Authors: Samantha Hayes
‘Would it hurt so much if I, you know, just leant you over . . .’ He takes me ever so lightly by the waist – or rather where my waist used to be – and guides me to the kitchen worktop. He leans me forward so I have to support myself with my palms on the wood. From behind, he puts his hands lightly on my legs and works them a little way up my dress. It feels good.
‘Stop it,’ I giggle. I bat his hands away. ‘Someone’s bound to come in.’
‘I could just . . .’ I hear him unzip. ‘Just . . . like this. It’d be over so quick.’
I know he’s right about that. It’s been ages. I turn and kiss him deeply. My belly is pressed between us and it feels so odd to have it wedged between us at such an intimate moment. I turn round again, my bump hanging low as I lean forward.
‘Quick then,’ I say, praying everything will be all right, praying I’m not going to blow everything I’ve ever wanted with one foolish act.
*
Zoe is already in the kitchen when I come downstairs the next morning. I’m running late for work. The boys are in their school uniforms eating scrambled eggs on toast. They have orange juice and a banana set beside them. I feel oddly expendable at the sight of this simple scene. How will I feel when I hand over my baby each morning when my maternity leave runs out?
‘I’m impressed,’ I say.
Zoe turns from the sink. She is silhouetted by the morning sun streaming through the window.
‘Looks chilly out,’ I add, noticing the heavy frost.
There’s a silence that I find awkward although Zoe doesn’t seem to. She goes about her business, swilling dishes and drying them up. The boys chatter together and there’s none of the usual shoving and bickering or refusing to eat unless it’s brightly-coloured sugary cereal. Are they acting like this to show me up, because even though they love me, they know I’m not their
real
mother?
Let’s be good for Zoe and horrid for her
. . .
Their imaginary whispers make me shudder. Of course not, I think shamefully.
‘What time will you be home tonight?’ Zoe asks. She hangs the tea towel on the silver rail of the Aga.
‘We have a dishwasher for all that, you know,’ I say with a smile. She shrugs. ‘About six-thirty.’ And my paranoid mind is wondering why she wants to know. Is it so she can release the twins from their locked rooms? Evict the man she’s been having sex with all afternoon? Know when to stop rifling through my belongings or wake up from a long nap?
Oh, for God’s sake!
I tell myself. It’s hormonal havoc this morning.
‘After I drop Oscar and Noah at school, I was going to go to the organic shop and buy some vegetables to make soup,’ Zoe tells me. ‘Would you and James like some for your supper as well?’
‘Thank you,’ I say, supposing it will be served with homemade bread, too. ‘Sounds delicious, but I’m not sure the boys will . . .’ I glance at them. They’re scraping their plates. ‘Well, we can try, can’t we?’ I try to sound jovial. The thing is, I bet Oscar and Noah will go mad for Zoe’s homemade soup. Before I know it, she’ll have them growing their own veg and making it themselves.
The drive to work gives me time to think. Sitting in traffic, my selfishness hits me head on. It’s what I wanted, isn’t it? The perfect family life. Aren’t I living my childhood dream? I have a husband who loves me, two sons who have accepted me as their mother, I have a good career and soon I’ll have a little baby girl of my own. My house is straight from
Beautiful Homes
magazine and I even have a nanny who, after only one day, is proving invaluable. I’m certainly going to need her on my team if life is to resemble anything like the way it’s been these last few years.
Who’d have thought, when I made that visit to two poor motherless boys, I’d end up marrying their father? I can’t help believing it was all meant to be, as if someone had scripted my life.
Mark is the only one in the office when I arrive, even though I’m a bit late. As team leader I have five staff to manage as well as other agency workers and development and protection teams with which to liaise. As soon as I step into the building, any thoughts of self-doubt or self-pity are swept away by the torrents of need beckoning to me from dozens of at-risk children all neatly contained in stacks of files. I wonder how far they would go to become part of my life, to become my child, my loved one. It’s something I think about most days. I dispel the guilt as I hang up my coat. It’s an impossible thought. I couldn’t take them all.
‘Morning,’ Mark says without looking up. It’s all open plan here but we have our own areas – not cubes as such because I believe in seeing the faces of my co-workers as we bicker and banter back and forth about cases and reality TV and where we’re going on holiday. I get a flutter in my belly as I imagine our next family trip. By summer, my little baby girl will be about eight months old.
‘Morning,’ I say. It comes out glumly. ‘Where’s Tina?’
‘Her child-minder’s sick. She’s had to take a detour via her mother’s house so she’ll be late.’ Mark doesn’t sound sympathetic. He has no children and isn’t likely to have a family any time soon. He’s been single as long as I’ve known him.
‘That’s annoying. She was going to come with me to the Lowes’ place this morning.’
‘You’ll have to put up with me again then.’ Mark drains his coffee mug. He drinks about ten cups a day. ‘Can’t have you going there alone. Not in your condition.’ Now that Christine Lowe has come home from hospital with her baby, our visits to her will be daily. In the past, she’s lashed out.
The first time I met her was soon after she’d had her second child. Within a week of her giving birth, we were rushing through the paperwork to take both children from her. Little boy, if I remember, and a two-year-old girl. Sweet baby with a mass of dark hair and purple welts across his legs. His sister was similarly decorated. That was about thirteen years ago. Since then she’s had one every couple of years and we’ve taken them all away from her.
‘Have you been following that awful story on the news?’ Mark asks. I see him force down a swallow, wondering if he’s overstepped the line. ‘That poor pregnant woman?’
‘Which pregnant woman?’ I say, making him squirm on purpose. I smile a little, to let him know I’m kidding, that of course I’ve heard about it.
‘It’s just dreadful. How could anyone . . . ?’ He doesn’t know how far to go. Does he think I’ll fall apart if we talk about it?
‘Is that the murdered pregnant woman story?’ Diane, ears pricked, comes in from the kitchen carrying a tray of coffee mugs. ‘I couldn’t believe it. And guess what? My mum actually knows the dead girl’s mother. They went to school together years ago and keep in touch. When the photo of the dead woman came on telly, her mum was in the background and my mum recognised her. And the surname was a giveaway. Frith’s not that common, is it?’ Diane passes round the mugs – mine says ‘Give me a gherkin NOW!’ on it. No one really knows what to say about the murder. We see enough tragedy in the department without adding to it.
‘You don’t have to keep quiet about it for my benefit,’ I tell them. ‘It’s no more awful for me to hear about it than for you. Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t hack real life.’ I shrug and try not to think about what that woman must have gone through before she died. Two lives unnecessarily lost.
‘Have the police arrested anyone yet?’ Mark says, slurping coffee and returning to his computer.
‘Don’t think so,’ Diane says. She tucks a strand of dark hair behind one ear and crunches into a biscuit. She swivels to face her desk. ‘My mum’s going to go round later. See if she can help.’ She’s tapping at her keyboard.
The first call of the day comes in. A local GP is worried about a young patient. There’s a teenager in crisis and it’s up to me to sort her out.
*
Christine Lowe hasn’t changed much over the years. Despite multiple pregnancies, various abusive partners, having all her kids taken off her, and a drug habit that would impress even the hardest of addicts, these days she’s a quiet, almost well-mannered woman who’s resigned to her lot in life.
‘Come in,’ she says. A cigarette bobs between her lips as she speaks. Her house doesn’t smell as bad as it usually does, and it looks as if she’s even made an effort to tidy. Two German Shepherds are slumped in front of a gas fire. Beside them on the floor lies the baby in a very well-used Moses basket. Christine doesn’t kick up much of a fuss when we come any more.
‘Who have we got here?’ I ask.
‘Nathan,’ she says resignedly. ‘Any chance his grandma can see him before you take him? She’s been in hospital.’ She yanks a dog away by its collar as it moves lazily to sniff the baby’s face. More a maternal action on the dog’s part, I feel, and I doubt Christine would have intervened if we’d not been there.
‘That depends,’ Mark says. He gives me a glance.
‘On what?’ she snaps. She’s never got on with the men in the department.
‘On whether you manage to stick to the care plan we set out.’ Mark is taking notes.
‘How long is your mother going to be in hospital?’ I ask, trying to rouse the baby. I don’t like what I see. I want this baby out of here.
Christine puts a hand to her forehead and wobbles. She’s very pale. ‘Sit down,’ I tell her. She dissolves into the sofa and a dog rests its chin on her knee. If only the dogs were in charge. ‘Have you eaten today?’ I ask. She shakes her head. ‘Where’s your partner?’ Immediately I remember Mark telling me he’s back in prison again. It’s a wonder Christine gets pregnant at all.
‘The nick,’ she confirms.
‘Is Nathan feeding properly?’ He hasn’t made a noise or moved since we arrived. I know the health visitor will visit every day but, until the paperwork is finalised, our hands are tied.
‘Yeah,’ she says. I can see she’s thinking hard, trying to remember. Christine has learning difficulties. Part of me wonders if she even knows that it’s not normal to have your baby taken away as soon as it’s born. She stares at her son. ‘He likes milk,’ she adds, as if the notion’s a revelation.
‘When did he last have some?’ I ask. Mark is stroking the baby’s head now, trying to wake him. Slowly, he stirs. ‘Turn off the fire,’ I say, suddenly noticing how stifling the room is. There’s no air.
‘He had some in the night,’ Christine replies, pleased with herself. She’s very skinny for a woman who’s recently had a baby. I’ve piled on the weight since being pregnant.
‘You’re having one too,’ Christine says, beaming at me. She gets up and steps towards me, hands outstretched. She rests them on my belly. I’m so shocked that she’s done this, I can’t move. ‘It’s a boy,’ she says, beaming.
You’re wrong
, I think, already knowing I’m having a girl.
I lean over and whisper in Mark’s ear, ‘We need to get him out soon.’ Mark nods. We both know that unless Christine agrees, we’ll need an emergency court order.
‘Would you like to have a break from looking after baby Nathan?’ I ask. Even though I want nothing more than to scoop up the little mite, take him home, feed him, bathe him, cuddle him, things have to be done the right way. There are papers to be signed, and I know she could change her mind at any moment.
Eventually, Christine gives me the vaguest of nods and I say a silent prayer of thanks before we all leave for the office. I phone ahead to alert the team. I already have a nice foster home in mind.
‘I’M OFF THEN,’
Lorraine said, ducking into Adam’s office on the way out. He looked up from his desk. ‘To interview Sally-Ann’s parents, remember?’ She rolled her eyes. Adam raised a hand in a half-hearted wave as she left. He was immersed in something.
Lorraine took DC Patrick Ainsley with her, her favourite of the new blood that was flowing around CID. Between the pair of them, the GP who had just stopped by to administer more sedatives to the mother, as well as a rather traumatised family liaison officer, they managed to get Mrs Frith to string some coherent sentences together. Just a hunch, Lorraine thought as the woman gradually and painfully opened up, but she reckoned it would be the mother who would be the most help, rather than the stern, somewhat aloof father who had yet to react to the fact that his only daughter was dead.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ Mrs Frith kept repeating over and over. Her voice was brittle, barely there. ‘Pinch me, pinch me for God in heaven’s sake. Make me wake up from this nightmare.’ She rocked, clutching a bunch of tissues.
‘I’m so sorry about your loss, Mrs Frith. It’s incom-prehensible how someone could do this. Please be assured we are doing everything in our power to find whoever’s responsible.’
Responsible
, Lorraine thought sourly. Whoever did this didn’t have an ounce of responsibility in them. She’d only said that word to avoid using the word ‘murderer’.
‘Can you tell me when you last saw your daughter?’ Lorraine was ready to take notes. DC Ainsley was in charge of the recording. They’d agreed to it this way – nothing formal, but important that they could listen to the Friths’ comments later. It never ceased to amaze Lorraine what could be missed first time round. ‘Mrs Frith?’
‘Last Saturday,’ Mr Frith interjected coldly. He’d hardly said a word. ‘Daphne went round to see her, didn’t you?’ He stared at his wife. Lorraine supposed he was still in shock, grieving in his own way, even though his words were emotionless, as if it was all a bit of a nuisance.
Mrs Frith nodded in agreement.
‘What time on Saturday would that have been?’ Lorraine asked her. She leant close in the hope she would answer for herself this time.
‘In the morning,’ she replied quietly. She was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Late morning,’ Mr Frith added.
‘And how did Sally-Ann seem to you?’ Lorraine glanced at DC Ainsley.
‘Fine. She was excited but nervous about having the baby.’
‘She was having a planned Caesarean section, I understand.’
‘Yes.’
There was no need to ask why. The hospital had already confirmed that Sally-Ann had a placenta praevia – a condition where the placenta had grown to block the baby’s natural exit route. The obstetrician had explained to Lorraine how a C-section was imperative, but then halted when she’d interrupted, explaining that both her daughters had been born this way for exactly the same reason. ‘Unlucky,’ was all he’d said, and Lorraine had to agree.