The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah Page B

written what I wrote, to get attention or cause trouble—a drunk teenager, a bored pensioner, anyone. They’ll put me straight in the Wearside Jack category.
    I think about what I told the Seddon Hall receptionist: whoever that man was, I spent a week with him. I could have written that in my letter to the police without giving away my identity. Why the hell didn’t I? The more detailed my account, the more likely they would have been to believe me. If I explained everything, how and why it happened . . . Suddenly I feel a burning need to share the full truth with somebody. Even if it’s only the police, even anonymously. For over a year I’ve kept it completely secret, telling the story to myself but no one else.
    I highlight the draft of my salt-marsh habitats article and delete it, leaving only the heading in case someone looks over my shoulder. Then I start to type.
    7 August 2007
    To whom it may concern
     
    I have already written to you once about the Brethericks. I posted my first letter this morning at about eight thirty, on my way to work. Like this one, it was anonymous. I am writing again because, after posting my last attempt, I realised that it would be easy for you to dismiss me as a time-waster.
    I can’t tell you my name for reasons that will become clear. I am female, thirty-eight, married and a mother. I work full-time, and the work I do is professional. I am university educated and have a PhD. (I’m saying this because I can’t help thinking it will make you take me more seriously, so I suppose that makes me a snob too.)
    As I said in my last letter, I have reason to believe that the Mark Bretherick I saw on the news last night might not be the real Mark Bretherick. This story may seem irrelevant at first but it isn’t so please bear with me.
    In December 2005, my boss asked me if I could go on a work trip abroad, for the week of Friday, 2 June to Friday, 9 June 2006. At that time my children were very young and I was working full-time, juggling several different projects and not getting much sleep. Every day felt like a struggle. I told my boss I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. Since having my second child, I hadn’t been away from home for more than one night at a time. To go away for a whole week didn’t seem fair on my husband and the children, and I felt utterly drained when I imagined getting home afterwards and having to clear up the mess that would have accumulated in my absence. It simply didn’t seem worth it. I felt slightly disappointed at having to turn down the work because it sounded like an interesting project, but I barely gave it a thought because I was so sure it was out of the question.
    I told my husband later, expecting him to say, ‘Yeah, there’s no way you could have gone,’ but he didn’t. He looked at me as if I was mad and asked why I’d said no. ‘It sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. If anyone asked me, I’d go like a shot,’ he said.
    ‘I can’t. It’s impossible,’ I told him, thinking he must have forgotten we had very young children.
    ‘Why not? I’ll be here. We’ll manage fine. I might not stay up till midnight every night ironing socks and hankies like you do, but who cares?’
    ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘If I go away for a week, it’ll take me two weeks to get on top of everything once I get back.’
    ‘You mean at work?’ he said.
    ‘And at home,’ I said. ‘And the kids’ll really miss me.’
    ‘They’ll be absolutely fine. We’ll have fun. I’ll let them eat chocolate and go to bed late. Look, I can’t look after the kids and keep the house tidy,’ he said, (he could, of course, but he genuinely believes that he can’t) ‘but we can hire some help.’ He mentioned the name of a woman who babysat for us regularly.
    As he outlined a possible plan—and I can remember this as vividly as if it happened yesterday—a weird feeling started to grow inside me. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it felt like some