by Heidi Perks
‘Well, there isn’t much to paint, really. It’s not very big,’ she said. ‘Not like your beautiful home.’
The next time Harriet was at mine I found myself pointing out the chipped skirting board, the table that needed fixing, and the crack that ran along the length of the living-room ceiling.
I made things up too. Little harmless stories to show the perfect life she thought I had wasn’t really that perfect. I complained that Tom was always working too hard and I never saw him, how I hated my job some days and wished I could leave. I told her she was so lucky to be married to Brian who was always home by five-thirty p.m. so they could have tea as a family.
I wasn’t lying when I told her dinner wasn’t an enjoyable experience in our house. None of the children liked the same food and most nights I ended up giving them fish fingers or pizza because they were the only meals none of them complained about. But I omitted to tell her Tom only added to the suffering at mealtimes so it was easier for me to endure them alone. I didn’t say that the idea of him walking in the door at five-thirty p.m. every night without fail would actually be my idea of hell.
But Harriet seemed to be placated when she said, ‘Yes, I’m very lucky that Brian never works late.’
I turned off the main road out of town to where the houses were packed much more tightly together. ‘Crammed in,’ Tom would say. Even at that time of night, Harriet’s street was busy. I was forced to drive past the house to find a tight parking space between two dropped kerbs on the other side of the road.
There were a handful of journalists hanging outside Harriet’s front garden so I’d been given the number of the liaison officer to call when I arrived who would come out to meet me. I looked back at the house, its windows blackened by pulled curtains. The thought of them sitting inside, engulfed in a misery that I had created, made me want to restart the engine and turn around. But I didn’t have that luxury. Swallowing the lump lodged in my throat, I tapped out the number and told the woman who answered, Angela, that I was there.
An agonising fug hung in the air of their living room. Inside the boxed walls of the small room, its stuffiness did nothing to suppress a shiver running the length of my spine as I went in. ‘Someone has stepped on your grave,’ Tom would have said.
Their Family Liaison Officer, Angela, manoeuvred me towards the remaining empty seat, which was an armchair in the corner of the room that faced the sofa. On that, Harriet and Brian were glued together. In his lap Brian had his hands protectively wrapped around one of Harriet’s. His fingers played, pressing into her hand, splaying them and then scrunching like a nervous child.
As I stumbled across the room and awkwardly perched in the seat, Brian’s eyes followed me. His body was curved around Harriet’s, a defensive wall to keep her safe and shield her from me. Inside his enclosure, Harriet was deathly immobile. Her glassy eyes stared out of the window and didn’t once venture in my direction.
The silence was as cold as the atmosphere until Angela broke it. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Mrs Reynolds?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘No thank you.’ My voice was little more than a whisper. I made a point of looking past Brian to Harriet but she didn’t peel her eyes away from the window.
‘Maybe it would help if you could tell Harriet and Brian what happened,’ Angela said softly. ‘What was going on when Alice went on to the Jungle Run.’
I nodded. I could sense Harriet and Brian both tensing and my own muscles ached as I hunched uncomfortably in the chair. I had no idea how to start.
‘I, um—’ I broke off and swallowed loudly, inhaling a large gulp of air that hissed through my teeth. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know nothing I say will mean anything.’ I paused again. Brian’s eyes continued to bore into me as if he could see right through my skin, but still Harriet wouldn’t look over.
The skirt of my dress was damp beneath me. I shifted on the leather chair, the wetness of my thighs making it squeak, though any extra embarrassment wouldn’t show on my already blotched face.
‘I’m sorry,’ I started again.
‘Sorry is not going to bring back our daughter,’ Brian interrupted, his voice quietly controlled. ‘So we don’t want to hear your apologies. What we want to know is what happened today. How you lost Alice.’ His fingers continued to unfurl and then clamp back around Harriet’s hand. Beside him she took a deep breath.
Brian leaned forward, moving his weight towards the edge of the sofa. I could see his eyes more clearly now, red lines creeping out from the edges. He might have been crying but now they just made him look angry.
‘What happened?’ he growled. ‘Because we need to know how you lost our daughter.’
I felt my breath stagger in my chest. ‘I’m so sorry, Brian. I don’t know what happened.’
‘You don’t know?’ He gave a short laugh, one of his hands flinging into the air, which made Harriet jump. Brian moved his body, wrapping himself around Harriet more tightly, and despite how awful I felt for him I wished he would get out of the way so I could see my friend.
‘I don’t mean it like that,’ I said. ‘It’s just that everything happened so quickly. It was a split second. Alice went round to the back of the inflatable with Molly and Jack, but then she didn’t—’ The words caught in my throat, making me gulp down another large breath. ‘She didn’t come off it. And as soon as I knew that, I went on it looking for her myself. The others came with me, but,’ I shook my head, ‘she wasn’t there.’ I knew I sounded too shrill and my excuses hung awkwardly in the air as I waited for Brian to answer.
But it was Harriet who spoke, her voice rupturing into the room like it had no place being there. ‘How long had she been gone before you noticed?’ Still she continued to stare out of the window. It was a question I’d expected.
‘I think it was maybe five minutes,’ I said quietly, willing her to look at me around her husband’s shoulder. I inched forward in the seat, the squeak of leather making another unpleasant noise. My hand flinched as if it wanted to reach out for her, but almost by instinct she withdrew further into the sofa. Eventually she turned her head and found my eyes.
‘Five minutes doesn’t seem very long,’ she said. ‘She can’t have gone far in five minutes.’
‘I – well, maybe it was a little longer. I’m not sure exactly but it wasn’t long, I promise you.’
Harriet turned away again, staring out of the window once more.
‘I don’t know where she went, I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘We looked everywhere and—’
‘And what exactly were you doing?’ In contrast to the softness of Harriet’s voice, Brian’s was fiercely powerful. ‘When she went missing, what were you actually doing that meant you weren’t watching my daughter?’
‘I was waiting for them at the front.’
‘But I want to know what you were doing,’ he said. ‘Because it wasn’t what you should have been.’
‘I was with Evie,’ I said. ‘I was just waiting.’
‘Were you on your phone?’ he barked. ‘Did you get distracted?’
‘I, erm, well I looked at my phone, but only for a moment. I was still keeping an eye on the children and—’ I stopped. Of course I hadn’t kept an eye on the children or none of us would be here. Alice would be asleep in her bed upstairs.
‘But you weren’t watching her, were you?’ Brian’s words felt like they had been screamed out at me but in reality they weren’t. They were tense but quiet as they hissed through his teeth. He’d moved forwards until he was almost hanging off the sofa. His face was now only inches from mine and, as much as I wanted to recoil, I couldn’t move. ‘And you didn’t see a thing,’ he said, and all I could do was shake my head again, while the tears now sprang out of my eyes and slid down my cheeks. His gaze was drawn to them trickling down and I rubbed at them roughly with the back of my hand. He looked like he was about to comment when Harriet’s voice spoke timidly from behind him.
‘How was she?’
Bri
an inhaled a large breath of air through his flared nostrils.
‘Sorry?’ I leaned to one side so I could see past Brian.
‘How was Alice? Was she happy?’
‘Yes, she was perfectly happy.’ I tried a weak smile. I knew Brian had every right to be there but how I wished I could take hold of Harriet’s hand and speak to her alone. Just her and me. ‘She was playing with Molly,’ I said. ‘She seemed absolutely fine. She wasn’t upset about anything.’
‘What did she have to eat?’ Harriet asked.
Brian swung around to look at her. ‘What did she have to eat?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, her gaze drifting up to meet his. ‘I want to know what Alice ate at the fete. Before she—’ Harriet stopped.
‘She had some candyfloss,’ I said quickly. The tears continued to run down my face. I stopped bothering to wipe them away as I remembered how carefully Alice had picked at her floss.
‘Oh!’ Harriet threw her hand to her mouth. ‘She’s never had candyfloss before.’
My heart plummeted. Harriet’s eyes were wide and wet with tears. I wanted to tell her that Alice enjoyed it, I was sure she would want to know that, but already Brian was speaking again.
‘You mean you didn’t get round to giving her lunch,’ he snapped but he was cut off by the sound of an eerie wail, painfully long, filling the room with suffering.
Harriet slumped forward, her hands gripped tightly either side of her head. ‘I can’t bear this any more. Get out, Charlotte!’ she screamed. ‘I need you to go. Please, just get out of the house.’
Brian immediately grabbed her rocking body in his arms, whispering words I couldn’t hear. ‘Please just leave, Charlotte,’ she sobbed.
I stood up, my legs shaking. I couldn’t bear this any more either.
In the doorway Angela held out a hand as she stood to one side. Numbly I edged towards her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, tears now cascading down my cheeks.
‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry again,’ Brian said over his wife’s head. His cheeks were blotched in patches of fiery red. ‘You can go back to your children now. You managed to take them home safely.’
‘I think you’d better go,’ Angela said as she took my hand and led me into the hallway.
‘I’m going to do everything I can,’ I sobbed. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get Alice back. Can you tell them that? I’ll do anything.’
NOW
‘And you hadn’t heard from Harriet at all after that evening?’ DI Rawlings asks. ‘Since you went to their house?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Not until this morning,’ she says. ‘Thirteen days later.’
‘No.’ I feel my chest getting tighter. ‘Not until she called me today.’
I can feel the floor start to soften beneath me and the air feels heavier. I expect her to ask me more about the call, but she doesn’t and I realise there’s no point me trying to second-guess her.
‘You said you would have liked the chance to talk to Harriet on her own. Why was that?’
I shift positions in the hard plastic chair. ‘I guess it was because it’s Harriet who’s my friend and I didn’t know Brian. I wanted to talk to Harriet and—’ I break off and slump back in the seat, looking up at the clock. Its bright-red digits blur in front of me.
‘I wanted the chance to tell her on her own just how dreadful I felt,’ I admit eventually. ‘I hoped that if I could talk to Harriet, just the two of us the way we used to, then I could get her to see I hadn’t done anything wrong, like Brian was implying. Yes, I’d let them out of my sight and I wished more than anything I hadn’t, but I was still there, I was metres away, and Alice really did just vanish. I wanted Harriet to understand I was looking after her like I promised I would, only—’ Tears prick at my eyes. ‘Only I also knew I wasn’t.’
DI Rawlings looks at me, confused.
‘If I was looking after her properly then she wouldn’t have disappeared,’ I say. ‘But I also knew I didn’t do anything any other parent wouldn’t have done. Yet no one else saw it like that. Already I was being blamed. People saying I was irresponsible.’ I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
‘Who was blaming you?’ DI Rawlings asks as she pulls a tissue sharply out of a box and passes it across the table. I take it from her and dab my eyes, keeping the tissue scrunched in my hand.
‘Friends. Strangers,’ I say. ‘Everyone jumps on the bandwagon, don’t they? They think it’s their right to comment on what I’m like as a mother even if they’ve never heard of me before.’
‘The power of the internet,’ Rawlings states.
‘It was the people I think of as my friends, though; they’re the ones whose reactions sting the most. In the days after the fete, their silence became deafening.’
‘And Harriet’s reaction must have been difficult to handle too?’ the detective asks, sharply turning the conversation as if I have no right to feel sorry for myself. ‘Her silence must have left you wondering what she was thinking?’
‘It did. I wanted her to shout at me and tell me she hated me, but she didn’t and that made it worse. Harriet refused to see me again.’ I look DI Rawlings in the eye. ‘And that was so much harder,’ I admit. ‘I watched her crumbling in that living room and there was nothing I could do to make it better.’ Tears are now flowing down my face and, as much as I wipe them away, more keep coming.
‘But Brian was more forthright?’ she says. ‘Is that the reaction you expected from him?’
‘I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t met him many times, and much fewer in recent years.’ I always suspected Harriet felt like she couldn’t bring Brian along after Tom and I had split up, even though I’d attempted to assure her he was welcome.
‘So even though you became such good friends with Harriet, you never got to know her husband?’ DI Rawlings asks, leaning forward in her seat. Her eyes are unnervingly still as she stares at me.
‘No. Our friendship didn’t involve him or my ex-husband when we were together.’
‘That’s unusual.’ She continues to look me straight in the eye as she lays her hands out flat on the desk in front of her. ‘Don’t you think?’
I open my mouth to respond that I didn’t think it was but instead I say, ‘Actually, can we take a break now, please? I’d like to use the toilet.’
‘Of course.’ DI Rawlings pushes her chair back and gestures towards the door. ‘And help yourself to a tea or coffee too,’ she adds and for a moment I am grateful for her kindness. It isn’t until I walk out of the room I realise she’s really just telling me there’s still much more she wants to know.
BEFORE
Harriet
That first night Harriet did not sleep, or if she did it was only minutes before she woke, soaked in sweat and disturbed by images she couldn’t shake.
She lay on top of the covers throughout the interminable dark hours, staring at the ceiling, all the time thinking of Alice’s empty room next to hers. Not one night had passed when she hadn’t tucked her daughter into bed, kissed her goodnight, crept in to check on her when she went to bed herself. It was no surprise she couldn’t sleep.
Earlier in the evening, while Brian was still downstairs, Angela had come up to Harriet’s bedroom, offering to call her doctor to see if he could bring some sleeping tablets. Harriet shook her head vigorously. No, she definitely did not want pills. She would rather be awake all night torturing herself than knocked out, miles away from reality.
‘Thank you for staying so late,’ she said to Angela, grateful she was still there.
‘Of course.’ Angela brushed off her gratitude. It was her job after all, Harriet thought sadly, but still she was comforted by her presence in the house. It took her mind off Brian pacing the floorboards below.
‘I promised Alice I’d always keep her safe,’ Harriet said quietly. ‘But I haven’t been able to, have I?’
Angela leaned over and touched her arm. ‘Try not to do this,
Harriet. This is not your fault.’ Harriet wondered if Angela would tell Brian that too because she could feel his blame hovering over her, his confusion that she’d left Alice with Charlotte. He knew Harriet would never have let Alice out of her sight.
Were her anxieties about Alice innate? she wondered. Would Harriet have been a different kind of mother if her dad had still been there, smoothing the path of parenting for her mum? With only her mother to learn from was it any wonder she’d become overly protective too?
‘I see flashes of Alice’s face.’ Tears slid down Harriet’s cheeks, pooling uncomfortably in the crook of her neck, but she made no move to wipe them away.
‘Guilt is a very destructive thing,’ Angela said. ‘You mustn’t let it take hold. You couldn’t have changed what happened. No one can foresee something like this.’
Something like the fact my daughter is gone, Harriet thought. No matter what Angela said, the guilt would continue to bury itself deep into her skin, itching away until one day soon she would be driven mad with it. She was sure of that.
But when Harriet wasn’t thinking of Alice, unwanted thoughts of Charlotte filled her head. Charlotte in her warm, large bed in the cosy bedroom with the deep-teal walls and fluffy cushions lined up along the pillows. She wondered how Charlotte felt knowing her own children were safely asleep in the rooms surrounding hers, whether she derived comfort from that even if she wouldn’t admit it.
Charlotte’s friends would rally around her. They would line up outside her house with warm casseroles in Le Creuset dishes and Tupperware boxes of homemade muffins. It was no surprise Charlotte had so many friends, but it widened the trench between them now. That Harriet had not received one call from a worried friend was evidence. Angela must have noticed she had no one else in her life.
She wondered what Angela thought of Charlotte. Did she feel sorry for her? Harriet knew her tears were real but she couldn’t bear to look at them. If she’d looked into Charlotte’s eyes she would have seen her pain and she couldn’t bear to take that on too. ‘Charlotte feels guilty,’ Harriet murmured to Angela. ‘I can’t tell her not to.’