Chapter 7: The Woman Who Thought She Was Winning
Eleanor Whitmore had requested tea.
It was the first thing she had said when DS Okafor closed the door of the small reception room behind them.
Not an explanation.
Not an apology.
Tea.
It arrived.
She drank it.
Robert sat across from her.
DS Okafor stood near the window with the Fitch document open on the table between them.
**"Mrs.
Whitmore,"** DS Okafor said, **"I want to give you the opportunity to speak before this goes any further.
Anything you say will be noted, and you are entitled to have a solicitor present."**
**"I've said that already,"** Eleanor said.
**"You have.
The offer stands."**
**"Then I'll wait."**
**"That's your right."** DS Okafor closed the document.
**"While we wait, I'd like to tell you what we have so far.
Not as an interrogation — simply so you understand the position you're in."**
Eleanor looked at her teacup.
**"Gerald Fitch's account is detailed,"** DS Okafor said.
**"It names you.
It names the doctor — a Dr.
Alastair Pemberton, who d*ed in 2011.
It names the clinic in Surrey where the birth was registered under a false name.
It describes the payment made to falsify the death record."** She paused.
**"It also describes a conversation he had with you in which you told him, and I'm quoting, 'the woman will recover.
Women like that always do.'"**
Robert looked at the table.
Eleanor did not move.
**"Lena Marsh did not recover,"** DS Okafor said.
**"She spent eleven years searching for her daughter and d*ed without finding her.
She was forty-two years old."**
**"I didn't know she was looking,"** Eleanor said.
**"Mr.
Howell has a bundle of letters that suggests otherwise."**
**"I never read those letters."**
**"You returned them."**
**"My housekeeper returned them.
I never—"** Eleanor stopped.
Set down her teacup.
**"I made a decision.
It was the wrong decision.
I understand that now."**
**"Do you?"** Robert said quietly.
Eleanor looked at her brother-in-law.
Something moved across her face — not guilt, but something adjacent to it.
The recognition of a cost she had not fully calculated.
**"I lost a child,"** she said.
**"My daughter.
She was four months old.
Do you know what that does to a person?"**
**"I know what it did to you,"** Robert said.
**"I watched it."**
**"Then you understand—"**
**"I understand grief,"** he said.
**"I don't understand what you did with it."**
Eleanor's jaw tightened.
**"I gave that child a better life."**
**"You gave yourself a replacement,"** Robert said.
**"And you told yourself it was the same thing."**
**"She was loved,"** Eleanor said.
Her voice had shifted — something underneath it had cracked open slightly.
**"Whatever else you say about me, she was loved.
Daniel loved her from the moment he met her.
I—"**
She stopped.
**"You what?"** Robert said.
**"I tried,"** Eleanor said.
**"I tried to love her.
But every time I looked at her I saw—"** She pressed her lips together.
**"I saw what I had done.
And I couldn't—"** She stopped again.
**"I couldn't undo it.
And I couldn't look at it either."**
**"So you tried to destroy the wedding,"** DS Okafor said.
Not unkindly.
Simply as a fact.
**"I thought if I ended it, I could—"** Eleanor looked at her hands.
**"I don't know what I thought."**
**"You thought you could bury it again,"** Robert said.
Eleanor didn't answer.
DS Okafor gathered the document.
**"Mrs.
Whitmore, I'm going to be honest with you.
The fraudulent documentation alone carries serious weight.
The falsification of a death record, the unlawful transfer of a minor — these are not minor matters.
Your cooperation, and your willingness to make a full statement, will be taken into account."**
**"And if I don't cooperate?"**
**"Then we proceed without your cooperation."**
Eleanor looked at the window.
Outside, the last of the wedding cars was pulling away from the drive.
**"I want to speak to Mei,"** she said.
Robert looked up.
**"Before I speak to anyone else,"** Eleanor said.
**"Before solicitors, before statements, before any of it.
I want to speak to her."**
**"That will be her choice,"** DS Okafor said.
**"I know,"** Eleanor said.
**"I'm asking you to ask her."**
DS Okafor looked at her for a moment.
Then she nodded and moved toward the door.
Eleanor sat alone with Robert.
**"She'll say no,"** Robert said.
**"Perhaps,"** Eleanor said.
**"Would you blame her?"**
Eleanor looked at her hands again.
The rings.
The careful manicure.
The hands of a woman who had spent forty years making sure everything looked exactly right.
**"No,"** she said quietly.
**"I wouldn't blame her at all."**
The door opened.
DS Okafor leaned in.
**"She'll see you,"** she said.
**"Five minutes.
Daniel stays in the room."**
Eleanor nodded.
She stood up.
Smoothed her jacket.
May you like
Lifted her chin.
And walked toward the door like a woman who had finally run out of rooms to control.
