Chapter 45

FORTY-FIVE

Joanna offered Freddie a lift home from the hospital and took the opportunity to find out more about Annabelle. ‘The police told me that they've arrested your mother. Apparently, the evidence they have is much stronger. What is it?'

Freddie ran his hands through his hair. ‘Charlotte's phone. Just before my mother came to the house, Charlotte had been using her phone to try and video her stomach. She'd been convinced that she could see the baby moving in her belly. But every time she tried to show me, she said the baby stopped doing it. I'd been teasing her, telling her that the pregnancy hormones were making her mind play tricks on her. When my mother arrived, Charlotte must've left the phone on the side. There's no video of what happened, but the audio is as clear as day. Their argument and then…what happened and even when I arrived.'

Joanna blinked a few times, trying to remove the image that appeared there. ‘So how come the police couldn't find her phone?'

He flushed. ‘I took it. When I called for an ambulance, I grabbed her phone first. The battery had died by then – she never remembered to charge it every night no matter how much I told her to – and I must've put it in my pocket when I took out mine to call the ambulance. When my solicitor met me at the police station, before they'd formally arrested me, I gave it to him and asked him to find out what was on it. I've handed it in to the police.'

She knew how much it must've cost him to do this. How alone he must feel right now. ‘You did the right thing, Freddie.'

When she drew up outside the apartment building, he just stared out of the window at his former home. ‘I can't face it.'

She followed his gaze to the smart block, watched a man in running clothes jog up to the door and let himself in. ‘It looks okay in there. There's nothing that shows what happened.'

When he turned to face her, his face was pale. ‘I don't want to be there without her. It's too…I know it's stupid, but the whole time I was in prison I could kind of pretend that she was still here.'

Joanna squeezed the steering wheel tightly, knowing exactly how that felt. Even now she'd sometimes look at the clock around 6p.m. and expect Steve to walk through the door, a treat from the garage shop in his hand. Maybe it was that memory which made her offer. ‘You could stay at my house tonight?'

She hadn't actually expected him to say yes, but the relief on his face was instant. ‘Could I? Thank you.'

In her hallway, Freddie shuffled from foot to foot. ‘You have a lovely home.'

His perfect manners made her smile. In her ear, Charlotte's voice said I told you he was nice. ‘Well, I suppose anywhere would feel lovely after your last digs.'

He mirrored her smile. ‘That's a good point. Where shall I put my bag?'

‘Guest room. Upstairs, first door after the bathroom.'

As soon as he was out of sight, she called Sally to tell her he was here.

Sally's reaction surprised her. ‘I think that's great.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. It'll give you time to get to know him. He's the father of your grandaughter. He's in your life forever, Joanna.'

She hadn't thought about it quite like that. ‘I suppose you're right. I've got to go. I can hear him coming down the stairs.'

‘Okay. Call me later. And I was thinking I could pop over tomorrow night? I've had an idea I want to run by you.'

Freddie was hovering at the entrance to the sitting room so she smiled at him. ‘Come in. Sit down and make yourself at home.'

‘Thanks.'

On his way to the sofa, he paused at the mantelpiece and the pictures of Charlotte at various ages: gap-toothed school photo, ballet recital, graduation gown. He stared at one of a days-old Charlotte in Steve's arms with Joanna hovering at his elbow, her eyes on her precious newborn. She'd always loved Steve's face in this photograph, the mixture of pride and amazement at his good fortune.

‘I'm not sure that I can do this, Joanna.'

She tore her eyes from the photograph and faced him. He'd looked so content – so right – holding Eliza that afternoon. But it was one thing holding a baby, another thing bringing one up day after day. Would he be able to do this on his own?

The same thoughts must've been crossing his mind. ‘I don't know what to do with a baby. How am I going to raise her?'

Of course he was overwhelmed, having just been discharged from prison and met his daughter for the first time. Her heart broke for him, this sweet, lost man who her daughter had loved. ‘She's going to be in hospital for a while yet, you've got plenty of time to learn how to change a nappy and feed her.'

He ran his hands through his dark hair. ‘They're not the things I'm worried about. It's everything else. The things you can't just learn from someone showing you a couple of times. You'd be so much better at this than me. Maybe she should live with you. Maybe you should still apply for the guardianship.'

Joanna would like that more than anything else in the world. But that didn't make it right. ‘You're her father, Freddie.'

Keeping his eyes on that photograph of Steve holding Charlotte, he shook his head. ‘Biologically, yes. But not in the eyes of the law. My solicitor says that I may still be charged with perverting the course of justice. Either way, it's not going to look good on my record when social services are making a decision about whether I get guardianship.'

It was still mind-boggling that Freddie didn't automatically get parental rights. In this day and age, with the ease of DNA tests, it seemed positively archaic to be punishing him because he and Charlotte hadn't been married. ‘You need to speak to Eliza's social worker.'

‘Or maybe you should still try for guardianship and I can help?'

He was making this difficult to fight. ‘Is that what you want?'

He turned to her with tears in his eyes. ‘No. What I want is for me and Charlotte to raise Eliza together. To move up to Norfolk like we'd planned and buy a small house with a garden. Live in a village with a nice little school for Eliza and a country pub where Charlotte can persuade them to have music nights once a month so that she can still sing and play. And we would invite our friends to come and play too and they would sleep on the floor of our lounge and tell us how lucky we are to have created such a perfect life.'

None of this was coming from the top of his head. She could imagine him and Charlotte concocting this dream between the two of them. Just as she and Steve had done when she was pregnant with Charlotte and she'd laid on the sofa with her head in his lap, dreaming of their future lives together.

‘Oh, Freddie. I know it's hard. But you can do this. And I'll be there to help you. Charlotte believed in you. She tried to tell me so many times how wonderful you were. She wouldn't have planned that future with you if she didn't believe you could do it.'

‘But what if I can't? What if I get it wrong?'

She took a deep breath. ‘We all get it wrong. I know that better than anyone. But the most important thing is that we try our best to do it right.'

They stood like that for a while, in quiet. She almost jumped when he spoke again. His voice was soft. ‘Will you help me? Can we do this together?'

If Joanna's solicitor was surprised that she wished to change her application so that Eliza's guardianship was to be held jointly with Freddie, she didn't show it.

Five days later, Freddie attended the meeting at the solicitor's office and, between them, they explained the plan.

Pen poised, Louise scanned the notes she'd taken while they spoke. ‘Just so that I have this correctly. Joanna is selling her house, Freddie is moving out of his uncle's apartment and you are pooling your resources and moving together?'

‘Yes.' Joanna nodded. ‘Just not together in the same house.'

They'd talked about it at length. Since that first night, Freddie had stayed on in Joanna's guest room and, after days spent with Eliza, each evening they'd tried to work out the best solution.

Joanna hadn't wanted to offend him, but they both needed to be honest. ‘I think it would be strange for us to live in the same house.'

He'd agreed pretty quickly. ‘You're right. But it would be great for Eliza if you lived close by. And I'd love some help with childcare when I'm at work.'

Joanna wanted to be close enough to see Eliza whenever she could. ‘I don't have a job to give up and, if I sell the house, I should be able to get something small and have enough to help you out with a deposit and keep me going for a while.'

‘Well, seeing as I work for the family business, I don't think I have a job anymore, so that's my first priority.'

‘Second priority,' Joanna had corrected him.

He'd smiled. ‘Yes. Second priority.'

The solicitor checked her notes again. ‘Two residences. Preferably close together. That sounds good. But they are going to want to see evidence of earnings, Freddie.'

Sally had come through for them on that. Her interiors business was taking off and she was always looking for painters and decorators and, though she usually used sub-contractors, she'd offered to take him on a permanent contract.

Joanna hadn't wanted to take advantage of her friend. ‘Are you sure? This is your business, Sally. You can't just do this as a favour to me.'

Over FaceTime, Sally had waved away her concern. ‘Of course, I'm sure. With Harry not living at home, I'm intending on taking on a lot more business to keep my mind off of whatever he's getting up to. And I'm not doing it for you, anyway. I'm doing it for Charlotte, so let's hear no more about it.'

It did mean that they were going to have to change their destination from Norfolk to Hertfordshire. But it came with the added bonus that Joanna would see more of her best friend. Lucy and Rachael had promised to visit Eliza wherever they moved to and Freddie assured her that his friends – especially Dominic – were always looking for a nice long drive for their latest car.

The solicitor ticked two entries on a list to the right of her notes. ‘That means accommodation and finances are looking okay. What's the latest from the CPS?'

After a tense couple of days, it transpired that there was to be no charge of obstructing the course of justice. Joanna had no idea whether her impassioned plea to DC Lineham had been passed up the chain of command or whether someone had decided that Freddie had been punished enough. She was just grateful it meant that he had no criminal record.

The solicitor ran her pen down her notes one last time. ‘Well, I think I have everything I need and you've completed the forms. I'll do my very best for you.'

The next few weeks were full of joy and fear, laughter and tears. Eliza got stronger every day and Freddie's confidence in caring for her grew alongside it. There were many good days – when she no longer needed oxygen to breathe, when Lucy and Rachael met her for the first time, when Freddie was allowed to lift her out of the crib himself as a nurse watched – which they shared in together. And there were also bad days when they would see another baby go home with their mum and dad and feel the pain of knowing again that Charlotte should be here to see her little girl.

For both of them, there were meetings with the social worker and the solicitor and more forms to complete. Each time, they hoped for news, were disappointed that they had to wait for police checks and other information to make its way through the system.

Freddie started his job with Sally when Eliza was eight weeks old, and headed up to Hertfordshire every Monday to Friday. Despite Sally offering him a bed in her third bedroom, he insisted on driving back to the hospital every night to see Eliza and read her a bedtime story before he came back to Joanna's guest room until five o'clock the next morning when he left to drive back to Hertfordshire and work. A fact that Joanna made sure the social worker knew anytime she had to speak to her.

While they were waiting to hear from the social worker, Joanna's house was on the market and having viewings. In one of her many trawls online, she'd found two houses on the same street in a pretty village only thirty minutes away from Sally.

When they finally got the news that the joint guardianship had been approved, they both wept. One week later, Eliza came home.