The Babysitter

by Phoebe Morgan

  ‘Mr Harvey,’ Alex says, ‘DS Wildy, Suffolk Police. And this is my colleague, DS Bolton.’

  He doesn’t look particularly surprised to see them, but his features do change – a wave of sadness seems to pass over them, a downturning of the mouth and a drooping of the eyes. Alex feels a stab of pity.

  ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he says, moving to one side, wincing a little as if the movement is painful. They move through the door and into a dim corridor, brushing past a pile of junk mail on the floor.

  ‘Shall I get this for you?’ Alex asks, stooping down to pick up the mail, and the old man nods.

  ‘Thank you – my back isn’t what it used to be, I’m afraid, and I just haven’t been able to face bending down to scoop all that rubbish up. Looks a mess, I know, but I don’t want to risk another fall. I had one last year, you see, and it’s not an experience to repeat.’

  He takes the pile of mail from Alex’s outstretched hand, but not before the policeman has caught sight of a couple of NHS-branded envelopes, the one on top with the word ‘URGENT’ in red capitals emblazoned across the top.

  ‘Probably all nonsense anyway,’ Mr Harvey mumbles, his liver-spotted hand clutching it by his side.

  They follow him down the corridor and to the right, into a sitting room that again is strangely dark. The curtains are closed, and the room has an odd, unlived in feel, despite the fact that they know Christopher Harvey has lived here for over thirty-five years.

  They sit themselves down on the sofa, which is positioned only half a metre away from the small television – clearly Mr Harvey is struggling with his eyesight as well as his back.

  ‘Shall I make us all a quick tea?’ Bolton asks, and Mr Harvey gives the ghost of a smile for the first time, then raises a slightly trembling hand and points him in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘Mr Harvey,’ Alex begins as they hear the sound of the kettle beginning to whistle in the next room, ‘we’re here today because we have a few follow-up questions about your daughter, Caroline.’ He pauses, inclines his head. ‘I’d also like to say how very sorry I am for your loss.’

  To his horror, the old man’s eyes begin to shine with tears, and Alex wonders if it’s true – whether Gillian had in fact left him in a state of shock, whether his non-reaction to the news of her death was symptomatic of it not hitting him yet. Now that it’s had time to sink in, perhaps they are encountering a different man altogether.

  ‘Here we are!’ DS Bolton comes back into the room, clutching three cups of steaming hot tea, rather precariously balanced against his chest. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘there was no milk in, so it’s black for today.’

  Alex takes another glance around the room, wondering if Christopher Harvey is more infirm that any of them have realised – is he able to get out and about any more, he wonders? It’s so at odds with the way he is dressed, the strangely smart suit.

  ‘Are you going out later on, Mr Harvey?’ he asks politely as the three of them take their first sips of scalding hot tea, but the old man shakes his head, runs a hand down the breastplate of his jacket.

  ‘No, no,’ he says, giving that ghost of a smile again, ‘this, well, it’s just habit, I suppose. So many years of going into an office, you know, I don’t know what else to put on. When Elsie died, I just sort of carried on putting on the same thing, going to work, trying to make ends meet, you know, and then when Caroline left…’ he tails off, takes another sip of his tea even though it’s far too hot.

  ‘Nothing wrong with a good suit,’ Alex says, setting his tea down on the table in front of them and smiling at Mr Harvey, ‘and if you’re not going out, we’d appreciate an hour or so of your time, to have a chat about Caroline, as I said. Would that be OK?’

  ‘Have you – is there news?’ Mr Harvey looks at them both, his eyes slightly milky in the dim light of the sitting room. Alex is itching to turn on the lamp that he can see in the corner, to open the curtains and give this place a bit of air. It is stiflingly warm – does the old man actually have the heating on? In August?

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no firm news as yet, Mr Harvey,’ Bolton says, ‘but we are piecing together a picture of what happened on the night of August 10th and we’d be very grateful for any assistance you might be able to give us.’

  ‘Of course,’ the old man says. ‘I still can’t quite believe it – it was a terrible shock, you see. Even though we hadn’t spoken for a while, Caroline is – was – she was my only daughter. My only child.’ He passes a hand across his face, looking suddenly ten years older than he is already. ‘After Elsie – my wife – died, I suppose I sort of let things drift with Caroline. I was – I was grieving, you see, I didn’t really know how to cope without my Elsie. We’d been sweethearts since we were sixteen.’

  ‘What can you tell us about your daughter, Mr Harvey?’ Alex asks him. ‘What can you tell us about Caroline?’

  ‘She loved drawing,’ Mr Harvey says, slowly, ‘she would always have a pencil in her hand, you know, Elsie used to tell her not to bite on the end of them but it didn’t stop her.’ That ghost of a smile again. ‘She would do pictures, pictures of us, pictures of animals, she’d take her little pad of paper and some coloured pencils and disappear for hours. She’d show us everything when she got back, and we knew she was good at it. Well, Elsie did. She was good at spotting things like that.’ He takes a sip of his tea; the shaking of his hand has become more pronounced, and Alex wonders if he’s been officially diagnosed. Perhaps that’s what the unopened NHS letters are for.

  ‘And she became an illustrator,’ Bolton says. ‘You must have been very proud.’

  He blinks a bit, then nods his head. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘yes, of course I was. It was a bit – difficult by that point, her mother wasn’t around any more, I suppose I didn’t… I suppose I didn’t take as much notice of the little one as I should have. But I knew she was doing well, you know, the school would tell me how talented she was at her drawings.’ He brightens for a second. ‘I think I’ve still got some of them up in the loft, you know. Some of her drawings, the ones she used to do as a kiddie. Did you want to see them, officers?’

  The policemen exchange glances.

  ‘We’d love to,’ Alex says at last, ‘but perhaps we could all go up there, after we’ve finished our tea, had a bit more of a chat.’ The disappointment on the old man’s face is obvious. ‘Would that be OK?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes… they’re very good. You’ll see.’

  DS Bolton clears his throat. ‘Mr Harvey,’ he says, ‘you told our colleagues that the last time you saw Caroline was six or seven months ago.’ He spreads his palms, hands open. ‘To me, that seems an awfully long time considering she was only down the road in Ipswich. Had the two of you had a falling out, anything like that?’

  ‘Falling out? No, no.’ Christopher Harvey’s face darkens, or it could just be the shadow from the one beam of light that is beginning to stream in through a crack in the curtains.

  ‘Would you normally go months without her visiting you, even?’ Alex asks, trying to be gentle. ‘Did the pair of you speak often, on the phone?’

  He frowns, as though trying to remember. ‘I did call her,’ he says at last, ‘I called her a few times – my eyesight’s not what it used to be, mind, but I wrote down her number on a card, in felt pen so I could see it, nice and big, you know. These new phones – I struggle to see the numbers. Everything’s so small.’

  Alex glances around the room, his eyes alighting on a dusty-looking cream telephone, standing on a small wooden table by the window. Next to it is propped a row of A5 cards, with numbers written on them in black marker pen. DOCTOR STOWMARKET, says the one closest to them, and then, beside it, CAROLINE. He imagines Christopher Harvey painstakingly writing out the digits, pressing the phone to his ear to connect with his child. The sight of the cards is, somehow, unbearably sad.

  ‘How did Caroline seem to you, Mr Harvey?’ DS Bolton asks, leaning forwar
d slightly on the sofa, towards where their interviewee is sitting, his body curved into an ageing armchair that perhaps used to be pink.

  ‘She was a good girl,’ he murmured, ‘she was a good drawer.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bolton says, trying and failing to disguise the flicker of impatience in his voice now, ‘yes, you told us about her drawings. But other than that, how did she seem?’ He pauses. ‘Did she ever talk to you about a partner at all, a man she might have been seeing?’

  At this, his head jerks up. ‘Is that what you think happened? Some bastard hurt my Caroline?’

  The outburst is unexpected, and at odds with his thus-far quiet demeanour.

  ‘We are investigating several lines of inquiry to find out what happened to your daughter that night, Mr Harvey,’ DS Wildy says, ‘but it’s crucial for us to understand more about your daughter as part of that process. What kind of person she was, who she spent her time with, what she wanted out of life.’

  ‘She was a kind person,’ Mr Harvey says, ‘she was always kind. She gave people too many chances.’ He stops, hesitating.

  ‘Go on,’ Bolton says.

  ‘She wasn’t good at – at setting boundaries,’ Christopher says at last, ‘her mother used to say that, she used to worry a lot about little Caroline.’

  He pauses for a second, puts a hand to his head. ‘It was hard for her without her mother,’ he says at last, ‘I should have paid more attention to her. If I had – maybe we wouldn’t be here.’ His voice chokes a little, and Alex can’t help it; he is somewhat relieved to know the old man is capable of showing emotion around his only daughter’s death. Even if it is too little, too late.

  ‘She wanted a family,’ Mr Harvey says, regaining control of his emotions, looking the officers straight in the face. ‘She was a kind person, like I say, but she was also – she was also a jealous one. She wanted things that other people had.’ He sighs. ‘I think it all stemmed from losing her mother, to be honest. It was hard for her, being the only child; she didn’t have anyone to rub her edges off, I suppose.’

  The officers exchange glances. ‘What makes you say she wanted a family?’ Bolton says gently.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘just little things, you know. She was lonely, it was obvious – she wanted nothing more than to find someone, get married, have children of her own. I think she wanted to make up for her own childhood, perhaps. Start again.’

  Bolton raises his eyebrows. ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ he says, and Christopher shakes his head.

  ‘No, nothing wrong with that,’ he muses, almost to himself, ‘but she never quite got it. There was a gap in her life, you see. A gap I couldn’t fill. We were such a small family, a shattered one, really. Just her and I, rattling around. And nothing ever really changed, no matter how much she wanted it to.’

  ‘Did you ever get to speak to her properly about it?’ Bolton asks, and Christopher shakes his head.

  ‘She did see a psychiatrist, once or twice,’ he says, slowly, ‘I remember being glad she was talking to someone, at least. They seemed to think it was all to do with losing her mother, you know, trying to replace something, fill that void. I don’t think anything really ever worked.’

  On the table in front of them, the men’s teas have gone cold.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ipswich

  10th August: The night of the murder

  Caroline

  Callum didn’t stick to his promise. Even now, the base fact of that makes me feel sick – the abject cruelty of it. He simply went back on his word, once the baby – my baby – had been dealt with. We went on a mini-break and had a lovely time in Norfolk, and I believed everything he said, but then a few days after we got back he changed his mind. Emma was too volatile, he told me, too fragile, and on top of that it would hurt his career prospects. People like a family man, Caro, he told me, as though I was supposed to understand, and the next day he bought me a necklace, silver and delicate, as if a piece of jewellery would make up for the unbearable betrayal. And that was when I knew. It was over, because it had to be. I had been foolish, naïve. I had made a terrible error in judgement. I know that now.

  It was after that that I became even more obsessive about babies, about what I had given up.

  I’m still watching baby Eve sleep, enjoying the little rise and fall of her chest, when I hear the ping of my phone from the coffee table in the next room. Carefully so as not to wake her, I close the door and go to pick it up. It is almost eight-thirty; it must be Jenny texting to say she’s on her way home from the hospital. I wonder vaguely how Rick’s mother is.

  But it isn’t Jenny. It’s the same unknown number from before. I know what you’ve been doing. That’s all it says. Only six words, but it’s enough to make my blood run cold. Feeling a horrible splash of panic, I go over to the heater and turn it up full blast, before pouring myself another small glass of red wine. My heart is thudding and before I can think too much about it, I hit reply.

  Who are you?

  Immediately, the three little dots flash up; the unknown number is typing. But then they stop, and the screen is blank again. Maybe it’s the wine, but I’m starting to feel angry. Who is it threatening me like this? They can only be talking about Callum. An image of Siobhan flashes into my mind, Siobhan with her long legs and her teenage daughter and her flowing brown hair. Oh, it’s not that I’ve actually met Siobhan. But I’ve seen her, I’ve watched them together. That time at Christmas, and another time, too, when they were coming home from Emma’s posh private school. The perfect little family, except that he’s been sleeping with me the whole time because his wife clearly bores him.

  Don’t be unkind, Caroline. It’s my mother’s voice that jumps into my head, like it sometimes does if I’m feeling particularly unsettled. Or tipsy. I shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine.

  Going to the tap, I run myself a glass of cold water. If Jenny thinks I’ve been drinking she won’t let me watch Eve again, and at the thought of that, my heart gives a funny little squeeze. Eve likes me now, I know she does. She trusts me. Soon, I might even be able to say that she needs me.

  As if on cue, I hear a little mewling noise from the next room. I abandon my water, the glass only half drunk, and leaving my phone with the horrible message on it behind, I rush into the bedroom, where the cot is. It’s still so funny seeing it there, so out of place amongst my belongings. It makes a lovely change, I think to myself, to see this room inhabited by another person, to see a bit of life amongst the mess of my things. My double bed that’s only used by me now, my bookshelves full of novels only I will ever read, the photographs in frames that are sparse – there’s one of me and Callum that I took last year, but I’ve turned it to face downwards, I did it the day he told me about the holiday in France. There’s a small one of my mother right by my bed – I look at it sometimes before I go to sleep at night. In it, she’s gazing straight at the camera, probably at Dad, but she’s not really smiling, it’s only a twitch of the lips. I’ve often wondered what she was thinking at that moment, the moment the shutter snapped. Was she happy? It was before I was born, Dad said. All I’ve ever wanted is someone to share a space with. A family.

  When I touch her, Eve is very hot. Despite the window being open, there isn’t much of a breeze; the night is too still. It’s still light outside, but the day is beginning to fade; a glance at my watch tells me it’s almost quarter to nine. I feel her little forehead, the droplets of sweat forming underneath my palm. She’s wearing a pink romper suit that Jenny brought her in – not what I’d choose but never mind – and I tut under my breath, wondering why she hasn’t dressed her more appropriately for the weather.

  ‘Come on princess,’ I say, gently easing the covers back off her, giving her little body room to breathe. Feeling her skin against mine, I feel a spurt of worry – perhaps this is more than it being hot, perhaps she’s ill? I try to think back over what Jenny said when she left, did she say anything about if Eve starts to burn up? Again, I wish
I hadn’t drank the three glasses of red wine; my brain feels slow-moving and sluggish.

  ‘What’s the matter, baby?’ I ask her, but Eve’s little face is scrunching up, and tears are beginning to fill her big brown eyes.

  ‘Mummy will be home soon,’ I say, then regret the words because I want her to want me, not Jenny. ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you,’ I whisper, putting my lips close to the little whorl of her ear. It is tiny, perfect, like a shell.

  That’s what my baby’s ear would have looked like.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ipswich

  10th August: The night of the murder

  Caroline

  It’s been ten minutes and she won’t stop crying. I am pacing around the flat, cursing its size. She’s kicked off her little pink socks in frustration, so her bare feet are flailing unhappily in the air, despite me trying to hold her tightly to my chest, calm her down with my proximity. It’s not working.

  I’ve tried giving her the pink dummy Jenny brought with her (why is everything you buy your daughter pink, Jenny?) but she keeps spitting it out, and now I’m worried it’s dirty because it’s landed on the floor so many times, and my floors aren’t exactly that clean. It’s been a while since I had the hoover out, put it that way. I pick it up and stick it in the cot, so that at least it’s on the clean sheets.

  ‘Don’t cry, Eve, please don’t cry,’ I say to her, but still she wails, and all the time she’s becoming hotter and hotter. I can feel the pressure beginning to build up inside my head, forming a tight band of tension across my forehead and the back of my skull. What’s the matter with me? Why can’t I do this? I bet she doesn’t normally cry like this; I think of Rick and Jenny in their lovely house and somehow cannot picture them in this situation. It’s me, I think to myself, it’s always me, I always get it wrong.

  In desperation, I pick up my phone, but I don’t know who to call, and all I see is that nasty message again. It’s upset me, unsettled me; that’s why I had the wine and that’s why I can’t sort this out and stop Eve crying. It’s all her fault, it’s Siobhan Dillon’s fault. Because it must be her sending me the messages. It must be. I think about calling the number, hover my finger over the button, but something stops me. I don’t know what I’d say, I don’t know how to deal with a confrontation. I don’t want them to know they’ve got to me.