Her One Mistake(44)

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“WHY DID YOU never tell me that?” Audrey asked when she turned up fifteen minutes after Josh Gates had left. I was still sitting on the hallway floor when she’d arrived.

“I didn’t tell Tom, either.”

I couldn’t have told my husband because it would have confirmed I was failing. I couldn’t have told my mother who would have reminded me three children was more than I could handle, and I didn’t tell Audrey because she would have told me “these things happen,” but I would have still seen the shock on her face. Audrey locks the door behind her, she doesn’t leave car doors wide open all night by mistake. She doesn’t lose her sunglasses case or her watch or her children, and Audrey would never ever lose someone else’s child.

“But you told Harriet?”

“Is that the important bit right now?” I said, though I did feel guilty. I couldn’t tell her I’d confided in another friend because I’d wanted someone who wouldn’t’ve judged me. Not when Aud was the only friend not judging me right now.

“Yes and no,” Aud said. “She’s obviously talked to this horrible Gates character.”

“I only told her to make her feel better about herself,” I admitted.

“How?”

“She was panicking about something utterly unimportant. Forgetting to pack a spare nappy for Alice or something. I don’t even remember what it was. It was a year after I’d lost Jack anyway. I wanted her to realize that mums aren’t perfect, even the ones she seemed to think were.” We both knew Harriet put me on a pedestal. “I told her to make her feel better and made her promise not to tell a soul.”

“Well, she’s done that all right.”

“I even said, ‘Don’t tell Brian,’ and she said, ‘Oh God, no, I would never tell Brian,’ so I didn’t worry about it going any further.”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“What is?”

“?‘God, no, I would never tell Brian.’?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d never say that about David.”

“Oh, Aud,” I sighed. “Does it really matter?”

“No, probably not,” Audrey said. “But I still think it’s odd.”

“What am I going to do?” I asked, burying my head in my hands. “Harriet must hate me to speak to that journalist.” Telling him this story did nothing but back up what he’d already implied about me. That I was irresponsible and couldn’t be trusted. “I know she must be hurting, but this,” I said, “it just doesn’t feel right.”





NOW


Why do you think Harriet went to the press?” Detective Rawlings asks.

“I don’t know that she did anymore,” I say. My eyes are sore from rubbing them. I ache for the luxury of being able to place a cold pack on them, but all I can do is try to stop touching the tender skin.

“But she must have told someone?” The detective is relentless. “Even though you asked her not to. That must have made you angry?”

“Angry?” I could laugh at the woman who quite obviously has no clue. “No, it didn’t make me angry. In some ways I thought she had every right to tell that journalist or her husband or whoever she wanted.” I sigh. “I think it was Brian. I believe Harriet told him at some point and he was the one who spoke to Josh Gates.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because of what he said when he came to see me on Wednesday night, two days ago,” I say with bite. I take a breath and then add, a little more calmly, “I’m struggling to see how this is relevant. What happened when Jack was young has nothing to do with any of this.”

“We’re just trying to build a picture,” Rawlings says, and presses her lips into a perfect heart.

I look away and sit back, resisting the urge to fold my arms. She knows she’s getting to me, and I have to be careful, but to say I’m exhausted is an understatement.

“Let’s talk about the call you received this morning,” she says. “Friday morning, thirteen days after you’d last spoken to her. It must have been a shock?”

“It was.”

“What were you doing when she called?”

“I was supposed to be meeting Captain Hayes. He’d asked me to come to the station, but then the school called to say Molly was ill. So I was going to pick her up first.”

“And the call from Harriet was totally unexpected?”

“Yes.”

“How did she sound?”

“Frightened. Desperate,” I say, remembering the sound of her voice with unnerving clarity.

“And why do you think she called you?”

“Probably because I was the first person she thought of.”

“After what had happened, she still turned to you? Why would she do that?” Rawlings asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, my voice rising a notch. “She was afraid. Most likely it’s because Harriet has no one else to call.”

“So as soon as she called you, you went to help her?” she asks, pinning me with her eyes as she waits for me to respond.

“Well, no,” I say. “Like I said, I had to pick up my daughter from school.”