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.
Going over to the balcony, I open the door and feel a moment of relief as the cooler air hits me. The sky looks beautiful, streaked with pink and gold, and I try to distract Eve with the colours, holding her up to the window and pointing, twisting her little body around so that she can see. The glass obscures part of her view and despite what Jenny said, I step outside with her in my arms, onto the balcony so that she can see the sky properly, the wide expanse of it stretching above our heads. She won’t come to any harm – it’s not as if I’m going to hurl her over the edge.
A bird flits past, soaring above us towards the waterfront, and I feel a pang of ridiculous jealousy at its freedom. Eve continues to scream and below me I hear the sound of a door slamming, the hiss of a ‘for God’s sake!’ It’s the neighbours downstairs; I don’t know them, nobody ever talks to each other in this block of flats, but I’ve seen them around – they’re a young couple, younger than me, probably in their mid-twenties. Childless, by the looks of it. People who can’t handle the sound of a baby crying.
I stand outside for a few more minutes, jogging Eve up and down a bit on my hip. I feel out of my depth, hopelessly inexperienced. Don’t they say you should jiggle babies to get them to stop crying? Something about the movement that helps? I wish I could take her for a walk but I don’t want Jenny to come back and find us gone; she must be almost on the way back now.
Going back inside, I try putting Eve back down in the cot, but it only makes the crying worse. Her face is bright red and her mouth, previously a pretty pink pout, is now a gaping scarlet hole, and the sight of it frightens me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ipswich
17th August
DS Wildy
He puzzles over the interaction with Christopher Harvey all the way back to the police station. It is a strange one, all right, and he can’t marry up the image of a young Caroline Harvey grieving for her mother, with the sight of her broken body bent over the cot of Eve Grant.
‘What are you thinking?’ Bolton asks him, as they pull up into the station car park. ‘What did you make of Harvey?’
Alex sighs. ‘Tell the truth, I felt sorry for him,’ he says, and Bolton snorts, turns off the car ignition.
‘You’re always feeling sorry for someone, Wildy. I thought he was a bit weird, didn’t warm to him much. All that stuff about Elsie making the dinner, and the minute she dies the daughter steps in to do the cooking.’
‘It was the Eighties,’ Alex reminds him. ‘Not everyone has quite the modern marriage you have.’ The officers grin at each other.
‘But still,’ Bolton says, ‘what kind of father doesn’t speak to his daughter for seven months at a time when she lives in the same county? Something about that strikes me as unusual.’ He sighs, scratches his chin. ‘Caroline was clearly lonely, a bit troubled, but what does that tell us? There’s something not right about this case. Something that isn’t adding up. I just wish we knew what it was.’
Alex frowns, one hand on his seatbelt buckle, ready to unclip. ‘D’you think we’re now—’
He pauses, shakes his head.
‘No, go on,’ Bolton encourages, and Alex sighs, runs a hand through his hair.
‘D’you think we’re facing the possibility that Caroline took the child? Did something with Eve because she was so desperate for a baby, went back to the flat, and then it all goes wrong?’
Bolton doesn’t reply for a minute or two. ‘And who’d want to hurt Caroline, if they knew she’d hurt the baby?’
The question hangs in the air. ‘Rick or Jenny Grant.’
‘Fuck.’ Alex bangs a hand against the glove box, and it pops open, revealing a half-eaten Twix and a torch inside. ‘So where does Callum Dillon fit into all this? Or doesn’t he?’
‘We’re missing something,’ Bolton says, ‘the question is: what?’
DCI McVey listens intently as DS Wildy relays Christopher Harvey’s story.
‘Hmm,’ she says thoughtfully, ‘it’s certainly plausible that she wanted the baby for herself, if she really did have deep-seated issues.’
‘Harvey was pretty hazy on a lot of the details, to be honest. Kept going in and out of focus. He said she saw a psychiatrist for a while, but there was nothing concrete he could say. He is nearly eighty, I suppose,’ Alex says.
‘Hmm,’ she says, ‘or there is something more, and he’s protecting his daughter.’
‘Well, he didn’t have to tell us anything in the first place,’ Alex points out. ‘He was the one who came forth with the info, when I started probing a bit into Caroline’s background.’
‘So you’re wondering if Caroline really did hurt Eve, after all?’ DCI McVey fixes her gaze on Alex. Her eyes are bright and direct.
He hesitates. ‘I don’t think we can rule it out, ma’am. Not yet, anyway.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ipswich
17th August
Siobhan
To be honest, I’m exhausted with listening to Callum. His hands are gripping mine across the kitchen table; Maria has finally gone up to bed, and I haven’t seen Emma for hours. The music blaring from her room has stopped, leaving my husband and me in relative silence. It’s almost ten o’clock, and my stomach growls in hunger. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.
‘Siobhan,’ he is saying, ‘we have to face this together. Don’t you see? A united front. If this thing breaks us, we’re putting not only ourselves in danger but Emma too. She’s still a minor, she’s not old enough to live by herself! If they manage to bang one or the other of us up for something we didn’t bloody do, then what will happen to her?’
‘She could live with Maria, obviously,’ I say, but I’m only playing devil’s advocate. Deep down, I know what he’s saying is true, it’s what my solicitor Olivia has said, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. I can’t stand the thought of our daughter fending for herself any more than he can, especially considering her state at the best of times.
‘Plus, the lawyer fees are already through the fucking roof,’ Callum says, letting go of my still-unresponsive hands and grasping at his hair as though he wants to pull it out. ‘If this carries on, if they question me again or find some ridiculous piece of trumped-up evidence, how are we going to cope? How is our daughter going to survive the gossip – you know what people can be like.’
‘We have some savings,’ I say, my voice still cold, but Callum snorts in exasperation.
‘Don’t be absurd, Siobhan. It’s not as if the money you’ve made from your work covers even half of the mortgage.’ He leans towards me, taking my hands again, as though he hasn’t just dismissed my career in a single sentence.
‘Look, I know you’re furious with me, Siobhan. I know that. I know I don’t deserve to have you as my wife—’ at this, to my surprise, his voice breaks a little, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t feel sorry for him, and so I don’t.
‘I know what I did with Caroline, starting to see her, it was wrong. It was a disaster. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.’ His eyes are beginning to shine now, a glaze of emotion which could be real and could be fake.
‘But Siobhan, the stuff the police are saying.’
‘They’ve let you out.’
He sighs. ‘You and I both know it’s not over yet, Siobhan. They let me out because they had to. Not because I’m off the hook. The first person the bloody police force ever suspect in a cas
e like this is the – the boyfriend. Or whatever.’ He looks down at the table and I know he’s wishing there was another way to phrase it, that he didn’t have to sit here, telling his wife about his moonlit life as another woman’s boyfriend.
‘Look, if you and I can stick together, just until this is over, I’d really, really appreciate it.’
I can see the muscle in my husband’s jaw tightening as he speaks; he’s forcing himself to keep calm, not to get annoyed with me. I’ve known him for almost twenty years – I know how his body works, even when he thinks I don’t. He is easy to read, sometimes.
‘What do you mean by “stick together”?’ I say, keeping my own tone calm and quiet, not wanting to wake my sister or Emma.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we show the world – the media, the police – that we’re a team. Husband and wife. You standing by me would make everything so much easier; I mean look at you, Siobhan. If you put your trust in me, everyone will. If you can find a way to forgive me for messing everything up, for behaving like a moron, then other people might too.’ He raises his eyes to meet mine. ‘If you don’t think I’m a child-stealing murderer, there’s a chance that the police might come to their senses and realise that I’m not.’
I wait, letting the moment stretch out. In and out, in and out, the muscle in his jaw pulses. It’s making me feel anxious just looking at it.
‘It wouldn’t be for that long, not if you didn’t want it to be,’ Callum says, his words coming more quickly now; my silence has unnerved him, he’s less sure of his footing. ‘But I hope, Siobhan, that in time you might forgive me.’ He’s trying hard to connect with me, I can feel it, but I have to stay strong, to keep my heart hard and closed against him. If I give in, I will be lost.
‘We’ve been married for fifteen years,’ Callum says softly, ‘surely that counts for something?’
This I can’t let go.
‘Yes, you would think so, wouldn’t you, Callum?’ I say. ‘Fifteen years of marriage is quite a long time. But you were happy to throw it away the moment Caroline Harvey walked in, weren’t you?’
He looks taken aback; the unease flashes across his features like a cloud passing across the sun.
‘I’ve already told you – it was a mistake, Siobhan,’ he says, and all the time my eyes are focused on his jaw, popping in and out, in and out. It’s almost rhythmic. Mesmerising.
‘A mistake is one night, Callum,’ I say to him. ‘A mistake is a drunken encounter, a one-off, a lapse in judgement. Not an extended affair. That’s something else altogether – it requires planning, consistency, deception spanning weeks and months.’ I stare at him. ‘And it’s not the first time you’ve done it.’
He’s beginning to panic; he knows I’m right. After all, he’s known me for as long as I’ve known him – he knows when I have the upper hand. But I don’t think I’m quite as easy to read as my husband – I never have been.
‘Right,’ he says, getting to his feet, pushing back his chair with such force that it startles me, just for a second. ‘Right. If that’s the way you want to play it, Siobhan, if the safety and togetherness of our family means so little to you that you can’t see the bigger picture here, then fine. Fine. Let’s let the police come up with some cock-and-bull story because they’ve no other leads and pin the whole thing on me, shall we? Let’s let them accuse me of not only murder but child abduction too. Let’s let them haul me through the courts and throw me in prison, let’s lose the house because we can’t afford the mortgage, let’s give all the money you and I have both worked for to some poncy, overpaid lawyers who will forget about me the moment the cash hits their account.’ He’s breathing hard, panting.
‘Let’s let our daughter fall by the wayside, let’s say goodbye to fifteen years of marriage and parenting, let’s offer ourselves up to the media circus out there and let the likes of the Daily Mail rip us into shreds. Does that all sound like a good idea to you, Siobhan?’ A speck of spittle flies out of his mouth and lands on the table in front of us, glistening in the semi-darkness of the kitchen. Neither of us have bothered to turn on the little lamps, the expensive fittings that usually make it feel like home.
I wait a moment, leave him panting there in the kitchen, and although my heart is racing, I force myself to look him in the eye. I hate the things he is saying, but when it comes to Emma, I know he’s right. She does have to be our priority – as a mother, I need to keep her both emotionally and financially stable. God knows I haven’t done a very good job so far.
‘That isn’t what I’m suggesting, Callum,’ I say slowly, ‘as you well know.’
‘Then what are you suggesting, Siobhan?’ he asks me angrily. Upstairs, I hear the creak of a floorboard and have a sudden mental image of Emma sitting at the top of the stairs, like she used to when she was little, listening to us argue.
‘Keep your voice down, Callum,’ I tell him, crossing to the kitchen door and poking my head out to check the stairs. There is no one there, of course; at sixteen Emma is past that stage. Thank God.
‘What’s your master plan here?’ he asks me, his tone sarcastic, and when I look to his fists, I see they are clenched at his side. I stare at them, wondering if I can trust him, whether I believe his protestations of innocence.
‘Listen,’ I say to him, ‘this is what we’re going to do.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ipswich
10th August: The night of the murder
Caroline
The screaming hasn’t stopped. I want to call Jenny, ask her to help me, but every time I think about dialling her number, I stop myself. I can’t bear the thought of her rolling her eyes at Rick and his mother, having to come home because Caroline can’t cope with the simple and normal fact that a baby is crying too much. I can’t stand the thought of never being allowed to look after little Eve again.
‘Please, Eve be quiet!’ I say, and I try putting her back down in her cot in the bedroom, going into the next room and leaving her alone, even though it’s a wrench and my gut twists as I listen to her cries. I close the door of the kitchen, shutting myself in, but it’s pointless; the flat is tiny and her screams reverberate around it. Frantically, I reach for my phone, ignoring the fact that I’ve got an unopened message, and google ‘what to do when your baby won’t stop crying’.
Remember that your baby loves you but is having a tough time, the first article reads, and I feel a stab of anxiety. My baby doesn’t love me because Eve isn’t my baby. She loves Jenny, not me. Just like Callum loves Siobhan, not me.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
I run my eyes back down the list. Leave your baby in its cot, let it cry itself to sleep. Sometimes that’s what your baby needs! Well, that’s not an option. If Jenny comes back and finds her bawling, it will be the last time I get to look after her.
Wrap your baby up snugly. Not in this kind of heat, that’s surely the last thing she needs, but maybe I am wrong. I put a hand to my head, trying to stop the panicky thoughts getting in. Maybe I’ve been wrong all along – after all, I’m not a mother, how do I really know what a child needs?
But she’s so hot already, she’s sweating.
Give your baby a cooling bath. I pause, thinking of my tiny bathroom. No one else ever uses it now; I tried to get Callum to begin leaving things here – a razor, deodorant, signs of life – but he never did. It is as though our relationship never existed, as though I have been erased. But Eve could use it, I could give her a bath. She’d be nice and clean when Jenny got home.
Brightened by the idea, I head into the bathroom. It’s small, a showerhead over the tub, my collection of shampoos and conditioners lining one side. Carefully, I move everything onto the side. I hardly ever use the bath for myself, I don’t really like the opportunity to wallow. I can still hear Eve crying; quickly, I put the plug in and turn on the taps, testing the water with my fingers to check it’s not too hot or cold. I don’t know how much water to put in, I realise, I don’t know h
ow much a baby needs. Surely not as much as an adult. But perhaps to cool her down I need to fill it enough so that she could be fully immersed?
Standing, I wonder whether to put any kind of soap in, then reason that the main purpose is just to cool her down, so I don’t need to. In the bedroom, I touch her forehead again – she is boiling. Carefully, I strip off her little pink romper, slowly releasing each of her limbs into the air, feeling the material damp with her sweat. Poor thing, I think to myself, you poor little thing.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ipswich
17th August
Siobhan
The feel of Callum’s fingers in my own makes me feel slightly nauseous, coming over me in waves the same way it used to when I was pregnant with Emma, all those years ago. I suffered from sickness terribly – hypertension, causing the vomit to rise up in my throat almost every day without fail. The third trimester was the worst; at times, I remember wishing I’d never got pregnant in the first place, never subjected myself to this horribleness. But then when Emma was born, she was so perfect, so totally mine, that the months leading up to her birth and the horror of the caesarean were forgotten, wiped clean like a slate. For the first few years of her life it felt as though we only had eyes for each other – my daughter and I against the world. Even Callum was left out. But then, as the years went on and she grew older, things shifted – it was me who was the one on the outside, the interloper. Whatever closeness we’d had between us ebbed slowly away. And I want to get it back.
The Babysitter: From the author of digital bestsellers and psychological crime thrillers like The Girl Next Door comes the most gripping and addictive book of 2020! Page 20
