Little Disasters

by Sarah Vaughan

  But DC Rustin is in no rush. She doesn’t like Jess: that’s pretty evident, and it feels as if she is relishing this power she has over her.

  ‘In a minute. We just need to clarify a further couple of things.’

  ED

  Saturday 20 January, 3 p.m.

  Seven

  The police officers move swiftly and efficiently, the kitchen no longer the hub of Ed’s home but an area that must be photographed. He swallows, remembering a recent TV drama. They’re behaving as if it’s a crime scene.

  Jess has gone to bed. He’d insisted. Had told her quite firmly that she was no help to him or the children, if she continued to watch the detectives with such fear, her desperation to be rid of them plastered across her face.

  He didn’t add that she risked incriminating herself. But he felt it acutely. She’s been unpredictable, lately. Overemotional. Increasingly prone to becoming upset at the slightest thing. It hadn’t occurred to him that she wasn’t managing to hold things together, until very recently.

  He turns his back on the scenes of crime officer. He can’t face watching him; feels exposed as if both he and the detectives view him with suspicion. All this could have been prevented if he’d taken Betsey to the hospital himself. This police interest must have been caused by some inaccuracy, some glitch in Jess’s explanation, and he would have smoothed away any wrinkle and stopped things progressing this far. She has never liked explaining herself. Perhaps she’d not been sufficiently clear in her explanation, not understood the magnitude of what was going on?

  He risks glancing at the scenes of crime officer, conscious that any reaction might be noted, then runs a glass of water, welcoming the cool liquid coating his dry lips. He should have gone in. He was the one who noticed Betsey’s distress. The way she’d turned from him, twisting her neck, flinching from his touch; her teariness when she’d seen him – because she was usually so sunny, at least with him, a bone of contention with Jess. And then there was the vomit, the smell of which, he realises now, had partly drawn him into the nursery.

  He feels ill at the memory. He’d never found any of his children like that before. A trail of sick spooling from her mouth and pooling on the cot mattress; her eyes gleaming with tears. Thank God he had checked on her. He wouldn’t normally have after a night out and, though he was home by ten, it had felt like a heavy session – a few beers drunk fast at the end of an exhausting week in a desire to delay facing Jess, and perhaps try to kid himself he wasn’t just a parent and the breadwinner; to pretend he was still the right side of forty.

  It was Jess’s job to deal with the kids but she was in bed for some reason and he could hear Betsey crying. A sporadic whimper, more like a bleating lamb. He wasn’t really into babies. Far preferred children when they were properly mobile and you could kick a ball around with them – Kit was the perfect age; even Frankie, who could be hard work, had his moments – but still, this insistent demand for attention had wrenched at his heart strings. Humans are clever, he thought, as he pushed open the door to the nursery, which was closed for some reason. This cry was of just the right pitch and timbre to ensure a baby survived.

  ‘What’s up, Bets?’ He had crept into her room, less steady than usual, and peered into her cot, anticipating an end to the crying and a gummy smile. But she didn’t give her usual response and, instead, her big blue eyes filled with tears. Her bottom lip wobbled and a cry – more half-hearted now that she’d caught his attention, but still anguished – burst out. He snatched her up as the source of the smell hit him and he finally registered the reason for her distress.

  He hadn’t taken her to the hospital because he clearly wasn’t sober and he knew that he must reek of alcohol. But it was also because on some level he assumed that Betsey would want her mum. The children were very much Jess’s domain. That was one drawback of having a baby at forty-two: a baby he hardly knew; that he’d never even bathed, for God’s sake. As his career had become more demanding, so the family had run along increasingly traditional gender lines. His job was to bring in the money; Jess’s, the children and home.

  But now this has happened. A scenes of crime officer is photographing the corner of the fridge for any sign of a baby banging against it and recording the state of the floor: unnaturally shiny, as if cleaned with some sort of slippery spray. He will have to be interviewed, DC Rustin, the rather dry, unsmiling officer, has said: she and a DC Farron will do that; will video it, too, he discovers later, and then require a written witness statement. And she, and a social worker, a Lucy Stone, will have to talk to Frankie and Kit.

  He scrubs at his face, as if to erase the tension of the last twelve hours. A throbbing headache clamps his temples and he is aware of his lack of sleep: three hours at most, something he can cope with if work demands it but here there’s no deadline, no sense that this is finite and eventually he’ll be able to relax. He needs to get a grip. This nagging anxiety isn’t something he – usually so calm, so ordered and in control – has previously experienced. But then he has never had police officers in his home before.

  All he wants to do is to go and see Betsey. His last memory is of her with her face scrunched up and tearful, her breath sour, her little body twisting from him; resisting all attempts to be comforted and held. He hadn’t noticed that there was a bump to the back of her head. Had been too preoccupied with trying to get the Grobag and Babygro off her and with trying, ineptly, to clean her up. He wants to reassure himself that Betsey is as he always thinks of her: frequently beaming, always sunny, her face breaking into a smile when she sees him. Christ. He needs to get real: she’s in hospital with a skull fracture, for God’s sake.

  He starts to shake. It surprises him, the depth of this need to see her: to check for himself if she’s getting better, or at least that she’s not getting worse. He has always been relaxed when the children have been ill; has never felt anxious when they’ve had high temperatures. He supposes Jess has always just dealt with it. But now? This is different. His baby is lying alone in hospital with a head injury no one seems able to explain.

  He needs to check that Jess’s assessment of her condition is accurate – and he needs to talk to Liz. He’s always liked her and she’ll give him a straight answer, won’t she? A quick word in her ear and perhaps she’ll manage to stop this nightmare that’s been set in motion: will reassure the police and social services that this is a run-of-the-mill accident and everyone is overreacting. Why didn’t Liz curb this at the start? She knows Jess, knows how much she adores the kids. Jess said that the consultant seemed suspicious but Liz is no pushover: Ed’s always liked her for seeming so assured of her opinion, for holding her own in discussions. She would have argued ferociously against her boss, he knows that: so why wasn’t this consultant convinced?

  He tries Liz’s mobile again, almost jabbing at the redial. Nothing. He’s already left a message; can’t harass the poor woman. He’s rung her landline, too. He tries one last time; redials the number; hangs on, and on.

  The scenes of crime officer is still snapping away. He seems particularly interested in the layout of the kitchen, photographing the units where Jess apparently told them she made the smoothie and the kitchen table where Frankie drank it; measuring the distance from both to the fridge. Ed watches, every part of him wanting to tell the man to leave the room. For his suspicion not to contaminate the space.

  Instead, he busies himself with ensuring the boys are occupied: Kit playing Fortnite on the Xbox, Frankie plugged into his addiction, Minecraft, settled on separate sofas in the snug. Two bent heads; one a tousled blond, the other, a silky dark brown. Two very different pairs of legs, too: Frank’s, jack-knifing in dark skinny jeans; Kit’s, lolling and muscular in football shorts. You wouldn’t know they were brothers. Kit, so clearly his boy; and Frankie – the child he doesn’t understand properly; that he doesn’t know how to handle. Two boys, dissimilar not just in looks but in temperament.

  He has already told them that Betsey is in hospital
and will remain there for the day; that Jess is in bed, and he will tell them what’s happening later.

  ‘You mean when the police have gone?’ Kit, a child who never usually makes a fuss, who accepts explanations without rancour, had looked at him, a look of trust on his open face.

  ‘Yes. But there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, understand?’ He gave him a look. The one that said, I’m not discussing this, I’m the adult and you need to accept it. Kit nodded, and went back to the screen. Frankie, predictably, started to kick off – ‘But why can’t I be with Mummy? I want to be with Mummy . . .’ His voice soared, high-pitched, and Ed gave him a different sort of look. He can’t handle Frank’s tendency to dramatise, at the moment – though, for once it was merited. ‘Mummy was at the hospital all night. She needs to sleep,’ he told them, once again.

  ‘Can we ask you a few questions?’ DC Rustin approaches him now, with a thin smile.

  ‘Of course.’ He gestures her back to the kitchen and the dining table. Keep calm; keep focused. Above all, remain courteous. He thinks of the advice he would give Jess; that he wishes he could have given her yesterday if only she’d told him what was happening. Be open. Be helpful. Don’t give them any grounds for suspicion. We’ve done nothing wrong.

  ‘This is just a fact-finding exercise at the moment. A chat to try and find out what went on here,’ the detective begins but he isn’t fooled. He cringes at her ‘at the moment’ with its implicit threat of a more formal interview, under caution, later; winces too as she explains about the Body Worn camera, used to record exactly what he says. ‘We’re just trying to find out who was in the house when Betsey was injured,’ she goes on. ‘Were you here yesterday afternoon from about four?’

  ‘No. I was at work. I was there until around six p.m. and then I went for a couple of drinks with some colleagues. I can give you their names if you like and the bar we drank in?’ He provides both, conscious that it sounds as if he’s providing an alibi. ‘I didn’t get home until around ten.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘I came in and Jess appeared to be in bed. Both the boys were in their rooms – I assumed they were sleeping – but Betsey was crying, whimpering, really. So I went and looked in.’

  ‘And how did you find her?’

  ‘Fractious, teary, and she’d been sick on her mattress. I picked her up and tried to comfort her but she was clearly uncomfortable. She strained against me; twisted her head. I suppose I’m more cack-handed than Jess, less used to getting her to stop crying.’ He pauses. ‘I couldn’t stop her crying.’

  ‘Was this unusual for her?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Have you ever found her like this before?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘Just to be clear: you’d never found her sick in her cot?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what about her crying like this. Was that usual?’

  He thinks, conscious that he’s not around for the majority of the day; aware too that he does not want to say anything that might raise suspicions. In the end, he decides to be honest.

  ‘She does cry – like any baby – but this was different. I couldn’t settle her; couldn’t stop her, as I said.’

  The band around his head tightens as he remembers his shame, his sense of impotence, at being unable to do this. Why hadn’t he snapped on the nursery light? He supposes he didn’t want to shock her with its brightness: Jess was obsessed with blackout blinds and with not making the children wired. Instead, he’d pushed the door open so that the landing light splayed into the room. She had craned away and that had shaken him. Wasn’t straining from the light a sign of meningitis? Jess hadn’t had her inoculated, something he’d been livid about but which, as with all domestic things, he hadn’t thought to organise. He had put her down in the cot to wrestle off the sodden Grobag and see if there was a rash on her stomach. She’d screamed and writhed, furious at his manhandling – or in pain, he now realises. He’d been out of his depth and had bounded up the stairs to Jess.

  ‘And your wife? Where was she while this was going on?’ DC Rustin says.

  ‘In bed.’

  ‘Asleep?’

  ‘No. But I think she had been. She was coming round. Was dozy. She’d had a long day.’

  ‘Could she hear the crying in your room?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Could you hear it up there?’ DC Rustin tries again.

  He pauses. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How loud was it?’

  ‘It was the sound of a baby crying. It was . . . insistent when I was there, but I don’t know how loud it was before. I imagine it was gentler and more sporadic, as it was when I came into the house.’

  ‘Did you ask your wife why she hadn’t gone down?’

  ‘No.’

  DC Rustin tilts her head to one side.

  ‘Did you wonder why she hadn’t done so?’

  ‘Not really.’

  The detective taps a biro three times on a pad of paper: a dull, rhythmic knocking. The sound of her palpable disbelief.

  ‘I was more concerned with getting Betsey to hospital,’ Ed says.

  ‘You were sufficiently concerned at this stage?’

  ‘I was worried about her straining from the light, and the fact she’d been sick. I was worried it might be meningitis.’

  ‘And did your wife agree she was sufficiently poorly to be taken in?’

  ‘Yes – when I told her about her reaction to the light. Of course she agreed she should go to hospital.’

  ‘Did she mention that Betsey had banged her head?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. We were just preoccupied with how she was at the time.’

  ‘Would that have made you worry more if she had?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ He’s not sure what they’re getting at and so how to answer. ‘But it wasn’t an issue because she didn’t mention it.’

  ‘And did she go to the hospital straight away?’

  ‘Yes. As soon as she got herself ready.’

  ‘How long did that take?’

  ‘Five minutes at most.’ He feels a frisson of irritation. There’s no way he is going to tell them of his frustration as Jess brushed her hair. He had gone and put Betsey into a fresh Babygro, found her changing bag, fumbled in her drawers for clothing and nappies, not quite sure if he’d assembled everything; embarrassed by how little he knew of the minutiae of his daughter’s life.

  Jess was jittery when she came down, her eyes bright, her expression cagey. He’d assumed his unease was contagious: she’d been dismissive, and sharp. ‘Can you pass me her bag?’ she had asked as she had taken Betsey from him, her screams ragged now, the poor child utterly exhausted. He was left feeling not just inadequate but disturbed.

  And as DC Rustin’s questions continue, with DC Farron chipping in, this sensation grows and hardens, until his doubts, barely acknowledged when she told him the police were coming, begin to multiply. Why had Jess buried herself under the duvet, ignoring Betsey’s cries? Why the inexplicable delay as she prepared to go to the hospital, not sharing his sense of urgency until he had shouted at her in frustration and threatened to call a cab to take Betsey himself? Why had she argued against going to the hospital in the first place? Because he wasn’t frank with DC Rustin: Jess had taken quite some persuading; had insisted that Bets must just have a virus and initially accused him of overreacting. And he was thrown because, apart from her aversion to vaccinations, she is so vigilant about the children’s health. The amount she spends on organic food and herbal supplements, her obsession with the house being hygienically clean, her reluctance to leave the children with other people, all indicate how seriously she takes being their mother. A role she pursues diligently, determined to compensate for not having one who was particularly maternal herself.

  Jess adores their children, he has no doubt about this, even if she hasn’t appeared to enjoy motherhood – or to be as engaged with it – since Betsey’s birth. Recen
tly he has itched to tell her that loving them is enough. That the perfectionism that drives the way in which she feeds and clothes their kids is unnecessary; that her care – attentive, thoughtful – is sufficient. But it’s not in Jess’s nature to do anything by halves, and, until Thursday at least, he had been wary of broaching the subject. He hadn’t even thought it through properly; had just inched towards this realisation. Then he tried to raise it and made everything so much worse.

  He is struggling to find the words now. To balance the truth with his need to protect Jess from this dour detective, because something here doesn’t quite fit.

  The truth chafes against the version of events he offers up, not out of a desire to mislead – because he is not stupid; he knows you’re not supposed to lie to the police – but because his instinct is to shield his wife, whom he loves even if he no longer seems to understand her.

  But he is not entirely honest, and the truth is hidden in the things he leaves unsaid.

  LIZ

  Saturday 20 January, 10 a.m.

  Eight

  I close my front door gently behind me and wait in the hall, savouring the moment.

  I’ve never felt more grateful to be home.

  The radiator hiccups heat. Nick thinks it’s mad, my obsession with keeping our house warm. Brought up in an Edwardian house, he sees draughts as inevitable. But if you’ve never taken being warm for granted, then you crave it. It’s one of our basic needs, followed by safety and security. Then comes love. Well, at least I had my brother Mattie for that.

  I shrug off my coat and move through the hall towards the kitchen and Nick, who I met in my first year of university, and who, with his reassuringly ordinary background – two teacher parents who were kind to each other; one younger sister, who seemed to like me – made me realise I was lovable, after all.

  We met at the university swimming pool, and grew close manning a student telephone counselling service. That sounds hideously earnest but even then there was this shared desire to help. It took a while for me to trust him: why did he want to be with me? Wouldn’t he prefer someone from a background more like his? And then we did a sponsored hike in the Yorkshire Dales, during which he saw me at my worst: exhausted, tetchy, vomiting – I had a stomach bug I didn’t want to admit to – and he still seemed to want me. I remember him holding me after I’d retched all night, and parting the hair from my face with such tenderness I finally listened to what he was telling me. I love you, he whispered in that dank, sodden tent, as he shielded me from the waterlogged canvas, and it was a revelation that someone not only desired me – there’d been a couple of boyfriends before – but wanted to be with me unconditionally. We’ve been together ever since.