Outside it was cool. Summer was not far away, but in my dress without a wrap, in my drunken state, I felt every molecule of air as it moved over my exposed skin and warm face. Ed was marching ahead of me. His body was almost rigid with rage; he was clenching and unclenching his fists.
Without warning, he turned on me. I stumbled into him and then swayed to a stop. We were a little way away from the main entrance to the gym, and he grabbed me to steady me, then he tugged me to one side. A bit further on and we were standing by the side return of the building. We were out of view of the main entrance, of where people were starting to dribble out of the gym at the back of the school, like water from a tap with a faulty washer. Soon that dribble would turn to a gush as the place started to close and babysitters grew restless for payment and home.
‘The hell did you think you were doing?’ Ed hissed at me. He was so close I took a step back, only to find myself literally with my back against a wall. I’d never seen him so angry. No, wait, I had. There was the one time, and I remembered – vividly – how that had panned out. It was because of that night that we were together at all.
‘Nothing. I was dancing. Just dancing.’
‘That was not “dancing”.’
‘Yes it was. And I don’t know if you noticed, but he danced with most of the women in there. Their husbands didn’t make a holy show of them.’
‘I did notice him dancing with most of the women in there. And I also noticed he kept looking at you. All night he’s had his eye on you. And I also noticed his hands seemed to go much lower on your body than any other person’s he danced with. Oh, and I noticed that you didn’t seem to mind.’
‘What are you saying? You think I’m cheating on you?’
‘Are you going to start behaving like her? Are you? Tell me now so I know where I stand and I can get myself ready for it.’
‘No one is forcing you to stay with me, you know. I didn’t force you into any of this.’
‘What the hell was I supposed to do after what happened?’
‘Don’t you mean what were you supposed to do after what I did? I’ll tell you what you should have done – you should have gone to the police and spared us the last eight years of purgatory.’
‘We both did that—’
‘No we didn’t,’ I cut in. I can’t stand his nobility sometimes. I can’t bear how he wants to split the blame fifty-fifty when it was me. All of it was me. ‘I did it. I’m the one who caused all this. I’m the one who stole the baby.’
The gasp from my left reminded me why I never said things like that out loud. Why we never talked about it. Not ever. Because you never know who might be listening. Who might be lurking around, hoping to catch a snippet of something they could use against you.
Ed and I both turned towards the gasp.
Yvonne. Of course, Yvonne. She’d probably seen the mini scene that had almost unfolded, and had followed us out here. If I hadn’t drunk so much, I would have known that. I would have held my tongue until we were far away from here.
She spun on her heels and then walked away quickly, her bum wriggling in her tight dress, her mind probably already turning complicated somersaults as it calculated what she could do with this news.
3:10 a.m.
Was she blackmailing you, Hazel? M xxx
June, 2017
‘So how about you start with how you stole a baby?’
Yvonne. I had toyed with chasing after her on Friday night, or calling her over the weekend. But I didn’t. I knew Yvonne – I knew she wouldn’t tell anyone until she had worked out the best way to hurt me with that information. And she’d have to tell me first, what she was going to do. She would have to gloat and wait for me to beg, and then tell everyone.
‘We have to go after her,’ Ed had said. All anger towards me gone. ‘We need to shut her up.’
‘No point,’ I’d replied. ‘She won’t say anything tonight. She won’t say anything until she’s done her research and has told me what she’s found out.’
‘What if she goes to the police?’
‘I don’t know, Ed. We’ll have to deal with that when it comes up. But I’m telling you, she won’t do anything until she’s talked to me. That’s the sort of person Yvonne is.’
And here she was, true to form. Ready to talk, here to demand answers to her questions or promise retribution and destruction for my refusal to cooperate.
‘How about we don’t?’ I replied, and walked away from the open door to allow her to come in.
This had been the weekend from hell. Or some other place where marriages go to break down and you watch the person you love visibly decide if they want to be with you any more. I’d always known he didn’t love me the way a husband was meant to love a wife, not the way that I loved him, but I never thought we’d be here. Where we had to make a decision … And poor Frankie had been virtually hugged to pieces. Neither of us could stand to be away from him. Despite my confidence that Yvonne wouldn’t do anything, I’d been waiting for the knock on the door, the footsteps in my house, the authoritative voice that told me I was finally being arrested for what I had done.
‘I knew Frankie was too pale-skinned to be your real child. I knew something didn’t add up despite all that guff you gave me about your father being white. And now I have proof. I knew it.’
‘Is that what you know?’ I replied. I was trembling, my hands quivering out of time as I filled the kettle and set it back on its cradle. ‘OK.’
‘You can’t “Maxie” your way out of this. I know your secrets now.’
I stopped myself from raising a huge belly laugh at the idea that she knew even half of my secrets. Instead, I concentrated on making tea. Hot, wet, a dash of milk, a hint of sugar. Then I concentrated just as hard on sliding it towards her across my dining table before I grabbed my cup and sat down.
‘Sit down if you’re staying,’ I said to her. ‘And don’t worry, your tea comes without added poison.’
‘I can’t believe how calm you are. You really are hard-faced. All this time and you’ve never let on what you did. I can’t believe it.’
‘Would you believe me, Yvonne, if I told you I was a different person back then? It was nearly ten years ago and I was a different person who did some things she wasn’t proud of then, and isn’t proud of now. Would you believe me?’
That stopped her. Would she believe me? She wasn’t sure. The cruel, bitchy face she’d worn ever since I ditched her in the playground wavered slightly. Maybe she was wondering if she could say the same. Maybe she was wondering what roads she would be travelling on if someone had given her the chance to explain when she had done the most heinous, but most defining thing of her life.
‘Stealing a baby isn’t even in the same league as “not being proud of the things you’ve done”. This is huge.’
‘What happened to you, Yvonne?’ I said in frustration. ‘What happened to turn you into the person you are now? We were friends. We all liked you. And then it’s as if you’ve morphed into a different person. What happened to make you like that?’
‘What do you care? When have any of you three ever cared about me?’
The chair scraped the stone floor as I flung it back to get to my feet. I’d had enough of this. ‘How many times, Yvonne? How many fucking times? You are our friend. We like you. That’s why I was so shocked in the playground. You were my friend and you were being so horrible about another person, a woman who could have been your friend too if you’d just taken the time to go beyond what she looked like and talked to her. All of us, we loved you. But you act like we’re always plotting to have a friendship behind your back.’
‘Because you are, aren’t you? I know you look down on me for being class coordinator and being on the PC; I know you’re all too fucking cool to even think about joining in and supporting your children’s school. I know you all laugh at what I do because I don’t seem to have anything else in my life.’
‘But we don’t. We literally have no time to g
ossip about you. Actually, I’m starting to wonder if the way you carry on is in reality just an act. No one can be like you after all this time. I’m starting to wonder if you’re just a manipulative, soulless bitch who wants us to feel guilty all the time so you can control us. Exactly like you said your mother is.’
She slapped me – a stinger across the face to show me I’d gone too far.
I stared at her in shock for a moment, then I slapped her back. Because no one hit me and got away with it. My slap was lighter than hers, had less venom behind it because it was a response to something, not an act of anger, but her hands still flew up to her cheek; her perfectly made-up face tremored with the shock of it. The second my hand made contact with her face, I’d been horrified. I wasn’t violent. I wasn’t violent by nature, not even when it was in self-defence. She’d hit me first, but it seemed worse when I did it. Maybe because Yvonne was so much more like Bronwyn Sloane than I’d dare admit: she was awful to you but you always felt worse about it if you retaliated.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to her. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that and I shouldn’t have hit you.’ I pointed to the chair. ‘Can we sit down and talk?’
‘Talk?’ she replied. ‘I’m not talking to you any more. And you don’t even know the meaning of sorry yet.’
3:20 a.m.
Hazel? Are you going to answer me? M xx
June, 2017
‘Yvonne came over today,’ I told Ed once he’d done his goodnights with Frankie. He’d walked into the kitchen to grab his evening beer and had been startled to turn on the light and find me sitting on the counter by the sink.
He went to the door and shut it, just in case the sound filtered upstairs into the bedroom and into Frankie’s head while he slept. ‘By the look on your face, and the way you’ve been quiet all evening, and the fact you were sitting in the gloom, I’m guessing it didn’t go well,’ he said.
‘No, it didn’t go well. In fact, it went pretty badly.’
‘Is she going to go to the police?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We could pack up and be gone in a few hours,’ he said. ‘We can send for the rest of our stuff. I can work from anywhere, you know that, so can you. We can just pack up and go.’
I shook my head. What would be the point? In this day and age when everything needed ID, everything was electronically connected, we wouldn’t get very far at all. I’d thought about it, but it would be too difficult. With a child in tow, and a need for money, we’d have to stop after a while. Besides, Frankie had a life here. It could all be ripped away, but rather that after a few more days or weeks of living a normal life, than going on the run and then having all that ripped away. Better to live on borrowed time than run on borrowed time. We had to see it out.
‘Let’s see what happens, shall we? She might not say anything.’
‘Do you want me to talk to her? Explain?’
I shook my head vigorously. ‘Definitely not. Let’s leave her.’
‘I hate that woman,’ he said. ‘I actually hate her. I know she’s your friend but she’s one of those people …’ He stopped talking but stared directly at me and I knew he meant Bronwyn. We never talked about Bronwyn. Even when we occasionally ran into people who remembered Ed from his former life, who would ask how he was, and would ask about Bronwyn, he’d mumble something about them no longer being in touch; we’d pretend afterwards that the person hadn’t asked about her, just like we pretended she didn’t exist.
‘Yvonne might not go to the police,’ I told him.
‘Yeah, she might not.’ Ed tugged open the fridge and retrieved his beer. Then he took his bottle into the living room to flick through the channels on the television.
More than likely, I knew, Yvonne was going to use the threat of the police against me. She already had Hazel nervous, and Anaya cowed; now she had me where she wanted me. Going straight to the police wouldn’t appeal to Yvonne at all. I still had time to keep my family together. I still had a chance for a miracle that would stop Yvonne from ruining my life.
An hour later, my mobile bleeped with Yvonne’s text tone.
I’ve decided to forgive you for hitting me earlier. I’m sure we can work it out somehow. I’m sure there’ll be some way you can make it up to me at some point. Now, honey, let’s put all of this behind us. Yvonne xxx
I threw my phone onto the side. I needed a huge miracle, I realised. A giant one.
3:30 a.m.
Hazel??????
Part 9
TUESDAY
Cece
9:05 a.m. Gareth has spent the last few minutes taking in my kitchen. He’s looked over the surfaces, the set-up, the mound of papers on the side of the table, the chalkboard with the week’s menu I started ages ago but never got round to updating, the sofa with its unplumped cushions, the marks on the tiled floor, the cooker that I have to clean. He has looked at all of those things, but of course he has stared longest at the pictures of Harmony that surround us. He has stared and stared, trying to find the similarities, trying to convince himself that he has a place in her life because he thinks he contributed to her DNA. I don’t want him here, staring at pictures of my daughter – my and Sol’s daughter – but I can’t risk us being seen together. If I am going to do this, I can’t risk anyone catching on.
‘Have a seat,’ I say to him.
There was a time when Gareth and I couldn’t be alone in a room without wanting to tear each other’s clothes off. I wonder, if things hadn’t gone the way they did, if we’d still be like that. Or if, like it has with Sol and me, real life would have got in the way.
He comes out of his stupor, where he is clearly imagining what it would be like to spend dad-and-daughter time with Harmony, and looks at me blankly for a moment. When he remembers who I am, why he’s here, he takes a seat at the table and I move towards the kettle. ‘You must never tell anyone I have talked to you about this. Only my boss and I know about it – this is top secret.’
‘Coffee?’ I say. I’m not going to indulge his whole top-secret/secret-undercover-agent thing.
I told him when he turned up, like I told him before half-term, that I didn’t need him to brief me. I wanted to do this my way. I wanted to approach it with fresh eyes and my own perspective. I got the impression, though, that Gareth has done a lot of work on this and wants to show his skills off to me. He tells me he’d like a coffee and chatters about confidentiality and suchlike while I make us both a drink in total silence, and then bring both cups to the table.
I sit on the longer side of the table and he sits on the shorter side, where Sol usually sits. What would Sol say if he knew who had been sitting in his seat? He’d probably go mental. To be fair, in his place, I’d go mental too.
‘My boss is only letting me talk to you because you’re ex-police,’ he says. ‘Most of the stuff I’ll tell you is stuff you could technically find out via other means. So some stuff I’ll have to keep back.’
There’s an atmosphere, a heavy pall of the past that hangs over us like a thick shawl, embroidered with the threads of what we did together, how we fitted with each other. I can feel the heat starting to rise. I knew it was a risk, letting him come here, but I had no real choice.
‘Look, Gareth, I do not need to hear any of this,’ I say to him. He is staring at me and when I glance up, our eyes meet. I stop speaking as a memory reverberates through my mind: Him staring at me, stroking my face while we lie on his narrow bed, naked and close. ‘You’re incredible. You make me feel incredible when I’m with you.’ I clear my throat, look away. ‘I know you will have done a lot of background research into them, but I don’t want the things you’ve found out to cloud my judgement. This is all from you so even if it’s just facts, it’ll still be the facts as you’ve seen them. Not stuff that I might notice.’
‘I know you don’t want me to, but I really have to at least tell you what I can about what we know so far.’
I sip my coffee and mentally prepare myself
to listen. I can hear him, fine, but I need to listen, to not let anything cloud what I remember about what he says because I won’t be taking notes and I need to see where the patterns are.
‘Yvonne Whidmore, forty-two. Has lived in Brighton for nearly twenty-five years. Has been married to Trevor Whidmore for nearly eighteen years. We know some background information on Trevor Whidmore and obviously he would have been our main suspect but he was at home with the children the night of the attack. Neighbours heard one of the children wake up in the night with a nightmare and he went in to resettle them. The child confirms it. The child is also a poor sleeper so did wake up several times in the night. And his mobile phone says he did not leave the house all night, but he did make several calls to the suspects in the early hours of the night when his wife didn’t come home.
‘They have a normal marriage, no financial worries although a little debt. On the night in question the things we know for sure are that Yvonne Whidmore had drunk the better part of a bottle of wine before leaving her house at around nine p.m. She drove – drunk – to the beach, which is where we found her husband’s car that she used the next day. She went to the beach hut owned by one of her friends and there was an altercation. All of the women there – apart from Whidmore herself – confirm that. After that, things are sketchy. She’s caught on some CCTV cameras leaving the vicinity of the beach hut, but no one knows how she got from there to the school. For some reason she had keys to the school and the code to the keypad entry system. Her fingerprints were found on the gate keypad and the padlock, as well as the alarm keypad inside the front door to the school. The keys were found in her pocket. The right-hand pocket, before you ask, and she is right-handed. Her fingerprints were all over the keys in the way they would be if someone was using them. She was found by a dog walker walking past the school just before six a.m., who saw her through the gates and at first thought she was just drunk so called the police to have her removed. We know that the alarm was disabled just after ten o’clock, so she was probably bludgeoned between that time and when she was found.
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