Deep Hurt - Eva Hudson Page 0,95

Forgetting the hairbrush was still in my hand. I caught him right across the face. A second later he was bleeding. Then he started to cry. Then Molly’s screaming got louder still. I picked her up from our bed and jiggled her in my arms, but it didn’t do any good. Then Tommy ran into the bathroom.” She paused, staring down at her hands.

“Did you go after him?”

“Not right away, I wanted to settle Molly first. I couldn’t think straight, she was making so much noise. I guess I must have started to shake her. I didn’t mean to. I was out of my mind.”

The interview room fell silent. All Ingrid could hear was the faint hum of the loudspeakers and the sound of Gurley breathing beside her.

“I’d like to take a break now.” Carrie Foster looked at Radcliffe. “Can I take a break?”

“Has anything like this happened before?” Radcliffe asked quietly.

“It was an accident.”

“Have there been other accidents?”

Carrie Foster shook her head.

“For the recording, Mrs Foster, I need you to answer.”

“No. I get angry sometimes, I suppose. Lose my temper now and then. Mostly I just get a little down.”

“Depressed?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Those pills in the bathroom cabinet. They’re yours?”

She blinked slowly at him. “Kyle got a hold of them for me when I refused to go see the doctor. I didn’t ask how got them. I didn’t want to know. But I haven’t started taking them. I was mad at him for even suggesting I should. I’m still breastfeeding Molly. I didn’t want to have anything in my system that might hurt her.”

But 60-proof vodka is just fine, Ingrid thought.

“You haven’t seen a doctor about your depression?”

“I thought it would pass, you know? Just as soon as Molly started sleeping through. But I’m still waiting for that to happen.” She shook her head. “You’ve got to believe me—I wouldn’t deliberately hurt Molly for the world. It was a terrible, terrible accident.” She buried her head in her hands and started to sob.

As Ingrid stared at her, the woman’s shoulders and upper body convulsing with with each sob, she still couldn’t shake the feeling there was something Carrie Foster wasn’t telling the police. What was she hiding?

Radcliffe gave a nod to Tyson, who stated for the record that the interview session was being terminated.

The two detectives got to their feet and left Mrs Foster and Ms Welland sitting silently at the table.

Ingrid slumped back in her chair, a sharp pain radiating across her shoulders where she’d been hunched over leaning forward on the edge of her seat for so long. She opened her mouth, about to make a comment about something in Carrie Foster’s statement that really didn’t add up, but took another look at Gurley’s bereft face and decided to keep it to herself.

The door to the observation room opened and Radcliffe marched in, an almost triumphant swing to his arms. “It seems your suspicions were not unfounded after all.”

“I guess I’m a little surprised she decided to confess. She could have chosen to tough it out.”

“Perhaps the stress of the situation was just too much for her in the end.” He glanced at the monitor. “Doesn’t she look like a woman unburdened?”

Ingrid stared at Carrie Foster’s face. She looked spent more than relieved. “Are you planning another interview today?”

“I think we’ll reconvene tomorrow in all likelihood.”

“There’s something I’d like you to pursue,” Ingrid said.

“Yes?”

“That whole deal with the hairbrush. If she lashed out at Tommy, in a fit of rage, then accidentally shook Molly, because she was so ‘out of her mind’, what compelled her to even think about washing the hairbrush? Trying to get rid of evidence? Doesn’t that make her actions seem more premeditated?”

Before Radcliffe had a chance to consider her question, Gurley jumped up from his chair. “For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you?” he said, spitting out the words. “You got your confession. What more do you want?” He took a stride towards Radcliffe. The DCI stood his ground.

“Actually there’s a lot more we need to speak to Mrs Foster about.”

“Such as?” Gurley was stooping, his face close to Radcliffe’s.

“The DNA analysis revealed something we’d very much like to discuss with her. Although given her confession, it’s probably less relevant than might previously have been the case.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” The color was creeping back into Gurley’s cheeks.

“It seems Kyle Foster is not Molly’s biological father.”

49

“Can I speak to her?” Ingrid asked. “In my capacity as a representative of the American