Chapter 9: What She Couldn't Take Back
DS Harding arrived within the hour.
She photographed the note through the bag and then bagged it properly and wrote out a receipt.
She asked Rose to give a formal statement about the visit and the timing.
Rose sat at the kitchen table and answered every question in the same steady voice she used for everything — clear, precise, unhurried.
When DS Harding left, she paused at the front door.
"The note changes things," she said to Ethan quietly.
"Don't be alone with her if she makes contact.
Record any calls if you can."
"Is she going to be arrested?"
"That depends on what the review of the original case finds.
But the note is a direct threat.
That's not nothing." She looked at him.
"How are you holding up?"
He thought about the question honestly.
"I keep thinking about how close it was," he said.
"Last night.
If Rose hadn't been there."
DS Harding nodded once.
She didn't offer a reassurance he didn't need.
She just nodded, and left.
Victoria called three times that evening.
He recorded each call on his phone as Patricia had instructed.
The first two were variations of the voicemail — calm, reasonable, the language of someone who wanted to appear cooperative.
The third call was different.
"I know you've been to the police," she said.
Her voice was still controlled, but something underneath it had changed.
"That was a mistake."
"You pushed a threatening note through my letterbox."
"I was upset.
I didn't mean it literally."
"Then you should have thought more carefully before you wrote it."
A pause.
"I can make this very difficult for you, Ethan.
Custody proceedings take a long time.
They're expensive.
They're public.
I don't think you want your son's name in court documents."
"I don't," he said.
"But I want him safe.
That matters more."
"You're going to regret this."
"Maybe.
But I'm going to keep going anyway."
She hung up.
He saved the recording and sent it to Patricia's email immediately.
The next forty-eight hours moved the way crisis time always does — both too slow and too fast.
Patricia filed the prohibited steps order and it was granted the same afternoon.
Daniel drove back with a signed statement.
Claire sent a written account of everything she had tried to do before the wedding.
Rose gave a second formal statement about the burn mark on the baby's blanket three weeks prior — the one she had found and said nothing about, and which she now described in precise detail to DS Harding.
On the second morning, DS Harding called.
"The original investigation has been formally reopened," she said.
"And we'd like Victoria to come in for a voluntary interview."
"Will she come voluntarily?"
"Her solicitor has been informed.
Whether she comes voluntarily or not is her choice." A brief pause.
"Either way, she comes in."
Ethan was standing in the nursery when the call ended.
The baby was awake, lying on his back on the changing mat, watching the mobile above him turn slowly.
Little painted animals — a bear, a rabbit, a small yellow bird — going around and around in the draft from the window.
He sat down on the floor beside the mat.
The baby turned his head and looked at him with the complete, uncomplicated attention that babies have before the world teaches them to look away.
"It's all right," Ethan said quietly.
"You're all right."
The baby reached up toward the mobile.
His fingers opened and closed on nothing, trying to catch the yellow bird as it passed.
Three days later, Victoria went in for her interview.
She brought her solicitor.
She answered questions for two hours.
Ethan didn't know what she said inside that room.
He didn't need to.
May you like
What he knew was that when she walked out, DS Harding was behind her.
And DS Harding was not alone.
