Eventually I got up and went downstairs to the kitchen, the clock on the wall glowing red digits. Six minutes past three in the morning. The house was a mess and in the deep shadows it looked like a burglary or some kind of domestic disaster had struck the family home. The police had taken clothes, computers, tools from the cellar and spades from the shed, shoes, bags of rubbish from both inside the house and from the dustbin outside. There was stuff strewn everywhere in the aftermath of the police search. I realised absently that I’d forgotten to ask about the shotgun cartridge and the note Ben had left. Presumably they’d been scooped up with everything else. My car was gone. My laptop, iPad and desktop PC were gone. My mobile phone was gone.

They might as well have sent me back in time to 1900.

Thursday

THURSDAY

Chapter 61

61

William kept his distance from me the next morning. He looked at me warily, the way he looked at barky dogs and homeless people at the Tube station. I knew that – for him – the world was a very black-and-white place. You were either a goodie or a baddie. And goodies didn’t get handcuffed and taken away by the police.

I fetched him his cereal and sat with him at the dining table while he ate it and I drank a strong coffee. Normally he would talk to me, ask me all kinds of questions or tell me about random four-year-old things, like which one of the Angry Birds was his favourite, or how many wees he’d done the day before, or whether Citroëns were better than Fords. But today he ate in silence. He seemed wary of even catching my eye. It broke my heart to see him like that, frightened of talking to me. As soon as he had finished his Cheerios, he shuffled off his chair and carried the bowl into the kitchen without even being asked.

He talked to his mother in the kitchen as she helped him on with his shoes and coat. I loved the sound of his voice, there was none of the sarcasm or smart-alec sass of half the kids at Haddon Park. No condescension, no deceit. Just straight up.

‘Are you taking me to school today, Mummy?’

‘Yes, Wills.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Daddy’s not got his car.’

‘Why?’

‘The police wanted to borrow it for a few days.’

He thought about this for a moment. I suspected he would know it was another parental lie: he was a smart little guy.

‘Why?’

‘They sometimes do that when they need an extra car.’

I said: ‘It’s a Mummy car day today, matey.’