Her One Mistake(57)

But wasn’t it also perfect, I had thought at the time. We’d needed a hideaway where no one would notice a little girl and a man appear one Saturday afternoon, before they were aware the country was looking for them. A place where no one would look for her.

Only now, all the things I had convinced myself were good about it made me sick. The secluded shack of a cottage was more of a threat than a safe house, and I was still more than three hours away from getting to it.





NOW


Is there any news?” I beg.

They’ve told me so little of what’s happening—all I know is that Charlotte’s being questioned in another room somewhere down the hallway by the detective who’d turned up at the beach. But this isn’t the news I’m after.

Detective Lowry shakes his head no. Behind his small, circular, wire-rimmed glasses and his light-ginger stubble, his face is the epitome of blankness. It has been since he introduced himself when I was brought into the station, his short legs scurrying up the hallway as I followed quickly behind.

I am desperate to get back out there and find out for myself what is happening. I’m sure the detective is keeping something from me. Maybe he thinks that by keeping me in the dark he can manipulate me to his advantage, use my fear to break me down.

I peer at the clock and then at the door, dismissing a crazed yearning to jump out of my seat and run toward it. Is it locked? Can I run out? I’ve not been arrested, after all. He’s told me I’m here to help, and yet he’s stepping around me like I might snap at any moment. Of course, I could physically walk out, but what would I do then? Where would I go? If I did that, I’m sure they would haul me back inside in handcuffs. So even though I want to run, I know it’s impossible.

I gaze toward the wall on my right and wonder if Charlotte is on the other side of it. She could be saying anything, and I have no right to ask her not to. I lost that luxury the day of the fair.

“Are you okay, Harriet?” Detective Lowry asks.

“Sorry?” I look up at him and he nods at my wrist. I hadn’t noticed I’d been rubbing it. I pull my hand away. The skin is red but the searing pain has subsided and in its place is a dull throb.

“I think it’s okay,” I say, though no one has checked, but right now my wrist is the least of my problems.

He is still watching me, glancing at my wrist. He looks concerned as he strokes a thumb against his stubble, before he checks himself and looks down at his pad. Now he is moving on and is interested in my friendship with Charlotte. I tell him she was always a good friend to me.

“Charlotte knew I didn’t know anyone in Dorset,” I say. “She made me feel welcome.” I was grateful for that, more than I would have ever let on. It had taken me three months to find a part-time job and settle in at St. Mary’s primary school, and still I had no one I could call a friend. I’d seen Charlotte on the playground, huddled in her group of mums. She’d stood out from the others, with her long blond hair always swishing behind her in a ponytail, her skinny jeans, long gray cardigan, and sparkly flip-flops. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, for no other reason than she attracted me like a moth to a light.

I would go into school in the mornings and look out for what she was wearing. I used to pull my own tangled mass of hair back into a ponytail and see if I could look like her.

Charlotte was the picture you stick on the fridge: the one that reminds you there’s something to aim for. For me she epitomized everything I wanted in life: freedom and the ability to make choices without repercussion.

“Charlotte introduced me to her group of friends, but to be honest I didn’t have much in common with the rest of them,” I say.

“But you did with Charlotte?”

“Surprisingly, yes. We were both raised by our mums. We lost father figures in our lives at an early age. There was an understanding between us because of that, and not everyone gets it.”

Detective Lowry looks at me quizzically, but I don’t elaborate. Instead I say, “It just meant we had something in common. Something we could talk about,” I add, even though I was never the one to talk.

I tell him more about our friendship, the hours we spent chatting on the bench in the park.

“Your friendship sounds a little . . .” Detective Lowry waves a hand in the air as he searches for the right word. “One-sided.”

I look up at him.

“Don’t you think?” he says, tapping his pen lightly against the desk.

“No, I think she wanted it too.”

“Absolutely, Harriet. I meant it seems like she needed you a lot more than you did her.”

I smile thinly because he could not have been more wrong.

“Or maybe I have the wrong impression, but it sounds like you were there for Charlotte a lot more than she was for you.”

That might be true, but only because I made it that way.

“Do you think on some level she knows this now?” he asks, and his words sound shrill as they ring across the desk. I know what he’s getting at, but he doesn’t say it outright.

“It wasn’t a matter of either of us needing each other,” I lie, because surely that was the essence of our friendship.

“But why didn’t you ever share anything with her, Harriet?” he asks. “Were you afraid she wouldn’t believe you?”