He Saved Her Child, Abandoned Ours novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four in the Morning

At her grandmother's kitchen table in Whitstable, Rhiannon learns the nanny's replacement was cancelled from Rafe's own login. At dawn he is standing in the garden.

My grandmother opened her front door in Whitstable at ten past four in the morning with a rolling pin in her hand.

"Rhiannon Hargreaves," Bridie said. "If that is not you, I'm calling the police."

"It's me, Gran."

She looked at my coat, my face, and the child asleep on my shoulder.

She put the rolling pin down on the hall table.

"Kitchen," she said. "Now."

Bridie was seventy-two and had cooked on the Kent ferries for thirty years.

She had never once asked me a question before feeding me.

She put the kettle on the hob, and it began its slow climb into a scream.

Tilly's head came up off my shoulder at the sound.

Her whole body went stiff.

"It's only Gran's kettle," I said into her hair. "It's only the noisy one. Nobody's going to touch it."

"I'll take it off," Bridie said, and did, and the screaming stopped halfway.

She did not make a fuss.

She crouched on her creaking knees and held out one big flat hand.

"Show me, my love."

Tilly held out her bandaged arm.

Bridie looked at the dressing for a long time.

"That's a good clean bandage," she said. "Whoever did that knew what they were doing."

"A nurse," Tilly said. "She had pink shoes."

"Pink shoes. Very serious." Bridie nodded. "Did you cry, sweet pea?"

"No."

"Shame," Bridie said. "I would have. I'd have screamed the street down."

Tilly looked up at her, startled.

"Is that allowed?"

"In my kitchen it's compulsory," said my grandmother.

My daughter's mouth wobbled for the first time that night.

She didn't cry, but she leaned on Bridie's knee instead of me, which was a start.

I put her to bed in the box room under the quilt I had slept beneath at nine years old.

When I came back down there was toast on the table, and a mug of tea so strong it had a skin.

"Eat," Bridie said.

I ate.

Then I told her everything, in order, in the flat voice I used for bad news at work.

She heard it all without once saying his name.

"Where was the nanny?" she said at the end.

"Madrid. Her visa ran out. Rafe said the agency was sending someone."

"Ring her."

"It's five in the morning in Spain, Gran."

"A girl who's lost her job and her visa in one week isn't sleeping."

I rang.

She answered on the first ring, crying already.

"Mrs Ashworth, I am so sorry. I waited at the airport gate until the last call. I wrote to Mr Ashworth's office four times."

"It wasn't your fault," I said. "It wasn't your visa. Listen, did the agency say anything?"

"I rang them this afternoon." She blew her nose. "They told me the replacement was never sent."

"Why not?"

"The booking was cancelled, Mrs Ashworth. On Monday, from the client account. Mr Ashworth's own login."

I looked at the clock on the cooker.

"Can you send me what they told you?"

She forwarded it while I held the line.

It was a short, polite email from the agency's booking desk.

At 4:12 p.m. on Monday, the account of R. Ashworth had cancelled a placement starting Tuesday, with the note: Family travelling. Rebook when advised.

Monday at 4:12 p.m.

I had been on the Eurostar by then, sitting across from a woman who sold me a raffle ticket.

I read the line aloud to Bridie.

"Family travelling," she said. "Who was travelling?"

"Nobody. He told me he was going to Zurich. I was going to Paris."

"And Tilly?"

"Tilly was at home."

"Then either your husband did it," Bridie said, "or he handed someone the keys to do it."

"He told me to enjoy my gala."

"I'm sure he did."

She poured me more tea I didn't want.

I turned my phone over on the table.

Rafe had rung over and over since I left, and written nothing.

Then it began to get light outside, grey over the harbour.

A car door shut in the lane.

Gravel crunched on the path, and the garden gate gave its old rusty squeal.

Bridie got up and went to the window.

She stood with her hands on the sill for a very long moment.

"Rhiannon," she said. "Your husband is standing in my front garden in yesterday's suit."

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