Her Perfect Family

by Driscoll, Teresa

  I’ve set the mobile above the cot – high enough to be safe but low enough to be enjoyed. It soothes me to wind it up and sit in here a while to listen. As I say, it’s not the tune I would have chosen but it’s some kind of lullaby. Gentle. Sweet.

  I’m not feeling great, actually, so I need to work hard to stay calm. I’ve had to limit my supply of everything. My drugs, I mean. Pace myself. So some of the time, I feel wired and then it’s like jumping from a window and I’m incredibly tired. But no matter. It’s to be expected. They’ve never really worked – the drugs. I know that now but I’m worried how it will feel without them completely so I need to make sure I don’t run out.

  So it’s good to have this room to focus on.

  I’ve put a calendar on the wall and it’s not too long to wait. I can be patient. I can do this.

  I just need to try to stop dwelling on the past and to think of the future when it will all have been worth it.

  It’s just such a shame that no one would listen to me before. Trust me? If people had listened to me, all this need never have happened.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE DAUGHTER – BEFORE

  Is Tess in Tess of the d’Urbervilles portrayed as being responsible for her own demise?

  I don’t believe it. I am sitting on my bed, staring at the test stick with tears rolling down my face and I still don’t believe.

  Two blue lines. Pregnant. How? HOW?

  I’ve been crying for so long that my face actually feels numb. But crying doesn’t help. I need to do something. Anything. To write. To type. To figure out what the hell I am going to do next.

  I honestly just don’t understand how this could have happened. I’ve been on the Pill for years without a single scare.

  I mean I know I get a tummy upset occasionally – irritable bowel syndrome, actually – but I never thought this would happen. Could happen. I’ve been googling the morning-after pill but that just makes me cry even more. Is it too late for that? Legal? Ethical? I haven’t a clue about my dates, not really. I don’t know what’s legal and what’s not. Can anyone get the morning-after pill if it isn’t actually technically the morning after? Do I go to my doctor? Do I go to a clinic? Can someone at the uni help me? Will it def be anonymous? I feel that I should know this stuff but I don’t and I’ve no one I can confide in. Maddy is out because I can’t face telling her about the father. It’s way too dangerous for him. Mum would never cope – it would literally kill her and I just can’t talk to her about this kind of thing. And in any case, everyone will think it’s ‘A’’s. Which it can’t be by my calculations . . . if the blurred dates in my head are right, that is.

  And oh my God, do I tell him? The father. How do I do that? I suppose he has a right to know. A right to have a say, but it’s early days for us. And he’s married. And what if he thinks I did this on purpose, which of course I absolutely didn’t.

  OK. So I think what I’m going to do is this. I’m going to buy another test (why, oh why, did I only get one?). If that comes back positive too, I’m going to check my calendar and phone some helplines to work out where I am on my dates – also my options before I contact him.

  Maybe he’ll surprise me? I mean, I don’t want to have a baby now. I want to get my career going. It would be completely bonkers to have a baby now. But I don’t actually know if I can face the alternatives. Would I regret it? Ever forgive myself?

  I don’t know. I don’t know.

  I’m supposed to be at Pilates tonight but I can’t face it. Can’t face anything.

  What an idiot, Gemma. What a complete and horrible nightmare.

  It just feels surreal. I’ve had friends who’ve had scares and they’ve always turned out OK but I’d never really appreciated how it would feel. And I just don’t know how I got here. Feels like Alice grew up into the worst possible disaster down that stupid, stinking rabbit hole.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  ‘Right. Talk me through what we’ve got so far.’ Mel is staring through the glass screen to the interior of the forensic lab. The two dolls, the identical boxes and the various sample pots and bags are carefully laid out on a table within the sealed area. Hannah, the senior forensic scientist, is still in her protective clothing. She’s doing them a big favour by agreeing to this preliminary briefing.

  It’s Tuesday, just twenty-four hours since the drama. The confusion. Matthew glances between Hannah and Mel, all the while thinking of Amelie and Sally in that summer house. The panic and the awful wait while the team sent in a sniffer dog to check the box in the kitchen. No sign of explosives. The careful removal. The phone call from Mel confirming that the hospital delivery was also cleared – no explosives.

  Relief. Relief. Relief . . .

  ‘It’s early days.’ Hannah sighs. ‘I know I owe you one, Mel, but don’t build your hopes up.’ Her voice, relayed by speaker to the area outside the lab, is slightly distorted by the microphone inside her cubicle. Tinny. Mel and Matthew can’t go inside without gowning up and they don’t have time.

  ‘I know, and I appreciate this. But do we have anything helpful yet? Anything at all?’ Mel’s fidgeting and Matthew shares a small, encouraging smile with her. She’s under even greater pressure. The press have been told the final graduation is going ahead. Everyone assumed safe. And now this . . .

  ‘Right. So the dolls are called Tiny Tears. Famous brand. Global success. First launched in the fifties and sixties. This modern version is by a new manufacturer – readily available. Not very expensive.’

  ‘I didn’t know they still made these.’ Mel looks puzzled. ‘My mum had one. Think it’s still in the loft.’

  ‘Well, you should get it out. Originals are collectable now.’ Hannah adjusts her protective lab coat and goggles.

  ‘OK. So the blood coming out of the eyes. How the hell?’ Matthew’s not interested in the value of the bloody dolls.

  ‘Tiny Tears was designed to cry real tears and wet her nappy. Basically, you feed her water from a bottle and that’s pumped back out of the eyes . . . and other parts.’ Mel clears her throat. ‘Our sender, as a malicious twist, decided to pump these two full of blood. Well – not real blood.’

  ‘It’s definitely not real?’ Looked like real blood to Matthew. Thick. Dark. Nasty. Sally was convinced it was blood when she first saw the doll.

  ‘It’s good quality but definitely fake blood – the kind you can get from any joke shop. Popular at Halloween. We’ve run tests to try to identify the brand.’

  Matthew stares at the blood on the dolls’ faces, which is staining their lemon Babygros. He’s remembering Sally’s quick thinking when Amelie first saw the red leaking from the eyes when they set the box upright. It’s a Halloween doll. Sent by mistake . . .

  ‘OK. So we all agree our sender has a warped mind. But what about prints? What have we got?’ Mel narrows her eyes as if dreading the response.

  ‘Sorry. Nothing. All we’ve got so far are a few carpet fibres from the box. Regular wool mix. Not unusual. Very popular colour. Not very helpful I’m afraid.’

  ‘And nothing else?’ Mel looks crestfallen.

  ‘Sorry, Melanie. I’ll run the tests again. Update you when I do the full report.’

  ‘Thanks. Appreciate that.’

  ‘But good it wasn’t explosives.’ Hannah has lifted her voice but Mel has already turned away, and Matthew follows her out of the viewing area and through a door to the narrow corridor beyond.

  ‘Right. So we’ll get the team checking distribution of these dolls. We’ve got the hospital CCTV. It was a motorcycle courier, wearing a bloody helmet. He – or she, hard to tell – persuaded a hospital volunteer to take the gift up to the ward.’

  ‘Still don’t get how that was allowed.’

  ‘Let’s not go there. The volunteer was wearing a tabard labelled “Can I help?” Meant well. Had read about Gemma in the papers and thought it was nice for someone to send her something. She thought she was sparing h
ospital staff some time. So what about your delivery? Has Sally remembered anything else?’

  ‘No. Just that she heard a motorbike too, then the doorbell. Bike had gone by the time she answered. She found the box on the doorstep and when she saw the message, she thought it was a gift from me to cheer Amelie up.’

  ‘Yeah. That printed card – “For Daddy’s girl”. What do we make of that, Matt? Are we wrong? Is this from a guy, not a woman?’

  ‘Not sure. Could be deliberate, to throw us off.’

  ‘Suppose. Whatever – it makes me think you’re right. This is about the baby, Matt. Gemma’s baby.’ Mel checks her watch. ‘Right. I’ve got to speak to the suits upstairs. Meet you in the canteen for a sandwich later?’

  Matthew pulls a face. He’s delighted to have persuaded Sally last night to let him take up Mel’s offer to work officially on the case. Now that it’s personal. Now that they need to get this sorted, for Amelie’s sake as much as anyone’s. But he’s not enjoying the prickly response from some of Mel’s team. A few don’t seem to understand why he’s been brought in.

  ‘Think I’ll grab lunch off site if you don’t mind. I’m trying to persuade Amanda, the uni PR, to meet me. I’m hoping she can recommend a counsellor for Amelie. And obviously it’s more urgent now.’

  ‘OK. Good. And once you’ve sorted help for Amelie, see what you can get from this Amanda about the professor affair rumours.’

  ‘Still nothing from the formal interviews?’

  ‘No. We’ve now seen all seven men who’ve taught Gemma. Nothing so far. But we need to find out who the father of that baby is . . . somehow. And urgently.’

  ‘I’ll try my best. Might hang around the campus a bit. See what I can dig up.’

  ‘Good. OK. Excellent. How’s Amelie doing?’

  ‘Not good. Wet the bed last night, which she hasn’t done for months.’

  ‘Poor poppet.’

  And then Mel’s phone goes. She checks the screen, mouths ‘Canada’ before answering. Matthew watches her face concentrate and then darken. ‘Right. Thanks for tipping me off. And you’ll send all this through officially?’ Another pause. ‘OK. Thank you. I’ll look out for the email. Appreciate the call.’

  Matthew raises his eyebrows as Mel puts her phone back in her pocket.

  ‘Laura – Ed’s first wife – took a flight to the UK several weeks back.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘I wish.’

  CHAPTER 26

  THE FATHER – BEFORE

  When he was thirteen years old, Ed Hartley was called to the head teacher’s study. An urgent message had been sent to the tennis courts where he’d just finished thrashing his arch-rival Ben McClaren. Ed was as confused as he was nervous. He knew it was some kind of serious to get a summons like this; he’d never been called to the head teacher before.

  Ed was more people pleaser than troublemaker. A good pupil. Unless he’d been set up, he couldn’t imagine what this was about. Unless there was a problem with the fees? His parents were always telling him how expensive his boarding school was. How tight they were finding it; how very lucky he was.

  Ed had grown more used to boarding school in recent years. At first, he had terrible homesickness and had to fight hard not to let the other boys see him upset. He’d long since managed to get past all that but he still carried this slight undercurrent of unease in his stomach. Always a tiny bit on edge. It was, he decided later, an awareness of being exposed. Vulnerable. The realisation that he had to depend entirely on himself and not on his family day to day. There was just one weekly call home and he always told his mother and father he was absolutely fine as this was clearly what was expected of him.

  This particular day as he walked to the head teacher’s study, he turned over the possible problem with the fees and wondered if he would mind if he had to leave the school. He realised, bouncing his tennis racket against his knee as he walked, that he would actually be a bit disappointed. But not too much. Certainly not devastated. Maybe even relieved? And so he knocked on the head teacher’s door with a strange mix of curiosity and hope.

  His mood only switched to true alarm when he was called inside to find his Aunt Cathy, his mother’s sister, sitting across the desk from the head teacher, dabbing her eyes. He hadn’t seen his aunt in years. The sisters weren’t close – some falling out, though he never knew the details. So what the hell was she doing here?

  ‘Please sit down, Edmund.’ The head teacher looked nervous rather than cross and Ed began to worry even more.

  The news, when it was came, was both terrible. And also some dreadful mistake.

  The head teacher was mumbling about an accident. How very sorry. Everything was instant. They wouldn’t have known a thing – your parents. How terribly, terribly sorry they all were . . .

  All Ed could think was how awful for there to have been this muddle. How terrible it would be when they found the right boy, the other Ed Hartley in some other school far, far away, whose parents really had been killed when a lorry knocked their car across the central reservation, right through a barrier so that it rolled down a steep bank.

  Three somersaults of the car and then a burst of flames. The head teacher didn’t tell him that. He read that later in the papers, when it turned out it wasn’t a mistake. He was the Ed Hartley, waking from his dreams to see the car burst into flames in front of his eyes.

  And now, here he was in Canada, all alone and once again awaiting news.

  He was sitting in another smart office, again feeling small and strangely detached, wondering when someone was going to announce there had been a terrible mistake and it was another Ed Hartley this was all happening to.

  After that first awful night when she couldn’t recognise him, Laura moved back in with her parents, and for a time Ed was convinced her illness would be a temporary thing – that some strange infection would be discovered that would explain the delirium. The delusions. A week on antibiotics and everything would be OK. Surely?

  And now, many weeks on, they still had no diagnosis – here in this fancy private hospital. With the fancy private specialist.

  ‘So you haven’t even tried antibiotics?’ Ed repeated – irritated now by his fancy, bright orange chair which exactly matched the ‘accent splash’ in the blue and orange curtains.

  Laura was one for ‘accents’. A lime cushion here. A citrus throw there . . .

  ‘There’s no infection,’ the consultant repeated. ‘We’ve run every possible test.’

  Ed glanced once more around the room. He wished they were back in the UK with the nice, reliable NHS. He liked the NHS. He knew where he was with the NHS with its tired look and its practical furniture. OK, it was horribly underfunded and it didn’t have coordinated decor with fancy accents, but his experience across the few dramas of his lifetime – appendicitis and a broken leg – had been good. The staff brilliant.

  He was still struggling to understand the Canadian health-care system. When he agreed to move to Toronto with Laura, the deal was they’d give it a year. He understood why she wanted to be near her parents, and having no real family left himself (Aunt Cathy lost interest and contact once he passed eighteen) it made absolute sense. Laura’s family were welcoming and kind. Also doing well commercially. The job offer from her father was difficult to resist.

  But right from the off, Ed had worried about the unfamiliar health care. He had wrongly assumed that Canada had an insurance-based system like America; that everything would be horribly expensive. One night he had a row with Laura in England. What if I have a road accident? We could be bankrupt . . .

  She had smoothed his forehead and smiled, just as she did when he woke from the dreams in the middle of the night with the car bouncing down the embankment. She explained that Canada’s health care was free, just like the NHS – funded through taxes. You had to pay for prescriptions and top-up services but that was nearly always covered by employment insurance.

  So there is insurance?
>
  Not like America, Ed. It’s fine. It will be fine.

  And now it wasn’t fine because Laura’s condition ventured into the terribly tricky territory of mental-health services and they were sadly as complex, funding wise, in Canada as anywhere else in the world.

  This private care and specialist appointment was being paid for by Laura’s father to speed things up. But Ed was conscious that private bills could very quickly become very large indeed, unless Laura could be properly diagnosed. And swiftly treated and cured.

  She’d been referred by her own doctor who’d almost sounded excited when he said he had never come across anything quite like it. It was distressing but also a fascinating case.

  Ed glanced again at the blue-and-orange curtains. Fascinating was not a word he would use.

  There had been so many appointments already. He’d been asked a million times if Laura had suffered a head injury. Any unusual behaviour before this episode?

  Over and over he told them the truth. No. He was as baffled as they were. Laura had been fine. And then suddenly she hadn’t recognised him. It was just like his childhood. Playing tennis one minute. Orphan the next.

  At first when Laura moved back in with her parents, she was calm and for the most part behaving normally in every aspect of life, unless and until anyone referred to Ed. Her parents had managed to convince her that she should stop thinking about him. That the episode that had so upset her would pass. She just needed to rest and very soon would see that Ed really was Ed and all would be well.

  But this strategy collapsed whenever they tried to reintroduce Ed. They arranged low-key visits from Ed, pretending he had just ‘popped by’. But however casual the approach, the episodes never stayed low key; they always ended in a meltdown. She would start screaming at her parents, demanding to know why they were not searching for her real husband. Why the imposter Ed was not in police custody.

  This consultant – Mr Price – had himself arranged to observe one of these ‘meetings’ in the more-controlled environment of the hospital. They used a visitors’ room painted green for its calming effect and dotted with huge pot plants in terracotta planters. Ed had strangely felt quite hopeful as he was led into the room to see Laura and her mother. Maybe a change of environment would help?