Little Face

by Sophie Hannah

  (Written 5/10/03, 4 am)

  2/10/03, 11.15 am

  Area: Chompers Café Bar at Waterfront Health Club, 27 Saltney Road, Spilling. I arrived fifteen minutes late and met Alice Fancourt (see index) who was already there. She was standing by the bar when I arrived, with her hand on the pay-phone. I asked her if she wanted to make a call and she said she had been about to telephone me on my mobile phone, to see if I was on my way.

  We sat down at a table. We did not order drinks. Mrs Fancourt looked tired. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. She was not crying when I arrived, but as soon as she saw me approaching she began to cry. She told me, in a tone of voice that struck me as hysterical, that I needed to get a team of police officers ‘out there, right now’ to look for her daughter, and that every day I failed to do this made it less likely that Florence (see index) would be found safe and well.

  I told Mrs Fancourt that it was not within my power to authorise such activity, but she ignored this and said, ‘There must be something you can do, you’re the officer in charge of the case. I can’t believe you’re not helping me when you easily could.’

  I asked her about the theft of her mobile phone to which she had referred at our previous meeting (see index). She said the phone had not been stolen. She had misplaced it and her mother-in-law (see index) had found it. I asked her why, in that case, had she been about to use a pay-phone, and she said that she had left her mobile phone in the house. She said she had hidden it, so that it could not be stolen again. When she said this, she had apparently forgotten that, a few moments earlier, she had told me no-one had stolen her phone but that she had misplaced it. I brought up this inconsistency and she became defensive. She said she did not want to discuss this any further.

  I then asked her if her husband David Fancourt (see index) was mistreating her in any way. She looked distressed but refused to confirm or deny. My impression was that she was either afraid or embarrassed to answer my question.

  Still crying, Mrs Fancourt asked me if I believed an entire family could be jinxed. I replied that I did not. She told me that the Fancourt family has a history of ‘severed’ (as she put it) parent-child relationships. She listed the following (see index for all): Richard Fancourt abandoning David Fancourt when he was a child, Laura Cryer and Felix Fancourt (separated by Cryer’s death), and now, she claimed, herself and her daughter Florence were apart.

  She expressed the view that the whole Fancourt family was cursed. She said that she was doomed from the day she married into the Fancourt family, and she further claimed that she had been specifically selected for this unhappy fate because her own parents had died in a car crash.

  I asked her by whom had she been selected in the manner she had described, and she replied, ‘God, destiny, whatever you want to call it’. I told her that in my opinion this was superstitious and had no basis in fact.

  Mrs Fancourt went on to tell me that she had another theory about what might have happened to Florence, or, as she put it, ‘an avenue of investigation you could pursue, if you can be bothered, that is.’ She said that perhaps David Fancourt had a mistress, whom he had impregnated at roughly the same time that he had impregnated Mrs Fancourt. She suggested that he and his mistress might have swapped the two babies, and that Florence might be in the house of David Fancourt’s mistress at the moment. She argued that this would explain why no baby/babies had been reported missing.

  I asked her why Mr Fancourt should wish to do this. She said that perhaps he and his mistress wanted her (Alice Fancourt) out of the way so that they could live happily ever after with the two babies, but that David knew that if he divorced his wife, she would probably get custody of Florence, which would be intolerable to him, hawing previously lost custody of his son Felix to his first wife Laura.

  Her theory, she said, was that David and his mistress decided instead to swap the babies, make everybody believe that she, Alice Fancourt, had gone mad, and then either get custody on grounds of madness and/or her rejection of the baby, or, ‘worst case scenario’, as Mrs Fancourt put it, the plan might have been to murder her and make it look like suicide, which would be plausible if everybody had previously been made to believe that she was suffering from post-natal hysteria.

  I told Mrs Fancourt that this hypothesis was extremely unlikely and had no evidential basis. She shrugged and said, ‘It’s the only thing I can think of.’ She added that what had happened was so out of the ordinary that the true explanation was bound to be an unlikely one, rather than the sort of thing that happens every day. I reminded her that she had previously believed that a woman who had been on the same labour ward as her might have swapped her own baby with Florence Fancourt because she feared her boyfriend might harm her child and wanted to give her a better chance in life.

  I told Mrs Fancourt that I would pass on both theories to Sergeant Zailer, who could then decide whether or not she wished to take it further, but I said that I thought this would be most unlikely. I added that it would be an improbable coincidence for Mr Fancourt to have impregnated two women who then gave birth at almost exactly the same time. I also said that Mr Fancourt would never imagine he could get away with such a plan, not with DNA tests as readily available as they are today.

  Mrs Fancourt told me she had found a letter the previous day, addressed to her husband. The letter was from his father, Richard, and informed David Fancourt that Richard’s new wife was expecting a baby, a half-brother or sister for David Fancourt. Mrs Fancourt asked me what I thought about the fact that her husband has a sibling he has never told her, his own wife, about. ‘And he’s the one you and your sergeant believe over me,’ she said, in a tone that I took to convey anger.

  She was very concerned by the fact that she had not noticed whether the letter was dated. ‘What if Little Face is Richard’s child, David’s half-sister?’ she said. ‘I’m sure he said the baby was due in September. Florence was born on the twelfth of September! You have to do something!’

  I tried to explain that the case was closed as far as the police were concerned, and that the best thing for Mrs Fancourt to do was wait for the results of the DNA test. I told her that in my opinion it was rash to assume that the baby at The Elms was Richard Fancourt’s child; there was no proof to indicate this was the case. ‘It would explain why David’s so kind to Little Face, so bothered about her, if she’s his sister’, said Mrs Fancourt. I repeated that there was no reason to assume this, and reminded Mrs Fancourt that only minutes ago she had attempted to persuade me that the baby at The Elms was the child of her husband and his mistress. Mrs Fancourt became angry and said, ‘I can’t win, can I?’

  During the interview, Mrs Fancourt’s manner towards me was intermittently hostile, pleading and apathetic. I made a mental note to mention my concern for her welfare to Sergeant Zailer, with a view perhaps to contacting Mrs Fancourt’s GP.

  27

  Thursday October 2, 2003

  Vivienne, David and Little Face are in the garden when I return from my meeting with Simon. It is a chilly, bright day, and their faces are patched with light and shade, the effect of the sun shining through the leaves of the trees overhead. They remain perfectly still as I approach, like three figures in a landscape painting, only ever seen at a distance.

  Little Face is in her pram, wrapped in blankets, wearing a yellow woolly hat. I cannot help remembering the day the three of us bought the pram. It was the day after I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t want to do anything to tempt fate, but Vivienne insisted we needed to celebrate, so we went to the Mamas and Papas superstore in Rawndesley and spent hours examining pushchairs, prams and travel systems. We were happy then, all of us. Vivienne even allowed David to tease her a little when she insisted that a straightforward old-fashioned pram was the only kind worth considering.

  ‘It’s not like you to go for the traditional option, Mum,’ he said, and Vivienne smiled. Normally she objects to all teasing, claiming that it is disrespect under another name.

  ‘Wh
ere have you been?’ Vivienne’s hands grip the handles of the pram we eventually chose. As usual, she got her way. ‘Why didn’t you say you were going out?’

  ‘Just for a drive,’ I say, avoiding David’s eye, pretending he is dead. Fleetingly, I wish that this were the case. I don’t think I will ever get over the indignities he has inflicted upon me, not as long as I know that they exist in his mind as well as in mine.

  Vivienne looks dissatisfied. She doesn’t believe me. ‘I was about to take the baby for a walk round the gardens. Would you like to come?’

  ‘Oh . . . yes, please.’ I am thrilled. The grounds of The Elms are vast. I will be able to spend at least half an hour with Little Face, perhaps more.

  ‘Would you like to push the pram?’ Vivienne asks.

  ‘I’d love to! Thank you.’ I look at David. He is furious. I resist the temptation to smile at him. I am shocked to acknowledge that there is now a small part of me – one that didn’t exist until this morning – that relishes his suffering.

  ‘David will take your handbag inside,’ says Vivienne.

  I unhook the bag from my shoulder. David snatches it from me roughly and retreats indoors.

  ‘Come along then.’ Vivienne lets go of the pram and allows me to steer it. My heart nearly bursts as I push Little Face across the grass. I am performing an action that every mother takes for granted, and it makes me want to weep with joy. ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Vivienne. ‘You look upset.’

  ‘I was just thinking . . . this is so nice, but . . . much as I’m fond of Little Face, I wish I was pushing my own baby.’ I wipe away a tear. Vivienne turns away, and I have the sense that she wishes she hadn’t asked.

  We walk along the side of the old barn towards the vegetable garden. ‘You didn’t mind about the handbag, did you? You don’t really need the encumbrance, I wouldn’t have thought.’

  I am surprised. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Not to walk round the garden.’

  ‘It’s not as if you’re going to need any money for the foreseeable future, is it? Or your diary or anything. Not while you’re recuperating. You need to get a lot of rest, give yourself the best possible chance of a full recovery. Are your car keys in your bag?’

  I nod as a new dread takes hold of me.

  ‘Right. Well, I think I’ll hold on to it for the time being. I’ll put it on the kitchen counter where you can see it, but . . . you’re not well enough to be out and about on your own at the moment.’

  ‘You’re treating me like a child,’ I whisper.

  ‘I hope I am, in the best possible sense,’ she says. ‘Why are you so protective of your things? I noticed while you were pregnant that you’d taken to walking round the house clutching your possessions, like a commuter on a train who’s afraid of being robbed.’

  Did Vivienne perceive me as paranoid when I was pregnant, then? It’s true, I did often walk around with a notebook and pen in my hand, or my bag, or whatever novel or pregnancy manual I was reading at the time, but only because I wanted to have certain things within easy reach in case I needed them later. The Elms is such a big house, and I was so heavy and uncomfortable towards the end of my pregnancy, I did everything I could to minimise the amount of walking back and forth I had to do.

  I know I shouldn’t argue. It is so nearly Friday. Friday begins on Thursday night, at midnight. We walk across the paddock towards the river. I lean over to stroke Little Face’s soft cheek. I cannot stop myself from saying, petulantly, ‘I want to keep my handbag, and my car keys. I don’t want them to live in the kitchen.’

  Vivienne sighs. ‘Alice, I wish I didn’t have to bring this up . . .’

  ‘What?’ I ask, alarmed. Is there anything else she and David can take away from me? I have nothing left, apart from David’s stupid Dictaphone which is still in my trouser pocket. I have forgotten it until this moment.

  ‘When I arrived home yesterday, I found the upstairs bathroom in what I can only describe as an unacceptable state.’ My face heats up as I remember the morning’s events, but at the same time I have no idea what she is talking about. I scrubbed that bath on my knees, until it gleamed. ‘I can see that you know what I’m referring to,’ says Vivienne.

  ‘No. No, I . . .’

  She raises a hand to stop me. ‘I do not wish to go into the matter in any more detail, I assure you. I’ve made my point.’

  My head swims with disbelief and I feel my perceptions, my whole view of the world, tilt yet again. An urge to be violent seizes me, and I clutch the pram until my knuckles turn white. I do not want to imagine what Vivienne might mean, to reach the obvious conclusion. How could David stoop so low? ‘When I left the bathroom, it was clean,’ I whisper, mortified.

  ‘Alice, we both know that’s simply not true,’ says Vivienne patiently, and for a moment I wonder whether I might really be going mad. ‘You’re clearly more unwell than I thought. You have to admit, you really don’t know what you’re doing at the moment. You can’t seem to control yourself.’

  I swallow and nod, my head reeling. If I agree that I am ill, she will trust me. She wants me to be ill.

  ‘I also found your mobile phone in the bathroom cupboard, under all the towels. Were you trying to hide it?’

  ‘No,’ I whisper.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ says Vivienne. ‘Alice, you’ve got to face facts. You’re sick. You’re suffering from an extreme case of post-natal depression.’ She pats me on the shoulder. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all need to be looked after once in a while. And you’re luckier than most people. You’ve got me to look after you.’

  28

  9/10/03, 12 pm

  Charlie and Simon sat side by side on a large green sofa that was covered in milky white and beige stains. They were in the home of Maunagh and Richard Rae, Richard Fancourt as was. The house was a three-storey semi-detached on a wide, tree-lined road in Gillingham, Kent. The drive down from Spilling had been awkward, the conversation stilted and polite, but at least Charlie had not been actively hostile.

  Opposite Simon, in an armchair that had a dark, greasy, head-shaped patch in the middle of its back-rest, sat a young boy wearing a maroon school uniform jumper and black trousers. He had messy, sand-coloured hair, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand, and an institutional smell about him that reminded Simon of Gorse Hill, the comprehensive school he had attended in the seventies and eighties.

  ‘Mum and Dad won’t be a minute,’ said Oliver Rae, whose own school was closed for the afternoon because the central heating had broken down. Simon watched him chew the thick, flecked bread, which looked unappetisingly wholesome. David Fancourt’s half-sibling. About thirteen, Simon guessed. Definitely not a baby girl. Not Little Face, as Alice had claimed in desperation.

  The lounge door, which did not fit properly in its frame, creaked open, and a large black labrador ran in, barking furiously, plunging its nose straight into Simon’s crotch. ‘Down, Moriarty! Down, boy!’ Oliver shouted. The dog reluctantly obeyed. Maunagh Rae came into the room in a cloud of strong musky perfume. She was a plump woman with straight silver hair cut into a long bob, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Simon could see the resemblance to Oliver. She wore a purple roll-neck sweater, black trousers and court shoes, and small, discreet gold and pearl earrings. A woman of taste, his mother might have called her.

  Her smart appearance was a surprise. From the state of the house, he had expected somebody more dishevelled. He was used to seeing houses in worse states of disrepair than this one, but they weren’t usually quite so big. They tended to be council-owned and to contain crack heads, dealers, benefit cheats. And much skinnier dogs that were not called Moriarty.

  The lounge, where they were sitting, had two large street-facing windows, the tops of which were stained glass. Their frames were rotten. Every time there was a breeze, the panes rattled. The carpet was thin and shiny, more like a maroon sheen on the floor. Yet the six paintings, asymmetrically arranged on the walls, all appeared to be originals, s
o the Raes must have had a bit of money to play with. Simon couldn’t imagine why they’d chosen to spend it on huge canvases spattered with coloury blobs. He surmised that Maunagh or Richard must have a friend who was a struggling artist, and they’d bought all this crap from him out of sympathy. All four corners where the walls met the ceiling were blackened, as if they had been singed by flames.

  ‘I gather it took you a while to track Richard down,’ said Maunagh.

  ‘Because he’d changed his name,’ said Charlie. Colin Sellers, when he’d eventually located David Fancourt’s father, had been loudly scathing about men who adopted their wives’ surnames after marriage. Charlie had called him a Neanderthal brute, but privately Simon agreed. Traditions were traditions.

  ‘More and more men are doing it,’ said Maunagh, as if she sensed some disapproval and felt the need to defend herself.

  A small, shambling garden gnome of a man with hunched shoulders and a white beard entered the room. His grey cardigan was buttoned incorrectly and his shoelaces were undone. The state of the house immediately made more sense. Richard Rae hurried over to shake hands with Charlie and Simon. As he clutched each of their hands in turn, he rocked back and forth, nearly head-butting Charlie at one point. ‘Richard Rae,’ he said. ‘It’s good of you to come all this way. As I said on the phone, I’m not sure I can help you.’

  ‘Have you seen or heard from Alice Fancourt at all since last Thursday?’ asked Charlie. Simon had heard her ask him the same question over the phone. This trip to Kent was probably pointless.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you been contacted by anybody out of the ordinary? Can you think of anything that has happened in the past few weeks, something that seemed odd at the time, somebody hanging round outside the house?’

  The three Raes all shook their heads. ‘No,’ said Richard. ‘Nothing. As I said, I never met Alice. I didn’t know David had married again.’