They’re more interested in the children’s bedrooms. Evidence that the party overflowed up here is everywhere. The beds have been bounced on and there are toys strewn across the floor. Polly has a tendency to scrawl on walls and at least one child has joined in. I’m not cross. I’m pleased because it proves to Miriam and Ian that I’m not a dictator.
They have a look at the bathroom and I explain we’ve had a leak. That’s why the lino has been pulled up and the boards are bare, and a bit rough and splintery. It’s when we get to Josh’s room that I become really uneasy. Magda has worked her magic since the forensics team was here and the black smudges on the door and cot have vanished, but it’s all still in the air. Even after three weeks I still don’t feel the room is completely back to normal and I no longer close the blackout blinds when I put Josh to bed. I put my hand on the rocking chair, pull it back and let it go. Miriam inspects the fitted wardrobes that flank the little white-painted fireplace. She won’t find anything in there except linen, towels, spare duvets and pillows.
‘So this is where it happened?’ Ian says, walking over to the cot. His eyes scan the room as if he’s measuring it. ‘It must have been a shock for you.’
My lips are dry but I don’t lick them in case he spots how tense I am. ‘It was awful,’ I agree.
‘It’s odd that you had no idea there was someone in your house.’
‘Yes, I know. But it’s a big place and he was upstairs.’
Ian frowns and picks up the baby monitor from the mantelpiece. ‘Was this switched on?’
‘No. Yes … I mean, this one was. The one in the kitchen wasn’t.’
‘Is that normal? A house like this, I would have thought a monitor would be essential.’
My knees are feeling weak and I long to sit down. ‘I’ve been so tired lately, what with Josh not sleeping through the night …’ Tom sends me a look. ‘I usually put it on, but I had my friend with me and I couldn’t think straight. Josh always makes a huge fuss when I put him down for his morning nap, so I occasionally turn it off. It’s perfectly normal. I don’t have to listen to him all the time.’
He sets it down again, adjusts its position and writes a note. ‘You really ought to use it regularly.’
‘Of course we will,’ Tom says. ‘It’s one of those things. Unfortunate, but in the end not too much harm done.’
‘When a baby fractures his arm,’ Miriam points out, ‘I’d call that a great deal of harm.’
‘Well, yes of course,’ Tom says stiffly. ‘I only meant … well, he’s all right.’
‘Have the police charged anyone?’
I shake my head. ‘As far as I know, there hasn’t been any progress.’
‘That’s a shame.’ He hesitates. ‘But there was a man?’
‘What do you mean? Of course there was a man.’
Ian tips his head back and surveys me through lowered eyelids. It’s a weird, predatory look that sets my nerves on edge.
‘It’s all right, Vicky,’ Tom says. ‘We all know you were telling the truth.’
Do they? I turn back to Ian. ‘You can speak to DS Grayling if you don’t believe me. Why would I make something like that up?’
Miriam glances down at her notes. ‘There’s a packet of Amitriptyline in your bathroom cupboard. They’re antidepressants, aren’t they?’
‘What?’ I frown and remember. ‘Oh them. It’s a really low dose. I was prescribed it to help me sleep through Josh …’ I realize that makes me sound callous and add hastily, ‘He doesn’t need to wake up at night, but he does anyway. The doctor thought that if I slept through it would help him kick the habit. I didn’t use them until after I’d stopped breastfeeding and I didn’t take them for long because of the way I felt in the morning.’ I pause. ‘I don’t need to lie to get attention.’
‘Thank you for sharing that with us,’ Miriam says.
When they hear that I am the only child of a single mother, Ian and Miriam perk up, thinking they’ve unearthed something interesting. Ian asks about my relationship with my father. We’ve obviously moved on from Munchausen to Freud.
‘I don’t have one,’ I reply tersely. ‘A relationship, I mean. I have a father but he’s never been part of my life. I’ve only met him once. He lives in Dorking with his family. You’d have to ask my mum about him.’
‘What about father figures?’ he persists. ‘I assume your mother has had other relationships since.’
‘Why would you assume that? You don’t know her.’
‘Vicky,’ Tom says. ‘Answer the questions. It’s getting late.’
I glance at my watch. It’s half past six. High time the girls were in the bath and I had a stiff drink in my hand. This cannot be happening to me. I am not the sort of person who gets visited by Child Protection. This family is ordinary.
Tom puts Josh in his cot and I pray that he’ll behave. Thankfully, he’s too exhausted to put up his usual fight. A hush falls on the room. All I can hear is my heart beating and a car driving past the house. A second passes; two. Then we breathe again. He’s asleep.
‘There have been three or four.’ Or eight or nine. ‘They’ve been nice, overall. My mother has never married but her relationships have been reasonably long term, and there haven’t been many tensions.’
Ian looks sceptical and I suppose it is unlikely that things would have been perfect. Daughters don’t tend to warm to their mother’s lovers, at least not if their mother is an ever-hopeful serial monogamist and they change with the regularity of the seasons. He’s right, of course. I didn’t think much of any of them. I assume he’s hoping I’ll tell him one of her boyfriends interfered with me; Mum may not be the best judge of character but she isn’t a fool and nothing like that ever happened.
I lead them out of the room and close the door. Miriam asks about the breakin, about the way Josh got his fracture; whether or not he’s been hurt before while in my care, and I answer all their questions. It’s basically a rehash of everything she asked me at the hospital. As we troop back down to the kitchen to talk to the girls I ricochet from one anxiety to the next; what if Miriam and Ian know something they’re not telling us; what if they’ve already judged and sentenced me in their minds and are merely looking for a halfway decent excuse to take my children away; what if the girls tell them something incriminating about me?
I attempt to explain Miriam and Ian’s presence. Polly rubs her eyes. Emily’s expression is shuttered but she climbs on to my knee. Polly sits on Tom’s with her father’s arm locked protectively round her.
Miriam chats about families, school and friends and eventually gets to the point. ‘Sometimes grown-ups get cross and shout, don’t they?’
Emily wrinkles her brow. ‘Yes …’ I hold my breath and try not to stare too hard at her. This isn’t her fault. ‘Sometimes Sophie’s mum shouts at Sophie.’
I could kiss her.
But she hasn’t finished. ‘And once she told me I was spoilt. I’m not, am I, Mummy?’
I’m surprised to hear that, and frankly, shocked. What was Amber thinking? ‘Of course you aren’t.’
‘And when Polly …’
I stroke her hair. ‘It’s OK, sweetie. We don’t want to talk about Sophie’s mummy now.’
They ask the girls if they ever get bruised at home. Emily shows them a scrape on her elbow and the gap where her molar was.