‘No. I was at work. I was there until around six p.m. and then I went for a couple of drinks with some colleagues. I can give you their names if you like and the bar we drank in?’ He provides both, conscious that it sounds as if he’s providing an alibi. ‘I didn’t get home until around ten.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘I came in and Jess appeared to be in bed. Both the boys were in their rooms – I assumed they were sleeping – but Betsey was crying, whimpering, really. So I went and looked in.’
‘And how did you find her?’
‘Fractious, teary, and she’d been sick on her mattress. I picked her up and tried to comfort her but she was clearly uncomfortable. She strained against me; twisted her head. I suppose I’m more cack-handed than Jess, less used to getting her to stop crying.’ He pauses. ‘I couldn’t stop her crying.’
‘Was this unusual for her?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Have you ever found her like this before?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Just to be clear: you’d never found her sick in her cot?’
‘No.’
‘And what about her crying like this. Was that usual?’
He thinks, conscious that he’s not around for the majority of the day; aware too that he does not want to say anything that might raise suspicions. In the end, he decides to be honest.
‘She does cry – like any baby – but this was different. I couldn’t settle her; couldn’t stop her, as I said.’
The band around his head tightens as he remembers his shame, his sense of impotence, at being unable to do this. Why hadn’t he snapped on the nursery light? He supposes he didn’t want to shock her with its brightness: Jess was obsessed with blackout blinds and with not making the children wired. Instead, he’d pushed the door open so that the landing light splayed into the room. She had craned away and that had shaken him. Wasn’t straining from the light a sign of meningitis? Jess hadn’t had her inoculated, something he’d been livid about but which, as with all domestic things, he hadn’t thought to organise. He had put her down in the cot to wrestle off the sodden Grobag and see if there was a rash on her stomach. She’d screamed and writhed, furious at his manhandling – or in pain, he now realises. He’d been out of his depth and had bounded up the stairs to Jess.
‘And your wife? Where was she while this was going on?’ DC Rustin says.
‘In bed.’
‘Asleep?’
‘No. But I think she had been. She was coming round. Was dozy. She’d had a long day.’
‘Could she hear the crying in your room?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Could you hear it up there?’ DC Rustin tries again.
He pauses. ‘Yes.’
‘How loud was it?’
‘It was the sound of a baby crying. It was . . . insistent when I was there, but I don’t know how loud it was before. I imagine it was gentler and more sporadic, as it was when I came into the house.’
‘Did you ask your wife why she hadn’t gone down?’
‘No.’
DC Rustin tilts her head to one side.
‘Did you wonder why she hadn’t done so?’
‘Not really.’
The detective taps a biro three times on a pad of paper: a dull, rhythmic knocking. The sound of her palpable disbelief.
‘I was more concerned with getting Betsey to hospital,’ Ed says.
‘You were sufficiently concerned at this stage?’
‘I was worried about her straining from the light, and the fact she’d been sick. I was worried it might be meningitis.’
‘And did your wife agree she was sufficiently poorly to be taken in?’
‘Yes – when I told her about her reaction to the light. Of course she agreed she should go to hospital.’
‘Did she mention that Betsey had banged her head?’
‘I don’t think so, no. We were just preoccupied with how she was at the time.’
‘Would that have made you worry more if she had?’
‘I suppose so.’ He’s not sure what they’re getting at and so how to answer. ‘But it wasn’t an issue because she didn’t mention it.’
‘And did she go to the hospital straight away?’
‘Yes. As soon as she got herself ready.’
‘How long did that take?’
‘Five minutes at most.’ He feels a frisson of irritation. There’s no way he is going to tell them of his frustration as Jess brushed her hair. He had gone and put Betsey into a fresh Babygro, found her changing bag, fumbled in her drawers for clothing and nappies, not quite sure if he’d assembled everything; embarrassed by how little he knew of the minutiae of his daughter’s life.
Jess was jittery when she came down, her eyes bright, her expression cagey. He’d assumed his unease was contagious: she’d been dismissive, and sharp. ‘Can you pass me her bag?’ she had asked as she had taken Betsey from him, her screams ragged now, the poor child utterly exhausted. He was left feeling not just inadequate but disturbed.
And as DC Rustin’s questions continue, with DC Farron chipping in, this sensation grows and hardens, until his doubts, barely acknowledged when she told him the police were coming, begin to multiply. Why had Jess buried herself under the duvet, ignoring Betsey’s cries? Why the inexplicable delay as she prepared to go to the hospital, not sharing his sense of urgency until he had shouted at her in frustration and threatened to call a cab to take Betsey himself? Why had she argued against going to the hospital in the first place? Because he wasn’t frank with DC Rustin: Jess had taken quite some persuading; had insisted that Bets must just have a virus and initially accused him of overreacting. And he was thrown because, apart from her aversion to vaccinations, she is so vigilant about the children’s health. The amount she spends on organic food and herbal supplements, her obsession with the house being hygienically clean, her reluctance to leave the children with other people, all indicate how seriously she takes being their mother. A role she pursues diligently, determined to compensate for not having one who was particularly maternal herself.
Jess adores their children, he has no doubt about this, even if she hasn’t appeared to enjoy motherhood – or to be as engaged with it – since Betsey’s birth. Recently he has itched to tell her that loving them is enough. That the perfectionism that drives the way in which she feeds and clothes their kids is unnecessary; that her care – attentive, thoughtful – is sufficient. But it’s not in Jess’s nature to do anything by halves, and, until Thursday at least, he had been wary of broaching the subject. He hadn’t even thought it through properly; had just inched towards this realisation. Then he tried to raise it and made everything so much worse.
He is struggling to find the words now. To balance the truth with his need to protect Jess from this dour detective, because something here doesn’t quite fit.
The truth chafes against the version of events he offers up, not out of a desire to mislead – because he is not stupid; he knows you’re not supposed to lie to the police – but because his instinct is to shield his wife, whom he loves even if he no longer seems to understand her.