The Widow by Fiona Barton Read Free Book Online Page B

or she’s going to end up in hospital,’ he hissed.
    â€˜I know, Sir. She’s dozing on the sofa during the day but she hates it when it gets dark. She says Bella is afraid of the dark.’

Chapter 8
Wednesday, 11 October 2006
The Reporter
    K ATE W ATERS ARRIVED AT the house at lunchtime with a photographer and a bunch of ostentatious supermarket lilies. She’d parked down the road, away from the pack, so she could get out of the car without attracting attention. She rang Bob Sparkes to let him know she was there and swept past the journalists sitting outside the house in their cars, Big Macs in their fists. By the time they’d leapt from their vehicles, she was inside. She heard a couple of them swearing loudly, warning each other that they were about to be shafted, and tried not to grin.
    As Bob Sparkes led the way, Kate took it all in, the shambles and stasis created by grief: in the hall, Bella’s blue anorak with a fur-lined hood and teddy-bear backpack hanging on the bannister; her tiny, shiny red wellies by the door.
    â€˜Get a photo of those, Mick,’ she whispered to the photographer following her as they made their way into the front room. There were toys and baby photos everywhere; the scene took Kate straight back to her own early days of motherhood, struggling against the tide of chaos. She had sat and cried the day she brought Jake home from the hospital, lost in the postnatal hormonal wash and sudden sense of responsibility. She remembered she’d asked the nurse if she could pick him up, the morning after he was born, as if he belonged to the hospital.
    The mother looked up, her young face creased and made old by weeping, and Kate smiled and took her hand. She was going to shake it, but simply squeezed it instead.
    â€˜Hello, Dawn,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me. I know how hard it must be for you, but we hope it will help the police find Bella.’
    Dawn nodded as if in slow motion.
    Bloody hell, Bob wasn’t kidding, Kate thought.
    She picked up a red Teletubby doll from the sofa – ‘Is this Po? My boys preferred Power Rangers,’ she said.
    Dawn looked at her, interested. ‘Bella loves Po,’ she said. ‘She likes blowing bubbles, chases after them, trying to catch them.’
    Kate had noticed a photo on a table of the toddler doing exactly that and got up to bring it to Dawn. ‘Here she is,’ she said and Dawn took the frame in her hands. ‘She’s beautiful,’ Kate said. ‘Full of mischief, I bet.’
    Dawn smiled gratefully. The two women had found their common ground – motherhood – and Dawn started to talk about her baby.
    First time she’s been able to talk about Bella as a child, not a crime victim, Bob Sparkes thought.
    â€˜She’s good, Kate. You have to give her that. She can get inside your head quicker than a lot of my coppers,’ he had told his wife later. Eileen had shrugged and returned to the
Telegraph
crossword. Police work took place on a different planet, as far as she was concerned.
    Kate fetched more photos and toys to keep the conversation flowing, letting Dawn tell her story about each item with barely a question needed. She used a discreet tape recorder, slipped quickly on to the cushion between them, to capture every word. Notebooks were a bad idea in a situation like this – it would be too much like a police interview. She just wanted Dawn to talk. She wanted to hear about the ordinary pleasures and everyday struggles of being a mum. Of getting Bella ready for nursery, bathtime games, the child’s delight at choosing her new wellies.
    â€˜She loves animals. We went to the zoo once and she wanted to stay watching the monkeys. She laughed and laughed,’ Dawn told her, taking temporary shelter in memories of a previous life.
    The glimpses of Bella and Dawn would bring the reader straight into the nightmare the young mother