I Am Watching You(20)

‘Trust me, I said the same, Mel, from the off. But she seemed convinced they were from Anna’s mother, Barbara Ballard. And she didn’t want her to get in trouble. Feels guilty.’

Melanie lets out a long sigh as the waitress brings over her coffee.

‘You don’t change. This should have been handed in straight away.’

‘Don’t be unfair. This is what I do now, Mel. And you wouldn’t have this at all if I hadn’t persuaded Ella. Anyway. We both know it’s more likely to be a crank than any kind of lead.’

‘Is that your gut, Matt? A crank? She had quite a bit of trouble on social media after her name got out.’

‘Yeah – a bit of a cock-up, that.’ Matthew is checking Melanie’s face as she turns the evidence bag over to examine the back.

‘We really don’t know how it got out, Matt. Honestly. But there’s been a lot of noise upstairs about it. Press office furious. Anyway. We put quite a lot of time into investigating the hassle. To reassure her. Trying to make amends. But the feeling back then was it was likely just trolls or kids. Maybe Anna’s school friends. Unpleasant, but nothing significant or linked to the enquiry. Or the two guys on the train.’

‘So you think this is the same? Just some nut trying to frighten her?’

‘I don’t know. Quite a lot of effort put into this.’ She is examining the card more carefully. ‘Doubt we’ll get any prints now but we’ll try. Run it through the system. Probably just a random nutter. So – talk. Why does this Ella think it could be the mother?’

Matthew tells her about Ella visiting Cornwall. The fracas.

‘And she didn’t think to tell us about that either. Great.’

‘I don’t think it’s the mother. I talked to her, Mel.’

‘Jesus, Matt. This is a live investigation . . .’

‘And like I say, you wouldn’t have this handed in at all if it weren’t for me.’

Melanie dips her finger into the froth of her coffee. ‘I’m not looking forward to explaining this to DI Halfwit. You’re right, most likely another troll. But he won’t like not being told.’

‘What’s his problem then, this DI? Doesn’t sound as if they’ve got very far.’

‘He’s an arrogant pain. Looks about twelve. Wouldn’t mind that, if he were halfway competent, but he seems distracted by some new Soho murder case. Also, he seems to think I’m his personal chauffeur every time they’re down here. Which isn’t often.’

‘So could you be vague when you hand this over? Help me out?’

‘Keep your name out of it, you mean?’

Matthew tilts his head and feigns puppy eyes.

‘I know I’m a stuck record but you should have stayed in the force, Matthew. You know that, I know that, so you can stop with the butter-wouldn’t-melt.’

Matthew does not reply. Melanie is one of the few people who knows why he really left the force.

‘Come on, then. Share. What did you make of the mother, Matt? The family liaison officer reckons she’s straight.’

‘I agree. I don’t think she sent them. She didn’t slip up. I implied it was hate mail and she talked about them as letters, not postcards. But there’s something not right there, Mel.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She pretended to want to call her husband. But I could tell from the body language that she didn’t really want him there at all. Bit odd . . .’

Melanie narrows her eyes again.

‘So what’s the deal with the parents, Mel? Are they really both in the clear? And what’s come out of the TV appeal? Anything promising?’

‘I tell you what. How about we talk about you becoming a dad instead. Much more interesting.’





CHAPTER 13


THE WITNESS

I was so lucky with Luke as a baby, though I had no way of knowing this at first. No benchmark; no experience.

To be frank, I was expecting it to be nigh impossible, trying to run the business with a baby. Everyone went so heavy on the dire warnings when I was in the last stage of pregnancy. Brace yourself, they all said. Lack of sleep is a form of torture, they said. You’ll have no time to yourself. No time even to take a bath in peace. Blah de blah.

I got to the point where I seriously worried whether I would be able to keep the business going at all.

When does it get easier? I remember asking a friend with three girls. That was about two weeks before Luke arrived, and I will never forget her reply. Oh, it never gets easier, Ella. Just wait until they’re teenagers . . .

I went home that day and cried and cried, catastrophising that the flower shop would have to be sold. But do you know what?

It wasn’t nearly as difficult as they all predicted.

Sure – I remember the panic outside the hospital when we couldn’t even strap him into the car seat, despite all our practising. I remember the sense of shock that they were actually going to allow us to take this tiny bundle home when we had not the foggiest what we were doing. I remember also waking in the night between feeds in those early weeks, convinced I had forgotten to put him back in his Moses basket and fearing he had fallen off the bed.

Where’s the baby, Tony? Where did I put the baby?

But it was a surprise how quickly it all settled down.