The Child

by Fiona Barton

  Kate stared at her. This was deep water she was getting into. This wasn’t just about her and Emma and the phantom baby anymore.

  “Does he know about the child?” she asked.

  “No. He forced me to have sex,” Emma said. “He wasn’t interested afterwards.”

  “Who forced you?” Kate said quietly. “Was it Al Soames?”

  “Al Soames?” Emma said and looked out of the windscreen. “No, ’course not. He was the landlord when we were renting in Howard Street. How do you know his name?”

  “I went to see him to ask about the tenants in his houses around the time the baby was buried,” Kate said, unsure how much detail to divulge. “He gave me some photos of naked women by mistake. They looked drugged.”

  “Naked women?” Emma said. “In black-and-white Polaroids?”

  Kate risked a look at her. “Er, yes. Have you seen them?”

  “I don’t know. But there was one in Will’s desk. A photo of Barbara, who lived with Jude and me for a while. I found it when I was messing around in his office at the university.”

  She closed her eyes as if searching for that moment.

  “Will was in the library, sorting out some photocopying, and he’d promised to buy me an ice cream when he finished, to celebrate the end of school for the summer. I was swinging round on his chair, singing ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.’

  “A glass of water on the desk crashed over, and I saw the water was seeping into one of the desk drawers, so I pulled it open and used my school cardigan to soak up as much as I could. The damage wasn’t too bad and I was about to shut the drawer, but then I saw the photo. Of Barbara. And stopped. I remember wondering why Will had a picture of Barbara.”

  Kate listened intently. Will and Al Soames was playing in her head. This couldn’t be just coincidence. They were in it together.

  “I pulled it out to get a better look,” Emma was saying. “She looked so strange. It was her, but not her, if you know what I mean.” Kate nodded.

  “Her eyes were half-closed and I suddenly realized she didn’t have anything on her top. I could see one of her nipples and I dropped the picture as if it had scalded me. I felt sick and frightened. I knew I shouldn’t have seen it, but I couldn’t unsee it. I picked up the photo and went to put it back so no one would know. But I knew.”

  “What happened when Will came back? Did you confront him?” Kate asked.

  “I was fourteen, Kate. And he was my mum’s boyfriend. I didn’t know what to say. I was embarrassed and frightened about what Jude would say if she found out.”

  “Did she? Did you tell her?” Kate said. And Emma shook her head.

  “Will told me not to. We were sitting outside later. Will and I with ice-cream cones, sitting in the garden in Howard Street. His arm was flung behind his head, and he was gazing at the sky, and I asked him if he was in love with Barbara. He laughed and said it was a funny question. But he went a bit quiet. So I told him I’d seen the photo. I said I’d spilled the water by accident and seen it. And he said Barbara had sent it to him. She’d been a bit of a nuisance, throwing herself at him behind Jude’s back. And since she’d left she had started trying to get him to leave Jude.

  “And he told me not to say anything because Jude didn’t know and it would upset her.”

  “And you never did?” Kate asked.

  Emma shook her head again. “I couldn’t. Will made sure I would keep quiet.”

  “How, Emma?” Kate said. “What did he do to you?”

  The only sound was Emma’s breathing.

  “Was it Will who raped you?” Kate said.

  “Yes,” Emma said and pulled the scarf up over her mouth.

  “But you could have told someone,” Kate said. “Why didn’t you tell anyone what he’d done?”

  “Because I didn’t know he’d raped me. I know it sounds crazy now, but he told me he’d had sex with me because I’d made him want me. It was my fault. It was me who had done a terrible thing, not him.”

  “The bastard,” Kate blurted.

  “A very clever bastard,” Emma replied. “He made me believe I’d been the instigator. I was fourteen. I’d only kissed one bloke before. I didn’t know anything. So when he told me I’d thrown myself at him, he must have known I would believe him. I wrote in my diary that I was ‘dirty’ and I told myself that the baby had been my punishment.”

  Kate started the engine. “Where are we going, Emma?” she said. “Where is he?”

  SIXTY-NINE

  Emma

  SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

  I thought I’d feel better when I told Jude. I thought she would acknowledge her guilt. But of course she didn’t. She denied it. I’d expected her to argue at first, but I thought, in her heart of hearts, she would know. She’d see the truth when I laid it out in front of her. But no. Will still has that hold over her.

  But I’ve started now so I must go on. And Kate is going to help me.

  As we drive out of the car park, she says it could get ugly if we confront Will, but I say it couldn’t get any uglier than it is.

  “I deserve this moment,” I say. “And so does he.” Deep breath. “I don’t want to go to the police yet. I don’t think they’ll believe me—and if they don’t act, it’ll be over, won’t it? I won’t get a second chance.”

  Kate nods. I think she’s on my side.

  “We need a confession,” I say. “Fronting him up” is what Kate calls it.

  Kate gets an address for Will from a colleague and we drive out of London. I’ve already decided what I’ll say and I’m practicing it in my head.

  I need to eat something or I might faint, I think. I can’t remember when I last ate. I feel dizzy at the thought of seeing him, but I know this is the right thing to do.

  I wonder what he’ll do when he sees me. The specter at the feast. I wonder if the shock will kill him. For a second, I fantasize that he’ll have a heart attack, right there in front of me. But I want my moment with him.

  I’ve waited twenty-eight years for this. My mouth waters and I feel dizzy again. There is this image of an avenging angel in my head. The beating of strong wings, the rush of heavenly winds. Stop it. I need to get a grip.

  • • •

  His cottage is like a picture on a biscuit tin. Roses round the door. The whole thing. How inappropriate, I think as Kate knocks.

  And there he is, Professor Will. Smiling a welcome to her, a stranger, and then spotting me.

  He masks his shock well, turning on the urbane charm and saying: “Well, this is a surprise. How are you, Emma? What are you doing here?”

  “I want to talk to you, Will,” I say.

  “What about?” he says. “I’m not sure we have anything to talk about.”

  He is nervous now. A neighbor passes his gate and calls “Hello, Professor Burnside” to him and he quickly ushers us out of public view. Doesn’t want a scene, I think.

  He leads us into his chintzy sitting room. There’s a cup and saucer on the coffee table, brown toast and honey, and the Sunday supplements spread out on the sofa.

  He sits down, crossing his legs to reveal yellow socks and tanned calves.

  “So, Emma, who is this with you?” he says, as we perch on the armchairs.

  “A friend, Kate,” I say—I don’t want him to know she’s a reporter, and Kate has agreed not to say anything. “She drove me down here,” I add, in explanation.

  “Hello, Kate,” he says and waits for one of us to speak. Smiling all the time.

  The tension is making me feel ill and I force myself to speak.

  “I came to talk to you about what happened when I was fourteen.”

  “Goodness. This isn’t going to be a short visit, then,” Will says. “Do you want to talk about your vicious lies or your screaming fits? They are all still quite vivid in my memory.�
�

  “No, about how you raped me,” I hear myself say.

  It is as if the world stops. None of us move or even breathe. The word “raped” seems to echo round the room, bouncing off the sprigged wallpaper and china shepherdess ornaments.

  The color has drained from Will’s face, then floods back as he half-rises from his seat to protest.

  “Rape?” he says as if he’s just heard the word for the first time. “What are you talking about? This is preposterous.”

  He realizes he is shouting and sits back down again.

  “Dear me, Emma. You really are not well, are you?” he says, back in control.

  I look at him and he looks back. Challenging me to repeat the allegation.

  “You raped me, Will,” I say. “You picked me up in your car when I was walking home. You had sex with me and said I made you do it. That I led you on. But I was a child, Will.”

  “Hardly, Emma,” he sneers. It was a mistake, and I see Kate rock forwards, outraged.

  “A child, Will,” I repeat loudly. “I was fourteen.”

  “Emma,” he says. “Please calm down. You and I both know that you were a very troubled girl. And it appears you still are. I want to feel sorry for you, but if you are going to make up this sort of slanderous nonsense, I may have to act.”

  “I am going to act,” I say, because I am. It is part of my plan now that I’ve seen him. “I’m going to the police.”

  “Well, it will be your word—the word of a deranged woman with a history of mental problems—against mine,” Will says, his tone a shade harder. “You may want to reconsider.”

  “No,” I say. “It is time.”

  He turns to Kate and does this two-adults-with-a-difficult-child look, radiating weary empathy. “I don’t know what she’s told you, Kate,” he says, “but it is all lies. She has mental health issues—did you know that? Had to be sent to live with her grandparents. She’s making the mistake of her life.”

  “It sounds like you were the mistake of her life, Will,” Kate says. “She was the daughter of your girlfriend. She trusted you like a father.”

  And I want to hug her.

  Will drops the charm offensive immediately.

  “Rubbish! This is total rubbish,” he says, uncrossing his legs so quickly he bangs into the coffee table and upsets his cup. “Look, I never wanted to have to say this, but your friend was no innocent flower. She’d had an older boyfriend in Brighton. She told me. It was all part of her Lolita act. She was begging for it,” Will says.

  Kate nods to herself. I think she has heard what she’s come to hear. She believes me. My avenging angel.

  “Of course, having sex with a fourteen-year-old with or without her consent is a crime. But I’m sure a man of your education knows that,” she says and he shuts up.

  “And Emma had a baby, Will. Your baby,” she adds. It comes out almost as an afterthought and Will does a sort of double take.

  “There was no baby. I lived with her and her mother. There was no baby. More lies,” he says, but his nerve seems to be failing. “Lies,” he repeats as if he has run out of words. He looks smaller now on his big sofa, with his ridiculous yellow socks.

  “Actually, you are wrong. You have misjudged Emma,” Kate says.

  “Just like Jude and I misjudged you,” I add. “But I know who you are now. I won’t listen to any more of your vile excuses. You will have to tell them to the police instead.”

  Kate takes my arm and we walk to the door with Will ranting about legal action behind us.

  SEVENTY

  Kate

  SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

  Kate and Emma sat in stunned silence for the first half of their journey back to London.

  But finally Kate spoke. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” Emma said. “Are you?”

  “I feel a bit wobbly, to be honest,” she said. “What an animal.”

  “My mum wouldn’t agree with you. She didn’t believe me when I told her. She still thinks the sun shines out of Will. I wish she had been there with us. Heard him. Seen the real Will.”

  “Are you really going to go to the police, Emma?” Kate said. She sounded worried. “The problem is that there’s no evidence, is there? Look, I believe you, but he’s right. It will be your word against his. It could be bloody.”

  “There’s the baby. His mark will be on it,” Emma said.

  • • •

  Kate dropped Emma off round the corner from her home. “Paul will be home from the university library by now,” Emma said. “I don’t want to have to explain you. Not yet anyway. Thank you, Kate. Thanks for coming with me.”

  Kate squeezed her arm. “You were so brave, Emma, but think carefully about the next steps. Ring me if you need help.”

  As soon as Emma disappeared from sight, Kate rang Terry’s mobile. It was nearly lunchtime and she still hadn’t told him about Emma’s confession or her summons to the police station. She decided the confrontation with Will Burnside would remain between her and Emma. At least for the time being. She didn’t want to complicate things even further.

  “Kate? What’s up?” Terry said. “Thought you were off today.”

  Ten minutes of tense conversation later, he sighed. “Bloody hell, Kate. What a mess,” he said. “So we’ve got a woman who thinks she gave birth to Alice Irving?”

  “No, Terry. She says it is her baby—a different baby—buried in Howard Street. Look, I’ll come to the office so we can talk about it properly before I have to give a statement. Okay?”

  “Yes, I’ll have to call Simon and tell him what’s happened. Hopefully he’ll be on the golf course and won’t want to come in. Maybe we can sort this out ourselves.”

  • • •

  The Editor looked like a man in a hurry when he burst through the office door in pink slacks and toning jumper. “Had to drive myself,” he complained. “My driver’s at his mobile home in Frinton. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Terry had clucked round him, sending out for a double espresso and apologizing for the umpteenth time for breaking into his Sunday. Kate had sat quietly with her notebook and tape recorder in her hands.

  Finally, they all sat in the Editor’s office and Kate recounted her interviews with Emma for the fifth time.

  Simon and Terry listened to her tape twice, Terry cocking his head to catch every spit and cough.

  “She sounds in a terrible state, Kate,” he said. “Is she making this up?”

  She shrugged. “I only have her word for it,” she said. She couldn’t be more definitive than that.

  “We’ve been here before, Kate, haven’t we?” Terry said.

  She knew he’d bring it up. The blot on her copybook. The fantasist who almost convinced her.

  “For goodness’ sake, Terry. That was years ago. We all learned several lessons,” Kate snapped. “I’ve told you I only have her word for it. I’m not asking you to splash the story without checking it. Let me go and talk to the cops. I’ll find out what they know. DI Sinclair has asked me to come in at two p.m.”

  Terry and Simon looked a bit stunned by her outburst. Wait until you hear the rest, she thought.

  Then she told them about the photographs. The Editor’s eyes practically popped out of his head when she handed him the bundle of Polaroids.

  “Christ, get the lawyer up here,” he said.

  The duty lawyer, a barrister who topped up her huge salary with the occasional weekend shift on the newspaper, took her time to climb the flight of stairs from her floor. She listened without comment as Kate repeated her story and then advised she should reveal the photos to the police as soon as possible.

  “They will want to know how the Polaroids came into your possession, Kate,” she said.

  “They were in a bundle of photos that Mr. Soames gave me,” Kate replied cr
isply.

  Well, it was almost true, and Soames would be in too much trouble to protest.

  “Right,” Simon said. “Kate and the lawyer to the police station, Terry. And keep me updated.”

  • • •

  Kate excused herself to get ready. She had something to do before she left. She went off in search of her favorite photographer.

  Mick was alone in the monkeys’ room, a windowless space left over by the architects between the newsroom and the fire escape, where the photographers hid from the picture editor. He was playing Candy Crush on his phone and Barbara Walker’s photo was on the table in front of him.

  “Are you winning, Mick?” she said.

  He paused the game and looked up. “’Course I am.

  “Boss thinks I’m doing general views for the property section. Knocked off a couple of high-rises and a bridge and now I can do as I please for the rest of the day without him on my back. Fancy some lunch? There’s a new place just opened up the road.”

  “Would love to, but I’m a bit busy with this story,” she said. “Sorry it was a waste of your time last night, Mick. You were a lifesaver.”

  “No problem, Kate. I was only down the road, really. Did you get to the disco? What time did you get home?”

  “About one in the morning in the end. The party went on late and then there were developments.”

  Mick nodded and picked up his phone. She could see he was itching to resume the game.

  “Poor you. But worth it, hey?” he said.

  “Have you finished copying that photo? I’ll take it back to Barbara if you’re done.”

  Mick put down the phone and slid the black-and-white model shot of Barbara into a plastic sleeve.

  “What about those Polaroids you mentioned last night? Can I have a look?” he said.

  “Sure,” she said, fishing them out of her bag. “And can you do a quick copy of them? I’ve only got half an hour before I’ve got to leave for an interview with the police.”

  Mick raised an eyebrow. “Finally caught up with you, then? Well, let’s have a look.”