Saying it to Edith is the first time she has allowed herself to have the thought, and she is surprised by the force of her conviction. He is still her husband. One event cannot wipe away twenty-five years. Yes, she will visit him in Littlehey. It may take her some time, she may feel furious, betrayed, ashamed. But she won’t abandon him. Friends may let out the rope, but she will not.
‘How did he die?’ Edith is asking now. ‘Taylor Dent. What did Dad—’
‘Drowned,’ Miriam says. ‘In the river close to Deeping. I don’t know what his injuries were. He’d been on drugs – ketamine – which may have been what caused his death when he hit the water. Paralysed, effectively. Anyway, it’ll all come out in the trial.’
‘So he might have been alive in the boot of the car?’ Edith says, and Miriam can see the slow dawning on her face. ‘I could have helped him, if I hadn’t stayed hidden.’
‘A lot of things would have been different if you hadn’t stayed hidden,’ Miriam says, and she can’t keep the censure out of her voice. Relief that her daughter is alive is giving way to hot fury, the kind she remembers from when Edith was little – those times when she lost sight of her in a park or on a beach, and had to search wildly, shouts becoming hysterical and other mothers helping with instinctive urgency. And then when Edith or Rollo were discovered, nonchalantly playing inside a hedge or squatting in the sand, how she would tear a strip off them and make them cry, that they might experience a tiny millisecond of her fear. ‘Don’t you ever, ever do that again.’ At the same time holding them very, very tight.
‘How could you stay away?’ she asks now. ‘How could you? You must’ve seen the scale of the manhunt, what the police were doing. You must’ve known everyone thought you were dead. That we thought you were dead.’
Edith starts to cry. ‘Don’t you see? It had all gone too far. It had gone too far for me to come back …’ She is gulping, and Miriam wonders if it is guilt that’s catching in her throat. ‘It was a thing I couldn’t undo, and then Helena died. This whole series of events was set off by me and I didn’t even … I didn’t expect it. The bigger it became – all over the news, the number of police officers involved – the more impossible it was for me to come home.’
‘You couldn’t send me an email, a postcard, telling me you were all right?’ Miriam asks.
Edith turns away. There is something in this question she cannot answer.
‘Edith?’ Miriam presses.