‘Where’s Dad today?’ she said. She had a nice accent – Northern, comforting, and I warmed to her immediately.
‘Oh, he couldn’t make it,’ I said, and I thought I caught a flicker of pity cross her features so I quickly followed this up with a lie: ‘He’s picking me up afterwards, though. We’re going out for a nice dinner to celebrate!’
‘Oh!’ she said, looking relieved and immediately perking up. ‘Lucky you, pet. That sounds great.’
I lay back, feeling much more comfortable as she bustled about with the paperwork.
‘All done!’ she said cheerily after a few minutes, ‘we’ll see you soon, Ms Harvey.’ On my way out, she handed me a pack of notes, all the information I’d need for my first twelve-week scan, and gave me a little pat on the shoulder. For some reason, her kindness had made me want to cry. I have fooled you, I thought to myself, I’ve fooled you into thinking I really am the person I want to be.
The ultimatum came that night, in my apartment. Callum wasn’t one for beating about the bush; he was a direct, to-the-point person, and when we first met it was one of the qualities I most admired about him. I’ve never been particularly decisive.
‘Caroline,’ he said, ‘I can’t stay with you if you keep this baby.’ He delivered the words with an earnest look in his eye, as though it was a fact rather than a decision over which he did of course have full control. His words stopped me in my tracks, made my heart sink like a stone.
He came closer to me, to where I was sitting on the sofa, a blanket over my knees, playing at being a normal mother-to-be, taking care of myself even though the pregnancy was in such fledgling, early stages.
‘You do understand,’ he said softly, ‘I can’t do it to Emma.’ He’d paused. ‘I know what I’m asking of you is hard,’ he told me, as if we were talking about a tricky crossword puzzle rather than a life-altering decision. For some reason, Jenny’s words floated into my head. Misogynist, noun: a person who dislikes, despises or is strongly prejudiced against women.
I’d stared at him, almost uncomprehending, and he’d sat down beside me, put a hand on my legs. I felt icy cold even though I had the blanket on, as though I’d been submerged in water.
‘I’ve got something to suggest to you,’ he carried on, ‘an offer, of sorts. To show you how much I care. How much this means to me.’
I could see his lips moving but I was already struggling to focus on what he was saying. Already my mind was spinning into a world of horrible imaginings – a world in which Callum left me alone in the flat, pregnant and unloved. A world in which I faced the humiliation that would bring, and the hardship of bringing up a child whose father refused to acknowledge its existence.
Suddenly, his face was right beside mine, his lips next to my ear. I could feel his breath, warm and sweet.
‘If you’ll do this for me, Caro, I’ll leave Siobhan. I mean it. We can be together, a proper couple. No more lying, no more sneaking around.’ He’d paused. ‘But I can’t give you a baby. I can’t do that to Emma. Another child – it would break her heart. She’d feel as though she was being replaced.’
I stared at him, not saying anything. Gently, he kissed the side of my face, trailed little kisses towards my lips.
‘Think about it,’ he whispered. ‘I know I’m asking a lot of you. But I’ll do it, I’ll leave Siobhan. If you’re prepared to be reasonable about the baby.’
He pulled back a little and smiled at me, his head tipped slightly to one side as if everything he was saying was reasonable, as though it would be the rational thing to do. My heart was thudding. For over a year, all I had wanted was for him to leave Siobhan – I had asked him to, I had even, one particularly sad night, begged him to. And now here he was, offering it to me on a plate.
‘I’d still want to see Emma,’ he carried on, ‘of course. But Siobhan and I could work something out.’ He shook his head. ‘They’d never forgive me for having another child, but this way… well, this way we could be happy. Really happy. Just the two of us.’ He kissed me again, this time on the lips. ‘Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, Caro? We could go on a mini-break, have some time together, figure out how it’s all going to work.’
I felt vulnerable, unmasked by my own wanting. Of course I wanted us to be together. Us being together would catapult me into the world of coupledom, of legitimacy – I wouldn’t have to spend weekends alone in the flat whilst my friends and their husbands cosied up with boxsets, I wouldn’t always have to be the odd one out at parties. But could I sacrifice a child? Give up the thought of ever being a parent?
As if he could read my mind, Callum started speaking again. ‘After a while,’ he said, ‘after a while, who knows? Emma might come to see you as a mother figure too. She and Siobhan aren’t that close. It’s me she’s closest to. And as long as she knew nothing was changing between she and I, as long as she knew my attention wasn’t going to go to a newborn, well…’ He tailed off. ‘She’d be OK with it.’ He nodded, as though reassuring himself. ‘She might even be happy for me.’
On the day I had the abortion, I was wearing loose, pyjama-like clothes and I had never wanted a mother so badly. My own mother died when I was sixteen, so you’d think by now I would be used to this strange, untethered state of existence, and usually I am, but on the day of the abortion I wanted nothing more than to have her back. I closed my eyes after it was over, and let my head fall back against the seat of Callum’s car. Neither of us spoke at first – I didn’t feel up to it – but after about ten minutes he began to talk. His words tumbled out of his mouth, faster than I’d seen him speak before; reams and reams of justification. As we pulled up outside my flat, he looked at me, and just for a minute I thought I saw a flash of guilt. But I was so pathetic, so hopeful, that when he said he’d come inside, and tenderly helped me out of the car, I was lost once again.
At least I’ll have Callum, I remember thinking to myself as I leaned on him, as we walked to my flat, but I couldn’t help feeling like I’d somehow made a bargain with the devil. A silly phrase, really. But that’s what it felt like.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ipswich
17th August
Siobhan
Inside the house, once the front door is shut behind us, blocking out the press, the atmosphere is charged. For the last few days, I haven’t really been paying much attention to the general upkeep of it all, and I see Callum’s eyes glance over the pile of dirty dishes from our meal last night, the remnants of slowly congealing food. The fact that we’re trying not to open the windows because of the press makes everything worse – the bin in the corner is beginning to overflow, and there is a small row of glass bottles lined up next to it. A fly buzzes dully around the rim of a Merlot.
‘Christ,’ he says, not one to beat about the bush, ‘this place is a tip.’ He goes straight to the fridge and pulls out a beer – luckily neither Maria nor myself have touched those – before turning back to look at us. Emma looks like she’s going to cry, and I know she doesn’t like seeing her father in this sort of state. I watch their eyes connect and I see his face suddenly soften.
‘Come here, Ems,’ he says, and she walks towards him, her face small and white. Somehow, she looks younger than ever. He folds her into his arms, and I want so badly to join in too, but I can’t – it’s as though my legs are rooted to the spot. Maria looks at me, and I see a flicker of compassion in her eyes. Not for the first time, I feel truly grateful that my sister is here.
It is she who breaks the silence.
‘What have the police said?’ she asks him, going over to the kitchen table and pulling out a couple of chairs for us to sit on. Gingerly, I move to sit down, realising as I do so that my whole body aches, a horrible dull ache that makes me want to crawl under the duvet and never wake up. Well, that’s not quite true – I would like to wake up, I’d like to wake up in a different life, a life where my daughter loves me rather than shuts me out, a life where my husband hasn’t been having an affair
, a life where the media aren’t camped outside my house because they think the man opposite me might be a murderer. Oh, and a child abductor too.
Reluctantly, Callum lets go of Emma. ‘Go upstairs for a bit, Em,’ he says, ‘or, you know what, why don’t you go outside? You look like you’ve not seen daylight in days. It’s lovely and warm out there.’ I flash him a warning look – the last thing I want is my daughter getting doorstepped by the press – but he ignores me. ‘It’s not healthy for you to be cooped up like this,’ he continues, ‘why don’t you give one of your school mates a call? Go do something normal? God knows, we’ll all go mad if we force ourselves to stay under house arrest just because of a few bloody hacks.’
He gives her a little grin, and against my better judgement I start to wonder if he might be right, if Emma would be better off getting back to normality a little bit. Whatever that means, anyway.
‘I could call Molly?’ she says hopefully, already picking her mobile up off the table. Its rose gold case glints at me, like a little gateway to the outside world. I shudder inside, thinking of the things people will be saying about us on social media. What the uber-mothers will be thinking about me.
‘Sure, call Molly,’ Callum says, his expression brightening.
‘Molly? I don’t think I’ve met Molly,’ Maria says, looking questioningly at Emma.
‘They’re at school together, aren’t you Ems?’ I say, then worry immediately that I’m talking down to her, as if she is a child. But she is a child, part of me screams inside, she’s my child and she shouldn’t be having to go through all this. God knows what the psychology books would say about our family now.
She presses a button on her phone and disappears into the next room, her step obviously lighter.
‘Why haven’t you been letting her out of the house?’ Callum says, glaring at me, ‘she must have been going mad cooped up like this.’
‘Callum, in case you haven’t noticed,’ I say, exasperated, ‘the bloody world’s press is currently sitting outside our door. I don’t want Emma getting caught up in all that, I don’t want her to see the things people are saying about – about that woman, about the baby, about you.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Siobhan, don’t you think she’s already seen it all? She’s sixteen, for God’s sake! She’s got it all on her phone. There’s nothing a couple of newspaper journos could say that’ll shock her when she’s got Twitter in her pocket.’
He takes a long sip of his beer. Maria leans forward, trying to take control.
‘What have the police said, Callum?’ she asks in a low voice, not wanting Emma to hear.
He sighs. ‘They don’t really have anything against me,’ he says heavily, ‘the whole thing is ridiculous. I’ve told them I was in the studio that night, that you and Emma saw the light on, and you’d have heard me come in later. All true, of course. And I appreciate you sticking to it.’ He looks at me, and now he does at least look a little admonished, a little less hostile. I feel the guilt again – he doesn’t know what I said to McVey, he doesn’t know I ruined his alibi. ‘Look, there’s no point in me denying the affair altogether, Siobhan, but—’ He breaks off, suddenly, and glances at Maria.
There’s a beat of silence.
‘Look, Maria,’ he says, ‘I know you’ve been very helpful to my wife, and to Emma, these last few days when everything’s been so up in the air, but really, you don’t have to stay. I’m out now, at least for the time being, and I can look after things. We don’t want to keep you away from your own life any longer than we already have – I’m sure you’ve got things that you’ve had to put on hold while this circus unfolded!’ He attempts a sort of laugh, to lighten the atmosphere, but my sister is staring at him, stony-faced.
I don’t know what to do.
‘We do appreciate how much you’ve helped,’ Callum says, continuing because Maria hasn’t said a word, ‘but there’s no need for you to be here if you don’t want to be – you could head back to France, or to Woodbridge. I can call you a taxi, seeing as the car’s still in France. Or you could go back out there! Hell, if you go to France we might even be able to join you in a day or so when all this has blown over, finish off that bloody holiday!’
The joke, if that’s what it is, falls flat around the table.
Maria, on the chair next to me, is stiff, her back straight as a rod and her hands clasped neatly together on the table, as if she doesn’t trust herself to let them loose.
‘Of course,’ I jump in, worried he’s offended her, ‘Callum’s not saying you’re not welcome, Maria, you’re welcome for as long as you like, it’s more that we don’t want to impose…’ I trail off, realising as I do how much I want her to stay. Callum is acting as though everything is normal, as though we are husband and wife not wanting a guest to outstay their welcome, a team against an outsider, a third wheel. Only it’s not like that at all, is it? The bond Callum and I had, the vows we made to each other fifteen years ago in a church, all that is broken now.
It’s broken because of Caroline Harvey.
‘In fact,’ I say, my voice coming out overly loud, ‘I want you to stay, Maria. I could use the support.’
I don’t look at Callum.
‘Of course I’ll stay,’ my sister says, as if she has simply been waiting for me to come to my senses and confirm what she wants to hear.
Although we are not looking at each other, I can almost sense the connection between Maria and me. Because I’ve admitted it now, haven’t I. I’ve admitted I need her. And perhaps she needs me too.
‘Right, right, fine,’ Callum says suddenly, as if knowing he’s fighting a losing battle. ‘In that case though, do you think you could give me and my wife a moment alone together, please Maria? Or would that be too much to ask?’
He’s being rude, but my sister merely inclines her head, her hair dipping down towards the table, then pushes back her chair and gets to her feet.
‘I’ll go sort Emma out,’ she says, before leaving the room. There is something so graceful about her, despite all of this madness. I wish I could see inside her head, see what she’s thinking.
And then she is gone, and I am left alone with my husband.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ipswich
17th August
DS Wildy
The whole lot of them are gathered in the incident room, DCI Gillian McVey at the front. She looks ruffled, which is unusual for her, and which usually means that Superintendent Khan has been in touch. Alex stands with Dave Bolton and Tom Smith; his colleagues look as exhausted as he feels. Callum Dillon’s release this afternoon has put a damper on the entire investigation – Alex watched him and his smarmy lawyer shaking hands outside on the street, the smug grin on Callum’s face as he shrugged on his jacket to leave. Perhaps feeling Alex’s eyes on him, Callum had turned around to face him through the double glass doors, raised a hand in a sarcastic wave. Alex hadn’t returned the gesture, had instead clenched his fists and moved away. Even if the man isn’t a killer, there’s no doubt that he’s a slimeball, an adulterer, and a nasty piece of work despite the outward charm he puts on for his colleagues and his women. If only they could lock people up for that, he thinks.
He’s booked in a couple of PCs to keep an undercover car on the road outside the Dillon house for the night, primarily to satisfy the DCI.
On the wall behind DCI McVey there’s their timeline, drawn in marker pen on the huge whiteboard that dominates that side of the room. He stares past Gillian to where the photos of Caroline Harvey are pinned to the board, her face staring out at them, unseeing. He hates looking at pictures of the dead – not something he’d really admit to the team here, but the truth nonetheless. Next to her, there’s an image of baby Eve, dressed in a blue parka, it must have been taken in winter. You can just about see her hair poking out of the hood. People always say this about their own babies and most of the time it’s not true, but in this case, objectively speaking, Eve Grant really does look like an angel.
‘Right,’ Gillian says, clapping her hands to address the room as though they’re a bunch of disruptive schoolkids, which, on a bad day, isn’t far from the truth.
‘The Super has spoken.’ DS Bolton nudges Alex in the ribs. The superintendent is possibly the only one Gillian McVey is afraid of, or at least cowed by.
‘Given the fact that we’ve been forced to release Callum Dillon without charge, and the lack of evidence against him, despite his wife admitting she didn’t hear him come in that night, the Super wants us to reassess everything, right from the beginning – and we need to delve deeper into Caroline’s own history. Her mental health, her upbringing. We need to know if she was capable of causing harm to Eve, which in turn could’ve led the Grant parents to kill her – either accidentally or on purpose. This isn’t what I would necessarily suggest we focus on, but…’ She looks around the room, before coming back to settle on Alex.
‘Wildy, you take the lead on that one, seeing as it’s your theory, and Bolton, help him out. I want the rest of you to field the hotline for news of Eve, continuing the search of the area, liaising with the guys in Rouen. No stone unturned, people. We have to find this child.’ She clicks her fingers at a couple of the officers. ‘Follow up the sighting in Brighton. Find out how far along the beaches they’ve got. Keep going, people. We’re not stopping until we find Eve.’
The house where Caroline Harvey grew up is, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit grim. DS Wildy and DS Bolton make the drive from Ipswich to Stowmarket in just under forty minutes.
‘Bloody sat nav says twenty minutes,’ Bolton grumbles. ‘I thought these things were supposed to account for traffic these days?’
‘At least we’re here now,’ Alex says, ‘though finding somewhere to park might be a different matter.’
Fifteen minutes later, they’re finally knocking on the door of 25 Bircham Road, where Caroline’s father, Christopher Harvey, is now the sole occupant.
The Babysitter: From the author of digital bestsellers and psychological crime thrillers like The Girl Next Door comes the most gripping and addictive book of 2020! Page 18