Give Me the Child: the most gripping psychological thriller of the year. Mel McGrath

      ‘Good idea,’ I said.

      Later, after pizza and ice cream and when the girls had gone into the living room to play a dance game on the household Wii and Tom and I were clearing up, I said, ‘Roses. Really?’

      ‘Worth a try,’ Tom said.

      ‘I binned them.’

      ‘Can’t say I blame you.’

      So he had decided to play nice, which meant I had to do the same or hate myself.

      ‘Did you get to talk to Freya on her own today?’ I went on, changing the subject.

      Tom stopped what he was doing, went over to the counter where the open bottle of wine sat and poured himself a glass.

      ‘Of course. She’s super cool about having a new sister.’

      ‘Half-sister.’

      Tom shot me a little look of reproach. ‘Yeah, whatever.’

      Then, as if magicked, Freya appeared and the conversation ended before it had begun.

      At eight thirty I hustled the two girls up to bed and sat with Freya a while. Just as Tom said, she was excited about the new arrival and full of girlish plans and if there was any hint of jealousy or foreboding, or even anxiety, she didn’t show it. I loved her all the more for that – her generosity and innate decency.

      By the time I got back downstairs, Tom was on the sofa playing on his games console. I joined him, poured myself a glass of wine and invited the cat onto my lap.

      ‘Shall we talk?’

      Tom stiffened then looked up with raised eyebrows as though I’d said something surprising.

      ‘What, now?’ He had this way of making it seem as if all conversation should only ever be about an exchange of essential information, that there was no such thing as simply talking. Because talking brought up the possibility of confrontation. And avoiding confrontation was the way Tom absolved himself from responsibility whilst seeming completely reasonable. If you want to talk, of course we’ll talk, but I wonder if this is really the right time? Wouldn’t tomorrow be better? If I pushed it, he’d usually run off, returning a few hours or even, on one or two occasions, a few days later, as if nothing had ever happened, knowing that I’d be too spent to want to start up again. A couple of times, when I had, he had lost it in the most spectacular way, one time pushing his hands through a window, another (we’d been in the car) driving straight into a wall.

      I met his question with another. ‘How has Ruby seemed today?’

      ‘Calm. OK. In shock a bit, I guess. She could do without the social workers and all that administrative bullshit.’

      ‘Maybe we could come to some arrangement with the grandmother for Ruby to stay with us every other weekend on a sort of experimental basis?’

      Tom reached for his glass and took a long gulp. ‘Maybe.’ He sounded as though he was hiding something.

      ‘But?’

      ‘But I haven’t spoken to her. When the police finally got through she said she was too upset to talk to me or Ruby. I’ll call her later, find out what the funeral arrangements are. The social worker seemed to think it’s important for Ruby to go.’

      ‘How were your meetings with social services and the police?’

      He shrugged. ‘If I’m honest, most of it went straight over my head.’ If I’m honest. I liked that.

      ‘But there’s no suggestion of anything weird, is there?’

      ‘No, why would you think that? The woman had a drink problem and, from what the cops said, a rather chaotic life.’ The way he said ‘chaotic life’ made it clear that he was expecting me to feel sorry for Lilly Winter, which I did, but that didn’t make me any sorrier for Tom.

      We fell silent, the dead woman in the room between us. Eventually, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I said, ‘Did you really only sleep with Lilly Winter once?’ My voice was breathy, and with no weight to it, like sea foam breaking on pebbles.

      Tom twisted around to look at me.

      ‘Yes. Jesus, Cat, you want the truth. I regretted it then I forgot about it. It was just a really stupid mistake. And I’m sorry, really.’ He reached out but I pulled back. As a conciliatory gesture, he picked up the bottle of Malbec on the coffee table and waved it in the air. He was quite pissed, I realised then.

      ‘A glass of this? Or there’s some chilled “not quite white” in the fridge.’

      ‘That was funny before you fucked that woman.’

      Tom cocked his head and grinned. ‘Nah, that was actually funny.’ I snorted and gave ground and immediately the tension between us eased.

      ‘Was it really tricky? Back then, I mean.’

      ‘Bloody awful.’ His knee started beating under the table. ‘Not just tricky, actually scary, like I’d lost you just at the moment when you were about to give birth to our daughter. You were so paranoid you wouldn’t even be in the same room as me.’

      ‘What did I think you were going to do to me?’ I didn’t remember much about my mental state back then and now I felt trapped between my anger at Tom and the fear of expressing it. The look that came into his eyes from time to time when he was afraid of what he saw as my instability.

      He went quiet for a moment, his fingers rubbing the wine glass. I could tell he was working out his next move.

      ‘That’s not the point. Anyway, we’ve never talked about whether you cheated on me. I know you wanted to, with that lawyer guy on the Spelling case. Dominic. You were hot for him.’

      I dismissed this with a wave, but Tom was more right than he knew. I’d been far from the perfect wife. I stood up.

      ‘I’m going to check on Freya.’

      Our daughter was sitting in bed watching the hamster turning aimlessly on its wheel. It was far too late for her to be awake.

      ‘What’s up, sweet pea?’

      She crossed her arms over her delicate little chest. ‘Auntie Sally’s your sister. Now I’ve got one too.’ Her tone had a hint of reproach. Jealousy? Resentment of my failure to provide a sister? A kind of possessiveness? It was always hard to tell with Freya.

      ‘Yes, darling.’ I bent down and we kissed each other. She snuggled into her duvet and I stroked her head until she fell asleep, but as I crept back through the hall past the spare room, darkened now, where Ruby Winter slept, I remembered her words, I live here now, and a feeling of disquiet trailed me like a shadow.

      Sometime in the middle of the night I woke to the sound of murmuring voices. Tom was beside me, dead to the world. Creeping out of bed, I found the two girls sitting at the bottom of the bed in Freya’s room, playing with the hamster.

      ‘What are you two doing?’

      ‘Ruby wants Harry in her room,’ Freya said, by way of explanation.

      ‘I see. Well, we can talk about that in the morning. For now, I think it’s best if the hamster stays here and we all go back to our beds and get some sleep.’ I put the animal back inside his cage and, as I held out a hand for Ruby, the girl slid by without a word and went onto the landing. I kissed Freya then followed Ruby to the spare room and waited for her to get back into bed. As the light went out, she was lying stiffly with the duvet tucked under her armpits and her arms uncovered, hands working into little blue-white fists on the counterpane.

CHAPTER SEVEN