Sophie Hannah - The Wrong Mother

‘Sally didn’t tell me either,’ Esther was assuring Nick. ‘Not for ages. Only when all this stuff about the Brethericks was on the news.’

‘Yeah, and then she told you! She should have told me. I’m her husband.’ Nick Thorning looked around the room as if hoping for confirmation from somebody.

‘She didn’t want to worry you.’

‘She’ll be okay, won’t she?’

‘Have you seen this?’ Sam held the envelope in front of Nick’s face.

‘Yeah, this morning. What about it?’

So it meant nothing to him. Was that a good sign? ‘It’s addressed to Esther,’ said Sam.

‘I know.’

‘Esther doesn’t live here.’

‘What?’ Esther craned her neck to see the writing on the envelope. ‘It’s addressed to me?’

‘I know Esther doesn’t live here,’ said Nick angrily. ‘I’m not stupid. I assumed Sally would know what it was and sort it out when she got back. I just want her to come back. She will, won’t she?’

‘We’re doing everything we can to find her and bring her safely home,’ Sam told him. ‘Esther, would you mind opening this?’

She tore open the envelope and pulled out a small green book, A6 size, and a postcard. ‘I’ve no idea…’ She looked up at Sam, frustration all over her face. ‘It’s addressed to me, but I haven’t got a clue what it is or what it means.’

Sam was afraid he’d be equally at a loss, and was pleased to find he understood straight away. He recognised the name Sian Toms-she was a teaching assistant at St Swithun’s. Sally Thorning had called herself Esther Taylor when she’d visited the school, but she must have given Sian Toms her real address.

‘Dear Esther,’ the postcard said. ‘Here is Amy Oliva’s news book, the one I mentioned when we spoke. Please don’t tell anyone I sent it to you-it would go down very badly at work. Also, please can you send it back to me when you’ve read it so that I can put it back? Thanks. Send it to my home address: Flat 33, Syree Court, 27 Lady Road, Spilling. Best wishes, Sian Toms.’

Sam opened the news book. The first entry was dated 15 September 2005, close to the beginning of the school year that was to be Amy’s last at St Swithun’s. The handwriting was Amy’s, or rather, it was clearly a child’s: large and unwieldy. When Sam began to read the words, a shiver rippled through him.

This weekend, Mum, Dad and I went to Alton Towers. After hours of queuing, we went on the Log Flume, which was mediocre. There was a ride called the Black Hole that I was keen to go on, but Mum said I was too young and it was only for grown-ups. I asked her if she and Dad wanted to go on it and she said, ‘We don’t need to. Dad and I are already in a black hole. It’s called parenthood.’

Sam turned to the next entry. The handwriting was the same but it was much longer.

This weekend was excellent. I ate nothing but chocolate-buttons, Minstrels, Milky Ways. For breakfast, lunch and supper. I was sick on Sunday afternoon, but on balance I think it was worth it. On Friday evening I was feeling more contrary than usual (those who know me well will scarcely be able to imagine such a thing) so I asked Mum if I could throw the horrid, healthy part of my tea-the part she had carefully home-cooked then saved and frozen in a small, purple plastic bowl-in the bin and instead go straight to the reward I normally only get if I eat lots of vile green things. To my surprise and delight, she said, ‘You know what, Amy? You can do exactly what you like this weekend, all weekend, as long as I can too. Do we have a deal?’ Of course I said yes, so she pulled all the chocolate out of the treat cupboard and threw it into my lap, and then she went and found a book she wanted to read. I asked her to put on my ‘Annie’ DVD for me, but she reminded me that we were both doing exactly what we wanted, and getting out of her chair to fiddle with the DVD player was not something she wanted to do. She also didn’t want to do any drawing, baking, jigsaws, hair-styling, or have her house littered with squealing, pink-clad Barbie-obsessed munchkins like Oonagh and Lucy. Fair enough! Actually, her quite reasonable refusal led to a valuable insight on my part. Sometimes, I ask Mum to do things-for example to get me drinks I then don’t drink, and toys and games I have no real desire to play with-not because I actually want whatever it is I’m asking for, but simply for the sake of making her do something, because I believe her role in life is to attend to my wishes. If she isn’t waiting on me like a maid, something seems amiss. All Western children are the same, Mum says, because society overprotects and over-indulges them. That’s why she makes a point of buying the produce, whatever it might be, of any company she hears has been using child labour. I have to admit, she’s got a point. If I swept chimneys or sewed clothes in a factory from dawn until dusk, I would certainly understand that after a hard day’s work, the last thing a person wants is to be given more work at home.

Under this tirade someone had written in red pen: ‘No more in this vein please, Mummy. Amy gets upset when yet again she can’t read her weekend news out in class or enter it in the Busy Book. Please could you allow Amy to write her news book entries herself like all the other children instead of dictating your own words for her to write down? Thank you.’

‘Are you going to tell us what it is?’ asked Nick Thorning.

‘It’s just some child’s school book,’ said Esther.

Sam wanted to hit her. He looked at the next and final entry in the book. Unlike the other two, it contained some spelling mistakes.

This weekend I played with my friends and went to see Mungos Magic Show at the theata. It was great.

Under Amy’s handwriting there was a big, red tick. A teacher had written, ‘Sounds lovely, Amy!’

Whoever that teacher was, Sam wanted to hit her too.

You learn something new every day, thought Gibbs as he waited in Cordy O’Hara’s lounge for her to fetch Oonagh. Fine Art Banking. He’d spent half an hour on the phone to Leyland Carver before coming here, and found out that Encarna Oliva had been one of two people at the bank who had specialised in advising clients on which paintings, sculptures, installations and ‘conceptual pieces’ they ought to invest in. Gibbs hoped he’d done a good enough job of concealing his disgust. Couldn’t rich wankers choose their own pictures? What was the point in being alive if you hired someone to make every little decision for you?

Gibbs liked the idea that being rich made a person stupid. He also liked feeling aggrieved. He didn’t understand why-it was simply something he quite enjoyed. When he’d heard the salary Encarna Oliva had been paid to do her entirely unnecessary job, and that was before bonuses… Gibbs hoped Lionel Burroway of Leyland Carver wouldn’t ring and complain to anyone at the nick about Gibbs’ response when he’d been told the figure. ‘Ms Oliva worked extremely hard, and often long hours,’ Burroway had said defensively. ‘Most of the private views she had to attend were in the evening, and she often had to go abroad. Her work for us brought in ten, twenty times what we paid her in new business. She was excellent at her job.’

‘Right,’ Gibbs had grunted. That was a new one, the idea that a person’s work might actually bring in money. I’m in the wrong profession, he thought. All his work brought in was deviant scrotes that no one was pleased to see.

He had asked Burroway if Encarna Oliva had had a colleague called Patrick, perhaps a close friend. Burroway said he couldn’t recall there ever having been a Patrick at Leyland Carver. When Gibbs had mentioned that Encarna might have eloped with him to Spain, Burroway’s voice had cooled considerably. ‘The manner in which she left us was very odd,’ he said. ‘I would have preferred to be informed in person rather than by e-mail with no notice, but… well, I suppose if she’s…’