Little Darlings

by Melanie Golding

  “Thanks,” said Harper, “I really appreciate it. And thanks for bringing it over, too. You didn’t have to do that.”

  Amy stood, placed a hand on her hip. She had that forties movie-star thing right down. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  The flat was in no state to be seen by guests. No one had been into it for months except Harper, not since her little sister visited at Christmas and pointed out to her with a measure of disgust that she lived like a teenage boy. She couldn’t let Amy see it, not yet. Harper frowned, looked at her watch, said, “Hey, I’d love to, but I’m exhausted and I have to get up early because of the case, and—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Amy, all flirtatiousness completely erased from her voice and manner. “I get it.”

  Before Harper could think of the right thing to say, Amy had gone. She stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs, inhaling Amy’s perfume, wondering what it was that had just happened. Had she blown it, whatever “it” was, or might have been? Oh well, thought Harper, trying not to feel the sting of disappointment, it’s probably for the best.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Is it said that River Mumma lives in the cool depths of water. She sometimes comes up to sit on a rock and comb her long black hair. If you see her, do not look at her. If you catch her eye, she may draw you down with her, where she may live but you may not. If she catches hold of you, all manner of terrible things will happen. No one knows exactly what, because no one she’s got hold of has ever come back to tell the tale.

  Traditional Jamaican

  AUGUST 16TH

  FOUR WEEKS AND SIX DAYS OLD

  9:30 A.M.

  “This is cosy, isn’t it?” said Ruthie, who’d come for a visit.

  The hospital seemed to think that one extra visitor meant that there needed to be two nurses on duty, one for each twin. The room, designed for one person to sleep in with a baby, held five adults plus the two infants. Pauline leaned on the windowsill while the other nurse stood by the door like a sentry.

  Patrick breathed out through his nose. The babies, held by Patrick and Ruthie, were intent on Lauren. They never seemed to blink. Every now and then, they raised up their arms and made that sea-bird sound, almost in synch, puppets on the same string. Patrick frowned, and she studied him. Could he see it, too? How different they were from before, and how strange?

  Lauren turned towards him, her smile fixed in place. Her eyes flicked towards the nurses. Get rid of them, she tried to say with her eyes.

  Patrick cleared his throat, turned to the nurses. “Do you both have to be here?”

  The two women looked at each other. The shorter one said, “Well, I could wait outside, I suppose. Unless you want to?”

  “I’ll go,” said Pauline, launching herself towards the door, which she flung open in her hurry to leave. It closed slowly and clicked shut after a minute, cutting off the sound of her quick retreating feet in the corridor. Lauren breathed out.

  Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Are you two, um, getting on OK?”

  No, thought Lauren, I hate that nosy bitch. “Yes,” she said, “it’s fine. It’s odd, being watched all the time, that’s all.”

  Leaning against the wall, the remaining nurse’s eyes followed the birds out of the window but she was listening, assessing, judging. Lauren could tell.

  Ruthie said, “I was so worried about you. Both of you. What a nightmare. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you got them back so quickly, but still. Lauren, I would have been a complete mess, if it were me. I would have been even worse—” She halted abruptly, with a little sound that indicated she thought she’d gone too far. “Not that you were …”

  “Don’t worry, Ruthie, she knows what you meant.”

  Patrick tucked a springy coil of Lauren’s hair back into the puffball of her ponytail. She complained about the hair but it had excellent qualities. You could mould it into a shape and it stayed. Plaits needed no binding on the ends. She liked it that Patrick loved playing with it as they watched films together, or he used to, before there was no time in their lives to watch films. He would divide the hair into two and twist it until it became two large horns that curled up and met above her head. She’d thought it was funny, when she looked in the mirror afterwards. The memory saddened her.

  “You look better today though,” said Patrick, “not so pale.”

  “I got loads of sleep, that’s what it is,” said Lauren. “They’ve been looking after the babies in the nursery overnight. It’s the first time I’ve had more than two hours straight since they were born. I feel like a new woman.”

  “Was it hard being away from them?” said Ruthie. “After what happened, I mean.”

  No, she thought, it was sweet relief to have the things in a separate room. But yes, it was hard being away from Morgan and Riley. She felt like something had been ripped from her heart, and that her life was draining away through the open wound with every passing second.

  “Yes,” said Lauren, “being away from them is torture. But they gave me something to help, you know, a little pill.”

  Patrick said, “The doctor says you’ve made progress. She says there’s a chance you won’t need to stay much beyond the three days, if you carry on the same way.”

  “She said that to you? That they would let me go?”

  “She didn’t promise. She just said it was possible. If you seemed like you were coping with the boys, taking your medication, all that.”

  “Good,” said Ruthie. “That’s good. Three days? Not long then, only another day and a half.”

  Ruthie looked at her lap, where the one in green was propped with his fat legs splayed. She gently took hold of the baby’s foot.

  Lauren thought, a day and a half. My boys might not be able to hang on that long. In two days, they could be anywhere. That woman could take them anywhere. She sank down and away, until she was curled on the bed facing the wall.

  She heard Patrick saying, “Can you take the baby?”

  And the nurse said, “Of course,” as if she’d love to, as if it was a privilege. “They’re such little darlings, aren’t they?”

  Little darlings. Lauren wished she was back in that life where the babies were her precious boys, the ones she’d given birth to, who were adored without condition. These ones, had the building been on fire, she would have happily stepped across to get away.

  Patrick lay down behind Lauren. He drew her towards him, forks in a drawer. She was tensing all of her muscles, twitching with the effort but when he curved himself against her there she let it go. She cried with her whole self. He absorbed the waves of it. She shook and bucked and shuddered and reached back to grab at him, curled up fists of his jeans so hard that he sucked his teeth in pain. It finally peaked and gradually ebbed, while he stroked her gently, telling her, “It’s all right, you’re safe, I’ve got you.” She turned to him, under the gaze of his sister and the nurse, who both quickly averted their eyes, and the two babies who did not. Lauren hid in the dip between Patrick’s body and the wall. The blank eye of the camera observed everything but he made her a shadow to hide in, and she was glad in that moment of his large size, and that he served a purpose: he was a barrier, protecting her. She held her hands up by her face the small pink paws of a defenceless creature.

  She was breathing quickly, susurrations that turned into words. He leaned in closer, frowned that he didn’t understand.

  “Get me out of here,” she said.

  He kissed her so that she felt the hot blood rushing. In that kiss she could feel only him. Not the babies’ eyes on her, nor the numerous ears that witnessed the gentle suck and smack of it. They were alone, together, in this place where they would never be alone.

  A baby’s cry tore through her, hooking her out of the kiss, quick as a caught fish. Patrick’s body tensed. She gave an anguished groan and lifted her hands again to cover her face.

  “Which one is it?” she asked, thinking, I used to be able to tell.

  Patrick
shifted to see which baby was screeching, but by the time he turned his body it was both of them. She glanced up; they were throwing out their arms and legs, wriggling to be free, shrieking. Ruthie and the nurse jiggled and cooed, but the sound filled the room like water might, panicking her, make it stop.

  “They’re hungry,” said Lauren. “They need milk.”

  When Lauren remained on the bed, Patrick said, “I’ll go,” and went to the little cupboard where the formula tub and other equipment was kept. He opened it up but there were no bottles. He looked to the nurse, gesturing helplessly, screwing his face up against the sound.

  “Down the corridor,” said the nurse, smiling, singing the words gaily over the crying, “the sterilisation room. You’ll find bottles, kettles. Off you go.”

  “Right.” He swung the door open and strode away from the sound, which was like being inside a small speaker with a pair of police sirens. No one could stand it; she hoped he’d be quick.

  Ruthie, struggling to contain the screaming thing in her arms, gaped at Lauren, who had made no move to take the baby from her, to comfort him or his brother as a mother ought. Lauren saw a glance pass between Ruthie and the nurse, and forced herself to go near, placing herself in a position where she could reach out and stroke the heads of the babies but avoid taking either of them.

  The screams seemed to enter her head from the front and sides, from above and below. She stood still and let it saw through her, shutting her eyes and imagining that the pain of the sound was happening to someone else, that she was wrapping it up in cloth and holding it apart in her mind. Eventually she could bear it. She opened her eyes, watched the unlocked door, calculating how far she might get if she went to it now, opened it and ran. Not far. there’d be sentries out there, and more doors, with more locks.

  The moment the door opened a crack Lauren sprang forward and pulled it open. She took the bottles from Patrick’s hands and held them up to eye level. Seeing there was too much water in them she went into the bathroom to tip out what wasn’t needed, her hands shaking slightly. The two boys, who had turned almost purple with fury, continued to shriek and kick and slap in the arms of Ruthie and the nurse, who were bobbing up and down on the balls of their feet, to no effect. The nurse was trying to distract Riley, singing something that couldn’t be heard over the crying, but Ruthie looked stricken, bouncing with a sense of defeat. After a second she just stopped still and looked in horrified wonder at the small, impossibly loud and angry thing in her arms.

  Lauren tipped the measured powder into the hot water and handed Patrick a bottle. “Keep shaking it,” she said. “It’s too hot.”

  As if they could tell that milk was within reach, the crying got louder, the shrieks more insistent, more demanding. And then she heard the words they were saying, and she stopped. These nearly five-week-old babies. They were forming words.

  “Is it OK now?” said Patrick, still shaking the milk.

  But she’d frozen, in disbelief, and didn’t respond.

  “Lauren.” He squeezed her arm, and she blinked.

  “Can you hear that?”

  “The milk, Lauren. What do you think? Can they have it now?”

  “Test it,” she said, “on your wrist.” She listened again, desperate for it not to be real. But the words were there.

  Patrick squirted a bit of the milk on the inside of his wrist. He shook his head, too hot. Then, his face lit with an idea.

  “Get some cold water in the sink.”

  She ran the tap until the small basin was half full. They plunged both bottles in.

  “Try them now,” he said. Still much too hot.

  She covered her ears with her hands. It couldn’t be. But the plea got in, the creatures’ plaintive, desperate message. In the mirror, in the harsh light of the windowless bathroom, her eyes were bloodshot. She looked away towards the bottles, floating slightly and steaming in their bath of cold. Come on, cool down, she thought. Once they’re feeding, they’ll stop.

  Surely Patrick could hear it too, but he showed no sign, he hadn’t noticed. She took hold of his arm. “Listen,” she hissed.

  He tried to take his arm away saying, “Ow, that hurts,” so she squeezed it tighter. He shook her off and she grabbed for him.

  “No, really listen.”

  The boys were screaming, screaming. He shook his head.

  “What? All I can hear is screaming.”

  “They’re saying words.”

  He frowned, searched her face, almost laughed but stopped himself. If he just listened, it was clear, revealed in what one moment before was just a jumble of long purposeless sounds. She mouthed the words to him as they screamed them, and his face changed. He heard it then, she knew he did. The screams, and Lauren’s mouth, formed the long, drawn-out shape of the words help us, over and over, sad and panicked and pitiful.

  “You hear it?” she breathed.

  Patrick stared at her, his lips tight.

  He checked the milk again. “It’s fine,” he said, and he whisked the two bottles out of the basin and charged into the room, handed one to the nurse, one to Ruthie. The babies’ mouths were plugged. Sweet silence relieved them all. Lauren’s ears whined in the sudden quiet, and she went to the bed and sat down. Ruthie and the nurse settled themselves in the two chairs.

  “Thank heavens for that,” said Ruthie. “They’ve got impressive power, those little lungs, haven’t they?”

  “That’s better, isn’t it, Morgan?” said the nurse. She glanced up at Lauren. “You OK, love?”

  Lauren drew a long breath and nodded, smiled at the nurse. She held her hands together so they wouldn’t shake. “I’m fine, yes, thanks.”

  “Do you want to feed him?”

  “Me?” She stared at the baby in yellow held by the nurse. “Oh, yes,” she said, attempting a smile, “of course. If you don’t mind.”

  Patrick said, “You don’t have to, babe, if you don’t want to.”

  “I do,” she said quickly, “I do want to. I do.”

  She cradled the baby in her arms and crossed her legs underneath. Morgan watched her from above the bottle as he suckled. The milk was disappearing fast.

  “His eyes,” said Patrick, “are they changing colour? They used to be blue, didn’t they?”

  “You see it too?” she said.

  “Well, sure. They look kind of green at the edges.”

  Ruthie said, “Riley too, actually, when you look closely. How odd.”

  “It’s odd, isn’t it?” said Lauren. “Really odd, right?” So it wasn’t just her, she wasn’t imagining it. “They’re changing, right in front of us. And you can see it too. Can’t you?”

  She knew she’d said something, or done something strange, by the way they all looked at her then, sort of sideways.

  Ruthie said,“Yes, but honey, I don't think it’s that odd, not really.”

  “No?”

  “Babies’ eyes do change colour,” said the nurse.

  “They do?” said Lauren, feeling the tremor in her voice.

  “Yes, often. Especially if they start off blue. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “But no one in our family has green eyes. No one.”

  When she looked again at Morgan’s eyes they were closed. In Ruthie’s arms, Riley had finished his milk and was also asleep.

  “Peace at last,” said the nurse.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  AUGUST 16TH

  11 A.M.

  Harper’s email pinged with a message from Forensics. The subject line read: GPS analysis results. When she opened it, she saw that it contained a map showing the location of Natasha’s phone at several critical points. There was the phone, right by the cafe at the exact time the cafe staff confirmed that Lauren had left with the stroller, after her coffee with Cindy and Rosa: the GPS signal was nearby, but on the other side of the river. So, Natasha had been watching Lauren from the far bank, perhaps concealed behind the bushes that grew there.

  The text message t
hat corresponded to the coordinates read: Why can’t you love me the way you love her? She’s nothing special.

  Further points on the map showed that Natasha had followed Lauren upriver for a while, but then gone past the bench where Lauren had been sitting and back towards her own car. At the approximate time the babies were taken, Natasha was at least half a mile further on, sending Patrick a long apology for everything she’d said and done, and begging him to reply.

  Harper studied the timecodes between the messages carefully. She soon realised that there was no credible case against Natasha: there wasn’t enough time between any of the texts for Natasha to have taken the babies; in fact, nothing indicated that she’d even crossed over to Lauren’s side of the river, not until Harper had seen her upriver struggling to cross with the stroller. The last text Natasha had sent was ten minutes before Harper had caught her. By then she would have known from what was happening around her—the screams from Lauren, the police cars converging on the area—that Patrick’s babies had been taken, and that they hadn’t yet been found. And yet, the message read: I’ll be here for you always. Whatever happens xx

  Harper found the message puzzling in its ambiguity considering the circumstances, until she realised the position the woman was in: Natasha couldn’t let on to Patrick that she was already in the valley herself, spying on Lauren. To do so would have pushed him further away. When she found the hidden babies a moment later, then, she must have considered leaving them, running back to her car and pretending she’d never been there. But she hadn’t. She’d tried to help, despite knowing what the consequences of that might be. Perhaps she thought, at least she could do something good, and maybe Patrick would be grateful for that instead of focusing on the stalking. She certainly couldn’t have realised how badly it would backfire.

  Harper felt defeated. Admitting that Natasha was innocent meant the abductor was still out there somewhere, and she had absolutely no clue how to find them.

  * * *

  Harper parked her car next to the millpond in the Bishop Valley Park. Lauren Tranter’s blue Fiesta was still there, now covered in a film of brown dirt and sticky leaves, abandoned since the day of the abduction. This was where it had all started. The weather was the same, hot and muggy. She hoped there wouldn’t be another storm.