by Heidi Perks
DI Lowry crosses his arms and leans back further into his chair, cocking his head to one side as his eyes bore into me.
In the twenty-minute journey from the beach to the police station I’d stitched together a fragile story made from fragments of truths, creating another version of reality that I needed to believe. I may have learned to make up stories when I was younger but it was thanks to Brian that I’d acquired the gullibility to believe anything.
I take another sip of water, swallowing it down loudly, and remind the detective what my husband was like and how scared I was of how he’d react.
‘Right. Your husband,’ he says flatly. ‘Who no one else knew was abusive.’
I ignore his tone. ‘My father was the first person I confided in.’
The detective glances at my wrist. I have been rubbing it again; a wide red circle has banded my arm. ‘It wasn’t physical.’ I stop rubbing and gesture with my wrist. ‘Though he did grab me tonight. But no, what he did throughout our marriage felt much worse,’ I say.
‘So what did your father say when you told him?’
I tell Lowry my dad tried persuading me to leave Brian but that Brian had made it impossible. And then I tell him the story my dad came up with when he said he couldn’t see me any more. That he’d said he’d moved to France and he was sorry he couldn’t do more to help and I tell the detective that I didn’t see him again until tonight.
Lowry is still incredulous that I mentioned none of this to the police thirteen days ago. That surely I would have suspected my father could have taken Alice from the fete.
‘If I could turn back the clock I would have said something,’ I say. ‘Of course I wish I had now. I haven’t seen my daughter in two weeks.’ Tears trickle down my face at the thought of Alice and how desperately I need to be with her again. I wipe them away with the sleeve of my T-shirt. I would change everything if I knew I could save my dad.
‘Are you sure there’s no news?’ I ask him again. ‘Has Brian been found?’
DI Rawlings folds her hands, one on top of the other, on the table in front of her. Her shoulders are taut, rolled forward; her forehead now has a permanent crease along the length of it. She can’t hide her frustration, as much as she tries to.
‘I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that you didn’t know anything about Brian.’
‘Christ!’ Charlotte falls back into her chair and looks away from the detective.
‘What’s the matter, Charlotte?’ Rawlings’s interest is piqued.
‘I just can’t believe we are still going over and over the same thing. I didn’t know,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘Harriet never told me about her husband’s abuse. I didn’t know Harriet as well as I thought I did, I realise that now,’ she snaps. ‘I don’t know why you’re trying to make me feel worse about it than I already do.’
Somewhere along the line tiredness has bled into exhaustion. But her heart is thumping, adrenaline feeding her veins, and the more DI Rawlings accuses her, the more Charlotte wants to shout, ‘Just bring it on.’
‘I’m not trying to make you feel bad,’ the detective says, her face still void of emotion. ‘I just want to get to the truth.’
‘I’ve been telling you the truth,’ Charlotte cries, feeling the blood rush to the surface of her skin. ‘And maybe I should have looked harder but the fact is –’ she falters ‘– the fact is if you don’t want someone to know, they won’t.’
The detective pulls back, her eyebrows pinched, seemingly amused by Charlotte’s outburst.
Charlotte’s chair screeches across the hard floor as she pushes herself up. She rips open her cardigan and pulls up her T-shirt with one hand, lowering the waistband of her jeans with the other. ‘This,’ she says, pointing to the puckered red scar on the side of her stomach, ‘is what I didn’t want anyone to know.’
She lets her T-shirt fall and uses her hand to wipe the tears until they smear across her face. Tom was the only person who knew the truth: that one night her dad’s temper led to him ripping the hot iron off the ironing board, out of the socket, catching Charlotte as he swung it around in anger. It might have been an accident but still she never wanted anyone else to know.
‘And they never did,’ she cries, slumping back into the chair. ‘They never did. So don’t you dare make out this is my fault.’
‘Harriet, I know this has been a distressing night for you but I will tell you if there is any news.’ DI Lowry looks up sharply when we are interrupted by another knock on the door. An officer pokes her head around and calls him out of the room again. ‘Bloody hell,’ he mutters. ‘Two minutes,’ he snaps, glancing at me.
When he returns he takes his seat and clears his throat, sitting slightly more forward in his chair as his elbows reach out to find the table. ‘Let’s continue,’ he says firmly.
‘What’s happened?’ I ask.
They have found Brian. I know they have. He is still alive and telling them what I did to him.
‘Mrs Hodder, I’m the one asking the questions,’ he says as he shifts awkwardly in his chair and clasps his fingers together. ‘What made you come to Cornwall?’
Another deep breath. Another lump to swallow down. ‘I got a note,’ I lie. ‘It came through the letterbox three days ago.’ I lean forward and from my back pocket I pull out the Elderberry Cottage business card I’d written on that afternoon, glancing at it one last time before I push it across the table.
Lowry looks at it and reads it aloud. ‘I’m sorry, Harriet, but I’m doing this for you. You’re both in danger if you stay.’ He turns the note over and reads out the address. ‘So you get this and decide to come to Cornwall and find Elderberry Cottage?’
I nod.
‘Without even thinking to mention this to anyone?’ He flaps the card in the air. ‘Not even the FLO who was practically living in your house at the time?’
‘I just needed to get to my daughter,’ I say quietly. ‘I wasn’t scared of my father, I believed Alice was safe, and I was worried that if I told anyone else then something would go wrong.’
Though I’m well aware of how very wrong everything is going.
‘How much longer will I be here?’ I ask him, draining the last of my water and letting him refill my glass.
Lowry glances at the fat watch on his wrist but doesn’t answer me.
‘Have you found Brian?’ I ask.
He hesitates. ‘No, Mrs Hodder,’ he says after a beat. ‘We haven’t found your husband.’
‘Oh—’ I sink back, trying to make sense of how the news makes me feel. I was convinced they had.
Is he dead? He must be.
Lowry is asking me more questions about Brian and what he did to me, in the same tone that suggests he doesn’t believe my story, when all of a sudden a thought hits me.
‘My diary,’ I say, jolting upright. ‘It’s in my handbag. I left it—’
Where is my diary? I had taken my bag to the beach because Brian shoved it at me when we were at the cottage. ‘I dropped it somewhere.’ I shake my head, I can’t remember. I must have dropped it when I saw my dad. Maybe it’s still on the rocks. Or maybe it’s been swallowed up by the sea.
‘Perhaps you’d like to take a break, Charlotte?’ Rawlings seems keen; she doesn’t know where to look.
Charlotte never meant for an outburst. She nods and, once outside the room, turns left and heads for the toilets. The detective walks off in the opposite direction.
When Charlotte emerges from the toilets five minutes later she spots DCI Hayes at the front door, with DI Rawlings and a man she doesn’t recognise. She ducks into a doorway out of sight, where she can only just make out the voices further down the corridor.
‘How’s it going?’ Hayes is asking. ‘Progress?’
‘I don’t know about progress.’ Charlotte hears DI Rawlings’s voice. ‘But I don’t think we’ll get any more out of Charlotte Reynolds.’
‘And Harriet Hodder’s convinced the husband’s going to turn up,’ another
voice pipes up. Charlotte leans forward and takes a better look at the short man with wire-rimmed glasses. She wonders if he’s the detective who’s been questioning Harriet. ‘It’s rattling her.’
‘Rattling her?’ Angela suddenly joins them in the doorway and Charlotte pulls back before one of them spots her. ‘Do tell me what that’s supposed to mean, DI Lowry?’
‘Well I believe he’d have a very different story to tell us. One she doesn’t want us hearing.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ Angela cries. ‘Are you kidding me? Harriet Hodder is scared. That woman’s been abused by him for years. Of course she’s rattled.’
‘If it’s true,’ Lowry says. ‘We only have her word for it and I’m not sure I believe her version of what happened on the boat.’
‘Well, this makes for interesting reading,’ Angela snaps. ‘She’s been writing this diary for the last year.’ She falls silent and for a moment all Charlotte can hear is the blood swishing in her ears.
‘Yet you didn’t pick up on it?’ Lowry asks. ‘You were in that house almost living with them and you didn’t see that side of Brian Hodder?’
Silence again. Charlotte can imagine what Angela must be thinking. None of us did, she wants to tell her. None of us saw it.
‘I didn’t,’ Angela says eventually. ‘You’re right. At the time I didn’t see what he was doing, but look in this notebook. What he did is subtle. Brian Hodder was a clever, manipulative man.’
‘Well, whatever happened on that boat, we might never know the truth.’ Lowry says.
‘Angela?’ DCI Hayes speaks her name. Charlotte leans forward again, chancing another glance at the four detectives. Angela is looking the other way. ‘Is there something else?’ Hayes says.
‘Angela?’ he asks her again when she doesn’t respond.
‘No,’ she says firmly and looks back at the others. ‘Nothing else.’ Though Charlotte’s sure there is something on Angela’s mind.
‘Do I need a solicitor?’ I ask when Lowry comes back. He has been gone over ten minutes and it’s felt like a lifetime, waiting for him, wondering what he’ll decide to do next, whether he’s going to charge me. My chest is burning with heat and I scratch at the thin cotton of my T-shirt until I feel my skin sting. ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘No,’ he says, though I don’t believe he’s happy with the outcome.
‘Then I can go?’
He nods slowly and watches me warily, as he says, ‘Yes. Though we will need to speak to you again. And we’ll need to talk to your daughter in the morning.’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can go? Does that mean they believe me, or at least have no evidence? Does that mean Charlotte has lied for me?
‘There’s someone here for you.’ Lowry’s voice is low and I look up to see Angela in the doorway. I push my chair back and fall into her arms as she wraps them around me and walks me out of the room.
‘I’m really free to leave?’ I say to her, my words no more than a whisper.
‘Yes, you are.’ She smiles as she manoeuvres me down the corridor and towards the reception area at the front of the station. ‘I’m taking you to a safe house for the night. Alice is already there,’ she says as she opens the main door. ‘She was fast asleep when I left her.’
Outside the chill of the night air hits me. When we’re alone in the car park, Angela turns and says, ‘Your bag was found at the beach. I’ve read your diary, Harriet. Why didn’t you tell me what Brian was doing?’
I stare ahead of me. It was my plan for Angela to know what my husband was really like; I needed everyone to see what Brian was doing. ‘I wanted to,’ I say. ‘But I wasn’t sure you’d believe me. You had to see him doing it with your own eyes.’
I feel Angela tense and I can’t be sure if it’s because she fell for Brian’s lies too or whether she’s still not certain if she can trust me.
‘He’s very clever,’ I say. ‘I’d hoped with a bit more time you’d have seen what he was doing. I’ve no doubt you would have, it’s just that things went wrong before then.’
‘Did you plug your phone in?’ she asks. ‘The day it fell into the bath? You were adamant it wasn’t you, but Brian was so—’ She brushes a hand through the air.
‘Convincing?’ I finish for her. ‘No, I didn’t. That was him.’
Angela leads me to the taxi that is waiting at the far side of the car park. ‘He killed my father,’ I say. ‘He attacked him, completely unprovoked.’ After everything that has happened I still feel numb. Grief has rooted itself inside me, a part of me now, and it terrifies me that somehow I just need to accept it.
‘I’m sorry, Harriet,’ she says. She takes hold of my arm. ‘I’m very sorry about your dad.’
‘I know what everyone will be thinking of him but what he did was out of love for me and Alice.’ It breaks my heart to be uttering these words. I have a feeling I will be saying them a lot in the future but I suspect it will fall on deaf ears.
‘You know you’ll be questioned again, don’t you?’ Angela says. ‘DI Lowry will want to ask you more about what happened on the boat.’
I nod. ‘He told me that.’
‘It’s just – just make sure your story’s clear, Harriet.’
I glance at her, questioningly. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He’ll want to dissect what happened at sea between you and Brian.’ She pauses as we reach the taxi, resting a hand against its door but not opening it. ‘I know you said you couldn’t swim,’ she says, ‘only I did see some things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw your swimming costume at the bottom of the laundry basket once,’ she says, shaking her head as she goes on. ‘Don’t answer,’ she adds. ‘I don’t need to know any more.’ Angela’s eyes drift to my stomach and my hand that is rubbing it in circles. ‘I missed that, though, didn’t I?’ she says.
My breath catches and I look down at my feet.
‘How many weeks?’ she asks gently.
‘Seven,’ I mumble. ‘There was one night.’ I feel the need to explain the time to her. The reason I slept with my husband when the act itself had become such a blessed rarity. I wanted nothing to upset Brian so close to the fete and feared a refusal could have triggered doubts that everything was normal. ‘How did you guess?’ I ask. ‘There haven’t been any signs yet.’ I haven’t felt sick, and so far this pregnancy has been so different to Alice’s that often I forget I’m pregnant or wonder whether I still am.
‘A bit of a long shot but there was something in your last diary entry. You wrote, “Surely I am doing the right thing for all of us.” It’s a small detail but it stuck out because you’d have usually written both of you. And you haven’t stopped rubbing your tummy tonight,’ she adds. ‘I was looking for it, though.’
I found out about the baby a week before the fete and, as much as I’ve tried putting the fact I’m carrying his child to the back of my mind, I knew the timing meant I had to go through with the plan. As soon as Brian knew I was pregnant I would have no chance of escaping him. Especially if it is the son he always dreamed of, the one he always hoped might turn out just like him. I take a deep breath to swallow down the thought as Angela opens the car door for me. I begin to climb in when I spot a figure waiting by the far wall.
‘Actually, can you hold on for just a moment,’ I say. ‘There’s someone I need to speak to.’
Charlotte’s pale face is lit against the dark sky by the harsh white light flooding the front of the station. Underneath her eyes the skin is red and smudged with make-up. She blinks rapidly as she looks at me and then away and neither of us know what to say but I know I have to find something. ‘I can’t begin to say how sorry I am; I should never have done what I did.’
‘No,’ she says plainly. ‘You shouldn’t.’
Angela is watching us and I angle myself so she can’t see my face. ‘Thank you. I didn’t deserve you coming to Cornwall. I shouldn’t have asked—’ I stop because even to me my words sound hollow
.
‘You should have always known I’d have done anything for you. You could have told me what was happening. I was your friend, Harriet. It’s what friends do,’ she says, her voice tired.
I don’t even know what to say. She’s right.
‘For the last two weeks I’ve been blamed for losing Alice,’ she goes on. ‘I blamed myself too. And tonight I’ve had to listen to them blaming me.’ She gestures towards the police station. ‘For hours they’ve been asking me why I didn’t know my best friend was in trouble, why I didn’t act as soon as you called me this morning, and I couldn’t tell them, could I?’ She shakes her head and looks away, her eyes glistening wet. ‘This evening I still felt guilty, can you believe that? I felt guilty that I hadn’t been a good enough friend to you.’
‘No. Don’t ever say that, you’ve been the best—’
‘Don’t,’ Charlotte stops me. ‘I can’t hear it. I just want to get back to my family.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, reaching out for her, but she moves her arm away before I can touch it.
‘I can’t forgive what you’ve done, Harriet,’ she replies.
‘I understand,’ I say, and I do. I truly do, but I can’t help thinking this is exactly what Brian would have wanted.
ONE YEAR LATER
Audrey pours a large measure of red wine into Charlotte’s glass, cradling her own, as yet untouched. Charlotte waits but she knows Aud has no intention of speaking first.
‘I don’t know what happened.’ Charlotte rubs the stem of the glass between her thumb and finger.
‘This isn’t the first time,’ Aud says. ‘You made an excuse to leave Gail’s two weeks ago and obviously didn’t want to be at book club. But tonight you drove off before you even made it through the door.’ Audrey sighs, reaching over the table for Charlotte’s hands. ‘Talk to me.’
Charlotte takes a large gulp of wine and puts the glass back down on the coffee table, too heavily. Well, Audrey, here’s the thing. I feel like I’m on the brink of a breakdown.
