Sophie Hannah: The Wrong Mother

‘Why didn’t you tell Sally Thorning your real name at Seddon Hall? Why pretend to be Mark Bretherick?’

‘I didn’t think about it. I just said it. After what I’d just done, I didn’t want to give my real name. And… I thought about Mark all the time. My wife and daughter were… I’d…’

‘You’d buried them in his garden,’ said Charlie.

‘He and Geraldine were in Florida. I knew that. Having a lovely, happy time. I wanted to ruin it. I wanted to ruin something of theirs.’

‘Were you jealous of Mark?’

Through his tears, Hey made an impatient noise. ‘People like me are jealous of almost everybody, Sergeant.’

‘You must have regretted using Mark’s name,’ said Simon. ‘Once Geraldine and Lucy were dead, and it was all over the news. You must have known Sally Thorning would see Mark on TV. Is that why you tried to kill her by pushing her under a bus?’

‘I didn’t push Sally under a bus.’

‘You expect us to believe that-’

‘I pushed Geraldine.’ A long pause. ‘I’d been in a terrible state for days. They were all dead, all the people I loved. And then I saw… I thought I saw Geraldine in Rawndesley.’

‘You’d spent a week with Sally Thorning and you didn’t recognise her?’

‘He’d forgotten Sally,’ said Simon, keeping his eyes on Hey. ‘He’d used her and discarded her, hadn’t seen her for over a year. Isn’t that right, Jonathan?’

Hey let out a loud sob, too distressed to reply.

‘Geraldine was the one who knew he’d lost Amy, who felt sorry for him, who was helping him by translating the diary. Geraldine was the one he’d just killed, and so at the forefront of his mind. And suddenly there she was in Rawndesley, alive and well. So he tried to kill her again.’

‘I… I panicked. I…’

‘Where did you get the GHB?’ asked Charlie.

‘It can’t have been hard,’ said Simon. ‘You told me in Cambridge; you have to get close to the scrotes in order to write your books about them.’

‘Who?’

‘Criminals. Offenders. Like Billy-remember telling me about him? You’ve got contacts who can get you whatever you want, I reckon. A gun, for example.’

‘Why did you kill Geraldine and Lucy, Jonathan?’ asked Charlie. ‘Tell us. You’ll feel better.’

His eyes glazed over. ‘She would have been happy with me. Geraldine. I redecorated Amy’s playroom for her. I wouldn’t have rushed things. I wanted her to have her own space.’ Looking down at his hands, he started to mumble, ‘She loved cranberry glass. Mark wouldn’t let her have it in the house; he said it was too feminine.’

‘And Lucy?’ said Simon. ‘Did you have a room for her?’

Hey’s face shut down. What was it about Lucy?

‘Tell us about the massage table.’

‘After I saw Sally in Rawndesley, I… I realised, of course.

Almost instantly, after the shock had faded. I knew Geraldine was dead. Sally…’

‘We understand,’ said Charlie. ‘Sally was still alive. Geraldine’s room became Sally’s room. You bought the massage table for Sally.’

Hey hunched forward in his chair. ‘You’ve got to stop,’ he said. ‘You’re making it sound so… bad. It is bad. I know it is. There’s nothing you know that I don’t, believe me.’ His eyes seemed to challenge Simon. ‘I wanted a happy family. That’s all. Please, don’t let Sally think it was like that, the way you’ve just described it. Don’t say I was on the rebound. She’ll never forgive me if you tell her that.’

‘Why did you try to kill Mark Bretherick?’ asked Simon.

‘Is he alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell him I’m sorry. I can’t forgive him, but I’m sorry.’

‘Forgive him? For what? For having the happy family you wanted? For having Geraldine?’

‘Was your family ever happy, Jonathan?’ Charlie asked. ‘You, Encarna and Amy?’

‘Before Encarna went to work for a bank, yes,’ Hey said bitterly. ‘A bank! I couldn’t believe it. She was so brilliant, so talented, she could have done anything. But she chose to be a cog in the capitalist machine. She used to say making money was an art, and mocked me for disapproving. This is the woman who got the highest first in her year at Oxford.’ Hey shook his head. ‘Not just in History of Art-in any subject.’

‘What did Encarna think about your work?’ asked Simon. ‘She must have known you and Keith Harbard were working on family annihilation killings.’

Hey stared down at the table, eyes wide, body tensed.

‘Did your work put the idea into her head? She hated being a mother, and-’

‘No!’

‘Did she know that you and Harbard had been discussing whether women might start to commit familicide with increasing frequency?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Encarna killed Amy, didn’t she, Jonathan?’ It had to be. Nothing else made sense. Something had to have tipped Hey over the edge. He hadn’t always had it in him, this madness, the ability to kill. ‘And you blame yourself, for putting the idea in her head. She committed murder and suicide in the same instant.’

‘No! She never would have-’

‘You came home and found their bodies in the bath. And Amy’s night light. And you couldn’t stand for the world to know: the professor whose life’s work is to explain and prevent this terrible crime-’

‘No! No!’ Hey’s face was red and wet. ‘Encarna would never have hurt Amy. Look, please, believe me! I… I can’t prove it, but-’

‘You’re doing it again, Jonathan,’ said Charlie, standing up.

‘What?’ Simon could have smacked her in the face. He’d been so close to breaking Hey; what was she playing at?

‘You mislead us, then you tell the truth. More lies, more truth. You can’t decide what you want us to believe, can you?’

‘Stop, please…’

‘At first you hoped to pass off Encarna and Amy’s deaths as a family annihilation killing. Your speciality. That’s why they were both naked in the bath: you wanted us to believe Encarna did it. But now, when you hear us say it, when we’re in danger of really believing it, you can’t allow that, can you? You have to defend Encarna, because if you don’t who will?’

Charlie stopped. Hey was convulsing, and Simon was staring at her, outraged. ‘Encarna didn’t kill Amy, or herself,’ she told him. Seeing Simon’s eyes move towards Hey-guessing he was reverting, mentally, to his original theory-she said quickly, ‘No. Jonathan didn’t kill them either.’

Monday, 13 August 2007

‘Fay bootball? Fay cwicket bat, Mummy?’ Jake stands hopefully at the foot of the bed, holding a walking stick that the previous owners of our flat left in the airing cupboard, unaware it would become my son’s favourite toy, and his pink plastic ball. Zoe is sitting in bed with me, her arms round my neck. It makes me feel safe: protected by a fierce four-year-old.

‘Mummy’s not well enough to play cricket, Jake,’ Esther tells him. ‘Anyway, that looks more like a hockey stick than a cricket bat. Why don’t you ask Zoe if she’ll play hockey with you?’

Jake’s bottom lip juts out. He says, ‘Go back your house, Stinky.’

‘Don’t take it personally,’ I say.

‘Affawuds? Affawuds, Mummy?’

‘Jake, Mummy needs to rest,’ Zoe tells him firmly. ‘We need to look after Mummy.’

‘Yes, darling, I’ll play football and cricket with you afterwards, I promise.’ Being with my children again makes me almost breathless with joy. Seeing their faces, after I feared I might never see them again. I’ve told them I love them so often since I got back, they’ve started rolling their eyes whenever I say it.

Jake runs out of the room. Zoe leaps up off the bed and follows him, saying, ‘Walk, don’t run, Jake. We have to be extra good. It’s a mergency.’ A few minutes later I hear a muffled crack that comes from the direction of the lounge. Zoe shrieks, ‘No, Jake! That’s my Barbie!’ Nick makes them both laugh by doing his impression of a frog. I’d have got upset and confiscated the stick, and got a much worse result.