‘Mary!’ Alf’s voice is next to me and I jump. ‘She’ll ruin it for us. She’ll always put the baby first and when she does, you’ll be left all alone. There’s no turning back, Mary.’ His breath hits my cheek. ‘It’s Aoife or me.’
I wake with a start. I have no air in my lungs and I start to panic, hunched over, clawing at the blanket on my bed as I try to pull in a breath.
‘Hey, Mary, what’s the matter?’ Aoife looks over from her bed, my desperate noises having woken her, and she’s up and over to mine when she sees I’m in trouble.
‘Come on now, just calm down.’ She’s stroking my back and I try to focus on the rhythmic movement. It helps. I feel slivers of air run down my throat before I take a huge breath and then two more. I collapse back on the bed, panting.
‘Jesus, I thought you were dying.’
‘So did I.’ I try a laugh but it doesn’t come. Aoife lies down next to me.
‘Bad dream?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Want to tell me?’
I shake my head. The residue of the dream hangs between us. I look at her stomach, growing bigger by the week. ‘It’s all going to change, isn’t it? When it’s born.’
She follows my eyes and puts a hand on her stomach, something she’s been doing more and more. ‘Well, there will be a baby, that’s definitely a change.’ She laughs, but when she sees my face she stops.
‘I meant between us. Things will change between us.’
Aoife shakes her head, red curls emphasising her point. ‘No. Nothing will change. This baby is as much yours as mine. We got into this together and we’ll get out of it the same way.’
She gets up to dress and I watch her scoop clothes off the floor and I try to ignore the feeling that’s recently started tap-tap-tapping in my head. I bury my face in the pillow and mumble the words just to get them out. ‘I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish we’d made it go away.’
But it turns out, Aoife is more Catholic than either of us thought.
In the evening we go to Alf’s flat. We get ready together with the same excitement we would for a party, hair and nails done, creases on our best dresses smoothed out. Because for all the bits we don’t like, we can’t help but like the way our time with him makes us feel; it takes us from a world where we are a problem to be solved to one where we are princesses and told we are something special. Time stands still when we are with Alf. We have no past, no rejection, and no one expects our future to be full of failure. We are just two girls living a life we’ve chosen rather than the one given to us.
But tonight, as soon as we open the door, we know something feels different. Alf is on the sofa where he always is, but there is a man to his right and one at the table. We pause by the door.
‘Come in, girls,’ Alf calls. ‘My friends have popped over.’ He grins at the men. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’
He’s in full-on Alf mode and we get swept up in his enthusiasm. We sit and watch as he jokes with his friends, take every drink offered to us, and feel the room fill with laughter and fun.
Then Alf looks at Aoife and things seem to still. His smile remains but it’s changed in a way you can never point to, but you just know what lies behind it isn’t good any more. He gestures to her to go to him and she obeys. He pulls her down on his lap and she laughs as he pushes her down and kisses her.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ I hear him whisper. ‘The perfect fit for me.’
The men are watching this, their eyes fixed on Aoife; they don’t smile or laugh, just watch, and the way they are looking at her makes my stomach feel like it’s full of bees.
Alf looks up and catches the eye of the man on the sofa, then he looks to me. I sit dead still. I don’t want him to say what he’s going to.
‘Come and sit down over here, Mary.’
I walk across, wishing my dress was longer and my lipstick less red. The man on the sofa next to Alf smiles and suddenly I’m so relieved to see he has nice eyes just like Alf, warm and friendly. I sit next to him and smile back.
‘Wow, that’s a pretty smile you have there.’
I smile a bit more and he laughs.
‘A right proper little Cheshire cat.’
I relax back into the sofa and look up at him. He strokes my hair and I almost close my eyes, and then I finally do when he carries on for what feels like hours.
Alf nudges me. ‘Hey there, sleepyhead. Drink this, it’ll perk you up.’
I sit up and take a mouthful. Knowing the acrid smell will make me gag, I concentrate on not breathing. I take another and another and within five minutes the world starts to slide away from me: I am happy and a giggle comes out of nowhere.
I struggle to focus on Alf, but I see him nod to the man next to me and I swing my head round to him. He smiles, I return it.
‘Come on, you sweet, sweet thing.’ He stands and helps me off the sofa. I feel his arm round my waist and I laugh because it tickles. He moves me towards Alf’s bedroom and I try to turn round to see Aoife, but the man stops me.
‘Come on now, you don’t want to disappoint Alf, do you?’
And of course, I don’t. I’d never want to do that. So I just smile again and follow him inside.
Twenty-six
The bus dropped Carla in the centre of Witney and after a short walk she pushed at their front door. Something barred her way and it was only after squeezing through the tiny gap that she saw what was causing it: Baz’s overnight bag.
‘Baz?’ She threw her keys on the hall table. What was his bag doing there? Was he on a late call-out? But since when did that mean he took his bag?
She called again, forcefully this time, as she looked in the tiny kitchen before carrying on to the front room.
He was sitting on the sofa. The room was lit only by the street lights outside and she felt panic compress her chest. He’d found them. She was sure of it.
‘Baz?’
He didn’t turn, and Carla’s heart began to pound high up in her chest.
When finally Baz turned to look at her, the pain and confusion in his face made her stomach lurch. And then she saw them, lying on the coffee table, a white packet bright in the gloom: her contraceptive pills.
The breath left her, as if he’d hit her, and maybe it would have been easier if he had. Words wouldn’t come. She was floundering, drowning in all the words she wanted to say but which wouldn’t form.
‘I found these.’ His voice was steady, calm, but the hand picking up the pills was shaking. ‘What are they?’
Her anxiety turned into panic, thoughts running in all directions, none linear enough to make sense. How had he found them? Why had he been going through her bedroom drawer? Could she say that, turn it round to make it about him – how he had betrayed her trust?
Shame brought the thoughts to a halt. He had been betrayed, not her.
Carla searched Baz’s face for a clue as to what he was thinking, something to hang on to, a beginning. All she found was confusion and hurt.
Suddenly she remembered the case by the door and felt a punch of nausea. Why had he packed a bag? Was he leaving her?
When words finally formed, they tumbled out of her.
‘I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, I really did, but the longer I took the harder it became. And I didn’t want to upset you by telling you I’m just not ready for a baby – not yet, I mean.’ She stopped. There, it was out, and despite the pain of seeing Baz so crushed, she couldn’t help but feel relief.
‘So it is the pill then, the contraceptive pill?’
‘I do want a baby, I just don’t want one yet. My job is going really well, I’m on a new team that’s starting to come together, and …’ She paused again, unsure how to go on, but then panic hit and she retched. Bending over close to the floor, she tried to regain her breath, to keep the vomit from coming, while Baz silently watched her.
When she finally looked up he threw the pills on the table next to three empty beer bottles. How long ago had he found them?
How long had he been sitting here alone, wondering what he’d done to deserve such a betrayal?
‘But we’ve been trying, Carla, trying for a baby.’
His confusion made her chest constrict again.
‘We’ve been trying to make a baby and each month it hasn’t happened I’ve worried it’s me, that I’m not going to be able to give you the child you want, and yet all this time, all this time,’ he emphasised, ‘you knew that wasn’t true – none of it was true. And what does it mean?’ His voice rose. ‘That you never want a baby? Or is it just that you don’t want a baby with me?’
‘How could you think that? How could I not want a baby with you? You’re kind and loving and patient and funny …’ She reached over to him, but he pulled back; the rejection felt like a slap.
‘Of course I want a baby with you,’ she continued, desperate to persuade him, to convince him it wasn’t him, it was her. ‘And I was coming home to tell you, to tell you about the pills, to explain I just don’t want one now.’
‘How do I know? How do I know anything you say is true any more? You could be shagging half of Thames Valley for all I know.’
‘Baz!’ How could he accuse her of that? She felt the conversation spiralling out of control and tried to pull it back. ‘Baz. Come on. Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit? I’m just not ready yet, that’s all.’
‘That’s all? You lie to me for months and “that’s all”? And I’m “overreacting”?’ he shouted.
They stared at each other. A stand-off. Then he stood. ‘I’m going to Mum’s.’
She panicked: what would his mum say? Would she make him understand? Tell him he was being ridiculous and to go back home? Or would she hate Carla like Baz now did?
She followed him down the hall, emotions burning away all pride. ‘Please don’t go. Stay and we’ll get wine and a takeout and talk things through. Please, Baz.’ The panic surged as he reached for his bag. She couldn’t let him leave. Whatever happened, she had to stop him leaving. She reached to take hold of his arm. ‘Please, surely we can get over a small packet of pills?’
His back was to her but he paused. She grabbed the opportunity. ‘I love you, Baz. We’ll have hundreds of kids one day. You, me, kids … them running across the beach while your mum and you chase them and I hide under a sunshade.’ She tried to conjure up all the dreams they’d made, the future memories they’d already created. If she could just piece together the right words, he wouldn’t leave. ‘Please stay – we can talk about it, work it out. I’ll stop taking the pill.’ But even as she spoke, she knew it was the one word she shouldn’t have said.
Shaking off her grip, Baz reached for the latch, and before she could get any more words out he’d walked out of the flat and slammed the door shut between them.
Twenty-seven
Nell hadn’t slept well. Bremer’s mention of her attack had given her subconscious free rein, and a morning call from him telling her to bring Joanne in for writing a few dodgy letters had done nothing to improve her mood. By the time they reached the interview room, her scars were itching, her head was pounding and as the room had no windows or air conditioning, she was sweating before she’d even finished the caution.
Joanne sat with her hands clasped between her legs, the shock of being brought to the station still evident.
‘I just don’t understand why I’m here. I told your DCI I didn’t write any letters.’
‘Where were you the night before last, Ms Fowler?’
‘I was with my husband all night. Why?’
‘And he’ll confirm this?’
‘Of course!’
‘And what did you have for dinner?’ Nell asked.
‘Dinner? I can’t remember. Probably pasta. It’s all I can really cook.’ She gave Paul a Princess Diana flutter of the lashes, which he returned with a smile. Nell looked at him in disgust. Jesus, men were so gullible, even six-foot, built-like-a-brick-shithouse cop ones.
‘So you had this pasta, the one thing you can cook, and then went to bed after watching two television programmes?’
Joanne nodded.
‘Who fell asleep first?’
‘I don’t know. Me, I think.’
‘And did you wake before morning?’
‘I always wake during the night. I go downstairs and have a drink of water, then go back to bed. It’s sort of a routine.’
‘Does your husband notice when you wake and go downstairs?’
‘No, never. He sleeps like the dead.’ She froze, but whether that was due to the poor turn of phrase or because she’d given the game away, Nell couldn’t tell.
‘I didn’t creep out and murder anyone, if that’s what you’re getting at.’ She was irritated now and that was good; irritated people weren’t in control; irritated people made mistakes.
‘Did you know a Mr O’Brian?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t come across him when you left a note for Kelly-Anne?’
Joanne looked confused. ‘What note? I didn’t write a note.’ She looked at Paul. ‘And I didn’t write any letters.’
‘The note said,’ Nell went on, causing Joanne to look back across at her, ‘that Ms Graham was going to say Kelly-Anne killed her baby and she wasn’t to believe it. Its tone,’ she continued, despite Joanne opening her mouth to speak, ‘was identical to the tone of the letters Ms Graham received from you.’
Joanne sighed again and leaned back in her chair. ‘I’ve said it enough times now – I didn’t write those letters.’
‘But you know there are letters, plural? When DCI Bremer spoke with you we only had knowledge of one.’
‘I know because you just told me.’
‘Who is Mary?’
Joanne stared at her. ‘What?’
‘The letters were signed by “Mary” and the note by “M”. So who is Mary?’
Joanne’s expression turned from confusion to fear in a matter of seconds.
‘I don’t know anybody called Mary.’ Her voice wobbled as she spoke and she clutched her cardigan tightly around herself.
My God – was Mary a pseudonym? Nell glanced to Paul and could see he saw it too. She decided to go in hard.
‘Ms Fowler, why are you sending letters to bereaved parents and using a pseudonym to do so? Isn’t that a bit insensitive, in light of your own bereavement?’
Joanne looked as though she could launch across the table and grab Nell by the throat, which was exactly the reaction she’d wanted.
‘The fact I know how it feels to have a baby die is exactly the reason I wouldn’t write such a note. I am not here to bring additional pain to another mother.’
‘What are you here for then? To get revenge on Ms Graham?’
‘I’m here because you dragged me in here. I can assure you I’ve seen a lifetime’s worth of interview rooms, and I don’t welcome the fact I’m now back in one because of your stupid assumption I’m someone called Mary.’
‘Are you Mary?’
Joanne looked confused. ‘What?’
‘You said I think you are Mary. But I merely said I thought you were using the name Mary to distance yourself from the threats made against Ms Graham. The two are very different.’
Joanne contemplated her for a moment before replying. ‘My name is, and has always been, Joanne.’
‘And your surname before you were married?’
‘Rathbone.’
‘And where did you grow up?’
‘Portsmouth.’
Nell nodded. ‘Nice. By the sea.’
Joanne shrugged. ‘It was OK.’
‘Were you close to your parents?’
‘What has this got to do with anything?’
‘Just answer the question, please.’
‘Not really. I was adopted because they thought they couldn’t have kids, but when they had two of their own they forgot about me.’
It was a frank admission and took Nell by surprise.
‘I’m sorry about that.’
&nb
sp; ‘I doubt you are, Sergeant.’
‘Can you tell me your parents’ names and those of your siblings?’
‘None of them are called Mary, if that’s what you’re looking for.’
Nell smiled. ‘Just the names please,’ then noted them as Joanne spoke.
‘Thank you. Do you happen to know what name you were given at birth?’
Joanne stared at her, horrified, and even Paul shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Well?’
‘I haven’t seen my birth certificate.’
Nell doubted that was true. ‘What about your husband?’
‘What about him?’
‘Does he share your obsession with Ms Graham?’
‘He blames her as much as I do, if not more, if that’s what you mean.’
‘He was very supportive of you during that time. Must have been hard on him.’
Joanne nodded. ‘He had to cope with losing our baby and losing me. It was a difficult time.’
‘So in a way he probably resents Ms Graham even more than you do?’
Joanne remained silent.
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a car salesman.’
‘Has he ever sold a car to O’Brian?’ Nell joked.
Joanne glared at her.
‘He must feel guilty you had to go through that when he didn’t.’
‘Maybe, I don’t know. He never doubted me for a moment. He knew I would never kill our child, not after we tried so hard to have one.’ Tears threatened to fall. Nell let them ferment for a moment.
‘I’d feel guilty if it was me. I think the hate would grow and grow until maybe I lost it one day and bashed someone’s head in.’
Joanne opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. Folding her arms across her chest, she stared accusingly at Nell, who didn’t care. There was something not right, but try as she might, Nell just couldn’t picture Joanne having it in her to kill O’Brian. Too delicate. So there was only one other person who hated Eve as much as Joanne did and that was her husband. Had he done it to frame Eve? Down the line, were they going to find some evidence he had planted to make them think it was Eve? Good revenge that – make her go to prison for a crime she didn’t commit, just like his wife.
When I Lost You Page 13