The Babysitter

by Phoebe Morgan

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I say desperately, but her eyes are squeezed shut with pain and when I put my face close to her mouth, I can hear that her breathing is ragged. I look around for my phone but I don’t know where it is, it’s not in my pocket, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.

  She opens her eyes, just for a second, and I stare into them, dark brown pools of pain.

  ‘Phone,’ she says, gasping, and on cue, there is a buzzing noise and I see it, on the side next to the kettle, the rose gold case winking at me as though nothing has happened. The notification is from Mum, telling me that she’s leaving book group soon, will stop at the shop on the way back. She thinks I am at home; so does Dad, unless he has been in my room. He won’t have, they never do any more. ‘Popping to shop en route. Do you want anything?’ the message says and I feel a twinge inside because Mum is always trying so hard, so hard to be close to me, and I won’t let her because I’m so angry with her for letting this happen, for letting Dad stray.

  Caroline groans again, and I steel myself to dial 999, because I have to, don’t I? I have to save her life. But I’m scared. I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do when they come – to run, to stay. If they’ll arrest me, if they’ll believe my story. I swallow. I’ll call 999 in a minute, but first I need someone to help me, to tell me what to do. I need to call the one person who I know I can count on, the one person who will help me. My fingers slippery, I press the numbers and hold the phone to my ear.

  ‘Please come,’ I say, ‘something’s happened.’ My voice breaks, and I begin to cry.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Ipswich

  19th August

  DS Wildy

  The station phone rings as he’s about to finally leave for the night, and Gillian McVey dives for it. The office seems to freeze, his colleagues pausing to hear, although the DCI’s face is unreadable. It always has been, Wildy thinks.

  She replaces the receiver after a few minutes, then turns to face the room.

  ‘That was the lab. They found traces of Eve’s DNA inside the suitcase, remnants of saliva inside the lining. No blood, but skin cells, too. Same for the pink dummy – it was definitely hers,’ the DCI says. She pauses. ‘They also found a smear of blood – small, easy to miss in the lining, but there. It’s a match for Caroline Harvey; we think it must have been transferred by Eve herself. Additionally, they found fibres of a blanket, which we can assume is the one Jenny Grant said was missing from her cot. He must have wrapped her up in it and stuffed her inside, used it to transport the body out of the flat.’

  ‘No more on the body itself?’ Bolton asks, and for a moment the room seems to hold its breath, but Gillian shakes her head.

  ‘Not yet,’ she says, ‘but I’m afraid we have to work on the assumption that Eve was dead when she was put in the case. If she wasn’t when he took her, she would be soon – she’d suffocate inside there.’

  Her words are heavy, and Alex feels his gut clenching, the twist of disappointment. He knows that a week into an investigation is unlikely to have a positive outcome, but still, this kind of confirmation is always unspeakably horrible, and relaying it to Rick and Jenny Grant will be even worse.

  ‘I think there are two reasons why Callum would’ve taken Eve from the flat,’ the DCI continues. ‘First, she died in the struggle with Caroline, she was collateral damage and he had to remove the body. Second,’ she holds up two fingers, ‘he wanted to make Eve look like the target, throw us off so that we didn’t connect him with the murder. Safe to say either way, his plan hasn’t worked. With his lack of concrete alibi and Jenny’s own suspicions about him, the link to the suitcase is enough to charge. Put it this way – Callum Dillon won’t be taking another holiday for a very long time.’

  Bolton claps him on the back; Alex hasn’t even noticed him approach. He is sitting at his desk, his bag packed to leave for the night, staring at the photographs of Siobhan, Callum, Jenny and Rick, turning everything over and over in his mind. Why does he still feel as though something isn’t right?

  ‘All right?’ Bolton says to him. ‘The DCI wants one of us to go with her to the Dillon house, be there to enjoy the final reckoning. Thought you’d be the man for the job.’ He stares at Alex expectantly. There is a pause.

  ‘No,’ Alex says, ‘you’re all right, actually. You go, mate. I’m going home.’

  His colleague shrugs, claps him on the back again and practically skips over to where Gillian is waiting by the station doors. Alex turns away from them, back to the board where Eve’s face is staring out at them, her bright little eyes and her curly blonde hair. Someone’s baby, he thinks, someone’s baby is gone. No matter how glad the force is to charge Callum, nothing will ever change that. He thinks of the search parties that have been working tirelessly all week, the sniffer dogs roaming through the countryside, the fruitless Facebook appeals, kind strangers wanting to help. Has it all been for nothing?

  The thud of it hits him, slowly and depressingly. After all that, it is what it seemed: another nasty man and a dead baby on the books. A statistic, soon to be forgotten. All at once, he wishes he were back at home with Joanne, eating pasta together and talking about nothing, the sun shining through the window and all of this darkness far, far away.

  ‘DS Wildy?’ The DCI is calling him, and he turns around, crosses the room to where she’s standing, her jacket on ready to leave.

  ‘Didn’t want to come?’ she says questioningly, frowning at him. ‘You’ve done a lot of great work on this case, Alex, don’t underestimate yourself.’

  ‘Right,’ he says at last. ‘Yes. I’ll come.’

  The DCI frowns at him, but her gaze isn’t unkind. ‘You don’t have to,’ she says, ‘if Joanne’s waiting up.’

  ‘No,’ he says, taking a deep breath, his resolve stiffening. He thinks of Jenny Grant’s face, of Siobhan Dillon’s anxious eyes. ‘I want to see him get what’s coming. I’ll come.’

  She looks pleased. ‘Uniforms are out front, they’re going to accompany us to the property,’ she says. ‘Get your game face on, Wildy.’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Ipswich

  19th August

  Siobhan

  I have come to dread the sound of the doorbell ringing; every night for the last week it has haunted my dreams. When it happens tonight, I am upstairs, folding bedsheets, trying to keep up some semblance of normality for Emma, for us all. Maria is downstairs in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher accompanied by a glass of cool white wine. Callum is in Emma’s room, the pair of them cosied up together, thick as thieves. What they’re talking about, I don’t know – I only know that I’m in here, like the mug I am, busying myself with laundry because I’m too frightened to look at what might be going on beneath the surface of our lives. The façade we have built. But then, I think as I run my hand flat over a flowery pillowcase, aren’t I as guilty as anyone in that respect? I have kept up the pretence of our marriage for all of this time, and look where it’s got us. Look where it’s got me. Folding laundry on my own.

  At the sound of the doorbell, accompanied by a loud, insistent knocking, my stomach drops like a plane cut out of the air. I drop the pillowcase, redundant now, and go to the window of our room, pull aside one of the thick, heavy curtains that I’ve never really liked anyway. Callum often wanted to keep them open, let the world see us. It excited him; it doesn’t now. Now, we hide away. There is a police car outside the house, and another one, a follow-up rounding the corner of our road, past the park, the tall dark trees overhanging the pavements, and past the row of neighbouring houses, the inhabitants of which have all taken to looking at us lately as though we are vermin. Perhaps we are.

  In the next room, I hear Emma’s voice, raised, panicked. All of us know that someone at the door at this time in the evening is hardly going to be good news. Despite myself, as I descend the stairs, I find myself hoping against hope that this will be good news, a get out of jail free
, a last-minute redemption for the Dillon family. Of course, it isn’t.

  ‘Police!’ comes the shout outside; we have taken too long to respond and I can’t help myself, I cringe at the idea of our neighbours drawing back curtains, opening windows, wanting to see what drama this stifling hot summer has brought to our unhappy household now. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.

  Maria appears, her hands slightly wet from the dishwasher, skin glowing pink in the light of the hallway. Time seems to slow down as my husband emerges, Emma trailing behind him, tears already filling her eyes.

  ‘Go back upstairs, Emma,’ I say, but the words are futile, she ignores me as though I haven’t spoken at all. Is this what it has cost me, my turning a blind eye? I am not just a doormat to my husband, but to my daughter too?

  I open the door with my left hand, watching my wedding ring glimmer gold. It is a burden I don’t want any more – I imagine myself ripping it from my finger, casting it off into the sea, watching it flow away like the women in films do. Maria’s words in France come back to me, I don’t know why you wanted to get married at all, and in this instance, I can’t remember either. She was right, I think; she was right about Callum all along.

  It’s DCI McVey, and the man, DS Wildy, the one I thought had kind eyes. They look harder tonight, little chips of steel in his face. His gaze moves past me to my husband.

  ‘Callum Dillon,’ he says, ‘we are arresting you for the murder of Caroline Harvey and the abduction and suspected murder of Eve Grant. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court.’

  I stand to one side, invisible, as they barge their way into the house, to where Callum is standing, in a crumpled shirt and jeans, a mess of a man, a shell of himself.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ he is saying, ‘you can’t do this. You’ve no evidence!’

  ‘New evidence has come to light,’ DS Wildy is saying, and I feel nausea worm its way up my throat, viscous and embarrassing. ‘If I were you, I’d get in the car.’

  ‘Siobhan,’ he says, then desperately, to the officers, ‘my wife will tell you, I was home that night. I didn’t have time to kill anyone, I don’t know what evidence you’ve found but it’s not true, it’s planted, it’s a set-up!’

  I don’t say anything; my mouth feels as though it is filled with ash. Behind us, Emma is crying, noisy, unchecked sobs, and I go to her, put my arms around her, feeling her shaky body collapse against mine. For once, she doesn’t resist, and despite everything it is so lovely to hold her again, to feel close to her, even if only physically.

  ‘Siobhan,’ he says, ‘please. Please. Get Maria. Get her to come to the station, to talk to them.’

  ‘Maria?’ I say, confused, ‘why do you want Maria?’

  She is behind me already, her hand on my shoulder. She is an inch or so taller than me; her hair brushes mine. I can smell her perfume, musky and sweet.

  ‘Tell them!’ he says to her, as the police snap handcuffs around his wrists and he instinctively strains against them, ‘tell them, Maria.’

  I turn my head to look at her, but her face is impassive. She is still holding the tea towel, the picture of domesticity, of innocence.

  ‘Tell them what?’ she says, her head on one side. ‘Callum, there isn’t anything to tell.’

  He lets out an anguished sound, and his body bucks against the officers, a movement that frightens me.

  DCI McVey looks at me, and I see a flicker of empathy in her eyes, the same look that made me tell her the real timings of that night, tell her that I didn’t see Callum come home after all.

  ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to do this so publicly, Mrs Dillon,’ she says softly. ‘If the press bother you too much, please do give me a call. You have my number. We can sort something out for you.’

  I nod numbly, my arm still around my daughter’s waist.

  ‘Please,’ I say, ‘call me Siobhan. I don’t want to be known as Mrs Dillon any more.’

  She nods, a quiet acceptance, and the three of us watch as my husband is dragged outside, into the waiting police vehicle, the light falling around him, enveloping him in its darkness.

  The front door shuts behind him, and my sister, my daughter and I stand motionless in our hallway, the only sound Emma’s quiet sobs, and the ticking of the clock that hangs on the wall. Watching us all, keeping our secrets.

  ‘What evidence do they have now?’ I say aloud, and my knees feel weak at the thought of it – blood, a body, a murder weapon? What ties my husband to that night? What kind of man have I spent my life with?

  ‘Mum—’ Emma begins to say, but Maria steps forward, ushers us both out of the hallway, back into the brightly lit kitchen. The dishwasher is humming, and the surfaces are sparkling; my sister has cleaned the whole room for us.

  I sink down onto a kitchen chair, feel the muscles in my shoulders knot and unknot as I lean forward, run a hand through my hair.

  ‘I just want to know,’ I say, feeling desperation bubble inside me, ‘I just want to know what happened that night. The truth of it. The whole truth.’

  Maria sighs. ‘S,’ she says, ‘I don’t think we ever truly will.’

  ‘Emma,’ I say, ‘come here and let’s—’

  There’s a sudden movement behind me, and when I turn around, I see that my daughter has already vanished upstairs.

  Maria and I stare at each other. ‘Let her be,’ my sister says, ‘she’s dealing with a lot. Give her a bit of time.’

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Ipswich

  21st August: Two days later

  Maria

  It’s a few days after he’s charged when I go to visit him. The summer heat is about to break, all of us can feel it in the air. He doesn’t look well, I have to say. He looks as though he’s lost weight already, the skin practically hangs off him. It’s not a good look.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he says to me, and I tut at him, shake my head.

  ‘That’s no way to greet your sister-in-law, is it, Cal?’

  ‘Ex sister-in-law soon, thanks to you,’ he growls at me, and I can’t help but smile.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it’s funny how things work out.’

  As he turns his head, I catch sight of a bruise, near his temple, purple in the harsh prison lighting. He’s being held in custody until the trial. They haven’t got a guilty plea from him yet. I expect they will soon.

  ‘Ouch,’ I say to him, ‘that must have hurt.’

  He doesn’t respond.

  ‘Are you going to tell her?’ he says eventually, dragging his eyes to meet mine, and I can’t help but enjoy the look of defeat on his face. ‘You know I was at home that night, you know I was in the studio. You could’ve told them that, told them about us. I was begging you to.’

  I think of him, straining as the police held him, asking me to tell them. I’d enjoyed that moment, if I’m honest.

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘no, Callum, I’m not. Why would I tell her? She’s my sister. I don’t want to hurt her. Neither do you, any more than you have already. If you tell her, you’ll lose more than you already have – do you think your daughter will forgive you for me, as well? Do you think either of them will even come visit you if they know that Caroline wasn’t the only one?’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ he spits at me, a little bubble of spit collecting at the corner of his mouth. ‘You’re a witch, Maria.’

  I narrow my eyes at him. ‘Well, that’s your side of the story,’ I say, ‘but I warned you.’ I lean closer to him, relishing the way his eyes change. That’s fear. I did that to him.

  ‘Where did you put her?’ he whispers. ‘What did you do with that little girl?’

  I stare at him, adopt an innocent expression. ‘I kept her safe,’ I say. ‘Eve is perfectly fine, Callum. No thanks to you. You ought to be thanking me for getting you off a double murder charge. At least now you might only face the one.
They’re not going to find a body.’

  It takes a second and then he groans, the sound escaping from his lips. It’s the sound of defeat.

  ‘You’re sick,’ he says, ‘you’re sick in the head, Maria. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m just not my sister, Callum,’ I say softly, ‘And I won’t be second-best.’

  He flinches, and in that moment I wonder at how I could have done it, how I could possibly have found him attractive. How I could have let him touch me, kiss me, whisper in my ear. How, in that moment all those months ago, on a walk last spring, down by the stream, I could have let him inside me for the very first time. If I’d never found out about Caroline, perhaps it would still be going on. But I did, I found out because of Emma’s little temper. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting it. But that’s what men like Callum are like, I suppose – never content with one. Not happy with two. Callum Dillon had to have all three of us.

  It’s just a shame he didn’t know about my taste for revenge.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Ipswich

  10th August: The night of the murder

  Maria

  When Emma called me that night, I had just left Callum’s studio, the taste of him still on my lips. The air in Christchurch Park was hot and still, the August heat creeping under my hastily buttoned blouse, permeating my still-sweaty skin. I was hurrying back to my car, parked across the grass so that no one would see it near their drive, but I’d stopped moving, listened to Emma’s hysterical words down the phone. My sister was at her book club, she’d be back relatively soon – we’d been risky that night. Too risky. I’d never been to the studio before, didn’t want to be anywhere near the house, but he’d begged me.

  ‘Please,’ he’d said, ‘I need you, Maria. Siobhan won’t be back for hours. Emma won’t notice, not if you come through the side gate. Her bedroom faces the other way.’ He’d lowered his voice. ‘Don’t you want to take the risk?’