Hope to Die

There’s a photo of Ben and Lily stuck to the fridge behind me; his small face managing to look thrilled and nervous all at once, because he’s never held a baby before and is clearly terrified he’s doing it all wrong. It was Ben – our eleven-year-old nephew – who phoned the ambulance when Alex went into premature labour and there was no one else in the house. Certainly not me. I didn’t even know it was happening. Because I was in the cells at Newbury nick, twelve hours and counting from a rape and murder charge. I’m not about to go into all that again – I’m guessing you know already, and if not, I’m sorry, but I’ve tried damned hard, these last few weeks, to stop obsessing about it. Let’s just say that I have two people to thank for being here right now, stacking my dishwasher rather than slopping out a cell. One of them is my wife; the other is Chris Gislingham. Gis who’s in the dictionary under ‘dependable’; Gis who doesn’t know it yet but will be needing to get his wedding suit cleaned, because when Lily is christened in a few weeks’ time, he’ll be standing up next to Ben as her other godfather.

And right on cue there’s a crackle on the baby monitor and I can hear the little breathy snuffling noises of my daughter waking up. She’s a miraculously sunny child – hardly ever cries, even when she needs changing. She just gets this bemused look on her little face, as if surely the world isn’t supposed to work that way. The rest of the time she lies there in her cot, smiling up at me and kicking her tiny feet and breaking my heart. She has her mother’s blue-lilac eyes and a soft down of her mother’s dark auburn hair, and even though I’m as biased as the next new dad, when people tell us how beautiful she is I just think, Hell, you’re right, she bloody is. Beautiful, healthy and, more than anything, here. Against all the odds, after losing Jake, when we thought our last chance was gone –

‘I’ll go,’ says Alex. ‘She’s probably just hungry.’

Which is mother code for ‘so you wouldn’t be much use anyway’. She touches my arm gently as she goes past and I catch a drift of her scent. Shampoo and baby milk and the butter-biscuit smell of her skin. In the last few months of her pregnancy Alex looked haunted, like someone locked on the brink of terror. But that last day, the day Lily was born, something changed. She found herself again. Perhaps it was the hormones, perhaps it was the adrenaline; who knows. Alex has never been able to explain it. But it was the old Alex who worked out where the evidence against me had come from, and made sure, even as they were lifting her into the ambulance, that a message got through to Gis. The old Alex I have always loved, the old Alex who laughed and was spontaneous and stood up to people and could out-think pretty much everyone I know, including me. I didn’t realize it until much, much later, but a daughter wasn’t the only gift I was given that day; I got my wife back too.

* * *

Transcript 999 emergency call

21.10.2018 21:52:08

Operator 1: Emergency, which service do you require?

Caller: Police, please.

Operator 1: Connecting you.

[Ringing tone]

Operator 2: Go ahead, caller.

Caller: I’m at Wytham [INAUDIBLE 00.09] may be in trouble.

Operator 2: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch all of that – can you repeat?

Caller: It’s that big house on Ock Lane [INAUDIBLE 00.12] heard something.

Operator 2: You’re at Ock Lane, Wytham?

Caller: Well, not exactly – the thing is [INAUDIBLE 00.15] definitely sounded like it.

Operator 2: You’re breaking up, sir –

Caller: My phone’s about to die [INAUDIBLE 00.17]

Operator 2: You want the police to attend – Ock Lane, Wytham?

Caller: Yes, yes –

[Dial tone]

Operator 2: Hello? Hello?

* * *

‘According to Google, this is the place.’

PC Puttergill pulls on the handbrake and the two of them peer out of the window. It may have ‘Manor’ in its name but it’s actually just a farmhouse, though to be fair, a pretty hefty one – a gravel drive, a five-bar gate and an old mud-spattered SUV parked outside an open barn. It looks quiet, private and a little run-down, as a certain type of old-money home so often does. What it certainly doesn’t look like is a place where bad things happen.

‘What did the control room say again?’

Puttergill makes a face. ‘Not much, Sarge. The line was bad and they couldn’t hear half what he was saying. When they tried to call back it just went to voicemail.’

‘And who lives here, do we know?’

‘Couple called Swann. Pensioners. They aren’t answering the phone either. Though they should be expecting us – the station left a message.’

Sergeant Barnetson gives a heavy sigh, then reaches into the back seat for his cap.

‘OK,’ he says, his hand on the door handle, ‘let’s get on with it.’