The Child (Kate Waters #2)(45)

“Okay, I think. He was happy with what you wrote,” the site manager said and Kate smiled.

“I’m really glad. Look, I wondered if I could ask another favor . . .”

It took two shandies and a packet of peanuts to persuade him, but finally, he agreed. “You can have five minutes before the work begins again,” he said. “And I mean five minutes.”

She squeezed his arm. “’Course. I’ll just get my photographer.”

Mick hated it when she called him “her photographer.”

“I’m not your fucking monkey,” he hissed when she returned to the table. And she smiled apologetically at Joe and Angela in case they’d heard.

“Not in front of the children,” she hissed back as they walked to the door.

? ? ?

Angela had posed nervously in the churned mud, beside the police tape around the site of the grave. Kate had expected her to cry, but she had just stood there, her hands clutched in front of her, her eyes wide and never still.

Mick talked to her as he took the pictures, calming her and reassuring her that it would all be over soon.

But Kate knew it wouldn’t. There was a long road ahead. She watched the scene, noting the anguish on Angela’s face, her hair blown about, the mud streaks on her tights, the wary glances at the tape that marked the baby’s last resting place. These were the details the readers would want to know about, that would bring them straight to the spot where Kate stood. She wouldn’t be able to write it yet but she had it all in her head.

John Davies appeared from his Portakabin after fifteen minutes and shouted for them to stop. “The machines are starting up. You need to go.”

“Just one more, mate,” Mick called—the traditional cry of the photographer—and fired off more shots of Angela bending to reach through the tape to touch the earth.

“Now, please, mate,” Davies shouted again. Kate went over to Angela and took her by the arm to steady her as they walked across the deep ruts. Joe followed behind with her handbag. Like a funeral cortege.





THIRTY-FIVE


    Angela


TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012

It’d been a difficult and long weekend, but they had weathered Easter as a family and it was over now. Nick would be back at work today and she could stop tiptoeing around the house. He’d shouted at her on Saturday, as she knew he would, when she finally told him about going to London and having the DNA test.

“What, you sneaked off without telling me?” he’d roared, and she’d hoped the neighbors were out.

“Stop shouting, Nick,” she’d said. “The neighbors will hear. Look, you were so busy and worried about work last week, I didn’t want to add to your stress.”

He’d looked at her, trying to detect the lie, but she’d kept her wifey face on.

“I don’t want you getting all het up again,” he’d said. “I’m saying this for your own good, Angie.”

Normally, she’d have smiled at him and thanked him for being so caring. But she couldn’t.

Everything was churning in her head, the hope and the hurt and the betrayal rising to the surface after so many years.

“I won’t get all het up, Nick. But this is something I have to do. For Alice.”

At the mention of her name, Nick had closed down and disappeared into the garage, emerging only for silent meals.

Angela had cleaned the house to vent her fury, wielding the hoover like a weapon, crashing it into skirting boards and doors, leaving chips of paint in her wake as she thrust her way through the rooms. In her head she was screaming her accusations: You never wanted Alice. She was the price you paid for being unfaithful. That’s what you felt.

I bet you saw that woman again.

She hated herself for thinking it, but her internal rants almost always ended with that. She couldn’t help it. It was always there, waiting to torture her. She’d never said it out loud to Nick. What would she do if he admitted it? Better not to know.

They’d slept back to back on Saturday night, not even saying “good night.” She’d lain awake, trying to quell her thoughts, and had finally drifted into troubled, sheet-twisting sleep. When she’d dredged herself awake, Nick was lying beside her, eyes open, studying the ceiling.

“Hello, love,” she said through force of habit.

He grunted.

“Patrick is bringing the children round this morning so we can give them their Easter eggs. I thought we could take them to the park,” she said, determined to wear him down.

Nick grunted again, still looking at the ceiling.

“What are you thinking, Nick?” she said.

“That this will never be over,” he said, his voice flat. “That it will never go away.”

“It? Do you mean our daughter?” she said, sitting up.

Nick had rolled away from her, but she couldn’t let it go.

“She is our daughter. And I need to know, Nick, if Alice and I can count on you.”

“For God’s sake, Angie, what does that even mean? Whatever the police say it will be bad news—either it isn’t Alice and you will be devastated, or it is and our baby is dead. Look, Angie, it won’t bring her back. We don’t need tests. Our baby is dead and gone. You know that in your heart of hearts, don’t you? We don’t need graves and bones and policemen. It’s too late for that. We need to let it—her—go.”