The Wrong Mother

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘What was the secret?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘I never got it out of her. Having told Lucy and felt awful about it, she was hardly going to compound her crime by telling me, poor little love.’

  On the spot, Gibbs decided that if he and Debbie ever succeeded in having a child, rule number one would be no secrets from Mum and Dad. Ever.

  ‘I feel terrible,’ said Cordy. ‘I was relieved when Amy moved away. Once she was gone, Lucy and Oonagh became… well, normal little girls. But while it was the three of them…’ She shuddered. ‘I was a horrible coward. I’m totally ashamed of myself now. I should never have exposed Oonagh to scenes like that. No wonder she was traumatised, when Lucy hounded her until she couldn’t take it any more and told Amy’s secret.’

  ‘Scenes?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘One scene, really. Though it was repeated over and over again. Lucy would take any opportunity to say to Amy, “My mummy loves me best in the whole wide world, and Oonagh’s mummy loves her best in the whole wide world, but your mummy doesn’t love you, Amy.” Oh, it was heart-breaking! ’ Cordy pressed her hand against her chest. ‘Completely untrue, too. Encarna loved Amy passionately. She just hated being a mother, which isn’t the same thing at all. She was honest about how difficult she found it-that’s one of the things I liked about her. She said the things no one else would say.’

  ‘How did Amy react, when Lucy said her mum didn’t love her?’

  ‘She’d start shaking-literally shaking-with misery, and wail, “Yes, she does!” and then Lucy would try to prove her wrong. Like a barrister, taking apart a witness’s case in court. “No, she doesn’t,” she’d say smugly, and then recite her long list of evidence: “Your mummy’s always cross with you, she doesn’t smile at you, she says she hates Saturdays and Sundays because you’re at home…” On and on it went.’

  ‘In front of you?’

  ‘No. In the privacy of Oonagh’s bedroom, but I overheard it plenty of times. I know Geraldine did too, because once I tried to raise it with her and she immediately looked guilty and clammed up; it was literally as if I hadn’t spoken. The one thing Geraldine couldn’t allow herself to admit was that she’d messed up. Oh…’ Cordy waved her hand at Gibbs, as if to delete her last comment. ‘I didn’t think it was her fault, obviously-children have their personalities from the moment they’re born-but Geraldine and Mark had very set roles in their marriage, in the family. Mark’s job was being brilliant and successful, bringing in the money, and Geraldine’s was Lucy; if she admitted Lucy was capable of being mean-of actually enjoying being mean-then she’d have to admit to herself that she’d failed in her part of the bargain: raising the perfect child. And everything about Geraldine’s family had to be perfect: she was so relentlessly upbeat about everything, totally unwilling to admit her daughter had faults.

  ‘I don’t know if anyone’s told you this yet, and I wasn’t planning to, but…’ Cordy took a deep breath. ‘Lucy Bretherick wasn’t a nice girl. She wasn’t kind. Clever, hardworking, high-achieving, yes. Nice? Definitely not. You know I said I was relieved when Amy moved away?’

  Gibbs nodded. ‘It sounds awful, and I’m sorry of course that she’s dead, but… knowing Oonagh won’t be spending time with Lucy any more is a weight off my mind.’

  ‘After Amy left, Lucy didn’t start to victimise Oonagh?’

  Cordy shook her head. ‘Everything was fine, like I said. But they were only six, and every bully needs a sidekick. I reckon that’s the position Lucy had in mind for Oonagh-she was grooming her, subtly.’

  This sounded absurd to Gibbs, but he didn’t query it. ‘Oonagh asked after Patrick in a couple of her messages,’ he said.

  Cordy nodded. ‘All the girls loved Patrick. He used to play with them. They thought he was the pinnacle of cute.’

  This last word made Gibbs uneasy. So Oonagh O’Hara had met Patrick. Where? At Amy Oliva’s house? Had Encarna flaunted her lover under her husband’s nose? ‘Do you know Patrick’s surname?’ Gibbs asked.

  Oonagh had returned. She was standing in the doorway, staring at him with something approaching scorn. She said, ‘He hasn’t got one, silly.’

  ‘Sweetie! Don’t dare to call people silly! Chris is a policeman!’

  ‘I get called worse than that,’ said Gibbs. ‘Patrick’s surname?’

  Cordy frowned. ‘I suppose he might have needed one to be officially registered or whatever, or for medical appointments. Good question: it could have been either, I suppose. My guess would be Oliva, though, like Amy.’

  Now Gibbs was certain something strange was going on. ‘Officially registered?’ he said.

  Realisation dawned, and Cordy O’Hara looked embarrassed. Guilty, almost. ‘Oh, right, you don’t know. Patrick is Amy’s cat,’ she said. ‘A big fat ginger tom. All the girls adored him.’

  17

  Friday, 10 August 2007

  Once I’ve knocked out all the glass with the leg of the massage table, I hoist myself up on to the window sill and scramble out into the yard. I run back and forth blindly, whimpering like a wounded animal, hitting the hedge and then the wall. My body feels ice cold in spite of the sun. I stop, wrap the flimsy stained dressing gown around me and tie the belt tight.

  I am trapped. Again. This yard is an outdoor cell that goes round the house on two sides. There’s a second wooden gate, one I couldn’t see from the window, also with a padlock on it.

  Three wheelie-bins stand against the wall-green, black and blue. I grab the green one and drag it over to the hedge. If I could get up on to it… I try, but it’s too thin, the sides too smooth. There’s nothing to help me get a foot-hold. Once, twice, I yank myself up, but lose my balance. Think. Think. Beating in my head like a pulse is the idea that the man will be back at any moment, back to kill me. I scream, ‘Help! Somebody help me!’ as loudly as I can, but I hear nothing. No response. The air all around me is still; not even a rumble of traffic in the distance.

  I put my full weight behind one of the large, terracotta plant-pots and shunt it towards the bin. It scrapes along the concrete slabs, making a horrible noise. Panting with the effort, I finally manage to up-end the pot. Its base is wide and flat. I stand on it and climb up on to the bin lid, landing on my knees. For a few seconds I am rocking in mid-air, arms flailing, certain I’m going to lose my balance. I lunge towards the hedge, grab hold of it and manage to stand, leaning my upper body against the thick slab of twigs and leaves.

  Looking over the top, I see an empty road, three street lights-the twee, mock-antique lantern kind-and the loop-end of a small cul-de-sac, around which stand several identical houses with identical back gardens. I turn and look at the house I’ve escaped from. Its flat beige stone-cladding façade tells me nothing. I have no idea where I am.

  I’m not high enough to climb from the bin on to the top of the hedge. If the bin were two or three inches higher, or the hedge more uneven so that I could use part of it as a ledge… I try to stick my bare foot in, but it’s too solid. I stare at its flat top, unable to believe I’m this close and still can’t get up there.

  What can I do? What can I do?

  The milk bottles. I could take some paper and a pen from my bag, write a note and push it into an empty bottle. Could I throw a bottle far enough so that it lands in one of those back gardens? How long would I have to wait for help, even if I could?

  I jump down from the bin and run round the house, back to the smashed window. Directly beneath it, a small, square alcove has been built into the wall. There are two full bottles and one with no milk in it, only a rolled up sheet of white lined paper sticking out of the neck.

  The man who kidnapped and violated me has left a note for his milkman. He still belongs to the ordinary world, the one I can’t reach.

  I pull the note out and read it. It says, ‘Hope you got my message saying not to come. If not, no more milk until further notice please. Away for at least a month. Thanks!’

  Away for at least a month… I would have died, if I
hadn’t got out. He planned to leave me to die in the room. But… if both gates to the yard are padlocked from the inside, how can the milkman…? Oh, my God. You idiot, Sally. I haven’t even tried them. I saw two padlocks and assumed…

  The one on the back gate that I could see from the window is locked, but the second one isn’t, the one round the side of the house. The padlock has been pushed closed, which is what I saw, what misled me. But it hangs only from the gate itself; it hasn’t been looped through the part that’s attached to the wall. I pull it, and the gate swings open towards me. I see another quiet, empty road.

  Run. Run to the police.

  My heart pounding, I push the gate shut as violently as I pulled it open. He’s not coming back. Not for at least a month. If I can get into the rest of the house somehow, I can clean myself up; I won’t have to run through the streets with nothing on apart from a dressing gown that’s covered in my own blood. If the police see me like this, they will know William Markes made me take my clothes off. They will ask questions. Nick will find out… I can’t face it. I have to go back inside the house.

  A heavy plant-pot would break a double-glazed window. I try and fail to lift the one that looks heaviest. Three smaller pots stand against the wall, lined up side by side on a long, rectangular concrete plinth. I move the plants and strain to pick up the base. I can lift it, just about. Holding it under my right arm like a battering ram, supporting it with both my hands, I run as fast as I can towards the kitchen window, panting. The glass cracks the second time I hit it. The third time it breaks.

  I climb into the house, cutting my hands and legs, but I don’t care. The recipe book has been put back on the counter. Beside it is the gun. He hasn’t taken his gun. He’s given up. Given up and left me to die. I back away, bile rising in my throat when I see the syringe lying neatly by the sink.

  I can’t stay in the room once I’ve seen it. Gagging, I run upstairs. Clothes. I need clothes. The wardrobes in the blue and pink rooms are empty. There are a few clothes on wooden hangers in the one in the master bedroom, men’s clothes. His. A suit, a padded coat with paint stains on the arms and lots of keys in one of the pockets, two shirts, a pair of khaki corduroy trousers.

  The idea of putting on his clothes is unbearable. I cry, wanting my own clothes. Where has he put them? Two ideas come to me at once: the locked bathroom door. A pocket full of keys…

  I shake them all out on to the landing carpet. Some are obviously too big, too small or the wrong shape. I push these to one side. There are five left. The fourth one I try opens the locked door. The bathroom is large, almost as big as the master bedroom, with a sunken bath in one corner. In the middle of the floor, like a pyre-some kind of sacrificial mound or a bonfire waiting to burn-is a heap of somebody’s possessions. Clothes, shoes, bags, school exercise books, Barbie dolls, a watch, a pair of yellow washing-up gloves, a bottle of Eau du Soir by Sisley, gold and pearl cuff links: hundreds of things. Things that once belonged to a woman and a girl. All their possessions, heaped up in this one room. And, on top, my clothes and shoes. Thank God.

  I push my way through the pile, hear things from the top falling into the bath and basin. The loudest crash comes from a black anglepoise lamp with a chrome base. It scares me until I realise what it is. It looks like a little creature-black head, silver spine. Its bulb has fallen out and smashed in the basin.

  My heart thuds harder when I find two passports. I open the first one, flick to the back page. It’s her: the girl from the photograph. Amy Oliva. The other passport belongs to her mother, and her face is as familiar to me as her daughter’s for the same reason. Encarnación. A Spanish name? Yes. I flicked through a book a few seconds ago that was written in a foreign language.

  Amy Oliva’s father. But he told me his name was William Markes.

  In a plastic bag that has been loosely tied at the top, I find something slimy and green. It’s a uniform: St Swithun’s. Amy’s school uniform. Why is it wet? Why does it smell so bad? Did he drown her?

  I can’t stay here surrounded by dead people’s things. I know Amy and Encarnación are dead as surely as if I’d found their bodies. I grab my clothes, run downstairs, turn on the shower in the tiny shower room and pull off the dressing gown. There’s a large dark red patch below the waist. It looks as if it’s been used to wrap a severed head.

  I wash as quickly as I can, watching the water around my feet turn from red to pink to clear. Then I take the blue towel that’s neatly folded on top of the radiator, dry myself and get dressed.

  Now I can leave, go home, call the police. I can bring them here, and they’ll find… No. There are things I can’t let them find. I have to be able to carry on living once I escape-the life I want, the life I used to have-or else there’s no point.

  Nobody can know what he did to me.

  I go back to the upstairs bathroom. Retching, I shake Amy Oliva’s foul-smelling uniform out of its plastic bag. Then I walk slowly round the house, collecting all the things I can’t risk leaving: the dressing gown, the syringe, the book written in Spanish.

  I begin to shake violently as I walk across the yard and out on to the street.

  Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723

  Case Ref: VN87

  OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra

  GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 9 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)

  18 May 2006, 11.50 p.m.

  Tonight, while I was reading in the bath, trying to relax, I heard breathing behind me. Lucy. Since she’s slept with her door open, she’s felt freer to climb out of bed at night and come and find me. I ask her every day if she’s still scared of monsters. She claims she is. ‘Well, then, you’re obviously not a big girl yet,’ I say. ‘Big girls know monsters are made up. Big, clever girls sleep with their doors shut.’

  When I turned and saw her in the doorway of the bathroom, I said, ‘Lucy, it’s half past ten. Go back to bed and go to sleep. Now.’

  ‘You shouldn’t do that, Mummy,’ she said.

  I asked what I ought not to do.

  ‘Put the night light on the edge of the bath like that. It might fall into the water and then you’d be electrocuted and killed until you died.’ She is too young to understand what this means, but she knows it’s something bad. She probably imagines it’s the same as being hurt, like the time she fell in the garden and scraped the skin off both her knees.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I told her. ‘I’m careful. It’s the only way I can get enough light to read in the bath without having the fan whirring away, and I need to read in the bath because it relaxes me.’

  Why did I bother to explain? Reason doesn’t work with a five-year-old, or at least not my five-year-old. Logic doesn’t work, persuasion doesn’t work, just-because-I-said-so doesn’t work, begging doesn’t work, lenience doesn’t work, sanctions and the confiscation of toys don’t work, diversion and entertainment don’t work, ignoring doesn’t work, and even bribery doesn’t always work, or rather it only works for as long as the chocolate incentive is still being mashed in the mouth. Nothing works: the golden rule of child-rearing. Whatever you do, whatever techniques you choose, your child will reduce your soul to rubble.

  In response to my attempt to answer her as I would an adult, Lucy burst into tears. ‘Well, I’ll be fine too!’ she shouted at me. ‘I never read in the bath, so I won’t get electrocuted! And I won’t go to heaven because you can’t go to heaven until you’re a hundred-Mrs Flowers told me!’ She ran back to bed, satisfied she’d ruined my relaxing bath beyond all repair.

  Gart knows what rubbish they’ve been pumping into her at that school. Lucy asked me once what heaven was. I told her it was a good thriller and a six-star hotel on a white sandy beach in the Maldives.

  ‘Is that where Jesus went when he died?’ she asked me. ‘Before he came back to life?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘From what little I know about him, I think Jesus might prefer t
o go camping in the Lake District. ’ Let no one accuse me of neglecting my daughter’s spiritual education.

  ‘So who does go to the heaven hotel?’ Lucy asked.

  I said, ‘Has anyone at school mentioned the devil yet?’

  18

  8/10/07

  Once he was certain 2 Belcher Close was empty, Sellers bent over, leaning his hands on his knees, and waited to get his breath back. It was clear what had happened: he’d locked her in and she’d smashed a window to get out.

  Inside, keys were scattered on the landing and down the stairs. A loaded gun had been left on the kitchen work-surface. There was blood everywhere, and pieces of pink glass. Sellers was doing his best to touch nothing while he waited for scene-of-crime to arrive.

  So much for his intuition. Yesterday, non-existent Harry Martineau had been oh-so-helpful, handing over the Olivas’ mail, promising he’d try to find the phone number and address they’d given him. With his crumpled suit jacket and open briefcase behind him. I’ve managed to lose my wallet. Flustered, dishevelled, harmless. And Sellers and Gibbs had fallen for it.

  Sellers froze. The jacket. The suit jacket. There was a suit hanging up in a wardrobe upstairs. Sellers had been relieved to find it; he’d feared he might find a body in there.

  He ran back upstairs to the master bedroom, opened the wardrobe again and stared at the suit. How the hell could he have missed it? The jacket had been lying in the hall yesterday, right in front of him. Sellers had spent hours walking round town with a photograph of the damn thing in his pocket. How many times had he taken out that photo and shown it to people?

  He leaned into the wardrobe, looking for a label to confirm what he already knew. ‘Ozwald Boateng’, it said.

  It was the suit Mark Bretherick had reported missing.

  Michelle Jones sat opposite Sam Kombothekra in interview room one, crying into a handkerchief he’d given her and shaking her head every now and then, as if remembering yet another wrong that had been done to her. The healthy glow of her tanned skin was undermined by the red lines that cross-hatched the whites of her eyes. Her lips were chapped and peeling. She picked at them, crossing and uncrossing her legs continually.