Her One Mistake(30)

“We are now open for questions,” Hayes announced, and the commotion of hands shooting into the air took the pressure off them and Brian’s grip on her arm softened.

A tall man in the front row stood up and introduced himself and asked the detective the question they were told to expect. “Are you linking Alice Hodder’s disappearance to Mason Harbridge?”

“We’ve no reason to suspect that the two cases are linked,” Hayes said, “but of course we are looking into the possibility.”

“Have you got any other leads?” a female journalist piped up from the back row. She had shoulder-length bobbed hair and cold eyes that hid beneath layers of makeup. She didn’t look at Harriet and seemed only interested in the detective. “By the sound of it, there’s nothing solid.”

“There are a couple of lines of inquiry we’re looking into, but nothing we can divulge right now,” Hayes said.

Harriet’s head snapped around. She knew nothing about other leads. What weren’t they telling her? But the questions moved on. This time a man at the far end of the room stood, introducing himself as Josh Gates, who worked for the local newspaper, the Dorset Eye. “Mrs. Hodder, I wonder if you could tell me how you feel about the fact your friend was posting on Facebook instead of watching your daughter at the fair?”

“What?” Harriet said, barely audibly. She felt winded, as if someone had come along and punched her in the stomach.

He held up his iPad as if to prove a point. “At the precise time your daughter went missing, she was leaving comments on friends’ posts and even wrote one of her own. Her attention was obviously elsewhere,” he went on. “So, I just wondered how you felt about that, given she was supposed to be looking after your daughter.”

She felt Brian’s body press forward, nudging against the desk, certain he wanted to know more. Because if Charlotte was on Facebook, it was proof she wasn’t watching Alice and was therefore a careless mother whose children ran feral. Just like he had said.

“I’m interested in what you think about your friend’s actions, Mrs. Hodder,” Josh Gates said.

“I, erm, I don’t know anything about that,” she said hoarsely, tugging nervously at her shirt. Charlotte had admitted she’d looked at her phone, but this man’s suggestions made her distraction seem so much worse.

“If Mrs. Reynolds was—” Brian started, but Captain Hayes was already shutting the interview down, holding up his hand to stop the journalist and any more questions. Harriet wished he’d let Brian continue. She’d liked to have known what her husband wanted to say.

They were shuffled out of the hotel and back into Angela’s car. Angela told them it had gone as well as they could have hoped, but Harriet wasn’t listening. Her head was spinning with what the last journalist had said, and now her window of opportunity to reach out to the world was over. She didn’t know if she was supposed to feel something, didn’t know if she had done enough, but she felt numb and exposed, and had no idea what to expect next.





NOW


The air-conditioning whirs slowly in the corner, but it doesn’t generate enough air to cool down the room, yet instead of taking my cardigan off, I find myself wrapping it tighter around my body. I don’t want Detective Rawlings seeing the vibrant blotches of red on my chest: the unmistakable marks of nerves. Pulling the woolen belt around my waist, I hold its ends between my fingers, rubbing them the way I did with my comfort blanket as a child.

“Let’s talk a little more about your friendship with Harriet,” the detective says. “You said that even though you were close friends you didn’t get together with your partners?”

I shake my head. “Hardly ever. There was only one occasion I remember of Brian coming to my house and that was when they came to a barbecue.” I don’t offer any more. I’d barely spoken to Brian as I’d played host, skirting around groups of friends with offers of drinks and platters of kebabs. I didn’t rest until everyone had eaten, and by then Harriet and Brian had already left.

I wonder if Detective Rawlings is skeptical we didn’t do more together, because she’s hard to read. Her blank expression could be disbelief or dislike for me, I have no idea. But this was the truth. Harriet and I met up during the day when we had the little ones, which suited us both. I had no need to integrate my new friend into the beginnings of my failing marriage and I liked that I had someone I could talk to who didn’t know Tom. It meant she was solidly in my corner. I could tell Harriet how it was and I wasn’t judged. I was listened to and sympathized with, and on occasion I would make it a whole lot worse than it was, just because it was nice having someone tell me they felt for me.

And yes, I admit I had no desire to spend time with Brian. I recoiled when Harriet told me that every night after Alice had gone to bed they would sit down together in the kitchen and discuss their days. How he would tell her the intricacies of his job in insurance and in return show much interest in her day with Alice. I couldn’t tell you what Tom’s job actually required him to do, and I doubt he had any idea if I’d taken the children swimming in the last week or if it was months ago. Harriet and Brian’s marriage always felt a little too twee for me.

“Yet you must have talked to each other about your home lives,” the detective says. “Isn’t that what friends do?”