I Am Watching You(10)

‘Matthew. Please call me Matthew.’

‘Matthew. My husband says the same thing over and over. That this is not my fault. But I’m afraid it doesn’t make me feel any better. And I can’t bear that they haven’t found her.’

There is a hissing noise suddenly from an adjoining room. I glance to the door across the office, which is ajar, and Matthew Hill stands suddenly, his expression softening.

‘I tell you what. Would you like a coffee, Mrs Longfield? I make a pretty good cappuccino.’

‘Ella. And yes, please. It smells as if you know what you’re doing.’ I feel a smile, relaxing a little, my shoulders changing shape. ‘I am rather fond of good coffee.’

‘Espresso machine. Imported beans – my own mix. It’s a weakness.’

‘Mine too.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Sorry to be so spiky before. I was quite nervous, coming here.’

‘Most people are.’ His voice trails off as he disappears into what I presume is a flat alongside the office. He is gone for quite some time, eventually reappearing with a tray bearing two coffees plus a jug of foaming milk. I nod to the offer of milk.

‘So, tell me some more about this mother. About your visit to Cornwall. All of it. No holding back on me.’

‘All right. I don’t know how closely you’ve followed the case but there was an awful kerfuffle with the press when they found out that I was the witness on the train. The nationals got terribly excited. Sent all their feature writers down. Big-moral-dilemma headlines. “What would you have done?” and all that.’

‘Yes. I saw the stories.’ He leans forward in his chair, sipping at the drink.

‘All very unpleasant. I have a flower shop. It was so awful we had to shut it for a month and close our social media accounts, too. I found I couldn’t face people. Friends were very understanding but some people were a bit odd. Even regular customers. You could tell from the way they looked at me.’

‘I’m sorry. The fallout from cases is underestimated. People can be very unkind.’

‘Yes, well. Tony, my husband, was completely furious. Like I say, he is very protective. A sweet man – and he was furious that my name got out.’

‘And how exactly did that happen?’

‘We were never entirely sure. I was at a floristry conference in South London. Training and business-modelling. Officially the police insist that the press just got lucky and put the jigsaw together by tracing me as one of only two people on the course from Devon. But Tony suspects a deliberate leak to boost press interest in the case.’

Matthew pulls a face.

‘So you do think that’s possible?’ I ask.

‘Wouldn’t like to say. It seems highly unlikely. They wouldn’t want to put you in danger.’

‘Danger? So you really think I might be in danger now?’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s not as if you’re the only one who could identify these men. No. I really think it’s unlikely there would be a deliberate leak. An accidental one . . . that’s a different matter.’

‘Well – either way. Everyone knows now. I’m the woman on the train who did nothing.’

‘Tough for you, then?’

‘Yes. But nothing compared to what that family has been through.’

‘So why on earth did you go down there? To Cornwall?’

I can feel the sigh leaving my body and put the coffee down for a moment, cradling my head in my palms. ‘Completely stupid of me, I know. But the thing is, when I saw her, Mrs Ballard, outside my shop, just watching me, I recognised her from the press coverage – it was in the local paper such a lot. Anyway. It gave me the creeps, and when I thought it over, I felt it would be better to try to talk to her. I got it into my head that if I told her in person how very, very sorry I was and that I accepted she had the right to be angry – that if she could see that I was a mother, too, and how terrible I felt about her pain . . .’

Matthew’s face gives him away.

‘Yes. I know. Stupid of me.’

‘And she reacted badly?’

‘Understatement. She went completely berserk. Of course, I can see it now. I was being selfish. I had this fantasy in my head that if she could just see that I was a decent person and that I so badly regretted—’

‘Was anyone else there?’

‘No. Just the two of us. I took some flowers. A big posy of primroses, which I read were Anna’s favourites – which I can see now was probably the trigger. Made it so much worse. She became quite hysterical. Said she was sick of flowers and I had no place. No right. Floral tributes as if her daughter were dead. Which she doesn’t believe she is, incidentally.’

Matthew pours some more frothy milk into his coffee and offers me the same, but I put my hand over the cup.

‘Do you think it’s possible? That the girl is still alive?’

Matthew tightens his lips. ‘Possible, but statistically unlikely.’

‘That’s what we think. Me and Tony.’ For a moment my voice falters. I wish that I could feel more hopeful. I think of a recent television drama in which missing girls were found years later. I try to picture Anna emerging from a basement or a hiding place with a police blanket around her shoulders, but I cannot shape the scene in my mind. I cough, looking away to the wall of filing cabinets and then back, picking up my coffee cup once more. ‘So anyway. It was pretty terrible in Cornwall. I tried to leave. Apologising for disturbing her. She rather lost it.’