Ipswich
17th August
Siobhan
To be honest, I’m exhausted with listening to Callum. His hands are gripping mine across the kitchen table; Maria has finally gone up to bed, and I haven’t seen Emma for hours. The music blaring from her room has stopped, leaving my husband and I in relative silence. It’s almost ten o’clock, and my stomach growls in hunger. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.
‘Siobhan,’ he is saying, ‘we have to face this together. Don’t you see? A united front. If this thing breaks us, we’re putting not only ourselves in danger but Emma too. She’s still a minor, she’s not old enough to live by herself! If they manage to bang one or the other of us up for something we didn’t bloody do, then what will happen to her?’
‘She could live with Maria, obviously,’ I say, but I’m only playing devil’s advocate. Deep down, I know what he’s saying is true, it’s what my solicitor Olivia has said, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. I can’t stand the thought of our daughter fending for herself any more than he can, especially considering her state at the best of times.
‘Plus, the lawyer fees are already through the fucking roof,’ Callum says, letting go of my still-unresponsive hands and grasping at his hair as though he wants to pull it out. ‘If this carries on, if they question me again or find some ridiculous piece of trumped-up evidence, how are we going to cope? How is our daughter going to survive the gossip – you know what people can be like.’
‘We have some savings,’ I say, my voice still cold, but Callum snorts in exasperation.
‘Don’t be absurd, Siobhan. It’s not as if the money you’ve made from your work covers even half of the mortgage.’ He leans towards me, taking my hands again, as though he hasn’t just dismissed my career in a single sentence.
‘Look, I know you’re furious with me, Siobhan. I know that. I know I don’t deserve to have you as my wife—’ at this, to my surprise, his voice breaks a little, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t feel sorry for him, and so I don’t.
‘I know what I did with Caroline, starting to see her, it was wrong. It was a disaster. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.’ His eyes are beginning to shine now, a glaze of emotion which could be real and could be fake.
‘But Siobhan, the stuff the police are saying.’
‘They’ve let you out.’
He sighs. ‘You and I both know it’s not over yet, Siobhan. They let me out because they had to. Not because I’m off the hook. The first person the bloody police force ever suspect in a case like this is the – the boyfriend. Or whatever.’ He looks down at the table and I know he’s wishing there was another way to phrase it, that he didn’t have to sit here, telling his wife about his moonlit life as another woman’s boyfriend.
‘Look, if you and I can stick together, just until this is over, I’d really, really appreciate it.’
I can see the muscle in my husband’s jaw tightening as he speaks; he’s forcing himself to keep calm, not to get annoyed with me. I’ve known him for almost twenty years – I know how his body works, even when he thinks I don’t. He is easy to read, sometimes.
‘What do you mean by “stick together”?’ I say, keeping my own tone calm and quiet, not wanting to wake my sister or Emma.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we show the world – the media, the police – that we’re a team. Husband and wife. You standing by me would make everything so much easier; I mean look at you, Siobhan. If you put your trust in me, everyone will. If you can find a way to forgive me for messing everything up, for behaving like a moron, then other people might too.’ He raises his eyes to meet mine. ‘If you don’t think I’m a child-stealing murderer, there’s a chance that the police might come to their senses and realise that I’m not.’
I wait, letting the moment stretch out. In and out, in and out, the muscle in his jaw pulses. It’s making me feel anxious just looking at it.
‘It wouldn’t be for that long, not if you didn’t want it to be,’ Callum says, his words coming more quickly now; my silence has unnerved him, he’s less sure of his footing. ‘But I hope, Siobhan, that in time you might forgive me.’ He’s trying hard to connect with me, I can feel it, but I have to stay strong, to keep my heart hard and closed against him. If I give in, I will be lost.
‘We’ve been married for fifteen years,’ Callum says softly, ‘surely that counts for something?’
This I can’t let go.
‘Yes, you would think so, wouldn’t you, Callum?’ I say. ‘Fifteen years of marriage is quite a long time. But you were happy to throw it away the moment Caroline Harvey walked in, weren’t you?’
He looks taken aback; the unease flashes across his features like a cloud passing across the sun.
‘I’ve already told you – it was a mistake, Siobhan,’ he says, and all the time my eyes are focused on his jaw, popping in and out, in and out. It’s almost rhythmic. Mesmerising.
‘A mistake is one night, Callum,’ I say to him. ‘A mistake is a drunken encounter, a one-off, a lapse in judgement. Not an extended affair. That’s something else altogether – it requires planning, consistency, deception spanning weeks and months.’ I stare at him. ‘And it’s not the first time you’ve done it.’
He’s beginning to panic; he knows I’m right. After all, he’s known me for as long as I’ve known him – he knows when I have the upper hand. But I don’t think I’m quite as easy to read as my husband – I never have been.
‘Right,’ he says, getting to his feet, pushing back his chair with such force that it startles me, just for a second. ‘Right. If that’s the way you want to play it, Siobhan, if the safety and togetherness of our family means so little to you that you can’t see the bigger picture here, then fine. Fine. Let’s let the police come up with some cock-and-bull story because they’ve no other leads and pin the whole thing on me, shall we? Let’s let them accuse me of not only murder but child abduction too. Let’s let them haul me through the courts and throw me in prison, let’s lose the house because we can’t afford the mortgage, let’s give all the money you and I have both worked for to some poncy, overpaid lawyers who will forget about me the moment the cash hits their account.’ He’s breathing hard, panting.
‘Let’s let our daughter fall by the wayside, let’s say goodbye to fifteen years of marriage and parenting, let’s offer ourselves up to the media circus out there and let the likes of the Daily Mail rip us into shreds. Does that all sound like a good idea to you, Siobhan?’ A speck of spittle flies out of his mouth and lands on the table in front of us, glistening in the semi-darkness of the kitchen. Neither of us have bothered to turn on the little lamps, the expensive fittings that usually make it feel like home.
I wait a moment, leave him panting there in the kitchen, and although my heart is racing, I force myself to look him in the eye. I hate the things he is saying, but when it comes to Emma, I know he’s right. She does have to be our priority – as a mother, I need to keep her both emotionally and financially stable. God knows I haven’t done a very good job so far.
‘That isn’t what I’m suggesting, Callum,’ I say slowly, ‘as you well know.’
‘Then what are you suggesting, Siobhan?’ he asks me angrily. Upstairs, I hear the creak of a floorboard and have a sudden mental image of Emma sitting at the top of the stairs, like she used to when she was little, listening to us argue.
‘Keep your voice down, Callum,’ I tell him, crossing to the kitchen door and poking my head out to check the stairs. There is no one there, of course; at sixteen Emma is past that stage. Thank God.
‘What’s your master plan here?’ he asks me, his tone sarcastic, and when I look to his fists, I see they are clenched at his side. I stare at them, wondering if I can trust him, whether I believe his protestations of innocence.
‘Listen,’ I say to him, ‘this is what we’re going to do.’