The Wrong Mother Read online

  I hear myself apologise to him. I need to know, need to be told. However bad it is.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘Shush. Stop crying, there’s no need to cry. Now, shuffle along and down-this way, that’s right-and put your legs up against the wall, so that your body makes a right angle. That’s good. Now, stay in that position. Get as comfortable as you can. I want you to stay like that for an hour or so.’

  Tears pour down my cheeks, collect in my ears. I can’t speak.

  He walks over to the window, tapping the gun against his open palm. ‘I suppose, since you’ve obviously worked it out, there’s no point in my being secretive any more. You saw the title of the recipe book.’

  ‘I’m not pregnant!’

  ‘You might be. You might be already, if we’re lucky.’

  The vitamin pill: it was folic acid. That’s why the taste was so familiar. I took it throughout both my pregnancies.

  ‘Have you raped me? How many times?’

  He makes a disgusted noise. ‘Thanks,’ he murmurs. ‘Thanks such a lot for that vote of confidence.’

  ‘I’m sorry…’

  ‘I’m not an animal. I used a syringe.’ He lets out a small laugh. ‘I didn’t have a turkey baster, not being much of a cook. You’re the only person I’ve ever cooked for, in fact.’

  ‘You drugged me and undressed me and injected me with… with…’

  He picks up my hand and squeezes it. ‘Sally, I want us to be a proper family. I’ve got a right…’ His voice wavers. ‘Everybody has a right to have a proper happy family. I’ve never had that, Sally. I don’t think you have either.’

  ‘That’s not true, it’s not true!’

  ‘I know you need time to adjust. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting we sleep together, not yet. Never, if you really don’t want to. I’m not a brute.’

  I dig my fingers into my legs. If I could, I’d rip out all my insides until there was nothing left of me.

  ‘I know I should have told you about the baby but… well, I was eager to get the ball rolling. I’m sorry.’

  ‘How many times have you… injected me?’ I manage to say.

  ‘Just twice. And I’ve got a good feeling about this last time.’ He crosses his fingers, holds them in front of my face.

  I cry while he strokes and pats my hand and makes soothing noises. I have no idea how much time is passing, how much of my life I am losing in this room: half an hour, maybe longer, since he last spoke. When I run out of tears, I say, ‘Why did you give me a massage?’

  ‘To make you feel good. You love massages.’

  ‘I was unconscious!’

  ‘I thought it might relax you, subconsciously. Sometimes the body knows things the mind doesn’t. The more relaxed you are, the more likely you are to conceive.’

  I feel a surge in my stomach, nearly choke on the bile that rises to fill my throat.

  ‘Do you think I want this to be horrible for you, Sally? I don’t. I truly don’t.’

  ‘I know.’ I’m going to get that gun off you and I’m going to kill you, you sick fuck.

  ‘You have to try to want what I want. Do you remember, at Seddon Hall, you told me you were sick of always being the one who had to arrange everything: Valentine’s Day dinners, even treats for your own birthday?’

  ‘You make it sound as if I hated my life!’ I blurt out, sobbing. I can’t bear to listen to him. ‘I love my life-I was just complaining!’

  ‘With good cause,’ he says, tapping the gun against the side of the massage table. ‘What about the Christmas when you chose and bought your own present from Nick because you didn’t trust him to get the right thing: Boudoir eau de parfum by Vivienne Westwood. You even wrapped it yourself and wrote “To Sally, love Nick” on it. Do you remember telling me that? Because you were sick of wondering if Nick would remember to wrap it in time for Christmas Day.’

  Why did I tell him so much?

  ‘Can I… please could I have my phone, just for a few minutes? I need to speak to Zoe and Jake.’

  I have said the wrong thing. He drops my hand. His eyes harden, his face as close to a portrait of pure evil as anything I’ve ever seen. ‘Zoe and Jake,’ he repeats in a wooden voice. ‘The trouble with you, Sally, is that you never know when the party’s over.’

  Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723

  Case Ref: VN87

  OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra

  GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 7 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)

  17 May 2006, 5.10 a.m.

  A brilliant thing happened tonight-I thought for a while that it might be the key to everything. Well, last night, I suppose you’d have to say, but I haven’t had any sleep. I’m going to end up like that man I saw on that ‘shock-doc’ documentary, who was so sleep-deprived for so long that he ended up with a permanent headache. When he went to the doctor, he was told that by not sleeping enough he’d done irreparable damage to the nerve endings in his brain. The doctor gave him a drug to stop the headache, but that made him shake as if he had Parkinson’s disease. The documentary said only that he was a contract lawyer in the city, not whether he had small children, but I’m certain he did. I think he had three children under five and a wife who also worked full-time.

  I took Lucy to the theatre last night. Not to a matinee, not like the awful time we went to see Mungo’s Magic Show and we were surrounded by brats, and Lucy screamed because I wouldn’t let her eat two Cornettos. No, this time I took her in the evening, like an adult. I wondered if she might be more bearable if I treated her more like a grown-up. So I booked two tickets to Oklahoma ! the musical at Spilling Little Theatre. Mark was away at yet another conference. I told Lucy that she and I would be going out together for a special treat evening, but only if she was very good. She was so excited, happier than I’ve ever seen her, and she really did try hard. I told her we would go out for dinner first, and she was even more excited about that. She’d never been to a restaurant in the evening before, and she knew it was something grown-ups did, so of course she wanted to do it.

  We went to Orlando ’s on Bowditch Street, and Lucy had spaghetti bolognese. For once she ate everything on her plate. Then we held hands and walked to the theatre, and she sat through the whole performance transfixed, as still as a statue, eyes as wide as plates. Afterwards she said, ‘That was great. Thank you for taking me to the theatre, Mummy.’ She said she loved me and I said I loved her and we held hands again all the way back to the car. I thought it was a turning point. I decided to do grown-up things with her whenever I could, try to treat her more like a twelve-year-old than a five-year-old.

  I must have been stupid or desperate or both to think that would work. An hour ago, when I was tossing and turning in bed and wondering what Lucy and I might do together next-a manicure, the National Portrait Gallery, the cinema-I felt someone tugging on my hair. I thought it was an intruder and screamed, but it was Lucy. Normally when she wakes at night, she doesn’t get out of bed; she yells for me and expects me to come running. But there she was, and she wasn’t upset. She was smiling. ‘Mummy, can we go to the theatre again?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ I promised. ‘Very soon. But you’ve got to go back to sleep, Lucy, it’s not morning yet.’

  Could I have handled it better? No doubt my mother would say so. If Lucy had asked her, she would probably have leaped out of bed, even at four in the morning, and searched on the Internet for suitable shows, bleary-eyed but insisting she was full of energy. I’ve asked her, often, how she managed not to feel permanently exhausted when I was little. She puts on a smug little smile, waves her hand dismissively and says, ‘Being tired has never killed anyone. You don’t know how lucky you are!’ Then she tells me an anecdote about someone she met in town whose daughter has triplets, no husband and seventeen low-paid manual jobs that she must do simultaneously in order to feed her family. And I envy this down-trodden labourer that my mother has almo
st definitely invented for the sole purpose of shaming me, because it sounds as if her life has probably always been appalling. Whereas I had a brilliant life before I became a parent: that is why I find it so hard to cope.

  ‘I want to go to the theatre again now,’ Lucy insisted. ‘I want to go out for dinner again, with just you.’ I repeated that it was night-time, that no theatres or restaurants were open. She began to scream and howl, hitting me with her fists. ‘I want to go NOW, I want to go NOW,’ she wailed. In the end the only way I could shut her up was by threatening her. I said that if she didn’t quiet down and go back to sleep that instant, I would never take her anywhere again. She stopped punching and yelling, but I couldn’t get her to stop crying, no matter how patiently I explained the situation. In the end I had to sit by her bed and stroke her hair while she cried herself to sleep, and I cried too because my stupid special treat had ended up causing her more pain than if I hadn’t bothered.

  Still, at least now I know. Whether I’m kind or utterly selfish makes absolutely no difference. Even if I try my hardest, I cannot avoid the misery, inconvenience, frustration and futility that make up nine-tenths of the experience of having a young child. It is simply not worth it. Even from an investment point of view, for the sake of having grown-up children who visit you when you’re senile and lonely, it’s not worth spending the best years of your life entangled in put-your-coat-on-I-don’t-want-to-put-my-coat-on-but-it’s-cold-I-don’t-like-that-coat-I-want- another-coat-you-haven’t-got-another-coat-well-I-want-one-but-we-have-to-go-out-now-get-into-the-car-I-don’t- want-to-sit-in-the-back-seat-I-want-to-sit-in-the-driver’s-seat-well-you-can’t-sit-in-the-driver’s-seat… That, or a version of it, is the conversation I’ve been having ever since Lucy learned to talk. Why can’t she simply say, ‘Yes, Mummy,’ and do as I ask? She hates it when I’m angry, and I’ve told her over and over again that this is the way to make Mummy happy.

  I have never hit her. Not because I disapprove of hitting children-I have pinched and flicked Oonagh O’Hara several times without Cordy noticing-but because sometimes I want to hit Lucy so much and I know I would have to stop almost as soon as I started, so what would be the point? It would be like opening a box of delicious chocolates and only being able to eat one.

  In an ideal world, parents would be able to give their children a good, satisfying kicking-a really thorough, cathartic battering-then snap their fingers and have the effects of their violence disappear. Also, it would be good if children, while being beaten, didn’t feel pain; then there would be no need for guilt.

  Instead they are delicate and vulnerable, which of course is their most effective weapon. They make us want to protect them even as they destroy us.

  14

  8/10/07

  Sellers knocked on the back of the computer Gibbs was using. ‘Come on, we’re late.’

  ‘Don’t wait for me, or you’ll be even later.’

  ‘You don’t want to miss this one.’

  ‘Why? Something happened?’

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Tim Cook,’ said Sellers.

  ‘Is he still shagging that granny?’

  ‘I doubt it. They’ve been living together for nearly ten years.’ Silence. ‘You’re supposed to laugh at that. I suppose you haven’t been married long enough.’ No response. Sellers tried a new approach. ‘The dental records were a match. The two skeletons are Encarna and Amy Oliva. Were,’ he corrected himself.

  Gibbs looked up. If Sellers was right, he might as well stop what he was doing. But since he’d got this far… ‘You go,’ he said. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

  ‘There’s more. Amy Oliva’s nanny finally-Why do I bother?’ Sellers broke off, impatient. ‘If you’re interested, stop surfing porn sites and come to the briefing. You know they can find out what sites you’ve logged on to?’

  ‘I’m in Yahoo Mail at the moment.’ Gibbs grinned. ‘Porn sites? How do you know about those, then?’

  Sellers gave up.

  Once he’d gone, Gibbs typed in his ID and password. Amy Oliva was dead. Her body had been found in Mark Bretherick’s garden. It was optimistic to assume she might have replied to the e-mail Gibbs sent her yesterday.

  She hadn’t. The only new message was from Gibbs’ sister. He opened it, saw that it had to do with arrangements for Christmas and closed it again without replying. It was August. Christmas wasn’t until December. You had to draw the line somewhere.

  Porn sites. He sniffed contemptuously. Sellers had to be one of those sex addicts he’d read about, like… was it Kirk Douglas or Michael Douglas? The HTCU lot probably had a file on Sellers twenty inches thick. Gibbs thought about Norman Grace, who wore pink shirts and thin stripy scarves wound round his neck. And slip-on shoes. Kombothekra had entrusted the hard disk of Geraldine Bretherick’s laptop to a man who dressed like a woman. Once, Gibbs had seen Norman in the canteen reading a fashion magazine. If he was gay it wouldn’t be so bad, but the dickhead was straight, had loads of girlfriends-fit ones, too. So what was he playing at?

  Gibbs was about to get up when he had an idea. Another job for Norman. Come to think of it, he probably didn’t need Norman. He could have a stab at it himself. He went to the Hotmail site. When the sign-in box appeared, he typed in Amy Oliva’s e-mail address, [email protected]. Then he clicked on ‘Forgot your password?’. If it was anything like Yahoo Mail…

  It was. Gibbs smiled when he saw the security question: ‘Who wrote Heart of Darkness?’ He typed in ‘Blondie’ and swore under his breath when it didn’t get him in. He tried Debbie Harry, Deborah Harry and Debra Harry before remembering that the Blondie song was called ‘Heart of Glass’. Bollocks. He went to Google, typed in ‘Heart of Darkness’ and discovered that it was a book by a bloke called Joseph Conrad. He clicked back to the Hotmail screen and gave this name he’d never heard of a try.

  Result. He had to create a new password for the account in order to read the messages, since he’d claimed to have forgotten the old one. He decided on ‘Debbie’. In honour of his wife, not Debbie Harry.

  Amy Oliva had three new messages. Gibbs clicked on ‘Inbox’ and waited. His eyes widened when the next screen appeared. The unread communications were highlighted in yellow to distinguish them from the ones that had been opened. The first of Amy’s new messages was from Oonagh O’Hara. The second and third were from Great Western Hotels and the Halifax bank-junk mail.

  Gibbs’ message, the one he’d sent from St Swithun’s yesterday, was the fourth one down. It wasn’t highlighted in yellow. He shivered, rubbing the back of his neck. He’d e-mailed a dead girl, believing her to be alive, and she’d opened the e-mail. Or someone had, probably the person who had killed her.

  Gibbs looked at the names beneath his own. Oonagh O’Hara was a frequent correspondent, as was somebody called Silvia Ruiz Oliva-a relative, presumably. The rest was spam.

  Silvia turned out to be Amy’s grandmother: her messages were all signed ‘Gran’. He read them all, finding them increasingly interesting as he took in the cumulative meaning. There had obviously been a family row. Silvia kept asking when she might see Amy. In one she had written: ‘Please tell Mummy that if she’s cross with me, I’m sorry.’ Gibbs scrolled down to see if there were any messages from Amy attached to the bottom of Silvia’s. There weren’t. He went to the ‘Sent Messages’ page. Nothing. Not a single message had been copied to the folder.

  He opened one of Oonagh’s messages. Nothing out of the ordinary, if you didn’t count the fact that its recipient was no longer living when it was written and sent. He read to the end, then breathed in sharply when he saw that Amy’s original letter hadn’t been deleted. Gibbs scrolled down further and found, beneath Amy’s section, another message from Oonagh, probably one that was also in the inbox. Beneath that, another message from whoever was pretending to be Amy. A lengthy back-and-forth correspondence, all trailing from this one message. Oonagh’s e-mails, Gibbs noticed, contained the odd spelling mistake. Amy’s written English wa
s faultless.

  Stepford had interviewed Oonagh O’Hara yesterday and she’d told him she hadn’t heard from Amy since last May. Clearly she was lying. Or rather she believed she was lying. In fact, she’d told the truth: she had been exchanging letters with Amy’s killer, not with Amy.

  Gibbs raced through the messages. At the end of each of her letters, before signing off, Oonagh had written, ‘Hows your mum?’ or ‘Is your mum okay?’ In one she’d gone further and said, ‘How are things with you and you’re mum?’ Twice, after enquiring about Encarna Oliva, Oonagh had written ‘Hows Patrick? ’ and once, ‘Hows Partick?’

  Had Encarna Oliva left her husband for another man? Had Patrick worked at the bank with her? Or maybe he’d been a friend or colleague of her husband’s, someone Angel Oliva had worked with at Culver Valley General Hospital. There were some women, Gibbs knew, who’d think nothing of shagging their husbands’ mates. Gibbs thought it was inevitable that one day Sellers would try to bed Debbie; he was training himself to dislike Sellers in advance, so that when it happened he’d be prepared.

  Amy’s replies to Oonagh’s e-mails were chatty but bland, full of news about watching bullfights and flamenco dancers. Clichés of Spain. Lies. Despite her e-mail address, Amy Oliva never got to Spain. She never got further than the garden at Corn Mill House. Interestingly, she-her killer, Gibbs corrected himself-had not once answered Oonagh’s enquiries about Encarna and Patrick.

  Why had Oonagh O’Hara lied about when she’d last been in touch with Amy? There was nothing secret or personal about any of these e-mails. ‘Something weird’s going on,’ Gibbs said aloud.

  He was on his way out of the CID room when the phone rang. It was Barbara Fitzgerald, the head of St Swithun’s. ‘Hello, Christopher,’ she said warmly, once Gibbs had identified himself. ‘I’m just phoning to let you know I’ve e-mailed you a full list of everyone who went on the owl sanctuary trip last year. I did forget a few names, as it turns out.’