Fiona Barton - The Widow

From the window, I’d watched them leave. I knew they’d find something, but I didn’t know what. I tried not to imagine. In the end, I couldn’t have imagined what they found. DI Sparkes tells me when he comes back the next day to ask more questions. Tells me there are pictures. Terrible pictures of children on there. I tell him Glen couldn’t have put them there.

I think it must’ve been the police who let Glen’s name out of the bag, because the morning after he finally got home from the police station, the press came knocking.

He’d looked so tired and dirty when he’d walked in the door the night before, and I’d made toast and pulled my chair close to his so I could put my arms around him.

“It was awful, Jeanie. They wouldn’t listen to me. Kept going on and on at me.”

I started crying. I couldn’t help myself. He sounded so broken by it.

“Oh, love, don’t cry. It will be all right,” he said, wiping my tears with his thumb. “We know I wouldn’t harm a hair on a child’s head.”

I knew it was true, but I felt so relieved hearing him say it out loud that I hugged him again and got butter on my sleeve.

“I know you wouldn’t. And I didn’t let you down about coming home late, Glen,” I said. “I told the police you were home by four.” And he looked at me sideways.

He’d asked me to tell the lie. We were sitting having our tea the night after the news came out that police were looking for the driver of a blue van. I said maybe he ought to ring in and say he’d been in a blue van in Hampshire on the day Bella went missing so they could rule him out.

Glen had looked at me for a long time. “It would just be inviting trouble, Jeanie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I did a little private job while I was out—a delivery I took on for a friend to make a bit of extra money—and if the boss finds out, he’ll sack me.”

“But what if the boss reports that you were in the area in a blue van?”

“He won’t,” Glen had said. “He’s not keen on the police. But if he does, we’ll just say I was home here by four. Then everything will be all right. Okay, love?”

I’d nodded. And, anyway, he did ring me at about four to say he was on his way. Said his mobile was on the blink and he was ringing from a garage phone.

It was practically the same thing, wasn’t it?

“Thanks, love,” he said. “It’s not a lie, really—I was on my way—but we don’t want the boss to know I was doing that extra work on the side. We don’t need any complications or me losing my job. Do we?”

“No, ’course not.”

I put some more bread in the toaster, breathing in the comforting smell.

“Where did you go for your extra drop?” I said. Just asking.

“Over near Brighton,” he said. And we sit in silence for a while.

The next morning, the first reporter to the door knocked—a young bloke from the local paper. Nice lad, he looked. Full of apologies.

“So sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Taylor, but please may I speak to your husband?”

Glen came out of the living room just as I asked the lad who he was. When he said he was a reporter, Glen turned on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen. I stood there, not sure what to do, frightened that whatever I said would come out wrong. In the end, Glen shouted through: “There’s nothing to say. Good-bye,” and I closed the door on him.

We got better at dealing with the press after that. We didn’t answer the door. We sat quietly in the kitchen until we heard the footsteps going away. And we thought that was the end of it. ’Course it wasn’t. They went next door and across the road, to the paper shop and the pub. Door knocking for bits of information.

I don’t think Lisa next door said anything to the reporters at the beginning. The other neighbors didn’t know much, but that didn’t stop them. They loved the whole thing, and two days after he was released, there we were in the papers.

“Have Police Finally Made a Breakthrough in Bella Case?” one headline read. In another one, there is a blurry picture of Glen from when he played for the pub football team and a load of lies.

We sat and looked at the front pages together. Glen looked shell-shocked, and I took his hand to reassure him.

In the papers, lots of it is wrong. His age, his job, even the spelling of his name.

Glen smiled at me weakly. “That’s good, Jeanie,” he said. “Maybe people won’t recognize me.” But of course they did.

His mum rang. “What’s all this about, Jean?” she said.

Glen wouldn’t come to the phone. Went and had a bath. Poor Mary, she was in tears.

“Look, it’s all a misunderstanding, Mary,” I told her. “Glen has had nothing to do with this. Someone saw a blue van like his on the day Bella went missing. That’s all. It’s a coincidence. The police are just doing their job, checking out every lead.”

“Then why is it in the papers?” she asked, and I didn’t know.

“I don’t know, Mary. The press gets excited over everything to do with Bella. They chase all over the place when people say they’ve seen her. You know what they’re like.”

But she didn’t and neither did I, really. Not then, anyway.

“Please don’t worry, Mary. We know the truth. It’ll all blow over in a week. Take care of yourself and love to George.”

After I put the phone down, I stood in the hall, in a daze. I was still there when Glen came down from the bathroom. He had wet hair, and I could feel his damp skin when he kissed me.

“How was my mum?” he asked. “In a state, I suppose. What did you tell her?”

I retold the whole conversation as I made him some breakfast. He’d hardly eaten for two days since he got home from the police station. He was too tired to eat more than toast.

“Bacon and eggs?” I asked.

“Lovely,” he said. When he sat down, I tried to talk about normal things, but it sounded so false.

In the end, Glen stopped me talking by kissing me and said: “There are going to be some very difficult days ahead, Jeanie. People are going to say some terrible things about us and probably to us. We need to be prepared.

“This is a terrible mistake, but we mustn’t let it ruin our lives. We need to stay strong until the truth comes out. Do you think you can do that?”

I kissed him back. “Of course I can. We can be strong for each other. I love you, Glen.”

He smiled at me properly then. And squeezed me tight so I wouldn’t see him getting emotional. “Now, is there any more bacon?”

He was right about it ruining our lives. I had to give up work after he was questioned. I tried to keep going, telling my clients that it was all a terrible mistake, but people stopped talking when I got near them. The regulars stopped booking appointments and began going to another hairdresser down the hill. Lesley took me to one side one Saturday night and told me she liked Glen and was sure there was no truth in the press reports, but I had to leave “for the good of the salon.”

I cried because I knew then that it would never end and nothing would ever be the same again. I rolled up my scissors and brushes in my coloring overall, shoved them into a bag, and left.

I tried not to blame Glen. I knew it wasn’t his fault. We were both victims of the situation, he said, and tried to keep me cheerful.

“Don’t worry, Jean. We’ll be fine. You’ll find another job when this blows over. Probably time for a change, anyway.”

FIFTEEN

The Detective

SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2007

The first interview with Glen Taylor had to wait until everyone arrived back in Southampton. It took place in an airless cupboard of a room with a door painted hospital green.

Sparkes looked through the glass panel in the door. He could see Taylor sitting up like an expectant schoolboy, his hands on his knees and his feet tapping some mystery tune.