James flings about a bit, crossly shouting ‘no’, and whacking me on the head as I try to lift him out, so I take a moment to remonstrate with him by the car, telling him it’s not kind to hit mummy, can he say, ‘Sorry Mummy’, please? before we turn and walk up to the house.
Sandrine is standing on the doorstep looking puzzled, and holding her key in one hand, and my set in her other hand.
‘Oh my God! Where did you find them?’ I say in amazement.
‘They are in there.’ She points to the front door lock.
‘What, in the door itself? Just hanging there?’
She nods and shrugs, then hands me the keys.
‘OK,’ I say slowly, looking at them. ‘Well, perhaps I dropped them on the drive and the postman found them, or something.’ I glance around us. ‘Let’s go in anyway, shall we? Time to put the kettle on.’
‘Sing it, please!’ says James immediately.
‘Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, we’ll all have tea,’ I begin, as I slide my key into the lock, twist it and push the door open. There is no post lying on the mat, which knocks that theory into touch, but I don’t say anything. ‘Sukki take it off again, Sukki take it off again, Sukki take it off again, they’ve all gone away…’ I trail off as I step in, glancing up the stairs before walking tentatively into the kitchen.
But everything feels and looks exactly as it did when I left just under half an hour ago. I can’t have been stupid enough to actually leave the keys in the door, surely? I would have noticed when we left, or Sandrine would have. Although it was belting down with rain, and all I ever do is slam it behind me. But then I would have discovered them when I came back from dropping them off at playgroup…
‘Would you like a coffee, Sandrine?’ I offer, putting James down and walking over to the kettle as she takes her shoes off in the hall. ‘I’ll get this on and we’ll make some lunch. It’d be good to get James down by half twelve, I think,’ I call over my shoulder. ‘What time is it now?’ I say this to myself, glancing across at the kitchen clock – which is reading five past ten.
I do a double take. It’s stopped. I didn’t notice that earlier. I sigh and put the kettle down, before heading out into the hall to find a new battery in the sideboard drawer. I wrestle one from the packet, and look up at my dad’s cuckoo clock on the wall, which he sweetly gave us after James fell in love with it on a visit to his, to see what the time actually is.
It is also reading five past ten.
I stare at the hands of the clock, frozen in time, and the pendulum that has also stilled. It never stops; I keep it wound myself.
‘Sandrine,’ I say slowly, and she looks up from fiddling with her phone, ‘could you just keep an eye on James for a moment while I go upstairs? He’s just playing in the other room.’
‘Sure. No problem. I will make him his lunch?’
‘Yes, please, a sandwich would be fine, but stay with him while he eats it, won’t you, in case he chokes?’
I take the stairs two at a time, up into our bedroom. My alarm clock on my bedside table has the face turned to the wall because it lights up blue in the night – thanks to the neon paint on the hands – and irritates me. I keep meaning to get a new one. I grab it and turn it round.
Five past ten.
I gasp and, starting to shake, I hasten into James’s bedroom. His Winnie the Pooh clock, bought by Ed’s parents, sits on his bookshelf. Five past ten; again.
I run back into our room and grab the thermostat, but the digital display reads 11.58. It’s only the actual physical clock faces with hands that have all stopped and are reading the exact time that Beth died; five minutes past ten in the morning.
My legs give way suddenly, and I collapse down onto the floor in the corner, to just sit there, staring at the clock. Without taking my eyes from it, I reach for my mobile in my back pocket and call Ed. ‘It’s me. I need you to come home. Yes, now. Right now.’
* * *
‘So your keys were missing all morning and you think someone has been in the house during that time?’ Ed says in a low voice as we sit in the kitchen at the table, his work overcoat slung over the back of the chair. James is napping upstairs, directly above us. Sandrine has gone to her college course and won’t be back until four. ‘Can you remember when you last had the keys?’
‘Um. Yesterday morning, first thing, I took James to a singalong session at the library. I’m pretty sure I had them then.’
‘You must have if you drove?’
I shake my head. ‘I walked, but I wouldn’t have left home without them. And now I think about it, Sandrine let me in yesterday when we got back because she saw me coming up the road. I didn’t use my keys.’
‘Did you leave your bag open at the library?’
‘Well, no, not open, but I left it hanging on the pushchair like I always do. There are about a hundred pushchairs and prams there, Ed. Everyone does it. We couldn’t possibly all lift our bags off and keep them next to us while the kids sing, there wouldn’t be any room for them to sit down.’
‘I’m not having a go, I’m just trying to work out if someone had time to go in your bag and nick them without you noticing?’
‘Yes, they would have.’
‘So you didn’t use your keys all yesterday?’
‘No, because I didn’t go out again once I got back from the library. Natalia came over in the afternoon.’
‘You only realised they were gone this morning?’
I nod.
‘And the clocks had all been altered when you got back from collecting Sandrine and James from playgroup?’
‘Yes.’
‘But nothing else – and nothing is missing? It all looks like normal?’
‘I only noticed the clocks after playgroup. They could have been changed earlier while I was dropping James and Sandrine off, but I didn’t realise because I had the broken glass to sort out, and a shitty email from Natalia. I was pretty distracted.’
‘So someone could have been in the house – upstairs perhaps – while you were down here and you might not have noticed?’
My insides squirm at the thought of a stranger crouched in one of our bedrooms, me crashing around clearing up downstairs, none the wiser. ‘Yes.’
‘And tell me again what happened with the mirror?’
‘It just came off the wall. James was under it, it started to fall and, thank God, Sandrine was there and snatched him out of the way.’
‘So someone could have loosened it deliberately? Possibly yesterday?’
‘I don’t see how. One of us was here all day. Unless they let themselves in while we were asleep last night.’
Neither of us pass further comment on that hideous thought.
‘I thought the mirror coming off was down to my leaving the front door open this morning,’ I add. ‘It was incredibly windy; I assumed that was what disturbed it… I feel ill, Ed. Do you think it’s the person who was hanging around the house and approached Sandrine who’s done this?’
‘I don’t know, but we’ll get the locks changed. I’ll have this sorted before you go to bed tonight, don’t worry. You leave it to me.’
‘But shouldn’t we also call the police? Someone trespassed into our house. And Ed, five past ten in the morning is the time Beth died.’
‘I know it is.’
I hesitate. ‘This is going to sound crazy, but the only person I can think of that would know a detail like that and use it to hurt me is Louise Strallen.’
Ed’s mouth falls open slightly. ‘As in the Louise Strallen who died just before Christmas?’