Her One Mistake(63)

“Let me help,” my father pleaded. “At least come stay with me while you work things out. You can both have my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa. Let me do this for you and Alice, please.” He took hold of my hand and squeezed it tightly. “I want to.”

“But everyone thinks you’re dead,” I cried. “Don’t you see? If I suddenly announce I’m off to stay with my dead father, who I’ve been seeing for the last few months, Brian will have a ball. I write ‘mother and father deceased’ on forms. My best friend thinks you died when I was five. If they find out I’ve been lying to them all this time, Brian will be shouting from the rooftops that this is exactly what he means.”

“But there’s got to be something I can do for you,” my father said.

“Maybe there is one way.” I took a deep breath and told him about the Harbridge family and the idea Charlotte had put into my head.

“You want me to abduct Alice?” He looked aghast.

“Shh.” I looked around but the café had emptied out. “Let’s go outside.” We grabbed our coats and went out, waving at Alice who was still busy stuffing her pockets with leaves and twigs that she’d make into something later. “It would only be temporary, and you’re not abducting her. You’d be keeping her in a safe house for me while I figure out a way to expose Brian.”

“No, Harriet. I don’t like it one bit.”

“No one will suspect you because you don’t exist,” I went on.

“No.” He shook his head. “Too many things can go wrong. The police won’t see it that way.”

“If anything went wrong I’d tell them it was all my idea,” I promised him.

“It’s ridiculous. You’d go to prison. Have you even thought of that?”

“Yes,” I lied. I hadn’t thought of much more than getting away from my husband.

“And how do you suppose it ends, Harriet? What are you planning? That you’ll run away with Alice and live abroad?”

“No.” I’d thought about that, but I couldn’t contemplate us living the rest of our lives in hiding. In some ways it would be no better than what we had now. “No,” I said again carefully. “What I’ve been thinking is that when the time is right, you leave her somewhere. Somewhere safe where there are people and you could tell her to call the police.” I spoke with as much conviction as I could. We both needed to believe it was a plausible outcome. “By then you’ll have gained her trust and she’ll know not to say it was you. All anyone will have is her description of the man who took her. She’s four, they’d expect inconsistencies, they wouldn’t expect her to know exactly where she’d been.”

“Yes, she’s four,” my father said. “You’re entrusting a toddler to carry this lie. It’s so wrong, I can’t believe I’m hearing it.”

“Alice trusts me. And you,” I add. “She’s bright. She’d understand if we told her this was the only way to be safe.”

“Oh, Harriet,” my dad sighed, shaking his head. “This isn’t the way.”

“Do it for me,” I pleaded, ignoring him. “If nothing more than because you owe me this.”

“Don’t put that on me.”

“But that’s what you said. The first time I met you, you told me that whatever I wanted you to do you’d do it. This is what I want,” I said. “You can either walk away or be in our lives,” I tried as a last-ditch attempt.

He walked away.

? ? ?

I HAD LOST my only hope of a future and my dad. He still turned up at the museum where we’d arranged to meet the following week as planned, but there was a distance between us. We reverted to being more like the strangers we were two months ago than the father and daughter we’d become.

Over the following weeks the gap widened. The only times I saw flashes of the father I’d grown to care so deeply about were when I watched him playing with Alice. He’d throw her into the air and spin her around and tickle her on the ground until she begged him to stop because she was laughing too hard. Only in those times did he look like he’d almost forgotten what I’d asked of him.

One Wednesday in mid-March we took a ferry to Brownsea, an island that sat in nearby Poole Harbour. I sat on a log while my dad took Alice to show her the peacocks, but when they came back he had a grave look on his face. “We need to talk.” He joined me on the log as I watched Alice run across the grass. “If you’re adamant it’s the only way, I’ll do it.”

“Are you serious?” I gasped.

“There are many things we need to sort out.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” I leaned toward him and wrapped my arms around his waist, though I felt him stiffen. “Are you sure about this?” I asked, pulling back.

“For what it’s worth, I think it’s very risky, Harriet. Many things could go wrong.” He took my hands and peeled them off his waist. “And if anything bad happens, I need you to promise me something.”

“Okay?”

“It’s me who takes the blame. Not you.”

“No way. I can’t let that happen.”

“That’s one of my conditions,” he said firmly. “It’s up to you to ensure no one knows you had anything to do with it. I won’t let Alice be taken away from you.”