PENROSE: So who is?
FAWLEY: That’s what we’re trying to find out. We’re running a familial DNA search but that’s a long and painstaking process and even then may not yield any results. That’s why we hope your viewers will be able to help us. Ms Rowan herself is still insisting that the father was a man called Tim Baker –
PENROSE: Do you really believe that? You’re an experienced police officer, you know how much legwork went into trying to find this man – do you really think he’s out there after all this time?
FAWLEY: I have no idea. But we have to assume he is. Unless and until someone can prove otherwise.
PENROSE: (TURNING TO CAMERA) Thank you, Detective Inspector Fawley. We’ll certainly be keeping in touch with this story as it develops. Back to you, Helen.
HELEN KERRIDGE: Thank you, John. A fascinating story, and one I’m sure we’ll be hearing more of in the coming weeks. And now, Brexit – with the UK and EU still unable to reach an agreement over arrangements for the Irish border, will Theresa May ask for an extension to the transition period?
* * *
‘What did he say when you confronted him?’
Ev and Sargent are in the Ladies. It’s about the only place they can avoid being disturbed, but that’s not why they’re here. They’re here because when Ev came in ten minutes ago she found Sargent at the mirror, reapplying her mascara. She’d clearly been crying.
Sargent sniffs a little now. ‘He denied it all – said he’d had no idea I’d been looking at the trainers – that we must have just come up with the same idea at the same time.’
Ev doesn’t buy that for a minute, but she’s trying to stay neutral. ‘Did you believe him?’
‘Of course I didn’t believe him, the lying little shit.’
She heaves a heavy sigh. Her pretty face looks drawn and pale.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Ev. ‘I’m not sure what to suggest.’
Sargent sighs. ‘It’s fine,’ she says, her voice slightly choked. ‘I just needed to vent at someone. Sorry.’
‘No need to apologize.’ There’s a pause. ‘Do you want me to talk to Gis?’
Sargent shakes her head. ‘I have to fight my own battles.’
‘I know, but he’s a mate – and it’d be less formal coming from me.’
‘There’s no point, is there? I can’t prove anything – I know someone sat on my chair but I can’t prove it was him, and I don’t see how he could have got into my PC.’
‘You definitely had the screen lock on?’
‘Of course – I always do. We had it drummed into us by my first sergeant.’
Ev looks hopeless. ‘Then I’m not sure what else I can do.’
Sargent tries a weak smile. ‘How about buy me a drink? After work?’
Ev checks her watch; it’s gone six. ‘How about right now?’
* * *
Adam Fawley
26 October
20.19
‘It was a bloody disaster – he crucified me.’
The phone’s on speaker but the line’s not good, and the noise on the motorway isn’t helping.
‘Honestly,’ says Alex, ‘everyone thinks that when they see themselves on TV – there was nothing wrong with it.’
I can hear her sshhing now, making little soothing noises. I’m not sure if they’re meant for me or Lily.
‘It was a bloody clusterfuck.’
‘Adam, it wasn’t – really. He’s trained to be a tricky bastard in interviews –’
‘So am I,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Allegedly.’
‘You gave as good as you got. I mean it.’
‘I actually heard myself say “what’s important” – for fuck’s sake. Who do I think I am, Tony bloody Blair?’
She laughs. ‘I didn’t even notice! But maybe there were one too many “unfortunatelys” –’
‘Gee, thanks, that’s all I needed.’
‘Stop it! It was fine – more than fine. You got out the message that you wanted to get out and you didn’t shoot yourself in the foot. If anyone came off badly it was South Mercia.’
I swipe at the phone screen. ITV, BBC, Sky. ‘At least we seem to be getting some decent coverage.’
‘There you are then.’
She starts cooing again. I can hear Lily’s little gurgly laugh.
‘I should only be an hour or so now.’
‘It’s pouring here so be careful – you know what you always say about most accidents being in the first or last ten minutes of a journey –’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘– and you have a meal in the oven and a glass of wine waiting to be poured.’
‘Have I ever told you I love you?’
‘Maybe,’ she says, with laughter in her voice, ‘perhaps once or twice.’
* * *
Sheila Ward goes over to the sideboard and pours herself a brandy. Her hands are trembling and she spills a few drops on to the silver tray. A wedding present from her parents. Nigel always hated it. Said it was just plate, not proper solid silver. Not the ‘real thing’. She remembers the tone he used every time he said it. As if it was her he was really talking about. As if she was substandard goods too. Not the woman he thought he was marrying. Not the real thing.
She goes back over to the sofa, feeling the hit of alcohol on her empty stomach. The TV is still on, some politician all hot under the collar about Brexit. As if it matters. As if any of it matters.
She sips again at the drink and tips back her head as the liquid burns down.
Not the father of that child
Not the father of that child
Not the father of that child
The words keep playing in her head. There’s something comforting in the rhythm of them. Like a nursery rhyme. ‘Three Blind Mice’. Or ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’. So charming and innocent and half nonsensical, until you find out where it came from and realize that the song your child is singing is about plague and death. Not her child, of course. No child of hers ever sang anything because she couldn’t have one. She wasn’t a proper woman, you see. Not the ‘real thing’.
Not the father of that child
Not the father of that child
Ring a ring the words go round. When Fawley phoned earlier she could tell he thought he was bearing good news – that she’d be happy and relieved. Vindicated. But there’d never been any doubt about it, not in her mind. She knew Nigel hadn’t fathered that baby, for the simple reason that Camilla had dumped him long before. She’d heard him, on his office phone when he thought she was asleep, begging the little tart to take him back and getting the cold shoulder because she was bored with him and had only let him screw her in the first place because it was her way of sticking it to her parents. Not that Nigel realized it, of course. He thought it was all about him. Men – men and their bloody egos.
She takes another shot of brandy, a larger one.
Not the father of that child
True. But very far from being the whole truth and she knows it. What about the other child – the one that came before? The one that wasn’t even given the chance to be born – what about that child?
She still remembers the look on Nigel’s face, the day it came out about Camilla. The day it was all over the news, and there were journalists at the door, and a police investigation, and he sat her down and gave her a brandy. It’s the only other time she’s ever drunk the stuff. Perhaps that’s why it’s coming back so vividly now. He gave her a brandy and he told her. What he’d done, and how ashamed he was, and how it had never happened again, before or since, and she had to believe him that he knew nothing – nothing – about the missing baby. That bit about other affairs was a lie, for a start, but she’d let him burble on, sitting there gripping her hand in his hot chubby fingers, wallowing in his terror and self-pity, and when he’d finished she told him she already knew. She’d known for years. She knew he’d got the little slut pregnant when she was barely fourteen. She knew he’d used their money to pay for her to get rid of it. She knew it all. The look on his face was almost worth the wait. His slack mouth opening and closing like some huge stupid goldfish. A rather tacky and unedifying pleasure, admittedly, but no less sweet for that. All those years, he’d thought he was the one with secrets, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.