Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (23 page)

When I tell him Kate’s in hospital he doesn’t say a word. Nothing. Just follows me out of the room and down the stairs. I walk into the kitchen and realize it still smells a bit sour from where Kate was sick … and there’s the unpleasant, foul odour from the other thing … but Fergus doesn’t comment. He sits himself at the kitchen island, looks straight ahead and waits for me to put something down in front of him.

‘What do you usually have?’ I ask pleasantly. ‘Weetabix? Rice Krispies?’

‘Porridge.’

I frown. ‘Every day?’

He nods, without emotion.

‘Porridge it is then.’

I’m opening and closing cupboards. Kate’s kitchen has around four times the storage space of mine. Each cupboard is beautifully organized and spotlessly clean inside. It takes me some time to find both the porridge (I’m looking for a blue box – Quaker Oats or Scott’s – but instead I discover it’s in a brown-paper bag, an organic, steel-cut variety I’ve never heard of) and then I have to deal with the baffling choice of pans.

‘How much sugar do you like?’ I ask Fergus while I’m stirring the stuff, which seems to be taking far longer than it should.

‘Mummy sweetens it with honey and blueberries.’

I smile at Fergus, because, of course she does.

‘Would you like to get those out, and you can put them on yourself?’

He jumps off the stool, looking so small in this huge space. I glance over as he stands in front of the fridge and – you know when you hear those stories of children getting locked in freezers and ovens, and you think, Is that even possible? Looking at Fergus now, I can see how it is. He’s such a tiny, skinny thing he could easily climb inside and go unnoticed. His brown hair is sticking up vertically on his crown after his sleep. It’s accentuating the flatness of the back of his skull, giving him an elfin, almost pointed head from this angle.

‘Fergus,’ I say carefully, ‘has your daddy gone away somewhere?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Was he here last night … when you went to bed?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘You saw him, then?’

‘Yes.’

I pause, deciding whether to push this further, whether it’s right to question a seven-year-old this way. ‘Fergus … did your mummy and daddy have an argument last night?’

He bites his lip, reaches inside the fridge for the blueberries, then casts me an uneasy look.

I make my voice soft, sympathetic-sounding, and go back to stirring so I don’t appear confrontational. ‘Did you hear them shouting?’ I ask him.

‘A bit,’ he says, reluctantly.

I smile and roll my eyes, make a gentle smacking sound with my lips, as if to say,
Grown-ups, eh?

After a moment I nudge a little further. ‘Sorry to be nosey, Fergus … it’s just we could really do with finding your daddy … and I’m not sure where he is. Did he tell you if he was going out? Did he mention anywhere he had to be last night?’

He closes the fridge and says, ‘No,’ firmly.

As well as the honey and the blueberries, Fergus is surreptitiously carrying a small packet of Cadbury’s Buttons – which I’m guessing are usually off limits at breakfast time. He puts them on the table and guiltily covers them with his hand when he sees me eyeing them.

I spoon the porridge into a bowl and carry it over.

‘It’s a bit hot,’ I say gently, and lean over to blow on it a couple of times.

Fergus looks up at me. ‘Daddy never tells us when he’s going for a sleepover,’ he says. ‘That’s why Mummy gets upset.’

I take a step back, conscious that my face is registering shock, that my mouth has gaped open. I can’t think quite what to say.

I whisper: ‘Do you know where he goes, Fergus? Does he ever tell you where he goes?’

And Fergus opens his eyes wide before going to speak. Then
the front door slams and we hear footsteps. Instinctively, I put my arm around Fergus’s shoulders, just as Guy appears in the doorway. He’s unshaven and his eyes appear sunken and bloodshot. He tosses his hair out of his eyes rather dramatically and fixes me with a chilling stare.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks. ‘And where the hell is Kate?’

29

‘D
O YOU HAVE ANY
idea why your wife would have taken an overdose, Mr Riverty?’

Joanne has been at the house for less than a minute but she can see all is not as she’d expected to find it. First off, why is Guy Riverty not at his wife’s bedside? Second, why is Lisa Kallisto here at this hour, washing a pan of porridge as if her life depends upon it?

Guy Riverty sits at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. He looks like he’s still in yesterday’s clothes and as if he’s not slept for over a week. He rubs his face, exhales long and hard and answers Joanne’s question with: ‘She thinks our daughter’s dead. She’s not in the best of spirits. How would you be?’

Lisa moves from the sink and dries her hands on a tea towel. Then she begins wringing it in her fingers. Joanne looks to her. ‘You found her?’

She nods. She’s uncomfortable. As if she’s embarrassed to be here. Her mouth is set in a thin line of tension.

‘Can we continue with the questions once I’ve got Fergus out of the way? He doesn’t know yet. He doesn’t know what his mother has done.’

Joanne asks, ‘Is there anyone who can run him to school—’

‘I will,’ Lisa jumps in quickly.

‘Anyone else?’ Joanne could do with keeping Lisa here for the
time being. The woman is skittish in the extreme, and Joanne senses it’s not just about the overdose. She takes out her notepad.

Guy looks to Lisa. ‘Have you rung Kate’s sister yet?’

Lisa gives her head a quick shake. ‘I didn’t know the number.’

‘It’s 35648. Can you call her? Ask her to come here right away?’ Lisa doesn’t answer, just marches out quickly.

‘So, Mr Riverty,’ Joanne begins.

‘ “Guy” is fine.’

‘Guy, then.’ She pauses briefly. ‘Been somewhere, have you?’

He doesn’t answer.

‘Where were you last night?’

‘I was here.’

‘What about three thirty yesterday afternoon? Where were you then?’

‘I’ve already given a statement about this,’ he says irritably, and Joanne keeps her face blank as if she’s unaware of his point. ‘If you’re asking me where I was when that other girl went missing, I was here. With Kate. She’s told the police. She’s said that I was here with her.’

‘Anyone else see you?’

‘Yes – no – maybe. There are people coming and going from here all the time. If you hadn’t noticed, our daughter is missing.’

‘Perhaps you can have a think for me, see if you can’t come up with another person –
other than your wife
, that is – who saw you here.’

Joanne jots down today’s date in her notepad.

‘Am I being accused of something?’

She looks up at him, smiles. ‘Not yet,’ she says.

‘So why are you asking me the same questions I was asked yesterday?’

‘Because the person who provided your alibi, Mr Riverty, has just tried to take her own life.’ She tilts her head to one side.
‘Perhaps she might not make the same statement when she recovers?’

‘I was here,’ he says firmly.

‘Mind if I have a look around?’

‘Help yourself – just don’t get Fergus worked up. He’s in his bedroom and, like I said, he doesn’t know about his mother. He thinks she’s unwell.’ He rubs his face again with his hands, muttering, ‘Fuck,’ emphatically under his breath.

‘I’ll be discreet,’ Joanne whispers.

She enters the hallway and finds Lisa Kallisto standing staring at the telephone as if she’s not quite with it.

‘You okay?’ Joanne asks.

‘Bit shaken,’ she replies. ‘That wasn’t an easy call to make … to Kate’s sister.’

Joanne nods sympathetically. ‘I bet not. She’s on her way, is she?’

‘Yeah. God, poor family, they must wonder whatever’s coming next.’

‘How was it that you came to find her? I got your message by the way, about the dog—’

‘Sorry?’ she says, and stares at Joanne blankly. Then it dawns on her. ‘Oh, yes, Bluey. Christ, I’d forgotten all about that. That’s what I’d come round here for – to speak to Kate to see if she knew the bloke who’d taken him. You know, to see if it rang any bells with her. I thought … maybe … I just thought that he could be—’ She exhales. ‘I don’t know what I thought,’ she admits. ‘I certainly didn’t think I’d find what I did, that’s for sure.’

‘Why do you think she did it?’

‘Kate?’

‘Mmm.’

She shrugs. ‘All got too much for her. That would be my guess. I mean,
how do
you cope when something like this happens? I suppose the answer is you don’t.’

‘She took antidepressants, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she seem depressed to you?’

‘Never. But don’t read too much into that. Seems everyone’s on them nowadays. Well, everyone except me. When I told my doctor I thought I might be depressed, he told me I was just pissed off … there’s a difference, apparently.’

Joanne smiles. ‘Sounds like we’ve got the same GP. Maybe you should tell me about the man and the dog?’

‘Seems a bit daft now, after this—’ Lisa sweeps her arm out wide and gestures towards Kate Riverty’s kitchen.

‘Tell me anyway.’

She describes the circumstances of the missing Bedlington Terrier to Joanne and how desperate she was to rehome him, and how she thought her prayers had been answered by the guy in the pinstripe trousers and—

Joanne stops taking notes and looks up. ‘Pinstripes, you say?’

‘Yes, he was very smart. Expensive. Not my usual kind of customer.’

‘How old?’

‘Mid-thirties.’

‘Good-looking?’

Lisa blows out her breath. ‘And
then some
.’

‘You get his name?’

‘Charles Lafferty.’

‘I don’t suppose you got an address? Phone number?’

Lisa drops her head slightly. ‘I was going to do all that when he brought Bluey back. I know it’s probably coincidental and it’s really no use to you … but I thought if I could tell Kate about him she might recognize him from the description or something. Too late now.’

‘It’s not useless. Everything helps.’

Joanne flips her notepad shut and leans in close towards Lisa.
Nodding her head in the direction of Guy Riverty in the kitchen, she whispers, ‘Has he told you where he was last night?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘What do you think he’s up to?’

‘No idea.’

Joanne heads upstairs to talk to the boy.

DS Ron Quigley meets Joanne at the hospital. Kate Riverty’s not conscious yet, but she’s alive.

Ron hands Joanne a strong tea in a polystyrene cup from the WRVS shop. Joanne senses Ron’s been entertaining the two old dears behind the desk with tales of macho policing, as they seem quite giggly and flushed when she arrives. They are both easily in their eighties, and one is wearing a wig pulled a little too low on her forehead. The other has one of those swollen, soft lady-bellies which jiggles under her velour dress as she speaks.

‘Thank you, girls,’ Ron says, smiling, charming them. ‘Keep up the good work now.’

‘We will, Detective!’ they chorus.

Ron and Joanne move into the main foyer area. It’s hot, stifling, as hospitals are, and Joanne removes her parka and slings it over her elbow. She’s conscious of her blouse gaping and tries to draw her cardigan closed, even though she feels heady from the heat.

‘What’s your best guess, then?’ Ron asks her, meaning what does she make of Kate Riverty’s suicide attempt?

Joanne goes to speak but spies a reporter she’s seen knocking around outside the Riverty house. The woman gets up on seeing Joanne, one of her high heels scraping across the floor as she does so, and rushes towards her. Joanne’s dealt with the reporter before. She’s a pushy, awkward type, who misquoted Joanne about an arson attack once, and Joanne has no interest in talking to her now.

Joanne signals to Ron with her eyes and they move quickly away, along the hallway, down towards the X-ray room before she answers his question.

‘I think she lied for him, gave him the alibi, then couldn’t cope with knowing he was involved. He didn’t find her after she took the pills; the friend did. And he didn’t come home last night … so where was he? He didn’t want to tell me, got pretty defensive actually.’

‘So you want to bring him in?’

‘I think we should.’

‘On what basis? There’s nothing to charge him with. There’s no evidence of him kidnapping his own kid, even if he is a shifty bastard—’

‘I don’t know, Ron. Something stinks.’

They hear a noise like a power tool starting up and pause, glancing into the plaster room to their right. A kid is having the cast taken off his leg and looks like he’s about to pass out with fear. The technician is trying to get him to understand that the plaster saw does not cut through skin, but the child is not convinced. Neither is his mother.

‘You’ve spoke to the medics?’ Joanne asks Ron as they move on down the hallway.

‘Yeah, reckon she’s going to be fine. Pills weren’t in her system long enough to do any real damage.’

‘When can we talk to her?’

‘Soon as she’s awake. That could be this afternoon, though. Might be best to head back, bring Guy Riverty in now, and speak to his missus later. Probably more time-effective that way.’

Joanne drains the rest of her tea and looks back and forth along the corridor, trying to locate a bin. ‘Do you think she really meant to die, Ron, or are we looking at a cry for help here?’

Ron shrugs. ‘I always think it’s a cry for help unless they
manage to pull it off. You want to do it, you do it. The people that really want to go through with it, they make sure it’s going to work and hang themselves.’

‘Hanging’s too violent for women to contemplate, Ron.’

‘Effective, though.’

Joanne shakes her head. ‘Remind me never to come to you when I’m feeling depressed.’

‘What?’ Ron says, pretending to look hurt. ‘I’ve been told I’m a very good listener.’

30

I
’
M AT HOME
, in the shower, washing my body after leaving Kate’s. My clothes are in the washer on a hot cycle and Joe is sat on the toilet (fully clothed, seat down), speculating on Kate’s state of mind.