‘Get Joe,’ he mouths. I nod again, then he turns to the door, pushes it open and steps inside in one fast move. I’m right behind him, just in time to see Anna bend over Joe’s car seat and scoop up Joe – my baby! Then there’s a moment when everything freezes: Anna standing holding Joe to her shoulder, and Jake staring at her. She looks different without the pregnancy bump; the clothes she wore to the airport yesterday – the jeans and the Converse and the blue sweatshirt – are loose on her frame, giving her the look of a child. Her eyes are wide, panicky, mad.
‘Vivian!’ Jake yells and he launches himself across the room, oblivious to any danger there might be. Anna whirls around and runs towards a door on the other side of the space, Jake hot on her heels. I follow, noting Anna’s backpack as I pass – the one she’d had filled with nappies, wipes and toys, ready to take to the States – and, even while I’m pleased she had supplies, it hits me how precisely she’d planned this.
Anna pushes open a door on the far side of the warehouse space and flies through it, shoving it closed behind her so Jake has to open it again. By the time I catch up, they’re both clattering up a rickety metal staircase that zigzags up the side of the warehouse. Anna’s already past the first floor, and Jake’s running up the stairs two at a time behind her. Joe’s crying now, and the sound makes my breasts tingle. Holding tight to the rail, I follow as fast as I can. When I get to the top of the stairs, Jake and Anna are already on the roof. Anna’s clutching Joe to her chest.
‘Don’t come any closer!’ she screams.
Jake stops where he is, his hands held up in a surrender. ‘Vivian. Please just give me the baby.’
They stare at each other and I realize that Anna’s dangerously near the edge; that whatever railing used to be there is long gone. My legs go weak at the thought of my baby so close to the edge, and I sway, grabbing onto the stair railing for support. Joe’s wails build so he’s barely sucking in enough breath to sustain the rhythmic cries that wrench right through to my uterus.
‘Anna, please!’ I yell, then try to calm myself, to speak evenly. ‘It’s okay. Whatever you want, it’s okay. Just give us Joe. We’ll do whatever you want. But please just give me back my son.’ My voice breaks. ‘He’s hungry.’ I look at the lightweight blanket she’s got him in. ‘He’s cold!’
‘He should be mine!’ Anna shouts above the sound of his screams. ‘He was meant to be mine! You don’t want him!’
‘You have to give him back!’ Jake shouts. ‘There’s no other way out of this.’
‘He’s mine!’ yells Anna. ‘We were going to have a baby. You and me! Remember? You promised! And then you left. You left me for her!’ She sobs. ‘This is only fair! It’s fair that I get him. He was always mine. I was there for the birth – I was there for that pathetic bitch! I’ve looked after him ever since.’ She strokes Joe’s head then speaks in a baby voice that makes my skin crawl. ‘There, there, Joe-Joe. Mummy’s here.’
‘Give him back!’ I yell.
‘Why should you have him? It’s me he loves. It’s me who looks after him. It’s me who feeds him and rocks him and takes him to the park. You don’t love him. You don’t want him.’
‘Please, Vivian. You have to give the baby to Taylor.’ Jake’s voice is calm and he edges towards Anna but she steps back, closer to the edge of the roof.
‘Stop!’ I scream at Jake. ‘She’ll fall!’
‘All I ever wanted was your baby!’ Anna shouts. ‘All you had to do was give me that. We were so close, and then she,’ she spits the word, ‘came along.’ The wind picks up and Joe screams louder, his blanket now almost saturated with rain. Anna’s hair is plastered to her face and she looks so slight I worry a sudden gust might blow them both over the edge. ‘You stopped me. You denied me the one thing I wanted. Well, now I’ve got him. He’s mine. Your first son. He belongs with me. He always did.’
‘Vivian, no! You’re wrong. You’ll go to jail for this. Give us the baby, and get on with your life.’
‘If I can’t have him, then neither can you.’ She takes a step towards the edge, and I realize with a certainty that almost stops my heart that she’s planning to jump with Joe in her arms. I launch myself across the roof towards her at the same time as Jake does.
‘Stop!’ Jake screams. ‘He’s not mine!’
I stumble to a halt just behind him, confused – of course he’s Jake’s – but his lie’s hit the jackpot because it works. Anna turns away from the edge for a fraction of a second, and Jake seizes his chance. ‘I can’t have children. We used a donor.’
Anna’s frozen, her face white. She holds Joe out in front of her. He’s screaming non-stop now, at the top of his lungs.
‘What?’ Anna says. ‘What did you say?’ She gives Joe a little shake and I whimper.
‘He’s not my son,’ Jake says, edging closer.
‘You’re lying! He looks like you. Look at him.’ She shakes him again.
‘It’s the truth,’ I shout.
‘But I know everything about you. You never went to a fertility clinic. I’d have known.’
Anna stares at Joe’s face as if trying to identify his father and, in that split second, Jake pounces towards her. There’s a tussle, both of them on the edge of the roof, and I try to move but my limbs are frozen; I’m unable to look but equally unable to look away as Jake wrestles with Anna. Then suddenly he has Joe in his hands, and he screams ‘Grab him!’ as he turns to me and I’m there, my arms shooting out to grasp my son, but Anna’s trying to grab him back and, instead, she gets a hold of Jake’s jacket and swings him towards the edge of the building. Jake whacks her hand off him but she grabs his wrist and it’s in a moment that seems to freeze forever in my mind that they struggle on the edge of the roof, then Jake shoves Anna and she falls backwards, clutching at him as she goes, and the last thing I see is her arms cartwheeling in the air as both of them plunge over the edge of the building, then almost instantaneously comes the sickening crunch of their bodies hitting the ground below.
I sink to my knees on the wet roof, clutching Joe to me, keening. But he’s hungry, he’s rooting for a nipple so I open my clothes, snuggle his wet little body under my jacket and let him latch on. He feeds hungrily, his body still convulsing as his sobs die down, his little fists opening and closing. I stroke his forehead with a finger, and touch my lips to his skin.
‘There, there,’ I say. ‘It’s all over. It’s all over now.’
Fifty-six
And in a way, I was right. In one way, it was all over. It didn’t take me long to tie up the loose ends in London – to work my way through the red tape surrounding Jake’s death, to sell the house, to get the shippers in and fly back to the States.
But in another way, it took much longer. Although I’d decided I was leaving Jake anyway, although he’d broken all the trust I’d ever had in him, there were still days when I woke up in the morning and, in that halfway haze between sleep and wakefulness, forgot all that had happened and reached out for him in bed, his absence sucker-punching me. You can snatch away the person, I suppose, but it takes longer to dissolve the emotional bonds of a marriage – no matter what wrongs were done.
I’ve come to terms now with the fact that my marriage was doomed from the start, but that doesn’t stop me thanking God that it was that doomed marriage that brought me the light of my life: my son, Joe.
Acknowledgements
There are many people I’d like to thank for the parts they’ve played in getting this book into your hands. The brilliant team at HQ: Lisa Milton, Kate Mills and Sally Williamson, as well as the sales, digital, PR and marketing teams who beaver away behind the scenes.
As always, my thanks go to Luigi and Alison Bonomi, who continue to guide me on my journey as an author. To Isobel Abulhoul and Yvette Judge of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, and to Charlie Nahaas of Montegrappa, the sponsor of the writing competition that propelled me to success, and one of the most inspirational people I have the pleasure of knowing
.
Special thanks to Helen Kelly, Melanie Hellier and Rebecca Boldry for their technical advice on police procedure. Any mistakes are mine, not theirs.
To Rachel Hamilton for casting her expert and critical eye over the very first draft; to my author friends who are always there to share the ups and downs of this profession: B A Paris, Jessica Jarlvi, Charlotte Butterfield, Karen Osman and Alice Clark. To Jeremy Steane for all his help and film suggestions, and to my friends who support me every day perhaps without even realising: in particular, Valerie Myerscough, Rohini Gill, Zoe Dajani, Karen Connolly, Jacqueline Thorpe and Belinda Freeman.
And finally, thanks to my mum, who believes I can do anything; to Sam for his unwavering belief in me, weekend child care and brilliant plot twists; and to Maia and Aiman, for reminding me (constantly) that there’s a world beyond my office that keeps on turning.
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