I Am Watching You(28)

‘I’m sorry, Barbara.’

‘Well, with respect, it’s a bit late for that now. It’s perjury, isn’t it, to lie to the police?’

‘I think that’s just in court, love.’

Henry looks down at the floor. At his thick, grey woollen socks.

You disgust me. Anna’s voice again. In his head. In his car. In the passenger seat, refusing to look him in the face.

And in this moment he realises that there isn’t anything Barbara can say or the police can say to possibly make him feel worse than he already does.

‘I still don’t understand why we had to lie, anyway. I mean – do you have any idea, Henry, how it was for me that night, eh? Here on my own. Our daughter missing. Me here . . . all on my own.’

Henry closes his eyes and says nothing.

‘And by the way, I want you to move out.’

‘Oh, come on, Barbara. How is that going to help? Think of Jenny. And how am I going to keep the farm going if I move out?’

‘There is no farm, Henry. There hasn’t been a farm for years.’

He opens his eyes and meets hers.

‘And you wonder why this isn’t working out, Barbara? You marry a farmer and then you decide that you don’t want to be married to a farmer.’

‘That isn’t fair.’

‘Isn’t it?’

They sit for several minutes, saying nothing at all.

‘Right. So we see them together – the police, Barbara. And I explain why I asked you to lie the night Anna went missing. It will be fine. We’ll iron it out. I’m sorry I have upset you, but if you really want me to move out, then with respect I think what I do after today stops being any of your business. For now, I am going to have a shower before they arrive.’

Upstairs, under the stream of water which he turns up too hot deliberately, Henry feels the relief of it for the first time. The letting go, finally. For years he has allowed himself the delusion that he can keep going like this.

But now?

Henry turns his face up into the stream of water and has to adjust the temperature as the jet burns the tender skin. And for a short time he does what he hasn’t done since his mother died. In the stream of the hot water that turns his flesh just a little bit too red, Henry Ballard cries.

He cries for Anna, who will never be found. And who knows the worst of him.

You disgust me, Dad . . .

Afterwards, Henry shaves for the second time that day, selects a blue checked shirt, a clean pair of jeans and a navy sweatshirt. He does all of this on automatic pilot. He is long past the stage of trying to work out some script in his head. It will be what it will be.

When they arrive, there are three of them. A local DS called Melanie Sanders they have met a few times before and who seems quite nice; Cathy, their family liaison officer; and the tall, slim DI from London whom Henry has never liked.

From the off, the mood is markedly different from previous encounters. Cathy accepts the offer of coffee, which Barbara brings to the table on a tray, but the DI declines.

‘I understand you want to speak to us, Mr Ballard?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. I feel very bad about this but I need to explain something about the night Anna went missing. I have something I want to clear up.’

The DI glances at the two women police officers and back at the Ballards.

‘Interesting – we must be telepathic, you and me, Mr Ballard. Because I came all the way down here to talk to you about precisely the same thing.’ He does not even try to disguise the sarcasm in his tone or the little twist of the knife.

‘You see, we had some very interesting calls after the anniversary appeal on television. Calls which we have found a little bit confusing.’

Henry looks at Barbara, whose expression is frozen.

‘So why don’t you go first, Mr Ballard.’

‘OK. So this is embarrassing. But I lied about the night Anna went missing, and I asked Barbara to back me up because I was so embarrassed. And I didn’t want it to distract from your investigation.’

Henry can feel his wife’s stare burning into him.

‘This is completely my fault. Not my wife’s. I had a few too many to drink. I wasn’t at home.’

‘Not at home?’

‘No.’

‘And you telling us this now, changing your story, wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you realise that we have new information?’

‘No. Of course not. How would I even know that?’

‘OK, Mr Ballard. So this new version of where you were the night your daughter went missing. Will it go any way to explaining how your car was seen near the railway station that evening?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Because, Mr Ballard, I am here today to ask you how it is that your car was seen on the evening of Anna’s disappearance near Hexton railway station. Not here at the farm, as you and your wife both told us previously. But near a railway station with a fast train to London. So my question is this. Did you go to London the night your daughter disappeared, Mr Ballard? Is that what you really want to tell us?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I didn’t. I was here the following morning. When we were liaising with the police. You know I was. That wouldn’t be possible. It’s too far. How could I possibly—’