I look at the big brick house beyond the gates. It’s almost dark now and lights are on in several of the downstairs rooms. Ed is inside. I have to find him and take him with me to the police. It’s the only way to make sure he isn’t taken away from me forever. Once the police test his DNA and believe he is my son, everything else will fall into place. I know it will be scary for him. But I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if I didn’t try.
What if one day Ed finds out about me? What if he tracks me down? What if he asks why I didn’t fight for him?
‘Art should still be in the pub,’ I say. ‘He said she was out too and wouldn’t be coming back until after him. If that’s true, then Ed will be at home alone with the girl who picked him up from school.’
‘But there could be security,’ Lorcan protests. ‘And for all you know, Art and the woman could both have come back already . . .’
‘No, not yet.’ I’m trying to convince myself. ‘Anyway, they won’t be expecting us.’
Lorcan shakes his head. ‘Just keep your eyes open, okay?’
‘I will. Let’s go.’
As we get out of the car, a wry smile sweeps Lorcan’s face.
‘What?’ I say.
‘It’s nothing. Just that when I saw you for the first time at Art’s you looked so lost. Like . . . all confident on the outside but desperately sad too, as if life had beaten you down. And now look at you – it’s like you’re on fire.’
I smile back. I am on fire – determination burns through me to my bones. We approach the gates. I peer through the bars, taking the house in more carefully. It’s a clue to the identity of the woman. She must have money, that’s for sure. The house is large and old and detached, with stone walls and columns propping up the front porch. There are three floors, with a wide bay window on either side of the front door. The front garden is elegantly laid out, with a patch of lawn to the left of the drive and carefully tended shrubs in the flower beds. Two pretty ficus trees stand on either side of the front porch. It’s definitely the kind of house I’d expect Charlotte to live in.
We work our way round the gate. It extends into the trees that form a border between the house and the road. I cut my hand on one of the spikes climbing over. Lorcan rips his shirt. But seconds later we’re down on the soft earth in the dark shadow of the trees. I wait under cover of their low branches and watch Lorcan cross the gravel to the front door. My heart is thudding as he rings the doorbell. Seconds tick past. The early evening air is mild. No breeze. A dog barks in the distance.
The door opens. It’s on the chain. ‘Hello?’ It’s Kelly, the girl who picked Ed up from school earlier. She sounds suspicious.
‘Hi there,’ Lorcan says. He’s putting on an English accent like he did at the school. ‘I’m sorry to bother you; we met in the playground earlier, actually. Er . . . my son brought a DS home with him. I think it belongs to Ed. God, I’m so embarrassed, but I think Sammy might have taken it earlier today. I’m so sorry not to call in advance but we couldn’t find the class list and my wife has seen you coming in here with Ed so we knew this was home.’
‘I don’t think its Ed’s,’ Kelly says uncertainly.
‘Are you sure?’ Lorcan says. ‘Would you mind asking him?’
‘I don’t—’
But before Kelly can finish her sentence, Lorcan hurls himself at the door with such force that the chain breaks and in a split second he is over the threshold and inside the house. He grabs Kelly’s arm and twists her round, his hand over her mouth. Kelly struggles, she’s trying to shout out, but Lorcan is stronger. He pulls her backwards along the hall. I rush across the gravel and slip inside after him. A vase on the hall table catches my eye. It looks vaguely familiar, but there’s no time to work out where I’ve seen it before. As I reach the stairs, Kelly sees me. Her eyes widen with alarm. Heart beating fast, I race up to the first floor.
I’m moving as quietly as I can. There’s no sound from any part of the house. I reach the landing at the top of the stairs. It’s ultra-modern, excessively neat and expensively decorated. Smart and stylish. Now I’m inside, the decor seems fresher and younger than Charlotte West would choose. I pass a delicate china ornament – abstract, a curving shape like a wave. It suddenly all seems very French. There’s definitely an international flavour to the furniture and the paintings. Much more Sandrine than Charlotte.
I tiptoe across the hessian flooring, taking in a row of carved wooden disks on the window ledge overlooking the back garden. I try the first door I come to. A blue-and-white tiled bathroom. I move on. The next room looks like a spare room: with pale yellow curtains at the window to match the yellow-trimmed quilt on the bed. One of Art’s jackets has been flung over the quilt. An overnight bag I recognize from home stands next to it. Does that mean Art sleeps here? Or just stows his stuff here? I move on. Another spare room. This one much larger, with an en-suite bathroom. Still no sign of Ed.
I scuttle back across the landing. There are just three more doors to try. I open the first. It’s a little office area with a desk and a computer. A few toys – a train and a couple of teddy bears are scattered on the floor. They’re the only sign that a child even lives in this house.
I pull the door to and try the next. As soon as I push it open I know that I’ve found him. It’s a kid’s room, with a bookcase crammed with books, a huge toy bin and bunk beds against the far wall. The curtains are drawn and a night light spins on the bedside table, sending shadows dancing around the room. Ed is fast asleep on the bottom bunk. I creep towards him, my heart pumping furiously. He looks so peaceful as I approach, a lock of dark hair falling over his small face. I stand over him for a second. Again, I see my father. I try to work out what it is . . . the mouth, yes, but what else? The shape of his chin? The curve of his cheek? And then I see that it’s in the space between his features: the set of his eyes and the shape of the gap between his nose and his mouth.
I reach down and touch his arm, which is flung out across the bed. The night light casts enough light for me to see that the duvet contains a picture of some cartoon character. I have no idea who. For some reason, this reminder of how far outside Ed’s life I am hurts more than anything.
Ed’s skin is soft. I lift his arm – a dead weight. He’s deeply asleep. I shake him gently, but he doesn’t wake. There’s a crash downstairs – the sound of a chair tipping over. I start. Did Lorcan do that? Is Kelly trying to get away?
Or could Art have come back? I check the time. He promised he’d wait twenty minutes for me at the pub and it’s only been fifteen so far, so surely he’s still there.
Ed sleeps on. I try to haul him up, but he stays asleep. He’s heavy. I’m not sure I’ll be able to manage him all the way down the stairs on my own. I shake his arm again. No response. There’s another sound from downstairs – this time a door slamming.
I lay Ed back on the bed. I need to find Lorcan. He can help me carry Ed. I race out of the room and towards the stairs. Everything’s silent on the ground floor.
Reassuring myself as best as I can that there’s no one else in the house, I creep along the hallway towards the place I last saw Lorcan. He was heading for the door at the back of the hallway. He and Kelly must be through here.
I push the door carefully open. A pear-wood table sits in the middle of a large kitchen, which, like the rest of the house, is all very minimalist and uncluttered, with lots of shiny chrome and an eau-de-nil splash back. A chair lies on its side. Apart from that, the room looks undisturbed. There are two doors, one at either end of the room. The door at the far end is wide open. Cold air blasts through it. I feel the chill against my face and hands. I’m guessing it leads to the garage we saw outside. Is that where Lorcan has taken Kelly?
I want to call out, but I’m scared to in case anyone else is here. I tiptoe across the kitchen, towards the open door. I have a sudden flashback to the lock-up and the way I walked through its darkness to the open wasteland on the other side . . . to Bernard’s body.
I
can hear nothing except the sound of my own heart beating. A bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck as I reach the open door. The garage beyond is in darkness. I can just make out a line of shelves and a cardboard box of wine bottles. I reach for a light switch, but it’s not where I expect it to be. I step into the garage, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.
Across the room, past a shelf lined with tools, a figure is slumped in a chair. It’s Lorcan. For a second I can’t take it in. He appears to be bound with a rope; there’s a gag around his mouth. As I stare at him, he looks up. His face is bruised – two red marks on his chin and his cheek – and there’s a trickle of dried blood from a cut on his lip. His eyes, however, blaze with fury. He starts shouting as soon as he sees me, but the yells are muffled.
I freeze. The tall, broad man who mugged me is here too. He’s standing behind Lorcan. I notice him as he steps forward and places a restraining hand on Lorcan’s shoulder. He’s wearing a dark overcoat with a hood pulled low over his face. He looks up at me too and I see him properly for the first time: flat, Slavic cheeks and closely cropped hair. He really is huge. Broad as well as tall. He holds up a gun. I stare at the metal barrel. Is he going to shoot me? The thought filters through my head with absolute clarity.
‘Who are you?’ I say.
The giant waves the gun, beckoning me towards him. ‘Over here,’ he grunts.
I don’t have a choice. Shivering with cold and fear, I walk over. Lorcan stamps his feet as I draw near. He’s making muffled shouts from behind the gag, but I can’t tell what he’s trying to say.
‘Give me your phone.’ The giant’s voice is a low, threatening growl. I don’t want to hand over my only contact with the outside world but, again, I don’t have a choice. Eyes fixed on the gun, I pass him my mobile. He removes the sim card and pockets it separately from the phone, then he pushes past me. He walks over to the door and disappears into the kitchen. I stare after him. He’s leaving us alone? I look around, remembering Kelly. There’s no sign of her.
‘Hnn?’ Lorcan’s voice is still muffled, but I think he’s saying my name. It sounds like a warning.
I rush behind him, my fingers feeling for the knot that ties him to the chair. Lorcan glances from me to the far corner of the garage. Again, he seems to be signalling a warning but I can’t see anything in the darkness. ‘Come on.’ My hands fumble as I fail to unpick the knot.
The light tap of a footstep makes me look up. The sound came from the darkness opposite. I peer into the shadows. A figure is standing beside the garage doors. All I can see are her smart, cream kitten heels.
‘Who’s there?’ My voice falters.
And then she takes another step out of the shadows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Morgan.
My mouth falls open as she emerges into the pool of light cast from the kitchen. A slow smile creeps over my sister-in-law’s face. She’s elegantly dressed, as always, in a long cream coat that fits her perfectly and a cap made of soft, pale blue leather. Waves of hair from a blonde wig peek out from underneath the cap. As soon as I see her I realize that everything about this house is her – sharply modern, oozing with understated design, and ultimately rather sterile.
‘You always were too stupid for Art,’ she says.
I stare at her pinched face and hard, dark eyes. And in that moment it hits me.
‘You?’ I say, my brain struggling to accept what must be the truth. ‘You’re the woman who took my baby?’
‘Well done, Geniver,’ Morgan says sarcastically. She’s wearing pale blue leather gloves that match her cap. In a single, terrifying moment I realize that she is the woman Bernard O’Donnell saw going into the lock-up with Art. Which means Morgan must be the woman who killed him.
I stare at her, completely bewildered.
Lorcan stamps his feet, rocking in his chair. I fumble with the knot tying his gag. It’s too tight to unpick. I move my hands down to the rope that holds him to the chair and start tugging at that again. I don’t take my eyes off Morgan. She is still watching me, a look of contempt in her eyes.
‘Leave him alone,’ she orders. ‘Or I’ll call Jared to make you.’
I glance towards the door into the kitchen. It has swung slightly open and I can just make out the bulky profile of the large man. He’s standing like a soldier, his hands clasped behind his back, legs slightly apart. He looks brutal. I let go of Lorcan’s bindings, aware I haven’t loosened them at all.
‘What the hell is this, Morgan?’ I say. An image of Ed flashes into my mind. ‘What did I ever do to you?’
Morgan rolls her eyes. ‘It wasn’t about you,’ she says. ‘It was about me and Art.’
‘What does that mean?’ I frown, remembering Art’s words . . . that giving away our baby was . . . what had he said? . . . an atonement. ‘How is our child anything to do with you?’
Morgan tilts her head to one side. ‘How dare you break into my house and make demands?’
‘Me make demands?’ I can’t take in what she’s saying. ‘You . . . you stole my baby from me!’
‘He came to me before you even knew who he was,’ she says. ‘I think that’s a far cry from what, if I’m very much mistaken, you and Lorcan were just attempting: the kidnapping of a small child away from the only mother he knows.’
I stare at her. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe any of this.
‘Art has you so wrong,’ Morgan sneers. ‘He said you would back off if he warned you, that you always did what he wanted. But I knew you wouldn’t be able to. And I was right. You went straight to the police after he saw you, didn’t you?’ She snorts. ‘Art didn’t believe you’d be prepared to flush his entire career down the toilet either . . . not until Jared brought back Rodriguez’s CCTV footage.’
I glance at Jared. He’s still standing guard by the door, blocking most of the light coming through from the kitchen. ‘You sent him to mug me?’
Morgan nods. ‘Jared was my father’s driver. After Daddy died, my mother kept him on. He’s known me since I was a little girl. He’d do anything for me.’
I glance over at the giant again. His eyes are dark and hard and fixed on Morgan’s face. I have no doubt she’s telling the truth about his loyalty.
‘Why did you want the CCTV film on that memory stick?’ I ask.
‘Because it’s incriminating to Art,’ Morgan says softly. ‘After Rodriguez told me you’d stolen it, I had to get it back to protect him.’
‘Protect Art?’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t get any of this, Morgan. Art’s your brother. What have you got to do with our . . . our baby?’
Morgan taps her elegant feet on the floor. She seems to be considering something.
‘I would have spared you this, Geniver,’ she says. ‘But, frankly, right now I’m so angry with you I don’t care any more.’
‘Spared me what?’
Morgan points to the door. ‘This way,’ she says. ‘I’ll show you.’
I glance round at Lorcan. He’s rocking more wildly in his chair now, clearly not wanting me to leave. But I don’t see that
I have a choice. Even if Morgan isn’t armed, Jared has that gun.
Anyway, I’m desperate for answers.
I walk into the kitchen and past Jared. Morgan removes her cap and blonde wig and lays them on the counter. She directs me through the kitchen, out into the hallway and into a living room. It’s a large, square space, full of the same pear-wood furniture as much of the rest of the house. A large-screen TV stands in the corner opposite a leather couch. Two sleek armchairs sit on either side of the sofa. It’s a more lived-in space than the rest of the house. Books and magazines are spread across the coffee table and a stack of children’s DVDs teeters on the floor in front of the TV.
Morgan crosses the room, pushes the DVDs aside and opens the cupboard underneath the TV. She draws a disk from her coat pocket and places it into the machine, then she steps back.
‘This is a copy,’ she says.
‘The original was made on video.’
‘Original of what?’
‘You’ll see.’ She faces the screen. ‘This is who your husband really is, Geniver.’
As the screen fizzles into life, I get the impression Morgan’s in her element. That, despite what she says, she’s been dying to show me whatever is on this disk. A picture appears. It’s grainy . . . colour, but poor-quality – a shot of a bedroom, a girl’s bedroom, with white lacy drapes around the bed and a row of dolls propped on the pink-painted shelf above it. A warm pink light glows from the bedside lamp.
‘What is this?’
‘My bedroom at home in Edinburgh. I was home from college – the Easter holidays. I was nearly twenty.’
I stare at the screen, my heart beating wildly. What the hell amI about to see?
A very young Morgan fills the screen, backing towards the bed. Slim and tanned, she looks amazing, dressed in a mini-skirt and a pink top with thin straps. There’s a softness about her I’ve never seen in all the years I’ve known her. She’s smiling at someone beyond the camera, flicking her dark hair – longer than it is now – off her shoulder.
She sits on the bed and holds out her hands. Art walks into the frame. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt and looks unbelievably young. I frown, trying to work it out. If Morgan was almost twenty here, then Art must have been eighteen. He sits on the bed so both of them are side-on to the camera. Neither of them looks at it. I’m certain Art has no idea it is there. He would hate the idea of being filmed. He reaches out and pulls Morgan towards him. They kiss.
My stomach retches. I look away.
‘What is this?’ I say. ‘Why are you—?’
‘Watch!’
I turn reluctantly back towards the screen. Art is peeling Morgan’s top up, his mouth is on her breast, one hand fumbling under her skirt. Morgan’s face is tipped back, her hair sprawled over the white bedspread. She looks ecstatic.
A furious mix of hurt and jealousy and repulsion surges through me.
I turn back to the Morgan in the room beside me. She’s watching my face, a mean, thin smile curling about her lips.
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