As she drifted aimlessly round Roper’s kitchen, Natalie cast her mind back to those first desperate hours of the police hunt. She and Max scurrying like scalded ants, desperate to find a photo to give Bev Morriss. They could’ve searched till the cows moved house, never mind came home. They’d been looking in the wrong place. She’d just found them in Roper’s bedroom, stuck up the chimneybreast with masking tape. Terry Roper made a lousy Father Christmas.
Natalie perched her narrow backside on the kitchen table. She’d thought it through, so didn’t like where it was going. She didn’t yet know why Roper had nicked the pictures – but they weren’t the only items she’d found gathering soot. She’d also come across a bank statement that showed a whopping great deposit. Fifty grand. Paid in by Tel.
Not media money, either. Before Zoë disappeared, there’d been no story.
The teenager lit an Embassy, squinted as smoke drifted into her eyes. A cluster of disparate images floated inside her head. She sifted them, watched as they started to settle. The pieces were beginning to fit together but the puzzle wasn’t complete. Roper was spending more and more time out of the picture. To make sure the gap wasn’t permanent, she’d lifted his passport. Just in case.
Natalie stubbed the fag out on a greasy plate, lit another. The scrap of paper she’d found in the CD case was in her pocket. Not that she needed it. She’d called the number so often she knew it by heart. She tried again now. Same story. Someone picked up, never answered. Natalie listened to the soft breathing, sensed the tension. She curbed the urge to scream obscenities, gently replaced the receiver. She could be wrong.
Taking another deep drag, she flicked the butt in the sink, then grabbed her bag, checked the contents. Everything she needed was there. Her slow smile was ironic as she slipped into a pink faux-fur coat and out on to the early morning streets.
As Natalie Beck hopped on a number 50, Bev was closeted in the guv’s office at Highgate. She’d just furnished him with an account of last night’s not-so-happy homecoming. Byford made it clear he wanted a police guard on the house and a personal protection officer on her.
“Long as it’s only off-duty hours.” Bev’s muttered response sounded like a token protest even to her.
The guv’s eyebrows formed upside-down v’s. He raised a mug of mint tea. He’d expected a harder time.
There was no choice. Though she’d never admit it, Bev had been well and truly freaked last night. She’d given the guv a diluted version, concentrated on her concern for Zachary Caine. Soon as she’d stopped shaking, she’d put a call through to Zach. He was fine, thank God. Nothing amiss. Even so, security at the hospital would be stepped up and for the time being they’d keep an eye on the doctor’s house.
For the guv’s ears, she’d made light of her own ordeal. As far as she could. The weight still dragged her down. She’d caught herself glancing in mirrors, convinced her face would reflect the lingering fear. A rare emotion for Bev, and one to which she had no intention of getting attached.
Within the hour the early brief was done and dusted, tasks assigned and actions initiated. Bev bumped into Oz en route to the incident room. She smiled as they went through a silly excuse-me dance in the middle of the corridor. Oz didn’t return the smile. His face was set in a dark scowl she’d not seen before, wasn’t keen to witness again. Almost without thinking, she reached a hand to touch his arm but he didn’t so much pull back as recoil.
“Oz?” She’d come so close to calling him in the early hours, desperate for a comforting touch; his touch. As dawn light filtered through bedroom curtains, she’d arrived at what for Bev was a momentous decision: when the case was over, she’d tell him what had happened and how she felt. At the moment it was all too raw.
“What?” Peremptory. Indifferent.
She knew she’d hurt him, didn’t realise how much. She glanced round, moved a little nearer. “Look, sweetheart, I...”
He made a barrier with both hands. “Leave it. Get it into your head. It’s not always about you.”
Tears pricked her eyes. “Suit yourself, sunshine, if that’s the way you want to play.” A hasty retreat into the comfort of the Bev Morriss levity shell.
He lifted his head for the first time during the encounter. “I don’t. Not any more.”
She watched as he turned and walked away. Gutted. Now she had an idea how it felt. Not that she had time to explore.
“Sarge. You’re needed. Quick.” Darren New approached at a fair old lick from the opposite direction.
Bev cleared her throat, brushed a finger under an eye. “Shoot, Daz, before you blow a gasket.”
“The Carver baby. A punter reckons he seen her. Like five minutes ago.”
Natalie Beck had taken two buses to get there - a class pad in Montague Place, Edgbaston: white, double-fronted, tall casement windows, holly bush heaving with berries outside the porch. Not what she’d imagined. She’d ambled past a couple of times, given it the odd glance. Now she was giving it both eyes from the bus shelter opposite. Shelter? That was a laugh. The sky was holiday-blue but the cold was freezing her ass off. She tightened the belt round the pink coat and dug gloved hands into deep pockets.
Now she was here she was having third thoughts, cold feet to go with her icy bum. She’d dawdle across glowing coals if she was a hundred per cent sure Zoë was in there. But the place, the whole neighbourhood, was well posh. The wide rush-hour roads were clogged with big shiny motors, people-carriers and that, mums taking snotty kids to the private school round the corner. Didn’t anyone walk round these parts?
Natalie sparked up; she’d lost count of the fags she’d smoked. The modest pile of butts at her feet was the conservative tip of an iceberg. A bloke with boot-polish hair and a Burberry standing next to her coughed, cut her a filthy look. She waved the smoke in his face. He could take a running jump over the exhaust fumes. Anyway, she needed something to take the edge off her nerves.
And she was scared. Shit scared. There was no hint, no tiny sign that she was right. Still, she’d come this far. She could wait a few more minutes. Fools rush in...
She almost missed it: movement at an upstairs window, curtains being drawn back. She homed in, agog for more. No one. Nothing. Whoever it was certainly hadn’t hung round for the view. But someone was inside. Right, bring it on, girl. She ground the nub end under a pixie boot, then walked fifty metres up the road before crossing. This time when she passed she’d concentrate on the upstairs room.
But what she saw threw passing right out the window. She turned into the gates and crunched her way up the short gravel drive. Sunlight had caught on something shiny dangling from the ceiling of that upstairs room. She’d not been able to make it out properly, but it looked like sequins. And she reckoned that could be a kid’s mobile. So there had to be a baby in the house, didn’t there?
Natalie lifted the heavy brass knocker, keenly aware of the hammering her heart was giving her ribcage. Big question, only question: was it her baby?
The incident room buzzed, yet Bev had rarely heard it so quiet. Twenty or so officers crowded round a computer screen. On the monitor a photo of a woman and baby alongside the canal not far off Brindley Place.
“Where’s it from?” Bev hunkered down for a closer look.
Darren glanced at his notes. “Old geezer name of Harold Devlin. Bird watcher. Spots the woman and the kid on the towpath. Reckons there’s something dodgy so he clicks off a few shots. He’s got a digital – just emailed them.”
Jack Hainsworth anticipated the question. “Team’s out there as we speak.”
Bev clenched her fists, registered damp palms. Sweet Lord, let it be Jessica and let them get there in time. She glanced back at the monitor, fought to keep her voice steady. “You said them, Daz?”
Darren clicked the mouse, brought up four more photographs. As in the first, the baby was asleep in a sling round the woman’s chest. The woman’s face was partially obscured by tree branches.
“Can you go in on t
he baby?” It was a cliché that all babies look alike, but from this distance and angle Bev was having difficulty distinguishing the features.
“That’s as far as I can go, sarge.”
She grimaced. Not far enough. It could be the Carver baby but she couldn’t swear to it. “OK. Let’s hit the road.”
First off, Natalie reckoned the woman who answered the door was the cleaner. Mousy wasn’t in it: dowdy, shapeless, old-beige-bag-on-legs.
“Not today, thank you.” She went to close what was only a face-width gap.
Natalie inserted a slender foot. “I ain’t selling.” She forced a friendly smile. Though not word-perfect, she’d practised the lines. “Tel... Terry Roper sent me.”
The Mouse bristled. Even the thin frizzy hair seemed to stand on end. “I don’t know anyone of that name.”
But she did. When it came to lying, Natalie was a virtuoso, the old bag a novice. The eyes were the giveaway. Natalie could see panic, confusion and fear.
“I think you do.” Natalie searched the plain washed-out face. Had she seen it before?
“Move your foot or I’ll phone the police.”
Natalie pushed her foot further in, held the Mouse’s dull brown eyes in a defiant stare. “You do that.”
The woman looked away first. “What do you want?”
“Answers.” Natalie pointed. “Inside.”
The hall was big enough to live in. Not that she’d want to. Massive staircase, galleried landing; Christ, it was like one of the spreads in HELLO!
“Wait in there.” The Mouse pointed to a door on the left.
Natalie strolled in, glanced round. She reckoned the antiques were genuine and the paintings the real deal. Huge great logs in the fire. Shame they weren’t lit; it was well nippy. She heard footsteps going upstairs, doors closing, a toilet flushing. She sat on a wing chair, sank back into deep cushions, scrabbling round in her bag for chewing gum. She’d have lit a fag but she’d smoked the pack.
Where the frigging hell was the old cow? What was she doing? If she thought keeping Natalie hanging round would put her in her place, or off her stride, she was dead wrong. Way Natalie saw it, she had nothing to lose. She was itching to get it over with, couldn’t see the point in pissing about.
“Right, what do you want?” Maybe the woman felt the same way. Natalie hadn’t heard her come in but she stood now in front of a huge gilt mirror on the wall over the fireplace. She looked the same but she’d sharpened her act. The words were clipped, full of contempt as she looked down on Natalie, in every sense.
Natalie didn’t like it. She affected indifference with a yawn the size of a black hole, rubbed thumb and fingers. “Cash.”
The woman laughed. Big mistake. Natalie sprang out of the chair and into her face. “What’s funny?”
The woman stepped back, trembling hand at turkey neck.
“See, Tel’s running a bit short. Needs another fifty grand.” Natalie held the woman’s startled gaze with unwavering eyes. She was making it up as she went along, busking with a full orchestra. The bullshit sounded so good, even Natalie believed it.
“Then Terry Roper can come here and ask.” The eyes were steady this time. She was a quick learner, Natalie’d give her that. And that was all.
“Suit yourself.” She sniffed. “Get the baby.”
What little colour there was drained from the woman’s face. “Never. You’re mad. Completely insane.”
Natalie’s eyes flared; she felt the heat rise in her face. She grabbed the woman’s cardigan, hauled her closer. “I’m not asking. Get her. Now.”
“For God’s sake! Let me go!” Good job the house was detached. The neighbours’d be banging on the walls. “There is no baby here.”
But Natalie had smelt the truth in the woman’s hair, the delicate heady scent clinging to her clothes. “Fucking liar.”
The woman tore herself from Natalie’s grasp. “I’m telling you, there is no...”
The walls were thick and the doors were closed but the sound carried into the room from upstairs: the angry squalling of a fractious baby.
“Yeah, right.” Natalie spat in the woman’s face and spun on her heel. She was halfway up the stairs when the woman screamed from the hall.
“Fifty thousand! It’s yours! Anything you want!”
Fists tight, Natalie turned and snarled through clenched teeth. “I want my baby, you moron.”
The words were like bullets. “Your baby...” The woman flinched, backing away as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, needed a better view.
Natalie had to force herself not to squirm under the intense scrutiny. Seconds passed as the plain face twisted, trying to come to terms with the shock. The screams from above fell silent. Maybe it focused the woman’s thinking, but what she said had the opposite effect on the teenager.
“You can’t just change your mind like that. You gave your word.”
Legs shaking, eyes boring into the woman, Natalie slowly started to descend. “What did you say?”
34
Brindley Place was teeming: shoppers, tourists, workers, oldies with time on their hands and cash in their pockets. The squad had fanned out, most taking the towpath, others infiltrating the crowds. Bev was coordinating the operation via police radio. The idea was to get the woman in their sights, not to approach.
Bev was in position on a bridge spanning the canal, just downstream from the Carvers’ apartment block. She’d drop by shortly, tell them what the increased police activity was about. Hopefully she’d have something more than words to give.
Jazz riffs drifted from a nearby bar, competing with the strains of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen courtesy of the Salvation Army. The winter sun glinted brilliantly on oil rainbows floating on the canal. Bev held a hand to shield her eyes as she scanned towpath and canal banks.
“Could be anywhere by now.” She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Why didn’t Devlin follow her if he was so bloody worried?”
“Come on, sarge, he’s seventy if he’s a day.” DC New stamped his feet to ward off frostbite.
“Yeah, yeah.” She sighed, her breath a plume of white smoke. “You spoke to him, Daz. What did he reckon was so dodgy?”
“He reckoned she looked scared. Like someone was following her? When he shouts to ask if she’s OK, she takes off like a bat on speed.”
Wasn’t a lot to go on. Bev’s high hopes were losing altitude when the call came through.
“Sarge. We’ve got her. Le Bistro, back table. What you want to do?”
The mousy woman was sobbing now. Her nose bled, could well be broken; the cheek looked equally painful. Natalie’s stinging slap had left finger-mark stencils. She’d slung the woman a damp cloth to staunch the flow. They were in the kitchen, both in shock, both in tears as the painful details emerged about the woman’s literally barren existence.
Her name was Sally Barnes. She had suffered many failed pregnancies; the last miscarriage had led to life-threatening complications; her womb had been removed shortly after. Wealthy but desperately lonely since her husband’s death, she had kept on her managerial post at a job centre that Terry Roper sometimes attended. That desire for human contact had brought a sick monster into her life.
Plausible and charming, Roper had inveigled his way into the woman’s trust. It didn’t take long before he was promising her the one thing she thought money couldn’t buy.
Further, he conned her into believing Natalie was in on the baby-for-sale deal, and that the media appeal and press interviews were all part of the scam aimed at adding credibility to the child’s disappearance. The money, he said, was to finance a fresh start abroad for him and Natalie.
The teenager felt light-headed, queasy. The enormity of Roper’s crime blew her mind. Yet Sally Barnes was clearly telling the truth. The woman was devastated and it was about to get worse. Natalie almost felt sorry for the pathetic dupe. Then she remembered the anguish, the horror, the god-awful pain of the last two weeks.
“What about me?” she asked. “Didn’t you just once think what it was doing to me?”
“I had no reason to. He told me it was your idea. I thought I was doing you a favour.”
Natalie gagged, ran to the back door, flung it open and threw up. Pale and trembling, she staggered to the sink, made a cup with her hands, gulped water.
“I should have known.” The woman’s voice was resigned, distant.
Natalie turned, water dripping from her chin. “Fuck you on about?”
“When the other baby went missing. I knew it would jeopardise everything. It was going too far. I was desperate to speak to him. He didn’t take my calls, of course.”
Natalie hadn’t thought of that. Had Roper taken the other baby too, for another scam? Greedy bastard.
“What will happen now?” The woman stared down, tracing a finger along the edge of the table. Though she’d asked the question, she must know the answer.
“You’ll get back every lousy penny,” Natalie said. “I’ll see to that.”
“I don’t care about the money.” Her creased face crumpled further, her shoulders sagged. “Please... I’m begging...”
“Get the baby.” Bloody woman was lucky to be getting off so light. One call and the cops’d be round like a ton of bricks. But losing Zoë’d be punishment enough. It was Roper who’d wish he’d never been born.
“I’d rather die than live without her.” Looked as if she was about to.
“Tough.” Natalie jabbed a finger at the ceiling. “Get her or I will.”
Barnes sat still, unblinking as tears ran down her cheeks, mixing with the blood that trickled from her nose.
Natalie pushed herself up from the sink, strode past. “Suit yourself.” She was almost at the top of the stairs when she felt a tug on the hem of her coat.
“Think of the baby, Natalie. Think what’s best for Angel.”
Baby Love Page 22