The name didn’t match any missing person’s report. Accidental death, not being a crime, didn’t come under police budgets for investigation, and the DI reassigned Harper the moment the coroner’s verdict was reached. The dead woman might never have been identified if the frustration of being pulled from the case hadn’t still been on Harper’s mind the next week, when she’d bumped into Amy at a crime scene.
“They won’t let me investigate, because of budgets. Ridiculous. The body will just stay in the morgue indefinitely.”
“Can I see the necklace?”
Harper didn’t see why not.
She’d almost forgotten about it by the time the journalist came swinging into the office in her heels, handing over the address of the dead woman’s parents with a flourish.
“How did you get this?”
“Persistence,” said Amy, shrugging. Then she told Harper how every day, for twenty minutes, she’d sat down with a list of jewellers and called them, one after another until she found the one who had engraved the necklace. It had taken four months. “You owe me a drink,” she’d said, smiling in a way that made Harper wonder about what she meant by “drink”. A drink between friends? Colleagues? Or something else? There’d been a pause, a moment, when the two women had locked eyes and something had passed between them. Harper had felt it, a low, melting sensation in her belly. She could have reached across, touched the other woman’s hand, said, Sure, let’s meet up later, and that would have been that, one way or the other. But something stopped Harper from following her usual script.
Every time they’d met since, Harper had thought about making the date. But she hadn’t done it, and it hung between them, an unspoken thing that Harper thought about more often than she felt she ought to. She thought about it now. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. She only knew that she liked Amy. Probably too much. It felt dangerous, that feeling, something she couldn’t control, that got bigger even as she tried to banish it, to tell herself that these were the feelings that hurt you eventually, that destroyed lives, that needed to be ignored. She’d followed her heart once, when she was too young to know how completely a heart could be shattered. She wasn’t going to do it again. Besides, they had something good going, professionally, and it would be a shame to spoil it.
Amy glanced towards the uniforms loading the van, and Harper could tell she was already checking them out, trying to discern who might be likely to fall for those charms and spill the beans.
Then Amy looked back at Harper and frowned. She stepped up closer, close enough that Harper could smell her perfume. Her eyes sharpened as she examined Harper’s face. “What is it?”
“What’s what?” said Harper.
“There’s something the matter. Tell me.”
“I’ve just had a bit of a shitty day, I suppose.”
“Oh? You mean, apart from this?” She gestured over her shoulder at the two council workers hosing the road.
Harper nodded. She pondered how much she ought to tell Amy about the Lauren Tranter case; she didn’t want her thinking it was a story she could report in the newspaper. “Can we speak as friends?” said Harper.
Amy said, “Of course.”
“First thing this morning, there was this attempted abduction at the maternity ward. Identical twins.”
Amy scrabbled in her bag for the recording device. “Now, this is news. Tell me everything.”
Harper grabbed hold of Amy’s arm. “No. I can’t. I mean, it was a false alarm. There’s nothing to report.”
“So why are you telling me about it?”
She had a point. “I don’t know.”
Amy looked down at where Harper held her by the wrist. She gave a half smile, raised her eyebrows. Harper let go, her cheeks flushing. Amy’s skin was warm and soft, and Harper’s grip had left a small pink mark that she wanted to stroke. Maybe even to kiss it better. Harper said, “I’m sorry,” and searched Amy’s face, wondering what was happening, if anything was happening. But the moment, seemingly, had passed.
“Come on, Joanna. You’re usually so pragmatic about the job. Just now, you went right up to that poor dead guy and closed his eyes. With your bare hands. I couldn’t have done that.”
“I guess we all have our soft spots. Suicides, I can just about handle. But anything to do with babies being abducted, well. It gets to me.”
They held each other’s gaze for a moment, and Harper thought, this is it. She’s going to ask me the question, right now. And I’ll spill it, every bit. She’ll say, why does it get to you, Joanna? You don’t have any children, do you? And I’ll say, I did once, but I lost her. I was too young to know what it would mean, or that I even had a choice. I let them take her, and it was like part of me had been taken: a limb, or half of my heart. After that I stopped thinking about it, because I had to, in order to survive. But sometimes I forget to not think about it, and it’s like it happened yesterday. It’s like I have to get her back, and the feeling won’t go away until I do. Even though it’s twenty-six years too late to change anything.
Behind them the van doors slammed shut. Only a couple of officers remained, and they were heading towards their vehicles, speaking into radios, off to the next thing.
Amy said, “Look, I just need to have a quick chat with one of these guys before they disappear. How about we meet up for a coffee? Tomorrow? Next week? I’ll be in touch.”
“Great,” said Harper, watching as Amy scooted across the road after one of Harper’s colleagues, already clutching the recorder. “Text me?” said Harper, but Amy was too far away to hear.
CHAPTER TEN
Those who are carried away are happy, according to some accounts, having plenty of good living and music and mirth. Others say, however, that they are continually longing for their earthly friends. Lady Wilde gives a gloomy tradition that there are two kinds of fairies—one kind merry and gentle, the other evil, and sacrificing every year a life to Satan, for which purpose they steal mortals.
W. B Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland
JULY 19TH
SIX DAYS OLD
MID-MORNING
The house was one of a thousand two-up-two-down stone terraces lined up on one of the city’s eight hills, built a hundred years ago for the families of the steelworkers and the miners. Now it was all students, couples and young professionals, those with a modest budget looking to buy in a nice bit, not in the centre but not too far out.
When they moved in together, Patrick and Lauren had been lucky to bag a house in the area that didn’t face another row of houses; opposite the front window was a cluster of trees and bushes, beyond which the land fell steeply away before levelling out to a small playing field, then dipping down again to a basketball enclosure. Upstairs, the main bedroom had far-reaching views of the other side of the valley, where the derelict ski village dominated the landscape. A pity, but the beauty and variety of the sky made up for it.
From her position on the low couch under the windowsill in the front room, the sky was all Lauren could see, a wild blue, fading dusty at the edges, swept with wisps of white cloud and etched with vapour trails.
The tide of visitors had ebbed away with the passing of time—a flood on the first day to a trickle yesterday, and this morning, no one. It was quiet in the house. The babies dozed lightly, side by side in their shared Moses basket placed in the middle of the carpet. Flawless, beautiful creatures; the way their lips pursed and smacked as they slept thrilled her, so that she was glowing with pride and adoration. She felt sorry for all those other mothers she’d seen in the hospital whose babies were so average and unremarkable. They were probably jealous. It made sense, when you saw Morgan and Riley, how perfect they were, how desirable.
Exhaustion flooded her then. She allowed her mind to drift, her eyes to drop shut. Though she could have slipped easily into sleep, Lauren forced her stinging eyelids apart. There was danger in falling asleep, especially when the babies were quiet: a silent thief could seize the opportun
ity to sneak in, lift the basket and be away, with nothing to alert her as she slumbered, peacefully unaware. Then, when the boys opened their eyes it would be to a stranger, and when she opened her own it would be to a blank space where her heart once was. She heaved herself from the couch and up the step to the kitchen, over to the back door to check again that it was locked. For good measure, she took the key out of the lock and placed it in a cupboard. Then, she went back into the front room and checked the bolts on the front door before sitting down again. Her thoughts roamed the windows of the house. None were open downstairs. What about upstairs—was the bathroom window ajar? Could a person, should they go to the trouble of using a ladder, even fit through it? Lauren attempted to have a word with herself. You’re safe now, she told herself. You can sleep. Patrick’s upstairs, anyway. Just a few minutes’ nap. No one can get in. She lay down on the carpet and draped an arm over the Moses basket. Her wrist throbbed where the wounds she’d got in hospital still hadn’t healed, but her body settled. The throbbing receded. Her eyes closed.
Footsteps approached along the pavement outside, and Lauren sighed, knowing she’d soon be making small talk with a neighbour, or accepting gifts from one of Patrick’s office buddies’ wives. She didn’t want to be ungrateful but she really did not feel like being sociable; maybe she’d just ignore the door this time. She stayed very still, listening to the twins breathing, not quite at the same time, in-in, out-out. The footsteps slowed and stopped, and Lauren heard the crinkling of paper. Then, whoever it was must have turned and hurried away; she heard hasty percussive heels on concrete and by the time she unbolted and opened the door there was no one to be seen. Only a gift-wrapped parcel on the step, which she picked up and brought inside.
Patrick appeared and began fussing in the kitchen, looking for something among the mounds of detritus.
“Have you seen my phone charger?” he said, finding it a second later under a pizza box.
“Weird thing just happened,” said Lauren. “Someone left a parcel but didn’t knock. I heard them running away.” She held up the package, with its blue dinosaur-patterned paper.
“Let’s see,” said Patrick, taking it and turning it over, finding a card taped to the underside. While Patrick opened the card, Lauren opened the present.
“Well,” she said, examining the gift, “that’s, um, different.”
In her hands, there was a model that appeared at first glance to be of the kind her grandmother favoured: a supposed-to-be-quirky scene in which a family of animals dressed up like people were all sitting around a little table having tea. Taking a closer look, she recoiled, held it away from her; the surface of it was tacky with something, and gave off a faint, upsetting smell she thought might have been urine. The modelled animals were rodents, with long sinister faces: rats. The mother-rat wore a pinny with a scalloped edge while the father wore a business suit and smoked a pipe. The mother was caught in the act of serving the father a slice of cake as the child-rats looked on. Matching child-rats. Twin boys. All of them were grinning with sideways eyes, as if they were planning something nasty and were very much looking forward to it. The thing was cast in resin, and the sticker on the bottom had been signed by the artist who’d hand-painted it. A limited edition of one hundred. Not limited enough, thought Lauren.
Patrick was on a chair, reaching up to add the card to the others, arranged like bunting, strung on lengths of fishing line across the far wall.
“Let me see the card,” she said, and he sighed with annoyance as he got it down again. The card also had a rat motif, but this was a photograph of the inside of a nest of baby rats. They were wrinkled and downy, just opening their eyes, cupping their tiny noses with pink paws. Inside, no message, just a name.
“Who’s Natasha?” said Lauren.
Patrick frowned, as he thought about it. “Oh,” he said, “she’s a new girl at work. Only been there a few weeks. I suppose she must think we like mice.”
“Rats,” said Lauren. “I think they’re meant to be rats, Patrick. I think she’s a big fan of rats, looking at this.” Lauren laughed nervously, but Patrick didn’t seem to find it very funny. “I wonder why she didn’t knock, though?”
“She’s shy, I guess. And sort of weird, actually.”
“I can see that.”
Just then, someone knocked on the door. Lauren put the model on the countertop and went to answer it, expecting to see the shy weird girl from Patrick’s office, but finding instead Cindy and Rosa, two of the other mums from their antenatal class. Both Cindy and Rosa were still pregnant—hugely so. Their due dates were imminent. She invited them in for a cup of tea, and to her slight dismay, they accepted. Patrick swept away a pile of papers and washing from the couch so that they could sit. He then made tea for them all and said he was going for a lie down, “to let you ladies catch up”.
“Before you do,” said Cindy, “could you look outside and see if I’ve left the presents somewhere? I was holding a gift bag when I got out of the car but I must have put it down.”
Patrick opened the front door. On the step, to the side, was a green foil gift bag.
“That’s the one,” said Cindy. “I’m so forgetful these days. It’s only a small thing, something for each of them. And a little thing for you, too.” Patrick handed the bag to Lauren, then disappeared upstairs, firmly closing the bedroom door. Inside the bag were two wrapped gifts, and tucked in next to them, what looked like an old book, the pages edged in gold.
“You didn’t have to bring a present,” said Lauren. “Thanks so much.”
She put her hand in the bag but Cindy said, “Don’t open them now. It’s really only a couple of small things. Embarrassing, really.”
“Don’t be silly, it’s so kind of you to give anything at all. I’ll open them later, when Patrick comes down.”
There was much cooing over the sleeping babies, and Lauren let them tell her how very beautiful the boys were. She’d never tire of hearing it. Then, they asked about the birth.
“The birth?” she said, glancing at the straining fabric of Cindy and Rosa’s maternity tops, knowing she would have to lie, worried she might be no good at it. “It wasn’t too bad, really.”
“What’s it like, having forceps?” asked Rosa, balancing her tea on her bump.
Lauren pressed her lips together as she considered her answer. “You can’t feel it. They give you a spinal for the procedure, so it’s all blocked out.”
At the mention of the word “procedure” the two pregnant women appeared to lose their nerve. Cindy rushed in with, “I wonder how long these high temperatures will keep on,” and Rosa was also happy to let the subject veer towards safer ground. They talked instead of the terrible heat, of feeding bras, the best models of steriliser, nappies (Rosa was thinking about investing in cloth) and baby baths. When the tea was drunk, the two women gathered their stuff. Cindy and Rosa gave Lauren big hugs on the doorstep.
“Thanks again for the gifts,” said Lauren, “I can’t wait for Morgan and Riley to meet your babies. Not too much longer now, girls.”
“Hopefully,” said Cindy, massaging her lower back, “I can’t bear much more of this, to be honest.”
Lauren thought she would quite like to be back where they were, happily gestating their babies. There was nowhere safer. All the danger lay out here, in the world. Make the most of it, she wanted to say, but she knew from experience that this was an extremely irritating thing to say to a pregnant woman. She knew, too, they just wanted to hold those babies in their arms, and nothing else would do. “Keep me up to date, and good luck. See you on the other side.”
Rosa grinned and waved from the bottom of the steps, one hand on her protruding frontage.
Cindy gave Lauren a long look. “You do look shattered,” she said. “Go and have a nap now, while they’re still asleep.”
“Good idea,” said Rosa. “While you have the chance.”
“I will,” said Lauren. As long as it’s safe, she thought.
&n
bsp; After she shut the door she picked up Cindy’s gift bag, intrigued by the antique book inside. The title on the front had been worn down, its gold colouring faded but still legible. Twin Tales: Collected Twin and Infant Folklore from Around the World. She flipped it open and scanned the contents page, and as she did, cold fear bloomed in the pit of her stomach. There in black and white, in old-fashioned serif script, someone had listed her every nightmare:
1. Lost Children
2. Orphans
3. Suspicious Deaths
4. Careless Parents
5. Twins and Curses
Lauren slammed the book shut and shoved it into the centre of a pile of presents and wrapping paper, puzzled and shocked at how Cindy could possibly think that this book was a good present for her. She tore open the other two gifts in the bag, not knowing what else they might have been given, relieved to find two very nice baby toys, a fish and an octopus that vibrated when you pulled a string.
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