The woman is slight, her skin drawn and lined. Her eyes are round and grey, and peer at me with sympathy underneath eyelashes without any mascara. The man she’s with is almost double her height, and broad.
The shock of seeing them renders me mute. I pull the door aside and let them in. It can’t be . . . please don’t let it be Riley. I can’t even summon up the courage to ask, so I beckon them into the living room and wait for them to speak. They take a seat on the sofa in the bay window.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you.’
‘Please . . .’ I say. ‘Is it . . .’
‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you this,’ the woman says, her face impressively calm. ‘But Robin Morgan was found unconscious with a serious head injury on Downs Road in Epsom. Currently, his injuries are unexplained. We found ID on him with this address. Are you a relation?’
I stare at her. My hands begin to tremble.
‘I . . .’ I reply. ‘Yes, he’s my . . . he’s my husband.’
‘I understand this must be a massive shock. He’s in surgery at St Helier Hospital.’
I frown at her, rubbing the side of my forehead. I can’t process what she’s telling me. My brain is jelly in my skull.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Can you repeat that?’
She gives me a sympathetic look. I wonder how many times they rehearse this in their training, or if they never do. Maybe they expect it to come instinctively. Perhaps that’s part of the calling of being a police officer.
‘Of course,’ she says, and her hand moves forward, as though she might pat me on the leg, but she thinks better of it. ‘Your husband was found by a passer-by severely injured by the side of the road in Epsom. He’s alive, but I’m afraid he’s in critical condition.’
‘My . . . husband,’ I repeat, and I notice DS Tyler glance briefly at her colleague, the flicker of an expression that tells me she’s now concerned about my mental state. ‘In Epsom?’ I don’t even know where that is. Then suddenly it hits me, and I come to my senses.
‘But he’s got Riley . . . where is Riley?’ My voice is a screech.
The policewoman glances at her colleague, looking back at me.
‘Sorry, who is Riley?’
‘My . . . our daughter! She’s only two.’
‘Your husband was with a child?’ she says, and I can’t read her expression at all. She’s not as surprised as she should be, more confused.
‘Yes,’ I say, my voice rising even further. ‘Yes! I just got home . . . they’re not here. He’s a stay-at-home dad. He looks after her while I’m at work. Where was he? What happened?’
‘We don’t know much at this stage,’ DS Tyler says, looking down briefly. ‘Only that he was found unconscious with unexplained injuries, and that he’s been taken to hospital. And as the situation is somewhat, um, unusual, and the location somewhat remote, we have a team investigating how he came to be there.’
‘But in Epsom? Why would he be in Epsom? Why weren’t they here at home? They should have been here. It’s her teatime now, she should be sitting in the kitchen, ignoring her vegetables.’
DS Tyler puts her arm out. She is trying to calm me down. I don’t want to calm down.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘I’ll alert my colleagues straight away. Most likely she’s being looked after right now, and we just didn’t get the whole story.’
‘Is it possible that someone has taken her?’ I blurt. I shake my head at my own question. That makes no sense. The only person who might have taken her is me.
Or . . . no, it’s not possible. Not her. She wouldn’t. Would she?
‘Do you have a recent photograph of your daughter, Mrs Morgan?’ DS Tyler asks. ‘That we could borrow?’
I laugh, looking around the living room. The immaculately finished alcove cupboards are topped with silver photo frames; every single one of them contains a photograph of Riley.
‘Take any of them,’ I say, gesturing around. ‘They’re all of her.’
The bile lurches into my throat. The same reaction to any stress, these days. I stand up and walk towards the fireplace, picking up the most recent photograph of Riley at her second birthday party and turning over the frame.
My whole body is shaking, and my fingers struggle to twist open the little catches on the back. Eventually, they give way and I pull the photo out, handing it to her with trembling fingers.
‘I have the digital version too if you need it,’ I say.
The other police officer has left the room. A shadow moves past the bay window on the pavement outside and I realise that he is out there, on his phone, telling someone to go and look for my daughter.
I want to run outside and tell them to drive me to where they found him. That I’m Riley’s mother, and I will find her myself.
‘Who found him?’ I say, the tears streaming down my face. ‘It doesn’t make any sense that he’d be alone. Why wasn’t she with him?’
DS Tyler stares at me. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything. She’s useless. Why did they send her? She’s useless. She didn’t even know he was meant to be with Riley.
‘He sent me a text message earlier . . .’ I start to cry even harder. ‘I don’t know if it means anything or not . . . it just said “Sorry”. Please. Things haven’t been good between us lately. But still, this is all so out of character for him . . . I’m scared. I’m scared he’s done something to her.’
She is staring at me strangely now, and I can almost see the thoughts flashing through her mind. Why has this woman left her daughter with her husband if she’s at all worried about her safety? She’ll already be thinking about checking out my alibi for this afternoon. I imagine her writing it down on her notes: peculiar wife, missing child. Underlining that bit twice, her brain straining to make sense of it. She’ll be wondering if Riley is hidden upstairs, safe and sound.
If only.
To explain it all would be impossible now. No one would understand my horrific, ridiculous situation. That’s been the problem all along.
I have a vision of Robin, lying on the road, blood pooling from his head. I squint, trying to imagine, to feel, where Riley might be, but all I see are her big grey eyes, staring up at me, asking me not to go to work and leave her with Daddy . . .
Please, Mummy, don’t go. I just want you.
‘We’ll take you to the hospital,’ DS Tyler says. ‘And keep you informed as soon as we hear anything.’
I blink the tears back and silently follow DS Tyler out of my house, climbing into the police car, looking up at the dark, empty windows of our family home as we pull away.
When Riley was a tiny baby I used to hold her and tell her I’d never leave her.
But I did. I did leave her.
I left her with him.
Two Years Earlier
Esther
We are on the way to visit Robin’s parents. Last night, Robin and I slept together for the first time since Riley was born. I don’t know if that’s the reason that he seems more relaxed today, but he’s definitely more cheerful than he usually is when we go to see them.
He thinks everything is back on track. He thinks I’ve forgiven him. Sometimes I think I have, sometimes I think I’m just playing a game because I don’t have any other alternatives. I’m a mother now, and I have responsibilities that are bigger than me.
My scalp feels itchy, and I bury my fingernails in it, digging in so hard it hurts. It takes the pressure off, and I exhale slowly.
I watch him as he drives; the two-day stubble on his face that he’s taken to leaving recently, the new shadows under his eyes. He’s proud of these little signs that he’s now a dad. And not just a dad, but a stay-at-home dad.
We agreed early on that he would give up his work to take care of her. Looking back to those delirious weeks before and after she was born, it feels as though I didn�
��t have much say in the matter. I was swept along by it all, incapable of making decisions for myself. Perhaps he didn’t trust me to look after her. I suppose I can understand that. But now she’s older, I can see that we made the right decision for us as a family.
Our perfect daughter, Riley, is right in the middle of a sleep regression. Although Robin gets up with her every night, as agreed, my sleep is still disrupted, and I’m slowly getting used to feeling tired all the time.
It’s better than feeling sick.
Vivienne said she wouldn’t be surprised if I hated Riley after what I went through. But I look at her tiny curled fist, her dark, long eyelashes, and I know I never could.
It’s a relief. It makes me feel like a better person.
‘She’s asleep,’ Robin says, his voice a whisper. He presses his thumb and forefinger together in a ‘perfect’ sign, and I can see the relief wash over his face, suddenly painting him brighter. Poor Robin. The stress of her sleep patterns has been taking its toll on us both. At night I endlessly Google, scouring mum forums for solutions. There’s a pile of baby books beside my bed, useful pages marked with Post-its.
It’s all a little obsessive, but then again, what new parents aren’t like this? It’s such an overwhelming world to be lost in.
I crane my neck to see Riley in her reverse-facing car seat, but even if I stretch so far it hurts, I can only make out her legs and feet, sticking out in a triangle shape from the bottom of the seat. She’s dressed up today, in a frilly dress and tights, with soft little silver booties that fall off whenever you pick her up. As Robin says, babies come with a lot of ‘pointless cute stuff’.
Suddenly, I am taken back to my own childhood. I see my father crouched before me, gently, patiently trying to teach me how to tie my shoelaces. My mother in the background shaking her head in bemusement as my useless, stubby fingers just tangled the laces into knots. She can’t do it. She’s only five, for goodness’ sake! And my father defending me, as he always did: So? She’s smart. Smarter than the both of us put together.
He had so much faith in me. The tears burn the back of my eyelids as they do now whenever I think of him, which is often. I never got to say goodbye. I was too ill when he died.
The regret is almost suffocating, and so I turn away from it, from any thought of my father, or what an amazing grandfather he might have been to Riley.
Riley. The present. The here and now. That’s what I have to focus on.
She doesn’t sleep well in the car, not like most babies. Everything has been timed with military precision in order to create optimum conditions for her to nap while we drive. She naps in single sleep cycles of fifty minutes, which is coincidentally the exact amount of time it takes us to drive to Robin’s parents’ house in Hampshire.
Robin lays a hand on my leg, stroking it gently. It’s not suggestive, but a warmth spreads over my body. Somehow I can now see our future again, as intended. My horrific pregnancy was just a blip on the long horizon of our relationship. Marriage is tough sometimes, but nothing that was worth having was ever easy.
We are Robin and Esther, meant to be.
I am so lucky to have him. I am so lucky to have Riley.
I feel myself reach across to him, laying my hand on his leg in return. Another flashback comes to mind, of a time when we were younger, when we made love so often it hurt. I run my hand higher up his leg and he turns to me in surprise. There’s no keeping the grin from his face.
‘Oi,’ he says. He’s smiling, he’s glad I still want him, even after what he did, but there’s a bigger part of him that wants me to leave him alone. ‘Don’t want to crash the car.’
It’s reasonable enough, of course, but it still makes me snatch my hand away and sit back in my seat, turning my face away to stare sulkily out of the window. It doesn’t take much these days for my moods to flip, like a leaf turning over in the wind.
But he’s only trying to be safe. Riley must come first, of course.
I am stunned by my love for her sometimes. Vivienne says she can’t understand it. But she never understood my love for Robin either. That has never changed. He’s my only family now.
He has his faults, but the main one is loving too much, which is hardly a fault at all, is it?
We are about ten minutes away from the Morgan family home – a solid, semi-detached house built in the 50s, on the outskirts of the small village that houses Mike’s car dealership – when Robin speaks again. Riley is still sleeping.
‘I’ve decided to tell my dad today,’ he says, glancing across at me.
‘Really?’ I say, feeling my blood pressure suddenly rocket. ‘I . . . Do you think that’s a good idea? Riley is so fractious at the moment. She’s definitely teething . . . If she screams all through lunch and then you tell him that . . .’
Robin’s father, Mike, is a difficult man. I have often wondered what went wrong with his wiring, what made him into the misogynist pig he is today, what trauma of his past is to blame.
He is nice on the surface, of course. A respectable businessman, with two sons and a neatly-turned-out mouse of a wife, whose bite is worse than her bark. But he’s also a judgemental bully, with no space in his small mind for compassion.
He’s the reason we haven’t been to visit for so long.
‘You don’t need to tell him anything,’ I protest, as we turn off the main road towards Petersham.
‘Oh Tot, love the optimism. But you know my daddio. He’ll ask,’ Robin replies. ‘He always does. He can’t wait to ask. He’s been looking forward to it since Christmas. He’s salivating with glee at the thought of it.’
Rob’s right, of course. Before we’ve even got our coats off, the question will have been dropped, loaded like a bomb, in front of us. It’s the same every time.
How’s work then, Rob?
‘Just say it’s quiet but picking up,’ I say, desperately. ‘And change the subject.’
‘He won’t buy it,’ Robin replies, his jaw tensing. ‘And anyway, he can go to hell. Looking after a baby is harder work than what he does. Flogging people carriers to the rich twats round here.’
I shake my head, uselessly. Sometimes I think Robin wants a fight, a huge showdown, to get out all the feelings he’s bottled up for so long. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Perhaps it’s healthier that way.
We continue the final bit of the journey in silence, my fingers rooting around in my hair until I find a coarse strand to yank out. Slowly but surely, they’re turning white, all the colour suddenly vanished.
Above the hum of the engine, if I strain my ears, I can hear Riley’s rhythmic breathing in the back. In, out, in, out, the sound making me want to shut my eyes and doze as well. It’s Sunday, and I have a crazy week ahead at work. Our new campaign is about to launch, and I’m so proud of it. Mum would have been so proud, too.
I’ve only been able to keep up the pace at work because Robin agreed to be a stay-at-home dad. Our situation is unusual, but it works for us. I can’t see Mike understanding this, though, somehow. He doesn’t mind the fact that I earn a decent salary, and I’ve overheard him boasting about his successful daughter-in-law at family parties. But I know he expected me to do the done thing and have at least a year off on maternity leave, and then maybe go back to work part-time.
Sandra never went back to work after having the boys. That was how they met: Mike employed her straight from secretarial college as his receptionist at the garage, but within six months of her starting work there, they were engaged. Once Nick was born, she gave up and never went back. Her boys are her life.
It might be an old-fashioned set-up but I admire her loyalty. She made a promise, a commitment, and she’s stuck to it.
I wonder what my own mother would have made of my situation. She died of kidney disease as a result of her diabetes when I was ten. Every day it feels as though she is further and further away fro
m me. My work is the only way I can stay connected to her; my way of honouring her memory. It’s why I’m so passionate about it.
We pull into their short driveway, and linger for a few minutes with the engine still running. If Robin turns it off, Riley will undoubtedly wake up, the change in atmosphere enough to jolt her out of sleep.
‘She’s had fifty minutes,’ I say to Robin and he nods.
We can’t stay in the car anyway. Sandra has spotted us and opened the front door. She doesn’t understand our obsession with Riley’s sleep.
Her advice has been unsolicited and unending. Passive-aggressive emails with links to articles about sleep training I ‘might find useful’.
I have never felt my own mother’s absence more acutely than since becoming a mother myself. She was good with babies and children. All my school friends loved her. She was confident with them, and they responded well to her calm and unflappable nature.
Dad told me later on that she’d desperately wanted me to have a sibling, but that she was simply too poorly. As a diabetic, being pregnant was a big risk to her health. And although Dad was always quick to say that her illness worsening so much was nothing to do with the fact that she had me, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just protecting my feelings.
Sandra is making her way towards us. I smile at her, take a deep breath. Apparently, in her day, babies fitted around your schedule, not the other way round. She left Robin to scream himself to sleep at only six weeks old. ‘He slept through the night from that night onwards.’
Sometimes I wonder if this is the cause of Robin’s low self-esteem, but I don’t have the courage to bring it up.
Robin
Bringing my daughter home. It might just be the proudest moment of my life.
Nick thought I must be disappointed we had a girl. Like he was when his twins were born, although he’d never admit it to Honor. But I wasn’t. Wasn’t what I had pictured, but actually, perhaps it’s better this way. And she’s adorable, my daughter. Everyone says so. Even Esther fell in love with her at first sight, and after what she went through, that wasn’t a given.
The Perfect Father: the most gripping and twisty thriller you'll read in 2020 Page 6