by Adam Croft
‘There’s not much to talk about,’ he says, looking at his feet.
‘So what would the signs be? Have you ever had to investigate anything like that?’
‘No, never. Thank God. You’re told to look out for abnormal behaviour. Aggression, introversion, overly sexualised behaviour.’
‘Overly sexualised?’ I ask. ‘They’re seven years old.’
‘Exactly. So displaying sexual knowledge and... well... knowing how it all works. That would be a sign that they’ve been exposed to something they shouldn’t have been.’
This isn’t the most pleasant conversation Chris and I have ever had. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that teaching was a nice easy job, but I didn’t realise they had to get involved with things like that. It makes you wonder why anyone would want to be a teacher.
‘Did you get on well with Riley?’ I ask.
Chris thinks about this for a moment. ‘Yeah, I think so. He was a bit boisterous at times, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing I couldn’t handle. And he definitely had his sweet side. He was a bit Jekyll and Hyde at times.’
‘He quite liked you, didn’t he?’ I say, my voice squeaking slightly as I push the words out.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I found the box in the wardrobe. The pictures and notes. He seemed to really admire you as a teacher.’
Chris doesn’t respond to this. He just looks at me, his face cold and emotionless.
‘What were you doing in there?’
‘Cleaning.’
‘Inside the shoe box?’
‘No, I wondered what it was.’
‘It was a box. Which was sealed. In my wardrobe.’
‘Don’t be silly, Chris. We don’t have secrets. It was just—’
‘It’s not about having secrets!’ he bellows. The walls seem to echo with the noise.
‘Chris, I—’
‘It’s about having privacy, Megan.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I just... I wondered why.’
‘Why? Why what?’
‘Why you brought them home. You don’t bring any others home. And after what’s happened...’
Chris closes his eyes. I can see his jaw flexing, his teeth grinding. ‘All kids draw pictures and write notes to their teachers. Mostly they get kept in a cupboard in the classroom and binned at the end of the year.’
‘Except Riley’s.’
Chris is silent for a moment. ‘I went to the school yesterday. I just needed to be... I don’t know. Either I needed the distraction, the return to normality or to be... Well, close to him. I dunno.’
‘You went to his parents’ house yesterday,’ I say.
‘Yeah. To. Not in.’
‘You didn’t speak to them?’
‘No.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘No I didn’t, I just didn’t want to have to explain why I couldn’t go in. I just couldn’t, alright? So I went into school and tried to sort through some of last year’s crap. And I found the drawings and the notes. I couldn’t bring myself to chuck them out. Not this year. Not these ones. So I brought them home. It was almost like keeping a part of him alive.’
I think I can see the glint of a tear beginning to form in Chris’s right eye.
‘Why couldn’t you go into his parents’ house?’ I ask.
His jaw clenches again. ‘I just couldn’t.’ His voice is tighter than before.
‘But why? I don’t get it.’
‘Because I felt responsible, alright?’ he says, rounding on me. His face is inches away from mine, a picture of pain, regret, anger and distress. ‘I felt responsible because I was one of the people who was meant to look out for him. If something’s happened to him, I should have been in a position to have helped prevent it.’
‘But you can’t say that, Chris. It could have been a lone weirdo from miles away. Or an accident of some sort. You can’t blame yourself.’
‘Blame myself?’ he yells. ‘Jesus Christ, you don’t even know the meaning of the word. You just don’t get it, do you?’
Clearly not, I want to say. ‘Then help me understand. What is it? Did you... Did you do something? Were you there? Was it an accident?’
He looks at me, his face showing emotions somewhere between blankness and knowing his life has just changed forever.
He doesn’t speak.
‘Chris, did you kill Riley Markham?’
I’ve barely finished the sentence before I feel Chris’s hand strike me across the cheek. I stumble backwards, feeling the stinging sensation searing through my jaw. I watch through glassy eyes as Chris walks away.
18
Megan
My backside is starting to feel numb, but I daren’t move. I can’t move. I’ve been sitting on the living room floor for over an hour, my knees pulled up tight to my chest, my face resting on them as I cry.
Every conceivable emotion has passed through me. There’s been regret — why did I ask him such a stupid question? Why didn’t I keep my powder dry? There’s anger — my husband has just assaulted me. There’s fear — what else is he capable of?
In all the years Chris and I have known each other, we’ve barely had an argument up until Evie was born. And now this. He isn’t the man I knew any more. The Chris I met, the Chris I married, would never have done anything like that in his wildest dreams. Even if he accidentally kicked my foot under the dining table he would be full of apologies, making sure I was alright. It’s almost as if the Chris who was standing in this room earlier today is a completely different person.
And if he’s now capable of that, what else could he be capable of doing? If he’s able to flip so quickly and assault his own wife, what would he do to a young child who antagonised him in some way, or wound him up? It wouldn’t have needed to be intentional, or even particularly hard. Riley was only a young lad, after all. Maybe there was a tussle and he slipped. He probably didn’t mean to do it. He probably didn’t mean to hurt me, or to hit me as hard as he did, but it happened. The red mist just descended and he reacted without thinking. That’s not something he’s ever done before, and that’s what worries me the most.
It’s the crushing realisation that I don’t know my husband any more. Everything I knew and accepted to be true is now gone. How on earth does someone come to terms with that? That their whole life has been a lie?
My phone buzzes. It takes me a few minutes to look at the screen, mainly because I know deep down this won’t be an apology text from Chris. That’s not his style, anyway. He’d either apologise in person or just pretend it never happened.
It’s Mum, asking when I want her to drop Evie back home. Would it be wrong of me to reply with ‘Never’? Right now I just can’t handle the thought of it. Then again, it might give me a distraction. I go into the bathroom and look in the mirror, hoping Chris hasn’t bruised me. That would take a hell of a lot of explaining to Mum. My face is a little red on that side, but it’s nothing that can’t be covered up with a bit of foundation and some added blusher on the other cheek.
I tell Mum to come round in half an hour. It’s not often I relish the thought of having Mum around too much, but right now I think I’d feel safer. There’s no way I can tell her any of the stuff that’s happened, but I’m really not sure I can feel secure in the house on my own, nor with Chris around.
What scares me most is that I feel like that. Is Evie safe? If Chris can snap like that with me, he could easily do it with Evie as well. What if she screamed just a little too long, or pinched him just a little too hard?
At the absolute least, if I’m being generous, Chris needs serious help. At the worst, something has changed his entire personality. He’s no longer the simple, carefree, loving boy I met and man I married. He’s complicated. He’s short-tempered. He’s violent.
I ask myself if I could have caused this in any way. I know we’ve drifted apart somewhat since Evie was born, but how much has that affected Chris? It’s affected me, but I think that’s tempered
by how busy I’ve been with everything else and how insular it’s made me. Chris thinks about these things much more. He’s sensitive. Does he feel his life starting to crumble away? I don’t think so. I hope not. I’ve tried to make sure that doesn’t happen. A number of our friends warned us about it — the baby taking over your life and stopping you from being a couple any more. Slowly, you become two individual parents and not much else.
I wonder whether his more frequent fishing days have had anything to do with it. I’ve been assuming they’re a symptom of whatever’s going on in his head, but perhaps they’re the cause. Maybe the extra time away from me has made him realise he doesn’t need me. But surely he wouldn’t feel like that about his own daughter...?
If the truth be told, Chris and Evie probably haven’t bonded as well as they should have, either. But that’s a huge step from rejecting her completely. All new parents struggle, I’m sure.
And that’s when the realisation hits me. I’m making excuses for him. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been making excuses for him for a long time. But why? What do I get back? At some point I need to stop, because I don’t know what I might find myself excusing. Now I’m trying to excuse domestic violence. The words stick in my throat like bile. The thought of having to use them in the context of my own marriage makes me feel physically sick.
But what else could I be excusing? If I’m honest with myself, I think I know what. It’s all starting to piece together and make far more sense than it should. The disappearing acts, the box of pictures, the bloodstained cap. The lifeless body of Riley Markham lying barely a couple of hundred yards from our back door.
And when I start to piece things together in that way, I realise that I’ve got a whole lot more on my hands than a husband who’s going slightly off the rails.
I have a husband who’s a killer.
19
Megan
It’s seven o’clock in the evening by the time Chris comes back home. Evie’s asleep on my chest. I don’t say a word as he enters the living room. I keep my eyes fixed on episode twelve of Orange is the New Black. It’s not because I don’t want to wake Evie up — it’s because I can’t stand to even look at Chris, never mind speak to him.
He sits down on the sofa on the other side of the room and says nothing for a couple of minutes. I can feel his eyes on me, and for the first time in my life I feel scared in the presence of my own husband. I try not to let it show, though.
Eventually, after what seems like an age, he speaks.
‘Do you want a glass of wine?’ he says.
I shake my head.
He doesn’t speak again for a little while.
‘I went for a walk,’ he finally says. ‘Followed the river as far as Cottlesford, then cut back through the fields so I’d be back before dark.’
I don’t respond in any way. I’m waiting for some sort of apology or at least an acknowledgement, not a running commentary of his fucking walk.
He stands up and walks towards the door. ‘I’m going to have a glass even if you’re not,’ he says.
I close my eyes and try to hold everything in. What the hell is this all about? What’s happened to him? I’m desperately trying to cling on to something, giving everything I can to find the most innocent explanation in all this. It feels like I’m standing on the outside, watching someone else’s life play out. It’s so far removed from the life I knew, I can’t handle it. I don’t know how to react to anything. What should I be doing? What are the rules? I don’t remember any of this being in the manual.
Chris walks back in with his glass of wine and sits back in the same seat. His eyes are on the TV, on a show he’s never watched before, rather than even considering trying to explain things to me.
Finally, I break.
‘Are we just going to ignore everything that happened earlier?’ I ask.
‘I’m not ignoring it,’ he says.
‘It looks like it to me. No apology, no explanation, nothing.’
‘Would an apology help?’ he asks, not taking his eyes off the screen. ‘It wouldn’t change anything.’
‘Knowing you’re sorry would at least do something. There’s a reason remorse is a thing.’
‘Alright then I’m sorry.’ The way he says it means I have no idea whether he’s serious or if he’s just saying it to placate me. Any little glimpses or snatches of the old Chris seem to be long gone. It’s as if I’m speaking to a complete stranger.
‘Do you mean that or are you just saying it?’ I ask.
His jaw tightens and he closes his eyes. ‘Megan, you accused me of murdering a seven-year-old boy.’
‘No, I asked you.’
‘It’s the same thing, whichever way you try and spin it.’
‘Chris, I had to ask the question. You’ve been so weird recently, and then I found the shoebox and the...’ I stop myself just in time and trail off. I’m not telling him about the cap. Not yet. I want to hear him say it on his own, without being forced into a corner. That could put both me and Evie in danger.
‘The what?’ he asks, looking at me.
‘The way you’ve been over the past few weeks. And longer.’
He sighs. ‘Megan, I’ve not been like anything. I’ve been trying to keep my distance and tread on eggshells because of the way you’ve been.’
‘Me?’
‘Come on. Are we going to talk about it or not? We both said before Evie was born that if there were issues afterwards we’d talk about them.’
‘What “issues”?’ I ask.
‘You know what issues. Post-natal depression.’
Even though it’s something I’ve suspected myself, it comes as something of a shock to hear Chris say it. It’s one thing trying to deal with something internally, but another thing altogether to realise that someone else has noticed something wrong. Even if there is an aspect of that, post-natal depression doesn’t put blood-stained caps in your wheelie bin or make local children turn up dead. It’s a distraction tactic from Chris, trying to change the subject, attempting to shift the blame for the impending collapse of our marriage.
‘Look at the facts,’ he says. ‘Your mood is low. You’re seeing negatives everywhere. A child in my class dies and I bring home a couple of mementoes to remember him by, and you jump to the conclusion that I’ve killed him. You’ve barely left the house since Evie was born, you’ve stopped communicating with our friends. Megs, you know the checklist as well as I do. Is it really worth risking our marriage over it?’
Right now, I don’t know the answer to that question. But I play along all the same.
‘I’m not going to take any tablets,’ I say. I need to be able to think clearly at all times. I’m not about to let myself be gaslighted.
‘Fine. But speak to the doctor. I’m sure there are lots of ways of dealing with it and getting better. It’s not all about drugs. Most doctors are trying to help people in other ways now. Talking therapies, mind exercises. All that stuff.’
Great. A shrink. The worst thing is that I know Chris isn’t wrong. I know I’m struggling. I know, medically speaking, it’s probably post-natal depression. But I also know that right now that isn’t the biggest problem in my life or the biggest problem facing our marriage. Something inside, though, tells me I do need to get help. At the very least, if I can rule my own muddled mind out as a cause for what I now believe to be true, I’ll be one step closer to knowing what’s really going on.
‘Alright,’ I say. ‘I’ll ring them in the morning.’
20
Megan
Sitting in this waiting room always brings back painful memories. People aren’t often in doctors’ waiting rooms for happy reasons, but the occasions that seem to stand out in my mind are the times we visited when we couldn’t conceive. Of course, that particular issue seemed to resolve itself, but it’s a time in my life I’d still rather forget.
I wonder how much of it affected me on a psychological level. I’d come to terms with the fact I was never
going to have children, and then we miraculously ended up expecting Evie. I was delighted. Of course I was. We both were. But it’s a hell of a lot to come to terms with.
It was all we’d ever wanted, and everyone told us it would be a rough ride. They were right. We believed them, but we massively underestimated how hard it would be.
The guilt was the worst thing. Feeling so completely dreadful for occasionally wishing we didn’t have her. Praying for just one full night of sleep, or to be able to go out and see a film together. Like we used to.
I wonder if that contributed to the way I feel about things now. To want something so badly and have to come to terms with the fact that you can’t have it, then to be given it, enjoy all the happiness it brings and then realise that it wasn’t so great after all — that’s got to take its toll.
I don’t know how long I’m in my daydream for, but I’m jolted back into the room by the gentle ding of the screen displaying my name, telling me to head to Doctor Ashford’s office.
Doctor Ashford’s a pleasant enough guy. Genial when you need him to be, but he’s always honest. Brutally honest, at times. He was very understanding when we saw him about the fertility issues, which was why I specifically asked to see him today. He reminds me a little of the actor, Richard Griffiths. I imagine if he grew a beard, he’d be able to do a fantastic turn as Santa Claus.
‘So how are you?’ he asks, as I take off my jacket and put it over the back of the chair.
I don’t know why doctors always ask that. The answer is, quite obviously, ‘not great’, seeing as I’m sufficiently unwell to have made a doctor’s appointment. But it’s all an irrelevance, because we’re British, so the answer is always ‘not bad’.
‘Not bad,’ I say, sitting down on the chair. ‘But not great either, if I’m honest.’
Doctor Ashford looks at me and smiles, willing me to tell him more.
‘I don’t really know what it is I’m here for. Well, I do. But I don’t know if it’s daft or if I’m just being silly or what.’
