The Wrong Mother

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘I never said anything about-’

  ‘You’d hire a full-time servant to walk round your house seven days a week, arranging each room so that it looked as you wanted it to look. That way you’d never have to encounter Nick’s mess; you’d be able to walk into a room and sit down without having to repair any damage first.’

  He’s right. I forgot the lottery part; the rest is familiar. My words. He is taunting me with my own words. ‘I love Nick and I love my kids,’ I tell him, crying. ‘Please, let me go! Put down the gun.’

  ‘It’s hard for Nick when you’re away, isn’t it? You have to hire a woman to help look after him and the kids or else things spiral out of control pretty quickly.’

  Pam Senior. Pam helped Nick, the week I was at Seddon Hall. What does she have to do with any of this?

  ‘But if he goes away-not that he does very often. You’d like him to go away more often. If Nick goes away, your life gets easier. You’ve got the kids to look after, yes, but not the strewn newspapers and the discarded banana skins-’

  ‘Stop.’ My head throbs. I want to curl into a ball on the carpet, but I can’t. I have to try and get out. ‘Please, stop. You can’t honestly believe-’

  ‘What do you think of this room?’ He takes my phone from my hands, puts it back in his pocket and points the gun at my chest.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tidy enough? It can hardly be messy. There’s nothing in it apart from the massage table, you and your bag. More furniture is on its way: a bookcase, a lamp. You don’t like it, do you?’ His voice shakes. ‘Can’t wait to get out. I did it up specially for you. The massage table wasn’t cheap, but I know how much you like your massages. And the carpet, and the lampshade. I chose everything for you.’

  ‘Including the lock for the door?’ I dig my fingernails into my palms to stop myself from howling.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he says. ‘And I’m sorry about the prop.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The gun.’ He waves it at me. ‘I’m hoping I won’t need it for much longer.’

  I’m too crippled by terror to work out if this is a threat. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘That’s up to you. Do you know how many times I painted these walls? At first I thought pale apricot, but it was too sickly. I tried yellow-too dazzling. And then a couple of weeks ago I thought of the obvious-white. Perfect.’

  This can’t be happening. It cannot be that a madman has been creating a room in which to imprison me while I’ve been getting on with my life, completely unaware. My thoughts become more concrete and focused as it dawns on me that what he’s saying can’t be right. A couple of weeks? Two weeks ago, Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick were still alive. But… the carpet is new and the room smells of paint. He can’t have ordered the carpet since Geraldine and Lucy died. It would have taken longer than that…

  As if he can read my mind, he says, ‘Your being here has nothing to do with the deaths that have been on the news. Maybe that influenced the timing a bit, but-’

  ‘I know who you are,’ I tell him. ‘You’re Amy Oliver’s father. Where are Amy and her mother? Did you kill them too?’ I don’t know anything; I’m guessing. But I’m starting to want to know. Maybe finding out the truth is the only way to understand him, my only chance of getting out of here.

  ‘Did I kill them?’ I’ve made him angry. ‘Look at me. Do I look like the sort of man who would kill his wife and daughter?’ He sees me staring at the gun. ‘Ignore this thing…’ He shakes it in the air, scowling at it as if it’s attached itself to his hand against his will. ‘Look at my face. Is it the face of a killer?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He raises the gun, straightens his arm so that it’s closer to my face.

  ‘No,’ I manage to say. ‘You’re not a killer.’

  ‘You know I’m not.’

  ‘I know you’re not.’

  He seems satisfied, and lowers the gun. ‘You must be absolutely famished. Let’s eat, and then I’ll give you the grand tour.’

  ‘Tour?’

  He smiles. ‘Of the house, stupid.’

  He has already laid the table. The meal is pasta covered in grey, gelatinous gloop, the same colour as the gun. There are flecks of green in the sauce and funny straight sticks that look like pine needles. My throat closes. I can barely breathe.

  He tells me to sit. At the far end of the kitchen there is a round wooden table and two wooden chairs. At some point someone who lived here got carried away with small square tiles in primary colours. The room looks like something from a children’s TV programme.

  ‘Linguine with a leek and anchovy sauce,’ he says, putting down a plate in front of me. A spiral of leek, like a green snake, protrudes from the grey slime. The fishy, lemony smell makes me gag. ‘With parsley and rosemary. Incredibly nutritious.’ He sits down beside me.

  So the pine needles are rosemary. I see a recipe book open on the surface beside the sink. A leather, tasselled bookmark lies across the double-page spread.

  The back door has a glass panel in it, but I can see nothing that might smash it-no heavy-handled knives out on the work-surface, no chunky chopping-boards. All the counters are spotless, empty apart from the recipe book. The gun sits on the table, beside his right elbow.

  He says, ‘I won’t offer you a glass of wine, if that’s all right. But I also won’t have any myself.’

  I quell the scream that’s rising inside me and manage to nod. What is he talking about? His words make sense, yet at the same time they are completely incomprehensible. Through the glass in the door I see a large wooden shed and more potted plants, mainly cacti. The private space is enclosed by a high hedge and an even higher brick wall.

  I am in a house that will be almost impossible to escape from.

  ‘Is the food all right?’

  I nod.

  ‘You’re not really eating it.’ He chews and swallows noisily, questioning me in between mouthfuls. His noises make me feel sick. In the end, I force down everything on my plate in order to convince him of my gratitude.

  When we’ve both finished, he says, ‘There’s no pudding apart from the healthy kind. If you’re still hungry there’s plenty of fruit. I’ve got apples, pears or bananas.’

  ‘I’m full. Thanks.’

  He smiles at me. ‘How long has it been since someone looked after you, Sally?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I remember you telling me your ideal lunch was a drive-through McDonald’s. Do you remember what you said?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I said, “You can’t possibly think McDonald’s burgers taste good.” And you said, “They taste brilliant to me, mainly because they’re quick and easy. I don’t even have to get out of the car. My taste buds are easily influenced.” ’

  My stupid little McDonald’s appreciation speech. I’ve recited it so often, to so many people.

  ‘Do you remember telling me that every time Nick cooks he demolishes the kitchen, and it takes you at least two hours to reconstruct it afterwards?’

  I blink away tears. I’m not sure how much more of this I can stand.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about mess with me.’ He gestures around the room. ‘No work for you to do at all.’

  ‘When can I phone my children?’

  His face shuts down. ‘Later.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to them now.’

  ‘It’s not even lunchtime. They’re still at nursery.’

  ‘Can I phone Nick?’

  He picks up the gun. ‘I still haven’t shown you round. This is the kitchen, obviously. It’s where I normally eat, but there’s also a dining room. It’s handy to have two dining areas, especially with children.’ A quick glance at his face tells me he is serious.

  He thinks he’s introducing me to my new home.

  ‘You’ve got children?’ I try to sound matter-of-fact.

  His face shuts down. ‘No,’ he says, looking away.

&
nbsp; Fear presses down on my heart. It takes me a while to rise to my feet. He pretends not to notice the state I’m in as he leads me round the house, one hand on my arm. From time to time, he says, ‘Cheer up!’ in an unconvincingly hearty voice, as if my distress embarrasses him and he doesn’t know how to react.

  The room he locked me in is included in the tour. It’s where he takes me after he’s forced me to be more admiring of the narrow beige dining room than it deserves by repeatedly saying, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it? You don’t seem to like it,’ tapping the gun against his leg.

  He tells me the room with the stripy carpet used to be a garage. ‘There’s still a garage,’ he adds quickly, as if he imagines the lack of one might concern me. ‘A double, detached from the house. But there used to be an integral one as well. We didn’t need two, so we decided to turn this one into a playroom.’ He sees my shock and sighs. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m unwilling to confide in you,’ he says. ‘I know it must seem as if there’s a lot you don’t know about me, and I will tell you, I promise, but the important thing is you, Sally. You’re the only person I’m interested in now, for the time being at least. You won’t get upset if I mention the past, will you?’

  ‘No,’ I hear myself say. I wish I could go back in time, into my own past, and scream at myself to stay away from him. How could I have been so stupid? If he’s insane now he must have been insane last year, when I first met him. Why didn’t I spot it? What’s wrong with me? Is this my punishment? I didn’t even fancy him that much. Was I so desperate to have an adventure, to make the most of my one week of freedom, that I missed all the obvious warning signs? I could lose Nick, my children, my whole life, because I chose to have a fling with this man of all men.

  My resolve hardens. I have to get out of here, whatever it takes.

  ‘Show me the rest of the house,’ I say.

  He doesn’t need any encouragement. As he marches me from room to room, still holding me by the arm, I look for something I can grab and use to knock him out. There’s a wrought-iron letter-stand on a table in the hall with a small lamp beside it. Either of these might do, if only he would take his eyes off me for a second.

  The lounge is the biggest room I’ve seen so far, full of bulky chairs and sofas upholstered in distressed brown leather, with a beige velvet-effect carpet. The walls that aren’t covered with bookshelves are white. After we leave the room, I realise I didn’t take in the title of a single book, and there were dozens. There was something on the wall too-a framed, brightly coloured poster with writing on it-something about El Salvador.

  I must pay more attention. If I get out of here, I’ll have to describe this house to the police.

  Halfway up the stairs he stops and says, ‘You’ll have noticed there was no television in the lounge. Television in the lounge kills conversation, but I can get you one for your room if you’d like.’

  It’s not my room, I want to scream at him. Nothing here is mine.

  Upstairs there are six rooms, five with their doors standing open. He walks me into each one, then out again almost straight away. One contains gym equipment-weights, a cross-trainer, a treadmill, an exercise bike-as well as a stereo, a club-style swivel chair in burgundy leather and two speakers, the biggest I have ever seen. The second is a bedroom, with pale blue walls, a blue carpet, navy curtains with a white trim and a double bed with blue bedding. Two blue towels lie neatly folded on the bed. ‘This is the guest room,’ he says, ‘but we call it the Blue Room.’

  In the next bedroom we come to, everything is pink and floral. A little girl’s room. I feel as if I might faint. There is a single bed against one wall. Beside it are two toy cots and a plastic toy bath. I am allowed only a fleeting glimpse of the master bedroom before he pulls me into the smallest of the upstairs rooms, a boxroom. It has an aubergine-coloured carpet that is flecked with white, yellow walls, a skylight, a desk and more shelves full of books. My eyes are drawn to a novel I read while I was at university: The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. I hated it. And there are other books by Conrad too-eight or nine, titles I’ve never heard of: Almayer something. My eyes flit to the shelf above, too impatient to read the whole title.

  What’s wrong with this room?

  A circle of pain around my arm and I’m dragged out on to the landing. Did I see something? What was it my eye landed on that didn’t look right?

  The man steers me towards the sixth door on the landing, the only one that’s closed. He tries the handle. ‘Locked, see? The plumbing’s not working and I don’t want a flood.’ I stare at the shiny lock. It looks new. How recently did he have it put on? ‘I’ll show you the bathroom you can use.’ He uses the gun to usher me downstairs; I can feel it against my back.

  Halfway down I lose my footing and fall, hitting my side on the steps. ‘Careful!’ he says. I hear panic in his voice. Does he imagine he cares about me? Is that what he tells himself, his justification?

  I stand up, winded but determined not to let him see I’m in pain. He is eager to show me what he calls my ‘private bathroom’. In the hall, under the stairs and opposite the entrance to the kitchen, there’s a door with a sloping top that follows the line of the stairs. I didn’t notice it before. He opens it. Inside, there’s a lavatory, shower and basin, all within a few centimetres of each other. I’m not sure there would be room for a person to stand in front of the basin if the door were closed.

  ‘Bijou I think is the word,’ he says. ‘This used to be the cupboard under the stairs. I never wanted to turn it into a bathroom; this house hasn’t got much in the way of storage space, and the master bedroom’s got an en-suite…’ He frowns, as if an unwelcome memory has forced itself upon him. ‘I suppose it’s lucky I lost the argument.’

  ‘Argument with who?’ I ask, but he isn’t paying attention. He mumbles something that sounds like ‘satisfied diffusion’.

  ‘Pardon?’ I say.

  ‘Stratified diffusion.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Mark Bretherick is a scientist. Could this man be one too? Is that how they know each other?

  ‘En-suite bathrooms. Foreign holidays, too. It doesn’t matter.’ He waves his gun to dismiss the topic, nearly hitting me in the face. Mark Bretherick told me that Geraldine and Lucy’s bodies were found in the two bathrooms at Corn Mill House. The door of one bathroom in this man’s house is locked. Does it mean anything?

  ‘I don’t understand.’ I look into his eyes, searching for a person I can reach somehow. How can I persuade him to let me leave?

  ‘Do you want to phone Nick now?’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’ I try not to sound as if I’m pleading.

  He hands me my phone. ‘Don’t speak for too long. And don’t say anything disloyal. About me. If you even try, I’ll know.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Say you’re busy and you don’t know when you’ll be back.’ He holds the gun to the side of my head.

  Nick answers after the third ring. ‘It’s me,’ I say.

  ‘Sal? I thought you’d forgotten we exist, me and the kids. Why didn’t you ring last night? I told them you would-they were really disappointed.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Nick-’

  ‘When are you back? We need to talk about your work situation, sort something out. Save Venice can’t expect you to drop everything and go running whenever it suits them.’

  ‘Nick-’

  ‘It’s ridiculous, Sal! You didn’t even have time to ring me? I’m not surprised your employers forget you’ve got two young children-you act like you’ve forgotten too, most of the time!’

  I burst into tears. That’s so unfair. Nick gets angry so rarely. ‘I can’t discuss this now,’ I tell him. ‘The freezer’s full of stuff Zoe and Jake can have for their tea.’

  ‘When are you back?’

  Hearing this question, answering it, is as painful as I imagined it would be. ‘I don’t know. Soon, I hope.’

  A pause.

  ‘Are you crying?’ Nick asks. ‘L
ook, sorry for moaning. It’s a nightmare having to do it all myself, that’s all. And… well, sometimes I worry your work’s going to take over your whole life. A lot of women scale down their careers when they have kids; maybe you ought to think about it.’

  Silently, I count to five before answering. ‘No.’ No, no, no. ‘I’m not scaling down anything. This is a one-off crisis. Owen Mellish and I had to drop everything and come and sort it out.’ Come on, Nick. Think about it. Owen has nothing to do with Venice -he works with me at HS Silsford. I’ve told Nick many times that I think Owen’s jealous because I got the Venice job and he didn’t.

  ‘Owen Mellish?’ says Nick. Thank God. ‘The creep with the phlegmy voice?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ says my husband, sounding mystified. I wait. All I need is for him to ask if something’s wrong. Even if I can’t give him any details, even if all I can do is answer his questions with a yes or no, it will be enough to alert him. He will contact the police.

  I wait, breathing jaggedly, nodding as if Nick is speaking so as not to arouse suspicion. The gun is touching my skin. ‘Great,’ says Nick after a few seconds. Something has gone wrong: he sounds amused, not worried. ‘My wife’s run off to Venice with Mr Phlegmy-voice. Listen, I’ve got to go. Ring tonight, yeah?’

  I hear a click.

  ‘What a disappointment,’ says Mark. The man who is not Mark. ‘You should have married a man with a career, not just a job. Nick will never understand.’

  I can’t speak, or stop crying.

  ‘You need comforting so rarely-you’re so strong, so dynamic and capable-but now, when you really need him, Nick lets you down.’

  ‘Stop. Stop…’ I want to ring Esther, but he’d never let me. Esther would know instantly that I was in trouble.

  ‘Do you remember at Seddon Hall you told me you didn’t think you were cut out for family life?’

  Disloyal. I was disloyal to Nick and the children, and I am being punished for it.

  ‘I don’t think that’s right.’ He puts his arm around my shoulders, squeezes. ‘I told you so at the time. Trouble is, you’re trying to be part of the wrong family.’