Wilding lifted his head at that moment and Mrs Wilding met his look and stopped abruptly, obedient, but with a touch of defiance in her expression. She went on, ‘The Cooper-Hutchinsons are the kind of people I want Zellah to mix with, not people from round here. I want her to get on, and I wasn’t going to embarrass her in front of them and have them laugh at her behind her back because her parents were so out of touch they wouldn’t let her come and stay for a simple . . . innocent . . . sleepover . . .’
Shaky breaths that were trying to be sobs broke up the end of the sentence. Connolly gave her another tissue, and she blew her nose, and went on unevenly while dabbing at her eyes.
‘They were just going to spend the evening together and cook their own dinner – well, it’s good for girls to do that, learn how to be self-reliant, isn’t it?’ She was going over again, Atherton could tell, the justifications she had used to her husband before the fact. ‘We said she could have a glass of wine with it but no spirits. And I expect they’d watch one of their girly films – Bridget Jones or something like that – and talk and giggle half the night the way girls do. And then on the Bank Holiday Monday they’d planned to meet up with a couple of other girls and go to the Southbank Summer Festival – you know, by the river, next to the Festival Hall. It’s music and dancing and jugglers and mimes and things, and food stalls and crafts. People take their children there, so it’s quite safe. Not like the Notting Hill Carnival. We wouldn’t have them going anywhere near that: that was made very clear indeed. But the Southbank thing is just good, clean fun. They wanted to go on the London Eye but it turned out they couldn’t get tickets. You had to book in advance and it was all booked up. I suppose it would be, on a Bank Holiday.’
She looked at Atherton with a bewildered air, as if something wasn’t adding up. Relating the arrangements and the arguments in favour of them had kept her for a moment from realising that Zellah – her Zellah, her daughter – had been dead by Monday morning and in no condition to go to the Southbank or Notting Hill. ‘I suppose they didn’t go in the end,’ she said, still not really getting to grips with it. ‘The other thing they wanted to do was go out in the country for a picnic, but Daddy said he didn’t want Sophy driving a bunch of giggling girls without a grown-up in the car. Zellah knew she wasn’t to do that. If Sophy and the others insisted, she was to come home. They were going to go on the tube to the Southbank.’ Her confusion visibly grew. ‘But it wasn’t a car accident, was it? I was forgetting. They couldn’t have gone up to London, then. But what was Zellah doing on Wormwood Scrubs? And why didn’t Sophy ring us? Zellah was staying two nights, Sunday and Monday, and coming home this afternoon. I half thought she might ring up and ask to stay another night. I wouldn’t have minded, though Daddy wasn’t keen. But if she wasn’t with Sophy, where was she?’
‘These are things we have to find out,’ Atherton said.
‘But why didn’t Sophy ring us?’ Mrs Wilding persisted.
Wilding spoke up for the first time, his voice harsh with the anger that controlled grief. ‘There’ve been some underhand dealings, that’s why. They were never going to the Southbank. I’ll bet they went to Notting Hill, and got in with some bad hats, and Zellah’s paid the price. We’ve been lied to, made fools of by the Cooper-Hutchinson girl and her cronies. I knew no good would come of this!’ His voice began to rise, and he looked at his wife with near hatred. ‘But you – you took her side, like you always do. You insisted, you with your “Zellah has to make the right sort of friends!” Yes, the sort of friends who lie to their parents, conspire behind your back. I said she was too young! She wasn’t like them – sly and worldly and selfish, like that Sophy creature, and those others that hang around with her. All they wanted to do was to corrupt her – and you connived at it! I blame you for this! If I’d had my way she wouldn’t have gone out at all. She’d still be alive!’
Mrs Wilding had whitened to her lips, but she fought back. ‘You wanted to treat her like a child!’
‘She was a child!’
‘She’s seventeen.’
‘She was too young.’
Mrs Wilding blazed, ‘I was seventeen when you—’
Wilding was out of his seat. ‘Don’t you dare bring that up! At a time like this!’
‘You didn’t think I was too young!’ Mrs Wilding said viciously, in the manner of one wanting to inflict the maximum hurt. ‘Zellah’s the same age!’
And in the same manner, he hissed, ‘Was! Was! Was!’
It was too much for everyone in the room. A hideous silence fell, the Wildings staring at each other with terrified pain and realization, Wilding on his feet, trembling, his wife gripping the arms of her chair so hard her knuckles were white.
Time for a little time out, Atherton thought. There was history here, which might or might not prove helpful to understanding the situation. Think like me, Slider had said; and Slider would have got to the bottom of it. He caught Connolly’s eye and conveyed his wishes by eyebrow and an infinitesimal flick of the head, and said, ‘Mrs Wilding, I wonder if PC Connolly could see Zellah’s room. And we shall need a clear recent photograph, if you have one.’
Mrs Wilding tore her eyes from her husband’s like someone peeling off a plaster, and not without pain, either. She stood up, the meat of her face quivering with suppressed rage. ‘You want to talk to him on his own,’ she said. ‘Well, you’re welcome to him! Much good may it do you.’A last little spurt of viciousness. ‘Much good he ever did me.’
A response almost escaped Wilding’s lips, but he held it back, and she walked from the room with unexpected dignity, Connolly following.
In the silence that followed, Wilding remained standing where he was, as if he had forgotten how to sit down. Atherton, trying hard to imagine what he must be suffering, thought he would probably have welcomed death at that moment, so that he would never have to move on from that moment and face what was coming in the future, for the rest of his life.
‘Please sit down,’ Atherton said eventually, half expecting an explosion. A cornered animal will often attack. But Wilding did sit, blindly, staring at nothing again. Slowly he unfurled his clenched fists and rested them on the chair arms with a curiously deliberate gesture, as though determined to remember where he had left them, at least. Atherton sat too, giving him a moment to compose himself.
But Wilding spoke first. The effort of control was audible in the strain in his voice, but it was a very fair attempt at normality. ‘I apologise for that. My wife is an emotional woman, and . . .’ He didn’t seem to know how to end the sentence.
‘No apology necessary,’ Atherton said. ‘This is a terrible time for both of you.’
‘We ought to have handled it better,’ Wilding said. ‘But it’s not something you ever anticipate having to face. Please don’t pay any attention to what she said. She didn’t mean anything. She was just lashing out.’