Her One Mistake

by Heidi Perks

“Thank you,” I murmured, though I wondered if she might be the only one.

  HARRIET

  On Sunday morning Brian and Harriet sat in silence in the back of Angela’s car as she drove them to the hotel for their public statement. Harriet’s stomach clenched in knots as they passed the familiar landmarks that blurred in a haze.

  In the small parking lot, Harriet looked out the window and saw the hotel was one of the generic boxes built away from the coast that always appeared to be filled with suited businessmen rather than vacationers.

  Her door opened and she stepped out, shivering, even though it wasn’t remotely cold. Brian took her arm and, with Angela on her other side, she was led up the concrete steps and into the reception area.

  There was nothing attractive about the orange bricks or the mass-produced paintings that hung behind the reception desk, and the air-conditioning blasted through the conference room, making her wish she’d worn something warmer.

  The room was already filled with rows of people, chattering among themselves, oblivious to her and Brian. Angela pointed to the front and told her they would be sitting at the table, where microphones were strategically placed and cameras were facing.

  Harriet stood rigidly in the doorway. “I don’t think I can do it,” she said in a whisper.

  She felt Brian move closer, could smell a fresh waft of his aftershave. “We can do this together,” he said, never taking his eyes off the front of the room as he slowly walked her past the rows of people who began to lull into silence when they saw them approaching.

  A flash of light made Harriet startle, as journalists began snapping photos before they’d even sat down. “Come sit over here,” Angela told her as she directed Harriet to a chair, depositing her into it.

  “Are you going to be next to me?” she asked.

  Angela shook her head as she directed Brian to the chair on Harriet’s right. “No, Captain Hayes will be,” she said and crouched down. “You’ll be fine,” she said quietly. “Just remember what we said earlier.”

  Harriet nodded and glanced over at the young media officer who had come to the house that morning. Kerri had told Harriet she was there to advise them both about the statement, and confidently reeled through a list of instructions that Harriet had only half listened to.

  “We should find you something to wear,” Kerri had said, looking pointedly at Harriet, who in turn waved her hand toward the wardrobe. Kerri could choose something and she’d wear whatever it was. Though now she felt exposed in the thin white blouse that clung to her skin, and wished she hadn’t been so careless that morning in her attempt to shut out what was happening.

  The magnitude of the next hour was overwhelming, absorbing all her thoughts. Harriet knew exactly how important this was. She’d been the one sitting at home watching Mason’s parents last October and had seen the mother’s raw grief seeping from every bone in her body. But then she’d listened to the journalists who’d picked apart the parents’ gestures, twisting them and suggesting the unimaginable. His father hadn’t looked worried enough, according to one website. His eyes had shone bright with fear, as far as Harriet had seen, but it hadn’t taken long for the trolls to label him aggressive. The mother had been caught smiling at her baby when they left the public appeal. Surely that meant she hadn’t been affected by her son’s disappearance, one paper had said.

  People who knew nothing of Mason or his family wondered anyway, “Do you think it was one of them?” How frightening that the media can turn on you in an instant. So Harriet knew exactly how important their appeal for Alice was, and knew it was about much more than looking for her daughter.

  Brian fidgeted next to her as she watched the room. The journalists had started chattering among themselves again as they waited for the news conference to start. A burst of laughter arose from the back before the room descended into a guilty silence.

  Brian continued to squirm in his chair as though he were uncomfortable. His hands were splayed wide on the desk in front of him as if he were trying to ground himself. A night of no sleep and his usually pristine stubble had turned into the clumsy start of a beard. The gray hairs near his mouth glinted pure white in the false light of the hotel. Her eyes drifted to his hair that tufted up on top and then down to his eyes, heavy from a night of pacing the house. Despite all that, he still looked effortlessly handsome, she thought. The public would like that.

  Harriet looked down at her shirt, one of its buttons straining slightly where it was too tight. She could feel herself sweating where the underwire of her bra cut into her, and feared she might see a damp streak across her chest. Brian had told her she looked beautiful as they all left the house that morning, but she knew she didn’t. They’d see he was well turned out, but she had no idea what they’d make of her appearance.

  How did Brian still look the same as when they’d first met? She’d overheard Charlotte talking about him to Audrey once. She’d said she found Brian handsome in a way that she’d easily get bored of, but Harriet just thought he was conventionally attractive.

  In the bookshop in Edenbridge, Harriet hadn’t expected to meet the man she would marry eleven months later. Least of all the one browsing the fishing section. But when Brian had asked her if she came there often, Harriet had laughed at his awkward line and was immediately drawn in by his large brown eyes and cheeky grin.

  After their first date he walked her home, taking hold of her hand and smoothly maneuvering around her until he was on the side of the curb. He made her feel safe, and she realized she’d been yearning for a man who would take care of her. Brian had rapidly filled the hole in her life her father had left.

  “You are so beautiful, Harriet,” he’d told her under the streetlight outside her flat. “I could shout from the rooftops about how lucky I feel.” He’d pretended to leap onto a concrete boulder but she’d tugged him back, laughing, before he made a fool of himself. She had never met anyone before who was so effusive about her.

  • • •

  CAPTAIN HAYES INTRODUCED himself as the crowd settled. Brian’s leg juddered up and down beside Harriet, knocking against her thigh, forcing his plastic seat to bump into hers. She had never seen him so nervous.

  One of his clammy hands reached for hers under the desk and she could feel the wetness seeping into her palm. He took her hand and laid it on top of the table, clamped inside his. She wanted to pry it away and put it back into the comfort of her lap, out of sight, but she couldn’t do that with everyone’s eyes on them. Did you see the mum pull away from him? they’d say.

  Instead she let his hand clutch hers tightly, burning into her skin until Brian eventually pulled away himself and placed his hands palms down on the table. She half expected to see a pool of sweat seep out from under them. Captain Hayes had introduced him now. It was time for him to speak, just as they’d agreed he would.

  “I’ll do this, Harriet,” he’d said firmly as he speared a piece of bacon that Angela had cooked for them. She had pushed hers away, the smell of it making her feel sick. “I’ll speak for the both of us so you don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Actually, it would be good to hear from Harriet, too,” Kerri had said.

  “No, I’ll do the talking,” Brian continued. “It’s what we’ve agreed.”

  “Harriet?” Angela had asked with a sideways glance at Kerri, who Harriet could see shaking her head out of the corner of her eye.

  “I don’t know,” Harriet said honestly. “I don’t know if I can—”

  “I don’t think you can either,” Brian interrupted.

  Harriet had looked up at Angela, who raised her eyebrows at Kerri. Did none of them think she was capable? That Brian should be the one to appeal to the public? “I still think she needs to say something,” Kerri had muttered.

  Brian’s voice boomed into the room, making Harriet jump. “Yesterday afternoon our beautiful daughter, Alice, disappeared.” He cleared his throat, straightening his tie with one hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, muc
h quieter. “This is very hard for me.” He glanced over at Hayes, who nodded at him to continue.

  “One minute she was having fun at a school fair and the next, she vanished.” His voice was much calmer now as he continued, and Harriet felt herself relax ever so slightly, until he stumbled. “Harriet, my wife, she’s, er, well, we—” Brian hesitated, looked down at the table and then back at the sea of faces. “We are begging anyone who knows anything about what happened to Alice to come forward and tell the police. Anything. Please. Because we miss her so much.” His voice broke and he bowed his head again, shaking it from side to side. “We want her back. We just want our little girl back.”

  Harriet stared at him, willing him to keep talking. That couldn’t be it. She had a lump the size of a football lodged in her throat, but she knew she needed to say something, because as soon as Brian had left the kitchen earlier, Kerri had implored her to. “You need to speak,” she had said. “It’s so important they hear you, too. As soon as Brian finishes you need to talk about Alice. Regardless of what he thinks is best,” she’d added pointedly.

  At the far end of the table Kerri was nodding at her. Harriet looked back at Brian, then at the crowd of strangers in front of her that were becoming uncomfortable in the silence, no doubt wondering if they could ask their questions yet.

  “I want Alice back,” Harriet blurted, echoing her husband’s words as a bolt of heat flashed through her body. She could feel tears running down her face in hot, damp streaks. She didn’t know where they’d come from, but they were flowing furiously, her body heaving and jolting as she sobbed.

  Brian looked at her in alarm and for a moment both of them froze until he eventually reached an arm around her shoulders and leaned across her, telling Captain Hayes they couldn’t say any more.

  “We are now open for questions,” Hayes announced, and the commotion of hands shooting into the air took the pressure off them and Brian’s grip on her arm softened.

  A tall man in the front row stood up and introduced himself and asked the detective the question they were told to expect. “Are you linking Alice Hodder’s disappearance to Mason Harbridge?”

  “We’ve no reason to suspect that the two cases are linked,” Hayes said, “but of course we are looking into the possibility.”

  “Have you got any other leads?” a female journalist piped up from the back row. She had shoulder-length bobbed hair and cold eyes that hid beneath layers of makeup. She didn’t look at Harriet and seemed only interested in the detective. “By the sound of it, there’s nothing solid.”

  “There are a couple of lines of inquiry we’re looking into, but nothing we can divulge right now,” Hayes said.

  Harriet’s head snapped around. She knew nothing about other leads. What weren’t they telling her? But the questions moved on. This time a man at the far end of the room stood, introducing himself as Josh Gates, who worked for the local newspaper, the Dorset Eye. “Mrs. Hodder, I wonder if you could tell me how you feel about the fact your friend was posting on Facebook instead of watching your daughter at the fair?”

  “What?” Harriet said, barely audibly. She felt winded, as if someone had come along and punched her in the stomach.

  He held up his iPad as if to prove a point. “At the precise time your daughter went missing, she was leaving comments on friends’ posts and even wrote one of her own. Her attention was obviously elsewhere,” he went on. “So, I just wondered how you felt about that, given she was supposed to be looking after your daughter.”

  She felt Brian’s body press forward, nudging against the desk, certain he wanted to know more. Because if Charlotte was on Facebook, it was proof she wasn’t watching Alice and was therefore a careless mother whose children ran feral. Just like he had said.

  “I’m interested in what you think about your friend’s actions, Mrs. Hodder,” Josh Gates said.

  “I, erm, I don’t know anything about that,” she said hoarsely, tugging nervously at her shirt. Charlotte had admitted she’d looked at her phone, but this man’s suggestions made her distraction seem so much worse.

  “If Mrs. Reynolds was—” Brian started, but Captain Hayes was already shutting the interview down, holding up his hand to stop the journalist and any more questions. Harriet wished he’d let Brian continue. She’d liked to have known what her husband wanted to say.

  They were shuffled out of the hotel and back into Angela’s car. Angela told them it had gone as well as they could have hoped, but Harriet wasn’t listening. Her head was spinning with what the last journalist had said, and now her window of opportunity to reach out to the world was over. She didn’t know if she was supposed to feel something, didn’t know if she had done enough, but she felt numb and exposed, and had no idea what to expect next.

  NOW

  The air-conditioning whirs slowly in the corner, but it doesn’t generate enough air to cool down the room, yet instead of taking my cardigan off, I find myself wrapping it tighter around my body. I don’t want Detective Rawlings seeing the vibrant blotches of red on my chest: the unmistakable marks of nerves. Pulling the woolen belt around my waist, I hold its ends between my fingers, rubbing them the way I did with my comfort blanket as a child.

  “Let’s talk a little more about your friendship with Harriet,” the detective says. “You said that even though you were close friends you didn’t get together with your partners?”

  I shake my head. “Hardly ever. There was only one occasion I remember of Brian coming to my house and that was when they came to a barbecue.” I don’t offer any more. I’d barely spoken to Brian as I’d played host, skirting around groups of friends with offers of drinks and platters of kebabs. I didn’t rest until everyone had eaten, and by then Harriet and Brian had already left.

  I wonder if Detective Rawlings is skeptical we didn’t do more together, because she’s hard to read. Her blank expression could be disbelief or dislike for me, I have no idea. But this was the truth. Harriet and I met up during the day when we had the little ones, which suited us both. I had no need to integrate my new friend into the beginnings of my failing marriage and I liked that I had someone I could talk to who didn’t know Tom. It meant she was solidly in my corner. I could tell Harriet how it was and I wasn’t judged. I was listened to and sympathized with, and on occasion I would make it a whole lot worse than it was, just because it was nice having someone tell me they felt for me.

  And yes, I admit I had no desire to spend time with Brian. I recoiled when Harriet told me that every night after Alice had gone to bed they would sit down together in the kitchen and discuss their days. How he would tell her the intricacies of his job in insurance and in return show much interest in her day with Alice. I couldn’t tell you what Tom’s job actually required him to do, and I doubt he had any idea if I’d taken the children swimming in the last week or if it was months ago. Harriet and Brian’s marriage always felt a little too twee for me.

  “Yet you must have talked to each other about your home lives,” the detective says. “Isn’t that what friends do?”

  I bite my lip as I think about what I should say. Exhaustion hasn’t just crept up on me, it’s surging toward me like a tsunami, and I worry that soon I will say whatever I need to to finish this interview.

  Rawlings’s eyes look red. She must be tired too. Maybe she’d let me leave. Or maybe she knows more than she’s letting on and as soon as I show signs of failing to comply, she’ll arrest me and leave me no choice. In the end I decide it’s not worth the risk.

  “Of course. We talked about plenty of things,” I say.

  “Like what?” Her words sound aggressive, even if that’s not her intention.

  “Well, I talked about my marriage a lot. Even though Tom and I separated two years ago, things hadn’t been good for a while.”

  I’m sure she isn’t interested in the state of my marriage, but my flagging mind is drifting in and out of memories. When I see Harriet and me sitting on our usual bench in the park, the discussion t
hat keeps invading my thoughts is the time I told her Tom and I were splitting up.

  “Are you sure it’s what you want?” Harriet had said. “You can’t try counseling or anything?”

  “We tried that,” I’d told her. “Well, once anyway. But I found out there’s someone else. It’s not an affair,” I added. “At least not yet, but he’s gotten close to someone, sending her messages. You know, ones that are inappropriate if you’re married.”

  I told Harriet that I’d asked Tom outright about the texts, my heart in my mouth, desperate for him to tell me they were nothing. But Tom has always been too honest, and the flush that engulfed his face told me all I needed to know before he stammered an apology that they had been flirting.

  “How come you look so sad?” I’d joked to Harriet when the mood had darkened.

  “I always thought Tom was a good man,” she’d replied.

  “He is in many ways. Just not one I can be married to anymore.” I smiled.

  Harriet reached over and took my hand. “The children will be fine,” she’d said. “They have two wonderful parents who love them, and that makes them incredibly lucky. Besides, it’s better to come from a broken home than live in one,” she said. “Someone once told me that.”

  I was conscious of the tears building up, but I let them fall. Just to have her total support was all the strength I needed.

  “Not many people have what you and Brian have,” I’d told Harriet. It was the first time I realized there were benefits to the type of marriage she had.

  Detective Rawlings is asking me if Harriet talked about her own marriage, and I tell her she didn’t.

  Rawlings stares at me, waiting for me to continue. When I don’t, she suddenly says, “So tell me about the times you met up with Brian on your own?”

  I look up, sitting a little straighter. I hadn’t been expecting that.

  I hadn’t expected her to know. “It was just the once,” I say eventually. “Or twice,” I add when she continues to watch me carefully. “It was only two times.”