Her One Mistake(13)

Instead he placed his right hand over her knee and said, “They’ll find her, my love. They will. They have to.” His hand squeezed her and he eventually turned back to the policewoman. “Oh God, you don’t think it’s the same guy, do you?” he asked suddenly. “The one who took that little boy?” Harriet felt the pressure of his hand harden against her leg. She tried to inch away from him. She couldn’t bear that he was asking this already. Her left hand gripped the leather cushion beneath her until her fingers began to burn from where she was holding so tight and she had to let go.

Officer Shaw drew another deep breath. There was already too little air left in the room to go around.

“We don’t know, Mr. Hodder. At this stage we are still assuming Alice has wandered off from the fair on her own.” She gave a thin-lipped smile and dropped her gaze so she was no longer looking either of them in the eye.

“Do you really think that?” He inched forward until he was perched on the edge of the sofa. “Or are you already linking this to Mason Harbridge? Because seven months have passed and no one has any clue what happened to him.”

Harriet saw flashes of little Mason, the boy the press had described as having vanished into thin air. “I’m going to be sick,” she cried, and rushed to the kitchen where she leaned over the sink and retched into the basin.

Any moment Brian would be right behind her, rubbing her back in an attempt to soothe her. She wiped a hand across her mouth and rinsed it under the tap. She wanted to be left alone, just for a bit, before he started asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

“Just a moment, Mr. Hodder.” Officer Shaw’s voice murmured through the open door of the living room, obviously stopping him on his way out. Their voices were low, but once Harriet turned off the running water she could just make out what they were saying. “I know this is a shock for you.”

“It is.”

“How well do you know Charlotte Reynolds?”

There was a pause. “Personally, not well. She’s Harriet’s friend, not mine.”

“And is she a good friend of your wife’s?”

“Well, clearly not.”

“I mean, are they close?”

Harriet waited for him to answer, and eventually he spoke. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose they are.”





NOW


Tell me more about your friendship with Harriet,” Detective Rawlings says. “How did you first meet?” It’s hard not to forget we aren’t on the same side when she softens like this.

“Harriet was working at St. Mary’s,” I say. My mouth feels dry and I sip the last drop of water from the glass, hoping she might offer me more. She told me I can take breaks, but I haven’t yet found the courage to ask.

“The school where your children go?” she asks. “The same school that held the fair?”

“Yes. Before Harriet had Alice she worked part-time as a teaching assistant.” I tell her I had been called into the school because there had been an issue with Jack, but I resist the urge to tell her it wasn’t anything my son had done. “I’d seen Harriet around before then, but that was the first time we spoke.”

An image of Harriet flittering nervously across the playground pops into my head and I can hear Audrey’s voice saying, “She scuttles around like a mouse.” I may have sniggered because, as always, Aud’s observation was spot-on, but I had also felt something else as I watched her. Pity, perhaps?

“She’s probably just shy,” I’d muttered, looking back at Jack’s small head. Another note had circulated about lice and Jack had already had them four times. I wasn’t prepared to accept a fifth. “Or she doesn’t want to be bothered by any of the parents.”

“Hmm. She’s a little odd,” Audrey had said. “She doesn’t look anyone in the eye.”

At that I’d looked up to see Harriet darting into the main building and wondered what she must have made of us mums all huddled in a group, heads close together as we gossiped and laughed loudly. We were a pack, and most of us took comfort from that, even if we didn’t say it aloud.

I didn’t tell the detective any of this. Instead I told her that Harriet had been honest and open with me and very easy to talk to. As she told me about her concerns for Jack, I had watched her fingers play with the seams of her A-line skirt. Her fingernails were bitten low, a hard nub of dry skin clutched onto her thumbnail. At one point I had focused on that, willing her to stop talking about my son with unsettling accuracy, for fear I would start crying.

“Charlotte?” Harriet had said softly. “If you think I’ve gotten this wrong, then please tell me.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re not wrong,” I’d said. She had been the first person to get it so very right, to see Jack for the little boy he was.

“He’s very bright,” she went on. “Academically he’s miles ahead, but socially he doesn’t always cope with things as well as he should at this age.”

“I know,” I’d said with a nod.

“There are assessments we can look into, help we can get.”

“I don’t want any labels,” I’d said. “I’m not embarrassed, but—”

“It’s okay, Charlotte, you don’t have to make any decisions right now, and you certainly don’t need to worry about considering a different school if you don’t want to.”