The Child (Kate Waters #2)(80)

“I need to go, Kate. I must tell Harry where I am. She’ll be frantic,” I say.

Kate’s face is pale and she speaks to me as if I’m a patient in a hospital. Low voice, calming rhythms.

“I’ll drive you home, Emma. You must be tired and too raw to think straight. You need time to gather your thoughts.”

It all sounds so comforting and normal. Gather your thoughts. That’s what I should do. It’s what Paul says when he is worried about something. But I don’t need to gather mine. They have been there for years.

? ? ?

Harry is standing on a chair, scanning the dance floor, when we go back in, plucking at her hands and looking anxious.

“Where the hell have you been?” she shrieks as soon as she catches sight of me. “Disappearing like that. I’ve been looking for you for half an hour.”

But she shuts up when she sees my face. I must look awful because she takes my arm and leads me back outside and whispers: “What’s happened, Emma? Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been talking to Kate, that’s all. I’m sorry I worried you,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice steady.

“What about? What have you been talking about?” she says.

“It doesn’t matter now. I’m a bit tired, Harry. I’m going home. Kate’s going to drive me.”

Harry looks across at Kate. She’s talking to a young bloke near the car, giving him some money for a taxi.

“Have you upset her?” she shouts at her, and the bloke looks frightened, as if she’s accusing him.

“No, she hasn’t, Harry,” I say. I want it all to stop. Can’t face any more emotion. “It’s all been a bit much tonight. Seeing everyone. Lots of memories, not all good.”

She squeezes my arm. “Sorry, Emma. I shouldn’t have made you come. I’ll go home with you.”

I shake my head. “I’m fine.” The strands of the story are still working themselves out in my head and I can’t share them with anyone else just yet, not even my closest friend. Harry would get upset and angry for me and I’d have to deal with her emotions as well as my own. She wouldn’t understand why I had chosen to tell a stranger my secrets, but it felt so safe. I was almost anonymous.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” she calls after me, waving miserably as we pull away.

? ? ?

It’s a long way home, snaking through dark streets, then out into the dazzling lights of the dual carriageway.

We don’t speak much. I give directions. Left here, carry on over the roundabout. But Kate and I are both deep in our own heads. Me, reliving my shame. And haunted by the dread I deserved.

? ? ?

The house is in total darkness when I get in. Paul hasn’t left the hall light on. I stand in the dark for a while, unable to put one foot in front of another, the thoughts crowding in on me.

“Emma, are you okay? What are you doing down there?” Paul calls, his voice sleepy.

“Nothing. Just taking my coat off,” I call back. “Go back to sleep.”

I turn on the light and have to close my eyes to protect them from the dazzle. I open them slowly, testing the glare. Everything looks exactly as it did when I left this evening. Paul’s jacket hanging crooked on a hook, unopened junk mail on the table, my shoes lined up by the mat. But everything has changed.

I have told. The police will come now. I need time to think. To plan.

I feel like one of those wildebeests tiptoeing to the edge of the river while the crocodiles wait round the bend, jaws braced. I think about running away. Hiding. But I pull myself up short. At your age? I tell myself. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s time to face it all.

I make a grown-up plan. I’m not going to let this sleeping dog lie.





SIXTY-SIX


    Kate


SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012

Kate got lost as she drove home. She missed her turn but didn’t realize until twenty minutes later when the landscape became leafier instead of neon-lit.

“Shit,” she yelled at the road ahead. She pulled over but couldn’t let go of the steering wheel. She looked at her whitening knuckles as if they belonged to someone else.

Kate could still see Emma’s face, bright with shock in the darkness of her car, her lips trembling, making her trip over her words when she told her story.

When she shouted that it was her baby . . . Kate thought.

It had really frightened her. The noise and the pain in her voice. That was real. But was her story?

Reporters were often the first call for the delusional or attention-seekers. The sad people who want to be part of the news at any cost.

Kate shivered. Her head was all over the place, scrambling over the questions and answers, looking for what she must have missed.

“Two babies? Two bloody babies? It can’t be,” she said out loud. “What the hell do I do now?”

It was all happening so fast. She felt she was losing control of the situation. Of the story.

When Kate had first read the tiny cutting about the baby’s body, she’d hoped she’d be able to write a moving piece about a forgotten child and the personal tragedy behind its death. A Saturday read, she’d thought. A chance to get away from the treadmill of online news. But disturbing the surface had triggered an eruption of unexpected secrets.