The Wrong Mother (45 page)

‘I thought you were part-time?’ said Sam.

‘Officially, yeah, but more often than not I ended up staying over; it was easier. And while I was single, I didn’t mind. I had pots of money. Encarna set up a little gym for me in the house. I’m a gym addict.’ Michelle raised a toned arm for Sam to inspect. ‘She even bought me a car. Not just a runaround, like some of my mates who are nannies have got—she let me choose.’

‘A red Alfa Romeo,’ said Sam.

‘That’s right.’ She didn’t ask how he knew. ‘I loved it. I called it Speedy. But then she . . .’

Sam waited while she composed herself. He hated the custom of giving names to cars. His and Kate’s VW Passat had a name. Sam found it so embarrassing that he’d spent years pretending he’d forgotten what it was.

‘She made me give it back! When I said I wouldn’t cancel the holiday. She said I’d betrayed her and I didn’t deserve it any more, and she held out her hand for the keys. And I gave them to her! It was
my
car, I should have told her to piss off—sorry for swearing—but I was so shocked! She’d always been so nice to me, and suddenly she was being more vicious than anyone’s ever been to me, and . . . If she’d just been a
bit
unreasonable, I’d probably have stood up to her. I’m not a doormat. But it was like she was being
so
horrible, it freaked me out. I couldn’t think straight. I kept thinking, This can’t be happening. And . . . she seemed so sure, I thought maybe she was right, maybe I deserved it.’

‘Michelle, did Encarna love Amy?’ Sam asked.

‘Course she did. She just couldn’t cope with being a mum. It wasn’t her scene. She was dead honest about it—I really admired her for that. She’d joke about how rubbish she was. She used to say, “Saint Michelle,
please
take this child away or I’ll end up hanging myself from the rafters.” ’

‘Did she ever joke about killing Amy?’ Sam asked.

A pause. ‘No.’

‘Michelle?’

‘I’ve already told you. When she said she’d end up killing Amy if she had to look after her during half-term. Amy had this little black and silver night light. Like a desk lamp, really, but it used to sit just inside the bathroom, on the floor—there was a plug socket on the landing by the bathroom door—and it stayed on all night. Amy’s door and the bathroom door both had to be open just the right amount, so that Amy’s room wasn’t too light or too dark.’ Michelle started to smile, then stopped. ‘Amy was quite particular. She could fly off the handle sometimes, but she was dead loving.’

‘Carry on,’ said Sam.

‘What? Oh. Encarna used the night light when she wanted to read in the bath. She reckoned the main bathroom light was too bright, and you couldn’t have it on without having the noise of the extractor fan as well, so she used to put Amy’s night light on the side of the bath.’

What kind of reckless idiot would take a risk like that? Sam wondered. Then he guessed where Michelle’s story was going and felt sick. ‘Did she say she’d drop the night light in the water while Amy was having a bath?’ he asked, wanting to get the confirmation of his worst fears out of the way.

Michelle nodded. ‘Yeah. “If you abandon us, I’m going to be pushing that night light into Amy’s bathwater within a few days,” she said. “Everyone’s always saying I’ll electrocute myself, but I’m not that self-sacrificing!” It was horrendous—Amy was standing right behind her. She heard every word. Encarna didn’t see her at first, and of course she felt
awful
when she did. She gave her a big hug and . . . Honestly, she totally didn’t mean it. She was just a drama queen. Like mother, like daughter. That’s why, after she’d yelled at me and thrown me out and nicked my car, I didn’t get too upset at first. I thought she’d ring after a few days and beg me to forgive her, say she couldn’t live without me. She always used to say that. But . . . I never heard from her again. I tried ringing her, over and over, but she ignored all my messages.’ She looked up at Sam. ‘How could she go from not being able to live without me to never wanting to speak to me again? It makes no sense.’

Sam thought it would be insensitive to point out that Encarna’s death and interment might have had something to do with it. At this precise moment, he believed that Encarna Oliva had deserved to die. Kate would say so and not even feel guilty about it; she was much less forgiving than Sam was.

‘Michelle, do you remember when you first told Encarna you had a boyfriend? If the two of you were friends you must have shared it with her.’

‘Yeah. I told her pretty much straight away.’

‘So early April last year?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And was she pleased for you?’

‘She gave me a hug and . . .’ Michelle blinked hard. ‘Why is it that the good memories hurt the most? She started to cry and like . . . clung on to me. She said, “He’s going to take you away from us.” ’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told her there was no chance. I said I definitely wanted to carry on working until I had a baby of my own, and that was a long way off.’

‘What did she say to that?’

‘She cheered up. She said, “Michelle, haven’t I told you hundreds and thousands of times? You don’t need to have a child, you’ve got Amy.” ’

Sam sensed more was coming. ‘And then?’ he said.

‘And then she gave me a present: a cheque for two thousand pounds.’

 

‘What?’ Simon didn’t bother with pleasantries as he threw open the door to Norman Grace’s office.

Norman’s face was flushed with excitement; like Simon, he was ready to launch straight in. ‘I have no idea what it means, before you ask. It’s your job to work that out.’ He was holding a piece of paper, blank on the side that faced Simon.

‘Show me.’

Norman passed him the paper, then began to read aloud over his shoulder: ‘“It is necessary for me that she is absent in the evenings. What I mean by that is not a large section of time, for example six until twelve—do not assume I have such wild wishes.”’

‘Stop,’ Simon told him. ‘I’ve got to know what this is before I read it.’

‘You don’t recognise it?’

Simon scanned the rest of the words. ‘I recognise the sentiments, yeah. From Geraldine Bretherick’s diary. But, it’s so awkwardly written. Like someone on Prozac wrote it, or . . . someone from a hundred years ago. It sounds archaic.’

Norman nodded, satisfied that Simon had reached the same conclusion he had. ‘After what you asked me to look for—after I found the Jones thing and realised you were right—I decided to have a shufty at the rest of the hard disk. I found a deleted file, also called “diary”.’ He smiled proudly. ‘Lower case. The diary file we’ve been looking at’s called DIARY, all upper case.’

Simon hardly dared to breathe.

‘It’s the same diary,’ said Norman. ‘Same dates, same number of entries, same substance and meaning. But the “diary” file, the deleted one, is quite startlingly badly written. By someone who’s just come round after being knocked over the head, I thought.’

Simon read the words again. ‘It is necessary for me that she is absent in the evenings. What I mean by that is not a large amount of time, for example six until twelve—do not assume I have such wild wishes. What would make me happy is two and a half hours. Between eight thirty and eleven. My body will not stay awake beyond that hour because the seconds that I have been awake in each day make me so tired. I busy myself like a good worker on amphetamines, smiling when I do not wish to smile, uttering words that are not the words I want to say. I do not eat. I am full of loud praise for pieces of art that I believe ought to be disposed of. That is a description of a usual day of my life. Because of this, no one can violate the time between eight thirty and eleven for me. If that happened, my good sense would be lost to me.’

‘ “My good sense would be lost to me”?’ Simon muttered.

‘I know. Look, here’s the second version, from the DIARY file. Which was created six days after the last changes were made to the “diary” file. After that, the “diary” file was opened many times—whenever the newer DIARY file was opened, in fact—but never changed again. She didn’t need to change it, did she? Because version two was a separate document.’

Simon took the piece of paper from Norman’s hand. This time, he allowed Norman to read the whole passage aloud.

‘“I need her not to be around in the evenings. Evenings! Anyone would think I meant from six until midnight or something extravagant like that. But no, I settle for a mere two and a half hours between eight thirty and eleven. I am physically unable to stay up any later than that, because every minute of my day is so exhausting. I run around like a slave on speed, a fake smile plastered to my face, saying things I don’t mean, never getting to eat, enthusing wildly over works of art that deserve to be chopped up and chucked in the bin. That’s my typical day— lucky me. That’s why the hours between half past eight and eleven must be inviolable, otherwise I will lose my sanity.”

‘She’s rewritten it, hasn’t she?’ said Norman. ‘A “mere two and a half hours”, “a slave on speed”—nice alliteration. And the “lucky me” at the end. She’s made it more readable. Wittier, also, and more bitter. It’s as if she read through her first attempt, found it to be devoid of tone and decided to . . . well, perk it up a bit. You can look at the whole thing if you want: the original and the rewrite. I can print both.’

‘Print the original out in full and get it to me as soon as possible. ’ Simon was on his way to the door. ‘We’ve got plenty of print-outs of the first diary file.’

‘You mean the second,’ Norman called after him. But Simon was gone.

Norman’s face drooped.
Hoist by my own petard
, he thought. He’d said it was Simon’s job to work out what it all meant, but he’d been looking forward to a bit of a discussion; he’d thought they might try to puzzle it out together. But, come to think of it, when he’d left the room, Simon Waterhouse hadn’t looked puzzled. Which was puzzling.

‘Why would a suicidal woman want to perk up the last desperate outpouring of her misery?’ Norman asked his captive audience of computer equipment. Like Simon Waterhouse, they offered no satisfactory response.

 

Simon bumped into Sam Kombothekra outside the CID room. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ said Sam. ‘Keith Harbard’s still in reception. His cab hasn’t turned up yet. When’s Jonathan Hey getting here?’

‘He didn’t say a time. He just said as soon as he could.’

‘Shit.’ Sam groaned, ran his hands through his hair. ‘This is all we need.’

‘What does it matter?’ Simon followed Sam as he sprinted down the corridor towards reception.

‘They’re friends. Harbard’ll ask Hey what he’s doing here, Hey’ll tell him we’ve called him in as an expert to help us at the eleventh hour, Harbard’ll say
he
’s supposed to be our expert.’

‘So? We get rid of Harbard as politely as possible.’

‘There’s no way Harbard’s going to leave without a fuss, allow himself to be usurped by a better expert—a man half his age. He’ll be straight on the phone to Superintendent Barrow, who doesn’t even know we’ve called Hey in!’

‘That’s Proust’s problem, not ours. Proust agreed to Hey coming in; he can explain it to Barrow.’

‘We should have gone to Cambridge. Why didn’t we go to Cambridge?’ Sam, using another of his wife Kate’s techniques, answered his own question. ‘Because you’d already invited Hey here, without checking with me or Proust or—’

‘Sam?’

‘What?’

‘Can you hear something?’

The raised voices grew louder as they ran. One raised voice: Harbard’s. Simon and Sam crashed through the double doors to reception.

‘Professions . . . Professors,’ said Sam, red-faced. Simon understood his nervousness. Personally, he felt oddly detached from the proceedings. He smiled at Jonathan Hey, who looked relieved to see him. Hey was eyeing Harbard anxiously. ‘Is there a mistake?’ he asked Simon. ‘Keith said you didn’t need me after all.’

‘Keith’s wrong.’

Harbard turned on Sam. ‘What’s going on? Aren’t I good enough any more? You send me on my way and call in my close friend and colleague without even telling me?’

‘Keith, I had no idea you hadn’t been told,’ said Hey, looking as uncomfortable as a schoolboy about to be caned by the headmaster. ‘Look, I really feel awkward about this.’ He looked at Simon, clearly hoping to be let off the hook. ‘As Keith says, we’re friends, and—’

Sam had recovered. ‘This way, Professor Hey,’ he said, leading Jonathan Hey out of reception, steering him by the shoulders so that he couldn’t decide to leave with Harbard as a gesture of solidarity. The doors banged shut behind them.

‘Six-six-three-eight-seven-zero,’ Simon told Harbard. ‘That’s the taxi number. If it doesn’t turn up in the next five minutes, give them a ring. Tell them to put it on our account.’

He turned his back on the irate professor and hurried after Sam and Jonathan Hey. He caught up with them halfway to meeting room one. ‘What did you say to him?’ Sam asked.

‘Oh, just smoothed his ruffled feathers and poured oil on troubled waters.’

‘Yeah, I bet.’

‘I hope you did, Simon.’ Hey sounded alarmed. ‘Poor Keith. I’d like to phone him as soon as possible, if that’s okay. I’m not happy about . . . the way this has happened. Couldn’t you have warned me, or . . . ?’

‘Jonathan.’ Simon put a steadying hand on his arm. ‘I know Keith’s your mate and you don’t want to offend him, but this is more important. Four people are dead.’

Hey nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You know I’m happy to help if I can.’

‘You’ve been a big help to me already,’ Simon told him. ‘That’s why our DI’s looking forward to meeting you. Sergeant Kombothekra’ll tell you that Proust rarely looks forward to meeting anyone. Right, Sam?’

‘Well . . . um . . .’ Sam coughed to avoid having to reply. Bad form to take the piss out of your inspector in front of an outsider. Jonathan Hey looked back at Simon for reassurance. So did Sam. Simon considered how rare it was that people looked to him for comfort. Usually he unsettled those around him with an inner turbulence he found impossible to hide. Now, for once, there was no churning in his head. He hadn’t had a chance to tell Sam, hadn’t stuck around long enough to tell Norman Grace, but the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place in Norman’s office a few minutes ago. Now he knew everything. Charlie would have to marry him.
If I really want her to . . .