by Emily Gunnis
‘I’m okay,’ said Jessie, then, after a long pause, ‘I’m . . . pregnant, actually.’
Jessie’s words, so sudden, so unexpected, had taken Rebecca’s breath away and left her utterly speechless. She could feel herself starting to cry, the emotion and overwhelming sadness an uncontrollable tirade. How had it come to this? The most significant moment in her daughter’s life, and she was probably one of the last to know. Rebecca wiped away the stream of tears that had sprung to her eyes and cleared her throat, scrambling around in her stunned brain for the right thing to say.
‘That’s absolutely wonderful. How far along are you?’
‘Thirty-six weeks, so nearly there.’ Jessie’s voice had sounded so matter-of-fact, so grown-up. Her daughter was having a baby and she didn’t need her mother, any more than she ever had.
Why hadn’t Harvey said anything to her? Jessie, her first born, was four weeks away from having her first grandchild!
‘Don’t be cross with Dad. I told him I wanted to tell you myself,’ said Jessie, reading her mother’s mind.
Rebecca tried to shake the emotion away and cleared her throat. ‘I’m not cross, I’m over the moon. I’m so happy for you and it means the world that you called me.’
Since John died, their once-happy unit had felt increasingly small and lonely. James and Iris’s split, and Iris’s longing for a baby that never came made them feel Jessie’s absence from their lives even more acutely. Perhaps, she dared to let herself hope, this baby was going to change everything.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
Rebecca allowed herself a smile, trying to enjoy this momentous event, one that had already changed everything. It had been over a decade since Jessie had said those two words: ‘Thanks, Mum.’ Rebecca was terrified this was all a dream from which she would wake any moment.
‘Can I do anything? I’d love to help you, or be involved in any way you’d like me to.’ She tried not to sound too overbearing. One step at a time; don’t scare her off.
‘There is something, actually,’ Jessie said after a moment.
‘Anything.’
Rebecca had clocked the nervousness in her daughter’s voice and understood that Jessie was about to ask her something she wouldn’t like. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
‘I’ve been feeling quite anxious about it all. The pregnancy, I mean.’ Jessie paused before going on. ‘And Dad said you were the same when you had me. I’ve just never really spoken to you about any of it, what happened when you had me and why you couldn’t cope. I thought it might . . . well, help.’
Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to gather her racing thoughts. Dad said you were the same when you had me.
How much had Harvey told her? Had he sat her down and spoken to her honestly about the abject horror she had felt when she found out she was pregnant, just after qualifying as a doctor? Had he shared the brutal truth with Jessie about Rebecca’s ever-increasing anxiety about returning to work six weeks after the baby was born – as she would have to, in order to keep her job as senior registrar? Working all day, leaving the baby in the crèche at the hospital between seven-thirty in the morning and six in the evening, going down to breastfeed her, being on call at night? Did he share real memories of her psychosis, which had started within hours of Jessie being born and turned every day into the most terrifying, inescapable nightmare? Had he told his daughter how, at night, Rebecca pleaded with him not to fall asleep because she was too scared to be alone with the policeman who had appeared at the end of her bed soon after Jessie was born and who nobody but her could see: Detective Inspector Gibbs, the man who had questioned her for four terrifying hours the night her parents were killed as she sat in her nightie, still covered in her mother’s blood?
Of course he hadn’t. Saint Bloody Harvey strikes again. Why hadn’t he at least called to warn her about the bombshell that was heading her way? She couldn’t go back there, she just couldn’t.
‘Darling, have you told your midwife how you’re feeling?’ she said, trying to buy herself some time to think.
Jessie went very quiet. It was a dangerous silence and one that made Rebecca very nervous. She could hear her little girl’s brain ticking over. You’re fobbing me off, you don’t want me, you want someone else to deal with me, like you always have. You’ve never wanted me.
‘I can tell you’re not keen,’ Jessie said. ‘I understand. I’ll let you go. Sorry to call so late.’
Rebecca’s veins flooded with adrenaline. This was it – this was her opportunity to fight to get something resembling a relationship with her daughter. If she let this go, it was over; she would lose Jessie for good and any chance of a bond with her grandchild. And she would have only herself to blame. ‘No, darling,’ she said, trying to sound calm. ‘It’s not that. I’m just a little thrown and I want to make sure that you’re getting all the care you need from your midwife. Of course I want to help. I’d love to talk to you. It’s just it was a difficult time. But you have every right to know. I realize it was hard for you to ask.’
Rebecca dug her nails into her knee. Please don’t hang up, please don’t. Finally, Jessie spoke. ‘I don’t want to do it, though, if you don’t want to. I mean, if we can’t be honest.’
Rebecca could hear Liz’s influence on the language her daughter used. We should all be honest, share our feelings. Women should be there for each other. She could picture Liz clasping Jessie to her ample breast: Come here, poppet, it’s all right to cry, you have the right to talk about how you feel, it’s not selfish to put yourself first. If you don’t feel strong enough to see your mum for a while, you have a right to have some space. And all the while omitting to turn any of that honesty on herself and – with no children of her own – her real motivation for encouraging their estrangement and keeping Rebecca at a safe distance from both Jessie and Harvey. And all the while, Harvey continued to bury his head in the sand, as he always did, taking Liz’s side, the easy option, rather than standing up to her.
‘I know some of your breakdown was tied up with what happened to your parents,’ Jessie continued, ‘and that it affected you very deeply. I’ve just never felt strong enough to ask you about it, but it’s all stored up inside me and I don’t think it’s healthy to leave it there. It’s not helping how I’m feeling.’
Breakdown? Rebecca cringed at Jessie’s turn of phrase. Was that Liz or Harvey’s interpretation of what had happened to her after she had Jessie? Still, she hadn’t helped Jessie to understand what happened to her, because it had been too painful to go back there. Why was it that that night was determined never to let her go?
‘I think you’re absolutely right,’ she said. ‘Whatever helps. Would you like to come here, maybe? And we can have a chat.’
‘Yes, please. Would tomorrow work?’
The next day, Friday, was Rebecca’s first day off for a fortnight and she had planned to meet a friend for lunch, then go to the National Portrait Gallery. Of course, that could all wait. ‘Tomorrow would be lovely,’ she said.
So they had agreed a time and as she finished her call to Jessie Rebecca’s thoughts had immediately turned to Iris. Her younger daughter, whom she had with John, five years after Jessie was born, and to whom she was very close. Iris, who, like her, had struggled to form any real relationship with Jessie, despite desperately wanting to.
She had toyed with phoning her younger daughter and telling her about Jessie’s call – and the baby – but stopped herself. It would be selfish of her to unburden herself on Iris, particularly when it concerned Jessie’s pregnancy. Iris had experienced so many nasty miscarriages it was going to be difficult for her to see her mother with a grandchild.
So she had spent the rest of the night alone, digging out old press cuttings from deep in the recesses of the loft and embedding a splinter in her palm in the process.
WAR VETERAN KILLS HIS WIFE THEN
TURNS GUN ON HIMSELF
A man suffering from wartime battle neurosis killed hi
s wife before committing suicide last night.
Jacob Waterhouse, 45, who had been treated for psychosis, beat his wife, Harriet Waterhouse, 43, to death in a fit of blind rage, before shooting himself.
Locals in Wittering, Sussex, described Mr Waterhouse as a reserved, private character who was very rarely seen in the village. Seaview Cottage, where the murder–suicide took place, is a remote cottage overlooking Wittering Bay. Locals describe hearing police sirens late last night and witnessed the bodies being taken away by ambulance.
Their daughter, Rebecca Waterhouse, 13, was believed to be at home at the time of the horrific scenes but is thought to be unhurt and has been taken into the care of family friends.
As her tired eyes hovered over the words that still felt as raw to her now as they did then, every part of her ached not to go back there. But she had no choice. She had to focus, for her daughter’s sake, and remember the night she had spent a lifetime trying to forget.
Chapter Six
Harvey
11:00 a.m. Wednesday, 19 November 2014
‘So, Mr Roberts, you haven’t heard from your daughter since she left the hospital at approximately eight o’clock this morning?’ DC Paterson was sitting next to him on the sofa, staring at him with his grey eyes, his pen poised over his notebook. Harvey could hear the training in his voice, his careful, well-rehearsed sentences. He moved slowly and had a long, expressionless face, which reminded Harvey of the monolithic statues on Easter Island.
‘No, I’ve told you already, the last time I spoke to her was yesterday evening, when I left the hospital. I texted her about an hour ago to say I would be there today about eleven – so now.’ Harvey looked up from his watch out to the hallway, where DC Galt was pacing while talking on her phone. He strained to overhear what the detective constable was saying. It was obvious she was trying to keep her voice down, but Harvey was able to decipher the odd word: ‘. . . Station . . . sighting . . . witnesses.’
‘And did you get a reply to that text?’ DC Paterson looked up from his notebook.
‘What?’ Harvey snapped.
‘Has Jessica replied to your text this morning?’
Harvey looked over at his mobile on the coffee table. ‘No, not yet. I don’t understand. How can this happen? There’s security at the hospital – I had to be let out last night.’
‘That’s what we’re trying to work out. She left just after visiting hours began this morning so it’s possible she snuck out when someone else was coming in. But the receptionist must have been distracted . . .’ said DC Paterson.
‘Well, that’s not hard to believe. Everyone was distracted – the place was bedlam. Do you know that the baby has an infection?’ Harvey put his head in his hands and tried to shake off the fog of exhaustion which was making it impossible to think.
‘Yes, we are aware of that, Mr Roberts, which is why we are particularly concerned.’
‘They said the baby would get seriously unwell, within a very short time, if she didn’t complete the course of antibiotics they put her on.’
‘Yes, we’re working closely with the medical staff at St Dunstan’s Hospital.’
‘And what did they say about the medication? How much time do we have to find them?’
‘It’s hard to say. Mr Roberts, it’s important to stay positive.’
‘How much time before we lose Elizabeth?’ Harvey snapped. ‘Please be honest with me.’
‘About twelve hours from her last dose, which she was given just before Jessie walked out at eight o’clock this morning. The doctors I spoke to said she will start to become very poorly after that. So we need to work together to find them both safe and well as quickly as possible. Approximately what time did you leave the hospital?’
Harvey nodded. ‘Visiting hours ended at 8 p.m. I tried to stay longer as her partner is working abroad, but they wouldn’t let me.’ Harvey pictured Jessie staring into the distance as he left. He’d hugged her, whispered goodbye and told her he’d be back in the morning. Then, a sense of foreboding eating away at him, he had kissed baby Elizabeth’s forehead while she lay in her cot, her tiny hand wrapped in the thick tape securing the cannula.
‘And do you have any idea where she might have gone?’ DC Paterson’s breath smelt of coffee. Harvey stared at him, visualizing the two police officers sipping at their takeaway cups as the call came in to come to his home to break the news about Jessie. To sound him out. Another day, another house call. ‘Let’s finish this quickly, could be a long day,’ they would have said before heading out of Chichester across the South Downs to the village of West Wittering, where Jessie had spent her childhood.
Harvey felt his legs jump. They always jolted when he was exhausted. It used to annoy Liz intensely as they sat together on the sofa in the evenings, Liz reading one of her dreadful crime novels while he fell asleep in front of the ten o’clock news. ‘Just go to bed,’ she would say, sighing as he nodded off. He could see her now, curled up next to him, gasping at the twists and turns of the book in her hand as she propped her feet on his lap. ‘I knew it,’ she would say. ‘It’s the boyfriend, I thought he was hiding something.’
Harvey knew DC Paterson was watching him, assessing how he was reacting to all his questions. Paterson had probably done a background check on him, possibly even knew that he’d been held in a cell as a fifteen-year-old the night Rebecca’s parents died, and given an official warning. Making him feel like the criminal, when he had done nothing.
‘There was someone at the door that night, Harvey. I heard Father talking to them. I thought it was you, that you’d come for me.’ Rebecca’s voice had been shaking as she recalled that night several months later, when she had come to live with him and his father.
‘But you said there was no one there when you came downstairs and found your parents,’ he had said, worried about what the trauma of that night had done to her. ‘Who could it have been?’
‘I don’t know, I suppose I must have imagined it,’ she’d said. He had tried to hold her and comfort her but, as always, she had recoiled. ‘You don’t believe me.’
Her emerald green eyes had filled with tears, and he tried desperately to find the right thing to say. ‘Of course I believe you, I don’t know what to say to make you feel better,’ he said, stumbling for the right words. ‘You’re so upset all the time, I feel like you blame me for not being there.’ He had watched her change after that night, retreat into herself, no longer turning to him for comfort. And nothing he could say seemed to reach her and get her back.
Now, Harvey glanced towards the hallway, trying to hear what DC Galt was saying on the phone. ‘Okay . . . will do . . . we’re with Jessica’s father now.’ The policewoman was short and petite, with dark hair in a bob to her shoulders and dark brown eyes that seemed to sense him watching her and darted away whenever his gaze came too near.
DC Paterson tried again. ‘Mr Roberts, would you have any idea where your daughter might have gone?’
Harvey turned his attention back to DC Paterson and realized he was holding his breath. His senses felt heightened. The winter sunlight pouring through the window into the lounge was hurting his eyes, the clock in the hall seemed to tick louder than usual, burning indigestion crept up his chest. Everything hurt; his whole body ached.
‘Have you tried her mother? Rebecca Waterhouse?’
‘Yes, we have informed Dr Waterhouse. There is a police liaison officer with her now, I believe.’
‘Well, I’ve had custody of Jessica since she was a baby and I don’t want Rebecca here, complicating things.’
‘That’s fine, Mr Roberts, but I should tell you that we are thinking about holding a press conference at lunchtime, if we haven’t found Jessie by then. It might be a good idea for her mother to make the appeal with you.’
‘Absolutely not,’ barked Harvey. ‘That’s out of the question. If anything, it would upset Jessie more.’
‘Okay, so I take it Jessie and Rebecca’s relationship is under some
strain at the moment.’
‘They have a very complicated relationship. Jessie went to see her a few days ago and she was very upset afterwards. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what triggered all this.’
DC Paterson nodded slowly and began scribbling in his notebook again.
‘Could you tell us a little more about what Jessie told you with regards to the meeting with her mother?’
Harvey let out a heavy sigh. ‘Not really. My wife, Liz, Jessie’s stepmother, died two years ago, and Jessie’s taken it very hard. They were very close and with the baby coming she was probably looking to fill that void. But, as always, their meeting didn’t go very well.’
‘In what way?’ DC Paterson’s eyes widened.
‘I don’t know! Ask Rebecca,’ snapped Harvey.
‘We will, Mr Roberts. I understand your frustration, we are all very concerned, but we need to get as much information as we can to try and work out what’s happening with Jessica so that we can find her.’
‘What’s happening with Jessica is that she has been through hell. She has lost the woman who was like a mother to her, she’s just been through a very traumatic birth, her boyfriend is away and she hasn’t slept for days.’ Harvey felt his face burning, but went on.
‘Jessie was being bullied into breastfeeding while her baby starved. Jessie was catatonic when I left, but nobody listened to me. Rebecca, her birth mother, was the same when she had her. And now they’ve let her just walk out. And it’s bloody freezing out there. Do you not have any idea where she’s gone?’
‘We have officers looking at all the CCTV footage now, Mr Roberts. The last images we can find of Jessie show her walking towards Chichester train station. Obviously you would assume she got on a train but there are no images of her on any of the platforms so it may be that isn’t the case. Of course we have informed train and bus stations and also all of the taxi companies in the area.’
DC Paterson excused himself and went to speak to DC Galt. Whispering, conferring – the usual story with the police, Harvey thought; you tell us everything, and in return we tell you nothing.