No Longer Safe

by A J Waines

  ‘I told you I didn’t kill my baby,’ she said.

  I only had her word for it and that didn’t mean much anymore.

  ‘I kept trying to work out why you’d invited me here, but I get it now. This whole escapade was a charade to cover up the abduction of a child. Unbelievable!’

  I wanted her to deny it. To insist that it hadn’t only been about that. To claim that she’d missed me and wanted to renew our friendship, but, of course, she didn’t.

  ‘You knew I’d come, because I owed you for the way you helped me – and you banked on me doing as I was told.’ My voice was cracking with anger and loss, but I kept going. ‘You also needed me to keep quiet. You could be sure I wouldn’t tell anyone you killed Charlie – but I’ve worked it all out, Karen. You were in on the abduction with him and something went wrong. You hit Charlie over the head…’

  She glanced at the phone; it was still purring in my hand. ‘Don’t forget – you covered up Charlie’s death and that carries a prison sentence,’ she sneered. ‘If you say anything, you’re going to be in very deep shit yourself, Honey.’

  ‘Well – you should know. Being jailed for killing your baby! Making out you were in Hollywood, when all the time you were locked up in Holloway! It’s gone too far, Karen. I’m sick of playing the doormat – feeble little Alice who always goes along with everything. I don’t care what happens to me – I’ve had enough of owing you. I’ve had enough of leverage and blackmail. I’m calling the police.’

  ‘Wait, Alice.’ She reached out, but I took a step away. ‘Please hear my side of things. At least allow me that, will you?’ Her voice was strained. ‘I want you to know what it was like for me. Will you hear me out?’

  I put the receiver down, but warily kept my hand on it. Throughout my misty adoration of her I’d never considered what she might truly be capable of until now.

  I glanced over at Brody to check he was okay. He was playing with the little piano Mark had brought and chuckling away to himself.

  She leant wearily against the doorframe.

  ‘I didn’t know enough about shaken baby syndrome at the time and there was no one to help me. I was left completely on my own with a useless lawyer who had it in for me. No one likes a woman who attacks a kid.’

  She picked at stray paint on the door frame without looking at me. ‘I was already two months pregnant when we finished at Leeds.’

  I gasped. Of course. If she’d had a baby in early 2008 that would be right. She hadn’t said a word at the time.

  ‘I met a guy called Travis one night at the local cinema and we hung out for a while, but he wasn’t about to ditch his wife and family for me – I knew that.’

  ‘But weren’t you with Roland, then?’

  ‘Only as a fall-back. He wasn’t the father.’

  She said it so casually. By now, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the way Karen treated relationships with such indifference.

  She carried on. ‘Mel was always a sickly child and she seemed to cry non-stop. A number of people – I thought they were my friends – had seen me fly off the handle about it, but never at Mel herself. I never touched her. I punched cushions, I screamed, I threw chairs at the wall, but I never laid a finger on her.

  ‘It tore the inside out of me, feeling her go limp in my arms, like that. I fought to get her to breathe, I tried everything…’ I heard the bones crunch in her jaw. This wasn’t an act.

  ‘Can you imagine what that was like?’ she said, desolation flooding her voice.

  ‘Dreadful…awful…it must have been,’ I said, meaning it.

  ‘I didn’t know then that it was going to get worse.’

  She went over to Brody and picked him up. Straight away, he became agitated, flapping his arms against her chest and kicking out.

  ‘Mammaa…’ he cried, pulling away from her.

  ‘I know, sweetheart…I’m sorry.’

  She tenderly kissed his forehead and held him like he was the most precious thing in the world.

  ‘The trial was torture – I was trying to grieve with everyone around me pointing the finger and hating me. Then getting put away like that nearly finished me off. I kept looking for her in prison, even though I knew she wasn’t there. I ached with a pain I never knew was possible.’

  I let out a whimper, like an injured cat.

  Brody reached out for the playhouse, so she put him back and held up a mobile of feathers and sparkly butterflies for him. ‘I made this,’ she said. ‘He seems to like it.’

  She hooked it over the side of the box and returned to me as I stayed where I was, hovering by the phone. I was horrified to my core by what she was telling me.

  She pressed her fingers into her forehead, fighting back tears. ‘I don’t know how I got through the rest of my sentence. I lived like a small shrew, going in and out of my cage to get fed and going back in again to sleep. The other inmates hated me being amongst them. I wasn’t one of them, I was a monster in their eyes. They could only see me as a child hater, a baby-killer, and they made me pay for it.

  I was beaten over and over. They knew where to cause the most damage. In the end I was rushed to intensive care and they all got what they wanted. I lost the chance to have another child ever again. I was pronounced infertile.’

  She dropped her gaze to the carpet and I wanted nothing more than to scoop her into my arms and let her slump against me. But I stayed still. I knew if I moved I might lose my nerve and give in to her. I had to stand against her on this. I just had to.

  ‘Weeks and months turned into years and then my release day finally came in May and I was out.’ She took a step towards me. ‘I’m not a bad person, Alice. I’ve just learnt new ways to defend myself. I’ve had to toughen up. Prison does that to you.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how you coped,’ I said with conviction. I held out my arm towards the boy. ‘But you’ve taken someone else’s child – he doesn’t belong to you. Remember how you felt when your baby was gone? Well – his mother is in agony now.’

  ‘Poetic justice,’ she said wryly.

  I tapped my lip. I was thinking back to our first few days here. ‘When did you do the swap? You were at the cottage when the boy was seen being handed over.’

  ‘The night Brody was taken, a witness flagged up a car, that’s true – but it wasn’t mine – it was Charlie handing the baby over to a go-between couple. I never met them and they didn’t have the whole picture, but they looked after the child until the handover to me at the pick-up point, miles from here, the following night.

  ‘Mark didn’t take much persuading to head off to the pursuit centre with Jodie earlier that evening. I offered them a lift and took Mel, remember?’

  I thought about it and nodded slowly.

  ‘I did the swap after I’d dropped them at the pub. It was just you I had to worry about, but it turned out really easy. I got back here in time to give you a nightcap, with Brody already fast asleep after a sedative.’

  ‘Why resort to this?’ I glanced over at him. ‘I know you couldn’t have another baby of your own, but why didn’t you adopt a child or set about fostering?’

  She laughed. ‘With my criminal record? Think about it. I tried – of course I did ¬– but all my efforts were blocked, especially as my offence involved a child. But I made a friend in prison and she’s been amazing.’

  She snatched a breath.

  ‘Pam got out before me, but we stayed in touch. She let me ‘borrow’ her daughter, Daisy. She was used to babysitters and she’s about the same age as Mel when she died. Pam knew from our time together in Holloway how much losing Mel had destroyed me – and she named her own baby Daisy Melanie as a way of remembering her. I paid for Pam to stay in Fort William while I rented this place.’

  She was tripping over her words, getting it all out.

  ‘Daisy was just a stand-in until I picked up the baby I was going to keep. I needed witnesses to see her with me when the other child went missing.’

  She slowe
d down, her eyes roaming around the room.

  ‘There were times when I almost felt she was mine. Like going back in time with my Melanie. I couldn’t wait to do it for real.’

  I felt my head shake from side to side in disbelief as the pieces continued to slot into place.

  ‘The day before my birthday you said you’d gone to the hospital…’ I said.

  ‘I took Daisy back to Pam for a while, just to keep them both happy. I never set a foot inside the hospital.’

  She was looking pleased with herself, even though her plan had gone completely off the rails.

  ‘Didn’t the police here want to see a birth certificate? Didn’t they know you lost your own baby? Weren’t they suspicious about the baby girl being yours?’

  She smiled. ‘That’s where I need to give you the full picture.’ She stroked a knot in the wood on the open door. ‘As far as the police know, I’ve been looking after my friend’s child. They knew my history and I told them I was babysitting for Pam to give her a break. They checked up with Pam, of course, and everything was above board.’

  ‘So why the big pretence to all of us that the baby was yours?’

  ‘Because I was going back to London a mother, bringing home the baby girl who’s been ill for so long. That’s the story everyone around me was meant to know. Pam and I set this up months ago.’

  ‘But, the baby’s a boy...’

  She rested her head against the doorframe and sighed. ‘Yeah – and I’m going to have to rethink everything. I might not go back. I might have to start again somewhere new.’

  She stared over towards the window, no doubt dreaming up fresh schemes for her future.

  I wanted to bring her back. ‘So, Mark’s not involved?’

  ‘No – he just provided some of the money.’

  ‘Won’t the police back home ask questions? About this new baby you have, out of the blue?’

  ‘Why? There’s nothing to link me with Brody’s disappearance. The police are looking for Charlie – your new friend, Nina, put them on to him. Pam’s child is back safe and sound. Why would anyone be snooping around after me?’

  ‘But social services will, surely? They’ll want to watch you like a hawk with your record.’

  ‘I’m not worried about them. They’re concerned about me harming a child and there’s no way that’s going to happen. Someone’s preparing me a fake birth certificate and I can easily get fake hospital records if I need them – I’ve got friends underground now.’

  I could see how this might – just – have worked, but not now she had a boy on her hands. There was so much to tell Stuart – it was mind-boggling.

  ‘You have to give him back, Karen.’

  ‘Don’t you see that I can’t face the horror of going back to square one after all the hope and anticipation, the longing, the waiting I’ve endured to finally get my baby back?’

  ‘He’s not yours, Karen. You’ll get caught and it will all be terrible.’

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘I won’t get caught,’ she said, shooting me a fierce stare through narrowed eyes.

  I picked up the receiver. ‘I can’t stand by – even after what you’ve told me. It’s still wrong.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Alice. Don’t make me hurt you.’

  She lurched forward, but I was too quick for her. I let go of the phone and slammed the sitting room door in her face pushing her out into the hall, then shoved a wooden chair under the handle. She rattled it, then threw her weight against it, trying to get in.

  ‘Alice – don’t do this. It will end very badly.’

  I picked up the antiquated handset again and dialled nine three times. I could hear it ringing at the other end. Any minute now and the police really would be on their way, this time.

  Then I looked up. I realised too late. I’d forgotten about the door at the other end of the room that connected to the kitchen. The cord was only a metre long and I couldn’t reach that far with the phone still in my hand.

  Come on – pick up.

  Chapter 49

  Karen burst in through the far door before I could say a word to anyone in emergency services. She stormed past me and slammed her hand down on the cradle.

  Snapping the wire out of the wall with one hand, she made a grab for me with the other. I winced as she got a tight grip on my hair and pulled me backwards so that my back arched too far. I fell to my knees. She caught the side of my bruised forehead with her elbow and I cried out as the pain multiplied.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alice. But, I thought you were my loyal friend. The one who would stand by me, no matter what.’

  She forced me onto my front, pulled my arms around my back and wrapped the wire from the phone around my wrists.

  ‘I don’t want to have to do this, Alice – but I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to tell the police where Brody is.’ She dragged me to my feet, hauled me over to the cellar and thrust me down the steps.

  At the bottom, she pushed me onto a broken wooden chair and tied my ankles together with a piece of old washing line. She rummaged in a couple of drawers in the bench against the wall and drew out a roll of tape. It was tacky, the sort used to patch up guttering, and smelt of tar. As she pressed it across my mouth, it made me gag. As an afterthought she brought down my anorak and a blanket, both of which she tucked around me.

  ‘I don’t want you to freeze down here,’ she said. ‘Someone will find you before long, I’m sure.’

  I thought of Stuart. He would come back to the cottage any time now, surely, and wonder where I was. He’d come looking for me.

  ‘I’m going to pack now.’ She was leaning over me, her hands on her knees, articulating her words as if I was deaf. ‘Then I’m leaving with the boy. I’m sorry this didn’t turn out to be the happy holiday we planned.’

  I didn’t struggle or moan; there wasn’t much point. I stared at her, hoping my eyes would convey sufficient distress to make her change her mind. But she clambered up the steps again and I heard the key snap shut in the lock. Then she flipped off the light-switch in the hallway and was gone.

  As my eyes got used to the darkness there was just enough daylight from the small grubby window at ground level to turn the black mass into shapes with corners and shadows. There were boxes to my right and a large chest to my left with a bundle of clothes behind it on the floor.

  After a few seconds, I realised that the bundle wasn’t a pile of clothes. There was a leg sticking out, and another beside it. Someone else was down here with me.

  I called out Hello?, but it came out as an indistinguishable muffle through the tape. I stared at the shape above the chest, trying to make out who it was. Shuffling closer, I pressed my arm against a stockinged foot – a man’s foot. It was cold. Not only that – it was stiff.

  Oh, God – what has she done?

  With tiny wriggles, I managed to kneel so my face was next to his. I knew then. From the smell of his skin. That distinctive peppery fragrance, starting to go stale.

  Stuart? No! Stuart!

  I pressed my face against his, but drew back. His cheek felt like a briefcase that had been left out all night. I wanted to shake him, wake him up, bring him back. I cried out, but the moan stayed solid in my mouth. I nuzzled into him and realised my nose and cheek were sticky. Blood. What did she do to you?

  There was just enough light for me to see that half his head was glistening and torn. I fought for air as my tongue felt like it was clogging up my throat. I couldn’t see properly after that; tears had claimed my eyes and I had no way of wiping them away.

  Not my lovely Stuart. I sank beside him and wept; my body shaking in huge sobs as I thought of how wonderful he was. He seemed to appreciate me exactly as I was and I had such hopes that could have had some kind of future together. Now it was all over. Karen had killed him. She’d battered him to death. He must have confronted her about Charlie – or the boy. Why had he not waited until we were together? Why had he faced her on his own? After all, he had wa
rned me about how dangerous she was.

  I listened. I could hear Karen moving around upstairs. Then I heard her footsteps as she came down again, humping luggage with her. A terrifying thought occurred to me. Maybe she was coming back to finish me off.

  I listened again, trying to work out where she was and what she was doing. Her footsteps receded and I decided she must be in the kitchen. There was the clunk of a cupboard closing, the whoosh of a tap running and then a sound I wasn’t expecting. The front door knocker.

  ‘Hello,’ came a woman’s voice. ‘Ms Morley?’

  ‘Yes.’ I could hear every word.

  ‘I’m DS McKenzie and this is Sergeant Harris, you’ll remember from before. May we come in?’

  ‘Yeah – no problem.’

  My heart flung itself up to the base of my throat. The police! They were here. Stuart must have managed to call them after all.

  ‘It’s just a courtesy call,’ said McKenzie. ‘We’re sending in a team shortly to look over the byre again.’

  ‘Oh…’ Karen sounded surprised. ‘Is it the boy?’

  ‘We’re not in a position to release any details, I’m afraid,’ said McKenzie. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just to let you know we’ll be here.’

  ‘Yes – yes, of course.’

  I could hear shuffling footsteps but they were all still in the hall; Karen hadn’t invited them any further inside.

  ‘Have you seen anyone hanging around in the area since we last spoke to you? Anything suspicious? Cars around at unusual hours?’

  There was a stunted silence. ‘Er, no – I don’t think so.’

  ‘We need to speak to the other holiday makers who’re staying with you. Are they here?’

  Yes – I’m down here! I grabbed Stuart’s arm instinctively. It felt brittle and stiff, but I didn’t want to let go.