I was dialling. I couldn’t help it. I was dialling in to the show. I spoke to some runner for the show first. They told me to turn off the television before I went live on-air. I didn’t tell them who I was. I lied and said I was Emily from Yorkshire. I waited for a few moments as my blood pumped so hard and fast I felt the pulse in my fingertips. Before I knew it, the presenter was introducing me.
“Emily from Yorkshire, what is your question?”
“My question is for Amy. Who do you think you are? Where do you get off blaming Emma Price when you’re the one who was supposed to be watching Aiden when he was taken? He walked away onyourwatch, Amy, not his mother’s. When children go to school, parents expect them to be taken care of—”
“—But teachersaren’tparents. Children need to be taught—” she started.
“Shut up, Amy. You lying cow. You sat there and you gave me that doll and you pretended to be my friend—”
“Um, who is this?”
“—Do you remember turning up to my house two months after Aiden was taken? Do you remember getting on your knees and begging my forgiveness? I wrapped my arms around you, and I told you it was all forgiven, when I should have been driving a knife through your back like the one you’ve driven through mine.”
ChapterThirty-Four
Maeve Graham-Lennox had talked to me about how normal men and women can wear a mask. Beneath that mask is the potential for any one of us to become a monster. I’d seen Amy’s mask slip, and I knew she was as much a monster as anyone else. I hated her then. I hated her freshly dry-cleaned silk blouse and her newly whitened teeth. I hated her TV hair and proper pose. And I was absolutely convinced that she was the one who took Aiden.
I called Denise and DCI Stevenson, and I begged them to look at her again, but they told me she had been dismissed from the investigation. She had been accounted for during the storm. There was only a five-minute period while she was on her own, and it wasn’t enough time to take Aiden to wherever his enclosure was. But still, I couldn’t let it go. That woman hadtransformedinto another person before my eyes. How long had that other person existed? How long had she been planning to go to the press with her story?
Jake thought I was crazy. “No one who took a boy and kept him locked up for ten years,” he lowered his voice, “and did all thatstuffto him, would ever go on TV and draw attention to themselves.” Even Rob agreed, and he was generally suspicious of everything.
In the midst of all that angst, I still took Aiden to his therapy session with Dr Foster on Wednesday.
“How’s Aiden getting on?” she asked.
“He’s the same, really. No change.”
“And you?” she asked.
“It’s my due date in a week,” I said. “So I have a lot to think about.”
“But you’re so small!” she noted. “When I was nine months pregnant, I looked more like a cow or a beached whale. You’re…” she trailed off and smiled—to cover up her mistake?
“Lucky?” I finished. “In some ways, I suppose.”
“So. Are you all set?” she asked, changing the subject.
I frowned. “We’ve just got to put the crib together and then we’ll be done.”
“How has Aiden been handling the changes going on around the house?”
This was my moment to tell Dr Foster about the incident with the crib. But my maternal instinct held back. While I actually liked Dr Foster, I did not completely trust her. I certainly didn’t want her to recommend that my son be taken away from me.
“He’s doing okay. He’s been in the nursery and he knows what’s happening, but he still isn’t talking so there’s not much to report.”
“And his drawings?”
Violent, I thought. So much more violent than before. He drew blood on steel, blood on leaves, blood in the crib… He had worn his red colouring pencil right down and his tube of red paint was down to the last drop.
“Same as usual.” I glanced nervously across to where Aiden sat colouring on his own. Away from us. That was who Aiden was now—he was an outsider looking in.
“I have been thinking about Aiden, and I believe it’s now time to look at some other options.”
I sat up straighter. I hadn’t been told about anyotheroptions.
Dr Foster lifted her hands in a calming gesture. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing too taxing, but it is important. I want Aiden to start seeing a speech therapist to help him. Now that he’s settled into his environment, I think it’s time for us to actively help him speak.”
“Okay.”
