The Wrong Mother Read online

  ‘This is a bit odd,’ says Fergus’s recorded voice. ‘You may well have difficulty believing it, but I assure you it’s true.’

  My mind freezes. I can’t cope with another odd thing, not today.

  ‘I’ve just this minute sat down with a library book, one I took out of Spilling Library last week. About the Tour de France. I’ve just bought a new mountain bike, you see.’

  What does it have to do with me? I wonder.

  ‘Anyway, far-fetched as it sounds, I found Nick’s driver’s licence inside the book. You know, the little pink photocard one. He obviously borrowed it too, at some point-I know he’s a cycling aficionado-and perhaps he used the licence as a bookmark or something, but anyway… I’ve got it. I don’t want to drop it through your letterbox, since I know other people live in your building, but if you want to pop round later to collect it…’

  I feel weak with relief, and decide to overlook Fergus’s dig about the inadequate size and situation of my home in comparison with his. Nick left his driver’s licence in a library book. It’s typical, but not sinister. I try not to be irritated by the image of Fergus at home with his feet up, reading.

  I haven’t got the energy to speak to Natasha Prentice-Nash, so I phone Nick’s mobile. ‘Fergus next door has found your driving licence,’ I tell him.

  ‘Have I lost it?’

  ‘Yes. It was in a library book about the Tour de France.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He sounds pleased. ‘I was using it as a bookmark. ’

  ‘You left a message,’ I say. ‘What did you want?’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, right, yeah. Nursery rang. They said you weren’t answering your phone.’

  ‘I might have missed one or two calls,’ I say vaguely. ‘Things have been a bit hectic today.’ I stopped answering my mobile after Esther’s four attempts to ring me on it between six and half past seven this morning. She knows something is up and is determined to find out what it is. ‘What did nursery want?’

  ‘Jake’s hurt his ear.’

  ‘What? I’ve only just dropped him off. Is it serious?’

  My husband ponders this. ‘They didn’t say it was.’

  ‘Did they say it wasn’t?’

  ‘Well… no, but…’

  ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They must have said something!’

  ‘Nothing apart from what I’ve told you,’ says Nick. ‘They just said Jake hurt his ear, but he’s fine now.’

  ‘Well, if he’s fine, why did they bother ringing? He can’t be fine. I’d better call them.’

  I cut Nick off and ring Anthea, who tells me that Jake is as jolly as ever. He scratched his ear, that’s all, cried a bit and cheered up soon afterwards.

  ‘We did notice that his fingernails need cutting,’ Anthea says in an apologetic tone, as if reluctant to interfere.

  ‘Whenever we cut them, he shrieks as if we’re putting his neck on the block for the guillotine,’ I tell her, knowing I sound defensive. ‘I hate doing that to him.’ Neck on the block for the guillotine? Did I really say that? Has Anthea even heard of a guillotine? Her idea of history is probably last year’s Big Brother.

  ‘Poor little thing,’ she says, and I feel guilty for being such a snob. When I was a teenager, any form of snobbery elicited from me a torrent of fierce indignation. When my mother dared to suggest that I ought not to go out with Wayne Moscrop, whose father was in prison, I followed her round the house for weeks, shouting, ‘Oh, right! So I suppose I can only date people whose dads aren’t in prison, is that it? Is that what you’re saying? So obviously if Nelson Mandela had a son, even if he was helping to lead the struggle against apartheid, you wouldn’t want me to go out with him either!’

  If Zoe ever acquires a boyfriend who has any connection with a correctional facility, I will have to pay him to forget all about her and tactfully disappear. I wonder how much that might cost. If he’s noble and principled, like Nelson Mandela’s imaginary son, he might stand his ground however much money I offer him.

  ‘So… I don’t get it,’ I say to Anthea. ‘If Jake’s okay, why did you ring Nick? And leave a message for me?’

  ‘We have to notify parents of any physical injury, however small. That’s the policy.’

  ‘So you don’t need me to come and get Jake?’

  ‘No, no, he’s absolutely fine.’

  ‘Good.’ I tell Anthea about my October half-term dilemma and hint that I would be willing to buy her any number of diamond-studded thongs if she could possibly bend the rules and create a place for Zoe just for that week. She says she’ll see what she can do. ‘Thank you,’ I gush. ‘And… you’re really sure Jake’s okay?’

  ‘Honestly, it was just a small scratch. He hardly even cried. There’s a tiny pink mark on his ear, but you probably wouldn’t even notice it.’

  Wearily, I thank her, end the call and ring Pam Senior. She’s not in, so I leave a message-a grovelling apology. I ask her to ring me back, hoping that as soon as I hear her voice I will know instantly that she didn’t try to kill me yesterday. Muttering, ‘She ought to be the one apologising to me,’ under my breath, I ring Monk Barn Primary. The secretary wants to know why I haven’t filled in a new pupil registration form and an emergency contact form for Zoe. I tell her I haven’t received any forms.

  ‘I gave them to your husband,’ she says. ‘When he brought Zoe in for the open evening.’

  In June. Two months ago. I tell her to put new ones in the post and make sure the envelope is addressed to me. ‘I’ll get them back to you by the end of the week.’

  Spend the week with me. That’s what he said, Mark Bretherick or whoever he was, after I told him how long I was staying, that first night in the bar. He was also staying for a week. This time it’s a week, he said. Business. But I didn’t hear him cancelling any meetings, and he certainly didn’t go to any. I assumed he’d decided to abandon work in favour of me, but surely there would have been the odd phone call… I saw his mobile phone in his room, but I didn’t see him use it, not once.

  Oh, my God. I grip the edge of my desk with both hands. He changed rooms. From eleven to fifteen. He told me there was no hot water in his bathroom, but how likely is that in a three-hundred-pound-a-night hotel? I didn’t hear him talking to any of the hotel staff about it. One morning he just told me he’d changed. Upgraded. ‘I was in a “Classic” suite before,’ he said. ‘Now I’m in a “Romantic” one.’

  What if he had only ended up at Seddon Hall because he’d followed me? Because I looked so much like Geraldine. And then, because it was short notice, he couldn’t get the same room for a whole week…

  I can’t stand this any longer: not knowing anything, not doing anything. I turn off my computer, grab my bag and run out of the office.

  As soon as I’m in my car with the doors locked, I ring Esther. ‘About time,’ she says. ‘I was just deciding not to be your friend any more. The only thing that might change my mind is if you tell me what’s going on. You know how nosey I am-’

  ‘Esther, shut up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen, this is important, okay? I will tell you, but not now. I’m about to go to a place called Corn Mill House, to speak to somebody called Mark Bretherick.’

  ‘The one on the news, whose wife and daughter died?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure I’ll be fine, but if by any chance I don’t phone you within two hours to say I’m out of there and safe, phone the police, okay?’

  ‘Not okay. Sal, what the fucking hell is going on? If you think you can fob me off with-’

  ‘I promise I’ll explain everything later. Just, please, please, do this one thing for me.’

  ‘Has this got anything to do with Pam Senior?’

  ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Esther, you mustn’t say anything about this to Nick. Swear you won’t.’

 
‘Ring me in two hours or I’m calling the police,’ she says as if it was her idea. ‘And if you can’t explain or go into detail then, I’ll push you under a bus. All right?’

  ‘You’re a star.’

  I drop my phone on the passenger seat and head for Corn Mill House.

  Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723

  Case Ref: VN87

  OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra

  GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 2 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)

  20 April 2006, 10 p.m.

  I don’t think I’m going to be able to be friends with Cordy for much longer. Which is a shame, as she is one of the few people I like. She phoned me a couple of hours ago and told me she’s fallen in love with another man, someone with whom she has spent a total of two weekends. She says she knows it’s crazy but she’s only got one life and she wants to be with him. Dermot knows about it, apparently, and is devastated. I don’t blame him, I told her. Last year she insisted he have a vasectomy. He wasn’t keen but he did it for Cordy’s sake, so that she wouldn’t have to keep taking the pill.

  She said she couldn’t stay with Dermot just because he’d had ‘the snip’. ‘I’m not that self-sacrificing,’ she said. ‘Would you be?’

  I didn’t know what to say. I was thinking, Yes, I must be. For the past five years I have felt as if I’m trapped in a small chamber inside a submarine that’s lost its oxygen supply, and I’ve done nothing about it. I continue to do nothing about it. This evening I was in the kitchen chopping chorizo for supper, and Lucy came up behind me, wrapped her arms round my legs and started to sing a song she’d learned at school. Loudly. I felt that fluttery panic in my chest again, as if I’m a butterfly struggling to escape from a thick, closed fist. That’s how I always feel when Lucy throws her arms round me unexpectedly. I said, ‘Hello, darling, that’s a nice cuddle,’ as the old familiar scream started up in my head: no space, no calm, no choices, and this is going to last for ever…

  Eventually I told Cordy that, yes, in her position I would be self-sacrificing and stay. Her response was an anguished groan. I felt sorry for her, and was about to take back my words-how did I know what I would do?-when she said, ‘I don’t think I can stay. But… only seeing Oonagh at weekends, it’s going to break my heart.’

  Mine iced over as soon as I heard these words. ‘You mean… if you left you wouldn’t take Oonagh with you?’ I asked, trying to sound casual. And then it all came out: the ‘masterplan’. Cordy said that if she leaves Dermot she will let him keep Oonagh. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I took her away from him,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s not as if he can have more kids, is it? And it’s my fault. I’m the one who’s wrecking the marriage.’ She started crying then.

  Cordy is not stupid. I’m sure she will succeed in fooling everybody apart from me. Her leaving-when it happens, as it undoubtedly will-will have nothing to do with this new man and everything to do with her being desperate to shake off her child, to be free again. People talk about being ‘tied down’ in the context of marriage, or living with somebody, but that’s rubbish. Before we had Lucy, Mark and I were entirely free.

  The ingenious part is that no one will condemn Cordy for abandoning Oonagh. She will pretend she’s being self-sacrificing, putting Dermot’s needs before her own, heart-broken to be separated from her precious daughter.

  ‘I’m sure Dermot would still let me see Oonagh a lot,’ she sobbed. ‘She can stay with me every weekend, and in the holidays. Maybe we could even do fifty-fifty, and Oonagh could have two homes.’

  ‘A lot of men wouldn’t want to be the main one to look after a child,’ I told her, thinking of Mark, who would be hopeless. I don’t think he’s ever prepared a meal for Lucy. Or for anyone, come to think of it. ‘Are you sure Dermot does? Maybe he’d prefer Oonagh to live with you as long as he could have access whenever he wanted.’

  Cordy said, ‘No, Dermot’s not like that. He’s a brilliant father. He’s done everything, right from the start. We’ve shared all the childcare, everything. I know he’d want Oonagh to stay with him.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, feeling my chest fill with white-hot envy. That was when I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it. If Cordy escapes and starts a whole new life, if she manages to discard Oonagh and look like a saintly martyr in the process, I won’t ever be able to speak to her again.

  4

  8/7/07

  ‘There’s been a development.’ Sam Kombothekra addressed the whole team but his eyes kept swerving back to Simon. ‘I’ve just taken a call from a Sue Slater, a legal secretary for a firm of solicitors in Rawndesley that specialises in family law. Two weeks before Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick’s bodies were found, Mrs Slater took a call from a Geraldine Bretherick, who gave her name and asked to be put through to a lawyer. Mrs Slater didn’t think anything of it until she heard the name on the news. It was an unusual name so it stuck in her mind.’

  ‘Kombothekra’s an unusual name,’ said Inspector Giles Proust. ‘There must be thousands of Brethericks.’ The sergeant laughed nervously and Proust looked gratified.

  ‘Apparently Mrs Bretherick asked to speak to “somebody who deals with divorces, custody cases, that sort of thing”-that’s a word-for-word quote. When Mrs Slater asked her if she needed to engage a lawyer’s services herself, she seemed to lose her nerve. She said it didn’t matter and put the phone down. Mrs Slater said she nearly didn’t ring in, but in the end she thought she ought to, just in case it turned out to be important.’

  ‘Very public-spirited of her.’ The Snowman leaned against the wall of the CID room, passing his mobile phone from one hand to the other. Every few seconds he glanced at its screen. His wife Lizzie was away all week on a cookery course. Proust had allowed her to go-it was the first time in thirty years that she’d left the marital home for more than one night, he’d told Simon-on the condition that she ‘kept in touch’. ‘I’m sure she will, sir,’ Simon had said, resisting the urge to add, ‘I believe they have telephones in Harrogate.’ Lizzie had left yesterday morning, since when the Snowman had been keeping in touch with a frequency that amounted to surveillance. He’d phoned Lizzie five times yesterday and three times today. And those were only the calls Simon had witnessed, calls with no purpose other than to track Lizzie’s movements, as far as Simon could make out. ‘She’s in her hotel room,’ Proust would mutter darkly every so often, or, ‘She’s in a shop buying a sweatshirt. Apparently it’s chilly there.’ Because Proust was Proust, the responding words ‘We don’t give a shit’ went unspoken.

  To the left of the inspector’s bald head was a large rectangular whiteboard on to which Geraldine Bretherick’s suicide note had been transcribed. Below it, also in black marker pen, someone had copied out the letter that had been posted in PC Robbie Meakin’s box at Spilling Post Office: ‘Please forward this to whoever is investigating the deaths of Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick. It’s possible that the man shown on the news last night who is meant to be Mark Bretherick is not Mark Bretherick. You need to look into it and make sure he’s who he says he is. Sorry I can’t say more.’

  Proust had been cagey about how this note had made its way to his desk from Spilling Post Office. Simon didn’t doubt for a second that Charlie had passed it on. Which meant she’d chosen to go to Proust instead of him. So how come Simon hated the whole world at the moment apart from her?

  ‘Well, Sergeant?’ Proust asked Kombothekra. ‘Is Mrs Slater’s contribution important?’

  ‘It is, sir. At least, I believe it is. It’s possible Geraldine Bretherick wanted to leave Mark Bretherick and phoned this law firm-Ellingham Sandler-for that reason. Because she wanted to find out, before she initiated anything, what her chances were of getting custody of Lucy.’

  ‘Would she have wanted custody?’ asked Proust. ‘On the basis of the laptop diary, I’d say not.’

  ‘She talks about her friend Cordy leaving her husband and letting hi
m keep their daughter,’ said Chris Gibbs, rubbing his thick gold wedding ring with the fingers of his right hand. ‘Might there be a connection there?’ Gibbs had got married a little over a year ago. Ever since, he had turned up at work each day with a strange gloss on his thick dark hair, and wearing clothes that smelled, in Simon’s opinion, like those colourful plastic devices you sometimes saw in toilet bowls, designed to replace foul smells with aggressive floral ones that were even more offensive.

  ‘You mean Geraldine might have been phoning on Cordy’s behalf?’ said Colin Sellers, scratching one of his bushy sideburns. If he didn’t watch out, they’d take over his entire face. Simon thought of the dark green plant that clung to the walls of Corn Mill House.

  ‘Was it you who spoke to Mrs O’Hara, Waterhouse?’

  Simon inclined his head in Proust’s direction. Since Kombothekra had taken over from Charlie, Simon had made a point of saying as little as possible in team meetings. No one had noticed; it was a protest with no audience, specially designed for minimum effect.

  ‘Speak to her, again. Find out if she changed her mind about letting her husband keep the daughter to appease her guilt and asked Geraldine Bretherick to phone a lawyer for her.’

  Simon allowed his scorn to show on his face. Cordy O’Hara wasn’t timid or inert. She’d have phoned a lawyer herself.

  ‘I didn’t mean that, sir,’ said Gibbs. ‘Geraldine was envious of Mrs O’Hara being able to get shot of her daughter-she said so in the diary, explicitly. Maybe it inspired her to try the same thing.’