Sophie Hannah - The Wrong Mother

Simon decided to wait. He wouldn’t go into either of those rooms again unless he was compelled to.

‘My mother-in-law, Geraldine’s mum… she’s asking to read the diary,’ said Bretherick. ‘I don’t want her to. I haven’t told her how bad it is. It’ll destroy her. Unlike me, she’d believe Geraldine wrote those things because the police believe it.’ His voice was full of scorn. ‘What should I say? What normally happens in cases like this?’

There are no other cases like this, thought Simon. He hadn’t seen any, at any rate. He’d seen a lot of stabbings outside night-clubs, but not mothers and daughters dead in matching white bathtubs with funny curled-over tops and gold claw feet… as if the bath might suddenly run towards him, disgorge its contents over him…

‘That’s a tough decision to make.’ Kombothekra was patting Bretherick again. ‘There’s no right answer. You have to do whatever you think is best for you, and for Geraldine’s mother.’

‘In that case I won’t show it to her,’ said Bretherick. ‘I won’t upset her unnecessarily because I know Geraldine didn’t write it. William Markes wrote it. Whoever he is.’

‘I knew it was trouble,’ said Phyllis Kent. ‘At that first meeting, I told the superintendent. I turned round and said to him, “This’ll be nothing but trouble.” Not for him, not for you lot, so you won’t care. Trouble for me. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

Charlie Zailer allowed the manager of Spilling Post Office to finish her tirade. They stood side by side looking at a photograph of a grinning PC Robbie Meakin. The picture was attached to a small red postbox on the wall, to the right of the post office counter area, and advertised Meakin as one of Spilling’s community policing team. ‘Culver Valley Police-working to build safer communities.’ The slogan, in large bold capitals, looked slightly threatening, Charlie thought. There was a phone number for Meakin beneath the photograph, and an appeal for members of the public to contact him about any topic that might concern them.

‘I turned round and said to the superintendent, “Why does it have to be red? Our postbox outside is red, for proper letters. People’ll confuse it.” And they have. They turn round and say to me all the time, “I think I posted my letter in the wrong box.” Course, it’s too late by then. Your lot have been in and taken everything, and their correspondence has gone missing.’

‘If anything comes to us by mistake, I’m sure we do our best to send it on,’ said Charlie. What sort of idiot would fail to notice the large police logo on the box, the obvious differences between this and a normal postbox? ‘I’ll speak to PC Meakin and the rest of the team and check that-’

‘There was a lady came in this morning,’ Phyllis went on. ‘She was in a right state. She’d posted a letter in there to her boyfriend and it never got to him. I turned round and said to her, “It’s not my fault, love. Ask the police about it.” But I’m the one who gets the aggro. And why won’t the superintendent come in here and talk to me about it? Why’s he sent you instead? Is he too embarrassed? Realised what a bad idea it was? It’s all very well you turning round and saying to me…’

On and on it went. Charlie yawned without opening her mouth, wondering how Phyllis Kent managed to be both in front of and behind everyone she spoke to: ‘I turned round and said, he turned round and said, you turned round and said…’ There was an identical police postbox in the post office at Silsford, and, as far as Charlie knew, there had been no complaints about that one. The market research she’d commissioned last year had proved unequivocally that people wanted as much community policing as possible, as visible and accessible as possible.

Charlie suspected Phyllis Kent savoured grievances. She would have to start going to the supermarket if she wanted to avoid being buttonholed by the woman. It was a shame; Spilling Post Office was also a shop-a rather efficient one, Charlie thought. It was small, L-shaped and sold one variety of everything she needed, so she didn’t have to waste time choosing between rows of the same thing. Sliced white bread and mild cheddar could be found alongside more unexpected items: tinned pickled octopus, pheasant pâté. And it was on Charlie’s route home from work. All she had to do was pull in by the side of the road, get out of her car, and the door of the post office was right in front of her. It couldn’t have been more convenient. Charlie had started to base her day-to-day planning around what she knew Phyllis stocked: Cheerios for breakfast, a bottle of Gordon’s gin and a box of Guylian chocolates as birthday presents for her sister Olivia. For a bath, Radox Milk and Honey-the only bath oil Phyllis sold. It lived beside the freezer cabinet, on the third shelf down, between Colgate Total toothpaste and Always extra-long sanitary towels with wings.

‘I’ll make sure PC Meakin returns any post that comes to us by mistake,’ Charlie promised, once Phyllis’s rant had ground to a halt.

‘Well, it’s no good returning it to me, is it? It wants posting in a proper box, like the one outside.’

‘Anything with a stamp and an address on it that’s clearly not for us, we’ll undertake to send on to its rightful owner.’ Charlie didn’t know how to sound more reassuring. She had no grander, more impressive promises up her sleeve, so she hoped Phyllis would be content with this one.

But the post office manager was not a woman to whom contentment came easily. ‘You’re not going, are you?’ she said, as Charlie started to inch towards the door. ‘What about the lady?’

‘Lady?’

‘The one who came in this morning. She reckons there’s a letter to her boyfriend in there, in your box. No one’s been to empty it for days, and she wants her letter. I turned round and said to her, “Leave it to me, love. I’ll make sure that superintendent comes and gets your letter out for you. This mess is all his fault in the first place!” ’

Charlie swallowed a sigh. Why didn’t Phyllis’s lady phone her boyfriend? Or e-mail him? Or put a brick through his window, depending on the nature of the message she wanted to convey. ‘I’ll make sure PC Meakin comes as soon as he can.’

‘Why can’t you open the box?’ said Phyllis. ‘I thought you said you were a sergeant.’

‘I don’t have the key.’ Charlie decided to risk being honest. ‘Look, this postbox isn’t really my responsibility. I only offered to come because Robbie Meakin’s off on a week’s paternity leave and… well, I needed to do my shopping.’

‘I’ve got the key,’ said Phyllis, a triumphant gleam in her eye. ‘I keep it here behind the counter. But I’m not allowed to open the box. A police officer has to open it.’

Charlie could no longer hold her two bulging carrier bags. She lowered them to the floor gently to avoid breaking the eggs and lightbulbs. So Phyllis had the key. Why did she have to be so irritatingly law-abiding? She could easily have opened the box, fished out the letter to the boyfriend and left the rest of the contents untouched. Why was she bothering Charlie when she could have dealt with it herself?

And if Phyllis hadn’t been such a stickler for the rules… There would be nothing to stop a less scrupulous person having a nosey in the box whenever they fancied, perhaps even stealing letters when the police weren’t around-which, let’s face it, was most of the time. Whose ludicrous idea was it to leave the key at the post office? Charlie would have liked to turn round and say a few things to that person.

She rubbed her sore hands while Phyllis went to fetch the key. Her fingers were numb; the handles of the carrier bags had cut off her circulation. While she waited, she pulled her phone out of her handbag and deleted a dozen saved text messages which, in an ideal world, she would have liked to keep. But it was something to do. She was terrified of being unoccupied. There was no danger of that at work, or at home, where there was more than enough DIY to keep her busy. Charlie had stripped the walls and floors of her house just over a year ago and was rebuilding the rooms one by one, starting from scratch. It was a long, slow process. So far she’d done the kitchen and made a start on her bedroom. The rest of the house was plaster and floorboards. It looked abandoned, as if it was waiting for vagrants and rats to move in.