Her Perfect Family

by Driscoll, Teresa

  ‘And this was how long ago?’

  ‘More than twenty years ago. I was twenty-seven. We were newly married. Just six months.’

  He watches Matthew rake his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Trust me, it was like being in a movie. Totally unreal. I couldn’t talk to people because it sounded so bizarre. And I didn’t want Laura to be labelled, because I thought she would recover. I didn’t want it to blight her future. Her chance of getting work, teaching music and so on. I honestly thought she would get well.’

  ‘And she didn’t?’

  ‘No. It all got much worse.’

  Ed lets out a long sigh. He’s wondering how much detail he should go into. Laura’s dramas – smashing up her parents’ house because she didn’t recognise it. He remembers Laura’s mother crying down the phone when they had to call an ambulance to have Laura sedated and taken to a special unit. By this stage, she was uncontrollable – furious that no one would believe her. Accusing them of ‘being in on it all’.

  ‘So, you understand now why I just want to know that Laura’s with her parents. That she’s OK. Accounted for in Canada, I mean.’

  ‘When did you last have contact with her? What’s her condition now? And has she threatened you ever, Mr Hartley? Do you think she’s a danger to you? To your family.’ DI Sanders has her pen poised to make notes. ‘You realise you should have told us all of this from the very beginning.’

  ‘Laura is ill, not violent. I thought she was still under supervision at the clinic. There’s no way I believed she could be involved. I still don’t.’ Ed feels his body slump. He closes his eyes.

  ‘And Rachel, your second wife, knows nothing of this?’

  He feels close to tears now. It’s unbearable to imagine Rachel’s reaction. He knows that it looks terrible, not to have come clean.

  ‘I should have told Rachel. I do know that.’ He doesn’t want to share just how bad things got when he returned to England. No job. Nowhere to live. He lied to friends; said that the marriage just broke up over an affair. There were antidepressants. Sleeping tablets. He didn’t think he would ever be happy again.

  For months and months, he lived like a hermit, refusing friends’ attempts to get him to go out. And then finally they talked him into a dinner party. And there she was. This extraordinary woman in this beautiful red velvet dress. Rachel. It was like a light going back on in his life.

  ‘I was a coward. I was selfish. I should have told Rachel, but I wanted a clean slate. I didn’t want a pity party.’

  ‘So Laura. She wasn’t cured? She still has this syndrome?’

  ‘There is no cure. She’s been in and out of the clinic ever since. Her parents are wealthy. They pay for private treatment. She has spells when she’s a little better. And spells when she’s really bad. They think she may have schizophrenia too but I was never convinced of that.’

  ‘And you’ve kept in contact with her parents?’

  ‘I did at first. For a good few years. But then they said it was better to cut ties. For Laura. And for me too.’

  ‘Another question I have to ask.’ DI Sanders is sitting up straight. ‘Has Laura ever owned or used a gun, Mr Hartley?’

  He knew this was coming. He shuts his eyes again. They’re going to misunderstand. However he explains it, they’re going to completely misunderstand.

  ‘Well?’ DI Sanders is again looking at her watch.

  ‘Laura isn’t a violent person. She’s unwell. She became unwell.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘Look – OK. She was in the army for three years. The Canadian army.’

  He feels the punch of their shock.

  ‘The army? Are you seriously telling me she’s got military training?’ DI Sanders puts both hands on her head. ‘Oh, dear Lord, I don’t believe this.’ She turns to Matthew and then back to Ed. ‘You have an ex-wife with a serious mental-health condition who’s used to handling guns and you don’t tell us until today.’ DI Sanders pushes her chair back from the table, stands and puts her phone to her ear.

  ‘I’m sorry but it’s not what you think. She was never a soldier. Not really—’

  Mel puts her hand up to silence Ed as she waits for the phone to connect, walking to the door.

  Ed stares instead at Matthew Hill, who remains seated.

  ‘Laura signed up after university but she was a musician, Matthew. It was for the music. She was never a proper soldier. She only joined up for the music . . .’

  CHAPTER 21

  THE MOTHER

  ‘I’ve no idea what’s holding your dad up.’ I put down the brush on Gemma’s hospital locker and stare at it. ‘I don’t expect he’ll be long. I’ve asked him to bring in a new book for me to read to you.’

  I sit very still, fighting the urge to watch her eyelids for the tiniest flicker, and it’s as if my body is absorbing the silence. The stillness. Sometimes it makes me want to cry, this vacuum that seems to seep into my bones, my very blood, and so, to challenge it, I reach forward to pick the brush up again, stroking the engraved pattern on the silver. Enjoying the feeling of the dips and the bumps on my fingers. My flesh.

  It’s not a very practical brush, truth be told, but it’s so very beautiful. So special. It’s a child’s brush – real silver with especially soft, natural bristles – a gift from my mother to Gemma when she was small. Of course, Gemma stopped using it many years back, needing modern brushes, designed to retain heat – to tease and to tame. But she kept this brush with its matching mirror on her dressing table ‘for show’ and so I got Ed to fetch it from home. For my sake really.

  When Gemma was little, she absolutely hated having her hair washed. Oh my word, the battle over the tangles afterwards. I used lakes of conditioner to try to ease things but there was still grumbling and moaning every single time. Ow. Ow. You’re hurting me. You’re really, really hurting me.

  And so I would use a comb for the tangles first, holding the hair in sections and trying my very best to ‘shock absorb’ the pulling, and when that battle was finally over – no more comb. Have we finished with the comb, Mummy – I’d switch to ‘Granny’s brush’ as a signal that the tangles were gone. Then I’d brush through her hair, stroke after gentle stroke, until Gemma was calm again. She would close her eyes and I would watch her shoulders relax and I would brush and brush and brush.

  Of course, her hair has no tangles now that she can’t move. Never moves. So I use ‘Granny’s brush’, hoping she can feel the softness of it; that it might somehow soothe her. Calm her. Trigger a memory that might will her to come home. To come back . . .

  I run my fingers across the soft bristles, again enjoying the sensation on my flesh. I think of my mother, sitting by the Christmas tree, when Gemma opened this present, rushing between us all to make us check our reflections in the matching mirror. Me. Ed. Granny.

  She was really good at presents, my mum. Even when we had so little money after Dad left and she had to work two jobs to keep us afloat, she’d come up with treasures for me on my birthday. Something home-made – an outfit for a favourite doll – or a trail of riddles she’d made up herself, leading to a special box of chocolates.

  Amazing how she found the time and the patience after everything she went through.

  I look back across the hospital cubicle at Gemma, motionless in the bed. Her laptop’s on the bedside cabinet. They sent it over this morning. A favour. Nothing relevant in it, the police say. I’ve looked at some of the photo files but have found it much harder than I expected. I can’t find the photo of her in that pink dress and so the laptop’s just sitting there alongside her. As if it’s waiting for Gemma to emerge from a nap and start tap, tapping away.

  I stare at her closed eyes and think again of my mother; of all the stories I’ve told Gemma about my own childhood. About her grandfather. Her gran. Did I do the right thing? I think so; what good would it do to hurt people you love with a past you can’t change?

  And it wasn’t all inven
ted. The stories from my early childhood were real. Precious. My father making me a rocking crib for a favourite doll. Reading me stories at bedtime. Building a hutch for my first rabbit. All those things really did happen, Gemma . . .

  I let out a sigh and check my watch. Where is he? Why so long with the police? I picture DI Sanders and get a tightening in my stomach. I realise that I really must speak to her about that odd woman who bothered me a while back, just to exclude her. Damn it. Maybe I should just come clean with Ed first about the stupid private investigator I hired. Why I worried that he was having an affair. Maybe it will be better to face his disappointment in me than all this worry and this guilt.

  If I can just persuade him not to make a scene. Not here. Not with all this going on . . .

  And now suddenly I sense something happening outside the cubicle. I can just see the elbow of the police guard, sitting beyond the window on to the main ward. Ever since the awful scene with Alex, we keep the blinds at a careful angle – the slats closed enough to keep some privacy but with enough tilt to let me see what’s going on out in the main ward.

  The guard normally sits just to the left of our window on to the ward. They normally change shifts at lunchtime. I know most of them by sight but not by name. This is the tall guy. Friendly. I can see that his arm’s moving; he’s standing up. I can hear him talking to someone . . .

  ‘This shouldn’t have been brought up here. No gifts. Strictly no packages. We said no packages.’ His tone’s clipped, cross, and I can just make out that he’s taking his radio from his pocket. A shiver runs through my body. I remember what happened with Alex. I stand up too, wishing Ed was here.

  Where is he? Why’s Ed taking so long?

  ‘Right. Put it down. On the floor.’ The police guard’s raised his voice. ‘Put it down now, please. Can everyone listen up? I need you all to stay calm, but I need everyone to keep back from this package while I call for some help.’

  CHAPTER 22

  THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  Matthew’s listening to Mel on the phone to her contact in Canada. She’s pacing as if wearing a hole in the floor will somehow absorb her anger at Ed Hartley for keeping so much from them.

  She’s listing what she needs. The parents’ address. Is Laura with them? If not, urgent checks on her passport. Has she travelled? Is there any way she could have flown to the UK? Every now and then, Mel pauses to listen and Matthew is praying she’s getting cooperation. Liaison with foreign forces can be slow and frustrating, not through lack of will but lack of resources. Everyone always so stretched with their own caseload.

  He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket just as Mel tells her contact that she’ll have to ring back; has another call coming through from her team.

  Matthew checks his own screen. It’s Sally. He wonders for a second whether to message that he’ll call her straight back, but he sees only now that he’s missed a couple of texts from her while dealing with Ed Hartley.

  He puts the phone up to his ear, still watching Mel who’s taking her new call.

  ‘It’s horrible. Horrible, Matthew. You need to come home now. Right away. I don’t know what to do.’ Sal’s voice is near hysterical. ‘I thought it was from you. I thought it was a surprise. I would never have let her open it if I didn’t think it was from you . . . What have I done?’

  ‘Sally. Sally. You need to slow down. What’s happened?’

  ‘A parcel turned up. I thought it was a surprise from you. A gift. There was a card which looked as if it was from you so I let her open it. Oh, Matthew. I let her open it.’

  ‘So what is it, Sally? What’s in the parcel?’ His heart’s thumping in his chest and he raises his hand in a ‘stop’ sign to signal to Mel that there’s a crisis. But instead of ending her call, Mel pumps the signal straight back at him. An emergency of her own?

  ‘I’ll get bomb squad, just in case,’ Mel is saying. She moves her free hand from the ‘stop’ sign to the top of her head – her posture of disbelief.

  Matthew’s heart is now pounding. ‘Sally. Hold one second. I’m getting some advice this end. It may be important.’

  He listens again to Mel’s side of her conversation. ‘Right. So is it possible to evacuate the ward?’ She pauses, closing her eyes. ‘Do what you can until I speak to the hospital board. Ring you straight back.’

  Matthew feels a new punch to his gut.

  Bomb squad.

  ‘Right. I’m back. So what’s in the parcel, Sally? You need to describe it to me. Any wire? Anything like a battery? And where is it now?’

  ‘It’s a doll, Matthew. But it has blood coming out of it.’ She’s crying now. ‘It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Jeez. Did Amelie see? Where’s Amelie?’

  ‘In the playroom. She saw it. Yes. I told her it was a Halloween joke. A mistake . . . It’s all I could think of on the spot. But she’s really upset, Matthew.’

  ‘Right. So where’s the doll and the box?’

  ‘Here. In the kitchen.’

  ‘OK. Did you hear me before? Can you see any wires? Anything like a battery in the box?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Nothing like that. Just the doll.’

  ‘Right. You need to get out of the house, Sally. Leave the doll and the box there in the kitchen. Don’t touch it again. Clean your hands, and take Amelie out to the summer house.’

  Matthew’s mind is in overdrive as he listens to the water running. They’re lucky that their cottage has a long garden. The summer house a good stretch from the building. Safe distance. It’s good there are no obvious wires. All the same . . .

  ‘Are the neighbours in? Your mum. Is she home?’ Sally’s mother lives just two doors along in the little row of thatched cottages.

  ‘No, she’s out shopping. We’re the only ones home.’

  ‘Good. Good. Tell Amelie it’s a game. Take some toys to the summer house and wait for me there. Leave the doll and the box. Don’t touch it. OK? Go now. Right away.’

  ‘You’re scaring me, Matthew.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, but just do as I say. OK? It’s just a precaution. Playing safe. I’m on this. It’s going to be OK. I’m on my way to you. It’s going to be all right.’

  There’s a pause. It sounds like Sally’s crying. Matthew badly needs to speak to Mel but can’t bear to ring off.

  ‘Is your phone well charged, Sal?’

  He waits while she checks the screen.

  ‘Sixty per cent.’

  ‘Right. Stay on the line. Get Amelie and let me talk to her as you move outside. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Matthew can hear Sally calling Amelie through, but she’s moved the phone away from her face. He can’t make everything out. There’s quite a pause and then at last he can hear his daughter’s voice in his ear.

  ‘Daddy. I got a doll but it’s broken. It’s not nice. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Yeah. Mummy told me. Don’t worry about that, princess. There’s been a mistake. It was the wrong doll sent to the wrong house. Isn’t that silly? We’ll get you a better doll. It’s a nice day so I’m going to finish work early and meet you in the summer house for a game.’

  ‘What game? I want to watch television.’

  ‘I’m going to let you choose the game but you need to be a good girl for Mummy, honey. Can you do that for Daddy? Be a good girl and wait in the summer house for me.’

  ‘All right. Mummy says we need to hurry. Will you be long, Daddy?’

  ‘No. I won’t be long, darling. Put Mummy back on.’

  There’s a crackling noise and for a horrible moment Matthew fears his daughter has dropped the phone.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. It’s me.’ Sally’s voice again. ‘We’re in the garden. Nearly there. How long will you be?’

  ‘Half an hour tops. I’ll get some people to come out. Check out the doll and the package. You need to ring off. Save your battery. You may hear sirens but that’s just to make sure no one goes near the house. This is going to be OK, Sally.’
He takes a deep breath. ‘I love you. I’m going to make this OK.’

  ‘OK.’

  She rings off but he keeps the phone pressed to his ear. He wants to add that he’s going to work with Mel and he’s not going to rest – no bloody stone unturned – until he’s found the bastard who’s frightened his family . . .

  How dare they. How dare they . . .

  ‘What’s happened, Matt?’ Mel has stepped forward, looking right into his face. ‘I overheard bits. You got a parcel too? At home?’

  ‘Yep. Some kind of doll. With blood. Nasty—’

  ‘But not a bomb? No explosives. Wires?’

  ‘Nothing obvious.’

  ‘Right. We play safe. There’s a package on Gemma Hartley’s ward too. Unopened. They’re sending in a sniffer dog first. They’re moving patients but it’s too difficult to move Gemma. Too near the package. Too dangerous.’

  ‘And what about her mother?’

  ‘She’s refusing to leave. She’s staying with Gemma.’

  Matthew puts his hand to his mouth. ‘I have to go, Mel. I have to get home.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll get a team to your house too. Get going. I’ll ring you en route. I’m on this. It’s going to be all right, Matt.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Lemon

  I’m tired of reading the platitudes in the paper. Telling everyone they’re safe. That it’s all OK. All in hand. Blah blah blah.

  It’s a disgrace – lying to everyone. Tricking everyone.

  Well, they can’t trick me . . .

  I see. I know.

  I found a cot mobile online. Delivered yesterday. It doesn’t have the tune I wanted but it’s the right colours – lemon and white – so I’m pleased. Things are looking nice and organised in here now.