The Child(89)

“Emma,” he says. “I want desperately to believe you. But these are the most serious allegations. And if they are wrong . . . If you are mistaken, in any detail, there will be big consequences. You do know that, don’t you?”

“It is true, Paul,” I say. “I promise.”

And he puts both arms around me and rocks me. I fold myself into him like a child and he comforts me.

“Emma,” he says at last, “what is going to happen now?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It is up to the police. I want to go and see them. Will you come with me?”

? ? ?

Paul and I sit for ages in the police station, waiting for the right officer to be found.

We’d walked up the steps arm in arm as if we felt strong, but I could feel the tremor running from me to Paul and back again. He smiled at me when we got to the door.

“It’s going to be all right, Em,” he said, and I nodded.

It’s funny. I always imagined the police coming to my door. Here I am, coming to theirs.

At the front desk, we give our names and ask to speak to DI Sinclair. He’s been quoted in all the stories about Alice as the man in charge. The young officer on duty tells us to take a seat and Paul sits next to a man who looks like he’s been beaten up. He’s drunk and bloody and crying. Paul gives him tissues to mop the mess and tries to speak to him, but he’s too out of it to hear him.

I sit, jiggling my knee in time to my internal music.

When we’re called over to the desk, Paul pats my shoulder and we stand.

We walk what feels like miles, the constable’s big feet making an echo chamber of the corridor. Everything seems exaggerated—the time, the sounds, the glare of the lights. I dig my nails into my skin beneath my handbag. It’s going to be all right, Em, is my mantra.

The young officer can’t tell us anything, but he offers us a drink and brings thin plastic cups of sweetened tea that neither of us can stomach. We wait in silence. Each caught in our own bubble. We have said all there is to say to each other.

“No more secrets,” I’d said to Paul, and he’d said, “No,” and looked away.

Now I have to tell my secrets to DI Sinclair. I wonder if they will believe that the baby didn’t breathe? Maybe they’ll think I killed it. They might lock me up straightaway.

The detective comes in quietly and introduces himself. Not as old as I expected. Chubby face. All polite. He puts his reading glasses on when he sits down and opens his file. I can see the corner of a photograph poking out from under documents. He notices me looking and closes the file.

“Mrs. Simmonds,” he says. “Can you tell me why you have come here today?”

I’m ready.

“To tell you that the baby you found in Howard Street is not Alice Irving. It is my baby. The baby I had a week after my fifteenth birthday,” I say. My prepared statement.

He looks at me carefully. Like Kate did. Weighing me up. Weighing my words.

“When was your baby born, Mrs. Simmonds?”

“April 1, 1985. I had the baby on my own, in the bathroom at home, 63 Howard Street.”

“That must have been a frightening ordeal,” he says. But I know he doesn’t believe me. He’s playacting concern.

“Did anyone know about your pregnancy or the birth?”

“No, I was too frightened and ashamed to tell anyone. I hid it all,” I say.

“Right. When did you bury your baby?”

“The same day,” I say.

“And how did your baby die?”

Paul suddenly speaks. “You don’t have to answer that question, Emma.”

“It’s okay, Paul,” I say. “I want to tell the police everything I know. No more secrets.”

I turn back to the policeman and say, “I don’t know. It never made a sound when it was born.”

I am back in the smothering silence of the bathroom and I clench my fists against my thighs.

“Mrs. Simmonds, we have DNA evidence that this baby is Alice Irving,” he says too gently, as if he is talking to a child. Be careful with the madwoman, he must be thinking.

“Then you must have made a mistake,” I say. “There cannot be two babies.”

DI Sinclair rubs his head. His hair is very short and he’s got little blond prickles on his scalp. I wonder what they feel like when you rub them. I’m drifting. Must focus. I twist the skin on my stomach.

“As you say, it would be against all odds,” he says. “Are you all right, Mrs. Simmonds?”

“Yes, thank you,” I say and sit on the front edge of my chair to show I’m listening to him.

“My wife has had a very traumatic experience,” Paul says and I silence him with a look.

“It’s fine, Paul.”

DI Sinclair clears his throat. Must be finding it hard to ask the next one.

“I think you spoke to a reporter last night, didn’t you?”

I nod. I feel sick. He’s talked to Kate. Why didn’t she tell me? She’s lied to me. And I fumble with the idea that no one can be trusted.

“You told the reporter that you had done something terrible. What was the terrible thing you did, Emma?” he says. “Did you have anything to do with burying Alice Irving?”

Him using my first name catches me off guard and I almost don’t hear the accusation that follows. Then it crashes in on me.