hour. The DCI likes doing that, says it’s a good technique – let them sweat (quite literally, in this heat) and make them anxious enough to want to talk to you.

  But Callum Dillon doesn’t look like the anxious type.

  Interview Room 2

  4 p.m.

  Present: DS Wildy, Callum Dillon

  DS Wildy: Mr Dillon, please state your name for the tape.

  CD: Callum Dillon.

  DS Wildy: Mr Dillon, we appreciate you cooperating with our request to return to the UK and to give up your time to answer some questions.

  CD: It’s not like I was given much choice, is it? The French police arrested me.

  DS Wildy: As I say, we appreciate it. Ap
ologies, I gather you had rather an abrupt end to your holiday.

  CD: Can someone just tell me what the hell is going on? Or is that too much to ask? I haven’t even been home, I’ve been brought straight here, I haven’t showered and I’m exhausted. I spent hours being questioned in France by people I could barely make sense of, and now I’m here and you’re acting as if I’ve just wandered in of my own free will rather than being dragged here in handcuffs! It’s a joke. I’ve just had someone close to me die in the worst way possible and you’re treating me like a criminal.

  DS Wildy: The sooner we get our questions out of the way, the sooner you can be done with all of this and go home to your family, safe in the knowledge that we won’t bother you again. How does that sound?

  CD: Obviously I want this over with. I don’t even know why I’m here; it’s some sort of ludicrous misunderstanding. I don’t mind telling you that I’ll be putting in a complaint to the IPCC.

  DS Wildy: Let’s hope I can help clarify things for you a little. Mr Dillon, when did you begin your relationship with Caroline Harvey?

  CD: [sighs] I – OK. Fine. I’m not here to lie to you, I’m not making a secret of it. I’m devastated by Caroline’s death, of course I am. We began seeing each other about eighteen months ago.

  DS Wildy: Devastated, hmm. So would you say yours was a happy relationship, Mr Dillon? It’s fair to say it wasn’t a conventional relationship, isn’t it, given that you are in fact still married. Is that correct?

  CD: Yes, I’m still married. You know I am. My wife is – [breaks off]. When can I speak to my family?

  DS Wildy: Your family returned to Southend Airport yesterday morning, Mr Dillon, and were escorted home by two Suffolk Constabulary officers. They are all perfectly fine, so there is no need to worry. You’ll be able to speak with them once we’ve finished chatting, if that’s OK with you. At the moment, we’d rather there was no communication between you which might contaminate the investigation, but you are by law entitled to one phone call. Would you like to make that now?

  CD: [silence]

  DS Wildy: Mr Dillon?

  CD: No, no, just get on with it, will you?

  DS Wildy: Certainly. So, Mr Dillon, would you say your relationship with Caroline was a happy one?

  CD: Look, we’d broken it off. She’d broken it off, a while ago – she wanted to put a stop to it all and I thought she was probably right, so we called it a day. [sigh] I’m not proud of it all, Detective, but I promise you, I know nothing about her – about her death. The first I heard of it was the police at the door of my sister-in-law’s villa. I don’t know who would want to do that to Caro. She’s – she was a lovely girl.

  DS Wildy: So you yourself had no reason to be angry with Caroline, to wish her ill? You weren’t a bit annoyed that she’d, as you say, ‘broken it off’?

  CD: No! Like I say, it was the right thing to do. It had been coming for a while. I was – we were – it was difficult, you know, I’ve been married for a long time. I made a mistake, you know how it is, how these things can be. I’m not saying I didn’t care for Caroline, because I did – obviously, the officers saw how upset I was at the news – but it wasn’t supposed to be a long-term thing. I was – I suppose I was relieved when she wanted to call time on it. I wasn’t angry.

  DS Wildy: When was the last time you saw Ms Harvey?

  CD: [pause] I don’t know – a while back. Probably a fortnight ago. We’d agreed to leave things, and then there’d been a few text messages. Nothing much. She’d calmed down with the incessant phone calls.

  DS Wildy: Incessant phone calls?

  CD: Oh, they were nothing really. Just wanting to talk, but she’d call at odd times, you know. [rubs his head] I did my best. Like I say, I cared about her.

  DS Wildy: Did the phone calls anger you, Mr Dillon?

  CD: No, they didn’t. As I said, they’d slowed down anyway.

  DS Wildy: What is your relationship to Rick and Jenny Grant, and their daughter, Eve Grant?

  CD: I don’t know them at all! I’ve never met them. Caroline mentioned Jenny, very occasionally, but look, you know how it is – we weren’t really that involved in each other’s lives.

  DS Wildy: Because you were having an affair.

  CD: Well, yes. Christ, what is this? Having an affair doesn’t make me a murderer!

  DS Wildy: Did your wife Siobhan know about your affair, Mr Dillon?

  CD: [pause] No. No, I don’t think so.

  DS Wildy: Do you know where Eve Grant is, Mr Dillon?

  CD: Of course not! [pause] I’ve never seen that baby before in my life. Christ, the poor parents. If anything happened to my Emma I’d be destroyed.

  DS Wildy: Can you tell me where you were on the evening of August 10th, four days ago, Mr Dillon? What were your movements that day?

  CD: Jesus, you can’t really think I did this to Caroline. Can you? God, OK, OK, August 10th. I was home for most of the day. I had quite a bit to do for work, I work in TV—

  DS Wildy: Yes, we’re aware of that, Mr Dillon.

  CD: OK, then you know that something like this is completely ridiculous. I’m well known around here, I have a family. I’m not some murdering junkie who took a kid from its parents for the fun of it and bumped off the babysitter whilst I was at it. And I don’t like being treated as though I am. [pause] Sorry. I’m just – I’m very stressed.

  DS Wildy: We understand, Mr Dillon. So you were working at home on August 10th? All day?

  CD: [runs a hand through his hair] Pretty much, yes. I was at home, we live over near the park, Christchurch Park, although no doubt you know that anyway. I was working in my studio at the bottom of the garden, I work there a lot. The company has a big project on, we’re bidding for a new script. It’s easier to concentrate out of the office sometimes. [pause] My daughter was home too, we had lunch together at the house.

  DS Wildy: And then?

  CD: Then, I – God I don’t know, I just stayed at home. Working in the studio. Siobhan – my wife – went to her book group in the evening, and Emma and I stayed in. She was upstairs, and I was head down trying to get things finished before France. I wanted to be able to relax with my family. I might have popped out for half an hour at some point to the corner shop; I went to get something for dinner, we didn’t have much in the house.

  DS Wildy: The studio you mention, you can see it from the house, can’t you?

  CD: Yes, mostly. It’s at the bottom of the garden, gives me a bit of peace and quiet. But yes, you can see it from the upstairs windows.

  DS Wildy: But nobody can confirm you were actually in it that night?

  CD: Well, my daughter knew I was, I’d seen her earlier that evening. She’d have seen the lights on in the studio, I think.

  DS Wildy: But she wasn’t actually with you?

  CD: No.

  DS Wildy: So you didn’t go anywhere near Caroline’s flat, then? You didn’t go to say goodbye to her before your holiday?

  CD: No, how many times, we’d stopped seeing each other! It was over.

  [DS Bolton enters the room]

  DS Bolton: Afternoon, Mr Dillon. Now look, I’m sure you’re as tired of these questions as we are, but until we get a straight answer from you, they’re not going to stop. I will be straight with you if DS Wildy here won’t – we currently have you pretty high on our list for the murder of your girlfriend. You’ve got motive, you’ve no doubt got means, and we want to know whether you had opportunity. Jenny Grant certainly seems to think so.

  CD: Jesus, I’ve told you a million times, Detective. I did not kill Caroline Harvey. I did not abduct Eve Grant. I’ve never met Jenny Grant. I was nowhere near the property that night.

  DS Wildy: So where were you at 6 p.m. exactly, then?

  CD: [sighs] God, it’s like Groundhog Day. I’ve told you. I was at home in my studio. And I went to the shop.

  DS Bolton: Can anybody verify that?

  CD: I – no, not directly. My wife had gone out to her book grou
p, like I said, and at 6 p.m. my daughter Emma was upstairs. She was listening to music, but she knew I was around because she’d seen me earlier at lunchtime. It’s the school holidays, we’d got into a routine of having lunch together on days when I wasn’t in the office.

  DS Bolton: So to recap: you saw your daughter at lunchtime, around, what, 1 p.m.? Following that, she went up to her bedroom and you went outside to your studio. Is that a usual occurrence in your household, Mr Dillon? For two people to be in entirely separate rooms without speaking all night? What about the dinner you’d gone to get from the shop?

  CD: [pause] Sometimes. And I ate the dinner, downstairs by myself. I did call out to Em but she said she wasn’t hungry. And then I went back out to my studio, in the garden as I had to finish some work before going on holiday. My daughter would probably have heard me coming in and out of the house. Then I went to bed. It was late by the time I came in from the studio, so rather than wake Siobhan, I decided to sleep in the spare room.

  DS Wildy: Had you and your daughter had any kind of argument, Mr Dillon?

  CD: No. We – my daughter’s a teenager. She’s been a bit moody, lately. Stays in her room a lot. My wife and I have been trying not to push her buttons. It’s why we booked the holiday in France, we wanted to try to give her a break, have a nice time, change of scenery, you know. My sister-in-law offered us the villa in Saint Juillet. She was very keen that we visited.

  DS Bolton: Ah yes, the holiday. It’s interesting to me that you left for France the day after Ms Harvey was killed.

  CD: We’d been planning a holiday for a long time. It was all booked in.

  DS Bolton: I see.

  CD: Look, I don’t understand why you’re keeping me here. What actual evidence have you got? Just because two people are shagging doesn’t mean one of them has to be a killer! Jesus, I’ve had enough of this. I want a lawyer. I’m not answering anything else until I have one.