Diane Jeffrey - The Guilty Mother

While I’m waiting for Kelly, I open the Notes app on my phone and type in the names of Melissa Slade’s family members.

Michael Slade, her husband, father of the twin girls.

Simon Goodman, her ex-husband, father of her son.

What was the kid called again? I look up my article online. I haven’t mentioned his name, only his age. At the time of the court case, he was thirteen. I check out other online articles, but the boy’s name doesn’t appear to have been mentioned in the press. Melissa’s mother was mentioned in The Post , though. I add her name to my list.

Ivy Moore.

Next, I go onto a People Finder site. This one should help me locate some of Melissa’s family members as long as they’re on the electoral roll and haven’t opted out of this online directory. I don’t bother with Michael Slade for now – I already have an address for him from five years ago, but I can’t imagine that he would have stayed in that house after what happened in it. There must be thousands of Slades in and around Bristol, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he has moved away. Either way, he’ll be hard to track down.

Simon Goodman throws up about twenty results. I frown. I’ll filter them a bit later when I can use a bigger screen. Ivy Moore is a hit, though. Only one result with that name in the area. On the electoral roll. Full address. Under “other occupants” there is a George Moore, presumably Melissa’s father. The age guide seems to fit. They’re in their sixties.

I’ve just finished copying and pasting their address into the notes app of my phone when Kelly materialises in front of me. Getting up, I drain my coffee, grimacing because it has gone cold, and grab my jacket.

‘Any good?’

Nodding, Kelly flashes me a wide smile. Her two body language tics are now in sync, I think.

‘Back to the office, then.’

The address I’ve noted down for Melissa Slade’s parents is in Hanham, which isn’t far from Kingswood, where I live, so I decide to make a short detour on the way home. Hoping to avoid the traffic, I leave the office earlier than usual, punching the name of their road into my satnav at the first red light.

As I pull up in front of Ivy and George Moore’s house, I notice there’s a car in the driveway. Looks like I’m in luck. Well, looks like they’re home at least. I know from my many years as a journalist that they may not be willing to talk to me. I take in the terrace house, wondering if Melissa grew up in it. Did she have any siblings? Did they go to school nearby? I make a mental note to ask her parents these questions. If they let me in.

George Moore opens the door when I ring the bell. He has an instantly likeable face, bushy grey eyebrows cascading out above kind blue eyes. I know him to be in his sixties from the age guide on the online directory, but his hunched shoulders and sluggish movements make him appear a lot older. His hair – what’s left of it – is a slightly lighter shade of grey than his eyebrows.

‘Mr Moore? I’m Jonathan Hunt. I’m a journalist from The Redcliffe Gazette ,’ I say, holding out my hand. He hesitates, but then he shakes it, which I take as an encouraging sign. ‘I wonder if we could have a chat about your daughter Melissa. I’ve been asked to write a piece about her appeal application and I’d like to give an accurate account.’

‘Usually my wife doesn’t …’

‘Is your wife here, Mr Moore?’ I ask gently, thinking that she is probably the decision-maker for this couple.

‘Er, no, but she’ll be back soon.’

‘Then maybe you and I could talk until she gets home.’ When he doesn’t react, I add, ‘Mr Moore, you have my word, I always endeavour to report objectively. I don’t write sensationalist articles. I don’t misquote or misrepresent. I’m only ever concerned with the truth.’

To my surprise, he opens the door and leads me into the small living room. The television is on and The Beast seems to be making mincemeat out of the three contestants remaining in the final chase.

The room is clean – it has been recently vacuumed judging from the hoover marks on the worn pink carpet – but it houses a lot of clutter. Every spare inch of dark wooden furniture has a magazine or a book on it; china ornaments jostle for space on the window ledges, and paintings by numbers and children’s felt art pictures hang on the walls.

I admire the artwork. ‘My sons do a lot of craftwork,’ I say. ‘They like making model planes and cars. And the younger one, Alfie, loves drawing.’

‘My grandson, Callum, liked drawing when he was younger. And Lego and Meccano.’ Pointing at the pictures, he says, ‘Melissa did those when she was a little girl.’ His eyes lose some of their brightness when he mentions his daughter’s name, as if he’s overcome by the nostalgia of a time when his daughter was still an innocent child.

I clear my throat. I don’t want to scare Melissa’s father by taking notes, and as I expected Melissa Slade’s parents to refuse to talk to me, I haven’t prepared any questions, so I start with the ones I asked myself earlier.

Melissa is an only child, her dad informs me. The Moores moved into this house when Melissa was five. She attended local state schools. I try to commit this information to memory. I’ll need to make a Voice Memo as soon as I get out to the car before I forget it all. Mind like a sieve. Mr Moore relaxes as we talk, but I have to tread carefully. I sense he’s wary of me, so I need to keep building up his trust and avoid catching him off guard with tricky questions.

‘Would you like to see some photos?’ Mr Moore blurts out as I’m trying to think of a line of questioning to fast-forward from Melissa’s childhood to her having children of her own.

‘Yes, I would.’ I plaster a smile on my face. ‘Very much.’

Mr Moore gets up and, to my dismay, reaches down five volumes of photo albums from a shelf on the bookcase. We move to the sofa and he comments on some of the photos as he turns over the pages of the first album. It starts with Melissa’s baby photos, some of which have lost at least one of their self-adhesive corners and become crooked. Mr Moore straightens them before he flips each page over. By the end of the album, there are pictures of her as a toddler.

It’s a good half an hour before we get to the fifth and final album, this one a photo book that Mr Moore tells me Melissa created online. We seem to have gone full circle as, like the first volume, it starts with photos of Mr and Mrs Moore with a baby. I realise that the photo albums have got me to where I need to go.

‘Is that Melissa’s son, Mr Moore?’

‘Yes. That’s Callum, our grandson.’

‘And that’s your wife holding him, is it?’

‘That’s right.’

I wonder where Mrs Moore is and when she’s due home, but before I can ask, George turns another page and from the next photo Melissa Slade stares out at me through bewitching turquoise eyes. She has a heart-shaped face, long blond hair and a huge smile. I find myself transfixed. She’s sitting next to a man, who has his arm round her as she holds their baby son.

‘That’s Melissa with Simon and Callum,’ Mr Moore says, using his index finger to point on the photo at each of them in turn.

Thinking that there may be some photos in this album of Melissa with her baby girls, I remember Claire’s words. I’m thinking never-before-seen baby photos . But I don’t like the idea of asking George for a photo to put in the newspaper. Even if I find one that shows Melissa as a loving mother, I’d feel as if I was invading this family’s privacy and abusing the trust George is showing me.

‘What was Melissa like?’ I ask. I realise I’ve used the past tense, but if George finds that odd, he doesn’t show it.