Little Darlings

by Melanie Golding

  When Harper returned to the office, her phone showed a missed call from Amy, so she rang back. The journalist picked up immediately.

  “You weren’t as friendly as usual yesterday, Joanna,” said Amy, by way of hello.

  So much had happened yesterday, Harper had almost forgotten she’d even seen Amy at the riverside. Of course she hadn’t been friendly—she’d been dealing with the aftermath of the abduction, sorting Patrick out, thinking about what the doctor might find in terms of evidence, trying not to imagine what had happened to the babies. Since then she’d been up to Hope Park and back, then interviewed Natasha. All in all, a really long day, after which she’d collapsed at home for a few hours, unable to sleep properly because she hadn’t done her usual two hours’ training. So yeah, it was possible she hadn’t been all that friendly.

  “I wasn’t?” said Harper. “I suppose not. I was working. Sorry, I didn’t mean anything—”

  “Did you see the television news yet? You looked great. If you like that kind of thing.”

  Harper had caught a glimpse of herself on the monitor in the big office. The footage, captured on a bystander’s phone, showed Harper emerging from the woods with the stroller as the rain battered down. A moment later, the parents rushed towards the babies, arms outstretched, a happy ending from a Hollywood movie, as the family was reunited. Footage of the aftermath was more difficult to watch, and Harper was irritated that they’d decided to put it out. Lauren’s breakdown, the messy restraint that could easily have looked like an assault to the untrained eye. People didn’t need to see that. Though this was a point on which she and Amy would have disagreed entirely.

  “I do an excellent drowned rat, right?”

  “You found those babies. You did well.”

  “Huh. I did OK. I was lucky really, right place right time. But, thanks to that, I’ve still got a pile of stuff to finish.”

  “How long do you think it will take you?”

  “It might be a late one.”

  “But you’ll have time for a drink, right?”

  “A drink?” Harper’s face flushed red. This woman had terrible timing. “Well, I …”

  “Look, I found a witness you might be interested in talking to. A cyclist. He says he rode by just before the rainstorm, saw a woman pushing a stroller and nearly knocked her into the river.”

  “This is great, Amy, really excellent. Do you have a name, a number?”

  “Of course, sweet pea. But it might cost you.”

  “Cost me what?”

  “That drink, for starters.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “OK, where and when?”

  “I’ll deal with the suspect first. Then I’ll call you, OK? I’ll just get a pen. What’s the name?”

  When Harper ended the call, she still had no firm idea what kind of “drink” Amy was talking about, but she did know that she was going to go through with it this time, if only to find out. She sometimes wished she wasn’t attracted to women at all; they were so confusing. Men were a lot easier to deal with, and usually a lot easier to forget about. Forgetting about Amy was proving quite a challenge.

  Work always helped with that, and right now she had a new lead to follow. She lifted the internal phone and arranged for the witness to be brought in immediately.

  * * *

  Jimmy Durrell was small, his face rodentish. He worked shifts at the petrol station near the big supermarket, lived on a housing estate about a mile up the Bishop Valley, and he liked to cycle to work along the river. Amy had tracked him down at work, goodness knows how—it was more than Harper’s own officers had managed. Durrell remembered the bright green stroller, the woman pushing it, and how, now that he thought about it, it hadn’t seemed right at the time.

  “I was cycling along the river, going to work. I had to swerve around this woman pushing this big green double stroller, and I said, ‘Sorry love,’ but she didn’t even look at me. I thought she was very rude.”

  “Which direction was she going?”

  “Upriver, away from town. And she was in a hurry, which I thought was odd, because there’s nothing to hurry up there for. Makes sense now, of course. Bitch were taking them.”

  “All right, Mr Durrell. I’m going to read out your description of the woman, as given to my constable when you came in, and you can tell me if you have anything to add.” Harper looked at the paper in front of her. “Dark clothes, dark hair, ugly face.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Short. She looked like a gyppo. But your officer said she couldn’t write that down.”

  “Quite right,” said Harper. “It’s not terribly specific, for a start.”

  “Well, I know what I mean.”

  “Did she have trousers? A dress? What kind of dark clothing?”

  “Beyond that she was wearing black, I don’t know—I was looking at the ground, trying not to run the stupid trout into the river. I only saw her for a second.”

  “Right. Well, that’s useful. We can rule out anyone in light-coloured clothing.”

  “Ugly, too, and filthy. Child-stealing gyppo, that’s what she were.”

  Harper flinched at the repeat of the racist term. It was a double disappointment: apart from her personal distaste for such attitudes, someone so prejudiced rarely made a reliable witness.

  “Can you be more specific? Ugly isn’t very descriptive. Can you describe the shape of her nose, eyes, ears perhaps?”

  “Not exactly. She smelled terrible, that I do remember. I got a right whiff as I went by.”

  Harper tried not to sigh. “Did you see anyone on a bench, a bit further down?”

  “On the bench? Not that I recall.”

  Harper brought out a laptop and opened it, turning the screen to face the witness. “I’m going to show you a video of nine people, one of whom is a person of interest. I want you to look at each one carefully, and tell me if any one of them is the woman you saw pushing the stroller.”

  The Video Identification Parade Electronic Recording, obtained from the national bureau, showed a head-and-shoulder shot of a dark-haired woman on a grey background, who turned her head from left to right. This was followed by eight more women of a similar age and appearance, who all turned their heads in the same way. Natasha was number seven, her dark hair in oily ropes, cheeks streaked by the ghosts of mascara lines. Durrell stared at her in the same blank way that he stared at the others, showing no sign that he recognised her.

  When the tape ended he shook his head.

  “I can’t be sure. You know, I thought three and eight were the same person. Were they all supposed to be different?”

  Brilliant, thought Harper. She closed the VIPER window and clicked an image open.

  “What about this one. Did you see this woman at all?”

  He pulled the laptop closer, squinted at the screen.

  “Oh, yes, I think that’s her. She looks the type to steal babies, I reckon. She was number four, right?”

  Harper took back the laptop. The close-up of Lauren’s face, taken from her driver’s license, stared out at her, unsmiling.

  * * *

  The twenty-four hours she could hold the suspect without charge were almost up. The first interview hadn’t given them much to go on that wasn’t circumstantial. If nothing came out of this second interview, Harper was going to have to let Dowling go. She called down to the custody sergeant to have the suspect brought up from the cells once more.

  Natasha and the solicitor, Crace, were already seated when Harper entered the room, carrying a jug of cold water and a stack of plastic cups. It was, if anything, hotter than it had been the last time the three of them had gathered here. Crace plucked at his shirt and fanned himself with a piece of A4.

  Harper made the official introductions for the sake of the recording, then turned to Natasha.

  “So. We’ve talked about the fact that you and Patrick were in a relationship that ended recently, and that you were angry
with him because he didn’t tell you his wife was pregnant. You’ve admitted that you followed Lauren to the valley—”

  “I never admitted that. I said I was going for a walk.”

  “Watch your step, Sergeant,” said the solicitor.

  Harper looked up at them both and gave a friendly smile. “Sorry. My mistake. Let’s go through what happened on the day the twins were taken. You decided to go for a stroll in the woods. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “I heard someone screaming about their babies being taken. Then a few minutes later I heard the sirens, and I saw some police officers. I knew what had happened, from what she was yelling. I knew someone had snatched those babies.”

  “None of my officers said they saw you in the woods.”

  “I was on the other side of the river. There’s not really a footpath there. And anyway, I hid from them.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I saw that it was Patrick’s wife there, and I thought people would think the worst. I didn’t want to be seen.”

  “Well, of course you wouldn’t, if you’d taken the stroller.”

  “I didn’t take it. Do you want to hear this, or not?”

  “Sure. Carry on.”

  “I hid for a while, behind a fallen tree, and then when things seemed to calm down and the screaming had stopped, I walked on. I thought I saw another officer, so I went to hide in the old mill wheel tower, and that’s where I found them. They were pushed all the way in, out of sight. You wouldn’t have seen them unless you went right inside. At first I thought the stroller must have been empty, but there they were. It was weird, they weren’t crying or anything. They just stared at me.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Well, I couldn’t leave them there, could I? I’m not a monster. I hauled the stroller out and pushed it towards the river, the shallow part that I thought I could get across, because it would have been much quicker than going all the way up to the bridge and back. But by then, the water had started rising, and it wasn’t as easy as I’d thought it would be. It must have started raining in the peaks just before, so the river had already swelled before the storm came. I got stuck. The rest, you already know.”

  “What I still don’t know is why you followed Lauren to the valley in the first place.”

  “For crying out loud, Harper,” said Crace. He turned to Natasha. “Don’t answer that.”

  “I didn’t follow her. I just went there. It was a coincidence.”

  Harper flipped the cover from the tablet in front of her, swiped it a few times, placed it back on the table.

  “For the tape, I am reading the suspect a transcript of a text-message conversation, the recorded date of which is the day in question, the time around two hours before the abduction. This message was sent from Natasha Dowling’s phone to the phone of Patrick Tranter, and reads: ‘I’m outside your house. Maybe I’ll knock on the door, tell her everything. How would you like that?’ Do you have anything to say about that, Ms Dowling?”

  Natasha stared at the table. Harper let the silence continue until it was uncomfortable. Then she leaned in close. “You must see the problem we have here.”

  Natasha pressed her lips together.

  “This clearly places you at the house, just before Lauren set off for the valley, on the day the twins were taken. I suggest it might be a good idea to start telling the truth. Especially if you want people to believe that you didn’t take them.”

  “I could have sent that message from anywhere.”

  “Sure,” said Harper, “you don’t think we can pinpoint precisely where it was sent from? The GPS on your phone will prove it, either way. Forensics are analysing it as we speak.”

  Natasha sat up. “You can do that? You can tell the precise location the phone was in when text messages were sent?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, there you go. I sent loads of messages to Patrick that morning, while I was in the woods. If you can tell exactly where I was when each one was sent, you’ll see that I wasn’t even on the right side of the river; that I couldn’t possibly have taken the twins.”

  The solicitor looked up. He grinned at Natasha like she’d done him proud, and started to pack his things away. “I think that’s enough for now, don’t you?” he said. “When do you expect the results from the phone analysis?”

  “Tomorrow, at the earliest,” said Harper.

  “Well, Ms Dowling, I think it’s safe to say that by tomorrow all suspicions will be eradicated.” He turned towards Harper. “And seeing as you don’t have nearly enough evidence to charge my client now, she’ll be glad to leave immediately.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Pink light from the setting sun reflected off the glass in the door as Harper pushed it open, her bike balanced on one shoulder. Inside the building, perching on the communal stairs in her pencil skirt and heels, was Amy.

  “I texted you,” she said, a greeting and a reproach all rolled together.

  “How did you get in here?” said Harper, thinking, and how do you know where I live?

  Amy shrugged. “Someone from the flat upstairs let me into the building. I rang the station and they said you’d gone home, so I thought I’d pop round. Actually, I thought we said we were going for a drink.”

  Harper lowered the bike and leaned it against the wall, unclipped her helmet.

  “Ah,” she said, “sorry. I didn’t take my phone out. I needed to clear my head.” She found herself slightly irritated by Amy’s presence, by the way she was acting hurt that Harper had ignored her, when really it was nothing to do with Amy at all. She’d just needed to ride. Her mind had been spinning with the events of the last day and a half, and the Peak District always cured her of that. Two hours out there on her bike, and she knew she would sleep. It was her medicine. This, she thought, is why these things never work out. No one ever seems to get that I need to be alone sometimes.

  Amy said, “Was my witness of any use?”

  “Um, kind of.”

  “Oh,” said Amy, “you sound like you didn’t find it that helpful.”

  “No, it’s not your fault. What he said didn’t really give us much to go on, that’s all.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That the woman was wearing dark clothing. Which could have been the mother, or the suspect, as they were both in black.”

  “I see. Didn’t you show him a line-up?”

  Harper nodded. “He couldn’t make a positive ID.”

  “Huh. That’s a shame. I hope I haven’t complicated things. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Not a bit. I’m really grateful for your help. My own people didn’t manage to find any witnesses at all. But I had to let my only suspect walk today. Not enough evidence.”

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry.”

  “There’ll be other evidence. We’ll get her eventually.” As she spoke, Harper rolled and stretched a stiff shoulder. She was starting to get itchy in her sweat-soaked Lycra.

  Amy took a large white envelope from her bag. “I found something else you might be interested in.”

  “What is it?”

  “A newspaper article. From 1976. I was doing some research for a comparison piece about the heatwave, and this caught my eye.”

  Inside the envelope were several photocopied pages from the Sheffield Mail, dated July 3rd, 1976. Harper could see why a comparison piece would be of interest; every time they talked about the current temperature on the news they would say it was the “hottest summer since 1976”. Harper hadn’t been born then, but from what she could gather, 1976 held the record for the longest, hottest summer in living memory—until this year. The copied pages from the newspaper she held contained mainly different angles on reports about the weather; the unprecedented numbers of heat-exhaustion cases in the hospitals, the devastating effect that the water shortage was having on crops. There was an article that described how four of the rivers in Sheffield had dr
ied up completely, and the level of the reservoir had dropped low enough to reveal parts of the ruined village for the first time since it was filled in the 1890s.

  Amy took the sheets and shuffled them. She handed them back, pointing at one particular story.

  “Here,” she said.

  The main story on the page reported on the swarms of seven-spotted ladybirds terrorising the city, but halfway down, there was a smaller article:

  Suspected Kidnapper at Large in Maternity Hospital

  Police have received reports of an attempted kidnap that was perpetrated in the early hours of yesterday morning. The attempt, which involved a pair of newly born identical twins, took place at the city’s maternity hospital. The mother of the twin boys was able to alert the nurses and prevent the person from making off with the babies, but as the suspect has not yet been apprehended police are warning all mothers of infants to be vigilant. The suspected kidnapper is described as being female, of unkempt appearance, rather thin, of average height with long black hair. If anyone has any information, they are asked to contact the police immediately.

  Harper said, “Wow.”

  “Creepy, right?”

  “Yes.” She read the article again. “This is from 1976?”

  “Do you think it might be related?”

  Harper shook her head slowly. “I don’t see how. Our suspect wouldn’t even have been born then.”

  Amy said, “Well, I thought you’d want to see it. I got the shivers when I read it the first time.”

  Harper put the copies back in the envelope and tucked it under an arm. She could smell herself now, and it wasn’t good. She glanced up at the door to her flat, thinking, hot shower, then bed. But the confidence she’d had that she would fall asleep immediately was fading away as her mind started to work on this new information, calculating, extrapolating, creating new working theories. Say it was the same person in both cases—if they were at least twenty when they did it in 1976, then they’d be at least sixty now, so therefore … Leave it, she told herself, concentrate on Natasha. Natasha was there. She had a motive.