Fiona Barton - The Widow

I could see a shred of faded blue material caught in the roots of the tree. We were kneeling beside Bella’s grave, and I stroked the ground, soothing her, letting her know she was safe now.

“It’s all right, my baby,” I said, and for a second Glen thought I meant him.

I got up and walked back to the car and left him to make his own way. He’d left it unlocked, and when I got in, I fiddled with the GPS and marked this place “home.” I wasn’t sure why, but it felt right. Glen appeared, and we drove back without speaking. I looked out the window at the countryside changing into suburbs and planned for my future.

• • •

Glen had done something terrible, but I could care for Bella, look after her and love her. I could be her forever mummy.

And last night I decided that I’d get up early and go. It’d be dark still, so no one would see me leave. I didn’t sleep while I waited to go. I was scared—scared of driving on the motorway. Glen always drove when we went on long journeys. His department. But I made myself do it. For her.

I stopped at the services because I wanted to buy some flowers to take with me. Some little pink rosebuds for her. She would like those. Small and pink and pretty like her. And some lilies for her grave. I wasn’t sure if I was going to leave them there. Perhaps bring them home again so I could look at them with her. I bought some sweets for Bella, too. I chose Skittles, but then I realized in the car that that was what Glen had chosen. I threw them out the window.

The GPS took me straight there. “You’ve reached your destination,” it said. And I had. “Home,” it said on the screen. I slowed down a bit to let the car behind overtake me and then turned into the track. It was getting light by then, but it was still early enough that no one else was around. I walked into the trees and looked for Bella. I’d left the yellow cloth Glen used to clean the windscreen wedged beside the blue material under the tree root where he left her, and I hoped it would still be there. The woods weren’t very big, and I’d brought a little flashlight in case. It didn’t take very long to find it. The cloth was there, a bit soggy from the rain.

I’d planned what I’d do in my head. I’d say a prayer and then talk to Bella, but in the end I just wanted to sit and be near her. I spread my coat out and sat down beside her and showed her the flowers. I don’t know how long I’d been there when I heard him. I knew it would be him who found me. Destiny, my mum would say.

He was so gentle when he spoke to me. When he asked me why I was there. We both knew, of course, but he needed me to say it. Needed it so badly. So I told him. “I’ve come to see our baby girl.” He thought I meant Glen’s and my baby girl, but Bella is Bob’s and mine, really. He loves her as much as I do. Glen never loved her. He just wanted her and took her.

We sat for a bit, not talking, and then Bob told me the real story. The story Glen couldn’t tell me. He told me how Glen had found Bella online and hunted her down. How the police had watched a recording of him following her and Dawn from nursery school four days before he kidnapped her. How he had planned the whole thing.

“He said he did it for me,” I said.

“He did it for himself, Jean.”

“He said I made him do it because I needed a baby so much. It was my fault. He did it because he loved me.”

Bob looked at me hard and said slowly, “Glen took her for himself, Jean. No one else was to blame. Not Dawn, not you.”

I felt like I was underwater and couldn’t hear or see anything clearly. I felt like I was drowning. It felt like we had been there for hours when Bob helped me up and put my coat around my shoulders and took my hand to lead me away. I turned back and whispered, “Good-bye, darling.” Then we walked toward the blue lights flashing through the trees.

I saw the funeral pictures on the television. A little white coffin with pink rosebuds on the lid. Hundreds of people went from all over the country, but I couldn’t. Dawn got an injunction to stop me. We made an application to the court, but the judge agreed with the psychiatrist that it would be too much for me.

I was still there, though.

Bella knew I was there, and that’s all that matters.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sister Ursula IBVM for turning on the light.

And those who helped replace the bulb: my parents, David and Jeanne Thurlow; my sister, Jo West; and my friends Rachael Bletchly, Carol Maloney, Jennifer Sherwood, Wendy Turner, Rick Lee and Jane McGuinn.

The experts: former DCI Colin Sutton for putting me right on police matters and John Carr, the fount of all knowledge on online child safety.

My wonderful agent, Madeleine Milburn; my editors, Danielle Perez and Frankie Gray; and all at NAL/Penguin Random House and Transworld for their encouragement, patience and determination to put The Widow on the page.

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