I Choose You Read online

  ‘Everything changed after Ida, obviously. I’m not using it as an excuse – something changed between her and our son Buddy too. He’s the same age as your little boy . . . Sorry, of course you know that.’ Nathaniel had forgotten about the letters Elise had written to the Patons telling them she had their son and they had hers, and all the visits, the harassment.

  ‘But why our son? I don’t understand.’ Jane leant back in her seat and crossed her legs.

  ‘Elise thinks you were in the same delivery suite as her. She thinks she remembers you.’

  Jane focused on the glass coffee table and Nathaniel could see she was trying to recall the people who had been there twenty months ago.

  ‘I don’t know why any of this is relevant.’ Mark folded his arms.

  ‘Mark,’ Jane said, ‘why don’t you go and make us all some coffee while I have a chat with Nathaniel?’ She turned to Nathaniel. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Not for me thanks, I’m really not stopping.’

  To Nathaniel’s surprise, Mark stood up and silently went into the kitchen without any argument.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nathaniel, I don’t remember your wife. But then, I had a difficult birth. Has she been to see anyone to be assessed since we last spoke? I’m wondering, with everything that’s happened, if she’s suffering from post-partum stress?’

  ‘It could be, but she has been assessed . . . it’s slightly more complicated than that.’ Nathaniel wasn’t sure if he should reveal the last piece of information about his wife, which he’d so carefully managed to conceal from everyone, even the media, with some help from a few close colleagues. These days, people thought she was a bit of a drunk. They pitied her, felt sorry for her. But that wasn’t the problem at all, not really. Elise had battled with prescription drugs, in Nathaniel’s opinion, for a few years, all magnified since Ida’s attack.

  ‘Okay,’ Jane said, ‘I don’t want to pry into your private business, but I do know people who might be able to help – colleagues in the medical profession.’

  ‘That’s really kind of you but we have a great therapist and doctor. We’re just going through a particularly bad patch.’ Nathaniel stood up and walked into the hall. Jane followed. He could see Mark through the open kitchen doorway, out in the garden smoking a cigarette, which again surprised him. He imagined them both being so controlled and tense, measured in everything they encountered, that smoking seemed an odd habit for either of them to have. Both medical professionals, and Mark and Jane seemed so clean-cut and stiff.

  ‘I understand about addiction,’ Jane said. She glanced behind her, and Nathaniel didn’t know if she was nodding to Mark or checking he couldn’t overhear. ‘Get her into a rehabilitation centre. It’ll make all the difference, trust me.’

  ‘It’s not alcohol – I know everyone thinks she’s a drunk.’

  ‘I know.’ Jane squeezed his arm, and then he realised – of course they knew. How easy it was to find these things out when you worked in the medical profession. Elise had been a well-respected coordinator for the delivery suite. She’d been monitored a few years ago for codeine dependency – not an uncommon problem. She’d relapsed when their lives turned upside down and her GP had prescribed zopiclone, a sleeping tablet.

  ‘I’m so sorry about everything, and Elise is too. Since the children . . . you know, it’s been difficult, and I probably haven’t been supporting her as much as I should. Buried my head in work.’

  ‘It must be really difficult for you all.’ Jane unhooked her bag from the bannister and pulled out a business card. ‘Here’s my number. Give me a call if you want any contacts. I know people who could help.’

  Nathaniel took the card. ‘I know you need to take this injunction out. I get it and, actually, I think it’s the right thing for Elise . . . she needs to realise how serious this is. What she’s done.’

  ‘We have to, Nathaniel. We have our family to think about.’

  ‘I know I’m not in any position to be asking for favours, but would you be able to put a good word in, tell the police we’ve spoken?’

  ‘It’s out of our control, unfortunately. The Crown Prosecution Service will decide if it’s in the public interest to prosecute. You know that.’

  Nathaniel nodded. ‘I understand. Thanks for your time, anyway.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question about why your wife believes our son is hers.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Elise says that when Buddy was born, he had an unusual birthmark on his right calf. The morning after he’d been born, and she’d managed to get some sleep, she said he didn’t smell like hers, he seemed like a stranger – “an unfamiliar animal” were her actual words – and she felt something was wrong. That’s when she noticed he didn’t have the birthmark on his leg anymore. It’s common. I spoke to one of the midwives about it and she said women can often be so overwhelmed and tired, they find it difficult to bond. For a while she totally believed he’d been swapped in the hospital until I managed to persuade her she was mistaken, but then it became an issue again a few weeks after Ida . . . I guess she felt like she was losing control – she’d lost one child and it cast more doubt on Buddy. She saw you at the hospital one day and recognised you from the maternity ward – said you’d spoken to one another quite a bit.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t remember. Thanks for calling round, Nathaniel. We appreciate your apology.’ Jane opened the front door for him and he could tell by the change in her demeanour, the altered look in her eyes, that their son, Louis, had a birthmark on his right calf.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THEN

  When Elise finally made it to the top of the stairs, with Buddy, her two-month-old son, asleep in his car seat hanging from one arm and her work bag under the other, she was alarmed to see the apartment door open. Her initial thought was that Nathaniel was home early from work, or perhaps it was Ida or Miles, their other children, already back from school. But then she remembered, they were going straight to their grandfather’s because it was Ida’s birthday and they were all going out for dinner.

  Elise placed Buddy gently on to the floor and peered around the door frame. There was something wrong with the entire picture before her eyes, she could feel it. She pulled the door towards her and checked the Yale, which appeared to be intact until she touched it and the metal block moved away from the frame, the screws jutting out of their holes. Just as she decided the door had been forced and warned herself not to overreact, as she was so often accused of doing, Elise’s phone began to ring, startling her and causing Buddy to stir from his warm slumber. It was Nathaniel calling.

  ‘Where are you?’ she whispered into the phone.

  ‘I’m at work. I wondered if you wanted me to pick anything up on my way home. I’m leaving soon.’

  ‘I thought you were in the apartment,’ Elise said quietly, desperate not to wake Buddy or alert a possible intruder.

  ‘No, I’m still at work. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Our front door is open. I’m not sure what to do.’

  Nathaniel was silent for a moment. ‘I bet it was Ida, she was the last one out this morning. I’m always telling her to give the door a good slam. Is there no one at home?’

  ‘I haven’t been inside to check. Ida and Miles are going straight to Dad’s after school. It’s her birthday, remember?’

  ‘Of course, we’re going out. I’m sure she just forgot to close it.’

  ‘The Yale lock is loose, it’s been forced.’

  ‘Oh? Give me half an hour and I’ll see if I can get away.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll call Dad,’ Elise snapped. Maybe she was being ridiculous, but it didn’t seem irrational not to want to enter a situation where she could possibly be faced with a burglar.

  ‘Don’t do that – it’s fine, I’ll come home. Just wait until I get there.’

  Elise almost dropped the phone when she heard the door opposite open, then Tolek, their neighbour, peered out, startling her again.


  ‘You made me jump.’ Elise raised her hand to her chest, her voice made louder as it bounced off the walls in the small hallway.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘No. I’ve just come home and found our front door open. There’s no one home. I don’t think there is, anyway.’

  ‘I did notice and thought it was odd, but I didn’t want to interfere in case you’d deliberately left it open for the caretaker or someone.’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Nathaniel was still on the line, but Elise had moved the phone away from her ear.

  ‘Tolek is here now.’ And she hung up the phone, feeling easier now that there was someone more pragmatic to deal with everything.

  Elise called the police while Tolek crept inside the apartment to see if anyone was there. While she waited for him to come out, she rang Ray, her father, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind coming over once he’d finished with his patients.

  ‘Are Ida and Miles there yet?’ she asked. ‘It looks like we’ve had a break-in and the children aren’t home.’

  ‘A break-in? The children aren’t here yet but I’ll let you know as soon as they arrive. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, kind of. I found the front door open, and the lock is broken.’

  ‘As soon as they get here, I’ll come over. Try not to worry, Elise, there’s probably a perfectly good explanation. You’re just being a bit irrational. I’m with a patient, I must go.’

  Elise was glad he’d hung up; she didn’t want to hear the psychiatric observations he always felt it necessary to impart. She probably was being irrational, but it wasn’t the first time they’d been burgled.

  One particular intrusion had occurred when they’d decided to have a brief spell living in the countryside, when the noise of the city had all been too much for her. That burglar had made their way in through the back of the house, smashing through two sets of uPVC doors. It hadn’t been until the evening, when she was putting the children to bed, that she noticed the mess and the vandalism in Nathaniel’s office. Being so remote, you’re more of a target, the police had said. Your husband being a journalist increases your chances, they had added. Elise hadn’t thought ‘chances’ was the right word to use, given the circumstances. Chances conjured up thoughts of being lucky and favoured. It seemed to her that, wherever they lived, they were targets for intruders.

  ‘I’m not sure if anyone has been in.’ Tolek appeared in the hallway again. ‘Come, I’ll make you some tea while you wait.’

  Elise smiled, picked up Buddy in his car seat and followed Tolek into his apartment, so starkly different to theirs with its white walls and wooden floors. It was clean, sharp, and yet it always felt warm. He had moved into the apartment nine years ago and had lived there far longer than Elise and her family. Ida had been intrigued by him when they’d moved in four years ago; she was just twelve years old at the time and would ask him all sorts of questions about his home country of Poland. After he helped her with a school project, they became great friends. Elise hadn’t approved at first and was suspicious of a man in his thirties who spent far too much time alone. He owned a deli on the next street and over time they got to know him, realising he missed his own children, having become estranged from his wife and family.

  While she waited for Tolek to make some tea, she called Ida’s phone, but there was no answer.

  ‘Someone might have been in there, might not, I cannot tell.’ Tolek shrugged.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll have a look when the police get here.’ They weren’t the tidiest of families and Elise knew anyone would find it hard to see if anything was amiss.

  Nathaniel arrived at the same time as the police and showed them around the apartment while Elise waited in Tolek’s sitting room.

  Nathaniel appeared. ‘Have you managed to get hold of Ida?’

  ‘I tried to call her a little while ago but there was no answer. Dad said he’d come over as soon as they got back from school. What’s wrong?’

  Before the words left Nathaniel’s mouth, Elise could feel the goosepimples rising, hurting her as though someone were peeling back her skin.

  ‘Ida’s room has been completely ransacked. Nowhere else has been touched.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Elise pushed past Nathaniel, who was blocking the doorway, and bumped straight into Ray, who had just come up the stairs.

  ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ her dad said.

  ‘I’m not sure. Nathaniel says Ida’s room has been ransacked.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, this is a teenager we’re talking about.’

  ‘Ida’s tidier than we are.’ Elise shoved her way past all the people who seemed to be accumulating in the hallway and went straight into the apartment, followed closely by two police officers.

  ‘Have you spoken to your daughter today, Mrs Munroe?’ one of the PCs enquired.

  ‘Not since this morning,’ Elise muttered as she began to take in the carnage before her. ‘It’s her birthday, we’re all having dinner out and we’re meeting at my father’s.’

  ‘Lucky girl to be born on February the twenty-ninth,’ the other PC commented. She was a short, thickset woman whose male colleague was so tall they looked comical.

  Elise had been expecting a few drawers pulled open, the duvet strewn on the floor, possibly an overturned lamp, but the scene before her was far more dramatic. The drawers had indeed been pulled open but were lying on the floor, the contents scattered everywhere. Ida’s mattress appeared to have been thrown across to the other side of the room and was leaning awkwardly against the wall, reminding her of the drunks she saw in shop doorways on her way to work. The posters, all political statements, had been ripped from the walls, the remnants hanging there, like scraps on old billboards. Elise entered the room and noticed the wooden slats to Ida’s bed had been smashed, as though someone had jumped across them, and the mirror above her dressing table was cracked right down the centre. It was definitely not how Ida kept her room, which was always neat and perfect.

  There were two things that hadn’t been touched. One was a large pinboard Ida was using for a family history project she was doing. It seemed to glow from the wall, in all its complicated and magnificent glory; Ida had gone beyond the space inside the frame and spread the project out like the sprouting branches of a tree. The second item was a box that was set on its side, containing a scene, not dissimilar to a set in a theatre, like a snapshot from a stage play.

  ‘Ida’s laptop is missing,’ Elise said absent-mindedly, as she examined the strange scene on the dressing table. The female police officer followed her gaze.

  ‘That’s interesting. What is it?’

  ‘I haven’t seen it before.’ Elise peered inside the box, which looked like it had been turned into a room from a doll’s house. ‘What I mean is, she’s made these before, at my dad’s, but I haven’t seen this one until now.’

  ‘Is it some kind of school project?’ asked the male officer. Both of them were now interested in the miniature scene before them. It was a kitchen, complete with stove, fridge and units. In the middle of the room, a doll was sitting on a chair at a table, two tiny handguns in front of her, one placed under her hand. On closer inspection, you could see a messy blood wound on the side of her head. ‘That’s a bit macabre.’

  ‘Did you have an argument with your daughter this morning?’ the female officer asked.

  ‘Just the usual teenage strop we have to endure on a daily basis,’ Elise said, as Buddy’s crying pierced the atmosphere. She pushed anxiously past the two officers and walked into the hall, where she found Nathaniel releasing Buddy from his car seat.

  ‘Don’t keep picking him up, you’ll make him needy,’ Elise snapped at Nathaniel. ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘He’s gone back to his to get Ida and Miles. He doesn’t want them walking here to the apartment.’

  ‘Has he seen them?’ Elise was beginning to panic.

  ‘Yes, stop worrying. Miles
went back to school for basketball practice. He says Ida was in a terrible mood because she’d quarrelled with Alistair.’

  ‘I told Miles he wasn’t allowed to stay behind tonight. Why didn’t Ida remind him?’

  Nathaniel shrugged.

  ‘Is Alistair a school friend?’ the female police officer enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ Elise snapped. ‘What are you going to do about all this?’

  The police officers were now examining the extent of the damage to the front door.

  ‘As long as you’re sure you’ve been burgled,’ the woman said, ‘we’ll call Scenes of Crime out to look. We’ll need a statement from you, and then I’d suggest you carry on with your evening as planned.’

  Neither Elise nor Nathaniel could believe what they were hearing.

  ‘I should say we’ve been burgled, wouldn’t you?’ Nathaniel shouted above the sound of his crying son.

  The two police officers looked at one another.

  ‘We’ll also need a statement from your daughter. It could just be an innocent misunderstanding.’

  ‘A misunderstanding?!’ said Nathaniel. ‘It’s her birthday, she was in fairly good spirits this morning when I left. She might be moody at times, but she certainly wouldn’t do anything like this.’

  ‘I’ll call Dad and tell him we’ll be over as soon as we’ve collected Buddy’s things.’ Elise ignored the two officers and turned to Nathaniel. ‘We’ll stay there tonight.’

  ‘Can we have your father’s name and address please?’ the male officer asked. For the first time since they’d arrived, one of them had begun to take everything more seriously.

  Elise sighed heavily as she tried to appease Buddy, who was whimpering in Nathaniel’s arms. ‘He needs a bottle.’

  ‘I’ll go and feed him.’ Nathaniel picked up the nappy bag and walked across the hall to Tolek’s apartment.

  ‘It’s Dr Ray Coe, Walnut Villa, Canterbury Avenue—’

  ‘Dr Ray Coe?’ the officer interrupted.

  ‘Yes. That’s my father.’

  ‘I’ve read some of his books.’ He looked up and studied her face, searching for the resemblance. ‘Very interesting man.’