Steve passed Alice back to me. I gazed at her smooth perfect skin, the pure innocence, relying on us to care for her and feed her. I pictured the twins, and the three of them together fixed in my mind.
‘Leave it with us. I’ll take your laptop for now. And I’ll need to check your medical records, Charlotte, to corroborate everything you’ve said about having twins for these people.’
I sighed. ‘Please let me know if you find out anything at all about the babies, because they don’t have their mummy now and we haven’t a clue where Malcolm is.’
One of his colleagues came and took the laptop away.
‘Will you be speaking to the other women who are saying Malcolm fathered their babies too?’
‘Yes, we’ll look into it, find out more about the woman whose husband went missing. There’s clearly more to this story than a suspected suicide.’
‘What could he want all these babies for?’ I asked even though my brain couldn’t process it.
‘Do you think he could be trafficking them?’ Steve asked, grimacing.
I shuddered and held Alice closer to me. Her eyes were almost shut.
‘I wouldn’t want to speculate at this early stage.’
The inspector’s colleague knocked on the door and called him out of the room. Steve strapped Alice in her pushchair and I gently rocked it back and forth. I couldn’t stop shivering. It couldn’t be real. We must have got it wrong. Part of me still expected Brenda to text me, say everything was fine. I couldn’t take in that she was dead. Steve put his arm around my shoulders. And where the hell was Malcolm? I’d heard about babies being trafficked all over the world, but wasn’t that in places like Malaysia, India or China? It couldn’t happen here, in England, could it?
Steve took his jacket off and draped it round my shoulders. Alice had dozed off. I pulled the blanket up to her chin.
The inspector blustered back in, worry lines carved deep in his face. He probably wasn’t anywhere near as old as he looked.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting. We’ve had news of a significant development from Dorset police. A local resident has come forward saying she saw a man running away from the scene. Another claims that Paula was not alone on the cliff. She may have been pushed. This case is now being treated as a suspected murder enquiry.’
Steve and I collapsed into each other’s arms.
Chapter Fifty
‘In light of this, I need to ask you more questions about this Malcolm character,’ Inspector Johnson said. ‘I’ll be recording the interview. I want you to go back to the beginning and tell me everything you can.’
Steve held me together, his arm around my shoulders. Going through every meeting, phone and Skype call took longer than I expected. It was gone midnight when we were finally coming to the end. I could barely keep my eyes open, yet pinpricks of adrenaline kept startling me awake, reminding me Brenda was dead and we didn’t know where the twins were.
‘There is something else about our surrogacy arrangement I need to tell you.’ Steve stared at me as he spoke. He squeezed my hand to reassure me. We both knew we had to tell the police everything. ‘I hope we’re not going to get in trouble over it.’
I patted Steve’s leg. Alice was still asleep, her little mouth slightly open.
‘And what is that?’ Inspector Johnson looked as tired as we did but he kept reminding us that the first few hours of an investigation were often the most crucial.
‘We chose to have babies for this particular couple partly because they were offering to pay a lot more than anyone else. To be honest, it was my decision. I persuaded Charlotte that they were our best bet. My business partner got cancer and I needed to bail him out while he went through chemo. And I’ve been hoping to move us to a bigger flat. Basically, we needed the extra cash. Charlotte clicking with Brenda was a bonus. I saw the extra money as generous, truly taking into account how difficult it is for the surrogate.’
‘I see, so how much are we talking here?’
Oh god, now we were going to get in trouble too.
‘They agreed to pay thirty-five thousand pounds in total, but we didn’t receive the final fifteen because the cheque bounced, and you know the rest. Malcolm increased it from twenty-five thousand when we found out Charlotte was expecting twins.’
‘I don’t believe it’s an offence to receive more than the average amount for expenses.’
‘There was a chance I might have had to give up work because of a number of health problems during the pregnancy, so the money would have covered loss of earnings,’ I said.
‘We also needed childcare for our own daughter, especially when Charlotte was ill.’
The inspector nodded. ‘Well, like I said, I don’t think it’s a problem and it’s certainly not our priority at this moment in time. So that’s all for now. You can go home and we’ll keep you updated.’
‘Hang on, you haven’t told them about that woman,’ Steve said, stroking my hair, knowing that all I wanted to do was go home to bed.
‘What’s this?’ The muscle in the inspector’s cheek started hammering.
‘But you told me I was imagining things,’ I said to Steve and yawned.
‘Yeah, but now I’m not so sure. A couple of the other surrogates mentioned it too. It could be important.’
‘He’s right, please tell me any tiny piece of information, even if you think it’s not linked.’
‘Well, since the first pregnancy, the one that I miscarried, a woman has been following me. I didn’t see her face very well, but she had black curly hair and wore a trouser suit. She even turned up in Brighton when we went there for a weekend. Steve managed to take a photo of her.’
‘She could certainly be linked. I’ll take a copy of it if you have it there?’
Steve showed it to him, then handed over his phone.
‘Now, is there anything else?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Steve said.
‘Hang on, what about the missed calls on my phone?’ I showed them to the inspector. ‘It was on our way back from Orkney, my battery had died so I didn’t realise until we stayed over in Sheffield. We didn’t recognise the number, but I tried to call it back, thinking it might be Brenda contacting me at last. But the line was dead. There’d been an anonymous message on the forum the night before, warning me to stop searching for Malcolm. I’d replied asking her to call me.’
‘I’ll hang on to this for now if you don’t mind?’ The inspector took my phone. ‘See if we can trace the owner. Now, if something else occurs to you, please ask to speak to me directly.’ He took the photo of the woman from Steve’s phone and handed it back to him. ‘Right, I’ll get back to you as soon as I have some information.’
On the way home, my stomach tumbled into knots. Alice stayed blissfully asleep, even when Steve moved her from the buggy to her car seat.
‘The twins are out there somewhere,’ I said into the black steamed-up window. I shivered at the windscreen wiper’s squeak, like the sound of a small injured animal.
‘Why have children with lots of different women though?’ Steve pulled a face of disgust.
‘Do you think Brenda knew about the others? Perhaps that’s why she acted so strangely sometimes, putting on an American accent. They said on the news she was born and bred in Sheffield.’ I stroked my stomach as though the babies were still there, safe and sound. ‘I don’t understand how she could leave her sons without saying anything to them?’
‘That gets me too. All that sob story we fell for about them being desperate for a baby. I swear she was as bad as him.’
‘It’s so hard to take in that she’s dead.’ My voice sounded croaky, worn out from talking so much. ‘How could she betray me?’
We fell into silence.
‘We have to find Malcolm,’ I said as we stopped at traffic lights. ‘Do you think it was him on the cliff? I mean, if it was, if he’s capable of killing Brenda, god knows what he plans to do…’ I watched the muscle pulsing in his cheek as the light tu
rned to amber then green. ‘We have to go back to the forum. That woman must have more details about where her husband went looking for Malcolm.’
‘I thought you wanted the police to find him?’
‘I do, but I can’t sit by and do nothing.’
Steve pulled up outside our flat. ‘I’m worried too, but I think we should leave it to the police.’
‘We have to try and do something. What about going back to Sheffield, contacting Sarah and Paul? If that’s where Brenda was brought up, someone must remember her, especially now it’s splashed all over the news. It might give us a lead as to where Malcolm is.’
We sat for a few moments, trying to take in what was happening to us. The car made little sounds like a ticking bomb as it cooled down. I pushed open the door. The wind had dropped to a gentle rustling of leaves. Somewhere in the shadows came the long mournful howl of a cat, so easily mistaken for a crying baby.
Chapter Fifty-One
I gathered a sleeping Alice up in a blanket. Once inside, I stripped her coat off and laid her in her cot. Steve poured us each a shot of whisky. I knocked mine back in one go. Rough as anything, it burnt my throat, but I didn’t care, I already felt numb, my eyes sore from exhaustion. The constant prick of tears I’d mostly managed to keep at bay for the last few hours suddenly came flooding out. I fell into Steve’s arms, sobbing into his T-shirt.
I lay awake most of the night, going over each of our conversations with the inspector. I shut my eyes and tried to block it all out, but my thoughts kept coming back to the twins. I had so many questions for Brenda and I tried to imagine what her answers would have been. I had to admit that I hadn’t known her at all. The person I was so sure I’d had a close connection to, didn’t exist. She was someone completely different with a separate life. All of it had been an elaborate lie to trick us.
* * *
We both woke up early the next day. I’d barely slept at all, yet I felt wide awake. I started to sit up, but the full force of everything that had happened yesterday pushed me down. I groaned.
‘We need to go back to Sheffield.’ I stared at the ceiling, half expecting it to fall on me. ‘There must be an old friend or neighbour of Brenda’s we can talk to. She might have confided in someone about meeting Malcolm and planning to go off with him. They might know where they were living, give us a clue where he is now and, more importantly, where the twins are. I don’t care about the missed payment, all that matters to me is knowing they’re both safe.’
‘Let me check how busy we are at the garage today, see if the guys can manage on their own.’ Steve grabbed his phone and jumped out of bed. ‘I want to nail that bastard.’
I was so grateful that Steve was treating the twins as his own – as our children – he didn’t care that they were biologically Malcolm’s.
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Steve pulled his jeans on and went to answer it. I was putting my dressing gown on just as Mum came in.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘What do you think? I saw the news. It was her, wasn’t it?’
I nodded, dumbly.
‘Where are my grandchildren?’ Mum’s voice came out as a wail. ‘We need to find them. Is there anything I can do?’ Mum put a hand out to me.
I shook my head, batting her away.
‘Let me look after Alice for you, at least.’
‘I don’t think we want her out of our sight to be honest.’ Steve put his arm around me.
‘I understand, I really do. You know I’m here for you, Charlotte.’
‘Are you? Even though you’ve not supported me through any of this?’ I raised my voice, burying my hand in my hair.
‘Because I was scared something might go wrong, or that you wouldn’t be able to part with your babies.’
I shook my head.
‘After all the babies I’ve lost, now my grandchildren have gone too,’ she cried, ‘something terrible could have happened to them. They were having a debate on London radio, some expert talking about gangs abducting babies and children in different countries, then trafficking them all over the world to become domestic slaves, sex workers or to organised gangs of paedophiles. They even put children in special compounds to harvest their organs,’ she sobbed.
‘I don’t want to hear any of this,’ I screamed, trying not to let the images of everything she’d said crowd in on me. ‘I think it’s best you go, Mum,’ I shouted. Any moment I’d say something I’d regret.
She didn’t move. Steve held me closer.
‘Mum, please go! I can’t deal with this right now.’
‘It’s all right, I’m going. I’m sorry, Charlotte. I’m sorry you ever felt you had to do this because of me.’ Mum paused at the door. ‘It’s the last thing I wanted.’
How had things gone so wrong between us when it was Mum’s experiences that had spurred me on to help another woman? She was the one I thought would understand. Here we both were, hurting over the same thing and yet we’d never been so far apart.
Chapter Fifty-Two
By 9.30 a.m. we’d collected my mobile from the police station and were on the road. I rested my head against the window, closing my eyes for a second as the ice-pinched trees along the A1 flashed past. I wondered if the twins were wrapped up warm and being fed. What if Malcolm had left them somewhere and they were cold and starving? How long could they survive in this weather?
I sat up. If anything happened to them… My breathing accelerated, heart pulsing. I held the door handle tight, trying to concentrate on calming my breathing. I gulped every breath, barely taking enough oxygen in. What if they were dead too? Silver spikes darted in and out of my vision. I forced my eyes wide.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ Steve glanced at me and rested his hand on my arm. ‘Are you okay?’
I nodded, counting in a deep breath. I blew it out slowly until the spikes faded.
‘That’s it. They’ll be all right, I promise.’ He patted my arm.
I nodded, slowly calming. ‘It’s so hard not to worry about them. I hope Malcolm is looking after them.’
‘Bloody better be. It’s weird though, paying surrogates for all these babies. How many more have there been?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ve got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, in my bones, like part of me is missing. We have to find them as soon as possible.’
I flicked on my phone. The Twitter campaign account already had over two hundred followers. I answered people’s comments and thanked everyone for their support, then blocked all the trolls. I typed Nathan Bennett into the search engine. A list of news stories came up.
‘Hey, there’s an interview here on Radio Oxford with Brenda’s real husband.’ I turned the speaker up.
‘When Paula first went missing, I suspected she’d met someone else and was deciding whether to go off with him or not. She’d been acting a bit strangely for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t realise the signs until she’d gone. I never saw her again.’
‘He seems as confused as we are,’ Steve said.
‘Poor bloke. And how awful for their sons.’
‘Why don’t you call Sarah and Paul, see if they can help us?’
I dialled their number and Sarah answered straight away. I explained why we were coming up again so soon. Sarah said they’d lived in Sheffield all their lives, so they may well be able to help us. She suggested I have a look at their local newspaper online. I thanked her and as soon as I’d finished the call, I pulled up the page for the Sheffield Star on my phone. Brenda’s face was all over it. LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD. DOUBLE-PAGE SPREAD INSIDE A chill ran through me. What had Brenda been trying to tell me that day over Skype?
‘It says Brenda went to Hillsborough primary school. There’s a quote from a woman who was in her class. Zoe Barton. Still lives in the area.’
‘Doesn’t mean they were friends though, does it?’
‘She could know who was or where she lived. Hey, I wonder if Paula Bennett has a Facebook page.’
>
‘Good one. Not sure how you’re going to know which are her real friends though, unless this Zoe Barton can tell us. She might know if there’s a private group for ex-pupils.’ Steve opened his window. A gust of icy wind blew in.
‘We’re stuffed if Brenda didn’t confide in anyone about meeting Malcolm or her plans to leave her husband.’
‘Does seem a spur-of-the-moment decision.’ He closed the window again.
‘I doubt that. It must have been hard for her to leave her sons. It might have taken weeks or months to decide. Why don’t we try and speak to Nathan? See what he can tell us.’ We had so many questions but right now there were no answers.
* * *
We arrived in Sheffield at lunchtime. Sarah and Paul hugged us as though we’d been friends for years. They welcomed us into their warm kitchen. The smell of fresh cake filled the air.
‘Dreadful business,’ Sarah said, switching the kettle on. She lifted a chocolate cake from the wire rack onto a plate. ‘Stick BBC One on, Paul.’
‘Have you seen the news?’ He clicked on the TV in the corner.
‘We’ve not really had a chance.’ I took some crayons and a colouring book out of my bag for Alice and sat her on my lap.
‘You might want to brace yourselves,’ Paul said, lowering his bushy eyebrows.
A news reporter not much older than me was standing on Chesil Beach in West Bay, in front of the towering cliff made famous by a TV drama. She crunched her way across the pebbles, towards a white cottage called The Ship, to its small glass-framed sunroom jutting out on wooden stilts over the beach.
‘This is where Mrs Miller was sitting when she saw someone at the top of the cliff at about five twenty-five a.m.,’ the reporter explained. ‘She picked up her binoculars when she saw two people at the top. A man and a woman appeared to be arguing. Or could he have been trying to persuade her not to jump? All we know is that at five thirty a.m., Paula Bennett fell to her death.’
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