Lauren moved to take the stroller from Harper, to push it towards the cafe, where the small crowd was waiting to be allowed to cheer, to send up thanks for the safe return of the twins. As she walked, she gazed down at her babies, grateful and elated but not quite able to shake off the fear, telling herself, they’re safe, they’re here, it’s over.
Then, she stopped dead. Patrick and Harper kept on towards the cafe, but after a second they stopped too and turned back.
“What are you doing?” said Patrick.
She stood in the drenching downpour and looked at the two babies, so nearly lost forever to unknowable horrors. The two best things in her life, whom she lived for, and loved more than any others. Who were watching her from under the bright hoods of the car seats. The one dressed as Morgan was looking at her, and smiling strangely. She knew the clothes, a yellow stripy all-in-one that she had picked out herself from the nice little shop on Division Street. The whorl of hair at the front of his head. The curve of his nose and the shape of his earlobes. Riley gazed at her in the same strangely intense way as his brother, clasping his hands together in an identical position. For the first time, she questioned if she’d know which one was which without the green and yellow colour coding that was only for Patrick’s sake anyway. Had they been changed around, dressed in each other’s colours? Both had the same blue-grey eyes they’d had before they were taken. But Morgan didn’t look like Morgan, not exactly. Riley didn’t either, something about the way his lip curled.
And then she knew, with a terrible certainty. It wasn’t Morgan and Riley, not anymore. Something else was looking at her, out of the eyes of her babies. That creepy, evil woman—she’d done it, somehow, exactly as she’d threatened she would. She’d taken the boys and put her own in their place.
I can make sure they look just the same.
She stared at the babies, and as she did, a smell of rotting river-weed filled her nostrils. The twins had been changed. She knew it in her soul. It was just like in the story, the horrible story in the Twin Tales book.
If they are changed, what am I to do?
You must throw them into the river.
These creatures had come from the river. That must be where the woman had hidden Morgan and Riley. There could be no hesitation. She turned the stroller towards the rising water and started to run.
CHAPTER TWENTY
By the time they’d loaded Lauren into the ambulance and shut the doors, the rain had stopped completely and the hot sun was back. White light reflected off the wet pavement and the surface of the river into Harper’s eyes, making her squint.
Patrick stood on the steaming asphalt with one hand on the handle of the stroller, watching as the emergency vehicle drove across the bridge and turned onto the Bishop Valley Road, heading away from the city. In the stroller, Riley and Morgan were awake, alert but silent, taking everything in. Their matching postures, hands clasped together in front of them, serious faces, made them look like tiny vicars. Patrick gave them each a squeeze, saying don’t worry lads, but they were serene, as still as dolls. Perhaps they’re in shock, thought Harper.
Beyond where Patrick stood, the crowd of onlookers were all still there, not even pretending not to stare at the man, waiting to see what he would do next. Patrick turned and scanned their faces, locking eyes with a flat-headed grunt who was probably a head taller than he was and twice as heavy. Harper stepped forward, sensing the bristling of male anger, turning to violence.
She kept her voice low. “Now, Mr Tranter …”
He shouted past her as if she hadn’t spoken, “Why don’t you all just go the fuck home, hey? The show’s over.”
The flathead in the crowd looked backwards over his own shoulder, incredulous, and finding no one behind him turned back to Patrick and narrowed his eyes. “You talking to me?”
Patrick balled up two fists by his sides.
The man kept staring right at him. “You looking at me?”
One hand poised at his radio, Atkinson said, “Please, Mr Tranter …” and placed a hand on Patrick’s shoulder that he shook off, forcefully.
Taking a step towards the crowd, Patrick said, “What are you all staring at, anyway, you losers? This is my life. These are my children …” and he might have said that was my wife but suddenly he bent over and sobbed into his knees, curling pitifully into a ball on the ground next to the stroller.
Harper spoke to the crowd. “If you could go about your day, please, ladies and gentlemen, I think we need to give this man a bit of privacy. Thank you, thank you,” and the onlookers began to grumble and disperse. Some of them had the grace to look shamefaced as they shuffled off. Evidently the sight of a grown man crying on the pavement was not as enthralling as the earlier sight of a woman ripping clumps of her own hair out and screaming where are my babies, over and over when they were there, right there in front of her. “They’re here, my love,” Patrick had said, and when Lauren had met her husband’s eye she’d been unrecognisable, her face an animal snarl, the whites of her eyes turned pink with bloodshot as she tried to get away from him with the stroller and roll the twins into the river, her own children. There was blood on Patrick’s face from where she’d scratched him in the struggle, but between he and Harper, they had somehow managed to hold on to the stroller, stop it from tipping, prevent Lauren from doing whatever she was trying to do. Thwarted, Lauren went for Harper’s face but Patrick got his arms around her, pulled her backwards away from the babies, towards the river.
“Just hold her,” she’d said to Patrick, and he’d tried. Lauren stomped viciously on his toe and he let go, then she flailed, shrieked, threw herself forward and fell badly on the concrete, everything slippery on the riverbank under the rainstorm, before being restrained by a team of police, a horrific mud-wrestle, the tragedy made lurid as the sun came out and threw rainbows onto the rippled, swollen surface of the Bishop.
Harper wrote an address on a page in her notebook and tore it out.
“Patrick?” He was still curled on the wet ground, hugging his knees. “You OK?”
For a while he just stared at her shoes. He took a breath. “Yeah. No.” Then he stood up, brushing grit from his damp behind, and took the note from her hand. “What’s this?”
“It’s the address of the psychiatric unit where they’ve taken your wife.”
He held it out in front of him, but he didn’t read it. “Has she been arrested?”
Patrick’s hair was stuck down by the rain—he rubbed at it now and shook his head like a dog, spraying droplets over Harper, whose sodden outfit was dry on the shoulders but still soaked everywhere else. The sun was strong; she felt it burning her face. Water evaporated in tendrils from her sleeves.
“No,” she said, “not at all. She’s been detained under the Mental Health Act. She’s not a criminal. She’s unwell. It’s a hospital.”
“But a secure unit?”
“For her own protection.”
“Oh.” Patrick looked down at the baby in the top car seat. Yellow vest. Morgan. The baby looked back at his father, unblinking. “So, what about the babies?”
“They’ll need to be checked by a doctor as soon as possible. I’ll escort you.”
A sweet, familiar fragrance drifted by. Amy, in an orange linen tunic, appeared at Harper’s elbow and smiled demurely at Patrick.
“Excuse me, Mr Tranter?”
“Just leave it a few minutes, Amy,” said Harper, “Mr Tranter is busy and doesn’t want to talk to journalists at the moment.”
“I’m sure Mr Tranter can make up his own mind, Sergeant.” Amy flashed her smile at Patrick again, but he just frowned slightly. “I’m from the Mail, Mr Tranter. I wonder if you’d like to have a chat? Maybe get a coffee? You must be parched, after everything that’s happened. Don’t you need a sit down?”
“Oh,” said Patrick, his eyes flicking to Amy’s cleavage and back to her face, before he blinked and gathered himself. “No, sorry. I need to sort my kids out.”
&nb
sp; “I could just buy you a take-out? No pressure.”
Patrick, unbelievably, hesitated, appearing to consider the offer.
Harper stepped between the man and the journalist, and lowered her voice to speak to Patrick. “We need to get the babies checked by a doctor as soon as possible. We need to make sure they are unharmed, and also it’s going to help our investigation. Depending on what the doctor finds, we may need to collect physical evidence.”
Patrick looked sickened at the idea of physical evidence. Good, thought Harper, keep your mind on what’s important.
“So Patrick, coffee?” said Amy.
“I’m sorry,” said Patrick, “I can’t, not now.”
Amy dropped a hip, stuck out her full, lipsticked lower lip and handed Patrick a business card. Big, faux-sad eyes, followed by a little smile. “If you ever want to tell your story, Patrick. I’ll be waiting.”
The two women exchanged a not entirely friendly glance before Amy turned on her heels and walked towards the cafe. The journalist leaned towards a loitering nosy bastard near the door, taking him by the arm. Harper heard her say, “Excuse me, can I have a word? I’m from the Mail,” before they disappeared inside.
The uppermost baby was looking at Harper. The other one, in green, made a noise like a sea-bird. The baby’s voice must have jolted Patrick into remembering, so that he blurted, “They’ll be hungry soon, what shall I do? They’re exclusively breastfed.”
“We can stop on the way to the hospital for some formula,” said Harper. “They’ll be fine with that until you can get them over to the unit and back to their mother.”
“We’re taking them to the psychiatric unit? Is that allowed?” Patrick’s face betrayed his horror at this idea.
Harper smiled reassuringly. “Yes, it’s encouraged. In fact it’s mandatory—the place she’s gone to is especially for mothers and babies.”
He seemed doubtful. “Right.”
“They’re really lovely over at Hope—your wife is in safe hands.”
His eyes were on the babies. She knew he was thinking: but what about the babies? Would they be safe in their mother’s hands? She’d been about to push them into the river, after all.
The Bishop was a good deal higher than it had been before the storm—the water must have been running off the hills further upstream, collecting in the bottom of the valley. It had swelled and flooded over the grass, almost to the edge of the pavement they stood on. Patrick locked eyes with Harper.
“Do you think she’ll be OK?” he asked.
“Of course. She just needs some rest. She’s a strong person, I can tell.”
“You’re right, she is strong. Or, she used to be. Before the birth.”
Harper patted him on the shoulder, twice, and bent to inspect the babies. “They’re very calm, aren’t they?”
“Are they?” said Patrick. He glanced down at them distractedly. “I suppose.”
As Patrick swivelled the stroller to push it towards the car, both babies kept their eyes on Harper until the last possible moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They strapped her down. Like a madwoman. They injected her with something, and now she was floppy, her head swimming. They loaded her into the ambulance, and she was relieved that she couldn’t see the green of the stroller anymore, her husband’s distraught face or the terrible vision of whatever was behind the eyes of either of those babies, where her sweet little boys should have been, and were not.
Bang bang went the doors and she thought they would drive off immediately but someone was talking to her. The words were indistinct. Maybe they weren’t talking to her at all. She kept saying the boy’s names, Morgan, Riley, where are you?
One of the paramedics was shining a light in her eyes. “Don’t you worry, love,” she heard. “You’re safe now. Can you take a deep breath for me?”
Pretending to be nice, she thought. A minute ago you were gripping me so hard it hurt. I could hurt you, too. I could bite you. I might do it.
“Where are my babies?” asked Lauren. Maybe she knew. Someone knew.
“They’ll be following on soon, petal. Your husband’s got them.”
“No, no, no,” said Lauren, shaking her head, “you don’t understand. That wasn’t them. Not my boys. They’ve been taken.”
Someone else spoke. A man’s voice, from somewhere above her head.
“Yes, love, that’s right, but we got them back. They were taken, but then they were found. And we got the woman who took them, too.”
Lauren turned her head slightly. She couldn’t see his face but she could read the word POLICE in white writing on the shoulder of his uniform.
“I told you, that wasn’t them,” said Lauren, “whatever was in that stroller. They’ve been swapped. They’re evil, those things, they’re not my babies.”
The paramedic and the police officer said nothing.
“Did you see them?” said Lauren, “did you look at them? They weren’t human.”
“You’ve had a bad experience, Lauren,” said the paramedic. “We’ve given you something to calm you down.”
“No,” said Lauren, “no.” Her head was the only part of her that she could move and she shook it, no no no. The repetitive motion was soothing, so she kept doing it. “Why am I strapped down?” she asked. “Are you taking me to prison?” She thought of the bad thing she had done, trying to get rid of the evil babies into the river. No one seemed to understand why she’d done that, even though she kept telling them. I need to put them back in the river, where they came from, so that I can get my own boys back. She’s got them under the water, that woman. That’s where she lives, that’s where she’s taken my boys.
The policeman sat next to her. “I’m just going to explain what’s happening, Lauren. You’ve not been arrested.”
“No?”
“No, love.”
“So why have I been tied up? Let me go if I’m not under arrest.”
“It’s to protect you. We’re detaining you under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act. That means we’re taking you to a place of safety as we deem you to be a danger to yourself and others at this time.”
“Oh, no,” she said, “you really don’t understand. I wasn’t harming them. They live there, don’t you see? They came from there, I was just taking them back. They don’t belong here, and my boys don’t belong down there.” Her voice cracked and broke as she thought of her lost little boys, under the water, needing her but not being able to find her. “You’ll see,” she begged in a whisper, “just let me out. I know what I have to do.”
The police officer said, “The detention lasts for seventy-two hours, during which time you’ll be assessed by a doctor who will decide if you need to be detained under Section 2, which lasts for a little while longer.”
Three days. How long until Morgan and Riley forgot about her altogether? She needed to find them right now.
“They won’t drown, not those two in the stroller. They can swim. I’ve seen them before, in their normal bodies—they look like eels, not like babies at all. I saw them in the hospital, in the basket she had. But Morgan and Riley, they’ve never even been to a pool, they’re too little. They won’t know what to do. Something’s gone wrong, don’t you see? I need to put it right. Just please, let me go, please.”
“You’re a lucky lady, actually. Usually we’d have to take you to the station temporarily but we’ve called the Hope Park unit and they have a spare bed, so we’re taking you straight there. You’ll be nice and comfy. Not like in the cells.” The man gave a small chuckle.
She was sure she was speaking aloud, but no one seemed to be able to hear what she was saying. Maybe she ought to stop speaking.
“Do you understand what I’ve just told you, love?” asked the policeman.
She turned her face towards the white wall of the ambulance. The policeman must have moved away, because the next voice she heard near to her head was the female paramedic.
“Do you have any pain at
all? You took quite a tumble.”
Tumble, thought Lauren. You pinned me down on my front, strapped my arms to my sides, ground my head into the mud. I have pain. It’s mine. I’m keeping it. She shut her eyes as the ambulance started to move away.
* * *
After a while the vehicle stopped. The doors opened. They rolled her out of the ambulance and she felt a soft breeze and the sun on her face. She kept her eyes shut. She saw bright red, and the veins in her eyelids streaked blackly across her vision in the shape of lightning.
They wheeled her roughly up a ramp. The light dimmed and she smelled bleach and bad food. She heard babies crying and screwed her eyes tighter.
“Lauren?”
No.
Then, more gently, “Lauren? Are you awake?”
She turned her head towards the voice. She opened her eyes a crack and found herself looking into the face of a woman with kind, crinkly eyes and a mean, thin-lipped mouth. Whose enormous ears poked sideways through delicate curtains of extremely fine, carefully combed white hair. Lauren’s voice creaked as it came out. “Where am I?” she asked the woman. She remembered where the rawness in her throat came from, how she’d screamed her babies’ names into the storm.
“You’re at the Hope Park Estate, Lauren. It’s a mother and baby psychiatric unit.”
“Oh.” Her brain was treacly. The words seemed to gather into several separate concepts. Hope. Baby. Psychiatric. She couldn’t quite put it together.
“This is a place of safety. You’re safe.”
“Who are you?” asked Lauren.
“I’m Doctor Summer. I’m a psychiatrist.”
“I’m not mad,” said Lauren. “Someone took my babies.”
“I know. Don’t worry. Your husband will bring them along later. I spoke to him just now. He’s waiting for a doctor to check them over, but I don’t want you to worry. He says your boys are very calm, not at all distressed.”
They are not my boys. They are not my boys. They are not my boys. Will the doctor see what I saw, or will she be fooled, like Patrick, like everyone? Lauren cried softly, while the psychiatrist wrote on a clipboard.
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