Page 49 of Good Bad Girl

A male police officer and a female detective offer to give me a lift from the supermarket to the pink house. It was really an order disguised as an offer. I can tell that they suspect me of something. Accusations don’t have to be made with words, looks are equally good at pointing fingers. A child has been taken but they keep wasting time askingmequestions instead of looking for her. Sometimes the same questions they have already asked. I know what they’re thinking. Liars tend to be good at spotting other liars.

I watch while they collapse the empty buggy and put it in the trunk of the police car, before opening one of the doors so I can climb into the back seat. I give them the address again. Even though it is already written in their notebooks, along with whatever else it is that they have been scribbling about me, about us, about her. This is what it must feel like to be arrested. To be takenaway from the life that you knew, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again. But they are not arresting me. Yet.

I’m too numb to cry now. I can’tfeelanything. Other than guilt.

I wished my daughter would disappear and now someone has taken the baby.

Time bends out of shape during the journey. It feels too fast and too slow simultaneously. I can’t keep my thoughts in order, and I worry about what my face might be doing. The walrus of a policeman who is driving keeps looking at me in the rearview mirror. Whenever our eyes meet, I look away. Partly because he disgusts me, partly because I am afraid of what he might be able to see.

“Nice house,” he gabbles when we pull up on the cobbled street outside the Notting Hill mews. It is a ridiculous thing to say. A criticism disguised as a compliment. He exchanges a glance with the detective in the front of the car, and another unspoken conversation takes place between them. They might as well have said it out loud. First they didn’t like me because they thought I was lying, now they don’t like me because they think I am rich. They are only right on one count.

I try to open the car door, let myself out, but it is locked.

“I’d like to go inside alone,” I say.

The walrus shakes his head and a new dusting of dandruff falls on the shoulders of his black uniform. “I don’t think we—”

“Of course,” the female detective says, interrupting him. She introduced herself at the supermarket but I can’t remember her name. Something Chapman, perhaps. “But we will need to come inside when you’re ready,” she adds.

“I understand. I just need a moment to tell—”

“Take your time. We’ll be right here.”

Here. When they should be out there. Looking for the baby.

I let myself inside the pink house and close the door behind me, wishing that I could lock the rest of the world out forever. The curtains and blinds are still drawn even though it is earlyafternoon. I’m not sure how many days it has been since they were last opened.

Postpartum depression they call it nowadays.

It used to be called the baby blues.

I switch on the lights in the hallway, then the lounge, then the kitchen. All of the rooms—which used to be so tidy and perfect, like something from a magazine—are a mess. Like me. Like her. Upstairs is no different. The landing is littered with dirty cups and plates, and I can see the growing stack of unopened mail and unpaid bills. The nursery floor is covered with piles of laundry—it is unclear what is clean and what is not—and when I reach the master bedroom I am almost too afraid to open the door.

The baby’s father is away on business.

The baby’s mother is in bed.

She has not been well since the baby was born and I’ve been doing my best to help.

I offered to tidy the place up days ago. She pulled a face as though I had slapped her, so I left things as they were. Some people have a way of making you feel as though your good deeds are bad ones. With that in mind, I think better of opening the curtains in Clio’s bedroom. Her behavior recently reminds me of when she was a teenager in more ways than one. All she seems to want to do is sleep, but she can’t, that’s why I have been looking after the baby for a few days. Now I’m exhausted too. The only reason Clio finally trusted me to take care of my only grandchild was because she was desperate. And because she didn’t want her husband to know how bad things really are.

We don’t have the best mother-daughter relationship.

There have been times throughout her life when I have resented my own child and loathed the woman she grew up to be. I thought when my daughter had children of her own it would bring us closer together, and it has, but only out of necessity. Clio only asked for my help as a last resort, because she doesn’t haveanyone else. For my part, I wanted to be a good grandmother. I suppose I hoped it might make up for my failings as a mum. But children are hard work, and babies are impossible, demanding creatures. I didn’t enjoy looking after my own babies the first time around. I thought it would be different,feeldifferent with Ladybug, but the childneverstopped crying. Until now.

Of course the baby is almost always perfectly behaved in public. That is something Clio and I do agree on. It’s as though at six months of age, little Ladybug is devious enough to save all of her tantrums for behind closed doors. That’s why I took her to the supermarket today, to get the things I knew Clio needed—baby formula, nappies, coffee—then I was going to bring the baby home. Here. Because even though Clio clearlyhatesthe baby, she misses her when she is gone too long. Wants to know she is close by at all times, even when she cannot stand to look at the child.

Clio didn’t want my help when the baby was born and has been disinterested and ungrateful for my opinion ever since. I tried my best but she wouldn’tlisten. Always convinced that what she read in a book or onthe internetwas more valid than advice from her own mother. She behaved as though my experience and knowledge was all out of date. I’m only sixty, I haven’t even retired yet, and she talks down to me as though I am old or senile, like someone who belongs in a care home. God forbid I ever end up in one of those. Clio always thinks she knows best, but look at the state of her and her precious pink house now. Having a baby is easy, taking care of one not so much. She needshelp. Professional help. Given her occupation I would have thought she would recognize the signs. But she won’t see a doctor. Won’t talk to anyone about it. And no matter how much I have tried to help, my daughter doesn’t trust me.

Turns out she was right not to.

I know the police won’t wait outside forever and I know I need to tell Clio what has happened. But I don’t know how. I sometimeswondered how things would turn out if my daughter disappeared. If I could raise my grandchild myself, my way. She would be my second chance and I would get it right this time. I was always too busy when Clio and Jude were little, working all the hours I could just to make ends meet. I didn’t have the time or the energy to be the mother I could have been. I’m sure all children fantasize about what their life might have been like if they had different parents. I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d had different children. Or none at all. I hate myself for thinking unthinkable thoughts, even now as I watch my daughter sleeping. But my life really would have been very different if she had never been born.

I wished my daughter would disappear and now someone has taken the baby.

How does a mother tell her daughter that she has lost her child?

“Clio.” I say her name quietly from the doorway. As though if she doesn’t hear me, I don’t have to tell her the truth. But she does wake up, and it is as though some motherly instinct—one I’m sure I never had—has informed her that something is wrong.

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