by Barker, Dawn
Hill nodded slightly. ‘Mr Patton —’
‘Tony.’ He wanted them to use his first name, to remember that he was a husband, a father, not a suspect. He screwed up the tissue and stuffed it in his pocket.
‘Tony – our job is to gather as much information as possible. I can assure you that we’re doing everything we can to find out what happened.’
Panic tightened in Tony’s chest and he began to hyperventilate. The police sounded so impassive, but they needed to listen to him; he had to convince them. ‘I’m not stupid, I know you think it was her! Jesus, there’s no way she would have done this. No way in the world. You don’t understand —’
Hill continued, unaffected. ‘We’re not making any assumptions, we’re just trying to find out what happened to your son. Was there a reason you had asked your mum to go round to the house that day?’
Tony forced himself to exhale. ‘I asked her to go round to help out. As I’ve already said, Anna was exhausted. She wasn’t getting any sleep. I thought Mum would be able to help her with the baby, make her some lunch, tidy up, just to give her a break.’
‘And you called us that afternoon to report Anna missing.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell us more about that, about when you realised she was missing?’
‘She wasn’t at home when Mum got there. She hadn’t told me she was going out, and she knew Mum was coming, so it was unusual. I went looking for her, I called her friend, I did everything I could think of. I couldn’t find them.’
‘And why did you call the police?’
‘Because I was worried! I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘What were you worried about? What did you think might have happened?’
‘Not this!’ Tony slammed his hands down on the table. They were trying to make him say it, but he wasn’t going to. ‘I thought she might have had an accident or something, that she had fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed the car, or got lost. Or maybe she’d gone out because something was wrong with Jack.’
‘Tony, I have to ask you a difficult question. Had Anna said anything to you about hurting Jack, or herself?’
‘No! Of course not! Why does everyone keep asking me that?’ He folded his arms. ‘Jesus, she would never have done this. She adored Jack, she wanted him so much. There’s just no way …’ Tony’s voice trailed off and he shook his head. ‘Look, Anna did not do this to Jack. I can tell you that now. You’re missing something! Check her car, do some DNA tests or whatever. Something happened to her, to make her like this. There’s more to this, there must be.’
‘Tony, we’re looking into every possibility at this stage,’ Hill said. ‘Forensics are involved, we’ve looked through the house – I assure you that we’re not going to miss anything.’
The detective’s smug, patronising tone made Tony narrow his eyes. They were so sure of themselves, so convinced they knew what had happened, but they didn’t. ‘And you didn’t find a note, did you?’
As soon as he’d said it, he regretted it. He kept his face neutral. Why had he brought that up?
Hill frowned and spun a pen between his thumb and fingers. ‘A note? No. But that doesn’t mean anything.’
‘And she left milk! Don’t you see – Jack was breastfed. I used the last of it from the freezer in the morning, so she must have made up bottles of formula. That proves she didn’t … didn’t do this to him. Why would she bother doing that if she was going to kill him, for God’s sake?’ Tony leaned back with his arms folded.
‘But what worries us, Tony, is that it suggests she wasn’t planning on coming back. It doesn’t make me think there’s been an accident or a third party involved.’
Tony uncrossed his arms and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. His hands shook. He didn’t know what to say, what to believe. They were backing him into a corner, and he knew he was trapped, flailing. He glanced at Hill, then Kaminsky, who seemed to be hiding a smirk.
‘We’re not criminals, you know. We’re just ordinary people.’ He tried not to start crying again. Anna couldn’t have done this. He pleaded with himself to calm down, yet his mind was racing. He thought he knew Anna, but did he really? Everyone – the police, even her mum – seemed to accept that she was so ill, so deranged, that she had killed her own baby. Was he the idiot? Was he as bad as her?
‘I’m sorry, can we stop for now?’ Tony felt his mouth fill with saliva. He had to get out of here before he vomited.
Hill glanced at Kaminsky, who nodded. ‘Interview terminated at 12.45 p.m.,’ Hill said, then clicked off the tape recorder.
He stood up and held out his hand to Tony, who also stood and shook it without making eye contact. ‘Call us if you need to. Otherwise we’ll be in touch soon.’
Hill paused then spoke more softly. ‘You know how to contact me if you need to, OK? Don’t hesitate.’
Hill was the last person he would call if he needed help. He followed the detectives out of the room and then made his way out of the building. Standing in the middle of the car park, he breathed slowly, deeply, willing the nausea away. Life went on around him: two teenage boys crossing the road; a truck reversing with shrill beeps; the wind tumbling rubbish in the gutter. Then he slowly walked to his car and got in. He turned the radio on, found a station playing some pop song, turned up the volume, and pretended it was the most normal thing in the world to drive away from a police station after your wife had been implicated in murdering your child.
There was nothing normal about his life any more.
* * *
Ursula heard Jim’s ute pull into the driveway and jumped up from the bed, reaching onto the bedside table for her glasses. She looked at the bright red numbers on the radio alarm clock. It was after 4 p.m.; she must have fallen asleep after all. She hurried to the door and opened it as Jim walked up the path. He kissed her.
‘Come on, love, let’s get inside,’ he said.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Yeah. I told Wendy we’d call her later – she looked exhausted. I popped into work, just to check on everything. Did you manage to have a nap?’
‘A little one.’ She pulled away from him and closed the door.
Jim sighed. ‘Any word from Tony?’
‘No. I don’t know if he’ll come back here or go home. I hate this, not knowing what’s going on, but I can’t keep calling him.’
‘He’ll call us when he’s good and ready. Give him some space to work it all out. Come and sit down, I’ll put the kettle on.’
She followed Jim into the kitchen and let him fill the kettle and put tea bags in the mugs. ‘I just hope he hasn’t gone off drinking again.’
‘He’ll do the right thing. Give him time.’
‘I am!’ She slumped forward with her elbows on the kitchen bench. ‘I just want to help him, I can’t imagine what he’s going through.’ She dropped her head into her hands.
Jim put a teaspoon of sugar into one of the mugs, and then slipped his arms around her from behind. He led her through to the living room and onto the couch, and they held each other.
‘Why us, Jim?’
He shook his head, wiping his eyes. ‘It could have happened to anyone. It’s just bad, terrible luck.’
‘No, it’s not luck, it wasn’t an accident. What the hell happened?’
‘Don’t do this, love. We just have to wait and see. I’ve been going over it too, but it doesn’t help. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. The police are looking into it, and Anna will tell us more when she’s better.’
Ursula sneered. ‘I doubt it!’
Jim pulled her head to his chest and they were both silent. She listened to his heartbeat through his chest. She could feel the ridges of his ribs and she realised how old they were getting, how frail and fallible they really were. She clung tighter to him.
After a while, Jim got up and finished making their tea, then brought it back into the living room. He switched on the television to watch the five o’clock news, then lay down o
n the couch beside her.
Just as the weather forecast was starting, they heard a car outside. She sprang out of Jim’s arms and sat up straight. The front door opened, then banged as it slammed shut. She and Jim looked at each other without saying anything. After a moment, Ursula stood up and walked out into the hallway. Tony was leaning with his back against the door, staring at the ground.
‘Anthony?’ she said quietly.
‘What, Mum?’
‘Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’
‘That’s not what you want to ask, is it?’ He lifted his head and stared at her, his eyes red.
‘What?’
‘You want to know where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing. Well, I’ve been interrogated by the police, who treated me like I’m covering for a murderer.’
‘Oh, darling.’
Tony blinked and a tear fell down his cheek. ‘What if she did it? What if she killed Jack?’
‘Anthony …’ Ursula stepped forward, but he shook his head and stepped away.
‘Just leave me alone, OK?’ He walked past her, into his old bedroom, and closed the door behind him.
Ursula stayed where she was, with one hand on the wall to prevent herself from falling. She wanted to follow him, but she couldn’t. She closed her eyes, and when she heard his sobs, quietly moved back to the living room where Jim waited for her. She leaned into him, and let her own tears fall silently.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Six weeks before
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Later, Anna’s memories of the rest of her labour were hazy. She remembered her fear when the midwife said that her baby was distressed. She remembered the obstetrician rushing into the room and saying that the child needed to be born straightaway. She remembered her confusion when Tony disappeared as she was wheeled down the corridor into theatre. She remembered the terror as they pulled at her abdomen to get the baby out, and how her skin had itched all over and her body had shaken uncontrollably. And then she remembered the relief when her baby cried, and when they told her it was a boy, and he had all his fingers and toes, and a face that was crinkled and swollen but sweet and hers.
They named him Jack.
And now she was stuck on the bed in the operating theatre, fighting wave after wave of nausea and terror. They whipped Jack away from her and she couldn’t see what they were doing. She turned her head as far as she could to see bodies in green hunched over a little trolley. A nurse came over and told her through a mask that the baby was fine, but he needed some oxygen to help him breathe. She started to cry. Tony stroked her head but she could see the fear in his eyes too. ‘Go and see what they’re doing,’ she said, her voice rising.
‘No, I’m staying with you.’
She began to sob. ‘Tony, go and see what’s happening with the baby, please.’
He shook his head and whispered, ‘I can’t. I’m too scared.’
She tried to calm her own tears so that she could listen for the baby’s cries, but all she could hear was the whirring and pumping and hissing of the machines around her, and the murmurs of the doctors and nurses. Finally, she heard a whimper, a baby’s whimper, and she started to cry again.
‘I want to see him,’ she said. ‘Let me see him!’ She jammed her arms into the mattress and tried to lift the dead weight of her abdomen and heavy, anaesthetised legs.
‘Whoa, Anna,’ said the obstetrician. ‘Don’t try to move, I’m still sewing things up down here.’
‘Let me see my baby! What’s happening?’ she said, wrenching her neck to the side again, trying to see through the crowd of green.
The nurse came back over. She was still wearing a cap and mask, and Anna could only see her brown eyes. She placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder. ‘Your baby is OK, I promise you; he’s just a bit stunned. We’ll bring him to you as soon as we can.’
She looked up at Tony: he had tears streaming down his face. ‘Tony, for God’s sake, go over there and see him!’ she shouted. She gnawed on her lip as Tony finally allowed the nurse to lead him over to the baby.
And then, at last, they wheeled the little trolley over to her bed, and she saw her son, all bundled up in a blue blanket. She reached out and stroked his tiny head. ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’
But they took Jack away from her again. He had to go to the nursery for monitoring. Tony stood between her and the baby and hesitated.
‘Go,’ Anna said. ‘Go with him, see what they’re doing, please. Make sure they look after him. He needs one of us with him.’
Tony leaned down and kissed her. She heard him sniff. ‘I’ll go with him, I won’t leave him, I promise. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
‘Let me know if anything changes. Please, don’t keep things from me.’
‘I promise.’ He swallowed. ‘Well done – I love you.’ He walked out after the nurse with the baby.
She looked at the stool beside her bed where Tony had been sitting, and then at the table next to it. On it was his mobile phone, ready to call their parents, and the camera, fully charged with an empty memory card. They hadn’t even taken a photo of Jack.
Anna closed her eyes and sobbed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Four days after
Friday, 18 September 2009
There was muffled laughter far away, somewhere outside of the room. Her mouth was dry and tasted sour. She craned her stiff neck around to look for some water. She saw a scratched plastic jug on the trolley next to her bed but knew that she couldn’t reach it, so she ran her rough tongue around her mouth instead. Her face felt sticky, grainy, and she rubbed at her smarting eyes. She heard footsteps approaching, then the door to her room creaking open. Simultaneously she heard the click of a light switch, the clunk of the power surging, and the humming of the fluorescent tube that flickered a few times then soaked everything in fulvous light. A shadow grew behind the beige curtain surrounding her bed. She jumped as the curtain whipped open with a metallic jangle.
‘Good morning, Anna!’
She stared at the young woman smiling at her from the end of the bed. She looked younger than Anna, but the large bunch of keys hanging at her hip gave the impression of importance. Anna looked at her name badge hanging on a lanyard around her neck: RACHEL, REGISTERED NURSE. Her eyes widened as she saw a neon-yellow sticker of a smiley face over the space where the nurse’s picture should be. People used to wear those stickers on their shirts at uni parties. Wasn’t it something to do with ecstasy? Why would this woman, who claimed to be a nurse, put that sticker over her face? It meant something, Anna was sure, but she didn’t know what. She bit the inside of her cheek, and stared at Rachel.
The nurse picked up the blue plastic chart from the bottom of the bed, opened it, and wrote in it with a red pen, which she then pushed through her ponytail. ‘They’re almost ready for you. I’ll save your breakfast for when you come back.’ She handed her a small paper cup with a single tablet in it; Anna put it into her mouth and swallowed it. She no longer cared if it was poisoned. With a smile, Rachel walked out.
The mattress creaked under her as she pushed herself up the bed. She pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, her pillow sliding down to the small of her back. She tried to move it up and wedge it behind her head as she leaned back, but that didn’t work either. She grabbed it and threw it on the floor. It was disgusting anyway. How much saliva had soaked into it from other people’s dribbling mouths? She pushed the buttons, up and down, up and down, but couldn’t find a comfortable position. Giving up, she sat stiffly, folded sharply in the middle like a hollow cardboard tube, and waited for them to come and get her.
She didn’t have to wait long before two huge men walked in, the type that Anna would normally have crossed the street to avoid. The man pushing the wheelchair had tattoos on both forearms and another creeping out from his collar. The other man carried a sheaf of papers. He was taller, but lither, and looked ready to spring on her if she tried to run. Both of them
had the same edgy stare. She couldn’t read their name badges, but it didn’t matter anyway. They read out her name and date of birth, checked that it matched what was written on her wristband, and asked her if she could get in the wheelchair by herself.
The one with the tattoos pushed her. The taller man walked to her left, clutching his papers and a manila file in one hand, and pushing the drip stand that was connected to her arm via a plastic tube with the other. They trundled along the corridors, then through the main doors out of the building. She shut her eyes against the bright light until they reached a shaded walkway that ran around the perimeter of the car park towards the main hospital building. As she was jostled around, Anna gripped the arms of the wheelchair and looked down at her lap, at her knees pointing through the thin yellow hospital gown that seemed to float above her flaccid thighs. Smoothing down the gown, she noticed the plastic ID band hanging like a bracelet from her thin wrist. She blinked back a tear.
Inside the hospital building, they went into a lift, and her pulse quickened. She looked around the small space, squeezed the arms of the chair and looked up to the ceiling. She remembered. She’d been here before; she had been frightened. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, but the air seemed to stick to her dry mouth before it could reach her lungs. A bell chimed, and the doors slid apart. She opened her eyes as she was pushed though some heavy doors below a sign that read ‘Operating Theatres’.
Anna looked around the large room. Six empty beds were arranged around the edges with a silver metal trolley at the end of each. There was a sweet, cloying, chemical smell; Anna had smelled this on her skin before. Two people stood next to a small desk with their backs to her, talking in low voices. She guessed from their height that they were women, but it was difficult to tell with the identical blue scrubs, elasticated paper hats and white clogs. They had face masks hanging around their necks; the long white straps hung down their backs. This room was quiet, but she could hear hisses and beeps coming from behind another set of doors in front of her. The last time she’d heard those sounds, she’d just given birth. She had cried. Someone had offered her countless tissues that she’d refused to take.