by Julie Corbin
‘You should stay away from her. I understand that you feel a sense of responsibility because of what happened with her mother, and I understand that you are in the business of helping people, but with all due respect to your medical training and your people skills, you should keep out of this investigation.’
‘Okay.’ I bite my lip. ‘I’m sorry. I just thought I might be able to point her in the right direction. She’s only seventeen. She’s never had a mother.’ My eyes fill up again and I let my forehead drop on to the table. ‘She presses my buttons.’
‘Well don’t go anywhere near her and then she won’t be able to,’ O’Reilly says. ‘And remember to tell your children she’s a danger.’
‘I will.’ I jerk myself upright again. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Let’s just quickly write down as much as you can remember and then I’ll bring Kirsty in again. And we can bring Tess in. And eventually, we’ll get the truth out of both of them.’
I spend the next twenty minutes dredging up everything I can remember, from the number of foster homes Kirsty stayed in to the contents of the diary. When I get to the part where Phil went behind my back, O’Reilly whistles through his teeth. ‘You’re going to let him get away with that?’
‘No. I almost tackled him about it tonight, but it’s better if I pick my moment. I might even do it in front of Erika. Or would that be mean?’
O’Reilly weighs this up with a tilt of his head one way and then the other. ‘In situations like that, it’s usually the messenger who gets shot.’
‘She should know what he’s capable of. They’re getting hitched in the summer. Today, he told the children about his impending marriage, and I don’t think they took it very well.’
‘That’s why they don’t look too happy, then?’
‘Yes. And I should really go and get them and –’ I wave my arms around – ‘drive them home.’
‘Of course. There’s no need to take your fingerprints now we know who the culprit is.’ He winks at me and I smile then follow him to the staff room. I like him, and in another time, another place, and I might have had an opportunity with him, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Timing is everything and, at the moment, any involvement with him would be a complication too far.
‘Hello, you two.’
Lauren and Robbie are in the staff room watching a football match on the television. They both jump up when they hear my voice and Lauren automatically puts her arms around me. Before her face buries into my chest I see that she has indeed been crying – an extended bout by the looks of things.
We say goodbye to O’Reilly and I take them both home. A quick stop in their bedrooms to tear off their uniforms and they flop down on the living-room sofa with Benson between them. I remove my suit and leave it on a hanger to dry, then climb into jeans and a blouse and make the children some food.
When I go into the living room, Lauren’s just handed Robbie the remote control. ‘Anything but football,’ she says, as he starts flicking through channels.
‘Food for you both!’ I set a tray down on the coffee table in front of them. I’ve made them cheese and ham toasties with rocket salad and sliced tomatoes.
‘Great, Mum.’ Robbie reaches over and takes a plate.
‘Chocolate mousse for afters,’ I say, pouring them some juice. ‘Dad said you didn’t eat anything at dinner, Lauren.’
‘No wonder after what he came out with.’ She takes her plate and breaks off the end of the toastie. ‘Do you know what he’s planning to do, Mum?’
‘I do,’ I say, sitting down opposite them. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I suppose.’ She squirts some ketchup on her plate and dips the toast into it. ‘He went on about how he wants to share his special day with us, like we want him to marry Erika, like we’ll think it’s special too.’ Her expression is incredulous. ‘He just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get anything. I mean, he wants me to be a bridesmaid. I don’t even want to go, so why would I want to be a bridesmaid?’
‘You’ll get another dress,’ I say, in my most persuasive tone.
‘Mum, this is serious.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I stand corrected.’
Robbie already has tomato sauce on his chin and he wipes it off with the back of his sleeve. ‘Don’t help him, Mum. Don’t take his side.’
‘I’m not doing it for his sake. I’m doing it for yours. I want you to have a dad you can turn to.’
‘We brought out the best in him; Erika doesn’t,’ Lauren says. ‘I don’t understand why he doesn’t see that.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say. ‘And before I forget, I think you’re both great kids and I’m very proud of you.’ I kiss them on the tops of their heads. ‘Of course, you have the advantage, Lauren, because you don’t make a mess with food like your brother does.’ I hold a plate under Robbie’s chin to catch a sliver of tomato that falls from his mouth.
‘That’s why we have Benson,’ he says.
‘No one will ever marry you if you eat like a pig,’ Lauren tells him.
‘Yeah, and I really want to get married.’
She sticks her tongue out at him.
‘Another small matter,’ I say, rubbing my hands on my jeans. I’m nervous about broaching the Kirsty/Emily connection, but know it has to be done. I daren’t spurn O’Reilly’s advice. He’s right about me and my bleeding heart. I tend to see the good in people and that’s not always wise. ‘I need to talk to you about the case.’
‘It’s fine,’ Lauren says. ‘Detective Inspector O’Reilly told us that they have someone with fingerprints.’
‘Everyone has fingerprints, Lauren,’ Robbie says, laughing.
‘You know what I mean.’ She nudges him hard in the ribs. ‘They’ve got matching ones. It’s that girl you talked about, Mum. Tess Williams.’
‘Williamson,’ I say.
‘Yeah, her.’
Robbie, the king of distraction, is back to flicking through the channels, and he finds an old episode of Doctor Who. ‘Look, Lauren!’ he says. ‘This was the one where that kid went around saying “Are you my mummy?”’
He says, ‘Are you my mummy?’ in a spooky voice and Lauren immediately starts giggling.
‘It was a really scary episode!’ She collapses on to his shoulder. ‘I’ll never sleep tonight.’
‘Watch it through your fingers,’ he tells her.
‘Pause it just now, Robbie,’ I tell him. ‘I really need to speak to you both.’
‘What about?’ Lauren says.
‘About trusting people.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She means taking sweets from strangers,’ Robbie clarifies, pausing the action on the screen just as the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS.
Lauren makes an incredulous face. ‘I’m eleven, Mum. And I’m not a complete idiot.’
‘I know and I don’t mean to insult either of you, but what we’re going through is unusual and dangerous. And danger often comes from the most ordinary people. People who you might not expect to hurt you – for example, teenage girls.’
‘Like Tess?’
‘Well, no . . .’ I stop. ‘I’m thinking of Emily Jones.’
‘Emily?’ Robbie says. ‘Why her?’
‘Emily has not been completely honest with any of us. Her real name is Kirsty Stewart and she has very deliberately engineered a way to get to know us all.’
‘What?’ Robbie starts laughing. ‘Mum, this isn’t more of you playing Miss Marple, is it?’
‘No. What I’m telling you is absolutely true.’
‘Emily wouldn’t make stuff up!’ Lauren cries out, and with her attention diverted Robbie swipes a piece of her toastie. ‘She’s really nice!’
‘You’re right. There is a side of her that’s really nice, but there’s also a side of her that . . . isn’t. She admitted to me today that she was the one who painted on the wall and that she was also the person who spiked your drink, Robbie.’
Bo
th children are staring at me with their mouths open. ‘I’m sorry I had to tell you this but, for your own safety, you mustn’t have anything else to do with her. I don’t expect she’ll come to the hockey club on Friday, Robbie, but if she does—’
‘Hang on, hang on!’ Robbie brings his hands together in a T-shape. ‘Time out, Mum. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would Emily do all that?’
‘Well . . .’ I’m loath to tell them about the exact circumstances of Sandy’s death. ‘Emily feels she has good reason not to like me.’
‘But she does like you, Mum!’ Lauren says. ‘She told me! “Your mum’s really cool,” she said.’
‘Lauren.’ I take both her hands. ‘Please believe me when I say that some people are very good at lying. What school has Emily told you she goes to?’
‘The high school in Barnton.’
‘She doesn’t. She recently left school – Sanderson Academy. It’s a school for the performing arts.’
‘But, why?’ Her eyes grow as large as an antelope’s. ‘Why would she lie to us?’
‘Because she has a grievance against me.’
‘What grievance?’ Robbie says.
‘It’s complicated.’
‘You can explain it to us,’ Lauren says, trying to smile. ‘You’re good at explaining things.’
‘It’s not . . .’ I look at both their faces: solemn, still and listening hard to everything I say. ‘I don’t want to tell you exactly what happened because it . . .’ shows me up in a bad light . . . ‘because it’s not . . .’ I take a big breath. ‘I’m ashamed.’
‘Mum, you’re scaring me!’ Lauren says, grabbing at my knees and shaking them. ‘Just tell us!’
‘Okay . . . well.’ I run my tongue around the inside of my mouth, find it dry and take a sip of Lauren’s juice. ‘Back when I was a junior doctor, I looked after Emily’s pregnant mum. Emily, who as I’ve explained is actually called Kirsty, hadn’t been born yet and her mum was very ill. She had a brain tumour.’
‘No wait, Mum!’ Lauren butts in. ‘Emily and Kirsty can’t be the same person, because Emily’s mum’s not sick. She’s a teacher at a primary school.’
‘No, sweetheart. That isn’t true. Emily is Kirsty, and her mum died eighteen years ago. Her father never remarried. Kirsty has been in foster care since she was about ten.’
Lauren deflates back in her seat, thinking hard, trying to come up with some fact or observation that will prove me wrong.
‘And you were the doctor when Kirsty was born?’ Robbie says.
‘Yes. I didn’t deliver the baby, but I was working on the neurosurgical ward that Sandy, Kirsty’s mother, had been admitted to.’
‘So . . .’ Robbie looks up into the corner of the room as he thinks. ‘What made Emily or Kirsty or whoever she is come after us?’
‘I made a mistake,’ I say quietly. ‘And Kirsty read about it in her father’s diaries.’
‘A mistake with her mother’s care?’ Robbie says.
‘Yes.’
Robbie stares up at the ceiling again, thinking it through. He gets there before Lauren does and I watch his face blanch with horror. ‘Jesus, Mum. You didn’t hurt her . . . did you? I mean, you didn’t . . . kill her or anything, did you?’
‘I did. I caused her premature death.’ There are tears on my cheeks and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. ‘It was an accident and her mother—’
‘What?’ Lauren stands up and her plate falls to the floor and breaks into four pieces, the cracking sound loud enough to make Benson squeal and run for his bed. ‘You killed Emily’s mother?’
‘Kirsty’s mother. And it was—’
‘Oh my God!’ Lauren’s face is crumpling. I recognise her expression from my own face in the mirror on recent occasions. Everything feels so bleak that she can’t even cry. ‘You’re the murderer?’
‘Lauren, please give me a chance to explain.’
‘I’m not listening to you!’ she shrieks and pushes past me, running up the stairs, her footsteps heavy, her breathing erratic, and when she gets to her room she slams the door so violently that the whole house shakes.
‘Lauren!’ I stand at the bottom of the stairs and call up to her. ‘Please come back so that we can talk about it.’ No answer. ‘Lauren, please!’ Still no answer, and I know from past experience that I’m wasting my time. I’ll have to give her a chance to absorb the information and make sense of it as best she can before she’ll be willing to talk to me again.
And then there’s Robbie’s reaction. He’s not as shocked as his sister, but still, his limbs are trembling and he’s looking at me warily, as if I’ve suddenly grown another head. ‘That’s heavy shit, Mum. That’s really heavy shit.’
‘I know, love.’
‘How did it happen? Why did we never know about this? What’s . . .’ His head shakes from side to side. ‘I mean . . . did you get into trouble for it?’
‘No, I didn’t get into trouble. I tried to resign, but my consultant said I needed to just get on and be a better doctor because of it.’ Benson, upset by the commotion, jumps up on my knee and I stroke him under his chin. ‘I’m sure I would have told you when you were older. I certainly would have told you if you’d trained to be a doctor. Patients dying because of medical error is not as unusual as you might think.’
‘So how did it happen?’
‘I gave her a drug she was allergic to.’
‘And was she going to be cured or . . . ?’
‘She wasn’t going to be cured. She was going to die from the brain tumour. But the fact remains that I did cause her to die sooner than she should have.’
‘Jesus.’ His arms are still now, but his legs are shaking up and down and his eyes are wide and blinking every couple of seconds. ‘Does Dad know?’
‘Dad and Leila and Archie all know. It was a huge deal for me and it took me a while to get over it, but I was pregnant with you and I had to put it behind me.’ I start crying again. Telling the children has been harder than I thought. I feel a mixture of intense shame and regret and I can only hope I haven’t damaged my relationship with them, especially Lauren, who’s too young to appreciate the complications that adult life can bring.
‘Mum.’ Robbie comes across and puts his arms around me. ‘It’s okay. You’re not a bad person. Everyone makes mistakes. You were just really unlucky.’ He rocks me in his arms and I let him, touched by his kindness and understanding.
When I’ve stopped crying, we both go upstairs to see whether we can tempt Lauren out of her room. She’s wedged a chair against the door and is refusing to talk to me, so I leave Robbie to see whether he can get through to her and go back downstairs to work my way through a pile of ironing, Radio Four on as company. Before I start on it, I call Leila at home, hoping that she might be able to pop round for an hour. Archie answers and tells me that Leila is out with her brothers’ wives and he isn’t expecting her home until late. I’ll have to wait a bit longer for my heart-to-heart – lunchtime tomorrow, not ideal when we’re both at work, but, weather permitting, we can always go out and sit on a park bench. I need to talk to her about what’s going on before I burst open with the worry of it all. Leila will have a reasoned, balanced perspective on the whole thing. She’s known for giving sound advice and I need her now more than I ever have.
Robbie comes downstairs just before ten to tell me that Lauren finally opened the door for him and is now in her bed. ‘She’s pretty upset,’ he says.
‘Do you think I should try and have a word with her?’
‘I’d wait for a bit, if I was you.’ He gives me a hug. ‘You know what she’s like, Mum. She makes a massive fuss and then she comes round.’
‘This is quite a big bombshell for her to recover from, though, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’ He rests against the worktop and blows out a lungful of air. ‘It’s weird. I’ve known Emily for nine months and I had no idea she was scoping our family. Bit of a dark horse.’ He sighs. ‘Well, I’d better go to
bed. See what tomorrow brings.’ He kisses me on the cheek. ‘See you in the morning, Mum.’
‘Sleep well, Robbie.’ I hug him tight for a second. ‘And thank you.’
I stay downstairs for a while longer to finish the ironing and tidy the kitchen. When I go up to bed the house is completely still apart from the usual creaking and settling of floorboards. I open Robbie’s door and tiptoe into his room. I could in fact be banging a drum or playing a trumpet because he’s a sound sleeper and would slumber through a rocket launching in the back garden. He’s splayed out all over the bed like a starfish, his duvet kicked off and his clothes lying in a heap beside him. I look down at him for a minute or more and then I sneak into Lauren’s room and find her fast asleep and breathing softly, curled up in a ball at the very edge of her bed because most of the space is taken up with her soft toys: a menagerie of animals from a furry brown mole to a tiger larger than a toddler. When her friends come to stay she hides them at the back of the cupboard, and as soon as they’re gone she pulls them out again and arranges them on top of her duvet. Like most children, in some ways she’s mature for her age, in others she’s not. She’s ahead of herself academically and is a good runner because she’s small and fast, but physically and emotionally, she’s a late developer.
I kiss her gently on the forehead, letting my hand rest on her hair for a few precious seconds before she turns over in her sleep, resettling herself next to a gorilla and a short-necked giraffe. As I’m creeping out again, I notice a pile of torn-up paper on her desk and I open the door a tad more so that the light from the hallway shines directly on to the pieces of paper. It’s the newspaper clippings and scrapbook. She’s torn the photograph of the three of us, taken just before the award ceremony, into tiny blow-away pieces. A larger photograph of me, published in the paper some months ago, has a red pen through my face, obliterating my eyes and tearing through my mouth.
14
The next day I get up at six thirty, as I always do, and spend the first half an hour showering, dressing and preparing for the day ahead. I’m still worried about Lauren’s reaction last night and I’m hoping that she’ll have calmed down – things never seem quite so bad in the clear morning light. She’s not a great eater but she does love waffles for breakfast, so I haul the waffle maker out from the back of the cupboard and make a start on the batter, then go up to Robbie’s attic room and knock several times on his door, shouting loudly, ‘Time to get up, love!’ No reply. ‘I’m making waffles!’