Silent Victim(42)

CHAPTER FORTY

ALEX





2017


My phone’s ringtone drilled into my brain, resurrecting the sense of dread that had been keeping me company all day. I was plagued with a premonition that had made it near impossible to catch up with my work from home. It seemed crazy to worry about such a simple thing as Emma taking Jamie to nursery, but when I came home from Leeds she was so paranoid and upset, I wondered if there was more to her state of mind than she was letting on. I could not bear to confront her about Luke, at least not until I had the DNA results in my hand. Now, as her name flashed up on the screen, I knew I had been right to feel worried.

The first thing she told me was that she was at the shops with Jamie, picking up ice cream before they came home. This deviation from the usual routine quickened my pulse, and I could tell from the tremor in her voice that, despite her reassurances, something was very wrong. Slowly she relayed what had happened, her voice growing hushed as she told me about the accident. Jamie piped up in the background, asking her to hurry up so he could eat his ice cream at home. I stood, my heart in my throat as the papers I had been holding fell to the floor. Emma calmly spoke as if she had been reading the words from a prompt. I took a breath, grounding myself as I absorbed the news. ‘Are you sure he’s OK?’ I said, imagining Jamie in the back of an ambulance while I was casually browsing over figures between puffs on my vaporiser.

‘He’s fine; we both are,’ she said as I strained to hear over the beeps of the checkout till in the background. ‘He’s been checked over by the paramedics as a precaution, and he’s none the worse for wear. Can you get the heating on? Light the fire? We’re soaked through. I’ve promised him Ben & Jerry’s and his favourite programme on TV.’

I peered through the window and watched the rain hammer down. ‘Why didn’t you call me when it happened?’ I said, unable to comprehend the logic. ‘I should have been there. He must have been terrified.’ A frisson of annoyance rose up inside me as Emma continued to reassure me in a ridiculously calm tone. What had she said to the police and paramedics? Now we had a social services referral to worry about too. Mum would be horrified. This sort of thing may have been the norm in Emma’s family but . . . I pulled away from the window, bitter seeds of disgust blooming inside me. How could she leave me in the dark when our son could have been killed? Or did she think that I could wait, given that I was not his natural father?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Look, this isn’t the time. We’re both soaking wet, and we need to get home. We can talk about it then.’

My fury remained long after the call ended. Jamie was little more than a toddler; why hadn’t she been watching him? I had accepted that Emma had her own struggles to contend with and was not always as focused as she should have been. But this was different. This involved our defenceless child. Was she fit to look after him at all?



As we lay in bed that night, I stared up at the ceiling wondering what had happened to our happy home. Had it ever really existed at all? I turned towards Emma, touching her hair and smoothing it. ‘Are you awake?’ I said, knowing she was.

Her steady inhalation of breath paused as she considered her response. After a couple of seconds she turned to face me, her eyes wet with tears. I felt a soft, warm pang in my heart at the sight of the woman I loved so upset because of something I had said. Our argument had been whispered, so as to protect our son. But that did not stop my words cutting her to the bone. I had witnessed the pain in her eyes as my accusations found a home. We had been through some tough times, and she had done a terrible thing, leaving Jamie alone in the car. But I was her husband and the day I took my vows I had sworn to stay with her through thick and thin. What sort of a man was I, abandoning her when she needed me the most? ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you. Jamie is fine. That’s the most important thing.’

She nodded, biting down on her bottom lip as she held in a sob. The light of the moon filtered in through our window, displaying the remorse etched on her face.

‘We’ll get through this,’ I said, wiping away her tear with my thumb. ‘What’s done is done. We have a whole new life in front of us, you, me and Jamie. He needs us to be strong.’

‘That’s all I want,’ she said quietly. ‘Our little family. I promise. I won’t take my eyes off him again.’

At least she wasn’t trying to shift the blame any more. That’s what had riled me in the first place. Instead of being sorry for leaving him, she had used Luke as an excuse rather than face up to her responsibilities. It was Luke who had opened the car door, just as it was Luke who had made the silent call and rapped on our window the night before. It was a good job I had not told her about the dead mouse I found in the kitchen today, or she would have blamed Luke for that too. Had Emma convinced herself that everything was his fault? According to Luke, the only person I should be worried about was my wife, who had some serious mental health issues. I had tried to question Jamie tentatively, but he had clammed up, no longer willing to speak about it.

‘Do you think you forgot to lock the car?’ I said, keeping my tone gentle so as not to sound like an accusation. ‘Is it possible you might not have pressed the central locking button?’

‘It was pouring with rain,’ she said. ‘I was fiddling with my umbrella as well as the change for the car park. I’m sure I locked it. I heard it click.’