The Perfect Nanny

by Karen Clarke

  ‘What can we do?’ Dom’s voice rose. ‘There must be something we can do.’

  ‘The best thing is to wait here.’ DI Barker was standing now. He looked at me with such fatherly concern that, for a second, I wanted to press myself against his chest and sob all over his suit jacket. ‘You’ve been assigned a family liaison officer, Laura Deacon,’ he said. ‘She’ll look after you and keep you updated of our progress, and you can ask her anything.’ He nodded to a woman in the living room doorway.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said briskly. I had no idea how long she’d been there. She looked too young, too inexperienced to understand what we were going through.

  As the detectives made to leave, there was a kerfuffle at the front door and my mother-in-law burst into the living room.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’ Her eyes were wide and unfocused as she looked around her, her hair blown sideways by the wind. ‘Where is he? What have you done?’ She lunged at me and Dom pulled her back, gripping her by the arms.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum. Sophy hasn’t done anything.’

  She collapsed against him, looking up into his face. ‘Your sister called while I was in the car. I didn’t realise you’d been ringing me, didn’t know what had happened.’ Her skin was mottled crimson. ‘Please tell me it isn’t true, that my baby hasn’t gone.’

  Dom looked grimly at DI Barker over her head. ‘I think it’s clear my mother knew nothing about this.’

  ‘Oh, Sophy.’ As Dom let her go, Elizabeth pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, shaking her head wildly from side to side. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’ My voice sounded frozen. ‘Please, tell the truth, Elizabeth. We just want Finn back.’ I felt capable of killing her with my bare hands, could almost feel her throat yielding beneath my fingers.

  ‘I would never … never, I promise.’ Her voice rasped as she clutched at my sleeve. ‘I would never harm a hair on that little boy’s head. I love him, Sophy, with all my heart. I don’t know where he is, I swear. I’m just, so … I’m so very, very sorry.’ She began crying, great gulping sobs that made her mouth gape and her shoulders shake. Dom looked frightened, cradling her to him like a child.

  I felt sick, but it wasn’t the nausea I’d felt before. ‘I’m going out.’ My voice rang with anger. ‘Someone must know something.’

  ‘Sophy, wait,’ Dom began, but I was already pushing past, ignoring DS Lane’s plea to wait. I ran down the drive, a sob catching in my throat, and almost cannoned into Kim.

  ‘Sophy, I heard what’s happened.’ She was clutching the handle of a pram, panting as though she’d been running, and smelt of stale sweat. ‘Petra called me. She’s had the police round.’

  ‘Oh, Kim, do you know anything?’ It was cold, the wind biting through my clothes, but my cheeks felt hot. ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘I saw a car.’ She took one of my hands, her fingers icy. Darkness had fallen and everything looked nightmarish, no street lights to dispel the blackness. As clouds pulled away from the moon, Kim’s face looked ghostly. ‘I thought it was odd because it wasn’t the sort of car you’d normally see on this street.’ She was blinking too fast. ‘I only noticed because I was taking Dougie for a walk, trying to get him to sleep.’

  My heart hammered. ‘Did you see the driver?’

  ‘It was a woman, I think, but she was wearing a hood.’ She nodded firmly, as if trying to convince herself as much as me. ‘Maybe the police can check to see if anyone has CCTV that might have picked up the car. It was a maroon Volvo Estate. My father used to have the same model.’ She hesitated. ‘You don’t … you don’t think Olivia had anything to do with this, do you?’

  ‘What?’ I pulled my hand from hers, still processing the information about the car. ‘Why would you think that?’

  Kim’s eyes glittered, and part of me registered that she was enjoying the drama. ‘It’s just that Clare told me Olivia tried to seduce her husband and although I like Olivia, I did think she was rather indiscreet, as I said before, gossiping about your social worker.’ She hesitated. ‘It made me wonder whether she was behind it all, had made the call herself.’

  I remembered the anonymous man on the phone, telling me Liv was messed up. ‘Actually, Kim, Clare’s husband was the one trying to sleep with Liv and got nasty when she refused.’ I wasn’t sure why I was defending her, when I no longer trusted her myself. ‘Liv drives a Mini, anyway,’ I added. ‘She told you the social worker’s visit was a misunderstanding and you promised you wouldn’t tell anybody.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Kim bristled. ‘Liv seemed delighted about it. I got the impression she wouldn’t mind me passing it on. I told Elizabeth because I was concerned.’ She gave a dramatic gasp. ‘Oh, my goodness, you don’t think … Could that social worker have taken Finn?’ She immediately shook her head, as if realising it was a ludicrous thought, then reached for my hand again. ‘Look, if anything happened to my Dougie—’ she glanced anxiously at the pram ‘—I don’t know what I’d do.’ Her eyes were wet with tears. ‘I’m just saying, there’s more to Olivia than meets the eye, that’s all.’

  Kim was the second person to have said it.

  ‘Well, the police are talking to everyone, so if she’s involved, they’ll soon find out.’

  ‘Good.’ Kim squeezed my hand and let go. ‘Tell them about the car,’ she said. ‘I hope you get your baby back soon.’ Her voice wavered. ‘If I can do anything at all, come and get me.’ She wasn’t wearing a coat and had started shivering. Maybe she was just trying to help, but I was desperate for her to leave.

  ‘Thank you,’ I managed.

  She nodded, biting her lip before turning the pram and hurrying away, swallowed by the darkness at the end of the drive.

  I stood for a moment, welcoming the cold air on my face, letting it sharpen my brain, half-aware of voices in the house behind me as my phone began ringing in my trouser pocket. I pulled it out, saw Isaac’s number and answered on autopilot.

  ‘Hey, you,’ he said, and I was struck by a wave of rage that the world was normal, things carrying on when my life had been upended, my baby out there somewhere without me. ‘Why haven’t you replied to that attachment I sent. I thought you were keen on having some work to do.’

  ‘I didn’t get it.’ My words jerked out through chattering teeth.

  ‘Weird,’ he said. ‘I definitely sent it.’

  ‘Finn’s missing.’

  There was a beat of silence. ‘What?’

  ‘I have to go, Isaac.’

  I cut off his exclamation and hurried back inside for the car keys. The answerphone light flashed on the landline phone on the hall table, though I couldn’t recall moving it there. Dry-mouthed, I picked it up. Had we missed a ransom demand? Would kidnappers leave a message? It seemed absurd, but I picked up the phone and pressed play. Looking through the living room door I saw Dom’s mouth moving, and the liaison officer’s brows pinch together, but all I could focus on was the call.

  ‘Hello, Sophy, it’s Doctor Crawford. I left a message on your mobile, I hope you got it OK. I’ve made an appointment for you to come in and see me tomorrow at 9.30. Let me know if you can’t make it.’ The message had been left yesterday.

  I slammed the phone down and grabbed the car keys lying next to it.

  ‘Sophy, where are you going?’ Dom’s voice was hoarse from talking and crying.

  ‘I have to go out. I can’t sit here doing nothing,’ I snapped. ‘I just spoke to Kim and she saw a maroon Volvo Estate, hanging around a while ago. The police need to look into that.’

  ‘Sophy, you mustn’t drive.’ Elizabeth had shot out of the living room, looking as if she was unravelling, her face swollen and blotchy with tears. It seemed obvious now, seeing the state she was in that she couldn’t – wouldn’t – have taken Finn.

  ‘I have to,’ I said.

  ‘Not in this state, it’s not safe.’

  ‘You heard the police, Sophy. We’re better off s
taying here.’ Dom glanced from the liaison officer to the detectives in mute appeal. DI Barker was making a note in his pad.

  ‘The woman you spoke to,’ he said. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Kim Harrison. She lives at …’ I tried to remember. ‘Indigo Cottage.’

  ‘Why didn’t she come in and speak to us?’

  I felt as if I there was a gale-force wind in my head, tossing my thoughts about. ‘She was about to when I bumped into her.’

  ‘It would be better if you waited here now.’ DS Lane’s voice was firm but kind. ‘Everything is being done to find your baby.’

  I thought about Liv telling Kim I’d had a visit from social services and how she’d sounded delighted, had wanted Kim to pass it on. Why had Liv lied? And that man on the phone, telling me to be careful, that Liv couldn’t be trusted. Who was Olivia Granger? I felt as if I didn’t know her at all.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here.’ I felt plugged in, blood pulsing hotly through my veins. ‘I think Liv knows more than she’s letting on,’ I said to Dom. ‘I’m going to find out.’

  Chapter 34

  Liv

  I’d driven to Ryan’s house in a heightened state of anxiety, thoughts leaping to Finn. I even became convinced Ryan had taken him. Imagined him drunk, creeping into Sophy’s house and snatching Finn out of some twisted revenge of his own. After all, Ben had meant everything to him too.

  But now, as I pulled on the handbrake and looked up at his house, those thoughts seemed ridiculous. Ryan wasn’t capable of stealing a child.

  He answered the door within seconds, his dark hair in disarray. ‘Hey, Liv.’ He rubbed his red-rimmed eyes, and moved to one side. ‘You’d better come in.’

  Despite feeling sure Finn wasn’t in the house, I found myself searching for signs of a baby, as I followed Ryan to the lounge, but as far as I could tell, there were none.

  There was a hum of alcohol in the air, and I noticed a glass half full of a clear liquid on the smeared, cluttered coffee table, and knew it wasn’t water. The curtains at the window had been there since before his dad died – expensive once, but now dated and faded. The same went for the three-piece suite.

  The TV was on, some sci-fi thing – muted. Ryan sat down on the sofa.

  ‘Finn’s been taken,’ I said.

  ‘Finn?’ His forehead furrowed as he leant forward and picked up the drink. Took a gulp. ‘Lemonade,’ he said, as though I was judging. I was.

  ‘Sophy’s son. She was asleep when …’ I gulped back a lump in my throat. ‘He was taken from his cot. Someone walked into their house and just took him away.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He put down the glass, rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. ‘Shit,’ he went on, voice breaking. ‘Her little lad – that’s awful. Who the hell would do that?’

  I sat down next to him. ‘It wasn’t you?’

  ‘What?’ His eyes widened as though he couldn’t believe what I’d said, that I would even consider it.

  ‘So why did you call her, Ryan?’ I held up a hand. ‘No wait, how the hell did you even know her phone number?’

  ‘I found it on your phone, the day we met up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I looked it up when you went to change the baby, and copied it into my phone.’ He massaged his temples with his fingers. ‘I wanted to warn her.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘Yes, about you, Liv.’ He picked up his glass and put it down again. ‘I’m sorry, but I felt sorry for her. I’d hoped you’d stop the whole revenge thing.’ He stared into my eyes. ‘But you didn’t did you?’

  I looked at him for a long moment, trying to take in what he was saying. ‘What did you think I was going to do, Ryan?’

  ‘I don’t know. What were you going to do?’ He looked at me hard, anguish in his face. ‘Christ, you didn’t take the kid, did you, Liv?’

  ‘No!’ I rose. Began pacing the room, before stopping and stuffing my hands in my pockets. ‘She was the reason Ben died.’ My emotions were all over the place. Finn had gone missing. Sophy’s beautiful child had vanished. Tears filled my eyes. ‘But, I don’t know, it’s like … I want to hate her, but I can’t.’ I brushed away tears. ‘I feel sorry for her. Sometimes I think I’m ready to forgive her for what she did.’

  ‘She doesn’t need your forgiveness, Liv.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  He closed his eyes for a moment, tears resting on his lashes.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  He opened his eyes and took a long deep breath. ‘Sophy wasn’t to blame for Ben’s death.’

  I froze. ‘What? Of course she was.’

  ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘I lied to you, Liv.’ Tears fell from his eyes, rolling down his face. ‘Ben died because of me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I was weak.’ He dropped his head into his hands.

  ‘Ryan?’

  He looked up at me. ‘I should have had more courage.’

  ‘Hey.’ I sat down once more, and placed my hand on his arm. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Ryan?’ But through the silence that followed, the pieces fell into place. The burnt photos in the ashtray – the singed pictures – Ryan’s red-checked shirt. They hadn’t been photos of Ben and Sophy. They were of Ben and Ryan.

  ‘We were in love,’ he said through his tears ‘But Dad was a total prick. He would never have understood.’

  ‘But it wasn’t the 1950s, Ryan.’

  ‘Dad thought it was. You met him, Liv. You knew what he was like.’

  I had met him. Just the once, after Ben died, and shortly before his own death. He was a complete arse of a man, who seemed to have control over Ryan, criticising him at every turn, ignoring him when he spoke.

  ‘I couldn’t hack it,’ Ryan continued. ‘The thought of Dad making our lives hell.’ Tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘I had to choose – Dad or Ben – and I’ve hated myself every day since for making the wrong choice. I’ve never got over Ben. I loved him so much, Liv.’ He gasped. ‘God it feels better to say that.’

  My body stiffened, but I kept my hand on his arm. ‘He loved you too,’ I said through a sob of clarity.

  He nodded, his eyes straight ahead of him, face damp with tears. ‘He was going to introduce me to you guys as his partner, but I wimped out. Couldn’t face my father knowing I was gay. I ended it, and I’ve never regretted something so much in my life. I’m so sorry, Liv.’ He turned to look at me, and my heart cried out in pain. ‘I hate myself every single day.’

  ‘But why pretend?’ I pulled a tissue from my pocket and swiped it across my nose. All this time I’d blamed Sophy. ‘Why pretend it was Sophy who broke his heart?’

  ‘As a family, you needed to know who he was in love with, and I was afraid you’d realise it was me – blame me for his death.’

  ‘We never would have,’ I said.

  He tilted his head. ‘Are you sure?

  I wanted to believe I never would have, but the truth was we’d needed someone to blame for Ben’s death, to take away the guilt we all felt.

  ‘I thought about Sophy,’ Ryan said. ‘I knew she’d already left university, and with a name like Edwards, I felt sure you would never find her. She was even in the photo of the skiing trip, although she didn’t go in the end. She seemed perfect.’

  My emotions were all over the place. Sophy hadn’t let my brother down. She wasn’t the reason he killed himself. Ryan was.

  ‘I need to go,’ I said, rising. ‘I need to think this through.’

  ‘Please.’ He tried to grab me, but I moved away. ‘Forgive me, Liv.’

  I stared at him for a long moment, but I wasn’t seeing him. I was thinking about Ben. There had been signs. He’d dropped out of university. Withdrawn into his room, refusing to see anyone, his appearance shabby and unkempt. He’d fallen into a depression we couldn’t pick him up from. My parents had thought it would pass, naïve about mental health. But when he died they’d blamed themselves for not sp
otting how desperate he was – for not doing something. And I’d ignored him on that awful night, desperate to see my mates, barely giving him a second thought, and that guilt had gnawed away at me for years.

  I rubbed my eyes, pushing back tears. ‘I don’t need to forgive you, Ryan,’ I said, reaching down and touching his cheek, realising the two of us had a lot in common – we’d tried to cope with the part we thought we’d played in Ben’s death for sixteen years. ‘You’re not to blame,’ I said. ‘None of us are.’

  As I left the room, his relief that it was out there now was tangible, and I wondered, for a moment, if I’d finally forgiven myself too.

  Outside in the car, I leant over the steering wheel and sobbed, tears dripping onto the vinyl. Everything I had thought for years about my brother’s death had been founded on a lie. Sophy hadn’t even known Ben, and yet I’d set out to ruin her life. I was so desperate to shift blame away from the fact I’d walked out on him when he needed me most, I’d ended up targeting a stranger who was going through hell already. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to Finn.

  ‘Oh, Ben, what a bloody mess,’ I cried, as though he could hear me.

  I attempted to dry my eyes on my sleeves, and checked my phone for messages – there were none. I desperately wanted to call Sophy, ask if there was any news on Finn – if there was anything I could do – but I knew she wouldn’t want to talk to me.

  I started the engine. I would go home. Wait to hear. There was nothing else I could do.

  As I came through the front door I heard Mum talking. I hung up my jacket, and made my way to the lounge. Mum had Freya on speakerphone, her voice sounding far away.

  ‘I’m glad you’re OK, Martha,’ Freya was saying.

  ‘And I’m glad you’ve arrived safely,’ Mum said. ‘You really didn’t seem yourself when you left. I was worried about you.’

  ‘No, well hopefully a bit of sea air will make things right. Escaping here usually sorts my head out.’ There was a noise in the background – a cry of a seagull perhaps. Though it sounded bizarrely like a baby’s cry. ‘They’ve added hot tubs since I was here last.’