GQ: Or a hammer?
JN: It wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. What makes you say that?
GQ: Nothing. Forget it. So he never explicitly said his wife was attacking him?
JN: Nope. I made sure I got him on his own the second time, just to give him the chance to talk to me without her earwigging, but he just kept up all the same nonsense about it being over-vigorous rumpy-pumpy. He actually used that word. Rumpy-pumpy.
GQ: Jesus.
JN: To be honest I felt sorry for the poor old bastard. I mean, she was a sexy bit of stuff all right, but Christ, I wouldn’t have touched her with a barge pole. I think she was screwing around too. That car accident? I remember that happening – Priscilla’s not the sort of name you forget. And yes, she was way over the limit, but what you might not know is there was another bloke in the car and it was pretty obvious what they’d been doing. Her knickers were under the back seat. Still, the worm’s turned now.
GQ: I’m sorry?
JN: I saw the news. It’s the same Harper, isn’t it – the bloke with the girl in the cellar? Must be.
GQ: Yes, it’s the same. We’re just trying to fill in the gaps.
JN: Perhaps he just thinks it’s his turn.
GQ: His turn?
JN: You know. Revenge. He can’t take it out on his wife any more so he takes it out on women in general. Not that I want to interfere, of course.
GQ: [pause]
No. That’s been really useful. Thanks.
JN: Always happy to help. Say hello to Fawley for me, won’t you? By the way, how’s that boy of his - Jake? Fawley used to spoil him rotten but you could hardly blame him – not when they’d been trying for one as long as they had. Gorgeous kid, too. Looked just like his mother.
***
‘How is Vicky this morning?’
Titus Jackson tucks his pen into the pocket of his white coat.
‘Progress is slow, Inspector, but at least we’re not going backwards. I assume you want to see her again?’
‘There’s only so long we can hold William Harper before we charge him. I need to be sure what happened before I do that.’
‘I understand.’
He walks with me down the corridor, and when we reach the door he stops and turns to me, something clearly on his mind.
‘Nurse Kingsley said you and your wife may be fostering the little boy?’
‘It’s not “fostering”.’
I suspect I may have said that a bit too quickly, because I see his frown deepen a little.
‘Just giving him somewhere to sleep for a few days. Social Services are struggling.’
‘It’s very kind of you.’
‘It’s not me, it’s my –’ I stop, but it’s too late.
He considers me. ‘You’re not so sure, yourself?’
I take a deep breath. ‘No. If I’m really honest.’ I look him in the eyes. He has kind eyes. ‘Just over a year ago, we lost our own son. He was ten. He took his own life. He’d been suffering from depression. We did everything we could – but –’
There’s a stone in my throat.
Jackson reaches out and touches my arm, just for a moment. ‘I am more sorry than I can say.’
I force myself to speak. ‘It’s been really hard on my wife – well, both of us. But especially her. She wants another child but, you know, at her age –’
He nods. ‘I see.’
‘She’s been pressuring me to think about adoption, but I’m just not sure. And now there’s this little boy who has nowhere to go –’
He watches me, quietly. Not judging. ‘And you have discussed it all – you and your wife?’
‘Last night, when we got home, all she wanted to talk about was plans and arrangements. Every time I raised anything else all she kept on saying was it was just for a few days. That he’d be going back to his mother before we knew it.’
‘Let’s hope that’s true.’
‘Why, don’t you think so?’
‘Vicky is making progress, but it’s slow, and we have to think of the child as well. We brought him up to see her again yesterday but she just turned her face to the wall.’
‘The officers who found them said they thought she’d been giving the food and water to the boy rather than having it herself – surely that must mean something?’
He shakes his head sadly. ‘Not wanting him to die is one thing; having normal maternal feelings for him is something else altogether. There’s a barrier between her and that child, Inspector. Not a bond. You don’t need to be a psychiatrist to work out why.’
He reaches for the door handle. ‘Shall we go in?’
*
This time, she definitely recognizes me. She sits up in the bed and there’s the shadow of a smile.
‘How are you, Vicky?’
Half a nod.
‘There are some questions I’d like to ask, and some things I need to tell you. Is that OK?’
She hesitates, then lifts her hand towards the chair.
I move forward slowly and sit down. She shrinks back in the bed, but only a little.
‘Are you able to tell us what happened to you?’
She looks away from me and shakes her head.
‘OK, that’s fine. I understand. But if you remember anything, you can just write it down for me like you did last night. OK?’
She looks at me again.
‘The other thing I wanted to tell you is that we’re going to put a picture of you in the newspapers. There must be someone out there who knows you – someone who loves you and has probably been looking for you all this time. There’s been stories about you all over the papers and the internet –’
I stop because I have to – because her eyes are wide and she’s shaking her head, and then as Jackson starts forward she seizes the paper I brought and gouges it in huge violent straggling letters.
No No No
***
BBC News
Thursday 4 May 2017 | Last updated at 11:34
BREAKING: New appeal for witnesses in Hannah Gardiner disappearance
Thames Valley Police have issued a new appeal for witnesses in relation to the disappearance of Hannah Gardiner in June 2015. Hannah was previously thought to have disappeared on Wittenham Clumps on the morning of 24 June, but police are now asking for anyone who saw her in Oxford that morning to come forward, especially anyone who saw her near her flat in Crescent Square, or talking to anyone in that area. This would appear to corroborate local reports that Hannah’s body was found in the garden of a Frampton Road house yesterday morning. They have also asked any young women who were walking with a child in a buggy at Wittenham Clumps that morning to make themselves known to the police, if they have not done so already.
Thames Valley has still not released the identity of the young woman and small boy found in the cellar at the same Frampton Road property. A press conference is scheduled for later today.
Anyone with information about either case should contact the Thames Valley Police incident room on 01865 0966552.
***
‘All ready, then?’
I’m really hating the sound of my own voice. The false brightness. It’s that tone nurses use when they ask you to ‘pop on’ a hospital gown or ‘slip off’ your trousers. I can’t believe Alex isn’t giving me one of her looks but it’s the measure of her absorption in the child that she doesn’t appear to notice.
The boy is standing between us, his arm round her leg, and in the other hand, the grimy toy they said he had with him in the cellar. The one he won’t let go. He’s wearing clothes I recognize. Clothes Alex must have kept, all these years. I don’t really want to think about that. He twists his head to look up at her and she reaches down a hand to caress his hair.
‘We’ve got everything we need, so yes, I think we’re ready.’ Her voice sounds as strained as mine. But for a different reason. She is brittle with happiness.