Silent Child(57)

He was on bail.

The Wetherington House search had proved fruitless. Aside from the duke’s computer there was nothing else incriminating. There was no hidden dungeon. There were no secret passages or rooms that had not been scoured by the police. Or so they said. I was dubious. Surely a man with so much wealth and so many connections could afford to pay a builder to work in secrecy. But then again, as DCI Stevenson had told me during a brief telephone conversation informing me of the duke’s release, any change to Wetherington House was a ball-ache for the duke and duchess. They had to jump through more hoops than the rest of us, and it would take an awful lot of effort to build any kind of addition to the house. There was, of course, the possibility that he had used his money and influence to pay someone off, but even then he would have had to hide the whole thing from his family.

I was beginning to have doubts. The duke was a sick man. He had broken the law, perhaps multiple times, but I was no longer sure that he had taken and abused my Aiden.

I told Jake my thoughts over breakfast. We had a rare morning without any family liaison officers, as they had been called into the station for some sort of meeting. I was sure that it was to report back about us. They were spies.

“It has to be him.” Jake pushed his glasses up his nose, as he tended to do when he was anxious. “He had all those pictures on his laptop. I bet he’s so rich he can pay people off.”

I cringed. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“I can’t stand the thought of Aiden’s kidnapper out there being allowed to live his life. Free to do whatever he wants.”

“Well, if Aiden would man up and open his gob, none of this would be going on.”

I quietly seethed as I buttered my toast.

“It’s true though, isn’t it?” Jake said, clearly not understanding when to shut his own gob. “All Aiden has to do is talk.”

“I think he’s blocking it all out. I’m not sure how much he remembers at this point,” I said. “And I’m not convinced that it was the duke. He’s too old. If he did do it, he had a lot of help. Maybe someone worse used his money to set the whole thing up. Maybe it was someone in the village.” My stomach churned. I set my toast back down on the plate.

“You need to eat something,” Jake said. “The baby needs you to be healthy.”

“I know.” I picked off a corner of the crust and ate it. It tasted of nothing.

“Is the nursery all set up?” Jake asked.

“We set up most of it before… before Aiden came home. But we haven’t got all the toys and clothes out of the packaging.”

“Maybe you can do that today,” Jake suggested. “I’ve got to take the car in for its MOT so I’ll be out and about most of the day. Besides, It’ll be a nice reminder that you have two children, not one.”

My face flushed with a mix of shame and anger. It was true that my thoughts were mostly concerned with Aiden, but it was unfair of him to actually say it out loud. The last thing I needed was to be reminded that I was already a bad mother to the little girl growing in my womb.

When I flashed Jake a stern glance he only shrugged his shoulders and went, “What? Sorry, love, you know I speak my mind, and I have to say that it’s all true. What’s happened is truly awful, but for how long as we going to put our lives on hold?” He stood up and cleared away his cereal bowl.

“Are you serious?” I ripped another crust from my toast and angrily threw it back on the plate.

“Yes, I’m serious. Look, I understand that Aiden’s investigation comes first but… but you’re hardly even the woman I married. You’re a mess, Emma. You’re strung out, agitated. Irritable. In fact, your temper is downright awful. The way you screamed at those reporters, well—”

“You watched the video.”

“The whole world watched the video. They all think you’re unhinged, for fuck’s sake. And the way you don’t even see that Aiden is not just a traumatised kid—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on. You read Amy’s article. I know I didn’t know you and Aiden all that well before the abduction, but you already admitted how a lot of what she said was true. Aiden was a badly behaved child—”

“No!”

“You’ve ignored all the bad bits and built him up to be some sort of angel. But it’s not true, is it? He was out of control.”

“Shut up!”

“I would, honey, but you have to hear this. You have to wake up and realise that our house is not going to be safe while Aiden is in it. We can’t bring a newborn home with him living here! He could be working with the kidnapper for all we know. Teenagers build some weird fucking alliances.”

“Jake!”

“I’m sorry. I hate to say these things but they need to be said.”

I let out a gasp. My hands were gripping the table so hard that my nail had bent back. I placed the finger in my mouth and sucked it while Jake finished rinsing his cereal bowl and moved back to the kitchen table.

I removed my finger. “How long have you thought these things?”

He took my injured nail in his hand, gentle as always. “Since we brought Aiden home. I had hoped he would snap out of this fugue, but, honestly, Emma, I don’t think he ever will. I think he has something wrong with him that you can’t fix. Maybe no one can. But don’t you think he should get help from professionals? Don’t you think you’re being selfish by keeping him here in your house?”