Out of Sight (20 page)

They agreed they must visit Daniel's childminder, Christine, and walked there together. She showed them into her small front room, which looked threadbare without the usual run-around mess of busy children, and, as if she had been waiting for a signal, almost immediately broke down. ‘I should have realised something was wrong,' she wept. ‘That you would have rung me if there'd been some glitch. I should have done something. Not just assumed. Got hold of Belinda at work. Something.'

Convinced that Christine could only recoil from his pariah's touch, Patrick withheld the healer's impulse to reach out to her. She looked at him tearfully. ‘If only I'd done more. I'm so sorry. I hope you forgive me,' she said with dignity.

Her innocent sorrow almost made him swoon, but, bracing himself against his own emotion, he spoke firmly. ‘Christine, you must never think like that. You left messages for me. I am solely to blame for what happened. You did all you could.'

Belinda gave a small nod of assent – he had done the right thing. Christine looked at him doubtfully, but he could see, as he had often observed with his patients, that she was ready to accept absolution.

‘Daniel loved coming here,' he told her.

‘He was such a cutie-pie,' she agreed.

They sat awkwardly, with little else to say. As they got up to go, Belinda handed over an envelope containing some money Christine was owed. ‘It helps no one for you to be
out of pocket,' Belinda murmured, pressing it into her hands. ‘And there's a photo in there I thought you might like to keep,' she added, making it gracefully impossible for Christine to do anything but accept with thanks.

‘Did you notice,' Belinda remarked as they left the house together, ‘that she'd tidied away every single toy? Trying to save our feelings, probably.'

Before they walked away, she looked back wistfully, and Patrick guessed her thoughts: despite the intimate connections between Daniel and this house, they had no reason ever to come here again. Indeed, if truth be told, they were likely to be unwanted visitors, trailing with them as they now did such unwelcome knowledge of the world.

As they wound their way home through the Edwardian terraced streets, they passed several women pushing children in buggies or unlocking front doors with shopping bags at their feet and a child balanced on one hip. Patrick's gaze ran over them without interest: none of them was Daniel.

‘There's something I need to understand,' said Belinda suddenly. ‘About Geoffrey, when he told you to get rid of Daniel.'

‘He didn't mean any harm,' said Patrick automatically.

‘I need you to explain why it doesn't make you angry.'

He sighed. ‘I'm used to him, I suppose.'

‘I wanted to strike him down for it.'

‘It's his anxiety. He can't bear it when Maman gets anxious, that's all. He's worse than her.'

‘But it must make you feel
something
?'

‘You can't blame Dad, Belinda.'

‘I'm not. I'm trying to make sense of what happened to you. Was it about Geoffrey?'

‘I don't know. I don't know that it was about anything.'

‘There has to be a reason.'

‘Maybe there isn't. I've gone over and over and over. I wish I could tell you some reason, but I can't.'

‘I have to understand what went on inside you that morning. You would never have just left Daniel. There is an explanation, some key to this, I know there is.'

Patrick focused on the distant glitter of sea between the houses, fighting the urge to run.

‘Help me, Patrick. If I can't make some sense of it, I'm lost.'

It took every bit of strength he possessed, but he stopped and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. It was the first time he had touched her since he had driven away that morning, a mere few days earlier, but she did not flinch.

‘Just give me time,' he beseeched her. ‘I'll try, I promise. I'll do anything you want. I'll do my best to help you. I will. But right now I don't understand anything.'

Her answering look was unfathomable, and he suddenly realised that, though he loved her dearly, there were aspects of his wife that he barely knew; that, despite the ways in which he understood his patients and their troubles, there were aspects of other people he would never know.

*

‘When will you start seeing patients again?' Belinda asked that evening as, without appetite, they picked diligently at the supper Patrick had made. Evenings were difficult, each feeling Daniel's loss delineated by the absence of the familiar routines of his supper, bath and bedtime. There was no reason to stay in alone, yet neither of them could imagine wanting or enjoying those activities – a meal out, a movie, a drink with friends – previously restricted by parenthood. ‘We're going to need the money soon. My salary's not enough,' Belinda went on. ‘You can't afford to put it off too long,' she added carefully. ‘There might be some people who won't come back.'

Patrick wondered, but didn't say, if
any
patients would choose to see him again. Though the police had so far kept the tragedy from the local media, word had obviously spread among Patrick and Belinda's colleagues and professional contacts, and beyond. Patrick had not told Belinda that he had already received two anonymous letters calling him a monster, a murderer, unfit to be anywhere near a child ever again. When, unsuspecting, he had opened the first, his reaction had been to laugh in horror and agree with the writer's sentiments, since his judgement of himself was much the same. When the second envelope bearing unfamiliar handwriting appeared on the mat, he had initially been tempted to destroy it unread. But he'd torn it open and scanned its contents. It had taken a slightly different tack, accusing him of resenting his son so much that he sadistically inflicted horrible suffering on him,
treating him worse than a dog on such a sweltering July day. Even though both letters had been addressed to him, he was careful now always to vet the post before she could reach it.

Patrick had been depressed by the despairing lives that must surely have lain behind the mailing of such spite. Wasn't there enough cruelty in the world without taking the trouble to manufacture yet more? Such evidence of random hate made him chary of returning to work. Trust was essential between a homeopath and his patients, and if he himself was riven with doubt about how people now regarded him, then the bond necessary to healing might be impossible. But he couldn't explain any of this to Belinda.

‘You're right,' he told her. ‘I'm seeing the police psychologist on Monday. Maybe I can discuss it with her.'

She seemed content with this, and said no more. Patrick collected their plates and went to fill the sink with hot water – a reversal of their domestic convention, which was that whoever had cooked did not also wash up.

Belinda elbowed him aside. ‘I'll do them.'

‘Don't worry. It's fine.'

‘You made the pasta.'

‘So? Let me do it.'

‘Stop it!' she exploded. ‘For God's sake, act normally!'

‘I'm only trying to—'

‘Well don't!' She pushed him roughly out of the way. ‘Stop trying! Just let me do the fucking washing up!'

‘I have to do
something
.'

‘No, you don't.' She grabbed wildly for the plastic brush. ‘There's
nothing
you can do. That's just it. That's what you have to live with. There is nothing now that you can do. It's all too fucking late.'

She flung the brush into the soapy water and slammed out of the kitchen. Then, from the sitting room, for the first time since Daniel's death ten days before, Patrick heard the sound of her violin. Her playing was awful, jerky and off-key, reflecting the way she drew breath in jabbing bursts. After a while, during which he finished the dishes, her breathing eased and the melody began to flow after a fashion. The music was hardly her best effort, but clearly marked some moment of transition and release. Patrick took it as a sign that Belinda might yet survive this tragedy. His instinct was to leave her alone but, remembering what she had just yelled at him, decided he must simply enter the room and sit listening until she finished playing, just as he would have done ‘normally'. As he crossed the hallway he was struck by how absurd it was no longer to possess a natural unconsciousness about how to act. That too was forfeit.

Belinda ignored his entrance. She turned the pages on the music stand and began playing the piece again from the beginning, as she always did after a poor performance. Patrick sat on the sofa and listened, but his mind wandered as it began to dawn on him that the true damnation of what he had done lay in the simple repetition of days that lay ahead.

He remembered a tale he had once heard about animals
trained to lead others calmly into the slaughterhouse. A Judas goat had no choice but to go on living amidst the flock, the only one to hold the secret of what the future held for its fellows, and alone with the knowledge that, to secure its own survival, it must repeat its betrayal. How did such an animal live out its days? Patrick still hoped for legal punishment, though he knew that his wish, like the temptation of suicide, was selfish. Belinda had given no sign that his imprisonment would relieve her in any way, and, however much a gaol sentence might assuage some tiny part of his own guilt, he couldn't wish for something that would inevitably further complicate her life. He struggled not to dramatise his predicament, not to concentrate on himself, but he wished he knew how to go on living. He had never imagined the answer to such a simple question could be so impenetrable.

Patrick arrived early for his first meeting with Amanda Skipton, the police-appointed forensic psychologist. The tattered magazines and random signage about disabled access, toilets and abusive behaviour towards staff all seemed faintly derelict, yet the waiting area smelt incongruously of fresh paint. He was rather surprised to discover that he was almost eager to relate again to a stranger the events preceding Daniel's death – events he already turned over constantly in his mind – longing to believe that speaking his endless questions aloud might grant him some momentary peace. Amanda came to summon him from the reception area. She was younger than he had pictured her. As she led the way to her small office under the eaves, he caught one of her sidelong glances and suspected she would turn out to be a shrewd listener.

‘Do sit down, Mr Hinde.' She gestured to the chair opposite her own on the other side of a low table and regarded him pleasantly. ‘Do you mind if I use your first name?'

‘Not at all.'

‘Good.' She gave a neat smile, observing him with a frankness that was neither judgemental nor falsely sympathetic. There was nothing in the narrow room to give any clue to her personality or home life, which Patrick knew to be a professional strategy – his own office was the same. ‘You're here at the request of the police. Although what we do and say here won't be like a police interview, you do understand that it's not therapy? What is said here does not remain confidential?'

‘Yes, I realise that,' Patrick answered.

‘That's good. I'll probably see you two or three times, and then write an assessment of how your thoughts and feelings and mental state contributed to what occurred. Are there any questions that you'd like to ask me?'

‘No, I don't think so.' He rubbed his hands on his jeans.

‘Well, please feel free to do so at any time.'

Patrick nodded obediently, as though he were about to take an exam. He cleared his mind of extraneous thoughts, just as he did when preparing himself to see his own patients.

‘I'd like to begin with your family history. Where you were born, your parents, siblings, grandparents, that sort of thing. Anything you'd like to tell me, really.'

Patrick waited for Amanda to ask a question, but when she merely observed him encouragingly he realised she expected him just to pitch in.

‘My mother's French, my father British. I was born here but lived in various places. Dad worked for a couple of big multinationals. I'm an only child.'

‘So did you go to school abroad?'

Patrick nodded. ‘To start with. Then I boarded at a prep school in Hertfordshire.'

‘How old were you?'

‘Seven.'

She was making notes, not looking at him. When he did not continue, she looked up again interrogatively.

‘It was fine,' he told her, well used to people expressing concern that he had been sent away so young. ‘It seemed the best alternative.'

‘Is that what your parents said?'

‘Well, it was true.'

‘You held that opinion at the time? When you were seven?'

Patrick shrugged. ‘I just accepted it.'

‘Can you remember how you felt?'

‘Homesick, I suppose. Though they'd just moved from Holland to Belgium, so there wasn't really a home to miss.'

‘What about your parents?'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Did you miss them?'

‘Of course.'

‘What did you miss most?' When Patrick regarded her in puzzlement, she smiled. ‘It's not a trick question. I just wondered if you could remember anything special that you missed? Things you did together. Bedtime routines. Food. Jokes. Smells.'

‘Routines,' Patrick answered ironically. ‘Maman had a lot of routines.'

Amanda nodded sympathetically and scribbled a note. ‘Did you make friends easily at school?'

‘Sure. The other boys were all right. A decent bunch.'

‘Any special friends?'

‘At the next school, when I was older, a couple of guys. One I'm still in touch with. The others met up in the holidays, which could be a hassle for me. But I was never bullied or anything like that. I was fine.'

‘Have you talked to your friends about what's happened?'