The Mother's Lies

by Joanne Sefton

  Now the twins were getting on for one, and she knew he’d never leave Etta. She daydreamed of France sometimes, of oysters and café bars. Simon’s face in the scene was becoming blurred, changing slowly into one that was closer to her own age, a broodingly handsome French teen, with a leather jacket and an attitude, rather than a music teacher who was getting paunchy, with a tweed jacket that was now old and shiny at the elbows.

  But Katy still went. Part of her was still drawn to him, to the chance to be listened to like an adult, the chance to feel loved. But she was also a little afraid of his reaction if she said she wanted to break it off. He’d told her once before, with tears in his eyes and a knife in his hand, that if he couldn’t see her he would die. It was easier just to carry on.

  Tonight Etta was out at her sister’s over in Birkenhead. She went most weeks, to play gin rummy and catch up with her family. She took the bus over there, and a brother-in-law would run her home well after midnight.

  By the time Katy arrived it was about half nine. She was more careful on the last part of the walk, mindful of Simon’s paranoia. As usual, she gave the back door a faint tap and, as usual, Simon opened it almost immediately, pulling her into the kitchen and into his arms in one smooth movement. He kissed her on the head, then released her quickly, and she immediately noticed he looked agitated.

  ‘Mary’s ill,’ he said. ‘She’s hardly stopped howling for two days. It’s driving me mental.’

  Sure enough, Katy could hear noises from upstairs, more a whimper just then than a howl.

  ‘Mrs G’s not here is she?’ she asked, suddenly worried, but Simon shook his head and laughed ruefully. ‘She was going to stay, but I told her that a break from it would do her good.’

  Taking in the room, her gaze fell on a bottle of Johnnie Walker open on the table. It had one of those sticky gift bows attached to the side.

  ‘School Christmas raffle,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Want some?’

  ‘I’ve never seen you drink before.’

  She hadn’t answered his question but he poured her a glass anyway and refilled his own to clink against it. A third of the bottle was gone.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t have twins, Katy,’ he said, darkly. ‘In fact, don’t have bloody kids at all.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have the chance, would I?’ she said, with a forced brightness. ‘You’re the one who always says I’m lucky you’re so careful.’

  It was too clumsy. She had intended, in some unformed, awkward way, to steer the subject away from the twins and onto herself. To flirt or tease him out of his black mood. But flirting was new to her, despite all her experience of what should come after. Plus (she realised years later), knowingness was the very opposite of what he wanted from her.

  ‘Is that right?’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Because it doesn’t have to be like that, you know.’ He eyed her coldly for a long moment, and then downed his glass before quickly pouring another. ‘It’s not like anyone would believe it was mine, anyway,’ he muttered, speaking more to the bottle than to her. ‘If you’re anything like the tales I hear of that sister of yours, then it probably wouldn’t be mine anyway.’ He jerked a thumb towards the stairs. ‘C’mon.’

  She was scared now. Uneasiness slid and slopped in her stomach like iced water. Almost without thinking, she gulped back the whisky in her own glass, blinking back the fire of it.

  In the bedroom, amidst Etta’s silver-framed wedding pictures and ruched pink curtains, he watched her strip, his eyes hard and critical, his mouth set in a frown. Mary’s cries had become more insistent, but Simon had led her past the girls’ closed door without so much as a pause. Now, though, he kept casting irritable glances towards the wall that adjoined their bedroom. Katy tried to reassure herself; after all, what could he do to her, really, that they’d not done before? For all her efforts, she couldn’t quite settle, and she couldn’t switch off the way she’d taught herself to do when it had been frightening or painful in the past. Tonight, something was different. There was a dark charge crackling in the air.

  When the cry of a second child joined the first, even Katy winced. Simon swore and marched out of the door to go and see to them. Left alone in the bedroom, she took off her socks, the only clothes she had left on, and slipped between the pink sheets, listening to the sounds from next door. It seemed that Simon managed to settle Jennifer, for her cries died away quite quickly. But she could still hear the low murmur of his voice, as he tried wearily to placate Mary.

  He returned to her about ten minutes later, and the fire had gone out of him.

  ‘Poor mite’s red raw about her mouth. I don’t know if it’s teeth or what,’ he said, as he pulled off his clothes, not bothering with the socks himself. ‘You can’t help but love them, though. When they make such a big noise, you forget how tiny and helpless they are.’

  Suddenly it was Katy who was filled with anger at his dopey grin and bad breath and the way he scratched his balls and thought it was okay to make her wait shivering in his wife’s bedroom and then tell her how much he loved his baby daughters.

  ‘You really love them, don’t you?’ she said, coldly.

  ‘Of course I do. I’ve told you, if it wasn’t for them we’d be off, Katy. We’d have been nothing but red tail lights on the highway a long time back.’

  His fake American accent made her cringe. How could she ever have thought he was glamorous, when he was just … just pathetic. Malice and mischief sparked inside her. Why should she tread on eggshells? Why not make him share some of her anger?

  ‘Bet you love them so much that you won’t be able to keep your hands off them. When you start …’ She looked for the word. ‘When you start interfering with them that’s what you’ll tell them, I bet.’

  The slap stung her and left her ears ringing. She must have cried out because the noise in the next room started again. He’d never hit her before. Unbidden, she felt tears slide out from under her eyelids.

  ‘Now listen to them! Happy with that are you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer to his own question. He was climbing on top of her, pushing roughly at her knees. ‘You were never a child when you came here, Katy Clery, not for all the white ankle socks and the pigtails in the world. You wanted this; you asked for it. Don’t try to kid yourself about that.’

  His words whirled in her mind like dust or smoke. Was it true? Had she brought all this on herself? She’d enjoyed bits of it, at times, but had she wanted it all along? She’d had no idea at the time, of course, but what if he was right? What if she hadn’t known her own mind? She remembered the terror she’d felt the first time he kissed her; the dry, clenched horror when he touched her there.

  But there wasn’t time to try to work it out now, as he talked he was still looming over her. The smell of whisky hung around her face and he was pawing at her nipples and between her legs. She realised that something was wrong. The crying from the next room was louder and his thing wasn’t getting hard. He was cursing and kneeling back, trying to use his hands.

  Let him stew, she thought, closing her eyes like she’d done so often in the old days.

  ‘Shut up!’ he shouted, and she knew it was directed towards the wall. ‘How am I meant to …’ The weight on the bed shifted and for a moment his hands were behind her head, twining in her hair and pulling her mouth onto him. Nothing made a difference, though.

  Finally, she felt him roll off and his weight left the bed completely. She opened her eyes to see his naked body framed, briefly, in the doorway, before he slammed it behind him, leaving her in darkness.

  ‘Shut up!’ The scream was on the other side of wall now, but louder than it had been when he was beside her. Jesus. She sent a half-muttered prayer towards the shadowing shape of the fringed lightshade above her. It sounded like he’d really lost it this time.

  Of course, his anger only served to stoke the child’s upset, and Mary’s voice rose to match his, till they were roaring together like the wind and the waves of a stupendou
s thunderstorm.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, I told you to shut up!’

  Each word was dragged out, pleading and commanding in the same breath. Behind it, the shrill cries carried on. Katy began to wonder if she should get up, get dressed perhaps, when, quite suddenly, the noise stopped.

  She lay still. Simon would be back in a moment. She strained her ears to listen for him, but there was nothing. After a while she sat up. Then she became aware that there was a sound, so soft she could barely hear it. An odd, keening, cry; it came in waves, slowing getting louder. The night chill had settled round her bare shoulders and she shivered. It was the prompt she needed to finally reach for the switch on the bedside lamp, swing her legs from under the eiderdown and start gathering her things from the floor. Her mouth felt fuggy from the whisky and the taste of his breath, but that didn’t explain the sick feeling in her stomach.

  In the few moments it took her to dress, the keening sound became unmistakable. Simon was crying. Mother of God, what horrendous thing must have happened to make him sound like that? She tried to move more quickly, but her shaking fingers were fumbling the last buttons of her blouse. Finally, she walked the few steps into the hall to stand in the doorway of the twins’ room.

  In the corner nearest the door was a nursing chair, and it was here that Simon was sitting, his daughter held up at his shoulder as if he was winding her. At first glance, they could be taken for a picture of familial bliss; but he was naked and that awful sound still spilt out from his lips like poison.

  ‘Simon?’ She kept her voice low and gentle, holding back the panic. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  For a moment, it was as though he hadn’t heard her. Then, slowly, he lifted his face towards her and held out the child in his arms, awkward, and still as stone.

  ‘I couldn’t stand it any more, Katy. I had to make her stop.’

  August 2017

  Nelson

  The DI’s upper lip twisted involuntarily as he stood, arms crossed, feet planted, observing DS Addison’s second interview with Simon Gardiner. Nelson didn’t like a nonce any better than the next man did. He’d met plenty of Gardiner’s type in his time, too, not so much meaning the kiddie-fiddling, but rather the attitude. He’d been supercilious as fuck when the uniforms had brought him in, all righteous indignation and ‘we’ll see what your gaffer makes of this’. Then he’d tried to get matey with Addison, right down to the funny handshake. Addison had had none of it and Nelson allowed himself a thin smile of pride.

  Gardiner was composed as the interview got underway. He’d recognised quickly that he wasn’t going to be able to grease his way out of it and he’d settled in for the long haul; all ‘I only hope I can help’, and only accepting DC Hemmings’ offer of tea, ‘if it’s not too much for you, Miss.’ That got Hemmings’ back up and Nelson smiled again, although the girl was smart enough not to let it show to the interviewee. She’d turn out to be a good ’un too, he reckoned.

  When Addison got out the log of evidence from Gardiner’s PC, the patrician pillar of the community was shaken for a moment, but quickly found the right note of contrition. Yes, Gardiner readily accepted, it was foolish and looked bad. He had a taste for saucy schoolgirls that was an embarrassment, all the more so given his now advanced years.

  ‘But what man doesn’t have a weakness?’ Gardiner cast his question around the room, almost as if he knew he was taking in Nelson behind the mirrored glass. ‘Let him without sin cast the first stone and all that, yes, DS Addison?’

  ‘There’s sin and there’s crime, Mr Gardiner; it’s the latter that we’re interested in.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Gardiner, punctuating the air with a finger. ‘And, as I said the last time we met, I hope that the websites that I visit are legal. Nothing illegal about photographing a sixteen-year-old who happens to look like she’s twelve, is there? I’m not very computer-savvy, I admit, and if I’ve followed a few links that I shouldn’t have, then I’ll take it on the chin, but this isn’t the hard stuff.’

  ‘That’s for us to judge.’

  Addison was keeping his composure well, but behind the glass Nelson shifted from one foot to the other.

  ‘Like I said …’ Gardiner was warming to his theme, ‘… I’m not into computers – too old, aren’t I – I wouldn’t know how to get my hands on the really dodgy stuff, even if I did want to.’

  ‘Is that right, Mr Gardiner?’

  ‘It is. And I don’t want to, believe me. Wide-eyed innocence and everything tight and tidy, that’s what does it for me – if you don’t mind my frankness, Miss.’ Gardiner’s aside to Hemmings had a flavour of his earlier patronising tone.

  ‘Let’s leave the pictures for now, Mr Gardiner,’ said Addison. ‘We are working to verify the sources and to establish whether any criminal activity is indicated. If there is anything for you to ‘take on the chin’, as you put it, we’ll make sure that happens.’

  Gardiner pursed his lips but waited for Addison to continue.

  ‘I want to move on to something new, though. Emails.’

  Now Gardiner looked puzzled, and Nelson couldn’t tell if the appearance was genuine or artifice. Again, he said nothing and waited to hear the policeman finish his piece.

  Addison pushed a piece of paper across the table.

  ‘Is that your email address?’

  ‘It is.’

  DC Hemmings read the address for the tape.

  ‘And whose is this address?’

  Gardiner squinted at the paper. ‘eltel69@mailthing.com? I have no idea.’

  ‘Well, that surprises me, given that you and El Tel have exchanged a good few emails recently. Emails that you have been very assiduous in moving to your deleted items folder.’

  ‘Let me see them.’

  Addison did as he was requested and slid the thin sheaf of paper across the table.

  Nelson scrutinised Gardiner as he took his time to read through them. The only sign of emotion was a slight tremor in his hand as he shuffled the pages. Finally, he put them down.

  ‘I didn’t send these. I didn’t receive anything from that address.’

  ‘It’s your account.’

  ‘My account’s been hacked.’

  Addison tutted. ‘That’s what they all say. Hackers steal bank details; they don’t write little coded messages about kidnappings.’

  ‘Well this one does. Because it sure as hell wasn’t me.’

  ‘A child has been kidnapped, Mr Gardiner.’ Addison raised his voice, slamming his hand on the email printouts. ‘The child referred to in these emails – Barney Harrison. Barbara Marsden’s grandson.’

  That was when Gardiner lost it. Nelson rocked back on his heels and let a slow smile of satisfaction creep across his face as he watched it slip away. The bonhomie was gone; the ingratiating, weak-willed fallibility was gone. Simon Gardiner clutched at the edge of the interview room table with veiny, desperate fingers but was helpless to stop each element of his controlled persona slipping from his grasp.

  ‘It’s her, isn’t it? I saw a picture of the boy’s mother in the newspaper. She’s the spit of her,’ he said, his voice coming out as a hiss. ‘It’s that bitch, after fifty fucking years.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Katy Fucking Clery.’

  Addison laughed out loud.

  Helen

  She wanted to speak to Barbara before she spoke to the police. It would be too easy for DI Nelson to dismiss her theory as hysterical ranting. More than that, though, if it was Barbara who held the key to Barney’s disappearance then she also held the key to getting him back, and Helen had no time to waste.

  They rushed back to the house, hurrying Alys along the footpaths they’d dawdled down to get to the pond. Without bothering to go inside, she and Darren packed Alys into the car and jumped in themselves, doing their best to ignore the still-assembled press pack. As they drove the few short miles to the hospital, Helen’s conviction grew that her theory must be right. That it was the only
explanation. Neil had told her about the pack of documents found in the house, how the police had tried to twist some of Barbara’s research into an allegation that he was a paedophile. Suddenly she realised why the stuff had been hidden; it wasn’t research for a story at all, it was research for this – Katy Clery’s elaborate scheme, her life’s work dedicated to destroying the man who had destroyed her.

  Alongside her growing certainty, Helen’s incredulity blossomed into anger and finally sheer rage. How dare Barbara involve her grandson in this? How could she put her own daughter through the horror of her son going missing?

  ‘Mr Marsden is there, already,’ said the receptionist at St Aeltha’s, ‘and another lady.’

  That would be Sonia, Helen thought. She nodded a distracted ‘okay’ to the lady on the desk. Darren was already several steps ahead of her, seemingly not hampered at all by the weight of Alys squirming in his arms. She struggled to close the gap, breaking into a half-jog and wondering if she should have made him stay in the car – not that he’d have been likely to agree to it. To Helen, the rage in Darren was palpable. Even though she could only see the back of him, she could sense it rising from him and filling the corridor like steam. She prayed they weren’t about to make a horrific mistake.

  She had managed to catch him up by the time they reached the doorway, and the three of them almost stumbled through it together. Barbara seemed to be asleep, and Neil and Sonia were sitting silently by the bed. They both rose when the door opened and, before either Helen or Darren had opened their mouths, Neil quickly suggested that, if Helen didn’t mind, he and Sonia would go and grab a bite to eat together now Barbara wouldn’t be left alone. She nodded, blankly, unable to speak. Sonia swiped mascara away from her eyes as she gathered her things.

  ‘She keeps trying to speak to us,’ said Neil. ‘But it means nothing. I don’t even know if she was happy or angry about me bringing Sonia in.’ His cheeks were wet with tears that he wasn’t bothering to try to hold back.

  ‘Could you take Alys?’ Helen blurted, as the pair of them made to leave the room.