16
Maggie - October 1997
‘But why did he do it?’ went Duncan.
Maggie and Duncan were sitting side by side on the bed, Isla safe in her cot next to them.
‘I’ve told you,’ she said, making her voice gentle. ‘He hates Isla. He hates the fact that she’s taking your attention away from him.’
‘But that’s not a reason to try to kill her!’
It was half an hour since Nick had been carted off. Duncan himself had called the police, and he and Maggie had both made statements, and Nick had been arrested for attempted murder and taken to Langholm police station for questioning. Maggie had also told the cops that she suspected Nick may have killed Dean Reid, and they should look again at his alibi. The cops had asked whether Duncan or Maggie wanted to accompany Nick, as he had the right to have an appropriate adult present when questioned.
‘No!’ Maggie had snapped. ‘How is it appropriate for a parent of the baby he just tried to murder to sit in his corner?’
Duncan had just shaken his head.
She didn’t know how Duncan had got through it.
‘He tried to kill Isla,’ he kept repeating.
And now he took her hand in his. ‘Tell me. All the things you tried to tell me before about Nick, about what he was doing to you and Isla.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen.’
Maggie took him through everything Nick had done since her arrival at Sunnyside.
‘He’s clever,’ Maggie finished. ‘Apart from that time when he didn’t know Yvonne was in the room, there was no evidence I could bring you of what he was doing.’
‘But I should have listened to you.’
‘Aye, well, ideally. But you thought it was my old problems coming back to bite me, making me paranoid. So . . .’ She shrugged.
‘The day you heard him on the baby monitor,’ said Duncan slowly. ‘The school said he’d been there all day, but I wonder if that’s true? What day was it? What day of the week?’
Maggie frowned. ‘I think it was a Tuesday.’
‘Okay. Tuesday. Nick has a double period of PE just before lunch on a Tuesday, and sometimes they do cross-country running. He could have –’ He stopped. Closed his eyes. ‘God, I can’t believe I’m saying this. Nick. Nick!’
‘Started the run with the rest of them, taking off ahead of everyone else as usual,’ Maggie filled in for him. ‘Doubled back to the pavilion, biked it back here, maybe, or got a taxi, eh? When the other kids and the teacher got back to the pavilion, they’d have thought Nick had already showered and gone to lunch. And then after lunch, he’d have been back at school for his first lesson like he’d never been off the premises.’
Duncan just nodded. And then, after a long silence: ‘But Dean . . . what you’re suggesting is so cold-blooded – that Nick killed that boy to get you banged up for murder?’
‘And it wasn’t cold-blooded the way he came back here from school to hurt Isla? Set himself up with an alibi for that too, didn’t he? Took some planning. As did pushing her pram into the path of a fucking lorry!’ Maggie got up from the bed as the anger washed through her. She paced to a window. ‘This hasn’t come out of nowhere, Duncan. No way. No way can Nick have been the wee paragon you’ve been making him out to be. I don’t buy it. Didn’t you used to call him King of the Wild Things when he was a kid? Must have been a reason for that.’
Duncan lifted his arms in a helpless gesture, and just for a moment, Maggie felt her anger turn on him. The stupid bastard! Yvonne was right. Duncan wanted to be Nick’s friend, so discipline had evidently gone out the window. Maybe if he’d laid down the law to the wee shit more often, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
Nick had wanted to come on the honeymoon cruise with them – and, unbelievably, Duncan had wanted that too. He’d broached the subject while they were at the booking stage. ‘Nick’s keen to come along,’ Duncan had muttered, not looking at her, as they sat side by side in the travel agent’s.
‘Aw Jesus no,’ had been out her mouth before she could stop it.
She’d expected Duncan to try to persuade her to let Nick come along, because she’d known that Nick had been a daddy’s boy even before Kathleen’s death. Duncan had told her that, as a toddler, Nick had always wanted to go with Duncan when he left for work, and once he’d managed it by hiding in the back of the car. Kathleen had been going mental looking for him. It wasn’t until Duncan had arrived in Langholm that wee Nick had pounced on him from his hiding place in the footwell of the back seat, wrapping his arms round Duncan’s neck and saying, ‘We’re going to work!’ And Duncan hadn’t had the heart to take him back home, and had phoned Kathleen to say Nick could stay with him for the day.