The Child

by Fiona Barton

She handed him the pack of photos and he shuffled through them quickly.

  “God. Grim. Bloody hell, there’s Barbara,” he said, and Kate felt a rush of relief. She hadn’t imagined the resemblance.

  “Look,” Mick said, pulling one of the studio shots out. “You can see it, plain as day. I’ll copy them all now.”

  “Thanks. And Mick . . .”

  He grinned, knowing what she’d say next.

  “No chatter, okay?” she said. “The police don’t know about the photos yet. I’m taking them with me today.”

  Mick winked at her. “They’ll piss their pants when they see these.”

  Kate tried to grin back. They might. Or she could be in deep trouble for holding on to them—never mind how she’d got them in the first place.

  “I’ll be back in a minute to fetch them,” she said.

  “You looked bloody brilliant last night,” Mick suddenly added.

  “Sod off,” she said and left the room.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Kate

  SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

  They’d been ushered through to an interview room when she and the newspaper’s lawyer arrived, and she sat drumming her fingers on the table in front of her. The lawyer cleared her throat and she stopped. “Sorry, nerves,” she said.

  Andy Sinclair smiled his apology for keeping them waiting as he entered.

  “Thanks for coming, Kate,” he said. “It’s important we get your statement. Have you brought the tape?”

  They sat and listened to Emma’s misery in silence.

  “Have you spoken to Emma yet?” she asked as he bagged the tape up and labeled it.

  “No. We’re talking to a psychologist about the best approach. And listening to this in full, I am sure we don’t want to rush into something and have it blow up in our faces. She needs careful handling.

  “Now then . . .” He got down to business.

  Kate took a breath and related her conversations with Emma on the Boys’ Brigade wall and in the car for Sinclair’s tape.

  It was a strange feeling, being on the other side of an interview, and she interrupted Sinclair a couple of times to rephrase questions for him.

  “Thanks, Kate. Think I’ve got this,” he said and grinned. Still friends, then, she thought.

  He asked why she’d been at the reunion in the first place. “You’re not from round there, are you?”

  “No, I was working; trying to find people who lived in the area and might have known something about how Alice ended up in Howard Street. About who might have taken her.”

  “Right. So you dug out your eighties disguise and headed in there?” he said. “Very resourceful.”

  “I thought you might be there, too,” she said.

  “Spangles aren’t really my thing . . .” he said. And they both laughed, breaking the tension in the room.

  “Now then, moving on . . .” he said. “What else do you know about the Massingham household at 63 Howard Street?”

  Oh dear, can of worms’ time, Kate told herself. Keep to the simple stuff.

  “What you know, I imagine,” she said. “Emma lived there with her mother, Jude Massingham, and another lodger, Barbara Walker. Barbara lives over the road now. Number 16. You went to see her—or one of your blokes did.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” he said and underlined something heavily in his notes.

  “Barbara said there was a boyfriend there all the time. Jude’s boyfriend. Will Burnside,” Kate offered, spelling the surname for the officer.

  “Right, thanks for that,” Sinclair said, flicking through the file. “Okay. We know the house belonged to a man called Alistair Soames. He’s got form. Sex offender. Minor stuff. Touching women on the tube, hands up skirts, that kind of thing. Put on probation in the late seventies, it says. Just before he bought the Howard Street houses.”

  “A convicted sex offender?” Kate said. “I went to see him a couple of weeks ago.”

  Sinclair’s eyes widened.

  “He lives in a seedy flat in south London,” Kate said. “I tracked him down to see if he knew anything about the case.”

  “Bloody hell, Kate, is there nowhere you haven’t been?” Sinclair said.

  Kate glanced quickly at the lawyer, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. She was sure Andy Sinclair had clocked it.

  “The thing is, Andy,” Kate began, “Soames gave us some photos from the eighties—to help identify people—and there was an envelope of Polaroids.”

  He looked interested.

  “The pictures are of women and girls who look like they’ve been drugged,” she said. “You can see Soames in some of the pictures.”

  Sinclair pushed his chair back and whistled softly to himself.

  “And I suppose you still have these photos?”

  Kate reached into her bag and pulled out the envelope. She spread the Polaroids on the table.

  DI Sinclair and Kate studied each face carefully, reverently. Giving the victims the attention they deserved.

  Kate was wondering if he would recognize Barbara Walker, and she searched for her in the pictures. But another face came into focus. She stabbed her finger at a photograph and twisted it round to see it better.

  “My God, it’s Emma,” she said. “Emma,” she repeated. She looked away to compose herself.

  Sinclair had picked up the picture and was studying it. “This is our girl?”

  “Yes, I am sure. I spent most of yesterday evening looking at her,” she said, then blew her nose. “Sorry.”

  • • •

  She was sipping a consoling cup of tea when a young copper put his head round the door.

  “Sir, there’s a woman—actually, a couple—to see you. They’re in the front office.”

  “What’s it about, Clive?” Andy Sinclair said. “Can it wait?”

  “Not sure, sir. Says it’s about the baby.”

  Kate and Andy both snapped round to look at him properly.

  “Who are they?” Sinclair asked. “Names, Clive.”

  “Emma and Paul Simmonds,” he said, consulting a piece of paper in his hand.

  “Bloody hell,” Sinclair said. “Put them in interview room 9. And give them a cup of tea or something. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Kate looked at him. “She’s come to you. She’s got something to say. God, don’t suppose I could . . . ?” She’d heard of colleagues being allowed to watch interviews through one-way mirrors.

  “Forget it, Kate. This is a police matter,” Sinclair said. “We’ll talk later.”

  She picked up her things and started shoveling them into her bag.

  “Hang on,” he said. “Leave the Polaroids. We’re going to need them.”

  SEVENTY-TWO

  Emma

  SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

  Paul is next. He needs to know. I can’t let him find out when the police come. It wouldn’t be fair.

  I don’t take my coat off when I get in. I ask him to come for a walk, to the park down the road, telling him I need some air.

  “You do look pale, Emma,” he says. “It’s a bit blustery outside, but it’ll blow the badness out.”

  We walk without saying much; he occasionally points out the freshly planted flower beds and dogs chasing sticks. When we get to the park gates, we buy a coffee from the kiosk and sit on a bench.

  “Better?” he asks.

  “Yes, thanks,” I say. “I need to tell you some things, Paul. Things that are going to come out about me.”

  He looks so worried, I want to stop, but I must say it all now.

  “Paul,” I say, “I had a baby.”

  “But—” he starts to say but I hush him.

  “Just wait, Paul. I know you think I am making this up. But I’m not. I had a baby when I was fifteen. No o
ne knew because I hid my pregnancy. But I gave birth. And I buried the baby in our garden in Howard Street.”

  Paul puts down his coffee and takes my hands while I tell him about Will. He is pale and he doesn’t move once while I talk.

  At the end, he sits still, like a statue.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bring this sort of unhappiness into your life.”

  He looks at me with tears in his eyes.

  “Emma,” he says. “I want desperately to believe you. But these are the most serious allegations. And if they are wrong . . . If you are mistaken, in any detail, there will be big consequences. You do know that, don’t you?”

  “It is true, Paul,” I say. “I promise.”

  And he puts both arms around me and rocks me. I fold myself into him like a child and he comforts me.

  “Emma,” he says at last, “what is going to happen now?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It is up to the police. I want to go and see them. Will you come with me?”

  • • •

  Paul and I sit for ages in the police station, waiting for the right officer to be found.

  We’d walked up the steps arm in arm as if we felt strong, but I could feel the tremor running from me to Paul and back again. He smiled at me when we got to the door.

  “It’s going to be all right, Em,” he said, and I nodded.

  It’s funny. I always imagined the police coming to my door. Here I am, coming to theirs.

  At the front desk, we give our names and ask to speak to DI Sinclair. He’s been quoted in all the stories about Alice as the man in charge. The young officer on duty tells us to take a seat and Paul sits next to a man who looks like he’s been beaten up. He’s drunk and bloody and crying. Paul gives him tissues to mop the mess and tries to speak to him, but he’s too out of it to hear him.

  I sit, jiggling my knee in time to my internal music.

  When we’re called over to the desk, Paul pats my shoulder and we stand.

  We walk what feels like miles, the constable’s big feet making an echo chamber of the corridor. Everything seems exaggerated—the time, the sounds, the glare of the lights. I dig my nails into my skin beneath my handbag. It’s going to be all right, Em, is my mantra.

  The young officer can’t tell us anything, but he offers us a drink and brings thin plastic cups of sweetened tea that neither of us can stomach. We wait in silence. Each caught in our own bubble. We have said all there is to say to each other.

  “No more secrets,” I’d said to Paul, and he’d said, “No,” and looked away.

  Now I have to tell my secrets to DI Sinclair. I wonder if they will believe that the baby didn’t breathe? Maybe they’ll think I killed it. They might lock me up straightaway.

  The detective comes in quietly and introduces himself. Not as old as I expected. Chubby face. All polite. He puts his reading glasses on when he sits down and opens his file. I can see the corner of a photograph poking out from under documents. He notices me looking and closes the file.

  “Mrs. Simmonds,” he says. “Can you tell me why you have come here today?”

  I’m ready.

  “To tell you that the baby you found in Howard Street is not Alice Irving. It is my baby. The baby I had a week after my fifteenth birthday,” I say. My prepared statement.

  He looks at me carefully. Like Kate did. Weighing me up. Weighing my words.

  “When was your baby born, Mrs. Simmonds?”

  “April 1, 1985. I had the baby on my own, in the bathroom at home, 63 Howard Street.”

  “That must have been a frightening ordeal,” he says. But I know he doesn’t believe me. He’s playacting concern.

  “Did anyone know about your pregnancy or the birth?”

  “No, I was too frightened and ashamed to tell anyone. I hid it all,” I say.

  “Right. When did you bury your baby?”

  “The same day,” I say.

  “And how did your baby die?”

  Paul suddenly speaks. “You don’t have to answer that question, Emma.”

  “It’s okay, Paul,” I say. “I want to tell the police everything I know. No more secrets.”

  I turn back to the policeman and say, “I don’t know. It never made a sound when it was born.”

  I am back in the smothering silence of the bathroom and I clench my fists against my thighs.

  “Mrs. Simmonds, we have DNA evidence that this baby is Alice Irving,” he says too gently, as if he is talking to a child. Be careful with the madwoman, he must be thinking.

  “Then you must have made a mistake,” I say. “There cannot be two babies.”

  DI Sinclair rubs his head. His hair is very short and he’s got little blond prickles on his scalp. I wonder what they feel like when you rub them. I’m drifting. Must focus. I twist the skin on my stomach.

  “As you say, it would be against all odds,” he says. “Are you all right, Mrs. Simmonds?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I say and sit on the front edge of my chair to show I’m listening to him.

  “My wife has had a very traumatic experience,” Paul says and I silence him with a look.

  “It’s fine, Paul.”

  DI Sinclair clears his throat. Must be finding it hard to ask the next one.

  “I think you spoke to a reporter last night, didn’t you?”

  I nod. I feel sick. He’s talked to Kate. Why didn’t she tell me? She’s lied to me. And I fumble with the idea that no one can be trusted.

  “You told the reporter that you had done something terrible. What was the terrible thing you did, Emma?” he says. “Did you have anything to do with burying Alice Irving?”

  Him using my first name catches me off guard and I almost don’t hear the accusation that follows. Then it crashes in on me.

  “No, of course not. It isn’t Alice. Why won’t you believe me? The terrible thing I have tortured myself with since the age of fourteen is that I had sex with my mother’s boyfriend. And I believed I made him want to do it.”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “He said I had seduced him and if I said anything about what we’d done, my mum would hate me forever,” I crash on, my words spilling out into the room. “But I didn’t. I know that now. He raped me and he made me feel I was to blame.”

  He glances up at me as I recount the loss of my virginity and I wonder if he has daughters.

  “You are saying you were raped?” he asks.

  “Yes, Will Burnside raped me,” I say.

  It is all said. No going back now.

  The officer scribbles it down in his notes.

  “And you claim he is the father of the baby you say you gave birth to?” the officer asks and I nod.

  There is a pause as he finishes his notes and I close my eyes. When I open them, he has pulled out some photos from a file and put them in a stack, facedown on the table.

  “Mrs. Simmonds,” he says, all formal again. “I would like to show you some Polaroid photographs that have come into our possession as part of another inquiry. Can I ask you to look at them to see if you recognize any of these women?”

  I don’t understand and I look at Paul. He doesn’t understand, either.

  DI Sinclair turns them over and spreads them out, so I can see the images. I can’t make them out at first. They are bits of things. People. They are bits of people. A leg, a breast, a cheek. But gradually, they come into focus and I put the pieces together. I look at the faces—the eyes are open but they are not seeing. They look blank. Dead eyes. Like Barbara Walker’s face. Like the photo in Will’s drawer. These are the photos Kate got from Al Soames.

  • • •

  I look up at DI Sinclair. “What have these got to do with me?” And I hear Paul’s gasp.

  I follow his eyes to a photo in the middle and I know imm
ediately it is me.

  And I reach out to take it, to gather her in. I have the dead eyes of the other girls and, for a moment, I’m glad. At least she didn’t know, I think. I don’t want to put the photo down. I can’t bear the idea that strangers will see me like this. Exposed.

  I want to be the keeper of my last shred of dignity. For a bit, at least. He should allow me that.

  I look at it again and I shudder when I notice the hand in the corner of the photo. A man’s hand, touching Emma’s face. My face.

  I can’t stop looking at the image, but DI Sinclair is speaking and Paul is crying.

  “Is this you?” the DI asks gently.

  “Yes,” I say. “Where did you find this? Who took them?”

  “We are investigating that. But can you tell me if you know a man called Alistair Soames?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Al Soames was the landlord of our house in Howard Street.”

  And I see his face in my head. I feel his hand brushing my breast. At a party. The party Will took me to when I was fourteen and Jude had food poisoning.

  I taste vomit at the back of my throat and swallow hard, trying to remember more about that night.

  How did I get home? I’m shivering.

  And DI Sinclair is talking to me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I must remember. I play memory games, trying to kick-start my brain. But I can’t remember anything about the end of the evening.

  “Did he take the photos?” I say, interrupting the DI.

  “As I said, Emma, I can’t give you any more details at the moment. But I will be talking to you over the next few days as things progress.”

  It’s a policeman’s answer. Saying something but nothing.

  “What about my baby?” I ask. “What are you going to do about my baby?”

  He plays for time, shuffling his papers, but I repeat my question.

  “We’ll check the DNA results again, obviously,” he says. He doesn’t believe me.

  “You should take mine,” I say. “My DNA sample. To compare.”

  “Yes, of course,” he says. “I’ll just ring down and get someone to bring the swab kit. Can you wait here for a moment?” he says and makes his farewells. Very grateful for us coming in, etc.