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“Arguing?”
“I might have got it wrong,” she said hastily. “But if I did, I’m sure Joseph will explain. Anyway, how are you?”
“Well, I’m no longer pregnant.” Iris heard the smile in her voice but it took a moment for Esme’s words to register.
“You’ve had the baby?”
Gabriel’s mouth formed a “What?”
“Yes!”
“When?”
“Um, on Saturday,” Esme said carefully, and Iris felt a huge wave of emotion. The day Laure died.
“But that’s wonderful!” she said, pulling herself together. “Congratulations, Esme! Boy or girl?”
“A beautiful baby boy. Hamish.”
Gabriel sat down beside her. “Congratulations, Esme!” he shouted down the phone. “To Hugh too. That’s wonderful news, just what we need.”
“So how did it happen?” Iris asked. “I want to know everything!”
“Well, I started having contractions during the morning. By the time I thought I should get to hospital, Hugh was halfway up a mountain on a walk. So I called Joseph and he brought me to the hospital, which was lucky because Hamish was born pretty quickly after I arrived. I felt terrible for not being able to hold on, because it meant Hugh missed the birth. But at least I had Joseph with me.”
“You should have told us,” Iris protested.
“We were going to tell you that evening but then Joseph phoned Hugh at the hospital to say that you were looking for Laure because she hadn’t come back from a run and you were worried about her, so it seemed a bit misplaced to tell you at that point. After, once she’d been found, it was even more difficult.” Esme paused again. “I wasn’t even sure I should tell you now.”
Iris choked back a sob. She need to focus on Esme, not Laure. “Of course you should have! Gabriel is right, it’s exactly what we need, somelovely news to take our minds off everything else.” She paused. “But that makes Hamish about five weeks early, doesn’t it? How is he?”
“He’s fine, but we’re still in hospital. They’re keeping us in until he’s gained some more weight.”
“Will you let me know when I can come and see you?”
“Why don’t you wait until we’re home? I’m sorry, I need to go, it’s time for Hamish’s feed.”
“Bye Esme, give Hamish a kiss from me. See you soon.”
“Wow,” Gabriel said, when Iris had cut the call. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Neither was I.”
“It explains a lot, like Joseph pretending he’d been to The Watershed to speak to them. They weren’t at the pub, they were at the hospital, he will have called them there to ask about Laure.” He looked over at her. “You must be relieved.”
“Why?”
“Because if Joseph drove Esme to the hospital on Saturday afternoon, and was with her for the birth, he has the perfect alibi for when Laure went missing.”
43
Iris stared at the blank screen in front of her. Joseph’s testimony, that Laure hadn’t been upset that afternoon, only exasperated, plus the fact that he had a solid alibi for that afternoon, meant foul play seemed to have been ruled out in relation to Laure’s death. Her obsession with the quarry—repeatedly asking to see the spot where Charlie Ingram had fallen—also supported the accidental death verdict. Nobody came out and said it, but it had been implied on the local news that it was another sad case of curiosity killing the cat.
Sometimes, Iris wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t given Gabriel an alibi by saying he’d come back from his bike ride minutes after Laure had left on her run. If the police knew he’d only arrived forty-five minutes later, would they have investigated him, still be investigating him? It didn’t bear thinking about and she didn’t feel bad for lying, because she knew how easy it would have been to build a case against Gabriel, for the police to start speculating about whether or not there had been something going on between him and Laure. She herself might have been investigated, they might have wondered if she’d found out about an affair, or had suspected an affair, and hadwanted rid of Laure. Even if they hadn’t been able to make anything stick, everyone knew that mud stuck anyway. It was better this way.
The door to her office opened and Gabriel came in, followed by PC Locke.
“Please tell me that the French police have found Pierre,” Iris said. “It’s been three days.”
