by Sue Watson
‘NO. NO. Simon, what the fuck?’ I can see how this looks, but he can’t turn this on me. He’s just as likely to have done something.
‘But you’ve been obsessed. Do you actually remember leaving her cottage?’
‘Yes of course,’ I snap. But I don’t. I don’t.
I grab my phone. ‘I have to call the police.’
He stands up now; his hand is round my arm and he’s squeezing. ‘You were there yesterday… Did you stay long, did anyone see you, did you touch anything?’
‘I don’t… yes I suppose… but…’
‘Right, so your fingerprints are all over the place… and you had a confrontation with her the night before… You were obsessed with her and when you went over to the cottage she told you about the baby… my baby…’
I stand in front of him, frowning, just frowning. I’m trying to show my displeasure at where this is going, but I’m also trying to remember what happened at the cottage yesterday. I went round, I gave her the bag and the flowers, she had a bruise on her wrist she tried to hide, we drank tea from mugs with little hearts on, she told me the truth and I left. Didn’t I?
‘Then there’s the small matter of your mental state, your history – a previous assault on someone who you mistakenly thought I was involved with.’
‘That wasn’t assault and you know it. I poured beer over her…’
‘You were charged with assault; you have a criminal record. You also stalked Caroline online, liking all her Instagram posts, just letting her know you were watching. What about the late-night calls, the weird lunch, the even weirder surprise party at which everyone witnessed your breakdown, and then the next day you just went off to Caroline’s cottage to visit her without telling anyone? Have I missed anything out?’
I don’t respond – what can I say? For once what Simon is saying is all true. He reminds me of a prosecuting lawyer giving his closing, damning speech, and he’s not quite finished.
‘Oh yes… and finally, the death of a baby, your baby – in your care.’
I doubt myself now, but I know this is what Simon does. He always lays the blame on me and I always accept it – gratefully – but not any more. I just wish I could remember what happened. I thought we’d made friends, that we understood each other. And yet… yet I remember doubting her, wondering if she was strong enough to say no to Simon, worrying that he could convince her to be with him and send me away. How far would I go to keep my kids? Would I really do something that terrible? Would I? Could I? I don’t think so, but I don’t know, because the pills make me wobbly and I’ve been under so much stress. I once threw a pint of beer over a woman behind a bar. I once wrote profanities on a woman’s Facebook page because I thought she was with Simon. Who knows what the fuck I would do under duress? I don’t know myself.
Am I insane… Am I unsafe? Am I a murderer?
I try and focus. I can’t let him brainwash me into thinking I did it, though I really don’t know and the more I think about it…
‘Anyway, where were you last night, Simon?’ I suddenly hear myself say.
‘I was with David.’
‘I hope David vouches for you if this gets messy.’
‘For God’s sake, Marianne, why on earth would I do something like that to a woman I’m… involved with?’
’Caroline told me she’d finished with you, that she was upset. She hated herself for what she was doing to me and the children. I can’t think you’d just accept her dumping you and walk away.’
‘I did accept it. I agreed we should part. I told her I would finance the child until he or she was eighteen as long as she could provide proof it was mine.’
‘You old romantic.’
‘I’m not stupid.’
‘No, and neither was she, because she realised how evil you are and if you could hurt your wife and kids, you weren’t what she was looking for.’
‘Rubbish. As usual you’re fantasising.’
‘Like I was fantasising about the affair and the baby? I know exactly what was going on, and it wasn’t in my head – it was real, I saw it in writing. You wanted me out of the picture so she’d move in, take over the house, the children, and you could carry on with your career and eventually when you got bored of her, whoever else you fancied. Caroline was the brand new model. The old defunct one had to be locked away and with no chance of her causing any more problems, throwing drinks over barmaids, accusing every woman within a five-mile radius of sleeping with you. But Caroline had moral backbone somewhere in that supple spine. When she met me, she could see I wasn’t the hapless madwoman in the attic that you’d lied to her about, so she couldn’t bear to help destroy me so said goodbye to you. You don’t like goodbyes, do you, Simon?’
‘Oh, Marianne, you’re rambling again…’
‘The police will see your emails. I know they were there.’
He laughs – he really laughs. ‘Yes, they can probably still find them, but I’m not denying I had an affair. The emails put you firmly back in the frame. Caroline was killed by a jealous wife. It was the act of a woman scorned; the police will soon work that one out.’
Oh God, is he right? I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know who to believe and that includes myself. But I’m clearly not the only one who’s faltering, because Simon is white as a sheet and has just gone to the downstairs toilet. I can hear retching and I don’t know if his reaction is because he’s upset, or he did it… or he thinks I did?
I shouldn’t have taken those bloody tablets, I feel so out of it. I just wish I could remember things more clearly, but there’s one thing that I remember loud and clear: I hated Caroline and had wished she was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’m scared. I remember the police arriving when Emily died. I was still screaming and trying to wake her. I didn’t believe she’d died; she was everything to me. But the police were circumspect, not sympathetic – I suppose until the coroner decided it was ‘accidental death’, everyone involved had to be aware it could be more than what it seemed. And now, this has brought it all back and I feel guilty for doing something I don’t think I did.
I keep checking the iPad for news. Where was Simon last night? Scrolling through all the information. Reading and re-reading the same facts, but all I see is that there were multiple stab wounds. Where was Simon last night? There’s her smiling face once more, everything to live for. But something to die for? There’s the cottage, the fucking cottage with its big wooden door and the nosy neighbour. She soon came from behind the lace curtains to grab her fifteen minutes of fame, didn’t she? Perhaps she was the last to see her? BUT WHERE THE FUCK WAS SIMON LAST NIGHT?
If he was with David, why hadn’t he just said that before instead of saying he was with a friend? Maybe he had gone to David’s after he’d stabbed his mistress and his unborn child.
And now he’s in the bathroom purging himself.
I want to scream. My insides are on fire. I am turned inside out by the shock and the not knowing.
A new line on the news feed. An older woman, standing with a man. Oh no, it’s Caroline’s parents. Her mother’s name is Alice. My heart is bursting for her.
I know what it’s like to lose your little girl, Alice.
She’s asking ‘If anyone knows anything…’
Alice’s husband is holding her up. I want to put my arm around her and tell her one day it will all be okay. But I can’t. Because it won’t.
Your child’s death will define you, Alice, and you will wake every morning and for that first miniscule, golden moment you will have forgotten that you don’t have her any more. And then the darkness will come rolling back in like fog and you’ll want to die to be with her. And that’s how you will start and end every day of the rest of your life.
If I have anything to do with Caroline’s death, then I don’t deserve to be standing here in this beautiful house with my three perfect children sleeping. If I have caused Alice one second, one modicum, of the anguish that I suf
fered, then I need to pay for it.
I pick up the phone just as Simon walks in. I’ve never seen him look so terrible. I can’t begin to fathom what he’s thinking or feeling. I’m not sure I want to.
‘Marianne, no,’ he says firmly when he sees I’m holding the phone. ‘You can’t call the police. How many times do I have to tell you… Don’t bring them here… You will be arrested.’
‘Then so be it. The police can work it out, but I won’t live a lie, Simon, I’ve been doing that for too long.’
‘What are you talking about?’ He sounds exasperated.
‘I’ve buried myself so deep in this marriage, I don’t know who I am any more. Over the years you’ve made me so bloody paranoid, so needy, so guilty, with your games and your blame. I don’t know what happened last night, but either way we both have to take some responsibility, because I believe this young woman died because of one of us.’
But which one of us was it?
‘One of us? Marianne, there’s only one of us who could have done this, who’s capable of doing it. The minute someone comes along and threatens your existence you try to get rid of them. And it looks like this time you have.’
‘I’m not listening to you any more. I can’t, because I’ve listened to you for years and look at me. LOOK AT ME, SIMON!’
We both stand there in our beautiful tomb, buried alive under the rubble of deceit and blame, and he can’t look at me. He can’t actually bring himself to meet my eyes.
I pick up the phone again and this time Simon doesn’t stop me. He knows I’m right but whether that’s because he did it or he knows I did, I’m not sure. There’s only one way to find out. I punch out the number on the news feed for ‘anyone who has any information’. I don’t believe there is anything worse than losing a child. I have battled with this myself for so long, and I feel I owe it to Alice to help find who killed her daughter. Even if it’s me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Within an hour of my call to the police, there’s a knock on the door. Simon and I haven’t uttered a word, just sat in the kitchen waiting.
Dead men walking.
He’s on a stool at the island. I’m leaning against the kitchen cabinets, arms folded, staring into space. Behind me is my shiny white backdrop, the beautiful pale walls, the fucking Calacatta Oro marble worktops. I almost laugh to myself. This is the kitchen I believed could change my life, bring us together. A new house, a fresh start – a state-of-the-art kitchen with the clean lines of sustainable European oak cabinetry. What a joke. How superficial I’d become. Now I know it takes more than a high-end kitchen to heal a mess like ours, and all the antibacterial spray in the world won’t clean away the detritus we’ve created between us.
We wait in the heavy silence, the children sleeping upstairs, blissfully unaware of the juggernaut that’s about to crash into their lives and change everything. When they wake up in the morning, nothing will be the same again; I feel a cool tear run down my face and look over at Simon, his head in his hands.
This is all we are now.
One of us knows who did this, but neither of us is prepared to either admit it or, in my case, dig deeper and find it. I’ve never been really good at digging, at pushing beneath the surface to see what’s underneath, because in my experience, it usually isn’t something I want to see.
‘If you think I’m lying for you again, you can forget it,’ Simon suddenly says into the thick silence. It hangs there like a stagnant smell – his loathing for me permeates the atmosphere around us like swirling fog.
I’ve taken another 30 mg of Mirtazapine, a slightly smaller dose, but it still packs a punch. I had no choice. The anxiety was swelling in my chest, my face was hot and my heart was thudding too fast. But through the medicated mist, something is pulling me to the surface – like a drowning woman, I am fighting for survival, for truth. I know if I believe in myself and my own truth, then I will get through this, and as painful as it may be, I can survive. I know this, because I’ve been in a similar place before, ten years ago with my baby’s face like porcelain, her body cold and my mind racing through the screams and the tears. And when we arrived in casualty I was treated with caution, unsure if they were dealing with a bereaved mother or a baby killer. I was beyond caring where I fit into their story, what my footnote would be. I just knew my baby was dead and I wanted to follow her. I’d have happily died for Emily, and if they believed I did it, then prison was almost as good as dying to me.
‘Inmates mete out their own retribution to cellmates who hurt children,’ Simon had murmured at the time, and I was glad. I welcomed my atonement; the bloodier and more painful the better. The weeks dragged on, and through the cocktail clouds of medication all I remember is his hate. The only time he touched me was to have sex; it was rough, and painful, but it was what I deserved and when he’d filled me up with his loathing, I was grateful. Everyone else was sympathetic, from my GP to my health visitor, all mewling around me, telling me how awful it was for me, but I didn’t deserve their sympathy. I’d let my own baby die next to me and Simon ripped out my already ragged heart, smashed it against rocks, pushed it through a blender and then handed it back to me. And along with my own self-flagellation, he lashed me daily with the fact that all I’d had to do was keep her alive, and I couldn’t even do that. Simon didn’t stuff me with clichés, touch my arm and tell me ‘in time’ it would feel better – he forced me back down the black hole until I couldn’t see the light again. And I was okay with that. Because I didn’t want to see the light; it was safer in the dark.
‘Just like your mother after all,’ he’d say. ‘It’s in the genes, tainted blood,’ and therefore Emily’s death in my care was inevitable. But even all this wasn’t enough for me. I craved more punishment, because that’s what I deserved. And even Simon couldn’t hurt me enough.
Harder, harder, don’t stop until I’m dead.
I remember standing in the bathroom of our new house, a modern new build with bay windows and a little pocket-sized garden, all ready for a young family. Emily had been dead for almost two years and I looked out onto that neat little square of green, thinking of summers that would never be. I imagined Emily’s paddling pool, her bike with stabilisers, her birthday party in the garden, bright balloons dancing against a blue sky. In one hand, I clutched several packets of Paracetamol and in the other a pregnancy test. I waited then, like I’m waiting now, the clock ticking, my destiny on hold – and only when the line appeared did I know what happened next. Another baby needed me, and in spite of everything, including my own fear of the same thing happening again, I stayed – for the next one… two as it happened… and flushed the pills down the toilet.
Giving evidence at the inquest, I was so racked with guilt, convinced by Simon and myself that her death was all my fault and if only I’d done things differently she’d still be with us. Had I fed her too much too late, too little too early? Was it because I was lying next to her that she died? Had I smothered her by rolling over? Should I have sat by her cot all night instead of bringing her to my bed? Is that what other, ‘successful’ mothers do? I didn’t hear any of the legal jargon, the paramedic’s evidence, Simon’s and my health visitor’s assurance that all was well at home (which Simon has since referred to as ‘lying’ for me). After the verdict I remember standing in front of the coroner, hiccoughing with tears and asking, ‘Did I kill my baby?’ His face immediately softened and he reassured me that Emily had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and I was in no way to blame.
But that didn’t stop me blaming myself. It didn’t stop Simon from blaming me either, and as we wait for the knock I feel like we’re back there and it’s all my fault again.
Even though we’re both expecting it, and we know exactly what it means, we both start at the abrupt rap on the wood. My finger ends tingle and I reluctantly pull myself in the direction of the hallway. But Simon’s off the kitchen stool and already passing me, putting out his hand to prevent me going first.
&
nbsp; ‘I’ll deal with this,’ he hisses. ‘This could be curtains for you… do you realise? You won’t see the children again, Marianne. My children will not be going anywhere near a prison.’
He’s right – they will throw the book at me, and I can’t even say I’m not guilty, because maybe I am. Can I stand up in court and say I didn’t do this? I don’t know. And what about when they question me? Will I be able to convince them to look at other people who also have a motive before they condemn me? Like my husband?
I’m now in the hall standing a few feet away from Simon; the shadowy figures are on the doorstep as he puts on the porch light and turns to give me a final warning look. I don’t trust him. He’s also fighting for his life and I know if it came to it he’d throw me under the bus. For me this is not a battle to blame Simon, it’s about discovering the truth, and if it was me who killed Caroline, then I’ll take my punishment – but for Simon this is a battle between the two of us. And he’s used to winning.
As he opens the door, I stand braced. I have an awful lot to fight for.
‘My wife is in a state of extreme distress,’ is his opening gambit, which doesn’t put me in the best light with the two hard-faced women standing in the doorway.
The slightly older one introduces herself as Detective Inspector Cornell and the other one is apparently Detective Sergeant Faith.
‘Your wife called us…’ DI Cornell starts.
‘Yes,’ Simon says, ‘but you need to know my wife hasn’t been well.’ He’s standing there, and I’m behind him, like he’s shielding me from the police. But I know his game – he’s trying to stop me from telling my side of the story. ‘But of course you can speak with her. She was very upset last night after seeing Caroline, but I’m sure my wife has nothing to hide,’ he says.
I want to protest – he’s making me look guilty before they’ve even met me with his faux concern. They may as well just handcuff me now.
