Sophie Hannah - The Wrong Mother

‘Carry on,’ said Sam.

‘What? Oh. Encarna used the night light when she wanted to read in the bath. She reckoned the main bathroom light was too bright, and you couldn’t have it on without having the noise of the extractor fan as well, so she used to put Amy’s night light on the side of the bath.’

What kind of reckless idiot would take a risk like that? Sam wondered. Then he guessed where Michelle’s story was going and felt sick. ‘Did she say she’d drop the night light in the water while Amy was having a bath?’ he asked, wanting to get the confirmation of his worst fears out of the way.

Michelle nodded. ‘Yeah. “If you abandon us, I’m going to be pushing that night light into Amy’s bathwater within a few days,” she said. “Everyone’s always saying I’ll electrocute myself, but I’m not that self-sacrificing!” It was horrendous-Amy was standing right behind her. She heard every word. Encarna didn’t see her at first, and of course she felt awful when she did. She gave her a big hug and… Honestly, she totally didn’t mean it. She was just a drama queen. Like mother, like daughter. That’s why, after she’d yelled at me and thrown me out and nicked my car, I didn’t get too upset at first. I thought she’d ring after a few days and beg me to forgive her, say she couldn’t live without me. She always used to say that. But… I never heard from her again. I tried ringing her, over and over, but she ignored all my messages.’ She looked up at Sam. ‘How could she go from not being able to live without me to never wanting to speak to me again? It makes no sense.’

Sam thought it would be insensitive to point out that Encarna’s death and interment might have had something to do with it. At this precise moment, he believed that Encarna Oliva had deserved to die. Kate would say so and not even feel guilty about it; she was much less forgiving than Sam was.

‘Michelle, do you remember when you first told Encarna you had a boyfriend? If the two of you were friends you must have shared it with her.’

‘Yeah. I told her pretty much straight away.’

‘So early April last year?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And was she pleased for you?’

‘She gave me a hug and…’ Michelle blinked hard. ‘Why is it that the good memories hurt the most? She started to cry and like… clung on to me. She said, “He’s going to take you away from us.” ’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told her there was no chance. I said I definitely wanted to carry on working until I had a baby of my own, and that was a long way off.’

‘What did she say to that?’

‘She cheered up. She said, “Michelle, haven’t I told you hundreds and thousands of times? You don’t need to have a child, you’ve got Amy.” ’

Sam sensed more was coming. ‘And then?’ he said.

‘And then she gave me a present: a cheque for two thousand pounds.’

‘What?’ Simon didn’t bother with pleasantries as he threw open the door to Norman Grace’s office.

Norman’s face was flushed with excitement; like Simon, he was ready to launch straight in. ‘I have no idea what it means, before you ask. It’s your job to work that out.’ He was holding a piece of paper, blank on the side that faced Simon.

‘Show me.’

Norman passed him the paper, then began to read aloud over his shoulder: ‘“It is necessary for me that she is absent in the evenings. What I mean by that is not a large section of time, for example six until twelve-do not assume I have such wild wishes.”’

‘Stop,’ Simon told him. ‘I’ve got to know what this is before I read it.’

‘You don’t recognise it?’

Simon scanned the rest of the words. ‘I recognise the sentiments, yeah. From Geraldine Bretherick’s diary. But, it’s so awkwardly written. Like someone on Prozac wrote it, or… someone from a hundred years ago. It sounds archaic.’

Norman nodded, satisfied that Simon had reached the same conclusion he had. ‘After what you asked me to look for-after I found the Jones thing and realised you were right-I decided to have a shufty at the rest of the hard disk. I found a deleted file, also called “diary”.’ He smiled proudly. ‘Lower case. The diary file we’ve been looking at’s called DIARY, all upper case.’

Simon hardly dared to breathe.

‘It’s the same diary,’ said Norman. ‘Same dates, same number of entries, same substance and meaning. But the “diary” file, the deleted one, is quite startlingly badly written. By someone who’s just come round after being knocked over the head, I thought.’

Simon read the words again. ‘It is necessary for me that she is absent in the evenings. What I mean by that is not a large amount of time, for example six until twelve-do not assume I have such wild wishes. What would make me happy is two and a half hours. Between eight thirty and eleven. My body will not stay awake beyond that hour because the seconds that I have been awake in each day make me so tired. I busy myself like a good worker on amphetamines, smiling when I do not wish to smile, uttering words that are not the words I want to say. I do not eat. I am full of loud praise for pieces of art that I believe ought to be disposed of. That is a description of a usual day of my life. Because of this, no one can violate the time between eight thirty and eleven for me. If that happened, my good sense would be lost to me.’

‘ “My good sense would be lost to me”?’ Simon muttered.

‘I know. Look, here’s the second version, from the DIARY file. Which was created six days after the last changes were made to the “diary” file. After that, the “diary” file was opened many times-whenever the newer DIARY file was opened, in fact-but never changed again. She didn’t need to change it, did she? Because version two was a separate document.’

Simon took the piece of paper from Norman’s hand. This time, he allowed Norman to read the whole passage aloud.

‘“I need her not to be around in the evenings. Evenings! Anyone would think I meant from six until midnight or something extravagant like that. But no, I settle for a mere two and a half hours between eight thirty and eleven. I am physically unable to stay up any later than that, because every minute of my day is so exhausting. I run around like a slave on speed, a fake smile plastered to my face, saying things I don’t mean, never getting to eat, enthusing wildly over works of art that deserve to be chopped up and chucked in the bin. That’s my typical day- lucky me. That’s why the hours between half past eight and eleven must be inviolable, otherwise I will lose my sanity.”

‘She’s rewritten it, hasn’t she?’ said Norman. ‘A “mere two and a half hours”, “a slave on speed”-nice alliteration. And the “lucky me” at the end. She’s made it more readable. Wittier, also, and more bitter. It’s as if she read through her first attempt, found it to be devoid of tone and decided to… well, perk it up a bit. You can look at the whole thing if you want: the original and the rewrite. I can print both.’

‘Print the original out in full and get it to me as soon as possible. ’ Simon was on his way to the door. ‘We’ve got plenty of print-outs of the first diary file.’

‘You mean the second,’ Norman called after him. But Simon was gone.

Norman’s face drooped. Hoist by my own petard , he thought. He’d said it was Simon’s job to work out what it all meant, but he’d been looking forward to a bit of a discussion; he’d thought they might try to puzzle it out together. But, come to think of it, when he’d left the room, Simon Waterhouse hadn’t looked puzzled. Which was puzzling.

‘Why would a suicidal woman want to perk up the last desperate outpouring of her misery?’ Norman asked his captive audience of computer equipment. Like Simon Waterhouse, they offered no satisfactory response.