Slow and steady wins the race…
I closed my eyes, remembering the time you and I had agreed we should have a baby, as if doing so was no harder than preparing an omelette; how we had opened a bottle of champagne and toasted our clever, beautiful child who would be cuter and funnier than any other child to grace the planet. How we’d actually argued about the child’s sex, me convincing you that a firstborn should always be male and you reluctantly agreeing, as if the decision was solely ours.
But boastful pride falls flat on its face.
I opened my eyes, looked down at the pregnancy test which was now tinged a faint shade of blue.
Like the bedroom, the test window was silent, still… like dying breath on cold glass.
‘Our final IVF on the NHS was negative,’ I tell the officers. ‘After that, my wife spiralled further into depression. She couldn’t eat or sleep. I knew it was my fault and that was really tough.’
DC Lawrie offers a nod of sympathy but her eyes remain vacant. In contrast, DC Kennedy tightens his jaw, almost as if trying to convey that he doesn’t believe my story. But he sympathises with me, I can tell. Perhaps he’s had some baby trouble of his own. A miscarriage, I think, maybe even multiple.
‘How did you feel after the IVF attempt failed?’ Kennedy clasps his hands together, his gold wedding band catching against the stark overhead light.
I want to tell him I felt worthless. That I knew I had lost you right at that moment. That I knew in my heart you wanted a child more than you wanted me and that I was convinced you would go to any lengths to have one. You didn’t realise I knew this, of course… but I did. I knew, Louisa. Right from that moment.
‘I felt okay. It hurt more because I knew how much Lou wanted a child.’
‘And what about you, Mr Carter? Did you want a child as much as your wife?’ DC Kennedy is urging me on with his eyes, as if desperate for me to tell the truth. I want to tell him that I probably wanted one more than you, that in that moment I’d have killed to hold a child in my arms. But I don’t tell him because I’m not sure what good it would achieve.
‘How is she?’ I ask instead, the crime scene once again bleeding into the forefront of my mind. I shudder, the memory of making breakfast in there just yesterday morning marring with the blood-splattered walls of later that evening.
‘Not good, Mr Carter,’ says DC Kennedy, his eyes glazing over, as if also remembering. ‘So if there’s anything else you can remember, it’s in both your and your wife’s interests to tell us.’ He looks over at Lawrie who offers him a slight nod of the head. ‘Because when we do find your wife,’ he continues, coming in for the home straight, ‘she’s likely to be arrested for murder.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Louisa
Now
Heat burns my cheeks as I stare at the card on the mantelpiece, the stork’s shiny black eyes, like wet pebbles, looking almost gleeful. I snap my eyes shut in the hope that when I open them again it will have disappeared. Without sight, the sound of the rain, as it smashes against the windowpane, intensifies, fighting against the constant hum of the central heating, which squeezes itself through the pipes in the wall. Up above, I think I hear a floorboard creak, causing a fresh wave of panic to start in my toes and end in my fingertips. My breath, when it returns, is dry and heavy in my throat. I peel open my eyes, one at a time, but the card remains.
Beneath me Cory splutters. ‘Shit.’ I grab back hold of the bottle, which I hadn’t even realised had slipped from my grasp, the watery milk now trickling into the crevice of his chin. He coughs some more as I bend him over my forearm and smack his back a little too hard. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ He stares up at me, almost in shock.
The mantelpiece smells of furniture polish and is spotless bar a single set of fingerprints which cling to the edge. I don’t remember even getting up but I must have done. On the sofa, Cory wriggles around, a grumble breaking up into a hungry cry. I turn back around, reach out my hand towards the card’s shiny edge, my fingertips lightly touching the chubby pink hand of the baby.
The shrill sound of the telephone makes me jump. I shoot my eyes over to the window to where the phone is positioned in its holster on the ledge. It is only now that I realise the curtains are wide open. The night sky is black as oil, the world beyond the windowpane hidden by my own reflection.
Little Pig, Little Pig… let me come in.
‘What do you want? Who is it?’ The phone is in my hand and I am speaking into the receiver before I even realise I’ve made the decision to answer.
‘Louisa?’ Madga’s muffled voice floats down the line.
I open my mouth to reply, my response stuck in my brain like flies in treacle.
‘Lou, is that you?’ she asks again, more forceful this time.
‘Magda. What’s the matter?’
She lets out a long breath. ‘ I heard about today. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say a little too quickly. ‘Everything is fine.’
‘Why is Cory crying like that? Are you feeling all right? Did your head bleed when you fell?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, the response seeming to fit for all three questions.
‘Where is James?’
‘At work.’
‘I thought you said he was at work today?’
I want to hang up on her, her incessant questions suddenly making me dizzy. ‘There was an accident.’
‘What accident? Why did you faint, Lou? Speak to me.’
‘He’s come for Cory,’ I mutter, my eyes already sliding back over towards the card.
‘Who’s come for Cory?’
I pause. ‘Him, Magda,’ I whisper, my voice thick as it hits the receiver. ‘You know who.’
‘Louisa…’ There is a brief pause before her words fall away into a sigh of disbelief. I suddenly regret confiding in her nine months ago about Cory’s true parentage. ‘You know that’s not possible,’ she says eventually, an apology almost creeping into her tone. ‘There’s no way he’d be able to.’
‘You’re right.’ I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing in my heart that she is right. It can’t be him, there is no possible way. But if it isn’t him, then who is it? Unless… ‘Mags, I have to go.’
I slam down the phone before she has chance to say another word.
‘The heart of a man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps’ Proverbs 16: 9
Rain lashes down on top of me as I trudge through the woodland towards the back of the house, my binoculars swinging against my chest. The moist soil squelches beneath my feet as I walk, and yet I am still confident that I stand on solid ground. That is the most remarkable thing about faith, you see; the unwavering belief that, despite the shaky ground on which we walk, God holds us firmly in his grasp. In him, we do not need to fear… for he will make our path straight.
I take up position behind my favourite English oak, situated directly opposite the kitchen window. The oak’s branches are stripped bare, the bark slippery with moss and smelling of damp. To the untrained eye the tree may appear dead, but of course it is merely hibernating, preparing itself for the spring when it will bloom once again in all its greatness. Death is only an illusion, you see, a trick of the eye, ‘for a time will come when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out’.
The night is now cloaked in darkness, the only light coming from a kitchen window and a child’s bedroom, Louisa hidden in the darkness of her dwelling. I grind my teeth and close my eyes in prayer. ‘Bring her forth, Lord. Let your divine light shine into the darkness.’
‘Ask and you shall receive,’ he whispers into my ear, so gently it could almost be a thought.