We were travelling back home in the police car with Constable King when my phone rang and I saw Paul’s name flash up on screen. I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t know what I could possibly say to him at that time. How I could be civil to him.
I was tempted to let the call go to voicemail, but I knew, for all his faults, he would worry if he couldn’t get a hold of us. I was angry, but I wasn’t cruel.
He had a right to know that his daughters had been in danger and that the threat I had warned him about was real.
I answered the call, could hear that he was driving – the hum of traffic in the background giving it away. I spoke first, trying my best to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want to alarm Molly more than necessary.
‘Paul, some things have happened here today. I don’t want you to hear it from someone else.’
‘I’m driving home now. I’ve had a call from the police. They want to see me. Is that what you’re talking about, because I swear Rachel, I’ve no idea what’s going on or what they would want to speak to me about.’
I bit my tongue. I wouldn’t tell him where I had been, or about the images I’d seen of him with Clare. That was not a conversation I’d have within earshot of our daughter, never mind a police officer. ‘There was an incident at Molly’s daycare,’ I said. ‘A man approached her. She was behind the railings and he didn’t touch her but he gave her a real fright.’
I heard a deep intake of breath. ‘What did he do? Who was he?’
Paul sounded angry, scared, protective.
‘She’s here with me now,’ I said, ‘in a police car. The police are going to help catch him.’ I spoke in my best sing-song, child-friendly voice, hoping Paul would realise I wasn’t free to tell him all the details. ‘There was an incident at home, too, with Beth.’
‘I knew you shouldn’t have left her alone,’ he said before swearing. ‘Is she okay?’
I ignored the dig, fought the urge to scream at him that he had left her too. It wasn’t all on my shoulders, and from what I had seen earlier there was every chance he was more involved in all of this than I ever thought possible. I took a deep breath.
‘I’m on my way home now. The police are with her and she’s fine, but she got a bit of a fright, too.’
‘I’ll be home myself in about an hour. I’ll come and see you all before I go to any police station. Whatever the police want, it can’t be that urgent. I think they just like to mess people around.’
I felt myself tremble. Emotion itching to burst out of me. Fear and love. Betrayal and guilt. From what I knew, it was Paul who had been messing people around.
‘Give the girls a big hug from me,’ he said, cutting through my thoughts, his own voice thick with emotion. ‘Tell them I love them.’
I couldn’t speak. I just nodded at the phone, as if that were any good to him, and hung up.
‘Is Daddy coming home?’ Molly asked, her eyes bright.
‘He is, darling. And the first thing he wants is a giant hug from you.’
If Constable King thought anything of my husband not going straight to the police station, she said nothing and simply kept her eyes on the road ahead.
Beth sat cowed on the sofa, cradling a mug of tea. Her eyes were red from crying. It was the first thing I noticed. She looked up at me when I walked into the room and her face crumpled.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I just ran into the bathroom and locked the door when I heard someone at the back of the house. I didn’t lift my phone. I could hear it ringing, but I was too afraid to go and get it.’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for,’ I said, sitting down beside her.
‘I was so scared,’ she said, sobbing into my shoulder.
‘Was the bad man here, too?’ I heard Molly ask, her eyes wide.
Beth looked at her sister and then at me.
‘What does she mean?’
Molly pulled herself up on the armchair and grabbed her favourite pony, which she hugged close to her.
‘A bad man came to my school and said he was going to hurt Mammy and take her away.’
‘Mum?’ Beth said, her lip wobbling again. ‘Is that true?’
I nodded. ‘But, Beth, the police are looking into it all. Look at how many officers are here now. And they’re putting in alarms for us. They’re going to make sure I’m safe – that we’re all safe.’
I saw the doubt in her eyes and it almost broke me. It was my job to make my children’s world safe and this wasn’t even close.
‘Rachel, could we have a chat with you in the kitchen?’ Constable King asked. ‘The girls’ll be fine here with Constable Black, won’t you, girls?’
Both nodded but neither looked convinced.
‘I won’t be long,’ I said to them.
My head now pounding, I walked into the kitchen. The sight of the French doors, one smashed at handle-height, broken glass lying on the tiled floor, made my heart sink.
‘They clearly got scared away,’ Constable King said. ‘But whoever it was left something. You might want to sit down, Rachel. You’re very pale as it is.’
‘What is it?’ I asked, placing one hand on the back of a kitchen chair to steady myself. What other bombshells could possibly be dropped today? ‘Just show me.’
She handed me a photograph, old and faded. Not unlike the ones I’d been looking at in my photo album just the night before. The uniforms we were wearing weren’t the first things I noticed, though, nor the background of the school we’d attended. What was most notable was that there were four of us in the photo, not three. The fourth person, standing on the outside of our group, her smile not as bright as ours, was unmistakably Laura.
One of the faces in the picture, Clare’s, had been scored out. Scored out so deeply that the pen had broken through the photographic paper, leaving a hole where her face should have been. Red biro circled both my face and Julie’s. The words ‘Yr Next’ were scrawled under my name.