Little Face

by Sophie Hannah

  29/9/03, 2 pm

  Area: Chompers Café Bar at Waterfront Health Club, 27 Saltney Road, Spilling. 1400 hours: when I arrived, Alice Fancourt (see index) was already there, sitting at a table in the non-smoking part of the room. The conditions in Chompers were as follows: full, noisy, smoky, very warm. There was a lot of background noise of talking and laughing and loud pop music coming from speakers all round the room. On one side of the room, there was a children’s zone, full of toys, a paddling pool containing plastic balls, a small plastic climbing frame and a Wendy house. There were ten or so children, between the ages of approximately two and seven, playing in this section of the room.

  As I sat down, Mrs Fancourt said to me, ‘Look at the parents. They don’t even glance over to check they’re okay. Clearly none of them has ever seriously feared for the safety of their children.’ I pointed out that there was nothing to fear, and Mrs Fancourt replied, ‘I know. I just wish I could tell them how lucky they are.’ She seemed calm at first, but as she started to talk, she became more distressed. She said she had a favour to ask me. She wanted me to help her to track down her husband’s father (name unknown), about whom she has been told almost nothing except that he left the family home when David Fancourt was six and has not been in touch with his son since. I explained that I couldn’t do anything without the authorisation of my sergeant, and that Sergeant Zailer would definitely not allow me to track down David Fancourt’s father because there was no good reason to do so in relation to any of our active investigations.

  I asked her why she wanted to find her father-in-law and she said, ‘I want to ask him why he left, why he just abandoned his son. What sort of a father would do that? Why does nobody ever mention him? What if . . . ?’ She did not complete her question, even after I prompted her. She said, ‘I think, if I could speak to David’s father, it might help me to understand David better.’ She told me that her husband used to ‘idealise’ her and that now he has ‘demonised’ her. ‘Did you know that people who’ve had brutalised, abusive childhoods often do that? It’s a typical response,’ she said.

  Mrs Fancourt then told me that there was a woman on the labour ward at the same time as her whom she wished to contact. She said that the woman’s name was Mandy, but that she didn’t know any of her other details. She asked me if I could help her to find this woman. At first she appeared reluctant to tell me why she was interested in Mandy, but then she seemed to change her mind quite suddenly. She said that she had told Mandy where she lived, and that she had ‘seen in Mandy’s eyes’ that Mandy had recognised her description of The Elms (see index). She claimed that it would put her mind at rest if she could pay Mandy a visit and reassure herself that the baby in Mandy’s care was Mandy’s daughter and not her own.

  ‘Mandy had a horrible, aggressive boyfriend,’ Mrs Fancourt told me. ‘What if she was worried he’d harm their daughter, so she swapped her with Florence in order to protect her? I’ve been racking my brains and I can’t think of any other reason why someone might swap one baby for another.’ Mrs Fancourt became extremely panicky and tearful as she said this. ‘It would be my fault,’ she said. ‘I told Mandy where we lived.’

  I tried to calm Mrs Fancourt down, but she talked over me, telling me that, although she did not know the name of Mandy’s boyfriend, she could describe him. She began to do so, but I interrupted her and told her that I very much doubted Sergeant Zailer would allow me to follow any of this up. Mrs Fancourt ignored this remark and continued with her description. She said that Mandy’s boyfriend had brown hair but, she said, ‘There’s definitely a redhead somewhere in his family. Do you know what I mean? One of his parents is a redhead, I’m sure. He’s got that sort of ivory skin, with a yellow undertone.’

  Throughout the interview, Mrs Fancourt talked in this manic, determined and peculiar way. She seemed to have difficulty focusing on one issue at a time, and kept veering from the subject of her husband’s father to the subject of Mandy’s boyfriend. I had the impression that she was irrationally preoccupied with both these, men. At one point she realised she didn’t have her mobile phone with her and got very upset, insisting that her husband had ‘confiscated’ it. I felt concerned about her emotional state and advised her to see a doctor.

  11

  Friday September 26, 2003

  I stand at the door of our bedroom. David is lying in bed. He doesn’t look at me. Every so often the hard, icy reality of our situation strikes me afresh, as if for the first time: the unbearable fear, the possibility that everything might not be all right in the end. It does so now. My body quakes, and I have to struggle to keep still.

  ‘Do you want me to sleep in another room?’ I ask.

  He shrugs. I wait. After ten seconds or so, when he sees that I am not going anywhere, he says, ‘No. Let’s not make things any more abnormal than they are already.’ It’s for Vivienne’s benefit. He is still hoping to present what has happened as a minor problem: ‘She’s just being silly, Mum, honestly. She’ll snap out of it.’ Neither of us wants to confront the worry and misery our news has caused her. At one time, I believed that as long as Vivienne was happy, I, as a member of her inner circle, would come to no harm. The flip side of that – a fear that if Vivienne is displeased the world will end – has proved harder to dispel.

  I am relieved that David does not want to banish me. Perhaps, when I get into bed, he will give me his usual goodnight kiss. I feel encouraged, enough to say, ‘David, it’s not too late. I know it’s hard to back down after what you’ve said, but you must want the police to find Florence. You must! And the only way is to tell them you know I’m right – then they’ll look for her.’ I try to keep my voice level, rational. David is afraid of excessive displays of emotion. I don’t want to push him further away.

  ‘I could say the same to you,’ he says tonelessly. ‘It’s not too late for you to abandon this ridiculous charade.’

  ‘You know it isn’t that. Please, David! What about the other mother, the mother of the baby in the nursery? What about her? She’ll be missing her daughter as much as I miss Florence. Don’t you care?’

  ‘The other mother?’ he says sarcastically. ‘Oh, her. No, I don’t give a shit about her. You know why? Because there is no other mother.’

  I think about Mandy from the hospital. How would her boyfriend treat her, in this situation? I only talked to her properly once. She told me she lived in a one-bedroom flat and didn’t know how they’d manage for space now that they had the baby. ‘You know what men are like when their sleep’s interrupted.’ She sighed. I felt awful when she asked me how I was fixed for space. I didn’t want to lie, and had to admit I lived in a big house, though I made it clear I wasn’t the owner.

  ‘David, do you remember Mandy, from the maternity ward?’ I touch his arm but he pulls it away. ‘I told her where we lived. She knew the house.’ My voice begins to tremble. ‘Well, she said she’d seen it, she knew what road it was on.’

  ‘I don’t know how you dare,’ he says quietly. ‘Yes, I remember Mandy. We felt sorry for her. What are you saying, that she’s stolen Florence?’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know how you have the nerve.’

  I see that it is too late. He tried to reason with me earlier this afternoon, but I locked myself in the bedroom and ignored him. This is one trauma too far for him. I have introduced panic and uncertainty into his life. I am the source of all his troubles, the bogeyman.

  David turns to face me. ‘Earlier today I thought you were mad, sick,’ he whispers, ‘but you’re not, are you? You’re as sane as I am.’

  ‘Yes!’ Tears flood my eyes. My shoulders sag with relief.

  ‘You’re just evil, then.’ He turns away, his face hard with animosity. ‘You’re a liar.’

  My brain is in revolt, unwilling to accept what it has just heard. How can he apply the word evil to me? He loves me, I know he does. He must. Even now, after the terrible things he’s said today, I cannot banish from my mind all the kind things he has done, all
his smiles, kisses and endearments. How can it be so easy for him to turn against me?

  ‘I’ll go and get changed,’ I say quietly, pulling out my nightie from under my pillow. David and I are not in the habit of undressing in front of one another. When we make love, it is always semi-clothed, in the darkness. I thought David’s modesty was unusual when we first got together. Then I told myself that it was sweet that he was so old-fashioned, that perhaps it was a class thing. I had never had a relationship with a properly well-bred person before. I didn’t know until David told me that milk had to go in a jug, butter in a special dish. In my parents’ house it had been normal for milk bottles to sit on the big, battered pine kitchen table, which was where we ate all our meals.

  David climbs out of bed. Before I have time to wonder what he is doing, he has slammed the door shut. He leans against it, saying nothing, staring at me blankly.

  ‘I was just going to go to the bathroom, to get ready for bed,’ I say again.

  He shakes his head, doesn’t move.

  ‘David, I need to go to the toilet,’ I am forced to say. I cannot physically remove him from my path. He is far stronger than I am.

  He looks at me, then at the nightie in my hand, then back at me, making it clear what he wants me to do. I see no way out, not with my bladder as full as it is. Counting to ten in my head, I begin to undress. I turn slightly to one side to obscure his view of my body, feeling as violated as if I’d been made to undress in front of a hostile stranger, but David makes a point of moving, craning his neck to make sure he can see everything. He smirks.

  I think I would have found a punch in the face preferable.

  Once I am in my nightie, I look at him again. I see triumph in the set of his features. He nods and stands aside, allowing me to leave the room. I have just enough time to lock the bathroom door and get to the toilet before I am sick. It is not fear that turns my stomach so much as shock. Whoever that cold, cruel presence in the bedroom is, it isn’t David. I do not recognise my own husband. This cannot be the same man who wrote, in the first birthday card he ever sent me, ‘You’re the measure of my dreams’. I later found out, by pure accident, that this line was a lyric from a song by The Pogues. David grinned when I told him I knew. ‘What, you didn’t expect me to write my own romantic lines, did you?’ he said. ‘I write computer software, Alice. I can sweep laptops off their feet, but not women. You’re better off in the capable hands of Shane McGowan, believe me.’ I laughed. He has always known how to make me laugh.

  I cannot believe that forcing me to strip in front of him is rational behaviour on David’s part. Something must have flipped in his brain, like when a fuse blows. He is terrible under pressure. People who don’t know how to talk about their feelings usually are.

  I can’t risk provoking him again, so I return to the bedroom and slide silently under the duvet. David is facing away from me, at the furthest edge of the mattress. I fall quickly into the worst sort of sleep, an agitated, jolting progress through unsettling dreams, like driving through hell at a hundred miles an hour. I see Florence, alone and crying, and I can’t go to her because I don’t know where she is. I see Laura, lying on the path between The Elms and the road, not yet dead, trying to pull the knife out of her chest.

  I hear rhythmic beating. Ticking. I sit up, confused, not sure if I’m awake or asleep. David’s side of the bed is empty. For a second I am frozen, terrified. I am the one who is alone, the one who has been stabbed, the one lying in the pitch black. Then realisation, appalling knowledge, floods my brain with a cold, choking dread. Florence. I want Florence. My lungs are full of something heavy, my breath squeezed into my throat. I am too miserable to cry.

  I look at the clock. Nearly five. I creep to the bedroom door and open it as quietly as I can. The nursery door is ajar, and a sliver of warm, yellow light has spilled on to the landing carpet. I can hear David’s voice, whispering, though I can’t make out what he’s saying. Resentment writhes inside me, threatening to burst out of my mouth and give me away. I should be in that room, not shivering on the landing like an intruder.

  But that’s wrong too. Nobody should be in the nursery, not yet. Florence should be asleep in her Moses basket by the side of my bed. That was what I wanted, but Vivienne objected, as usual, to ‘these modern ideas’. ‘A child should be in its own room in its own cot from the day it’s born,’ she said firmly. David agreed, so I gave in.

  I spent my whole pregnancy giving in. Every time David supported Vivienne, I swallowed my pride and hid the hurt I felt at being excluded from yet another important decision that involved my child. I told myself it was difficult for him to stand up to Vivienne; he’s such a devoted son. I have always thought this is a good thing. On the outside I must have looked like a model of obedience, while inside I burned with unspoken defiance. And in a strange sort of way, my passivity didn’t bother me because I knew it was only a temporary state. It always felt as if I was just resting, gathering my strength. Florence was my daughter, not Vivienne’s, and I would have my say when the time was right.

  Sometimes I catch myself feeling sorry for Vivienne, as if I’ve let her down by developing a mind of my own. Her interfering, controlling nature is precisely what I loved about her at first. I wanted her as a mother-in-law as much as I wanted David as a husband.

  Feeling as if my breath and my heartbeat are, between them, louder than a brass band, I tiptoe towards Florence’s room, stopping as soon as David’s words become audible. ‘Good girl,’ he says. ‘A whole four ounces. Just what a growing girl needs. Well done, little girl. Well done, Little Face.’ That name again. I hear a soft pocking noise, a goodnight kiss. ‘Now, a new nappy, I think.’ I note the ‘I’. Not ‘Daddy’, ‘I’. I must tell Simon Waterhouse all of this. I know it won’t count as evidence, but it might help to shape his opinion. David has been referring to himself in the third person as Daddy for the past two weeks. I run back along the landing, not caring if he hears me, and throw myself into bed. From some reservoir of despair deep inside me, I find more tears. The sound of that kiss has finished me.

  I want to kiss my daughter. I want to be able to hug and kiss my parents, but I never will again. I can’t stand it. I want them to tuck me up in bed and tell me that it was just a silly nightmare and everything will be okay in the morning.

  When I was a child, I had an elaborate bedtime ritual. First my dad would read me a story, then my mum would come upstairs and sing me some songs, usually three or four. However many she sang, I always asked for another one and she always gave in. ‘Bye-Bye Blackbird’, ‘Second-Hand Rose’, ‘The Sunny Side of the Street’ – I still know the words to all of them. After the songs, my dad would come back upstairs for the finale, a bedtime chat. This was my favourite part. He always let me choose what I wanted to chat about, and, once the topic for the evening was decided, I asked as many questions as I could think of, to keep him there for as long as possible.

  I must have been about four or five at the time. David was six when his dad left home. I don’t even know my father-in-law’s name, and I don’t know why I feel I can’t ask. All those nights I delayed my bedtime as a child, interrogating my dad. All the things I ask my patients, to try to work out the best way to treat them. It is in my nature to ask questions. Only David makes me feel I can’t. He reacts as if I am being rude or intrusive if he suspects me of trying to get to the bottom of some aspect of his character. ‘What is this, the third degree?’ he says. Or ‘Objection, Your Honour. Counsel is badgering the witness.’ Then he laughs and leaves the room, to make it clear that the conversation is over. I have attributed his defensiveness to past hurt and made allowances accordingly.

  This is a hard habit to break. Even tonight, I cannot help blaming myself for his behaviour. I have always led him to believe that I would do anything for him, and now he sees that is not true. I will not say that the baby in this house is Florence, even for him. I didn’t mean to let him down, but I have. Some situations are impossible to foresee.<
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  I hear a low, rumbling sound. A car engine. Vivienne and Felix. Was that what woke me? I climb out of bed and go over to the window. My hands search for the gold chain. None of the curtains in Vivienne’s house are ones that you can pull open easily. After some unsuccessful fumbling, I manage to tug the chain in the right direction and the curtains slide gracefully open. The headlights of Vivienne’s Mercedes stretch up the driveway, two long, white-gold bars of shining dust. There is a softer light on the wall of the old barn that casts a dim, orange glow over most of the area between the house and the road. This has been installed since Laura was killed. Before that you wouldn’t have been able to see a thing at this time of night.

  I wonder if the police know the exact hour – minute, even – that Laura was killed, whether they ever narrowed it down. When they interviewed me and David immediately after her murder, all they could tell us was that she’d been stabbed at some point between nine in the evening and the early hours of the following morning. I do not like to think of her dying in the pitch black. I only met Laura once. She disliked me. She died believing that I was a shallow, spineless fool.

  I reach for the chain that will close the curtains, not wanting Vivienne to see that I am awake. My heart pounds. Quick, quick. I am not ready for her yet. The curtains slide shut, leaving just a small gap. Peering through it, I see her. She does not look happy. She is wearing dark trousers with a crease in them and her black wool coat. She stares at the house dispassionately for several seconds, like a woman planning an onslaught of some kind, before extending a hand in Felix’s direction. He takes it, and together they march up the driveway, stiff-backed and purposeful, Vivienne pulling a large suitcase on wheels behind her. They do not speak as they walk. No two people have ever looked less like holiday-makers, returning from a fun time in Florida.