The Child (Kate Waters #2)(90)

“No, of course not. It isn’t Alice. Why won’t you believe me? The terrible thing I have tortured myself with since the age of fourteen is that I had sex with my mother’s boyfriend. And I believed I made him want to do it.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“He said I had seduced him and if I said anything about what we’d done, my mum would hate me forever,” I crash on, my words spilling out into the room. “But I didn’t. I know that now. He raped me and he made me feel I was to blame.”

He glances up at me as I recount the loss of my virginity and I wonder if he has daughters.

“You are saying you were raped?” he asks.

“Yes, Will Burnside raped me,” I say.

It is all said. No going back now.

The officer scribbles it down in his notes.

“And you claim he is the father of the baby you say you gave birth to?” the officer asks and I nod.

There is a pause as he finishes his notes and I close my eyes. When I open them, he has pulled out some photos from a file and put them in a stack, facedown on the table.

“Mrs. Simmonds,” he says, all formal again. “I would like to show you some Polaroid photographs that have come into our possession as part of another inquiry. Can I ask you to look at them to see if you recognize any of these women?”

I don’t understand and I look at Paul. He doesn’t understand, either.

DI Sinclair turns them over and spreads them out, so I can see the images. I can’t make them out at first. They are bits of things. People. They are bits of people. A leg, a breast, a cheek. But gradually, they come into focus and I put the pieces together. I look at the faces—the eyes are open but they are not seeing. They look blank. Dead eyes. Like Barbara Walker’s face. Like the photo in Will’s drawer. These are the photos Kate got from Al Soames.

? ? ?

I look up at DI Sinclair. “What have these got to do with me?” And I hear Paul’s gasp.

I follow his eyes to a photo in the middle and I know immediately it is me.

And I reach out to take it, to gather her in. I have the dead eyes of the other girls and, for a moment, I’m glad. At least she didn’t know, I think. I don’t want to put the photo down. I can’t bear the idea that strangers will see me like this. Exposed.

I want to be the keeper of my last shred of dignity. For a bit, at least. He should allow me that.

I look at it again and I shudder when I notice the hand in the corner of the photo. A man’s hand, touching Emma’s face. My face.

I can’t stop looking at the image, but DI Sinclair is speaking and Paul is crying.

“Is this you?” the DI asks gently.

“Yes,” I say. “Where did you find this? Who took them?”

“We are investigating that. But can you tell me if you know a man called Alistair Soames?”

“Yes,” I say. “Al Soames was the landlord of our house in Howard Street.”

And I see his face in my head. I feel his hand brushing my breast. At a party. The party Will took me to when I was fourteen and Jude had food poisoning.

I taste vomit at the back of my throat and swallow hard, trying to remember more about that night.

How did I get home? I’m shivering.

And DI Sinclair is talking to me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I must remember. I play memory games, trying to kick-start my brain. But I can’t remember anything about the end of the evening.

“Did he take the photos?” I say, interrupting the DI.

“As I said, Emma, I can’t give you any more details at the moment. But I will be talking to you over the next few days as things progress.”

It’s a policeman’s answer. Saying something but nothing.

“What about my baby?” I ask. “What are you going to do about my baby?”

He plays for time, shuffling his papers, but I repeat my question.

“We’ll check the DNA results again, obviously,” he says. He doesn’t believe me.

“You should take mine,” I say. “My DNA sample. To compare.”

“Yes, of course,” he says. “I’ll just ring down and get someone to bring the swab kit. Can you wait here for a moment?” he says and makes his farewells. Very grateful for us coming in, etc.

After the test, we find ourselves outside in the sunshine.

“He didn’t believe me,” I say.

“I believe you,” Paul says.





SEVENTY-THREE


    Emma


SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012

Kate was waiting for me in the coffee shop across the road. She’d texted me to say she was there, but I’d had to explain her to Paul. He was horrified I wanted to talk to a reporter and wanted to come with me if I insisted on going, but I said I knew what I was doing. That I trusted her. In the end he gave in, telling me to be very careful what I said. He would wait for me, and if I wasn’t back in twenty minutes, he’d come and find me.

As I turned to go, he caught hold of my arm. “Are you absolutely sure you need to do this?”

It had taken another five minutes to convince him and now I’m late. She looks as though she thought I wasn’t going to come and is beginning to put her coat on when I finally walk through the door.

A waitress appears as I sit down, and we have to order before we can even say hello properly.