I read Keira’s text, more confused than before. It was as if everybody else was having to fill me in on the blanks in my understanding of my own daughter, what her life was actually about. I felt as if I was being forced to wring the truth out of people and, even then, I wasn’t sure if what they were telling me added up.
I’d been gone nearly a whole day myself. It was time to head home to Stephen.
I pulled my coat collar up and walked fast out of the garden towards St Giles and the taxi rank. Climbing into the first one, I told the driver to take me to Chilcote. He nodded and I sat back in the seat. Every girl with dark, straight hair we passed, I did a double-take. I could see Zoe in everyone, in everything. Fifteen minutes later, the driver pulled up outside our semi-detached with its perfectly manicured lawn and box trees sitting outside the front door. Within seconds of getting out of the car, Stephen had opened the front door and was charging towards me.
‘Freya, where the hell have you been? You’ve been gone since yesterday afternoon. What the hell is going on?’
I thanked and paid the driver and turned slowly towards Stephen. He grabbed my arm, as if I were a child, and walked me back up the path towards the house. Once inside, he slammed the door behind us and took me by the shoulders. I noticed then that he had been crying. Stephen never cried. I thought about our marriage; he had only ever cried once and that was the day he’d found the adoption papers.
He looked deep into my eyes. ‘Jesus, Freya, what’s going on? What is happening to this family?’ He caressed my chin with his thumb. ‘Talk to me. It feels like I’m so alone at the moment. Since Zoe went missing you’ve just shut down, even more than normal.’ When I didn’t say anything, he brought me into him and held me tight. ‘I know things have been bad between us but you need to open up to me. I was scared when I didn’t hear from you.’ He started to cry again. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Zoe either. It’s been five days. What if she’s dead? What if she’s just lying somewhere, her body cold and lifeless? And the whole time I want to hold you, hang on to the one bit of family I have left, but you’re so cold towards me.’
‘Stop,’ I murmured into his shoulder, my own tears wetting his shirt. ‘Stop. Don’t talk like that. I can’t bear it. I promised Zoe in my prayers that I would find her and bring her home safely. I will, Stephen.’
‘Why are you blocking me out?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not.’
‘I know things aren’t great between us but surely we need each other now more than we ever have?’ He held me at arm’s length. ‘I know I haven’t always been there for you. I know it – it’s just I get angry sometimes. I don’t know why. It’s like some sort of heavy black cloud sitting over my shoulders. But you’re my wife, for God’s sake. When did I become such a selfish idiot?’ A huge sob escaped his lips and his shoulders moved up and down with raging despair. ‘I just want us to be good again, like we were years ago. I want Zoe back. I want to spend time as a family. I’ve been acting like you’re the one who ruined this family, but maybe it’s me… Maybe I’ve just been too naïve to see that.’
Stephen had always had these mood swings – one minute lavishing Zoe with gifts, the next criticising me for spending too much; one minute glad I wasn’t trying to breathe new life into our marriage with my sexy underwear, the next wishing we could start over. I didn’t know what was real any more, but I’d never seen him quite so emotional before. I stood with my head hanging and watched my tears fall onto the carpet. ‘No, it’s all my fault. I’ve done something really bad.’ I paused. ‘No, not just bad.’ I met his gaze, saw the flicker of a question mark and wondered how I would start to explain. ‘It’s not just bad, Stephen. I’ve ruined everything.’
He stepped away from me, his eyes immediately hardening, and I felt that whiplash feeling all over again. ‘What do you mean when you say you’ve “ruined everything”? Have you done something stupid with our money?’
My hand flew to my mouth and I sobbed, trying to control my frustration at his inability to see past money even at a time like this. ‘Oh, my God, Stephen, why are you jumping to all these conclusions? Did I say anything like that? Who cares about money right now?’
‘Then what is it? What is it that is so bad? Do you know where Zoe is?’
I walked into the kitchen. ‘I need a drink.’ Grabbing two glasses from the side, I opened our rarely used drinks cupboard and poured us both a generous measure of whisky.
I sat down, placing the glasses on either side of the table but Stephen refused to join me. Taking a deep mouthful, I closed my tired eyes and momentarily enjoyed the warm rush of alcohol hitting my blood stream.
‘Talk to me, Freya.’
‘I’ve been having an affair.’
Stephen nodded, his jaw twitched. He knew, so far, he couldn’t get angry with me; he hadn’t exactly been faultless in the breakdown of our marriage. I’d be lying if, for one second, I said I didn’t enjoy watching surprise pass over Stephen’s face: I knew he was wondering who would want to have an affair with me. But my victorious moment soon vanished. Reality hit home.
‘I started an affair with one of my students,’ I said in a low voice.
‘What?’ Stephen looked at me, stunned. ‘Freya, I would never have believed you…’
‘He’s a doctoral student. Twenty-five,’ I continued and, as I said it out loud, I felt an odd sense of overwhelming relief at not having to pretend to my husband any more.
‘Twenty-five?’ Stephen knocked back his entire whisky. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’
I stared hard at him. ‘I was thinking how unloved I felt in our marriage, Stephen. I was thinking that I can’t remember the last time you made me feel that good about myself.’
He sat down heavily in the seat opposite me, letting his head drop into his hands. ‘What if people find out? What kind of mug will they take me for?’
Anger shot through me. ‘Why is it always about you? What about me? What about Zoe?’
‘Whoa, Freya, you’re the one who’s having an affair with a younger man.’
I stood now, poured myself another whisky, my hand shaking uncontrollably. ‘Fine. It’s bad. I grant you, not my finest hour, but you and I are as bad as each other.’ I drank the whisky, holding the liquid in my mouth, allowing the slow burn to build. ‘I was with him on Friday night when you were in Oxford with another woman.’
‘Shit.’ Stephen swiped his hand across the table, the glass hitting the floor and shattering into thousands of pieces.
‘Yeah, so you see, neither of us was there for Zoe.’
‘Why didn’t you tell the police this? Why haven’t you told Detective Carter?’ Stephen got up, the glass crunching under his shoe.
‘What difference would it make?’ I laughed; it sounded course. ‘To be honest, I don’t think DI Carter would be that surprised. You’d have to be a fool to think our marriage was anything but over.’
Stephen strode towards me now and hit the whisky from my hand and it, too, smashed on the floor, surrounding us in a sea of glinting glass. ‘Stop fucking drinking and start telling me the truth, woman.’
‘I’m telling you the truth. This is the most honest I’ve been in a while.’ I felt amazingly calm.
‘Why are you telling me this now? Other than the fact that, as you say, our marriage is over, this is not helping bring back Zoe.’
‘No, it’s not. But then you would know about keeping things back from me that might explain Zoe’s disappearance, wouldn’t you, Stephen?’
Stephen kept shaking his head in disbelief and eventually he looked at me like I was mad. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
I brought my face up to his. ‘The photos, the messages; you’ve been keeping track of our daughter and you knew, you knew, she was slipping away from us and you never told me.’ I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.
He stared at me wide-eyed and then nodded. ‘I tried to tell you.’
‘When, Stephen? When did you try to tell me?’
He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. I knew we were both to blame – I had been so wrapped up in work and Robert that, even if he had tried to tell me, I probably wouldn’t have listened. I looked down and shuffled through the post Stephen had obviously chucked haphazardly on the kitchen counter. It was a distraction, and I needed to gather my thoughts.
But there, among the junk mail and what looked like a Final Reminder Notice from a utility company, I saw my name scrawled on the front of an envelope in handwriting that had become all too familiar to me.
I tore at the envelope and took out another piece of paper, fully expecting to see what I now recognised as Keira’s handwriting, only it wasn’t. It had been typed out on a computer.
Freya, the story continues. Imagine what Zoe felt when she found out she was pregnant: all alone and she couldn’t tell anyone, especially not you.
Dear Diary,
Shit. FML. I’ve just done a pregnancy test and it was positive. It says that I’m already over three weeks. I can’t believe I’m going to have a baby. A part of me doesn’t feel ready but the other part of me does. I think I could be a good mum. I don’t dare tell Mum and Dad because they’ll go ape. Mum is always banging on about me going to uni, even though I’m pretty sure when I’m eighteen I can actually do what I like. But not only that. Imagine if I told Mum the baby’s father is one of her students. A bit weird. A bit Jeremy Kyle.
If I tell anyone, I’ll tell Dad. He’ll know what to do.
Wordlessly, I handed the note to Stephen; I thought I might be sick and moved towards the counter to steady myself, my shoes crunching loudly on the glass underfoot.
I could hardly bear to ask the question. ‘Did she tell you she was pregnant?’
He dipped his head. ‘No, I swear it, Freya. She didn’t tell me.’
I believed him. After all, I’d seen how he’d reacted to finding out she’d had an abortion.
‘I’m phoning the police. You can tell them everything you’ve just told me. I swear to God, if this student doesn’t go to prison for statutory rape then I’ll fucking kill him myself.’ His face was puce. ‘You bring this student to our doorstep and he makes my daughter pregnant…’ He shuddered and brought his hand up to hit me across the face. ‘I swear to God, you don’t deserve anything. He needs to be locked away and you…’ He sneered and spat on the ground. ‘You can leave this house for ever.’ He started to dial the police.
‘I have lots of students, Stephen. How do you know it’s the same one?’
‘How do you know it isn’t?’ he countered. He’d always been able to find the weaknesses in my defences, always known where to strike to hurt me the most.
I gasped, a sob filling my throat. ‘Why do you think I had the affair in the first place? Do you really think it would have continued if I had known that he had even laid a finger on Zoe?’ My face was wet with tears, my lungs burning with anger and frustration. ‘You’ve always made out I’m the bad parent, that I don’t care about Zoe.’ I shook my head vehemently. ‘I signed those adoption papers because I loved Zoe so much, I thought she deserved better, don’t you see that?’
‘Oh, I see what you are, Freya. I have never been so clear in my mind as to what you truly are.’
My body slumped against the counter, his words beating me down, making me believe I really was the awful person he thought I was.
‘At least I don’t try to buy love. Robert loves me for who I am. Zoe only loves you because you spoil her.’ And then I delivered the cruellest blow I could think of. ‘If you stopped buying her things, she would hate you the way she hates me.’
I had hit home, and we both knew it.
‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it?’ I picked up the note. ‘I’m taking this to Detective Inspector Carter myself.’