‘Lying is very naughty indeed and everyone will be very cross with you if you lie. Very cross indeed. The police will take you into a cold dark room and lock you up if you lie.’
Mira had to exaggerate or else she feared Rosie would take back what she had confessed. It was natural for Rosie to believe that pushing it all back inside again was easier than facing up to the truth about her mother.
Mira had learnt the hard way on that front. Having been let back home, she had existed in a fug of lies and cover-ups and secrets in those early days of her pregnancy. Looking back, if she had given her mother and her sister time to adjust to the idea of a baby in the house, maybe everything would have been different.
‘They’d really lock me up?’ The cup slipped from Rosie’s hand completely, clattering onto the floor. Rosie stared fearfully up at Mira as though she would strike her and leapt up from the stool to stand behind it, away from Mira and the mess.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Mira said kneeling next to her, patting at the hot liquid that soaked into Rosie’s thighs. ‘Accidents happen. Nothing to worry about. Gosh, you’re a nervy little thing, aren’t you, pet? We’d call you Rosie Rabbit-in-the-Headlights at forest school.’
Rosie stood very still as Mira cleaned her up and then said, steadily, decisively, ‘I think I need to go back now. Thank you very much for my drink.’
Mira, still on her knees with the cloth soaking her lap, twisted around to Rosie who was now at the shed door. ‘Don’t you want me to walk you back?’
‘No thank you very much.’
‘Don’t forget, Rosie Rabbit, lying is a sin!’
Rosie stepped out into the night and closed the door carefully behind her.
Yes, Rosie Rabbit, lying was a sin. And sins were punished. Mira remembered that God had taught her this lesson by abandoning her in her hour of need, and she wondered if she had ever really recovered.
Mira’s kneecaps were grinding into the gritty floor but instead of standing, she collapsed over her thighs and cried for the sins of Gemma Bradley and she cried for Rosie, but not for herself. The past was in the past. She would not allow self-pity when there were human beings so close to home who were suffering much greater agonies than she had.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Time of arrest?’
‘17.35.’
‘Offence?’
‘Assault of a child causing actual bodily harm,’ DC Miles replied to the man behind the counter – the Duty Sergeant, I’d been told. He ran his eyes across me from behind his modern rectangle glasses, taking in details of my appearance with professional speed.
He tapped into his computer as he spoke. ‘Based on what the officers have told me I will be detaining you here in the station, okay?’
‘Okay.’ My lips quivered. I bit the side of my mouth. DC Miles disappeared into the back room and I felt that much more lost without her there.
‘Any drugs or alcohol in your system in the last twenty-four hours?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry, what was that?’
I tried to put some energy into my voice. ‘No.’
‘Any medication or medical conditions we need to know about?’
‘I’m pregnant?’ I said, wondering if that was relevant, hoping it might mean he was kinder to me. ‘Nine weeks.’
He tapped that in.
Nine weeks pregnant and I was under arrest. How had this happened to me?
‘Occupation?’ he said.
‘Head of Human Resources at CitiFirm.’
Before typing it in, he flicked one of the spikes of hair fanning across his forehead as though it had itched him all of sudden.
‘You have a right to speak to an independent solicitor that’s free of charge. And that can be in person or on the telephone.’
‘Do I need one?’ I tried to ask, before realising my voice box wasn’t working properly again. After clearing my throat, I said, croakily but loudly enough to be heard, ‘I think I know someone.’ There was only one solicitor I would call, amongst the dozens that I’d worked with over the years.
‘You’ll have an opportunity to call them before we take you down to one of the detention cells, okay?’
A cell. I was going to be put in a cell.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ I said, shaking my head back and forth, biting my lip and pressing my fingers into my forehead, one escaped tear leaking from my right eye. I sucked in my breath and looked at the ceiling. I was not going to cry.
The custody sergeant looked at me, and then at DC Bennett, who had been standing quietly beside me, and scratched under his hair again, ‘It won’t be too bad, we’ll get you interviewed as soon as we can, okay? Would you like a tea or coffee now?’
I felt pathetic. ‘Sorry, it’s the hormones. A tea would be good, thank you. Thank you very much.’
DC Bennett took over. ‘Okay then, Gemma, could you empty your pockets for me please?’
In a daze, I placed each of my possessions onto the high counter. The chewing gum, the lucky stone that Noah had given me, the velvet button, the tube of lip balm. I looked at them lying there, thinking about how personal they were to me, these small little pieces of my life. Didn’t they in themselves prove that I loved my children? The chewing gum and lip balm were generic pocket-things, but the others were not. Noah had given me the grey pebble when we had been walking on the beach. He had asked me to keep in it in my pocket forever. And so I had, until now. And the little black velvet button belonged to Rosie’s Scottish china doll. It was a jolt to be taken back to that evening a few weeks ago, when I had found the button, when everything had been simpler. Peter and I had been going out to meet Jim and Vics at the local pub for some supper, but we had been delayed by a frantic search for the lost button. I had found it down the side of the sofa, which had delighted Rosie. The babysitter had offered to sew it on that evening, but it had seemed important that I do it myself, so I had popped it into my coat pocket, this same coat pocket. And look, it was still there, not sewn onto the doll’s blouse and now in a plastic bag at a police station.
‘And the handbag, please,’ DC Bennett said.
‘Wallet. Sunglasses. House keys. Car keys. IPad...’. DC Bennett listed the contents, placing them into a clear plastic bag while his colleague behind the counter typed the items into his computer.
The soft leather of my wallet, the discreet designer logo on the edge of my sunglasses, my silver key ring with my initials engraved onto the heart, the branding of my car on my car-clicker, the snakeskin cover to my touchpad, all of which I had worked so hard to buy, seemed gaudy and out of place here. How little they meant, how unhelpful and useless these over-priced little badges of success were to me now, how worthless.
‘Sign here and then you can call your solicitor, okay?’
After I had signed the small black pad, another officer led me to a small room that smelt of dusty telephone books even though there had probably not been a telephone book in there for decades. The officer’s Sikh turban created a surreal silhouette through the frosted glass of the door and reminded me of when Rosie had very politely asked our brick layer why he was wearing Mummy’s Indian scarf on his head, and how in response he had unravelled it and shown her his long hair. The look of amazement on her face made me smile even now and reminded me of how inquisitive and confident she was, and for a second, took me out of hell.
The plastic receiver was sticky. I knew the Letwin Assosciates’ telephone number off by heart. Philippa could surely help me. I liked her, having needed her countless times for legal wrangling over contractual issues. Strangely, I had only met her in person once before at a Christmas party. She’d had an immaculate grey bob and a short, lined forehead that gave her a permanently determined expression, and she had repeatedly sucked on an electric cigarette, holding it to her red lips with her heavily ringed fingers. The real smell of cigarette smoke had lingered in the air for a long while after she had walked away.
‘Letwin Associates, how may I direct your call?’
‘Could I speak to Philippa Letwin please?’
‘Who’s calling, please?’