The Child Who

Leo could only shake his head. Once he started, though, he found he could not stop. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe you. You sent the notes. You said you did.’

‘S’right. And I said I was sorry. They were only meant to rattle you, mate. Give you a nudge, that’s all.’

‘And my daughter’s hair? Her blood. What was that supposed to do?’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘I don’t deserve a daughter. Isn’t that how you put it? Explain the hair, Blake. Explain the blood!’ Leo was standing now, leaning towards Blake over the table.

Blake tried to slide away his chair but its rear legs caught and the chair tilted. ‘Hey. Calm down. I honestly have no idea what you’re—’

Leo was around the table and upon him. He gripped Blake’s collar and bore his weight as the chair beneath him fell away. ‘The note! The final note! It was written in Ellie’s blood! They tested it! They confirmed it! What’s your story for explaining that!’

Blake stuttered. He shook his head. ‘Honestly! Leo! I haven’t got the foggiest—’

‘If you wrote one, you wrote them all! And you couldn’t have written that one unless… unless…’

Leo’s eyes locked. He saw the notes in their envelopes in his bedside drawer. He saw his balled-up socks and his stash of emergency twenties. He saw Ellie’s blood. He saw her hair. He saw the words on that final note and he saw that the words, all along, had held the truth: who had written them, and why.

-

She does not need to look to be able to see it. She tries, though, to view it through her husband’s eyes, to reconcile the image with what they both, probably, would have expected.

The woman is thin. That much is programmed into her DNA. Not a worrying, wiry thin, however. Just the wrong side, in Megan’s mind, of a size ten. A pound or two extra would not hurt, particularly on those narrow hips, but overall she appears fit, healthy.

Her hair has been dyed dark. It has been cropped, too, into a boyish cut that Megan does not care for but hair grows, styles change. She recalls some of the hairstyles she wore when she was young. The perms, for instance. My God, the perms.

The pallor has gone. There is a depth of colour to her freckles that worried Megan at first. In this country, she reasoned, only people who spend most of their time outdoors develop such tone to their skin. Gardeners, for instance. Street sweepers. Street sleepers. But she convinced herself, in the end, that the colour was a good thing. A lack of it, after all, would have worried her more. And anyway the shot, from the fullness of the trees, appears to have been taken in the summer. Last summer. Which made it recent, when Megan first saw it.

Would Leo have recognised her, if he passed her on the street? Would Megan have? The answer scares her, every time. Place the woman side by side with the sketches they had drawn up, for instance, and you would not assume you were looking at the same person. Ellie might have seen her face on a lamp post and not realised she was looking in a mirror.

Megan shifts to disguise the shiver.

‘Who’s this?’

She glances at the tip of Leo’s finger, at the chin nestled on her daughter’s shoulder. She turns back to face the road.

‘Her friend. Samantha. Maybe more than a friend – I haven’t worked it out.’

‘Have you met her?’ Leo’s eyes do not move from the photograph.

‘No. But she keeps saying.’

Leo shakes his head slightly, ousts air through his nostrils. It is a mannerism, in the course of the drive, she has become used to.

‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look at her grinning.’ Ellie, he means. Their daughter. ‘You remember what she used to be like in photos? How she used to scowl? You had to sneak up on her just to get a shot. Remember?’

She does. She smiles.

Leo shakes his head again. He turns to the window and seems to register for the first time where they are, where they are headed. He peers along the motorway and frowns. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

Megan just laughs.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she says. Then, ‘An hour, I’d say. Maybe less. Are you hungry? There’re some services coming up.’

‘No. Keep driving. Unless you’d like me to?’

Megan’s hands slide to greet each other on the steering wheel. ‘I’m okay.’ She glances and Leo catches her.

‘What?’ he says again. ‘What’s wrong?’

This time she allows her exasperation to show. ‘You,’ she says. ‘Being nice. Offering to drive.’ She glares at the tarmac.

‘What? What’s wrong with that? You’re tired, I expect. I should have offered earlier.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She glances again and sees that he does.

‘Look. Meg. She wrote to you. She didn’t write to me.’

Megan says nothing.

‘You only did what she asked you to. I can hardly blame you for that.’

She shakes her head, expels a breath. Leo turns away, as though happy to leave it at that.

Megan, though, is not. ‘I had no right.’

‘Meg—’

‘I didn’t! If it were you… If you’d been me…’

‘Please. Don’t start that. She asked you not to tell me. She told you not to.’

‘But it was up to me. Wasn’t it? Whether or not to agree.’

‘I’m not sure it was, actually. Knowing our daughter, I’m not sure you had very much choice in the matter.’

‘I could have argued, though. How do you know I even argued?’

‘Because I know you.’

‘But…’ Megan sighed. ‘So many times. So many times I nearly called you. And I was always going to, you know. It was only ever a question of when.’

‘You’ve told me now, Meg. I know now. Let’s leave it at that.’

‘I was terrified, Leo. You understand that, don’t you? I couldn’t have faced losing her again. I kept saying to myself: after the next time I see her. Or the next letter she sends. I’ll tell him then.’ Megan turns from the road, watching for Leo’s response. ‘Can’t you be angry at least?’

‘Because that will help, do you think?’

‘Yes!’

Leo shakes his head. ‘I can’t. Not with her. Not with you.’

Megan glowers but her husband just watches the road. ‘It was my fault too, you realise. She ran from the both of us, not just you.’

‘I know.’

Megan is thrown momentarily by his answer. Which part of what she said, exactly, is he agreeing to?

Leo notices her expression and shrugs a smile. ‘We made mistakes, Meg. Both of us, just like all parents do. But mine were bigger.’

He does not give her time to consider an answer.

‘Can I see them again?’ he says. ‘The letters?’

‘What? Yes. Of course.’ As though he should not even have to ask. As though at any point in the past six months, all he ever had to do was ask.

He dips into the footwell towards her handbag.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I almost forgot. My purse. It should be in there.’