Penny could block out reality no longer. The full horror of the situation hit her in every minute, tragic detail... Her head spun and her stomach churned with nausea. She wasn't in the store, James was not upstairs in their apartment with Amy... She was in the medical centre. It was not a nightmare. She was not going to wake up...
Penny rubbed a shaking hand across her eyes. Someone had stolen her child—the child of her heart, her reason for living. She did not want to believe but there was no escape. James was gone...
'He does not have a father,' she whispered, choking down on her tears.
'Maybe not now, but he must have had one originally. Perhaps the man has decided—'
'No. No, you don't understand,' she cut in. 'The man does not even know my child exists—never has done. Please don't waste any more time. James is only sixteen months old; he is helpless; he needs me,' she pleaded desperately. 'Can't we go and look for him?' Jumping to her feet, she rushed to the door. 'I must; I've got to find him.'
The man in uniform nodded quietly to the doctor and seconds later Penny was being led back to the chair by a man in a white coat.
‘I could give you a sedative, Miss Gold,' the doctor said quietly, 'but first we need all the information you can possibly give us. You understand?'
Penny understood; she understood too much. The doctor was protecting his hospital. She had arrived at five for the last appointment of the day, for James to have his triple vaccination at the splendid new health clinic attached to the hospital on the outskirts of Truro.
Penny and James had been the only two in the waiting room when a nurse had walked in and quite reasonably suggested that she take James next door to be weighed and measured before going in to see the doctor for the vaccination. With hindsight Penny knew that she should have queried the nurse's command, but, after working in the store most of the day then driving over to the clinic, leafing through old magazines and keeping James amused with the toys available while they'd waited to see the doctor, she had not been thinking too clearly and had handed James over, with the nurse's helpful instructions ringing in her ears.
'Collect up your things and go through to the treatment room. It won't take a minute, and we'll join you.'
Penny had sat for what had seemed an awfully long time, getting more and more agitated, with no sign of the nurse or James. Finally she'd jumped up, determined to go and find out what was causing the delay, when Dr Brown had entered with the words 'Sorry for the delay, Miss Gold. Now, where is the little chap?'
The next half-hour had been like a horror movie, with Penny playing the victim's role.
Now she choked back a sob and looked once more at the faces around her—the blond blue-eyed Dr Brown, a chief administrator and three policemen—two in plain clothes. It was a large surgery, very new, very white. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
It was ironic; not so many years ago when her own father had been a GP he'd visited children in their homes to give them a vaccination, and he'd always given them ten pence for being good. The memory brought fresh tears to her eyes. Now, with rationalisation, the small town of Royal Harton, where Amy and Penny had set up their store, Sense and Sensibility, two years ago, no longer had its own GP but shared a medical practice with a half-dozen other villages in Cornwall.
'So we can eliminate the father?' a deep voice asked.
Eliminate him! Exterminate him! She didn't give a fig! 'Yes, yes, yes,' she answered hysterically. She had eliminated Raul from her life years ago when she had left his apartment and never looked back. She had never seen or spoken to him since. James was the only person she cared about; he would be crying, terrified, with a strange woman in strange surroundings. 'Please, just do something. Damn you! Do something.'
There was a commotion outside in the hall, but Penny was not aware of it, too overwhelmed by her own misery and guilt to register clearly what was going on around her. It was only when Amy's comforting arm slid around her slender shoulders and Penny looked up into her friend's compassionate face that she managed to claw back some semblance of self-control.
'Oh, Amy...' she whispered. 'My baby—someone has stolen James and it is all my fault.' And another paroxysm of weeping enveloped her.
'Hush, hush. Don't blame yourself; it wasn't your fault. If you want to blame anyone, blame me. If only I hadn't insisted on taking most of the day off to visit Nick in St Austell you wouldn't have needed to wait till the last appointment and none of this would have happened.'
'No!' Penny could not let her friend take the blame. If it had not been for Amy sharing the running of the shop and the care of James, Penny would never have been able to start a business and keep her baby with her. Thinking 'if only' never helped anyone; life had taught Penny that much. Bravely she straightened her shoulders and, clasping Amy's free hand for comfort, looked straight at the policeman.
'Sorry. Please ask me anything—anything you like.' She swallowed hard to free the lump in her throat. 'Just so long as I get my son back...'
And so began the worst, the most horrific, traumatic twenty-four hours of her life...
If she had thought it hard to get over Raul, it was as nothing to the anguish, the soul destroying despair of having her son stolen from her.
'Please, Penny, take the sleeping tablets the doctor prescribed and go to bed,' Amy begged, her worried gaze following the pacing figure of her friend. 'It's after midnight. I will stay up all night and take any calls. You need your sleep. You need to be fresh and alert when they bring James back.'
It had taken all Amy's considerable powers of persuasion simply to get Penny back to the apartment above the chemist, but she was not prepared to give up yet. It broke her heart to see her friend so distraught. As for James, her much loved godson, she didn't dare think about him; she had to be strong for Penny's sake.
'They will get him back, Penny; believe me, they will. You know me; I've always been a bit psychic; I know these things. So please try to get some rest. James will need you in the morning.'
'Do you think so? Do you really think so?' Penny demanded hoarsely, her throat dry from weeping. She was grasping at straws but she was desperate for even the faintest reassurance.
'Yes, I am certain,' Amy said adamantly.
'Perhaps I will lie down for a few minutes.' And with a bleak, watery attempt at a smile Penny wandered down the hall to her bedroom. But her feet stopped outside a different door, and slowly, fearfully, she pushed it open and walked in. In some far corner of her stunned mind she hoped against hope to see James...
She stared at the Victorian-style cot, saw the outline of a form and willed it to be James. She crossed the room and leaned over the side of the crib, her shaking hand reaching out and clutching the small arm. She felt the soft hair and she could not fool herself for a second longer.
Clasping the teddy bear to her breast, she dropped her head, and the tears rolled silently down her cheeks while her shoulders shook with her anguish. Her legs refused to support her and she fell to her knees on the floor, long, shuddering convulsions racking her slender frame.
'Why? Oh, Lord, why? Why my child?' And she began to pray fervently over and over again, 'Please, please, Lord, give me back my son.'
She didn't hear or see Amy stop at the door, shake her head and walk away again. She heard nothing except the scream of anguish in her soul mingling with the pitiful memory of her baby's cry.
Daylight came, and with it the arrival of the plain-clothes policemen again. The early-morning news carried the story of the missing child and reporters from all the major national and even international newspapers appeared, milling around in the street outside the shop and apartment. The phone didn't stop ringing until Amy simply unplugged it. Finally a camera crew arrived, with a female presenter from the BBC.
Penny, numb with shock and desperate, agreed to everything and anything. All she wanted was her child back. An appeal and interview with the distraught mother on the one o'clock news might just do the tri
ck. Someone somewhere might see it and recognise the photograph of James and know where he was. Or even the kidnapper might see the broadcast and, recognising the extent of Penny's suffering, restore the child unharmed. Anything was possible!
The tall dark man glanced uninterestedly around the familiar room and headed straight for the bar. Dropping a black hide briefcase on the floor, he poured himself a large whisky and, glass in hand, crossed to the sofa and collapsed on it.
He took a long swallow of the amber liquid and, with his other hand, idly picked up the television remote control from the sofa table and pressed it on. He watched the flickering images on the screen without really paying much attention, tired from the early-morning flight from Spain.
Suddenly he jerked upright, instantly alert, his hand increasing the volume on the television. The announcer had mentioned the name Penelope Gold... He saw a picture of a chubby, dark, curly-haired, brown-eyed baby boy, sitting on his mother's knee and laughing up at the beautiful, flaxen-haired woman. He drained the whisky in one swallow, his hand tightening involuntarily around the glass as the voice continued.
'The abduction of James, a sixteen-month-old baby boy, from a Cornish medical centre yesterday afternoon has shocked the whole nation. The police have issued the following identikit picture of the bogus nurse thought responsible for the kidnapping, in the hope that someone somewhere might have seen or have information that will lead to the return of Baby James to his distraught mother.
‘There will now follow a short interview and a personal appeal for the baby's return by Miss Penelope Gold, the mother of Baby James.'
The female interviewer was all sympathy. ‘I believe, Penelope, you are an orphan and a single parent. James s the only family you have. Is that correct?'
'Yes, James is everything to me, and I beg whoever has taken him to please, please be kind to him and please rive him back to me. We have never been apart for a single night since he was born. Please, I beg whoever has taken him, whatever agony you have suffered to make you do something like this, please give James back. He is my life.'
The panic, the pain in the woman's impassioned plea was heart-wrenching, and to the shocked horror of the man watching the television the interviewer took full advantage of her distress.
'I know it's hard for you, Penelope, but I have to ask you this. Statistically, the police say, in most such cases the father is behind the kidnapping. Can you be absolutely sure that does not apply with James?'
'James does not have a father; he only has me...' And with rising hysteria evident in her voice she continued, 'He never had a father.' She was shivering, her arms folded defensively over her chest, lost in misery and fear for her child. 'No, no, no, there is no father, I tell you. Only me. A woman stole my baby, my James...' And the recording ended with a small, ginger-haired woman walking into shot and putting her arm around the sobbing Penelope Gold.
The image on the screen vanished as the man clenched his hands. The sound of shattering glass echoed in the sudden silence of the room. The man didn't notice the blood oozing between his fingers. He was numb, frozen in disbelief...
A long while later he rose to his feet and crossed to the telephone. A casual observer would have seen that his saturnine features were set in an impenetrable mask, betraying not a flicker of emotion as he dialled a number and cancelled his appointments for the next few days. But, to a more discerning observer, looking into the dark eyes would have been like looking into the depths of hell itself. The red-hot fury, the monumental rage, was impossible to disguise.
'Penny. Penny.'
Someone was shaking her shoulder; she tried to open her eyes but they felt as if they were glued shut.
'James—they've found him.'
She heard the voice through a drug-induced daze, but at the mention of her son's name she battled through muffled layers of consciousness and finally opened her eyes. Amy was at the bedside, her small face lit up like a Christmas tree, her red hair standing out as though she had had an electric shock.
'Did you hear me, Penny? That was the police on the phone. James is safe...'
Penny dragged herself up the bed, great big tears rolling silently down her hollow cheeks. 'James—they've found him.' Her heart expanded in her chest till she thought it would burst; she grabbed Amy's hand.
'Where? Where is he? Is he well? You're sure?' The words tumbled out as she forced her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand. She silently cursed the doctor who, after her breakdown during the television interview, had given her an injection that had knocked her out. She shook her head to try and clear her mind. 'Please, Amy, where is he? I must go to him.' And, struggling to her feet, she swayed slightly.
'Steady, pet,' Amy said, grinning from ear to ear, and placing an arm around Penny's waist, she led her towards the bathroom, talking all the time.
'Your television appearance did the trick. Apparently the woman who took James did it on the spur of the moment. She actually was a nurse, but not at that hospital. Tragically her child died of leukaemia three months ago in the same hospital.
'She was wandering around, simply because it was the last place she had seen her child alive, when she saw you and James.
'Her husband works night-shifts and knew nothing about it. On returning from work this morning he went straight to bed. He got up at lunch time and turned on the television to watch the news, and then strolled into the kitchen, expecting his wife to be at work. Instead be found her in the kitchen with James. He immediately rang the police.'
'Oh, Amy.' Penny turned into her friend's arms and they hugged each other for a long moment, too overcome with emotion to speak but both crying tears of joy. V
'One more shot, please, Penny,' a dozen different voices shouted.
Penny was too happy to argue. Hugging James in her arms, her smile as wide as the Pacific Ocean, she posed for the assembled photographers, her eyes glistening with tears of joy and relief.
'It's all right, baby,' she murmured, nuzzling the dark, silky curls on her son's head, and he responded by chortling and grabbing her loosely pinned hair in a tiny fist. Pulling hard, he dislodged the pale silk mass which fell around her shoulders.
Penny laughed out loud with delight and, squeezing James to her breast, said, 'Thank you,' to the reporters and turned to go back into the shop. An involuntary shiver shuddered through her and she hesitated at the door, glancing warily back over her shoulder.
But James had caught sight of Amy in the store and wriggled to be put down, saying, 'Auntie Amy.' So Penny did not notice the long black Jaguar parked on the opposite side of the village square, or the stony-faced man sitting behind the wheel. If she had she might not have dismissed her flash of foreboding as nothing more than someone walking over her grave.
'I want to pinch myself, I'm so happy,' Penny said later that night as she stood beside James's cot and watched him sleep.
'I know, Penny,' Amy said quietly. 'But don't you think you should leave him to sleep now? You haven't let him out of your sight since the policewoman brought him back. You've moved his cot into your bedroom. I can understand how you feel, but I'm not sure it's such a good idea. You are going to have to leave him, some time.'
Penny turned. 'It's all right, Amy, I know. Only just not yet, hmm?'
'Come on into the kitchen and I'll make you a cup of my superior hot chocolate and marshmallow—sinfully fattening but guaranteed to please...'
'Oh, my! An offer I can't refuse,' Penny chuckled, and, bending to press one more kiss on her son's brow, she followed Amy out of the bedroom.
Three hours later Penny lay curled up on her side in bed, her eyes fixed on the sleeping child barely a foot away in his cot. She was bone-tired after the trauma of the past twenty-four hours, but sleep was elusive.
She knew that James was fine; he had been thoroughly checked by the police doctor and Dr Brown. In fact he did not seem to have been affected at all by his experience. He had called the woman who'd kidnapped hi
m 'Auntie' and had apparently played with dozens of toys.
Penny knew that she should be grateful that the woman had looked after him so well, and she had told the police that she did not want to press charges. Unfortunately it was not up to her. The Crown Prosecution Service insisted that the woman had to be charged but had said she would be treated leniently—probably made to take psychiatric help, which Penny knew would be for the woman's own good.
The reason for her sleeplessness was much more complex. It could have turned out much worse. She could have lost James for good; he could have died. The abduction of James had made her question her own mortality, and made her face up to the fact that, if anything— God forbid!—happened to her, her child would be alone in the world.
She had, after long months of anguish, managed to come to terms with Raul's rejection. He had never loved her; he had callously used her, nothing more... With James's birth she had dismissed any notion of telling Raul. James was her much loved baby and she alone was responsible for him. But now the past came back to haunt her, and she was no longer so sure that she had done the right thing.
She remembered the last humiliating meeting with Raul and walking out, but the next few weeks she had lived in a feverish whirl, determined to forget him.
The very next week Penny had sold her apartment to the buyer Amy had mentioned. The man worked for the National Geographic Society and had spent the past three years on a research and survey expedition in the Antarctic. Penny had simply wanted to get out of the city where she had suffered her worst humiliation. It had all worked out rather well.
She and Amy had spent the following weekend in Cornwall, attending Mike and Tanya's wedding in Tanya's home town of Helston. They had driven through the picturesque town of Royal Harton and noticed the 'For Sale' sign on an empty pharmacy in the market square. Old stone and quaint, it was the ideal place to launch Sense and Sensibility. On the way back from the wedding they had enquired about the business, and within another couple of weeks had bought it. Then they'd moved in.
Raul's Revenge Page 7