The Babysitter

by Phoebe Morgan

  TV EXEC CHEATING ON HIS WIFE was a headline I caught sight of the other day on one of those industry insider gossip websites. Callum has been suspended from the team, pending the outcome of the investigation. We don’t have to worry about money, not yet anyway, but obviously it won’t last forever.

  The reporter is pushing a big, black microphone into my face, so close that for a moment I fear it’s going to hit me. He is young, skinny-looking, and his breath smells of stale cigarette smoke. I didn’t think anyone smoked any more, these days. None of the uber-mothers do.

  ‘Do you think your husband will be charged soon, Mrs Dillon?’ His voice takes me a second to place, then I realise that it’s Brummie, the same as the policeman who brought us home on that first night and gave my daughter a chocolate bar. That night seems like a lifetime ago now.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ I tell him, clenching my fists around my phone and house keys in my pocket. I am sweating in this coat, the sun hot on my back.

  ‘How did you feel when you found out your husband was cheating on you?’

  ‘No comment,’ I say, pushing past him only to be confronted by another one, a woman this time. She’s wearing short sleeves and a baseball cap to keep the heat off her face, and she smells faintly of sun cream. The scent makes me think of happier times – on the beach with Emma when she was little, crabbing at Walberswick on the Suffolk coast. Smearing the cream onto her little nose and the back of her neck to make sure she didn’t burn. We used to take her every year, drink cold pints of cider in the pub afterwards. We haven’t been for a long time now.

  ‘Siobhan, how is your daughter coping with the news? Do you think this case could push her over the edge?’

  The reporter’s words cut through the hot afternoon air. I stop walking; I think I even stop breathing for a second. The male reporter has heard too and has backed away slightly, but the woman stands boldly in front of me, microphone outstretched, a cameraman no more than a few steps behind her.

  ‘What did you just say?’ I ask her, the words almost hissing out of my mouth. She doesn’t even have the grace to look abashed, she just stands in front of me, woman to woman. She has auburn, flyaway hair that’s escaping from underneath the cap, and a wide, red-lipsticked mouth that reminds me of a clown’s.

  ‘I said, how do you think her father’s arrest will impact your daughter, Emma? There are rumours that she’s becoming a bit unstable? Struggling to cope? Her school have reported antisocial behaviour over the last few months.’

  I can’t believe she has the audacity.

  ‘That’s not what you said,’ I hiss at her, you said “Do I think this case could push her over the edge?” What is it you mean by that?’

  ‘I know it must be a sensitive issue, Mrs Dillon. I want to give you the chance to share your side of the story. And Emma, of course. We can run a whole feature on you both. People don’t like the fact that you’re hiding away. It doesn’t look good, you know that, don’t you?’

  Anger bubbles inside me.

  ‘Do you have children?’ I ask her, and although a large part of me wants to turn around and run away from her, run back into the house and slam the door, clutch Emma to my chest, I force myself to stand my ground, to look this woman, this vulture, in the eye.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well then,’ I say, keeping my tone as level as I possibly can, even though it takes every ounce of self-restraint in my body, ‘perhaps you might reconsider your approach in the future. Perhaps you might educate yourself in these sort of things before you come here, to my house, and ask those sort of questions about my 16-year-old daughter.’ I pause, fighting for breath. ‘I don’t know how you can live with yourself.’

  With that I push past her, push past them all, leaving the cameras snapping and flashing in my wake. No doubt it’s already on Twitter: Mum loses her shit at reporter, but this time, I don’t care. It’s not as though people aren’t talking about us already.

  I’m getting sick to the back teeth of all these people camped outside my house. It’s a disgrace! They’re blocking our driveway – my Sammy could barely get the car out this morning. The council need to move them, I’m telling you. – Barbara Pinder, number 80, Christchurch Road

  It’s horrible living so close by to the Dillon house. I feel as though I ought to stop by, you know, ask them if there’s anything they need, offer to be a friendly face, but at the same time one doesn’t like to get too involved. If they need anything, surely they’d ask? I mean, we’ve never been close, but I used to see the three of them from time to time, taking Emma to the park when she was younger, popping in and out, that sort of thing. The parents often came home late from work. I used to feel a bit sorry for the daughter, to be honest. – Rachel Sanders, next door neighbour to Siobhan and Callum Dillon

  God knows I’ve tried to be friendly to the Dillon family over the years. Went to a Christmas do at theirs once, a while back now. House is lovely inside, I’ll say that, but that husband of hers is unbearable. Thinks he’s such a big-shot, deigning to live in Ipswich when he obviously thinks he’s destined for Hollywood. Ugh. I can’t stand him. So yeah, I guess I don’t bother with them that much now. Can you blame me? – Simone Smith, three doors down from the Dillon family house

  There’s something up with that Dillon daughter. She’s always struck me as a troublemaker. Trust me, kids like that don’t get like that by accident. There’ll be something wrong at home. Something that’s caused it. There always is. – Brenda Miller, teacher at Ipswich School for Girls.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ipswich

  10th August: The night of the murder

  Caroline

  I’m giving Eve some formula that Jenny’s left in the fridge, even though I’m not one hundred per cent sure that she needs it. If I’m honest, I just wanted to have a go at feeding her, see what it was like to feel her sucking on the bottle, watch her little chest rise and fall as she fed. She’s much quieter after she’s finished, and she looks as though she could fall asleep. With a start, I realise that I haven’t thought about Callum for over an hour, I’ve been so utterly and gloriously distracted by baby Eve.

  ‘Do you want to have a little sleep now?’ I ask her, using the silly cooing voice again, putting my index finger to her warm little cheek. Her skin is so soft against mine.

  ‘Your mummy’s so lucky, isn’t she, Eve? Isn’t she?’ I say aloud, bringing my face down towards hers and rubbing noses, giving her an Eskimo kiss.

  ‘You are the loveliest baby in the whole wide world. Yes you are, yes you are!’ I tickle her tummy and she gives a little squirm, then makes a noise that sounds as though it could be a laugh. I feel a rush of adrenaline – I made her laugh! I make a mental note to ask Jenny when she gets back whether she’s done that before. A tiny part of me almost hopes that she hasn’t, that I’m the first one to have made it happen. Maybe after this Jenny might let me babysit more often, now that she knows I can do it, now that I’ve proved myself. In fact, I could look after her during the days, couldn’t I, now that Jenny’s back at work – I can stay at home all day if I want to, I can balance the laptop on the sofa next to me and keep Eve in my lap, multi-task. Make the most of being a freelancer, really embrace that lifestyle. They wouldn’t even have to pay me. I’d save them a fortune on childcare.

  Feeling energised by this thought, I get to my feet and go over to the cot because Eve’s eyes are drooping a little and I don’t want to tire her out. I picture Jenny coming home and finding us, Eve sleeping peacefully, me calm and relaxed in the other room, a scattering of children’s books around me that I’ve been reading to her. She’ll be so pleased, she’ll stop thinking of me as her childless, husbandless friend, and start thinking of me as a capable woman who could be a very good mother. A very good mother indeed.

  After I sent the photo of my pregnancy tests – all three of them – over to Callum that day in April, he called me straight away. I was pleased – he didn’t u
sually call me that often, we stuck mostly to messages – but when I picked up, I could tell at once that his tone wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

  ‘We need to talk, Caroline,’ he’d said, without even saying hello, let alone a congratulations. For a moment or two, I ignored it, and ploughed on anyway, talking over him excitedly, as though if I’m just buoyant enough, it will change his mind.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful? I mean, I know we didn’t exactly plan it but you know how much I’ve always wanted a baby, I told you right when we first met, didn’t I? I know things can always be wrong so that’s why I took the three tests, just to be sure, and now I am sure and I’m so excited, I’m so pleased, we must—’

  ‘Caroline.’ He’d interrupted me, that one word bringing me abruptly to a halt. ‘We need to talk. Are you at home?’

  I’d forced a laugh, trying to lighten the mood of the phone call. ‘Well of course I’m at home, I don’t exactly make a habit of lining up pregnancy sticks in other people’s bathrooms! I don’t think that’s really the etiquette, do you?’

  ‘I’ll be over in an hour. Don’t go anywhere.’

  The line went dead before I could reply. I was wrong-footed, horribly so – although we didn’t chat by phone much, our text conversations would usually end in streams of kisses, suggestive emojis, promises of tomorrow. We were in love. Weren’t we? OK, he’d never actually said it apart from in the throes of passion but still, it was obvious. He spent time with me. He risked his marriage for me. Of course he loved me. The alternative was a thought I simply blocked from my mind.

  I spent the next hour pacing my flat, rationalising that perhaps I had caught him at work, during the middle of a very important project – he had a lot of those – or that he was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t quite articulate his feelings. Men did that sometimes, I knew that, didn’t I? It didn’t have to mean there was a problem.

  But of course, there was a problem. I squeeze my eyes together as I remember, the memory hitting me as viscerally as it did on that dreadful day in the spring. I leave Eve in the cot, the window slightly open and the blankets across her, feeling her nappy just before I do so – see! I’m learning! – and go back into the sitting room, find my hidden wine glass from earlier. Opening a new bottle of red, I pour myself a measure, bigger than before. I’m taking deep breaths. I shouldn’t have started to go down this road, shouldn’t have opened this particular Pandora’s box. It’s too painful. It always will be too painful.

  When Callum arrived that night, he was wearing the suit he wears for important days at work and the first thing I felt was a swell of relief – I’d been right! I’d simply got the timings wrong, interrupted him partway through a presentation or client meeting, and he’d had to be terse on the phone because he was in earshot of his colleagues. But why did he call you at all then, the voice in my head persisted, why not wait until later? Why would he have looked at his phone during a pitch meeting?

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ I’d said, smiling at him. I don’t like remembering this part because it makes me sound pathetic, but in the hour since our phone call I’d been putting on make-up, carefully painting on foundation and lacquering my lips, trying to make myself look as pretty as possible. Then I worried that I’d taken it too far, that I wouldn’t look maternal enough when I answered the door, so I wiped half of it off and started again, going for a toned-down look. The result was probably somewhere in between.

  ‘I’m OK,’ he said, striding into the flat, looking around as though I was hiding something there. I thought maybe he wanted to see the tests so I got one from the bathroom and showed it to him, but he recoiled as though I’d done something disgusting rather than given him news of his future child.

  ‘Let’s sit down, Caroline,’ he said, ‘and on second thoughts, I will have that drink. Do you have any beer? Whiskey? Something strong.’

  I poured him a whiskey on the rocks, the way I knew he liked it. He didn’t speak the whole time, just sat down on the sofa, his hands clasped together awkwardly, his back not even touching the sofa cushions.

  ‘Aren’t you going to take your coat off?’ I said to him, trying not to think about the last time he was here, when we’d showered together then made pasta in our underwear, listening to James Taylor and drinking red wine. The mood couldn’t have been more different. I was starting to feel nervous, sweat beginning to prickle my armpits, my stomach starting to knot with anxiety. Quickly, I poured myself a tumbler of whiskey too, even though I’ve never been able to stand the taste. I drank it fast, with my back to him, before remembering about the baby growing inside me and clapping a hand to my mouth. Panic gripped me – I shouldn’t be drinking at all, but in the strangeness and stress of Callum’s behaviour I’d wanted something for the courage. I took a deep breath, trying to think. Surely one wouldn’t hurt. It would all be fine.

  He kept his coat on, even though it was only spring and the sun had warmed up the flat all day.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him, placing the glass of whiskey down on the table in front of him, watching his face closely for clues. I couldn’t understand why he was acting like this; it was as if there was a stranger in front of me, drinking my whiskey, sitting on my sofa.

  He took a couple of sips, and the alcohol seemed to calm him a bit, because he reached out for my hand, pulled me down so I was sitting next to him on the couch.

  ‘Caroline,’ he said again, ‘listen. We need to talk about – about the baby.’ He’d paused, taken another sip. ‘Are you really pregnant?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘it’s not the kind of thing I’m likely to make up, is it?’

  By this point, my heart was thudding in my chest because I knew that whatever direction this conversation was going to go in, it wasn’t going to be good.

  ‘Look,’ he said, running a hand through his hair, his thick, brown hair that I loved, ‘surely you can understand, Caro, this is complicated. We can’t just – I can’t just have a baby with you.’ He looked up at me. ‘I already have a daughter, Caroline.’

  That was the beginning of the end.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ipswich

  17th August

  DS Wildy

  Rick and Jenny Grant live in quite a nice house near the Ipswich docks; rows of flowers are planted outside in window boxes, withering in the August heat. It’s doubtful that anyone is remembering to water them. Inside, it is newly decorated, the walls fresh with relatively recent paint, a shiny Smeg fridge, a classy-looking island in the middle of the kitchen on which stand endless mugs of half-drunk tea. There are photos of Eve everywhere, with one notably missing from its frame – the one that is currently plastered all over the newspapers, given to DS Bolton at the start of the investigation.

  It’s too warm inside the house, but nobody opens a window. The family liaison officer pours them all a glass of water. Her face is tight and tired-looking. On the sofa in the living room sits a little pink teddy bear belonging to Eve, and as DS Wildy makes his way into the room, Jenny picks it up and clutches it to her chest.

  ‘Sorry to intrude yet again,’ Alex says to her. They have already apologised for upsetting her the other day, but Rick’s wall-punching incident has rather evened out the playing field, and all Jenny does now is nod.

  ‘Rick’s out,’ she says, ‘he’s joined one of the search parties. It’s better for him, I think. He needs to feel like he’s doing something.’ She gives a weird, nervous laugh. ‘Think he’s realised that sitting on the sofa all day wasn’t doing him any good, after all.’

  ‘Good,’ Alex says, ‘that’s great, Mrs Grant.’ He takes a sip of his water, attempts a smile. He wants to talk to her about the things Rick said at the station, his utter conviction that Caroline Harvey is somehow to blame for all this despite the fact that she’s lying in the morgue.

  ‘Mrs Grant,’ he begins, deciding to jump straight in, ‘when you left your daughter with Ms Harvey, were you aware that she had
previously had an abortion for a child of her own?’

  Jenny stares at him, her eyes widening a little. He can see genuine surprise on her face. The fact came up in Caroline’s medical records, but they hadn’t thought it relevant until now. It still might not be, but it opens up a conversation.

  ‘What? No. That’s not true.’

  ‘It is true, Mrs Grant, the information is clearly stated on Ms Harvey’s medical records.’

  ‘When did she have an abortion?’

  ‘A few months before the night of her death. April. It hasn’t seemed relevant before, but your husband indicated some – concerns about Caroline to me, about her state of mind. About her desire for a child.’

  ‘God, I had no idea… she didn’t tell me,’ Jenny says. She clutches the pink teddy tightly, her fingers curling into its lurid fur.

  ‘Do you know who the father might have been, Mrs Grant?’

  ‘Well, Callum, I presume. But I’m surprised she – I didn’t think she’d do that. I thought she was desperate for kids of her own.’ Jenny pauses. ‘Maybe it just wasn’t the right time.’

  ‘Do you think there is any chance that your baby was not safe in the care of Ms Harvey, Jenny? That her desire for a child of her own meant she might have wanted to take or harm yours?’

  ‘Not safe? What do you mean? Obviously she wasn’t safe, she’s missing!’ She is glaring at him now, and he feels sweat forming on the back of his neck, takes a sip of water. The room is stiflingly hot.

  ‘What I mean, Mrs Grant, is do you think there is any possibility, however remote, that Caroline Harvey could have harmed Eve herself?’

  For a second, she stares at him. ‘Caroline harm Eve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think so… I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know quite what Rick said to you.’ She is worrying at the teddy, pulling a thread from its stomach, winding it tightly around one finger. Tears are beginning to fill her eyes, catching the light in the stream of sunshine that is filtering through the half-closed blinds. ‘I never thought this would happen, did I?’ Jenny mutters, almost to herself, then looks back up at DS Wildy, raises her voice a bit. ‘I can’t imagine what’s happened to Eve, Detective, but Caroline doesn’t have her, does she, because she’s dead.’