Page 34

Pete

Pete thinks he’s probably walked miles in the minutes since they arrived at the hospital.

After pressing his face to the window of the hospital room, his heart in his mouth as Erin was poked and prodded and strapped to various machines, the same nurse had come out and told him in no uncertain terms that he was to leave.

Now, he paces in a shabby waiting room, the walls scuffed and the hospital blue lino cracked in places.

If there was anywhere that reeked of despair and desperation more, Pete isn’t sure he could find it, but still he can’t stop pacing, his filthy trainers squeaking on the lino as nervous energy floods his veins.

The nurse has promised the doctor will come and find Pete the minute there is any news, the moment he is allowed to see Erin, even if it is through glass, and while he realistically knows it’s only been a short while since he was escorted to the waiting room, time is elastic and it feels like days – weeks – since they left him in here.

The door handle turns and Pete pauses in his pacing, suddenly not sure he wants to know what the doctor has to say, but when the door opens it isn’t the doctor standing there.

‘Nat. Oh God, Nat.’ Pete stumbles towards her, tripping over his own feet, his arms outstretched.

Natalie’s face is washed of colour, her hair slipping out of the messy bun she stuffed it into for the party.

She still wears the hot pink sundress, but now there is an old chunky cardigan around her shoulders, one that she usually wears only at home, when the weather is really cold.

It makes Pete think of Christmas, of Natalie standing in a steaming hot kitchen pulling a roast out of the oven.

It looks oddly out of place in this cold, sterile room, with posters advertising counselling on the walls.

‘Where is Erin? Is she OK?’ Natalie’s voice is thick, the words coming out in a strangled choke.

As she draws the old cardigan tighter around her body her hands shake, and Pete feels a surge of guilt as his gaze reaches her eyes.

Salt stains her cheeks, her face drawn, and she looks fragile, as if one tiny push could break her like glass.

This is your fault , a voice hisses in Pete’s ear – the sound of his own conscience.

You’ve done this to her.

Swallowing down the guilt choking him, Pete moves towards her.

‘I’m still waiting for the doctor.

They said in the ambulance she’s going to be OK …

She’s in the best place, Nat.

She’s going to be fine.

’ The lie sits heavy on his tongue, bitter and tangy, and he swallows hard as he reaches out and pulls Natalie towards him.

She freezes, her body going rigid, and before he can speak, she pulls away, crossing her arms over her body and stepping towards one of the plastic chairs against the wall.

‘Nat …’ He wants to tell her he loves her, that he’s sorry – so, so sorry – but movement in the doorway alerts him to the fact that they are not alone.

In fact, their entire exchange has just been very closely observed.

‘Pete?’ A dark-haired woman who looks vaguely familiar steps into the room.

‘My name is DI Travis. I brought Natalie here in the police car.’ She smiles, and Pete feels himself relax a tiny fraction.

‘Would you mind just stepping outside with me for a moment?’ She looks at Natalie.

‘Natalie, I’ll send my colleague in to sit with you, all right?

’

Natalie nods, and Pete sees that her expression isn’t quite as blank as it was back at the house.

Still, though, it doesn’t seem as though the full force of what has happened has hit her yet.

Once out in the corridor, Pete pulls the door to the waiting room closed behind him, feeling as if this will protect Natalie from anything the police officer has to say, but instead of speaking to him here, Travis gestures for him to follow her into an empty office further along the hall.

‘Take a seat.’

Pete feels a flicker of alarm.

The office is tidy, the desk clear, and on one side of the table is a single chair.

On the other side are two more chairs, one of which is already occupied by another police officer.

DI Travis squeezes around the edge of the desk and sits beside him.

‘This is my colleague, DS Haynes,’ she says.

‘We just have a few questions for you, Pete, that’s all.

I’ve already had a good chat with Natalie on our way over here.

’

Pete doesn’t know if that’s allowed.

All he knows about police procedures is what he’s seen on the telly, and they always say you have to have a lawyer present before they can formally question you.

At the thought that this is just an informal chat to find out exactly what happened earlier tonight, he feels able to breathe again.

‘I want to ask you about this evening, Pete,’ Travis says, her voice clear in the quiet room.

Her tone seems friendly and Pete shifts in his seat, trying to appear relaxed, even though his pulse is still clattering.

‘There was a party at your house, is that right?’

‘Yes, that’s right.

For Emily – our daughter’s – eighteenth birthday.

’

‘Lovely.’ She gives him a brisk smile.

‘Did anything happen at the party that perhaps wasn’t …

expected? Someone showed up you didn’t invite, or any kind of altercation?

We’re just trying to find out exactly why someone would want to take Erin.

’

Pete’s mouth goes dry.

Where does he even start?

‘There was …’ He clears his throat.

‘There was a little bit of friction earlier on in the evening. My daughter hadn’t told her boyfriend she was planning on going to university, and he became quite upset about it.

They had a … Well, they had words about it, and Emily was quite upset.

I asked Jake to leave.

’

‘How did Jake react to that?’

‘Well, he wasn’t too pleased,’ Pete says.

A nugget of something that might be fear worms in his belly.

Could Jake have done this?

‘He told me I would regret throwing him out of the party.’

DI Travis raises her eyebrows at this.

‘Sounds like he was pretty angry.’ She glances down at her open notebook, the pages filled with scratchy writing as though a drunk spider had fallen in a pot of black ink.

‘No other arguments? Altercations?’

Pete shakes his head slowly, before pressing a finger to his lips.

‘Oh, I think my wife had words with a friend of hers.’

‘Would that be …’ She consults the notebook again.

‘Eve?’

‘That’s right.

Natalie was growing concerned that Eve has developed an unhealthy interest in our family.

’ Pete doesn’t mention the fact that he was the one who initially said this to Natalie.

That he’s the one who thinks Eve is slightly crazy.

‘She’s always at our house.

Always telling Natalie how to deal with Erin’s sleep problems, even though she doesn’t have any experience raising kids.

She doesn’t have any children of her own,’ he clarifies.

‘Eve left the party,’ he goes on as the detective leaves a pregnant pause.

‘Someone should probably see where Eve was when Erin disappeared. She left the party, but she could easily have sneaked back in. She’s quite familiar with our house – she knows which bedroom Erin sleeps in.

’ As he says it, Pete feels a flicker of something that could be vindication, mixed with horror.

Vindication because if Eve did do this, then Pete was right about her all along – horror because that would mean Natalie will feel responsible, and Pete is already afraid of her fragile state of mind.

He knows this statement will lead the police to Eve’s door, will presumably lead to her being questioned, but what he’s saying is true.

‘OK.’ Travis nods as her colleague scribbles notes in his own notebook.

‘What about the other guests. Was there anyone there who perhaps shouldn’t have been at the party?

Someone who heard about it and turned up anyway?

You know what it’s like.

There’s always someone who thinks they’re entitled to an invite, isn’t there?

’

Pete licks his lips, his tongue like sandpaper.

She knows about Vanessa.

Someone has told the police that Vanessa was there – who, though?

Natalie? Stu? Pete presses his foot to the floor, trying to stop his knee from jiggling under the table.

‘Could I possibly get a drink of water?’ He tugs at his collar.

The room is stiflingly hot, the way hospitals always are.

DI Travis nods, and there is a brief pause in her questioning as she waits for her colleague to return with two plastic cups of water.

‘So Pete, back to the party – any uninvited guests?’

Pete sips at the water, the taste flat and metallic.

‘No,’ he says eventually.

‘Oh, wait … a woman from my office. She turned up, I guess she must have heard us talking about it in the office – I invited Dave, my foreman, you see – and assumed it was an open invitation. She left once she realised.’ Pete lets out a nervous caw of laughter.

‘We’re not teenagers, it’s not like someone plastered it all over Facebook and all the local hoodlums turned up.

’

DI Travis allows herself a small smile, as if the thought of teenagers using Facebook is amusing to her.

‘You understand we have to ask?’

‘Of course.’ Pete can feel sweat prickling under his arms, and he wonders if he should have been more forthcoming about Vanessa.

‘So, Pete, I have to ask you this – I’ve asked everyone I’ve spoken to so far.

When was the last time you saw Erin?

’

‘I don’t know …’ Pete’s brow creases and he tries to think back, past the row with Natalie, past the confrontation with Vanessa.

‘After my speech, maybe? I made a speech at about seven-thirty? Sometime around then. That’s the last time I remember seeing Erin.

Someone from Nat’s work was holding her so Nat could come up and stand next to me.

’

DI Travis nods. ‘And where were you at the time Erin disappeared? We believe the time frame was between approximately 8.30, when Natalie fed her and put her in her cot to sleep, and ten o’clock, when your daughter went to check on her.

’

‘I was …’ Pete feels a flutter of panic.

He doesn’t know for certain; after his speech everything became a bit of a blur.

‘According to other guests at the party you cut the cake with Emily at around ten o’clock.

So really, we’re looking at a period of roughly ninety minutes before this.

We have a photograph of you, with Natalie and your other girls with the cake, time-stamped at 9.

54. Natalie put Erin to bed at around 8.

30.’

‘I was outside,’ Pete says, his heart knocking out a triple beat in his chest. ‘Smoking.’

‘In the garden?’

‘At the end of the garden, on the other side of the gate. Just on the edge of the woods.’ A spurt of horror heats Pete’s veins as the two police officers exchange a glance.

‘Natalie doesn’t know I still smoke,’ he says quickly.

‘I didn’t want her to see me.

’

‘Did anyone else see you out there?’

‘No.’ Pete doesn’t know why this makes him anxious, his knee still jiggling under the table.

‘But we’ll find the cigarette butts behind the gate if we look?

’

Pete runs a hand through his hair, feeling as nauseous as he was after smoking those cigarettes.

‘No. Natalie uses that gate all the time to cut through the woods with the girls. I didn’t want her to know.

’ He pauses for a moment, replaying the moment that he dug the cigarette butts deep down inside the compost bin.

Would they still be there?

Would they have disintegrated in the damp, mulchy clippings?

‘I hid them in the compost bin.’

‘Right.’ Travis writes something in her notepad, and Pete feels the prickle of sweat in his armpits.

‘We can check that.’

Pete feels a shimmer of alarm, enough to make his bladder feel full.

‘You’ll find the cigarette butts there.

I stubbed them out on the fence post.’ He trails off.

He still hid his tracks, even though he was caught up in his own head about Natalie, praying his marriage isn’t over, and Vanessa, wishing he’d never even spoken to her in the first place.

A sign of a seasoned liar, for sure.

‘I’m not lying.’ As soon as the words escape he wishes he could take them back.

DI Travis gives him another of those gentle smiles.

‘I didn’t think you were lying about that, Pete.

’ She flips the pages on her notes, pausing at something she’s scrawled.

‘How are things at home? Before the party, I mean. How are things between you and Natalie?’

Pete shifts in his seat, his bladder uncomfortably full now, but still he sips at the water.

‘Fine. Everything at home has been fine.’

‘Really? It’s quite an upheaval, surely, having a new baby, even when you do have other children.

’

‘Well, yes,’ Pete says, that shimmer of alarm growing stronger.

There’s something about the way the police officer is looking at him that makes him feel on edge.

‘Obviously Natalie and I are both tired – you forget how much time and energy a small baby takes up.’ He flicks his gaze to the younger DS beside her, wondering if he has children, too.

‘I’ve been working really long hours, and I know Natalie has been exhausted.

Things have been a bit of a struggle for her.

The birth wasn’t straightforward, and I know she’s finding things tough at the moment.

Erin doesn’t sleep much.

’ DI Travis doesn’t respond, a thick silence filling the room as Pete fumbles for something to say to erode it.

‘But that doesn’t mean …

It’s been hard, but I love them so much,’ he says in a rush, the words falling over one another.

‘All of them – my family is my world.’

‘I don’t doubt that at all,’ Travis says, but she doesn’t smile this time.

‘Pete, tell me how it felt when Natalie first told you she was pregnant. I should imagine that was the last thing on your minds.’ At this stage in your life .

The words hang in there unspoken.

‘I was thrilled,’ Pete says.

‘I was excited we were going to have another baby.’

‘OK.’ The word is a statement, not a question, as Travis shifts in her seat.

‘The reason I ask, Pete, is because when I spoke to Natalie she suggested perhaps you weren’t that thrilled.

’

Oh . Pete feels his stomach drop away, and places the plastic cup of water on the table before his hands can begin to shake.

‘I …’

‘She said you had to change plans you two had made, and I got the impression this wasn’t something you were happy about.

’ There is an undertone to her statement, one that insinuates Pete is a liar, and he’s not.

He’s not . She just doesn’t understand.

‘It’s not that I wasn’t thrilled,’ he says – although, let’s be honest, he wasn’t exactly over the moon.

‘It was more … I was shocked, that’s all.

It was a complete surprise.

Natalie and I had never even discussed having another baby after Zadie was born.

Two was enough. That’s what I thought, anyway.

’

‘But Natalie didn’t agree.

’

‘No. Well, she didn’t do it on purpose.

’ Did she? Pete has never thought about things that way before, and he frowns as he tries to recall the conversation they’d had that night in the Italian restaurant.

Natalie didn’t get pregnant on purpose; he’s sure of it.

Almost sure. ‘We had plans, me and Nat. Plans we’d made years before when the girls were small, and Natalie getting pregnant threw the whole thing off-kilter.

’ He still feels raw about that perfect plot of land they’d allowed to slip through their fingers.

‘We were going to build a house in Australia – that was always the plan, but then … Well, the plot got sold, and we couldn’t do anything about it because Natalie was pregnant.

’

‘So Erin being born really put a spanner in the works for you.’ As the police officer fixes her dark gaze on him, Pete feels his stomach drop away to the floor.

This isn’t an informal chat , he thinks, as hot spurts of panic race through his veins.

They think I was the one who left Erin in the woods.