Girl Unknown(24)

‘What is it, Mum?’ Holly asked one evening, over dinner. David and Robbie looked up from their plates. ‘Why do you keep staring at me?’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are! Every time I look up, you’re staring. It’s freaking me out.’

Scanning my daughter’s face, interrogating it for traces of Zo?. Was there something in the slight flatness to her cheeks, the small nose, the wide, thin-lipped mouth revealing a straight row of small teeth?

An expression sprang up from childhood: The cat can look at the queen.

‘Just eat your dinner,’ I said.

While we waited for the DNA test results, it seemed as if David and I were living within an unarticulated argument. We were cordial with each other but we took a measure of care when moving through our conversations, both of us cautious not to touch on the subject. We talked about the children, about work, exchanged words about shopping, cooking, household tasks. Any thoughts or doubts I kept to myself, and if he had any misgivings he didn’t confide them to me. Then one evening he arrived home from work and I felt a change in him straight away. When he came in from the garden, taking off his jacket as he closed the door behind him, I felt his muted anger in the way he seemed to shrink from my gaze.

‘Glass of wine?’ I asked, and he said sure, moving past me to hang his jacket from the hook on the door.

From the sitting room came a burst of laughter – Holly and two of her friends were watching the One Direction film. Beyond the window, the trees were dripping from a recent downpour, but it was warm in the kitchen, the mellow trumpet sounds of Kenny Durham coming through the speakers.

‘Cheers,’ I said, and we clinked glasses. I sat on the sofa and watched him lean back on a barstool across from me, wondering what was pulling at him. ‘You okay?’ I asked, solicitous, concerned.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you met Zo??’ he asked quietly.

My breath caught in my throat. ‘David, I’m sorry. I should have told you. I’m not sure why I didn’t.’

He kept looking at me, a baffled expression clouding his face.

‘I suppose I thought if I could just see her, get a look at her –’

‘How did you even find her?’

‘I rang your department,’ I said, shame creeping up through me as I admitted it. It occurred to me that the methods I had employed, the way I had sneaked about, were like the actions of a suspicious wife trying to catch her husband in the act of adultery. If David saw the irony, he didn’t say so. He was swivelling the barstool slightly from side to side, the movement channelling some of his anger.

‘Don’t you think that’s a bit creepy?’ he asked. I had the sense that he was choosing his words. For all the care he took, I could hear the accusation behind them.

‘You’re right,’ I agreed, wanting to smooth things over, even though the need to talk it through was still there, the angry pulse of it running through everything. ‘I’m sorry. It was impulsive. I didn’t think it through properly.’

He drank from his glass, turned and put it on the counter behind him. I thought he was going to let the matter drop. But then he looked back at me and said: ‘Have you any idea how freaked out she was?’

A match striking tinder. The sudden spark, his concern for the girl, seeing how it overrode my apology, my discomfort. The anger I had been holding at bay came to life inside me. ‘How freaked out she was?’

‘Yes. She was in a state when she came to my office today, in tears over what you had said to her—’

‘What did I say? Tell me. What did I say to upset her?’

Still quietly, he went on: ‘She said you demanded to know what she wanted from me. She felt threatened, intimidated—’

‘I didn’t intimidate her. The way you talk of her, you’d swear she was this shrinking violet.’

‘She’s just a kid.’

‘She’s old enough to know how to manipulate, David. Believe me. Clearly, she has you all figured out, turning on the waterworks so you’ll feel sorry for her.’

‘Do you even hear yourself, Caroline? Do you know how harsh you sound? How bitter?’

‘Well, what do you expect from me?’

He was making the barstool swivel harder now, his anger growing.

‘Come on, David. Tell me how you think this should work. Should I just take it on the chin? Say, “There, there, dear. Never mind about all this”, open my home and my heart to this girl – this stranger – without checking first to see if she’s real, if what she says is true?’

The chair stilled and he said: ‘You should have told me.’

‘I know. I know I should, and I’ve apologized for that.’

‘We agreed to wait, didn’t we? Until the test results came back.’

‘Yes,’ I said, my voice cool and firm. ‘We did. And you also agreed that you wouldn’t have anything to do with her outside class – remember?’

‘She came to my office. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Tell her you were busy. Have her make an appointment.’

‘I couldn’t. She was upset—’

‘Oh, David, please. She sheds some crocodile tears and immediately you cave.’

‘Don’t be like that,’ he said.