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‘She’ll be fine,’ the woman in charge had said. ‘Go and enjoy your morning, and when you fetch her at lunchtime, she’ll have lots of stories to tell you.’
I wasn’t so sure. For some reason, I’d arranged several meetings – my first taste of child-free work time since I’d started the business – but what did I do instead? I sat in my car outside the nursery and rescheduled them all, pretending I was sick. And instead of returning to my office – well, actually the kitchen table in the cramped flat I was renting at the time – I stayed in the car for the full three hours Belle was in nursery, my eyes glued to the door.
While my daughter was playing happily inside, I sat in my stuffy vehicle, needing the toilet, uncomfortable, thirsty and feeling agitated. Every single person that went through the door of Daisy’s Day Care was scrupulously vetted by me – watching to see if they were acting suspiciously, checking who they came out with – especially any men. I was convinced that someone would try to take my daughter away from me.
With everything that had happened around the time of her birth, it was not an unfounded fear.
At twelve thirty on the dot, I got out of my car, stretched and went up the path to the nursery door, rang the security buzzer and was let in by one of the members of staff.
‘How was your morning?’ she asked me.
‘Great,’ I told her. ‘Got loads of work done.’ I remember how my eyes swept around the twenty or so children, all busy with various activities, seeking out my daughter. But she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I started to panic as adrenalin surged through me. Had someone sneaked her out of a rear exit? ‘Where’s Belle?’ I snapped just at the moment she emerged from the cloakroom with her coat half on and a soggy painting flapping in her other hand. I felt like dropping to my knees when she ran up to me. My hands were visibly shaking as I helped her slip into her coat, tucking back a strand of her wavy hair that had come loose from her clip. She had blue paint on her chin.
‘She’s had a fine old time, haven’t you, Belle?’
My daughter nodded, grinning up at me. ‘Can I come again, Mummy? I made new friends.’
During the drive home, I impressed upon my daughter for about the thousandth time in her short life the importance of not going off with strangers, about how I was the only person ever allowed to fetch her from nursery.
‘I won’t go off with the bad man, Mummy, don’t worry,’ Belle had said, sucking juice from a carton. In the rear-view mirror, I saw her face working through various expressions as she mulled over what I’d said – a mix of anxiety, fear and unease. It was true, I’d wanted to scare her into being vigilant, aware, and when we got home, I’d teach her how to bite, kick and scream if anyone were to grab her.
Though as we pulled up at home, it became clear that something else was troubling my daughter.
‘But what if the bad man comes foryou, Mummy?’ she’d asked as I unbuckled her from her car seat. Little did I know that, many years later, he would.
‘You seem deep in thought,’ a voice says.
My head whips up. ‘Oh…’ I say, relaxing when I see Rob standing there. He looks done in. ‘You’re late back. I tried to call you.’
Since I arrived home and found Belle curled catlike on the sofa, I’ve been preoccupied with the folder of photographs and what to do with them. I considered burning them all or taking them to the office to hide, but I didn’t want to leave Belle alone and, besides, setting light to them in the log burner would destroy evidence I might yet need. So, for now, I opted for the safe in the study – but took the extra precaution of changing the code on the lock. As Rob knows, it’s been set to my birthdate, backwards, for as long as I can remember, but as a precaution, I replaced it with another memorable date, again backwards for extra security. Rob never looks in there anyway – it contains documents we rarely use and it’s mainly me who needs stuff from it – so, short-term, there’s no chance of him, or anyone else, finding the folder.
‘Sorry, should have let you know,’ he says.
‘Everything OK?’ Instinctively, I sense it’s not. I know Rob almost as well as he knows himself, and the way he moves across the kitchen – his body stiff, his glance aimed anywhere except at me, and his lips thin and pursed – tells me there’s something on his mind. And while my brain is analysing what this might be, it’s also making me question how well Idoactually know him, based purely on the fact that, when it comes down to it, he doesn’t know me.
‘Just tired,’ he replies, running a glass of water. He gulps it down; then, as expected, he heads for the open bottle of wine. I’ve already drunk two thirds of it. ‘Top up?’ he asks, eyeing the inch that’s left after he pours one for himself. It’s his voice that tells me I’m the cause of his strange mood. I hold out my glass. Bracing myself.
‘Go on, then,’ I say. ‘What’s really up?’
He releases a long sigh, sitting down at the table next to me. As ever, it’s cluttered with the detritus of family life. Natalia does her best to keep on top of the tidying, but it’s not her forte. That lies in keeping Amber entertained and out of mischief, which is exactly what she’s doing now down at the local park with a ball.
‘You know him, don’t you?’
My skin prickles as I wonder what he means. ‘Who?’
‘Jack.’
‘Where the hell’s that come from?’ I get up and turn my back on him as I stand at the sink, running myself a glass of water using the same glass as Rob. I close my eyes for a moment.
‘Jack,’ Rob repeats in case I didn’t hear the first time.
I swing round. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s where I’ve been.’
‘You’ve been withhim?’ I sit down again, before I fall down, but this time at a chair opposite Rob. We face each other down the table. ‘How come?’
‘He called me. Asked to meet.’
