Her One Mistake(23)

Detective Rawlings looks at me, confused.

“If I had been looking after her properly, then she wouldn’t have disappeared,” I say. “But I also knew I didn’t do anything any other parent wouldn’t have done. Yet no one else saw it like that. Already I was being blamed. People were saying I wasn’t responsible.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Who was blaming you?” Detective Rawlings asks as she pulls a tissue sharply out of a box and passes it across the table. I take it from her and dab my eyes, keeping the tissue scrunched in my hand.

“Friends. Strangers,” I say. “Everyone jumps on the bandwagon, don’t they? They think it’s their right to comment on what I’m like as a mother, even if they’ve never heard of me.”

“The power of the internet,” Rawlings states.

“It was the people I thought of as my friends, though, they’re the ones whose reactions sting the most. In the days after the fair, their silence became deafening.”

“And Harriet’s reaction must have been difficult to handle too?” the detective asks, steering the conversation as if I have no right to feel sorry for myself. “Her silence must have left you wondering what she was thinking.”

“It did. I wanted her to shout at me and tell me she hated me, but she didn’t and that made it worse. Harriet refused to see me.” I look Detective Rawlings in the eye. “And that was so much harder,” I admit. “I watched her crumble in that living room and there was nothing I could do to make it better.”

“But Brian was more forthright?” she says. “Is that the reaction you expected from him?”

“I didn’t know what to expect. I’d only met him a few times, and hardly at all in recent years.” I always suspected Harriet felt like she couldn’t bring Brian along after Tom and I had split up, even though I’d assured her he was welcome.

“So even though you became such good friends with Harriet, you never got to know her husband?” Detective Rawlings asks, leaning forward in her seat. Her eyes are unnervingly still as she stares at me.

“No. Our friendship didn’t involve him or my ex-husband when we were together.”

“That’s unusual.” She continues to look me in the eye as she lays her hands out flat on the table. “Don’t you think?”

I open my mouth to respond that I didn’t think it was, but instead I say, “Can we take a break now, please? I’d like to use the toilet.”

“Of course.” Detective Rawlings pushes her chair back and gestures toward the door. “And help yourself to a tea or coffee too,” she adds, and for a moment I’m grateful for her kindness. It isn’t until I walk out of the room I realize she’s really just telling me there’s still much more she wants to know.





BEFORE


HARRIET


That first night Harriet did not sleep, or if she did it was only minutes before she woke, soaked in sweat and disturbed by images she couldn’t shake.

She lay on top of the covers throughout the interminable dark hours, staring at the ceiling, all the time thinking of Alice’s empty room next to hers. Not one night had passed when she hadn’t tucked her daughter into bed, kissed her goodnight, and crept in to check on her before she went to bed herself. It was no surprise she couldn’t sleep.

Earlier in the evening, while Brian was still downstairs, Angela had come up to Harriet’s bedroom, offering to call the doctor to see if he could prescribe some sleeping tablets. Harriet shook her head vigorously—she definitely did not want pills. She would rather be awake all night torturing herself than knocked out, miles away from reality.

“Thank you for staying so late,” she said to Angela, grateful she was still there.

“Of course.” Angela brushed off her gratitude. It was her job, after all, Harriet thought sadly, but still she was comforted by Angela’s presence in the house. It took her mind off Brian pacing the floorboards below.

“I promised Alice I’d always keep her safe,” Harriet said quietly. “But I haven’t been able to, have I?”

Angela leaned over and touched her arm. “Try not to do this, Harriet. This is not your fault.” Harriet wondered if Angela could tell Brian that too, because she could feel his blame hovering over her, his confusion that she’d left Alice with Charlotte. He knew Harriet would never have let Alice out of her sight.

Were her anxieties about Alice innate? she wondered. Would Harriet have been a different kind of mother if her dad had still been there, smoothing the path of parenting for her mum? With only her mother to learn from, was it any wonder she’d become overly protective?

“I see flashes of Alice’s face.” Tears pooled uncomfortably in the crook of Harriet’s neck, but she made no move to wipe them away.

“Guilt is a very destructive thing,” Angela said. “You mustn’t let it take hold. You couldn’t have changed what happened. No one can foresee something like this.”

No matter what Angela said, the guilt would continue to bury itself deep into her skin, scratching away until one day soon she would be driven mad by it. She was sure of that.

But when Harriet wasn’t thinking of Alice, unwanted thoughts of Charlotte filled her head. Charlotte in her warm, large bed in the cozy bedroom with the deep teal walls and fluffy cushions. She wondered how Charlotte felt, knowing her own children were safely asleep in their rooms; whether she derived comfort from that, even if she wouldn’t admit it.