The Child (Kate Waters #2)(46)

“You may feel that, but I need to know, Nick. I need to know for certain where she is so that I can find some peace and say good-bye properly. The fact that you don’t want to makes me sad, but it won’t stop me,” Angela said, hugging herself against the growing storm.

“I know you never felt the same as me about Alice,” she went on and felt him stiffen beside her.

“What do you mean?” he said. But she knew he knew. They hadn’t had this row for a long time, but its legacy was as instantly toxic as a nuclear winter.

“I’m not discussing it, Angela. It was forty bloody years ago. It was one night and I’ve said I was sorry. There is nothing else I can say. Making me suffer won’t bring Alice back. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t the one who left her on her own.”

Her gasp of pain silenced him. He knew he’d gone too far. Way too far. And he reached for his wife’s hand, unclenching the fingers of her fists.

“God, Angie, why do you do this? Make us say things we’ll regret? You know I don’t blame you. Of course I don’t.”

“I know,” she said. But she didn’t. After all, she had left Alice on her own.

The shouting was over in seconds—it always was, that was their way—but the silence lasted much longer. These rare rows left them both shattered and unable to think about anything else.

It was Angela who got out of bed first, pulled on her dressing gown, and went to make tea.

? ? ?

By the time Tuesday came, a grumpy peace had been declared—the grandchildren had forced them to put on brave faces. Nick had held her hand when they walked to the swings and slide down the road, and she’d made him his favorite roast dinner on Sunday.

“Bye, love,” he’d said that morning and kissed her on the top of her head.

“I’ll call you later,” she’d said.

She tried to sit still and read her magazine. But she couldn’t move on, getting stuck on the same sentence, the same words, over and over again. She made cups of tea that grew cold in a row beside her. She felt she could hear her heart beating.

She hadn’t told Nick when the DNA results were due—she’d been vague. She needed to deal with them herself first.

They’d said it would normally take two days for the results. The police. But Easter would delay things. There was nothing they could do about bank holidays. But they must ring today.

She checked again to make sure her phone had not switched itself off or gone to silent. The blank screen looked accusingly at her. She rang Kate.

“Hi, just wondered if you’d heard anything,” she heard herself say.

Kate hadn’t, but said she would call and try to get a steer on how things were going.

Angela sat with the phone in her hand.

When it rang, five minutes later, she yelped and cut off the call by fumbling and pressing the wrong button. It rang again immediately.

“Kate? Sorry about that. What did they say?”

“They say they’ll probably—and they wouldn’t promise more than probably, Angela—have a result tomorrow,” Kate said.

Angela gripped the phone tighter. “They said it should take two days, Kate. They’ve had five! Did they say if there were any indications yet?”

“No, they’re keeping everything close to their chests, I’m afraid. Look, I know how horrible this must be but we have to sit tight, Angela.”

Angela knew it made sense, but the idea of sitting tight for another day made her feel physically sick.

“Why don’t you go and do something? Go to the shops or see a friend,” Kate said. “Just make sure you have your phone with you all the time so I can contact you.”

“Yes, maybe. You will ring as soon as you hear, won’t you? Promise me,” Angela said, hating herself for sounding so needy. So desperate.

“Of course,” Kate said.





THIRTY-SIX


    Kate


TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012

She was scrabbling in her bag—the bottomless pit, as it was known by Steve and every photographer she’d worked with—for a pen that worked when the phone rang a second time.

Bob Sparkes’s name flashed up and she threw her bag to the floor.

“Bob,” she said too loudly.

“Sorry, caught you at a bad time? Shall I call back?”

“No, no,” Kate said. “Sorry, all a bit frantic here. How are you?”

“Okay. I’ve just had a heads-up from DI Sinclair. It’s a match.”

For a split second, she wasn’t sure what she’d heard.

No preamble, no foreplay. Straight to it, she thought.

“Bloody brilliant,” she crowed. “Bloody buggering brilliant!”

“Yeah. That about sums it up,” Sparkes said, his voice quickening despite himself.

“Don’t come the world-weary copper with me, Bob Sparkes,” Kate said. “You are as pleased as I am. Oh my God, wait until I tell Angela. I’ll go down to Winchester and tell her. I’ll take Mick and tell her. Take Mick. We want a photo of the moment she finds out.”

“Hang on, Kate,” Sparkes tried, but she wasn’t listening.

“We can run it in tomorrow’s paper. ‘Alice Found After 40 Years.’ Or ‘The Moment a Mother Found Her Baby’ . . .”