No Child of Mine (41 page)

‘Nice friendly ones, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And snakes and pandas and tortoises. They’ve got all sorts of animals at Dean Valley zoo. They’ve even got a baby elephant. I expect you’d like to see him, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, and Boots?’

‘Of course Boots can come too. We’d never go anywhere without him, would we?’

Ottilie was shaking her head as Alex pushed open the front door and set her down in the hall. ‘We’re back,’ she called out.

Erica Wade appeared from the kitchen still dressed in black, but her hair was clipped neatly behind her head now, and her eyes seemed calmer, even if they were ringed in dark shadows.

‘She’s had a nap,’ Alex told her, ‘and a snack. We went to the aquarium, which she’ll tell you about.’

‘Thank you,’ Erica responded. ‘Run upstairs and take off your coat,’ she said to Ottilie. ‘And go to the bathroom if you need to.’

No warm embrace to welcome her home, no physical or emotional contact at all. Was it any wonder Ottilie wanted to stay with someone who showed her affection? If it were allowed Alex knew she’d take her home right now and keep her for the whole weekend, but alas it wasn’t.

‘Has your husband managed to make another appointment with the psychiatrist yet?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I don’t know. He hasn’t rung.’

And I wonder, would you answer the phone if he did?
‘I’m going to try reaching him when I get back to the car,’ Alex said. ‘If I don’t manage it perhaps you could ask him to call me. I’ll have my phone on over the weekend.’

‘I’ll tell him.’

‘The same goes for you,’ Alex told her. ‘If you need me for any reason, please feel free to call.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m here to help you,’ Alex reminded her. ‘I know it might not seem like that sometimes, but it’s the truth, and I’m a good listener if you ever feel the need to open up to someone.’

Erica’s expression was unreadable, but Alex could tell she was listening. ‘Thank you,’ she said in the end. ‘I’ll have Ottilie ready at the same time on Monday.’

Not bothering to remind her, yet again, that she should be doing the nursery run herself, Alex simply said, ‘OK. And do ask her about the fishes. She was fascinated by them.’

When Erica didn’t respond Alex glanced up the stairs, and spotting Ottilie peering between the banister rails she gave her a wave.

Ottilie’s little fist clenched and unclenched a couple of times and Alex had to fight back the urge to go up and get her. What was her weekend going to be like in this morbid house? Lonely, isolated, shut up in her room for most of the time with no other children to play with? If only she could take her to Gabby’s to meet the twins, or shopping in Kesterly, or for more rides on the carousel. There were a hundred things they could do together, but none of them could happen without her parents’ permission and besides, it wouldn’t be good for either of them to become even more attached than they already were. ‘See you Monday,’ she said with a smile, and forcing herself to turn away she cast Erica a despairing look, and left.

Erica was watching her own hand as it drew a small package from Ottilie’s bag, except it wasn’t her hand. To her it seemed vast and rough, with black hairs on the skin and wounded, crooked joints at the knuckles.

It was her stepfather’s hand, growing out of her wrist.

She tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t go.

Panicking, she grabbed a knife, ready to chop it off, but before she struck it transformed into her hand again.

Sweat was beading on her face; her breath was ragged and short. She couldn’t think where she was. Nothing seemed familiar. She looked around, her eyes glittering
with confusion, her heart thudding hard in her chest. Then she saw the silver-foil package she’d dropped on the floor and everything slipped into focus again.

‘Ottilie! Ottilie, come here,
now
,’ she shouted, almost screamed.

Ottilie came down the stairs as fast as she could, and ran into the kitchen.

‘What’s this?’ Erica cried, her face twitching, spittle foaming at the corners of her mouth. ‘Where did you get it? You stole it, didn’t you?’

Ottilie’s eyes were wide with fear as she shook her head.

‘Yes you did, you stole it, you wicked child.’

‘No, no, Lex gave them ...’

‘Don’t lie. I hate liars.’

Ottilie was starting to shake.

Erica pushed the package in her face.

‘What’s going on?’ Brian demanded, coming in the door. ‘What are you shouting about?’

‘She’s a thief,’ Erica shrieked at him. ‘I found this in her bag – well
that’s
what we’ll do with it,’ she snarled, and opening the bin she dumped the package inside.

Without asking what had been in it, Brian looked at Ottilie so sternly that she cowered away. ‘Did you steal something?’ he asked gravely.

Ottilie shook her head. ‘No, Lex gave me them.’

‘Are you lying?’

‘No,’ she sobbed.

He sighed in a despairing way. ‘Oh dear, Ottilie,’ he said, ‘you know what happens to little girls who lie and steal, don’t you?’

‘No, didn’t lie or steal.’

‘And little girls who answer back.’

Ottilie immediately hung her head.

‘They have to be spanked, don’t they?’ he said, making it sound like an awful chore. ‘So come along with me.’

As he took her by the hand, Erica stood watching them, her eyes glittering with a wild malice. ‘You’re going to get what you deserve,’ she shouted, as he led Ottilie outside.
You’re going to get what you deserve ... get what you deserve ... get what you deserve
. The words were like zombies rising
from graves.
You’re going to get what you deserve because you’re a lying, thieving little bitch
.

It was almost seven o’clock in the evening and being in no hurry to go into the empty Vicarage, Alex was still outside in the car, checking the texts she’d heard pinging into both her mobiles while driving home. For someone who felt as though she had no one in the world, she seemed to be getting a lot of messages, she was thinking wryly as she opened the first. Seeing it was confirmation of the appointment she’d made for the following day to view a room in a shared house, about a mile from the seafront, she felt the black hole of her future yawning even wider. Not since she’d been a student had she lived like that, but she had to be realistic, it was probably all she could afford, and the ad had described the other residents as young professionals so maybe it would help to broaden her horizons.

It didn’t surprise her to find that the next message was from Tommy, reminding her that she was welcome to drop in on him and Jackie any time over the weekend.
And don’t worry too much about Ottilie Wade
, he’d added.
You’re doing a great job and you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get involved
.

‘If I thought you wanted off the case it might be different,’ he’d said an hour or so ago, when she’d gone to the office to discuss how concerned she was about her attachment to Ottilie, ‘but I know you don’t and I’m glad for it, because it sounds as though she’s built up a confidence in you that she doesn’t seem to have in anyone else. It would do her more harm than good to jeopardise it at this stage.’

Thankful to hear this, Alex had said, ‘I finally managed to get hold of Brian Wade on the way here. He apologised profusely – most unlike him – for cancelling the appointment with the psychiatrist, but apparently he’s made another for the week after next. It’s a Thursday, so I’m going to try to swap one of Ottilie’s nursery days so I don’t have to take any more time out of my schedule to look after her.’

‘OK. Have you broached the subject of a nanny with either of them yet?’

‘No, I don’t think I’ll get anywhere with it until we know
what the psychiatrist has to say about the mother, so the sooner we get his report, the better.’

Tommy nodded agreement. ‘Any more news from your friendly policeman up north?’

‘No, but I’m pretty confident he’ll be in touch the minute he finds anything he thinks we should know.’

‘And the paediatrician’s all lined up, you say. I take it she’s going to carry out a virginity test?’

Feeling the horror of it hitting her, Alex said, ‘I’m hoping for a positive result, in that everything’s still intact.’ She didn’t have to point out to Tommy that if a child that age had been subjected to penetration often enough there would no longer be any bruising, because Tommy already knew that. He also knew that a little girl’s vagina was elastic enough to allow penetration more easily than most people realised. However, it would still be a brutally agonising experience in the early stages that, in her opinion, any perpetrator ought to be castrated for.

‘Is she showing any signs of masturbation?’ Tommy asked bluntly.

Alex shook her head. In spite of having done the job as long as she had, it still sickened her to think of a young child being sexually awoken to a point that he or she began behaving like an adult. ‘All I can tell you,’ she said, ‘is that her drawings aren’t suggesting anything unusual, and apart from holding herself when she wants to go to the toilet, I’ve never seen her touching herself down there.’

Thank God, she was thinking now as she scrolled on to her next message, because at least it afforded her some hope that nothing sexual was going on at Ottilie’s home. However, it wasn’t nearly enough to sweep away her suspicions – only the paediatrician could do that when she gave her report.

Seeing a text from Mattie, she almost groaned aloud. She’d totally forgotten to call her back after picking up a voicemail from her earlier saying, ‘Amazing news, you’re a genius. Call me as soon as you can.’

Guessing it must be about the idea they’d put to the local council several months ago of doing a
Mulgrove’s Got Talent
contest, she decided the call back could wait until
she was in the house with a drink in her hand. So she clicked on to the last message, and as soon as she saw who it was from her heart turned inside out.

Hi, just to say thinking of you. Hope you’re OK. Love Jx

As her head fell back against the seat she tried to think why he’d have done that, unless he was genuinely thinking of her, and maybe even missing her too. He’d used the word love, but did he really mean that, or was it just habit, something he’d added without thinking? And now what was she supposed to do? Text back to say yes, I’m fine, btw did you know your wife’s having another affair? Maybe he did know and that was why he was texting her. Suddenly convinced that was the case, she felt a burn of outrage and immediately sent a sharp message back saying
Please don’t text again. You made your decision, now we both have to live with it
.

No sooner had it gone than she wanted to take it back, but it was too late now, it had probably already reached his phone.

That is so like you, Alexandra
, she could hear Myra saying.
Act in haste, regret at leisure. If only you could learn to think first you might save yourself, and others, a lot of trouble
.

Not particularly enjoying the ghostly echo of the frequent reprimand, she got out of the car and went into the house. After pouring herself a glass of beer she decided she might as well get the rest of her messages over with, and hit the playback button on the answerphone.

The first, as she’d expected, was from Gabby, letting her know that she had accepted Mr Quigley’s offer subject to a couple of conditions, one of them being vacant possession on completion. ‘He’s not saying he wants you to leave straight away,’ Gabby assured her, ‘but obviously he won’t want you there once he’s signed and ready to send in the builders. That probably won’t happen for another couple of months, so no panic. We need to talk about Mum and Dad’s stuff, though. I thought maybe you could give all the clothes to a charity shop and I’ll arrange to come up and get the papers and jewellery and stuff. Anyway, call me when you get home and we can have a chat about it then.’

Abruptly erasing the message, as though in some way it might make the whole horrible, unthinkable situation go away, she took another sip of her beer as the machine skipped on to the next call. Since it was a voice she didn’t recognise, she assumed it was a telemarketer and was about to erase that one too when her heartbeat started to slow as she realised who it was.

Quickly going back to the top she pressed play again, and had to put her glass down as she listened carefully to what was being said.

‘I’m afraid I don’t like leaving messages,’ the croaky voice told her, ‘but it seems I must, so here goes. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last couple of weeks to tell you ... It’s Helen Drake here, by the way ...’
Helen Drake her great-aunt, her grandfather’s sister
. ‘You told me once that I was to let you know if I had any news of your mother. Well, I have, so if you’d like to call me back on this number ...’ Alex was so unprepared for this that she couldn’t even fumble for a pen, much less register the number. It didn’t matter, she could always play the message again. ‘I’m at home most of the time these days,’ her great-aunt continued, ‘unlike you, it would seem. I shall wait to hear from you.’

Without giving herself a moment to think, Alex replayed the message, wrote down the number and started to dial. It was only as the call was about to connect that she heard Myra’s warning,
Act in haste, regret at leisure
, and realising she had to give herself some time to think, deal with the shock even, she quickly hung up again.

Turning to the window, she gazed at the ghostly reflection of herself that seemed to hover over the garden, and had an eerie sensation of her mother looking at her from the past. She was shaking, she realised, feeling as though she wanted to run, though to where, or even to whom, she had no idea. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to wish, yearn for her mother to be in touch, that trying to face it now was almost surreal. And shocking, even frightening, though she wasn’t sure what she needed to fear.

Apart from her father, of course.

Her great-aunt hadn’t mentioned him, but that didn’t
mean she wasn’t going to speak of him when Alex rang back.