Perfect Crime. Helen Fields

a few agencies when I was trying to find my daughter. I was a bit surprised when you turned up and I missed the name of the one you’re from.’

      ‘But you …’ – he continued as if she hadn’t said a word – ‘have taken the gift of life for granted. You thought you could throw it away. You decided your need to be rid of the responsibilities that come with your place in this world was more important than valuing what you were given.’

      ‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about,’ Fenny said. ‘What does this have to do with my daughter?’

      ‘Are you still taking your medication, or did you decide you knew better than the people who were trying to help you?’ he asked.

      Fenny put the photo of Alice that she’d been clutching down on the coffee table with a shaking hand.

      ‘Who sent you?’ she asked quietly. ‘Was it someone from the hospital? Is this part of their follow-up regime? Am I being tested? Only if this is all just part of their scheme to make sure I’m still in recovery, then using the information I gave them about my daughter is …’

      She couldn’t finish the sentence. There was no phrase that was strong enough to express the disgust she felt at what was happening.

      Fenny looked the man up and down. He didn’t have a file with him. No papers at all. Surely if he’d come to talk about her daughter, he’d be making some notes, or asking her to sign a document, or even check her identity. Looking around the sitting room, she tried to recall where she’d left her glasses so she could read the awfully small print that was currently just a blurred mass on his ID badge.

      ‘Fenella, we need to have a conversation and I need you to give me the right answers,’ he said, standing up. ‘You’ll need to concentrate. I’m going to help you with that, okay? I’m going to make it all much easier for you.’

      ‘I want to see my daughter,’ Fenny said, looking at the bulge in the man’s trouser pocket.

      It certainly wasn’t mobile phone-shaped and the broad curves suggested something other than a set of keys.

      ‘Do you?’ he asked. ‘How much time do you spend actually thinking about her? Once a day? Does she even get that much from you? Isn’t it more realistic that you think about her maybe once a week?’

      Fenny stood up, closer to him than she was comfortable with, lifting her face several inches to look at him directly.

      ‘There’s not an hour of the day that goes by when I don’t think of my girl,’ she said, tears filling her eyes and rage tensing every muscle.

      ‘Do you?’ he smiled. ‘Does a mother who actually loves her missing child really attempt suicide? I think not. I believe that you’d wait for her as long as it took, because if there was the most minuscule chance that your daughter might come home, or get arrested, might end up in a hospital and ask for you, you ought to be there for her. Why would you attempt to deprive that poor girl of her only surviving parent? That’s just not right.’

      He reached out and took hold of Fenny’s left hand with his right. Something about his touch felt off, too cool, fake. She raised her hand in his grasp to get a better look.

      Gloves. Whoever this man was, for some reason he was wearing clear plastic gloves.

      As she opened her mouth to put the question she was thinking into words, she felt a thump that was punctuated by a metallic snap over her left wrist. The dangling handcuff was closed but not overly tight. Ridiculously, she wondered if he was police, after all – not there to notify her of her daughter’s death but to arrest her for some parenting offence she hadn’t even known she’d committed. The wrongness took a few seconds to sink in.

      ‘What the fuck do you think you’re up to? You’ve got to get out of my place right now. Do you hear me?’

      The man laughed.

      Fenny tugged at the handcuff. She didn’t even want him to get the cuff off. That would mean him touching her again and she really didn’t want that. Not with those creepy gloves on.

      ‘You want me to leave already? But you haven’t heard what I came to tell you about Alice yet,’ he said.

      ‘You’re not here to talk to me about my daughter,’ Fenny said. ‘Now get the fuck out of my flat, you friggin’ weirdo, or I’m calling the police.’