Little Darlings

by Melanie Golding

  Lauren mused that it seemed to be a day for receiving weird presents. When she wandered back into the kitchen, the rat family wasn’t where she’d left it. Later, opening the trash bin to drop in a teabag, there was the underside of the model with its distinctive hand-signed label. Patrick must have put it in there before he went upstairs. Shrugging, she plopped the teabag on top of it. She let the lid fall shut.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Harper checked her phone, again: nothing. She shoved it back in her desk drawer. It’d been four days now, since Amy had said she’d be in touch. Harper had agonised over being the one to text first, but she’d stopped herself. She knew eagerness was off-putting, and anyway, it still wasn’t entirely clear what kind of thing it was with Amy. She was so hard to read. Sometimes she thought the flirting was obviously a come-on, but then Amy did that with everyone. It was probably a friendly thing, and therefore nothing really, nothing that she had to act upon, or deal with. Still, each time she saw the blank screen on her smartphone or rushed to read a notification that turned out to be from work, or spam, she considered it anew. Would it be so bad if I were to send a message? Would I really come across as desperate, or just friendly? Over friendly, maybe, which would be a disaster. And, if she pitched it wrongly, the embarrassment potential was huge. Last thing at night she couldn’t stop her mind composing the perfect not-too-bothered message, a don’t-worry-if-you’re-busy-but. She’d even typed it into her phone once or twice before deleting it.

  Thrupp knocked and entered. He placed a plastic envelope on the desk in front of Harper, and she immediately knew what it was. Feeling the waves of irritation coming from him, she glanced up but didn’t meet his eye. Things she sent down to the lab were usually sent straight back to her, the investigating officer—never to the senior officer who authorised it, the signature being nothing more than a box to be ticked, an administrative matter. This one, however, had somehow ended up in Thrupp’s hand with a red stamp across it spelling out the word RETURN.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  Harper smiled at Thrupp, her face a picture of nonchalance. She lifted the bagged item, turned it over. “This? I think it’s the DVD of the CCTV footage, from the hospital case last week. Did I miss out some details from the description?”

  “I read the information on the form, Jo. The problem is, I don’t remember signing it.”

  Harper sat back in her chair, all innocence. “I’m sorry, sir. It was in with a stack of other things I asked you to sign off a few days ago. At least, I think it was—I was sure your signature was on it before I sent it. Did I accidentally send it without proper authorisation?”

  “I’m not saying my signature isn’t on there. I’m saying I don’t remember signing it. I’m also saying, that if you had asked me to sign this off for analysis, and I had read it properly at the time, I would have said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ ”

  Well, she thought, I knew that. That’s why I faked it. Harper arranged her features into an expression of concern. “Have you had memory problems in the past, sir?”

  “I don’t have a memory problem, Jo.”

  “But you did sign it, sir. Your signature is right there.”

  He stared hard at her for a few seconds. Then he picked up the envelope and held it close to his face, examining the signature. He frowned. “I suppose I could have been in a hurry, and not really paying attention.”

  “We all have our off days, sir. Actually, I believe it was sent on the same day we were called out to Kelham Island for the suspected bombing, so that would be understandable. What’s the date on it?”

  He peered at the form once more. “Ah, yes. Busy day, lots going on.”

  Thrupp narrowed his eyes and breathed through flared nostrils. He threw the envelope back on the desk. “Anyway, I’ve de-authorised it. They sent it back up because the disk hadn’t burned properly and they wanted another copy. I came to tell you not to bother. We don’t have budget for this. It’s not on the live case list. What were you thinking?”

  “I thought it might be significant. The victim said there’d been an intruder in the hospital. I was just being thorough.”

  Thrupp would not want to hear the real reasons: that she felt the case nagging at her; that she knew she wouldn’t rest properly until she knew the truth; that she had a feeling there was so much more to this, if she could only get beneath the surface of it.

  “I looked up the case, Jo. It’s closed. It wasn’t even opened. A 999 call, filed as picked up by Mental Health Services. Why are you wasting everyone’s time with it?”

  “When I met her, the victim was convinced it was real. I just wanted to tick all the boxes.”

  “That’s noble of you, but you’ve got enough to do without investigating crimes that everyone agrees didn’t even happen. On top of all that, analysing CCTV costs money we simply don’t have.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You’re very close to the line with this. If I spot anything else like it I won’t let it go. It’ll have to be a disciplinary.”

  “Sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

  “Look, Jo, you’re a diligent officer. But you have to operate as part of the team—you can’t do whatever you want all the time. This might seem like a small thing but it affects the rest of us. Just wait until you make inspector. You’ll be running around all day after your sergeants, trying to justify your use of resources, too. It’s a serious business, the allocation of funds. We’re talking about taxpayer’s money here.”

  Harper nodded sagely, but thought, and that is why I won’t be making inspector any time soon. Running around after other officers, thinking about funding—she felt she had quite enough tedious administrative tasks in her current role, thank you very much. The further up the ladder you climbed, the less actual hands-on policing you did. It was all stress, long hours, and shift work, which the extra money couldn’t quite make up for. The previous year, Harper had aced the inspector’s exam but since then, whenever a job came up she usually found some excuse not to go for it; too far away, not the department she’d hoped for. The truth was, she wasn’t ready. She liked the practical side of things, and she didn’t want to work any more hours if she could help it, mainly because if she did, her training would suffer.

  Before he left the office, Thrupp gave her a list of all the performance reviews she needed to complete before the end of the month.

  “Before you start on that, though, there are some checks I want you to make on the following case reports before they can be filed.”

  Duly chastened, she played humble, making a note of all the most urgent case numbers and clicking open the first file in readiness as he watched. The moment the door shut, she sat back in her chair and ran her fingers through her hair, letting it down and twisting it back up again. She binned the Forensics envelope containing the faulty DVD, took the original from the desk drawer and inserted it into the computer. Seeing those shadows on the floor of the maternity ward again was no less unsettling, especially as she was no closer to finding out if they were indeed shadows, or nothing but a fault in the recording. She copied the footage onto a USB flash drive, thinking she could at least check it again at home. Maybe something would occur to her. Harper put the flash drive in her satchel, turned back to the screen and began inputting data to the first of Thrupp’s long list of supposedly urgent report forms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  How to Protect Your Child

  1. Placing a key next to an infant will prevent him from being exchanged.

  2. Women may never be left alone during the first six weeks following childbirth, for the devil then has more power over them.

  3. During the first six weeks following childbirth, mothers may not go to sleep until someone has come to watch the child. If mothers are overcome by sleep, changelings are often laid in the cradle.

  Jacob Grimm

  JULY 20TH

  SEVEN DAYS OLD

  EARLY EVENING


  The sun was just starting to dip, taking the edge off the heat. Lauren sat on the couch, feeding both boys at the same time, one baby tucked under each arm, two perfect heads resting lightly in her hands as they suckled. She’d not located the big feeding pillow in time, so Riley was propped on top of the solid block of an unopened pack of nappies while Morgan made do with a too-small cushion, which meant she was wonky, uncomfortable. If she could just somehow push another cushion under her left arm. But she couldn’t, not without dislodging one or both of them. There was no part of the couch not covered in muslin cloths, packets of wipes, baby clothes, toys, Lauren and babies. She was settled in. Stuck. Patrick was hiding upstairs somewhere. She couldn’t reach the TV remote and she wanted a cup of tea. And she needed the loo, but that, all of that, would have to wait.

  “Pat-rick,” she hollered, making both babies open their eyes wide in surprise though they stayed latched on. “Hello you,” she said to Morgan, and then to Riley, as two pairs of eyes drifted shut at the speed of soft-closing fire doors. From somewhere above her head, there was a groan.

  Seconds collected themselves reluctantly into minutes, while the babies fed on and Lauren tried to think the word “contented” and not the word “bored”. As time drained from the day, the shadows shifted so that the sun glared aggressively into Lauren’s eyes where she was trapped under the suckling infants.

  “Pat-rick,” she shouted again, making the sound grow slowly so as not to shock the babies. This time there was a shuffling, a muttering, and finally two feet thudded down the stairs. Her husband appeared in the doorway, hair sticking up, shirt held together with one button matched to a wrong buttonhole, exposing the upper part of his chest, smooth skin interrupted by a small central island of honey-coloured hair.

  Lauren said, “Can you shut the curtains, please?”

  Patrick huffed barefoot across the room and did as she asked.

  “Was that all?”

  He stood, legs apart, hands on hips, looking down at her. Shards of sun cut through the gaps in the curtains, but Lauren’s eyes were in blissful shade at last. Patrick was back-lit in beams of light, a halo of golden curls, a bad-tempered nativity angel.

  “Would you put the kettle on, please?” she said, keeping a careful neutral tone, “I can’t get up.”

  Patrick went back across the room and up the step into the kitchen. She heard the tap running as he filled the kettle.

  “I was asleep, you know,” he called, through the doorless arch between the rooms.

  “Sorry.”

  Baby Riley unlatched himself and started crying, an engine that took a while to catch and then roared with impressive power. She had to raise her voice to make herself heard. “Can you just take him for me a minute, please?”

  Patrick came back through, stepped down into the room and took the baby with a gentleness that made her ache with love for them both. He held him over a shoulder and jiggled up and down, pacing back and forth the length of the kitchen, one eye shut against the raging shrieks at the side of his head until the kettle joined in with the screaming and he flipped the whistle back and the gas off while he kept on bouncing on his heels because it seemed to be working; there were breathy silences between the wails, each longer than the last. By the time the tea was made, all was peace. Riley tongued and gummed his own fist, hiccupping while Patrick draped a muslin cloth between the boy and his own neck, to soak up the drool.

  “Hey, Morgie-moo,” he said. “Better now, mister?”

  “Patrick.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Riley. Green for Riley, yellow for Morgan.”

  “Oh,” he laughed, “yeah, I knew that. Sorry, baby boy. You do look kinda similar to your brother, though. And ever since Mummy took your name tags off, I keep getting confused.”

  “Can’t you tell the difference?”

  “Well, of course, mostly. The colours help, when I don’t get them mixed up, ha ha. But, I mean, come on—they are identical.”

  “Not to me.”

  He laughed again, as if she’d made a joke, then he passed her a mug of tea, one-handed, and went back to get his own. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh?” said Lauren.

  “I think we need to buy a bigger bed.”

  “Oh,” she said. “OK. But the room isn’t really big enough for anything larger, Patrick; didn’t we talk about this before?”

  “Let’s do it, babe.”

  Still balancing the baby on one shoulder, he put his tea down on the windowsill then pushed enough items onto the floor from the couch that he could squeeze in next to Lauren. “I don’t care if we have to get rid of the wardrobe. Anything that might make it easier to sleep. I had a terrible night last night.”

  “Me too,” she said. “They seem to be getting up at different times, don’t they? One after the other, like a relay. I feel like I just get my head on the pillow and they’re hungry again.”

  “Huh,” said Patrick, “you did get some sleep, though. You were kicking me. You nearly pushed me out at one point.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember.”

  “Well, you were asleep. Snoring away. Then the babies started crying, of course, and I had to get up and fetch them for you. I’m really struggling today. I think I probably got about three hours, in total.”

  He gave a pained groan as he leaned back into the cushions.

  “Oh, well,” said Lauren. “Sorry about that, I guess.”

  “If I had a bit more room in the bed it might improve things. If we both did, I mean. Space for you to stretch out—you still do that starfish thing.”

  “I do?”

  She always woke up in a foetal position, clutching a pillow. But no one really knows what they do when they’re asleep, do they? Perhaps it was as bad as he said. “I suppose, if you need to, why don’t you sleep in the spare room tonight?”

  “Are you sure?” he answered immediately. “That’s a great idea. I think I will. Thank you.”

  He kissed her on the side of the head and reached over the top of her for his mug.

  “So I guess I’ll just call you, shall I? If I need help, changing the babies and so on.”

  Patrick became very still. His jaw clenched.

  “What?” said Lauren.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just kind of hoping for a night, just one, where I don’t have to wake up at all.”

  “But Patrick—”

  “I know, it’s selfish of me.”

  “Well, sort of—”

  “I just thought, and I know it sounds awful, but perhaps it’s time for you to start learning how to handle the boys on your own. Like, a practice run—for when I really won’t be around to help you.”

  “A what? What are you saying?”

  Patrick put his tea down again and slid from the couch onto his knees in front of her. He gazed up at her through his long lashes. Riley, a frond of cuteness in his leaf-green vest, feet she could eat, wriggled and yawed and did a tiny burp. She reached out and rubbed the baby’s back where he lay snuggled against his father. In her other arm, Morgan kept suckling, eyes shut, milky-dreamy.

  “I’m just telling you how I feel. I’ve never been able to function without my sleep. You knew that about me, you’ve always known it.”

  And me, she thought, you knew the same thing about me. It’s one of our things. We always laughed about it, how well matched we are, that we would both prefer to go home and sleep than stay out all night partying.

  “Why should you get to sleep if I don’t?” she said, her chin crumpling.

  “Sweetie,” said Patrick. “I know it’s hard, I do. Haven’t I been going through it with you? But it makes sense, if you think about it. There’s no need for both of us to lose sleep, just for the sake of it. And, I’d be much more helpful in the day if I was functioning properly, wouldn’t I?”

  “But I need help in the night, Patrick. That’s when it’s worst.”

  “Yes, but. I know I shouldn’t bring it up, but I’ve been str
essing about work too. I mean, look at the state of me. Can you imagine if I turned up looking like this? I can barely keep my eyes open.”

  She shook her head. What was he talking about?

  “But you’re not going back to work for another week. You’ve got another five whole days of paternity leave. Plus the weekend. You can’t expect me to do it all.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, darling. Don’t cry.” He shifted back onto the couch and put his arm around her. She pointed to the box of tissues and he handed it over so that she could wipe her eyes. For a few seconds he didn’t speak. She thought he’d finished.

  Then he said, “But you will be doing it all, won’t you, soon?” He softened his voice, as if that alone would soften his words. “You need to get used to it, don’t you, because let’s face it, I won’t be here after that. I’ll be at work. And as much as I would love to be at home, with my sons, not actually working, one of us has to make that sacrifice.”

  It was the impact of what he said, the gut-punch of implications and assumptions. The desolate lonely feeling it triggered in her, as if she’d thought for all this time that she’d been married to someone else entirely, and only now—much too late—she could see his true nature. Not actually working, he’d said, as if looking after the boys wasn’t work. He didn’t care about her. He only cared about himself. Her heart sank, a dinghy with a bullet hole, and the boys felt it. Perhaps they were as connected to Lauren as they thought they were, like it said in that book she’d read about newborn brain development. They were her, from their perspective, and maybe that meant they felt what she felt, for Morgan’s mouth gaped open and he fell off the breast. Riley’s back arched, his whole body tensed. They both started to scream, and Lauren and Patrick took up one twin each, jiggling them up and down, walking in circles that never met.

  * * *

  When the babies fell asleep, the parents followed each other upstairs and laid them top to toe in the Moses basket that stood next to the bed. The bed that, until this moment, Lauren and Patrick had always shared.