“I’m sorry,” said Lauren, relaxing her muscles completely. “I’m fine now. I’m fine.” The guards released their firm grip slightly but they didn’t let her go. The twins were taken away to the nursery.
Lauren took the pills into her mouth and allowed herself to be led back to her room. As the nurse fumbled with the keys, Lauren coughed discreetly and transferred the unswallowed drugs to her palm.
Later, she thought she might die of despair. But then, sitting in front of mindless TV, side by side with Nurse Pauline, the plan appeared in her mind like a gift, fully formed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Harper dreamed of crushed eggshells in a cup, and awoke with a gritty taste in her mouth.
She dressed and drove to the swimming pool where she powered out forty lengths, running the last conversation she’d had with Amy over and again, searching for clues. After she’d left the nursing home the previous night she’d texted, as requested, and then called even though she’d been told not to, but there was no response to either. Who was Amy meeting? Why wasn’t she interested in what Victoria had said? Unable to discuss it with anyone, the encounter had churned all night in Harper’s mind. Now, she wasn’t sure if she’d tell Amy about it even if she asked.
It was impossible to make sense of what Victoria had said. The woman seemed to be confusing what had actually happened to her and something from a story in a children’s book. Nevertheless there was still that maddening phrase, which Victoria had known and the person had said on tape to Lauren in the hospital: their names are Bishop and Selver. The perpetrator said the same thing to both women, in identical crimes. They had to be linked. Maybe it would be worth trawling the electoral roll for people with those names, like Amy had suggested. If Bishop and Selver were indeed actual people who had been babies in 1976, then they’d be in their forties now. Could be a lead.
Maybe, she thought grimly, it would be worth trawling the death-certificate records for baby twins with those names. The desire to take other people’s babies could have been the action of a mother driven mad with grief. And that would explain why the perpetrator might be using that same phrase: remember their names. But why the forty-year gap between offences? Something must have triggered a second attempt at the crime. She had to look for more similarities, the links that might not be immediately obvious. It was the weather that had led to Amy discovering Victoria Settle’s story. But why would the heatwave have any relevance?
Harper pulled herself from the pool in one graceful movement. The water puddled at her feet as she removed her goggles. She remembered Victoria’s voice, then. She needs to put them in the water. Right under the water. Harper shook the drops from her face and went to get changed.
Retrieving her bag from the locker, she couldn’t help but check her phone, again, and there was nothing from Amy, of course there was not.
* * *
Harper drove up to the Tranters’ house, stood on the doorstep and knocked. The door swung open and Patrick stood there, sleep-ruffled and beautiful, his face wary.
She spoke first. “Mr Tranter.”
“Detective Sergeant.”
“I’ve brought your phone back.”
“Oh.”
He held out his hand for the plastic-bagged device.
“The police have ceased investigations on the case; I don’t know if anyone has been in touch …”
He nodded. “Your boss called me. He said it was on the cards. He implied that you thought there was no one else involved, that it was all Lauren.”
“That’s the official line. Are you OK?”
He nodded. “I didn’t want to think that it was her, but in a way it’s a relief.”
“It’s not her fault. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course. She never meant to hurt them, but she’s ill. That’s why you’re not pressing charges against her for attempting to … I don’t know. Whatever it was she tried to do.”
Harper left a pause, looked at her feet for a few moments. “I want you to know, off the record, that I don’t agree with my boss, entirely. I’ve got some evidence that he doesn’t believe is significant, but I do. I still think it’s possible there was someone else involved. You see, it’s happened before, a long time ago, and I think the two cases might be linked.”
When she met his eyes, she was surprised to see that he looked angry. “Why can’t you just leave it alone?”
“Mr Tranter, I—”
“Look. Natasha was a mistake. A small, insignificant mistake that anyone might have made. It was over before it began. Now I’ll probably have to explain it to Lauren, and she’ll think the worst, obviously. As if that’s not enough, here you are insisting that her paranoia is real. Do you think that’s going to help her?”
“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to find the person who did this.”
“It was obvious from the start that it was my wife. Anyone could see that, looking at her medical history, and what happened just after the boys were born.”
“What medical history?”
“She’s been medicated, in the past, for depression. When her mother died she went into a slump for a while. Apart from her father, who she’s never been close to, and a grandmother in Scotland, I’m the only person she has left in the world. So it’s important that she trusts me, especially when she’s unwell. Those hallucinations she had in the hospital, she was confusing dreams with reality. Then you come along and start taking her at her word—well, it only made her think that her delusion was real when really, she should have been accepting that it was not, and concentrating on getting better.”
Harper was confused. “Why are you so angry? Is it because your affair was almost revealed to your wife? Because, not that it’s any of my business, I was careful to make sure it wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t an affair, I told you, it was a … friendship gone wrong. The girl got the wrong idea. She’s got all these issues that I didn’t know about, that I couldn’t deal with then and that I certainly do not want to have to deal with now. It’s complicated, and I don’t want to have to try to explain that to Lauren while she is in the midst of a psychotic breakdown. Surely you can understand that?”
“Look, it’s up to you what you tell your wife, I—”
Harper looked down and drew in a shocked breath. There, inside the house to the side of the doorway were a pair of green high heels that she’d seen before, many times. She thought, no, of course not, that’s ridiculous, but then she inhaled a trace of a familiar scent and she couldn’t prevent herself; she pushed Patrick out of the way and went into the house.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
Two steps inside and there was Amy, perching in the kitchen, her bare feet wrapped like vines around one leg of the high stool, her hands encircling a coffee mug. No lipstick. Damp hair scraped into a high bun.
“Hello, Joanna,” said Amy, a languid smile developing. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Harper couldn’t speak. She shut her eyes, hoping to dispel the image but no, it was all too real. She shook her head and went back out of the door, avoiding looking at Patrick, slamming the Tranters’ front door after she went through it and breaking into a run when she hit the pavement.
Back in the car, Harper rubbed at her temples and tried to forget she’d ever thought about Amy in any way other than professionally. The humiliation burned. She’d got it wrong, misread the situation, made herself look a fool. Amy was the flirty journalist she’d always been, but it was a shock to discover that she would go to such lengths for a story. She must have slept there. While the wife and children were locked safely away. She probably did this sort of thing all the time, made people think she was interested in them, when really it was all about the copy. That’s why she’s stringing me along, too, she thought, because I’m a bloody good source. And I fell for it.
Stupid to have let her guard down. To have let her professionalism be compromised. All those things she’d told her, that she
thought were in confidence. Amy was probably planning to publish all of it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dinner arrived, brown and glutinous, with the standard revolting dessert. Nurse Pauline didn’t need to be persuaded to slurp it all up, too quick to notice that the gritty powder added to the top was not all sugar: it also contained Lauren’s combined allocation of meds from the past four doses. Pauline placed the bowl back on the tray with a long mmmmm.
So far, so good. The next part of the plan was trickier: Lauren knew she had only about twenty minutes before the drugs started to work. She was afraid that because of her outburst with the doctor, she wouldn’t be allowed her usual supervised stroll in the grounds with the boys.
Thankfully, the routine of the post-dinner walk outdoors was considered too therapeutically important to miss. Pauline led the way, unlocking doors to the nursery, watching as Lauren strapped the babies into a double stroller. By the time they got outside, the nurse was slurring her words. They set off in a direction that led them away from the other patients walking the grounds, and towards the gate.
“Why are we going this way?” said Pauline, her eyes starting to droop shut and her gait weaving from left to right, like a drunkard.
“You said we should, remember?” said Lauren.
“I did?”
“That’s right.” She pulled the nurse with one arm, pushed the stroller with her other. Hopefully it looked to any onlookers as if they’d linked arms in a friendly way, that perhaps they were having a heart-to-heart.
After a few more shaky steps, Pauline stopped. She wiped the back of her hand across her brow. “I need to sit down,” she said, and collapsed at the foot of a tree. Lauren managed to shove her behind the trunk as she went down, so that once she was on the ground the parts that stuck out were partially obscured by some flowers. But Lauren knew that she couldn’t hesitate; it wouldn’t take long for someone on the staff to see that she was out here alone.
She walked quickly towards the gate without looking back, pushing the babies in front of her. Halfway there she slowed, not sure how to proceed: the gate was shut, and wouldn’t be opened unless and until a car tried to get in from the other side.
Frantic, she scanned the wall and the high chain-link fence, knowing it was impossible to climb, even without two babies to carry. But the shrubs on either side of the shut gate held a possible answer. She picked up the pace again, praying she wouldn’t be seen in the moments before she was able to conceal herself and the stroller against the wall. She had to be quick; there was only a small window of opportunity.
In the pushchair, Selver and Bishop were gleeful. They wanted her to succeed, too. The three of them had a common purpose, and this knowledge caused the revulsion she felt for the pair to lessen slightly. The imposters had almost as much to lose as she did: if she was caught, they’d never get back to their home, to their strange river-mother. Lauren, this psychiatric patient whom the authorities thought mad enough to incarcerate indefinitely, was the only person in the world who could help them. If she was caught, she wouldn’t be treated in a mental hospital, either, she’d more likely be sent to prison. But, much worse than that: if anyone stopped her, she might never see her real babies again.
She reached the bushes and found a place to hide, gathering the babies in her arms and pushing the stroller further under the branches; she needed to be able to run without being held back by that unwieldy trolley. Holding them was a grim necessity that none of them were entirely happy about. The stiff little bodies relaxed against her a little, but the movement was self-conscious. She tried not to meet their gaze.
Before too long, there was the sound of a car’s engine slowing and stopping on the other side of the gate, the beep of the intercom, a metallic voice asking for identification. The driver made a cheery response to the receptionist that Lauren couldn’t quite make out. She held her breath in the short pause that followed, praying that whoever it was had official business, that their ID was all in order and that they would be let through. Then, there was a crunching of gears and a high electric whine as the gate drew slowly back. Lauren let her breath out carefully in a long stream, flattened herself against the wall and hoped the driver wouldn’t turn their head in her direction. They didn’t. After the car drove by into the grounds, there was easily enough time to slip through unseen before the gate clanged shut again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Harper’s phone started to ring, and she prayed it wasn’t Amy, calling to apologise or explain. She had no wish to hear any kind of explanation, not that she was owed one. Harper was so cross that she almost didn’t look at the screen, but when she did she felt a little stab of disappointment. It wasn’t Amy, whom she was hoping to enjoy ignoring. It was Thrupp.
“What is it, sir?”
“Your girl, Lauren Tranter. She’s abducted her babies. She’s missing. I’m on the way to the unit now but she’s got a head start on us.”
“She’s escaped from the secure unit? How on earth—”
“Apparently, she drugged a nurse. She was hoarding her medication. They don’t know how much of this tranquilliser the woman was spiked with, but she’s out cold. Maybe a few days’ worth.”
Harper swallowed hard. The spilled tea, the medication not taken but disposed of. Lauren must have saved some of the capsules up, then used them to drug the nurse. She should have said something. But how could she have known that Lauren was planning something like this? Avoiding your meds was one thing. Hoarding them to be used against someone else was quite another.
“When did it happen, sir?”
“About thirty minutes ago.”
“Surely she can’t have gone far? She won’t be moving very fast with a stroller in tow. We should start small, search the unit first.”
“No stroller,” said Thrupp. “They found the pushchair abandoned in a bush. She must be carrying the babies in her arms.”
“She’ll have to rest, then. To put them down. Is she definitely on foot?”
“As far as we know. She had no phone, no way of arranging to be picked up in a vehicle. I’ve authorised a helicopter. They should be operational within the hour. What’s she thinking, Jo?”
“I don’t know, sir. How should I know?” But she did know, at least the essence of it; the desperation, the protective instinct that would be driving her on, twisted though it might be.
“Well, you saw her a couple of days ago, didn’t you? What was she like? Would she harm the babies, in your opinion?”
“I don’t think so.”
“OK. Maybe she’s not planning anything sinister. Let’s hope.”
“She might simply be hiding somewhere nearby. Should I head for the unit, to help the search?”
“Yes, do that. I think you’re right, we should go through the building and the grounds thoroughly before widening the search area.”
“You should put the helicopter on standby until we’ve completed. No point wasting resources if we think we might find her in a cupboard or something.”
“Good point.” Thrupp sounded very approving of her cost-saving suggestion. “One more thing. I can’t get hold of the husband—could you try him? I’ve left messages on his landline.”
“I’m at the Tranters’ now, actually, returning his mobile phone. I think I know why he hasn’t picked up his landline messages. I’ll make sure he does. And I’ll meet you at the unit as soon as possible.”
Harper typed one last message to Amy before she started the engine: Tell your boyfriend to listen to his messages.
She’d been driving for only a few minutes when her phone rang again. She hoped it was Thrupp, calling to say they’d found Lauren and the babies safe and well.
It was Gideon. She put him on speakerphone and continued to drive.
“What is it?”
“I did the analysis you asked for, on the phone call. I thought you’d like to know the results.”
She’d forgotten all about it. Yest
erday she’d asked Gideon if he could compare the voices on the 999 call, to see if the intruder’s voice matched with a sample of Natasha’s that she’d retrieved from Patrick’s phone. It didn’t seem to matter now.
“Thanks, but we’ve had to drop that line of enquiry. I’ll still pay you for your time, of course.”
“I still think you’ll be interested.”
“Oh?”
“Firstly, there was no match with the suspect, the sample voice you provided.”
“Ah. Well, I would have been surprised if there was, at this point. I think we’re looking for someone older, maybe in their sixties …”
“In fact,” said Gideon, “there were only two distinct voice patterns on the whole recording.”
“Two?” said Harper. “What do you mean? There’s the operator, Lauren Tranter, and the suspect. That’s three.”
“Definitely only two,” said Gideon. “I checked again and again. There was one unique vocal pattern for the operator, and the only other one was …”
“… Lauren Tranter.” She remembered then, her first fleeting thought about the hissing threats, that it sounded like someone putting on a voice. It was Lauren’s voice, hissing the threats, to herself.
“Are you still there?” said Gideon.
She thanked him and ended the call.
For a while her mind wouldn’t focus and she concentrated on the road. The car climbed the next hill, into the woods, and then slowed as she rounded a bend and the valley was revealed. Scorched by the sun, the late-summer landscape seemed prematurely autumnal. Burnt yellow and brown heather across the flats, huge majestic rocks of grey. The land fell away behind a wall made of newly cut stone, car-sized patches of different colours along its length, evidence that it had been rebuilt one too many times. Harper thought, imagine if I hadn’t slowed down enough. Imagine driving the car off the edge. The way the road swerved, it would be all too easy on a dark night, to lose concentration, to tip over here, into oblivion.
At once it was like someone flipping tarot cards in a row, revealing the truth:
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