Silent Child(49)

“What questions did they ask you?”

“What didn’t they ask me?” He sighed. “It was a breakdown, basically. They wanted to know every second of my whereabouts for the entire day. Of course it was impossible to answer. It was ten years ago and everyone was rushing around like a blue-arsed fly trying to find a dry classroom in that leaking cesspool of a school. I thought I’d been with Simon from IT for most of the day but apparently he says he wasn’t. I distinctly remember us going into E6 to check on the roof there. It’s all ridiculous. As if I would have even had time to do such a thing. Ten years!”

“That’s what I said.”

He pulled me closer and kissed me on the mouth. “My Emma. My beautiful wife. To think our little daughter will be here to meet us soon.”

I pushed him back. “Jake. Aiden’s here.”

“Aiden, dear boy,” he said, imitating a stereotypical public school teacher. “Perhaps it’s time for you to go to bed now. I have some things to discuss with your mum.”

“Actually, it is getting a bit late,” I said. “Maybe we should all go to bed.”

“Has he eaten?”

“Denise made him a sandwich.”

Aiden made his way out of the room, closing the door behind him. My heart sank to see the way he plodded along the floor with his stiff, cumbersome gait. It was getting a little better each day, but I wondered whether he would ever stride or run in the same way as the other young men and women.

“Where were we, Mrs. Price-Hewitt? Hmm, maybe one day we can ditch the Price.” He landed a few small kisses down my neck.

“Jake, come on. It’s been a horrible day. Can we just sit and chill for a bit?”

He pulled away and crossed one leg over the other in a fluid motion. From the way he held his body I could tell he was annoyed.

“It’s just… I’m so stressed out. And… look, we’ll have some sandwiches and watch an hour of TV and then see how we’re feeling, okay? I just need to decompress.” I started rubbing my hands again. “Someone keyed my car. I was at the doctor’s and this woman was talking to me—”

“Who keyed your car? Why were you at the doctor’s?”

“When I took Aiden to his therapy session yesterday, Dr Foster suggested I might need a check-up. When I was in the surgery, this woman started talking to me about Aiden and… I dunno… I think I snapped at her. She must have keyed the car on the way out. And then there was a transit van following me. I guess it was reporters. I lost my temper with them coming into the house.” By this point I was scratching the skin on my hands. Jake leaned forward and took them in his own.

“What about the doctor? What did she say? Are you all right? The baby?”

“I’m fine. Just a little bit of high blood pressure so I have some tablets to take.”

He kissed both hands and then let them go. “You need to rest. Why don’t you ask Rob to take Aiden for a few days? He can take on some of the responsibilities for a change.”

Mentioning Rob only made me think about the things he’d said over the phone. I couldn’t stand to think about Aiden somehow still connected to his kidnapper. But what if it was true? What if Aiden was even in touch with his kidnapper? Did Aiden know how to use a phone? Could he speak when I wasn’t around? I rubbed my eyes before letting my fingers run through my hair. Jake reached forward and took my arms, pulling me towards him.

When he kissed me, I kissed him back, but my body reacted on its own. My mind was elsewhere. I was considering everything I knew so far. I knew that Jake had been called in for questioning. I knew that the adult learning centre could not confirm that he worked there, but they did offer up a story in line with Jake’s personal life. He hadn’t been working at the centre since Aiden was found. He had been going to work at the school part-time but that was all. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how things had been with Jake before all this started. In fact, before I found out I was pregnant.

We’d been married for a year. Though we’d discussed the idea of a child, Jake had always said that there was no rush. He wanted to make sure I was ready after everything that had happened with Aiden. I thought it was sweet, and I’d agreed. I wasn’t even sure I wanted another child. It felt too much like replacing Aiden.

But after the honeymoon period a lot of things changed. After we’d filed the wedding pictures in an album and found ourselves lost in the routine of day-to-day living, something changed between us. Jake was very particular about how the house should look, and whenever I tried to buy a new ornament or rearrange the furniture to accommodate my own belongings, Jake didn’t like it. For a time I could see that he was trying to put up with these changes, but I saw the long hard look he gave the old pine desk I’d brought from my parents’ house. He made plenty of offhand comments about the paint marks and the coffee rings on the lid, and more than once jokingly suggested we put it in the garage.

Then one day I came home and in the place of my beloved childhood desk stood a brand new glass-topped monstrosity.

“Ta-da!” he had announced, standing next to the desk with his arms out wide.

I remember that it was a Saturday and I’d spent the morning with Josie in York. In fact, it had been Jake’s idea for me to go. Clearly, he’d wanted me out of the way so he could replace the desk. I had stood there, thin-lipped and tense, digging my thumbnail into the palm of my hand.