Her Sister's Child

by Alison James

  Saffron is awake now, squirming and searching for milk. Marian hurries to make and heat a bottle before there’s a full-blown attack of screaming. She knows, to her cost, that the crying of a new baby carries very effectively. Saffron seems unsure about the formula – having been breast fed – pursing her lips and frowning at the teat. But hunger overrides her reluctance and soon she is sucking vigorously.

  Marian settles in the armchair listening to the little sounds she makes. Just for those few minutes, she experiences more contentment than she has ever felt in her life. When she first had the twins, all she wanted was to be part of the magical realm of mothers. To belong to that club. But that world had failed to open itself up to her. The other women around her bonded during their pregnancies, and she missed out on that stage. Cliques at mother and baby groups and the school gates would never have fully acknowledged her or absorbed her into their ranks. But now she realises that none of that matters. All that matters is right here: just her and her daughter. After the lonely, empty years since her divorce, she has finally come full circle.

  Women who adopt babies can sometimes produce breast milk and feed them themselves, Marian remembers, as she strokes the down-soft cheek. She saw a leaflet about it during her social work career. When she believed that she and Tom were going to adopt, she was planning to try it herself. It’s probably too late, at her age, for that to work now. But no matter, Saffron seems happy enough. She dozes off, the teat falling from the side of her mouth. Marian spreads the pink blanket on the sofa and lies her carefully down on it, before making herself a cup of tea and switching on the television.

  ‘…morning, my life was changed forever. Someone went into my flat while I was carrying something out to the car, and took my two-week-old baby daughter, Bonnie.’

  Marian sets down her mug slowly, staring at the screen. It’s her: the foolish girl who went out and left Saffron unattended. With Tom on one side of her and her mother – that tart – on the other. ‘I’m asking, if anyone knows who did this, or has any information that could help, to please come forward. Thank you.’

  The screen cuts back to the newsreader. ‘A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police this evening said that they urgently need to speak to the former wife of Tom Glynn, Charlotte Glynn’s father.’

  Marian jumps as a photo of herself appears on the screen. It must have been captured on a camera while she was out shopping. She’s wearing the yellow coat, currently in her suitcase, and the blonde wig. Then another photo flashes up, the one used in her passport, her face devoid of make-up, her hair grey and frizzy.

  The newsreader continues: ‘Marian Glynn, 57, has been missing from her home in Hove, East Sussex since Wednesday. The public are requested not to approach her, but to contact the police immediately.’

  ‘Not to approach her!’ Marian snorts loudly. How ridiculous. As if she’s the one who would put an infant in danger. She stands up and switches off the television, looks down at the sleeping baby. She hadn’t planned on staying here long anyway – that would have been risky – but moving on has just become even more urgent. Can she risk delaying her departure until the morning? Might the police make a raid on the flat in the middle of the night? But no, they just said she was missing from the flat. And she drove here in a car that as yet she has no proven connection with. That will change; they’ll work it out eventually, but not before the insurance offices are open tomorrow. She has a few hours.

  While Saffron sleeps on, she unpacks her suitcase, shoving the mustard yellow coat and the blonde wig into a bin bag and taking them out to the communal dumpster. Back in the flat, she digs around in the back of the bathroom cabinet until she finds a pack of hair dye. Several years ago, when the grey started to take over, she toyed with the idea of going a different colour, but decided she would look ridiculous. It would be too obvious.

  The pack describes the colour as ‘Ultra Vibrant Red’. Marian looks dubiously at the woman depicted on the pack: she’s about twenty-five and has a luscious auburn mane. But there’s no possibility of going to a chemist to shop for something more suitable; this is all she has. She shampoos her hair over the side of the bath, leaves the dye on for forty minutes, then rinses it off.

  The result is a rather alarming carrot colour. But there’s no time to change it, and the most important benefit is that it looks completely different. Once it’s dry, she finds her hairdressing scissors and cuts the shapeless bob into a close crop. At the back of a drawer in her bedroom is a pair of non-prescription reading glasses she sometimes uses for small print. She puts them on, and discovers that the combination of short red hair and the blue frames is almost flattering. It changes her look, at least.

  After repacking her suitcase, she feeds and bathes Saffron then lies down on her bed, fully clothed, with the alarm on her phone set for 4 a.m. They will be gone, long before it’s light and there’s a possibility of them being found. Nothing’s going to get in her way this time.

  Whatever happens, she and Saffron won’t be parted again.

  50

  Paula

  She’s in the kitchen, tidying up the breakfast things before heading to work, when she hears it.

  ‘On Sunday morning, my life was changed forever. Someone went into my flat while I was carrying something out to the car, and took my two-week-old baby daughter, Bonnie. I’m asking, if anyone knows who did this, or has any information that could help, to please come forward. Thank you.’

  Paula stares transfixed at the chyron scrolling over the bottom of the news channel footage. ‘TEENAGE MOTHER CHARLOTTE GLYNN APPEALS FOR SAFE RETURN OF NEWBORN DAUGHTER.’ She drops the cloth she was holding and gropes wildly for the TV remote, turning up the volume.

  ‘A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police this evening said that they urgently need to speak to the former wife of Tom Glynn, Charlotte Glynn’s father. Marian Glynn, 57, has been missing from her home in Hove, East Sussex since Wednesday The public are requested not to approach her, but to contact the police immediately.’

  The feed cuts to the weather forecast. Paula snatches her phone and scrolls through every news update she can find. There it is, the same story everywhere: 17-year-old Charlotte Glynn, whose two-week-old baby daughter Bonnie was snatched from her flat. And the police are treating none other than Marian Glynn as a person of interest.

  Paula has to sit down on a chair to take this in, reading and rereading. Twin babies taken, one buried, one abandoned then adopted. That adopted child’s own daughter now taken. A baby who was Paula’s own flesh and blood, just as Charlotte was. Lizzie’s granddaughter. Her great-niece. Some of the news sites have a photo of the baby, a particularly pretty newborn with plump cheeks and a rosebud mouth.

  Her first instinct is to text Johnny and ask if he has seen the news, but this is too important for a text. They need to talk, decide what to do next. Because today, they had already agreed, they were going to go to 35 Laurel Road and speak to Charlotte’s parents about her real identity. And about the twin baby brother that they doubtless knew nothing about. She dials the number for her work.

  ‘Jody, hi… it’s Paula. Listen, can you tell Calum I’m not going to be in this morning? I’m running a bit of a temperature. I’ll come in later if I feel better… okay, thanks.’

  She switches off the TV, grabs her car keys and hurries out to the car.

  Paula knows where Johnny’s offices are, but she’s never been inside the building. He rents two floors of space above a dry-cleaning business on Green Lanes. From the outside you would barely know it was there, and there’s no lift from the ground floor, but once inside it’s quiet, clean and freshly decorated. Paula taps on the door and a young, lanky youth comes to open it. This, Paula is pretty sure, is Brandon, one of Johnny’s many nephews.

  ‘Is Johnny Shepherd in?’

  The boy jerks his head to a closed internal door. ‘Over there.’

  But the door has already been thrown open and Johnny is standing there, resplendent in a pin-striped su
it and crimson tie. He’d already told her he had meetings with ‘the money men’ that day. ‘Sweetheart!’ He gathers Paula into his arms. ‘Thought we weren’t meeting till this evening?’

  ‘Something’s happened.’ She closes the office door behind them, and takes out her phone. ‘Have you seen this?’

  Johnny frowns, starts to read. His expression morphs from one of mild interest to one of shock. ‘Bloody hell, Paul! This is her – your niece? And someone’s nicked her baby?’

  ‘Not just someone… carry on reading.’

  Johnny’s hand goes to his forehead. ‘Jesus Christ. Her? Marian Glynn? They reckon she’s done this?’ He hands Paula’s phone back to her. ‘Hard to fathom; talk about bloody coincidences. Well, I suppose that’s the point: this isn’t a coincidence.’ He pulls Paula into a hug again. ‘I’m sorry, babe.’

  ‘Sorry? Why are you sorry?’

  ‘Because it’s obviously out of the question us going over to the Glynns’ place now. Not now this is all kicking off.’

  Paula pulls away from him, forcing him to meet her eye. ‘But we’ve got to, Johnny. That was what all this time and effort was for. And money – you had to pay Big Tony, remember? It was to find Lizzie’s baby. And now we have. We can’t just leave it there. I have to—’

  ‘Paula, Paula…’ He pushes her down into the chair facing his desk. It’s not done roughly but with a definite firmness, making her glare at him. ‘Look at what’s just happened to these poor people! A seventeen year old has had her kid taken, just a couple of weeks after giving birth. You can’t just waltz in there, someone they don’t know from Adam, and say, “Sorry you’re going through some shit but by the way, I’m your alcoholic birth mother’s kid sister: surprise! Oh, and by the way you had a twin brother you knew nothing about, who was probably murdered.” Yeah, that would go down brilliantly, I’m sure…’

  He’s on a roll now, pacing to and fro and enhancing his argument with hand gestures. ‘For all you know, Charlotte doesn’t even want to know about her birth mother. And it’s hardly going to make her parents feel any better.’

  Paula narrows her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t agree. This girl is my family. I’ve spent most of my adult life wondering what happened to her. Now is exactly the time I need to be there for her. To give her my support.’

  Johnny makes a snorting sound and slaps his forehead. ‘Come off it! That’s just not realistic. They’re just going to tell you to fuck off, however polite you are about it.’

  Paula’s on her feet again. ‘How do you know that?’ she rages. ‘Because you’re Johnny Shepherd, the big I-am? The one who knows everyone and everything and has a finger in every bloody pie!’

  She snatches up her handbag, turns on her heel and stamps out of the room, running down the stairs and slamming the street door. Instantly, her phone buzzes: Johnny trying to call her. She cuts the call and then swears out loud as she reaches her car. She has a parking ticket.

  Back at her house, she fills a glass from the half-empty bottle of red on the kitchen table. But the acidity of the wine catches in her throat and besides, red wine is something she now associates with Johnny. They always drink it together. She tips the wine down the sink and takes a can of Coke from the fridge, filling a glass and adding a pour of rum on top.

  Once she has drunk it, she feels calmer. She’s still angry with Johnny, but accepts that some of that anger is because she knows he’s right. The abduction of baby Bonnie means that it’s impossible for her to approach the Glynns. Not now. She should go into work, but she doesn’t. Instead she walks the dog, then skulks around the house, unable to settle, with the TV news channel on a continuous loop. The police are apparently following up multiple leads on the baby Bonnie abduction after the public responded to her mother’s appeal.

  At the end of the afternoon she collects Ben and his friend Connor from school and drops them at the nearest cinema multiplex, before taking Jessica home and helping with her homework. At 9 p.m., just after Jessica has gone up to bed, the doorbell rings. Johnny stands there in his covert coat, holding a huge, gaudy bouquet of flowers.

  ‘Paul, I’m sorry… Can I come in?’

  She steps aside silently, and he stands awkwardly in the hallway. ‘Can we talk?’

  Paula sighs heavily, and waves him into the living room. Despite everything, her heart leaps when she sees him. He’s still the dazzling Johnny Shepherd. Still her girlhood crush.

  He wraps his arms around her and kisses her forehead. He smells of London rain and sandalwood. ‘Paul, I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. Not when you were so emotional.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Her shoulders drop with relief and she allows herself to lean into him. ‘You were right. I was so fired up I just wasn’t thinking straight.’

  Johnny pats her back. ‘I could murder a cuppa.’

  She makes them tea and lights the fire, and they curl up on the sofa together.

  ‘So what now?’ Paula asks. ‘Do we just do nothing?’

  Before Johnny even speaks, she sees that light in his eye, a look she has come to know so well. ‘No, we are bloody well not doing nothing. If we don’t act, well, what has all this been for, eh?’

  Paula clasps her mug, staring at him. ‘So, what do we do?’

  ‘We’ve already found a baby. Actually, two babies. The baby boy in the garden, and young Saffron. Charlotte Glynn. So what’s to stop us finding a third?’

  Her eyes widen. ‘You mean little Bonnie?’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. We’ve done it before: we can do it again.’

  It’s her turn to scoff now. ‘Come on, Johnny, the police are all over it! What can we possibly do that they can’t? Best thing we can do is let the professionals get on with it. They’re bound to find her eventually.’

  ‘Will they though? With that nutter taking her? Who’s to say she won’t end up buried in some garden somewhere?’

  Paula shudders and covers her ears. ‘Don’t, Johnny. I can’t bear to even think about that.’

  Johnny sets his tea mug down and puts an arm around her shoulders. ‘Look, think about it as us trying to give the police a hand. Anything we manage to find out, we’ll share with them straight away. How about that?’

  Paula shrugs. ‘I suppose so. So, what are we going to do first?’

  Johnny grins. ‘We’re going have another chat with Big Tony.’

  51

  Charlie

  Charlie watches the appeal go out on the ten o’clock news, covering her eyes with her fingers intermittently, and shaking her head. Despite her parents telling her she must go to bed, she paces the ground floor of the house, unable to settle. Her father is still up too, checking his phone constantly. At 10.45, it rings.

  ‘Did it work?’ she hears him asking. ‘Has someone come forward?’ Then:

  ‘No, that’s fine. It’s not as though I’ll be able to sleep anyway.’

  ‘That was DI Stratton,’ he tells Charlie as he hangs up. ‘He wants to talk to us. I’ll wait up for him, darling; you really need to try and get some rest.’

  ‘No point,’ says Charlie, stubbornly. ‘I won’t be able to sleep now anyway, will I?’

  Stratton arrives fifteen minutes later, dressed in jeans and a tan bomber jacket, carrying a manila folder. His thin, sandy hair is slicked to his skull as though he recently got out of the shower. Tom leads him through into the sitting room and waves a bottle of Scotch in his direction, which Stratton declines. Charlie follows and sits silently on the sofa.

  ‘A very thorough search of footage from all the live street cameras in the Tufnell Park area on Sunday gave us this.’

  He produces a still of a thickset woman in an anorak pushing a baby’s buggy along the pavement. Charlie’s hand flies to her mouth. ‘Oh my God! Is that Bonnie?’

  ‘Our technical guys pieced together a trail of images of the same woman, following her all the way down from Highgate Road to Russell Square. It was early on Sunday, wit
h hardly anyone on the street, which made it relatively easy to spot her. That and the new-looking buggy.’

  He looks up at Charlie and her father, waiting for them to absorb this.

  ‘Eventually she arrived at a two-star hotel just off Russell Square, the Briar Inn B&B. So I sent officers round there to question the staff and go through their security camera footage. And their cameras picked up this.’

  He pushes another still across the table. It appears to be the same woman, only this time in a light-coloured coat, her blonde hair visible beneath a woollen hat. She’s in the hotel reception area, pushing an identical baby buggy into the lift. Charlie stares intently at what can be seen of the woman’s face, but her head is turned away.

  ‘Obviously these images are in black and white, but when we questioned the receptionist she says she remembers the woman’s coat, because it was quite a striking shade of yellow.’

  ‘This has to be her: the woman who came to your flat. The one in the yellow coat.’ Tom looks over at his daughter.

  ‘I think so,’ Charlie says slowly. ‘It’s hard to be a hundred per cent certain.’

  ‘According to the statement, she paid for her room in cash, giving her name as Anne Webber. This morning she also told the receptionist that she was minding someone else’s child.’

  Charlie stares at her father, whose eyes have widened in shock. ‘Marian’s maiden name is Webber,’ he says eventually. ‘And Anne is her middle name. It’s her. It’s Marian. It has to be, surely.’