“Mummy. I’m sleepy.” Richard had woken, startled awake by the hard braking, and now he was fidgeting, tugging at his seatbelt. “I want to go home.”
Their mother didn’t answer, just sat there staring at the car that shouldn’t be there, fingers clinging to the steering wheel as if she thought that it was going to drift away.
“Mummy!”
“Shh, Richard. It’s okay.” Freya stroked his arm, stroked his forehead, the way their mother did to them when they were sick, still not looking at him though, watching their mother with her tight lips and pale face.
“No. I want to go in.”
“Okay, it’s okay. We’re going.” Their mother’s voice sounded drum tight.
Then they were out in the rain, her mother carrying Richard even though he was too big for that now. Freya trailing behind, heart thudding, even though she didn’t know why.
“Here we are.” Her mother’s hand shook, key scritching against the lock. “Home.” Voice too high.
There was a black leather handbag, laying on the hallway floor. A grey coat slouched over the bannister. And the smell of violets.
Her mother knelt, placing Richard on the ground. Staring at the bag, the coat.
There were sounds, distant, the kind that you hear at eleven o’clock at night when you wake and your parents think you are asleep. The sound of someone jumping on the bed.
Freya seemed to be frozen, feet welded to the tiled hallway floor. It was wrong. It was all wrong. The smell of violets and vomit, the tightness in her mother’s face, her eyes flashing like Freya has never seen before. Freya wanted to turn and run away, dragging her mother and her brother with her.
“Wait here.” Her mother’s voice sounded strange, scarily so.
Freya looked up at her, wanted to catch her, stop her, but before she can she’s gone, taking the steps quickly with light, silent footsteps. There is laughter, somewhere in the house. Freya watched her mother, crossing the landing, face set so that she is barely recognisable as soft mummy, kind mummy. Now some new kind of mummy. Then the bedroom door bangs, laughter turning to screams. Her mother’s voice, roaring like thunder. Somewhere in the melee, their father’s voice, pleading.
Freya reached down, pulling Richard in tight to her.
“Where’s Daddy?” His face was tilted up towards her.
“Shhh, Rich.” She should pull him away, take him to the kitchen, give him some milk, some biscuits. Wait for the storm to blow itself out. But she was too slow, because before she could move there was a creak of floorboards, a figure emerging, skinny with long dishevelled hair the colour of sunsets. Pulling a lilac blouse over a fuchsia bra, eyes downturned, scuttling past. No sign of the cream suede jacket she had worn this morning at the school gates as she kissed Kayla goodbye. Kayla was in Freya’s class. Sat three seats over. Was skinny and pretty with a laugh that was too loud.
The woman brushed past Freya, didn’t look at her. Then she was gone in a wash of perfume.
Freya didn’t know how long it was that they stood there. Remembered hoisting her little brother up onto her hip, even though he was much too heavy and it felt like her back would break. Remembered him softly sobbing, his tears hot against her flushed cheek. Remembered her mother’s screaming, the sound of a slap.
They stood there until her parents re-emerged. Her mother marching down the stairs, barely looking at them, shaking. “Come on, you two. Into the kitchen.”
Knowing that they had to obey, because Mummy was really mad, but doing it slowly, because there is the creak of floorboards and footsteps and now her father is emerging, coming down the stairs. Not looking at Freya, or at Richard, but at their mother. A livid red mark with five bright fingers splayed across his cheek. “Adele.”
Richard was crying. Her mother didn’t answer and Freya wondered if she had heard.
“Love. Please.”
Freya was looking at her, at her father, back to her mother, expecting something, but not knowing what.
“Oliver, go fuck yourself.” Her mother’s head snapped up, words flaming, and Freya jumped, tears building in her eyes.
Her father stood, frozen, shocked. Richard, wailing, rearing back, because he doesn’t recognise this mother and now she’s scared him.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Pulling Richard up into her arms. “It’s all right. Let’s go into the kitchen, okay? Let’s get some hot chocolate.”
But still they all stand there, dolls in a dollhouse.
Then her father. “I…I’ll go and get dressed.”
Her mother looked up at him, a brittle smile that she doesn’t really mean. “Yes. Perhaps you should.”
Chapter 27
Tom – Monday, 19th March, - 5.47pm
Tom leaned back in the office chair, closing his eyes. He could still see the drifting snow, white flecks on black. Could still see Libby. Jim’s hands folded at his waist, somehow staying upright even though he’s swaying, corn bending in the breeze. Never taking his eyes off her as the thick velvet curtains sweep shut, even though that’s his little girl lying there dead, and his shoulders are shaking, feet turned like they want to run away, are prepared to run without him, tears pouring down his face. His jaw is bulldog set, chin tilted upwards, and you can see that he’s enduring, that’s all he’s doing, because he has to and he has a wife and a family and for them he will stand, even though all he wants to do is fall. That he will not allow himself the luxury of blindness.
Tom knew that there was a phone on the desk in front of him, less than six inches away. He knew that he should pick up the receiver and call his wife. But instead he keeps his eyes closed, listening to the low throb of conversation, the click clack clack of keyboard keys, and tries not to think about everything that he should be that he isn’t.
He had dropped Jim off on the corner of his street. Tomorrow, okay? I’ll be by tomorrow. Have to talk to Esther. Had thought that Jim would protest, would say that she had been through enough. But he had just nodded slowly, sadly. I’ll see to it that she’s ready.
Tom rubbed his eyes, trying to break up the image of Libby dead on the mortuary table. Would have to ring his mother, check on Ben. Should ring Cecilia. A feeling rising up in him, the panic that you get when you’ve swallowed the wrong way and it seems that you’ll never catch your breath.
“Hey.”
Tom opened his eyes. Madeleine nodded towards the mug that she carried, her other hand resting on the gentle slope of her belly. “Thought you could use this.”
Madeleine was beautiful, even though he hadn’t seen it for a long time. Not beautiful like Cecilia, where there’s that sense like she should be on the cover of a magazine and that you shouldn’t even stand next to her lest you mar the perfection. More ordinary, easier to miss. But there are dancing eyes, lips that curve into a perpetual smile like she’s thinking of some joke and if you can just get close enough then she’ll share it with you. She’d filled out a little, wasn’t as stick thin as she used to be, cheeks fuller, hips a little wider. It suited her. Her dark blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, clothes loose to allow room for her expanding stomach. Diamond wedding ring that caught the light.
Tom pushed himself up in the chair. “Whisky?”
“Tequila. I took the worm out.” Madeleine gave a brief smile, setting the coffee on the desk. “This is shit, isn’t it?”
“You’re not wrong.”
“She was such a nice girl. She’d applied to be a police officer. Did you know? They started the application process a couple of weeks ago. We had lunch. Chatted about the interviews.” Maddie’s eyes had filled, a tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away with a hand. “This job sucks sometimes. I mean, you prepare yourself for it, when you’re wearing the uniform. You know, the trouble, getting hurt. But at home…she should have been safe there.”
“I know.” Tom wanted to reach out, take her by the hand. Kept his fingers knotted tight together.
It had been an indecently short period of time – a week maybe, after Cecilia had stopped taking his calls. He’d softened it, saying that he’d known Maddie for ages, years, that they’d been friends for so long that it was almost as if this had been building, bubbling under the surface. It was love. He knew that. Had known it the following morning when he’d woken, arm dead with the weight of her head resting on it, watching her, nose furrowing with dreams. He hadn’t said it. Wasn’t the done thing, was it? But it had felt like finding a pair of shoes that fit you perfectly, so there’s no need to break them in, treading carefully in case the unfamiliar presence grates. They had just fitted.
“How was it?”
He shrugged, trying not to look at her belly. “You know. Shit.”
“Yeah.” Sipped her own coffee, looking at him over the top of the mug. “You okay?”
He looked away from her, couldn’t look directly at her because then she would see everything. She always did.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.”
Tom grinned, now looking back at her, and there’s that bubble of emotion. “Yeah. I am.”
It had been six weeks, of him feeling like the luckiest man alive, knowing that for the first time in his life everything was exactly as it should be. Then his phone had rung, Cecilia’s voice flooding the line and his world had changed. She was pregnant. He was the father. Maddie had taken it in the way he knew that Maddie would take it. Had held his hand, had nodded patiently, had turned her head, pretending that she was looking for something so that he wouldn’t see that she was about to cry. Then she had stood, had kissed him on the cheek and told him that he was a good man, and she had left. She hadn’t gone very far. They still worked in the same office. So he still saw her every day as he rushed into a marriage and bought things for a baby and settled into the realisation that the shoes that he had ended up with rubbed terribly. They would pass the time of day every now and again. Brief, nothing personal. But she told him when she met someone, about a year later, she told him when they got engaged, even invited Tom and Cecilia to the wedding. Of course they couldn’t go.
Madeleine leaned against the desk, shifting a little to get comfortable and glanced over her shoulder at the falling snow. A deep breath as she refocuses. Becoming the detective again. “Snowing again. You hear that initial forensics are back on the house?”
“And?”
“They didn’t get too much. Someone’s bleached all the surfaces down, but they got some blood remnants in the kitchen. Countertop, the floor, some down the side of the cupboard.”
“What about prints?”
“Not much there either. They found a partial underneath the seat of the kitchen chair. No sign of forced entry either. Doors and windows were definitely locked.”
Tom bit his lip, thinking about Libby stretched out dead on the mortuary table. “So she did let them in?”
“It looks like it.”
Someone she knew, someone she trusted. Should she have seen it? Opened her eyes to danger coming. Or was it that she didn’t want to see it, because it was easier not to?
Tom sighed, rubbed his eyes. “Family said they don’t think she had a boyfriend. But there were the condoms, the wrapper in the bin. So she’s had…”
“Action?”
“Yeah. She’s been sleeping with someone. Recently.” Tom shook his head. “I’m going to see her mother. Tomorrow. Maybe she’ll know more. I guess it’s not really the kind of thing you discuss with your dad.”
“Yeah. I talked to the other PCSOs, the people on her shift. As far as they knew she was single. But the condom…” Maddie sighed. “Put it this way, if she was seeing someone…”
“She kept it pretty quiet.”
“Yeah.”
“So, the next question is, why?” Tom leaned back, stretched his arms above his head. “What about the glove? They get anything?”
Maddie wrinkled her nose. “It was immersed in water, overnight presumably. They said that what was there has been diluted so much that it’s pretty much useless. They’ve managed to type the blood, matched it to Libby, so we know that there’s a connection there, but as for any DNA from inside the glove…”
“Nada?”
“Nada thing.” Maddie shrugged. “It’s not a surprise, but still…”
“Disappointing.”
“Yeah.” She was watching him. “How’s Cecilia?”
Tom shrugged. “Okay. Broken arm. Other than that, she’s all right.”
“I’m so pleased. I really am happy for you, Tom.”
He didn’t look at her, because if he did he would see that she meant it. She had married a paramedic, a good man who looked at her with something very much like adoration. She had moved on.
“I’d better get back to it.” Madeleine pushed herself to her feet. “Oh, I nearly forgot. The DI asked if you’d ring the pathologist. He’s been called into a meeting.”
“No problem.”
A brief smile flitted across her face, lighting up her eyes and then she was gone.
Tom stared at the snow. It was getting heavier. He should go home. He pulled the desk phone towards him, punching numbers, trying not to notice the lingering scent of Maddie’s perfume. “This is Cecilia. I’m not free right now. Leave me a message.” He closed his eyes, hanging up before the beep, trying to pretend that he wasn’t relieved.
Tom had been driving carefully, slipping out of the hospital carpark into slow moving traffic. Jim’s voice had startled him, cutting across the swish of the tyres through slush, the whip of the windscreen wipers.
“You see your Dad much?”
“I, uh, no.” Tom had glanced across at him. “No. Not since I was fourteen.”
Jim hadn’t replied, and for a moment Tom wasn’t sure that he’d heard him.
“I’m surprised.” When he did speak, his voice came out low, loaded with gravel and grief. “Didn’t think your Dad was like that.”
Tom had concentrated on the traffic, the car light on the slick surface. Hadn’t intended to speak at all. “It was me.”
“Sorry?”
“He tried. After he left. He kept trying to call, wrote to me. I didn’t want to know.”
“Oh.”
Idling at traffic lights that stay obstinately red even though there were no other cars on the road. His father had re-married, less than a year after he left. Making an honest woman of the slut, his mother had said. He hadn’t gone to the wedding. He’d never met his half-brother.