The Other People: A Novel(19)

You never consider that you will have to drive for miles, the resonating aftershock of those words ringing in your ears, desperate denials still raging around your head. You never consider that you will arrive home not to a home but to a crime scene. Your personal mementoes now evidence. Men and women in uniforms and white suits shuffling around silently while you are shut outside. You never consider that you will have to explain your actions to strangers; lay your secrets bare before people you do not know, in a situation you still cannot understand. You never consider that you will need an alibi or a lawyer.

And you never consider that, amidst your grief and terror and confusion, you will be asked to identify the bodies.

The bodies. No longer people, full of warmth and hope and fears and dreams. No longer living, breathing souls. No longer Izzy or Jenny or Bubs or Mummy. Those wonderful, frustrating masses of human contradictions were gone. Forever.

Except he had seen her. He had seen Izzy.



* * *



—

GABE HAD STARED at the detective, DI Maddock, through eyes that felt lined with grit and swollen with grief.

“Identify them?”

“It’s standard procedure, Mr. Forman. Based upon photographs obtained, we’ve no reason to doubt the bodies are those of your wife and daughter—”

Photographs, he thought. They hadn’t taken any new ones in a while. There just hadn’t been that many happy family moments recently, he thought bitterly. The ones up on the walls were old. Izzy when she was two or three. They had talked about putting some new ones up. So many things we talk about doing, he thought. Always thinking we’ll have another day, another week, another year. As if our future were a certainty. Not just a fragile promise.

Gabe shook his head. “I told you. There’s been a mistake. I saw my daughter. In a car. Someone has taken her, maybe my wife, too. You need to be out there, looking for them.”

“I understand—and we have your statement, Mr. Forman. That’s why I think it’s even more important for you to provide a formal identification.”

Gabe let the words sink in. “Formal” identification. Gentlemen must wear a tie. If you’re wearing trainers, you’re not coming in. He choked down a hysterical giggle.

The police didn’t believe him. Fine. He would show them. It wasn’t Izzy lying cold and still in some damn morgue. She was alive. She had only just turned five. And he had seen her. In that rusty wreck of a car. Honk if you’re horny. Two blonde pigtails. Real men love Jesus. One tooth missing in the front.

“Fine. But you’re wrong. I saw my daughter being taken. She’s alive.”

DI Maddock had nodded, something Gabe couldn’t quite decipher flitting across her face. “Once you’ve seen the bodies, I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you.”



* * *



—

THE IDENTIFICATION WAS scheduled for the following afternoon. Gabe felt frustrated by the lack of urgency. But he also felt too shell-shocked and exhausted to argue.

The house, which a couple of days ago had hosted Izzy’s fifth birthday party, was now a crime scene. Gabe couldn’t stay there. In the absence of any friends who could put him up, he booked a room at a nearby Premier Inn. A stout woman in a white shirt and black trouser suit arrived and introduced herself as: “Anne Gleaves, your family liaison officer.” She drove him to the hotel and, uninvited, accompanied him to his room. She sat with him for a while and talked. Lumpen words that had no meaning. He stared at her kind, sensible face and wished she would jump out of the window. When she asked if there was anyone he would like her to contact, he thought of Izzy’s parents and, reluctantly, refused. He should do it. After she had gone, he called Harry and Evelyn, destroyed their world with a single sentence, and then sat up, staring at old photos of Izzy and Jenny on his phone, crying himself hoarse.

When dawn edged around the thin curtains, he showered, shaved and pulled on the same clothes from the day before—a black shirt and jeans. He took a crumpled tie from his pocket and knotted it around his neck, pulling it a little tighter than necessary. He regarded himself in the mirror. Aside from the pallid color of his skin and blood-streaked eyes, he looked almost presentable. Formal identification, he thought again, grimly.

Then he sat back down and waited.

All a mistake. A terrible mistake.

Harry and Evelyn called him back just before midday. Evelyn sounded surprisingly calm. No trace of the hysterical woman from the night before. They wanted to come with him, she said. For support. Gabe didn’t want them to. He told them it was unnecessary. But Evelyn insisted: “You can’t do this on your own. Harry will drive. In case it’s too much for you.”

Back then, before the accusations and suspicions had broken down their tenuous relationship completely, he supposed they were still playing the role of supportive in-laws, the three of them united briefly in their loss.

“Have you eaten?” Evelyn asked when they arrived. “You need to eat. You need strength.” As though food would somehow fill the aching hole in his heart.

They took him to the pub next to the hotel. The lights felt too harsh, the decor too bright. Gabe had no idea what they were doing there. The scrape of cutlery on plates set his teeth on edge. Evelyn chattered resolutely about nothing, her voice a little too brittle and high. He could see her eyes were sore and red-looking. Once or twice she took out some eye drops and squeezed them in. Harry made intermittent grunts and funneled a cheese sandwich into his mouth. Gabe managed one bite of stale bread and ham and two cups of black coffee. It was cold and bitter. An apt metaphor. Life had lost its taste.