The Playdate (38 page)
I throw myself back angrily in my chair.
They both smile empathetically.
“OK, well, let me ask you this,” the male officer continues. “Why do you think Deborah Ribwell would want to hurt Rae, in particular? Had you or Rae done anything to provoke her?”
“No, of course not,” I say, shaking my head dismissively. Then I jerk forward in my chair. “Hang on, yes. Oh shit, I’ve just remembered. Rae hit her on the nose with this horrible toy she gave her when we first met her. Maybe that was it. And also, me and Suzy think she might have been angry that Rae ran
away from her on the pavement and pushed her or slapped her, and that’s why she fell into the road. I think Rae didn’t tell me because she thought I’d be angry that she was running.”
“Right. So you think these two incidents—being hit on the nose with a toy and running away on the pavement—made Deborah Ribwell angry enough to try to hurt or even kill your child?”
His words hang in the air, seeming to mock me.
“I don’t know,” I snap. “Why are you even asking me that? You know she’s got a record. You told me to look her up yourself. She hit a child at another school.”
The male officer looks confused and shakes his head. “Deborah Ribwell received a conditional discharge for that incident.”
“What does that mean?”
“The magistrates let her off.”
I glare. “Not in the news story I read.”
“Well, you maybe didn’t finish the reports.”
I sigh and bite my lip.
The female officer sits forward. “Callie, Deborah Ribwell was the victim of an extremely vicious Internet harassment campaign.”
I shake my head.
She continues. “It was quite a big news story, so I’m not telling you anything here you couldn’t find out yourself. What happened was that a girl in her Year Ten class took offense to a comment Mrs. Ribwell made about single mothers with lots of children by different fathers that was actually quoted from a play written by inner-city schoolchildren. She misunderstood and thought Mrs. Ribwell was ‘disrespecting’ her mum. So she got her boyfriend involved. They posted ads with Mrs. Ribwell’s private details on sites where people advertise for sexual encounters.”
I sit up.
“I think you can imagine what happened. Then they really stepped it up. The boyfriend, who’s quite a bit older, wormed his way into Mrs. Ribwell’s wedding reception and charmed her sister into letting him leave his laptop in Mrs. Ribwell’s honeymoon suite to keep it safe. What he actually did was set up a hidden camera and filmed Mrs. Ribwell on her wedding night.”
They see my face drop.
“And then the girl posted the footage round school.”
I bite my lip. “Oh my God. That’s awful. Poor Debs. I would have slapped the girl, too.”
The officers smile.
I sit back. “OK, I take your point. But that still doesn’t mean she’s innocent here. What if she was so traumatized by that girl, she’s gone nuts around kids? Suzy heard her husband say she shouldn’t be working with kids anymore.”
The policewoman shrugs. “There’s absolutely no proof. In fact, her employers used their discretion to let her work in the after-school club because they accepted it had been a very unusual case of extreme provocation. Her record was unblemished before that. In fact, she was highly thought of. And you have to remember, as the cyclist hasn’t come forward we have no witnesses to either incident.”
I sigh, and take a long gulp of my drink, trying to clear my mind.
“No! Wait!” I say suddenly, slamming down the can. “Hang on. There is someone else. There was a woman there, on Churchill Road that night—the night Rae fell into the road when she was with Debs. Suzy told me—she said a neighbor rang the police. Why don’t you ask her? She must have thought
it was serious enough to call you—that’s why you interviewed Debs in the first place, wasn’t it?”
The officers swap glances again.
“What?” I snap. “Why do you keep looking at each other like that?”
“It’s just that . . .” the male officer starts.
“What?”
The police officer holds up his hand to halt the conversation, and instead takes out a notebook. He flicks through it for a second, then turns it round and shows me.
“The woman who reported the bike incident was her—Suzy Howard,” he says. “There was no other witness.”
I stare at them both.
“And that’s why we wanted to ask you what you know about Suzy Howard,” says his colleague. “Because right now, in both cases, it’s her word against Deborah Ribwell’s.”
“Hush, little baby,” Suzy sang gently to Otto as he fell asleep in his cot.
Her arm was agonizing, the cut on her forehead throbbing.
Didn’t matter, though. Not anymore.
Thank God she’d managed to get rid of James and Diana, sending them off to the park with Jez and the two other boys. She’d actually come down at 7
A.M.
to get her painkillers and found Diana trying to give the kids grapes without cutting them up. Grapes! Children could choke on grapes. You could tell the woman hadn’t brought up her own son; had left him to nannies and school matrons.
Suzy walked downstairs and along the hall, wondering how quickly Jez could persuade his parents to go home. He’d rung the hospital at nine and told her that Rae was out of surgery but in intensive care.
“OK, well, we’ll just wait and see, hon,” she’d said, glancing up at the photograph of the boys in the hallway.
When they were finally on their own later, one of the first things they’d talk about was getting that photo redone. With Jez in it, this time. No arguments.
They’d have some nice dinner, and chat about the plumber’s invoice, which she had ready to place on the kitchen table for him to see. Then they’d go upstairs and he’d finally give her what she wanted.
All of a sudden, she heard footsteps in the house next door. That was interesting. Crazy Lady, back from the police station. Wonder how that went?
She wandered back into the kitchen, smiling.
The taxi drops me off outside Suzy’s.
I can see from my reflection as I pay the driver, and from his expression, that I look a sight. My hair is bushing out from getting wet in the rain yesterday. There are bags under my eyes. An ugly patch of coffee is splashed randomly down my white T-shirt from when the surgeon suddenly appeared in the doorway at two o’clock this morning and Tom and I leaped up.
“Thanks,” I say to the taxi driver, refusing to meet his inquisitive eye and walking off.
The street is quiet. I stop for a moment on the pavement, and listen.
In the distance the early-morning weekend traffic rumbles like waves crashing on a shore. The staccato, piercing whistle of a greenfinch bursts above my head. I shut my eyes and listen more deeply. The hum of electricity wires. A distant cry from a child in the park across the road. A rustle of little feet behind a bin.
It calms me. I let the sounds wash over me till finally, from somewhere inside, I find a tiny bit of strength.
I turn and look at Suzy’s front door.
The window boxes are bursting with deep-pink geraniums. I think of the trips we took to the garden center in the spring with the kids to buy them, and how Suzy and I helped the kids plant them, and how I held up the trellis as she nailed it to the wall, and how together we twisted wisteria around her front door. How I watched her creating this welcoming, nurturing home with her kids and Rae, and looked across at my dusty old window boxes full of dried-up roots.
Slowly, I walk toward her gate, and step up to the doorbell.
“Cal? Oh, thank God. I’ve been so worried,” she cries, flinging the door open. “They wouldn’t tell us hardly anything. Is she still in intensive care?”
I walk in, my head bowed.
“There’s a lot of blood round the heart. They’re waiting to see if it drains.”
She pulls a horrified face, then pulls me into a hug.
“Oh, hon. Listen, it’s over now. It’s done. You just need to give her time. Come on, you’re exhausted. I’ll make you some eggs, then I’ll get Jez to drive you back to the hospital after you’ve changed.”
But I don’t move. I stand where I am inside the hall, with the front door still open, and place my hands behind my back. I lean firmly backward into the wall, trapping them.
“Suze. I only came for a moment. I’ve got to get straight back. But there’s something important I need to ask you. There’s something I don’t understand.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Actually, a couple of things.”
“Like what, hon?”
I go to open my mouth and nearly stop. If I say it, I might not be able to go back.
She watches me carefully, her face set in a concerned expression.
No, I think. It is time.
“OK, well, I spoke to the police last night. And they said something weird. They said that you were the person who reported it when Rae fell into the road.”
She watches me, expressionless now.
“And I have this memory that you told me it was someone else. A woman. A neighbor. And I don’t understand.”
Suzy sticks out her lower lip.
“Hon. You’re not listening to me. That guy’s an idiot. How many times do I have to tell you?”
I stare at her.
“But I saw it, Suzy. I saw your mobile number in his log.”
Suzy screws her face up and shakes her head oddly. Quickly, again and again.
“Cal—what is this? I know you feel guilty about Rae, but it feels like you’re kind of taking it out on me.”
I take a deep breath.
“No, Suze. I’m not taking it out on you. I’m just trying to sort things out. Like, while we’re at it, for instance, I still don’t understand why you took Rae away from the party, or how you ended up getting the car stuck in the park. When Caroline rang me at the hospital yesterday she said that Rae had been fine when she arrived at the party. Jumping up and down, excited.”
Suzy goes bright red. Her eyes grow wide.
“Oh, my God, Callie. Who are you listening to—that woman’s an ass. She’s been a total bitch to you the whole time you’ve
been at school. I didn’t want to tell you this, but it’s she who turned all the parents against you. She’s a snob, Cal. I heard her make a joke about your accent once. I’ve tried to warn you.”
I stay pressed into the wall, and continue.
“And then the really weird thing was that Ms. Aldon rang Tom’s mobile this morning to see how Rae was. And she mentioned to him that on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday she’d had to tell Rae and Hannah off because they were so excited about after-school club that they ran out of the classroom before they were allowed to go. I mean, that’s completely different than what you said, Suzy. Why are all these things different?”
Fascinated, I watch as the muscles on her face ripple. It is as if the flesh lifts in slow motion, then suspends midmovement in an expression that frightens me. It is not unlike the faces of the stone gargoyles that glare down from the palace walls.
Instinctively, I find myself shrinking further into the wall. Then she opens her mouth.
“What—you think I’m a lying pig, Cal?” she says in a strange voice.
“No,” I murmur, taken aback. “I’m just saying that I’m getting confused at how many people seem to be telling me different stories. That’s all.”
She snorts.
“And you believe everyone else but not me? The friend who’s stuck by you all this time?”
“No. Of course I don’t.” But then I make myself meet her eyes. “Well, actually, Suze, if I’m honest, I don’t know.”
My words hang in the hall. Spoken out loud. There is definitely no going back now. I look nervously up the stairs, wondering if Jez is here.
“Oh. That’s interesting,” she says. Her voice starts to rise
alarmingly. “That’s REAL interesting, Callie. That you would accuse me of lying.”
“What do you mean?”
And without warning she stomps down the wooden floor away from me into her kitchen.
Hypnotized, I follow, and find her standing at her kitchen table. There is nothing on it but a blue piece of paper. She stares at me with an odd smile on her face.