Bye Bye Baby

by McIntosh, Fiona

  ‘No, we’re not. I’m heading up to Devil’s Dyke, a nice spot.’

  ‘The Dyke? Why?’

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wait. It’s a surprise.’

  ‘What about the apartment in Brunswick?’

  ‘Later.’

  They drove in silence for a few more minutes as Anne took the van up Snakey Hill for only the second time in thirty years. Her last visit had been to choose the lonely place where she would end Billy’s life.

  * * *

  Kate watched Jack as the underground stations snaked by them. They hadn’t shared a word since he had told her they were going to Highgate. She had no idea what he had in mind, but going by the grim set of his mouth, he had some sort of plan.

  ‘Phone the Yard. Tell them what we’re doing,’ he suddenly commanded.

  ‘What shall I say?’

  ‘Say I wanted to swing by my home first.’

  ‘And what do I tell them about us being together?’

  ‘The truth, Kate,’ he said bitterly. ‘Tell them you found out something, met me, told me.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said reluctantly. Although she wasn’t prepared to let go of her theory, it felt suddenly dangerous to have Hawksworth on this mission, dragging him in her wake. What had she started? Kate began to imagine what would happen if she was wrong. She could never face Jack again, and with her private life in tatters it felt terrifying to think her career might also go the same way. He would never forgive her if her accusation was empty.

  ‘Sir, um —’

  ‘Do it, Kate. They’ll be wondering where we are. And hurry up. You’ll lose the signal any second.’

  Anne switched off the engine and took a few moments to look out across the rolling South Downs and admire their beauty and peace. All she could see for miles was the colour green, cows and sheep. Birdsong was all they could hear. Billy would die in a serene place — he was lucky, she thought.

  He looked to be sleeping and she knew she had to work fast now. Using strong duct tape, she swiftly bound his hands and then, with handcuffs, secured him to the van’s door handle. Now he was helpless. She slapped his face gently, flicked it with fresh water.

  Her quarry roused from his doze. ‘Why are we here?’ He looked at his hands, frowning as he tried to understand. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, surprisingly lucid.

  ‘Billy, I brought you here to talk first.’

  He gave a dopey grin. ‘And afterwards?’ he asked, his tone filled with innuendo.

  ‘Afterwards you’re going to die,’ she said flatly.

  Billy’s gaze had been drifting slightly but now his eyes seemed to clear and focus. ‘Die?’

  ‘I’m going to kill you.’

  ‘But what —’

  ‘Let’s not waste time, Billy. Let me explain. The water you drank was laced with Rohypnol. You will lose consciousness soon — it’s why you’re feeling so drowsy now. Do you remember the drug, Billy? It’s the same one that Pierrot used on me thirty years ago.’

  ‘You’ve drugged me?’ he asked, disbelieving.

  ‘Just think about how you feel, Billy — you know I’m not lying.’

  He pulled himself straight in the seat. ‘Anne ... why, what’s this —’

  ‘What’s this about?’ She smirked. ‘It’s about the theft of my life. Your gang raped me; you killed my dog; you gave me a sentence of pregnancy, ripping away any chance I had of making something of myself. And then,’ Anne swallowed back what could have been a sob, ‘then when I’d resigned myself to life as a young mother, decided I would make a go of it and be good at it, you attacked me again. I nearly died, Billy, and my baby did die. And now I’m making sure you die too. But first, I need some information — something Clive and Mikey couldn’t tell me.’

  ‘Mikey? What are you talking about?’ He shook his head, confused. ‘You’ve been away. You haven’t caught up fully with the deaths, have you, Billy?’ She watched him shake his head dully. ‘I found Mikey Sheriff and I killed him, and I did the same to your old mate Clive. After you, I’ll find Phil Bowles — actually, I already know roughly where he is. My early snooping tells me he never left Hove, the sad sod, so he won’t be hard to track down.’

  ‘Anne, stop this. It’s not amusing at all.’

  ‘It’s not meant to be. I’m deadly serious. You are going to die. You are going to pay for your sins.’

  ‘Wait! This is crazy. You told me it was all behind you.’ His words were streaming together. Time was so short.

  ‘Behind me? Do you really think a person can put that sort of trauma behind them? You were the brainy one of the Jesters Club — surely you can work it out. No, Billy, I never put it behind me. All I did was pretend it never happened. I had quite a nice life, to tell the truth, and that seemed to act like a bandage over the deep wound that so injured me. But we risked it; we risked it all on the chance of having a family. It was my fault and we failed and I lost everything — the man I loved, the happy home, the quiet life I was living. I was left with nothing but misery and my own memories. I can see the question in your eyes, Billy, so save your breath — you haven’t got much left. Let me answer your question.

  ‘When my husband abandoned me about a year ago, life turned very dark and I began to experience the same feelings that I remembered from three decades ago. Suddenly I was there again, in that toilet block, or caught in that alleyway. Suddenly I could feel all the pain and fear again and the loss of my child.’

  Billy’s eyes widened as he struggled to sit forward, but Anne held up a hand. ‘I loved that baby so much, Billy. In spite of his manner of conception, I wanted to be a good mother and lavish my child with all the affection and joy that was lacking in my life. The worst part is, I still do. Can you imagine that, Billy? Thirty years of heartache. Thirty years of pretence. I’ve covered my yearning for Peter so well — I’m a brilliant actress. But all of the pain is back, Billy, and I’m taking revenge for the ruination of my life and all of its misery.’

  ‘You’re planning to kill us all?’ His question came out as a croak.

  ‘You’ll be my third victim. Mikey and Clive are already worm food. Just two to go after you.’

  ‘Anne, please,’ he beseeched, his eyes unfocused. ‘I don’t ...’

  ‘Don’t beg, Billy, it’s pointless, as you should remember from both of those occasions when I begged you to help me.’

  ‘But I couldn’t —’

  ‘Yes, you could. There were four of you and one of him. All you had to do was say no. But you were either too weak, too dim, too cruel or too drunk to care enough that someone you knew was being hurt before your eyes.’

  Billy shook his head, terror flooding his expression now. He began to scream.

  She waited until his throat was raw from yelling and his energy was sapped. ‘No one can hear you. Look around you. Take one last look at your world because you’re about to leave it.’

  ‘None of us touched you, Anne. I swear it!’ he blathered, spittle sliding down his chin. ‘He was the one who raped you.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve worked that out too,’ she said, her tone telling him she was unimpressed by his news. She became matter of fact. ‘Now, you can make this go a little easier on yourself if you’ll tell me what you know about Pierrot.’

  ‘Easier?’

  ‘I’ll explain in a minute. Tell me what you know and things can be different.’

  Billy sat up a bit straighter but Anne knew he couldn’t tell just how slumped in his chair he was. The drug was taking over now — they had barely minutes.

  ‘I’ve only seen him once since that night on the pier, Anne, I swear it, and that was by accident. He was walking with his wife and child on Hove seafront and I was there too with my girlfriend.’

  ‘And?’

  Billy’s eyes began to droop. ‘I knew it was him, although it took him a moment or two to realise who I was.’

  ‘Hurry up, Billy, you’re slurring so badl
y I can hardly make out your words. I need this information and you need to give it to me if you’re going to save yourself.’

  ‘He pretended in front of his wife that he’d met me fishing but didn’t properly introduce me to her and I was about eighteen so I didn’t have the balls to introduce myself. I can remember staring at the child in surprise and he glared at me and said, “This is our son, Peter”. Then the wife said, “He’s adopted” and I just knew it was your baby. That it must have lived and he’d stolen it from you.’

  He was alive!

  Anne felt her vision tunnelling and her chest began to pound. In fact she was sure she could hear the blood rushing through her ears. Another woman called herself mother to Peter. She got to cuddle him, kiss him, comfort him. That woman had watched him grow, taught him to walk, run, ride a bike. She had cooked for him and bandaged scraped knees and read to him and tucked him into bed at night. Anne felt a murderous rage of jealousy consuming her. Deep inside her a pain blossomed like a plume of bright red, exploding upwards and outwards throughout her body and her fury stoked the fire that was this agony.

  Through a tensed jaw Anne forced herself to take a steadying breath. She finally said, ‘I want Pierrot’s name.’

  ‘Garvan Flynn. The wife mentioned they lived at Rottingdean . . .’ He trailed off, his eyes closing.

  ‘Thank you,’ Anne said, reaching for the half-finished bottle of water. ‘Let’s get this done with then, Billy.’

  His eyes flew open again. ‘Anne, wait! You said I could save myself.’

  ‘Save yourself a lot of pain. Not save your life. That, I’m afraid, is forfeit, Billy. Now drink this.’

  ‘No.’ He began to cry.

  ‘Oh, Billy, drink it all and there will be no pain. You’ll just go to sleep.’

  ‘We were kids, Anne. I don’t . . . What are you going to do?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. Drink it.’

  He shook his head, pursed his lips as a child might to prevent any liquid going in. Tears streamed down his face. ‘Don’t, Anne,’ he begged. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘I know you are. I think you were thirty years ago, Billy, but you just weren’t brave enough. None of you were, so I had to suffer for your cowardice. But so much worse is that you kept the terrible secret —all of you. None of you told the police what had occurred, and I was so frightened and beaten up, and completely bewildered by losing my baby, I wasn’t thinking straight either. And then it was too hard, too terrifying, to relive it. All I could do was run away. So drink this, Billy, and save yourself a lot of torment. You’ll go to sleep and that will be that.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just kill yourself?’ he wept, a last dash of anger surfacing.

  ‘I should have, I suppose,’ she said, her voice even, ‘but then you’d all have got away with it. This way, my son and I get justice.’ She looked at Billy’s drooping body. ‘Let me help you swallow this.’

  ‘No!’ He began to fight her, twisting his head.

  ‘Billy, don’t! I’m going to cut you, hurt you,’ she warned. ‘I’m happy for you to feel nothing. Drink enough of this and your heart will stop. Stay conscious and you’ll regret it.’

  His weeping turned to sobs and Anne ran out of patience. She could tell his last objection had claimed every final ounce of will and energy. Now he was as helpless as her own baby had been all those years ago. She forced open his mouth and tipped most of the contents of the water bottle down his throat, closing his jaw hard so he couldn’t spit it out.

  ‘There,’ she said, almost tenderly, satisfied that she’d kept her half of the bargain. ‘That should do it. Goodbye, Billy.’

  While she waited for Billy Fletcher’s heart to stop, Anne thought about her son. The name Peter had stuck — how incredible. He would be twenty-nine by now. He could be married, a parent himself. He could also be dead . . . for all his mother knew. Her face twisted into a mask of pain. No, dear heaven, no, not again. So many children lost, let this one live, please let him be alive.

  And this was when Anne decided she was going to find Peter come hell or high water, and the only way she would be able to do that was if she was able to hunt down Pierrot. She had a full name now — Garvan Flynn — and it was unusual enough that people would remember it. And she had a place to start looking.

  33

  Garvan Flynn stood in the damp back garden and sucked on the first cigarette he had smoked in thirty years. They tasted very different these days, but he didn’t care. His hands shook and he felt dizzy as the nicotine coursed through him. He coughed, sipped again at the lukewarm, sweet coffee and closed his eyes.

  Nearby, Peter sat on the short flight of stairs staring into the backyard, silent, his outward calm belying the alarm he’d felt since his father had told him that providing his birth certificate would not be possible.

  Their discussion the previous night had been interrupted by the arrival of Pat’s mother. Her tears and recriminations had told Peter that Pat had been true to their pact and told her parents of their decision not to wed. Sheila and his mother had wept and talked into the night until Peter could no longer stand it. He had left, frustrated, with a promise to return the next day to talk to his father. He’d arrived only minutes previous, scowling and confused.

  ‘Dad?’ he finally said. ‘You’ve got to tell me what this is about.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why the hell are you smoking?’

  ‘You know, Peter, this is the first cigarette I’ve touched since the night you were born.’ Garvan sighed.

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you’re smoking now. Mum will kill you!’

  His father smiled privately, said nothing.

  ‘Okay, Dad, I want to know what’s going on. Last night, before Aunty Sheila arrived, you said something about not being able to give me a birth certificate — why not? I told you, I can’t win this contract without it. I can’t get a passport either, I’ve just realised. You know, Dad, this has never come up before because I’ve never needed a passport. Can you imagine it? I’m nearly thirty and I’ve never been anywhere, not even on school trips. I know Mum never trusted the school to keep me safe, but why was I more precious than any other child? I mean everyone else got to go on that Swiss ski trip, except me. I know you always tried to give me a big summer holiday in England, but I have to admit I always felt like the nerdy, over-protected kid.’

  ‘You never said anything,’ his father replied.

  ‘Well, because it caused a row and I also knew we didn’t have the money.’

  The older man shrugged. ‘You never chose to travel when you were old enough.’

  ‘Dad, Mum and Aunty Sheila have been controlling my life. I’ve been partnered off with Pat since I was twenty-one. Remember how Mum used to carry on with my early girlfiends? Everyone was either a tart or too posh. There was always a problem. She was never going to let me see anyone but Pat, so me going off to Paris for the weekend or something was not going to happen because she would have imagined it was for an orgy. Anyway, I never had the money to go abroad. Every penny I earned you made me save for the flat.’

  ‘And do you criticise us for ensuring your future? Look at you. You’re sitting on a goldmine with that place.’

  ‘Dad, I know. I’m not criticising you. I know it was a great investment, but I had to sacrifice the sort of fun that other people in their early 20’s enjoy. Now I have to be more responsible, but it’s time for me to travel and see a bit of the world. I am going to take holidays and enjoy my earnings. Plus I need the passport for work — they’re talking about sending me to —’

  ‘I can’t give you your birth certificate, Peter, because I don’t have one for you.’

  ‘Okay, so I order a copy through Births, Deaths and Marriages. Where’s the great problem?’

  The older man grimaced.

  ‘What does that look mean?’ Peter said, exasperated, standing up and stomping into the garden. ‘Dad, look at me. Tell me what’s happening.�
�

  His father’s gaze seared him and the normally gentle voice sounded hard, cruel. Peter had never heard this tone before. ‘There is no certificate for you. There never was. Your birth didn’t happen, Peter.’ Then he softened back to his normal tone and turned away. ‘I’m sorry, son. I prayed it wouldn’t come to this. I thought after all these years we’d got through it.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense! Dad, tell me it all. Whatever this is, just give me the truth and stop talking around it. Why don’t I have papers? How could I have got to this age without a birth certificate?’

  ‘You’ve never needed a passport, that’s why. The rest was easy enough. When you began school we gave your date of birth, which we did know. Schools never check those things.’ He shrugged. ‘A record is born. From there on, the schools knew you and could verify who you were for your national insurance number. Your Saturday job at the petrol station was another tick. Our family doctor has known us since the day we moved into Rottingdean — he had no reason to question when you were born or even that you were adopted. He vouched for you, as did your teachers, when you went for your driving licence and university entrance.’

  Peter looked stunned. ‘You’re right, I’ve never needed a birth certificate,’ he said with amazement.

  His father flicked his cigarette butt away into the compost heap. ‘It’s all about building a record. So long as that’s squeaky clean, no one troubles you.’

  ‘But, Dad,’ Peter implored, ‘I need a passport and I need a birth certificate for this job. Tell me why I don’t have one.’

  An eruption of anger drove his father’s vicious response. ‘Because, officially, you weren’t born! Alright?’

  ‘I wasn’t born?’ Peter murmured. He looked around at the neighbours’ gardens, suddenly fearful of this odd conversation being heard.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ve all gone away . . . together. We’ve lived here for three decades, but we just get asked to keep an eye on the houses,’ his father said bitterly.