14th May 2017

Hi Mags

They’ve told me that writing in this diary might help, whatever that means. Will it help bring Elspeth back? Will it help you wake up? Christ, these last few hours I’ve been sitting in this chair like a zombie, unable to even fathom what has just happened let alone write it down. But the images of yesterday are hammering against my head, begging to be let out. I can either scream and rage and bang my fists on the walls or I can write it down here.

I’ve been to see her, Mags. The doctors came in and said she was ready and for a split second I was sure they were telling me that it had all been a big mistake, that Elspeth was waiting in one of the cubicles, ready to come home, that it was some other poor soul’s child that died. Not ours. Not our Elspeth.

So I went with them, the doctors, down this long sterile corridor, the road to hell. There was a policewoman there too, the same one who came to our front door. She didn’t say anything as we walked along, just smiled this sickly smile. I wanted to rip it off her face. I mean, who smiles when you’re about to see a dead child?

And then we got to the door. They opened it and, Christ, Maggie, it was the most horrific thing I’ve ever had to do. It was so cold in there, freezing, and there was this weird smell. I started to shake then and I couldn’t stop. Even my teeth started chattering. The policewoman grabbed my arm. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Think of the worst nightmare you’ve ever had then multiply it a million times.

Someone said my name and I saw a woman coming towards me, dressed in green scrubs. The pathologist.

She started talking but I couldn’t really take in what she was saying because she was there. Elspeth.

I heard the woman say something. She was asking if this was my daughter. And every part of me wanted to say, ‘No, that’s not my daughter. My daughter’s at home, safe and well.’ But when I looked down there was no question who it was. Her little face was so white and she had a big purple bruise underneath her right eye. I just wanted to lift her off that block and carry her out of there, take her home. I wanted to shake her until she woke up.

God, Elspeth.

I can’t really remember much after that. Everything just blurred. The police officer led me out of there and the doctor asked if I was okay. I told him that I would never be okay again, not after what I had just seen.

But as they walked me back to your bedside all I could think was that this was my fault. That you’d found out what I’d done.

15th May

Dear Mags,

I’m sitting by your bed and all sorts of feelings are battling inside me: fear, guilt, anger, confusion.

Yesterday I blamed myself. You’d found out, I was sure of it. You’d found out what I’d been up to and you were driving towards the station to confront me. But there are so many things that don’t make sense. Why would you stop at the pub car park? You can’t have been going in there. We hated that pub. Why would you get out of the car and lock Elspeth inside it? Jesus, Mags, you left the bloody handbrake off. Our little girl was in the car and you didn’t secure it properly.

Anyway, I’ll only get the answers to those questions when you wake up. If you wake up.

It’s really quiet in here now and I’m glad of the peace. During the day there’s a steady stream of doctors and nurses coming in to prod and poke you but they never have anything new to say. The way they look at you then scribble down their notes just makes me anxious. There’s a lot of talk online about positive thinking, positive communication and the strength of the human spirit and I’m trying, Mags, I really am, but to be honest I don’t even know if I want you to make it.

16th May

Dear Mags,

Christ, I miss her. I keep seeing her, in the corridor, in the car park. I can hear her voice, clear as a bell. How can she be gone, Mags? I just can’t get my head around it.

Do you remember the day she was born? It was in a room just like this. The Griffin Room in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. We called it our ‘private suite’ though we’d only been put there because you’d had a caesarean.

I remember I sneaked out one morning to get some food and when I came back you and Elspeth were gone. I charged out of that room like a madman, grabbed some poor nurse and demanded to know what had happened to my wife and daughter. Turns out you’d taken her to the bathroom with you. When I came back to the room there you both were, all safe and sound and cuddled up. But I’ll never forget that feeling, that panic, because it was my first experience of the terror that comes with being a parent, the raw fear that the two people you love more than anything in this world could be taken away from you.

I loved you back then, I really did, Mags. I knew what you’d been through and how fragile you were, but you were also strong. The strongest person I’ve ever known. But the pressure of these last few years just got too much. All I ever wanted was to make you happy but you pushed me away. You only smiled when you were in your study typing away on the computer or if you and Elspeth were playing together. I saw the way your face would cloud over when I walked into a room. You pushed me so far away that I couldn’t get back to you.

I miss you. I miss Elspeth. I miss us.

Please make it. I need you.

17th May

Hello Mags,

I’m sitting here because I don’t want to go home. If I go home then all this is real. While I’m here in this hospital I can fool myself that this is a dream or that Elspeth has gone off on a school trip somewhere and will be back any day now full of stories and excitement.

Another reason why I don’t want to go home is that I know I’ll have to start planning the funeral. Once the coroner’s report comes back then her body will be released and I will have to think of …

You know last night I was trying to work out what she would like to have at her funeral and all I could think of was bowling. Bloody bowling. Do you remember for her last birthday she was adamant that she wanted a bowling party but we’d left it too late and they were all booked up. We ended up taking her friends to that pottery place in Lewes where they could decorate their own mugs. I’m talking gibberish, Mags, I know I am, but Christ I would give anything to just take her bowling now. To take the day off work for one lousy afternoon and see my daughter having fun in a bloody neon-lit bowling alley.

So here I am, Mags, trying to plan her funeral like we planned her birthdays. We used to say to each other, didn’t we, in the weeks before her birthday, what would Elspeth want? And you would always know better than me. You knew that she preferred chocolate cake to vanilla; knew that she wouldn’t want to invite that spiteful kid from the village even though she’d invited Elspeth to her party. You knew which of the kids had a dairy intolerance and who was veggie. You knew that the cherry tomatoes always got left at the end and that you couldn’t go wrong with a few extra bowls of Hula Hoops. I’m trying to think like you, Mags, but inside I’m screaming, ‘I can’t do this.’

You knew her better than I did. I was always on the outside looking in. You and Elspeth were this invincible team and I had no chance of joining. I look back at the last few years and the chasm between us just got bigger and bigger.

I should have told you. I should have come clean and then none of this would have happened.

I’m sorry, Mags. I’m so sorry.

2nd June

Mags.

Today was Elspeth’s funeral. My heart is ripped to shreds. I’ve never known pain like this, Maggie. I can barely breathe. How is it possible to be burying your own child?

Sophie Bailey brought her CD player and played their favourite Taylor Swift song, the one Elspeth used to sing over and over. I’ll never be able to hear that song again. I asked she be put in her purple dress, her favourite. Do you remember she used to say that the colour purple had magical powers, that it could protect you from harm? And as I was standing in that church, listening to the vicar talk about the purity of childhood and how Elspeth is safe with the angels, I asked myself why she wasn’t wearing purple that night, why both of you weren’t wearing sodding purple to protect you from harm.

3rd June

Writing it down will make it better, they said. Writing it down will help make sense of it all. So I’m sitting at our kitchen table with this bloody diary in front of me, trying to find the words that will make sense of the last twenty-four hours but I don’t think that is possible.

So I’ll just be brief, Mags, and tell you what I know.

They gave me your phone.

It’s all on there, everything you tried to hide from me. Your secret.

And when I read it I felt sick.

How could you do this?

It was your fault, Maggie, all of it.

You killed our daughter.