Emma's Baby

by Taylor, Abbie

  Emma looked at him, and he looked back, each of them acknowledging the other. There was no change of expression from either of them. No smiles, obviously. But no anger or hatred either. Not from him, not from her. If she could have spoken to him, she might have, though it might have taken a while to find the words.

  Then Lindsay put a hand on her arm, and they moved on together until they were out in the street.

  At the entrance to St Paul's tube station, Lindsay gave Emma a warm hug.

  'Congratulations, Emma,' she said.

  'Congratulations to you too.' Emma smiled. An oval-shaped diamond glittered on Lindsay's engagement finger.

  'You're quite sure you won't take that lift?' Lindsay asked. 'The car isn't very far away.'

  Emma shook her head. 'I'll be quicker on the tube,' she said. 'My neighbour is minding Ritchie, and I don't want to keep her too long.'

  'All right, then.'

  They looked at each other for a moment. They both went to speak at the same time. Then they laughed. They hugged again, and wished each other well. Then Lindsay walked away. Her dark coat and neat, glossy bun vanished quickly into the crowds. Emma stood on the long escalator and watched herself being carried down to the platform. She felt several different emotions at once. The main one was a great sense of peace and relief. That was it. She would not see any of those people again.

  Mrs Cornes had a friend who owned a couple of summer-rental cottages in Cornwall.

  'You need a break after that court case,' Mrs Cornes said. 'Your mother used to holiday in Polbraith as a child. She often said how much she loved it. The cottage is only a tiny two-bedroomed terrace but my friend, Mrs Castle, will let you have it for a very low price for as long as you need.'

  Emma said, 'We'd love to take it. But only if you'll promise to come and visit us while we're there.'

  People had been so kind. Rosina, glowing with happiness, had called to say she was going home to the Philippines for three whole months. She asked if Emma and Ritchie would like to go with her for a while, to stay with her family by the sea. Emma thought that the journey might be too long for Ritchie, but Rosina had told her not to worry because the invitation would still be there for when he was older. Even strangers like Dr Rudd had gone out of their way to help; and Mary and Tom, the owners of the Pie and Lobster, who had given her the job. Emma and Ritchie had been in all the newspapers for weeks, their photos in every shop and news-stand, everywhere you looked. It seemed, at one point, as if everybody knew them and wanted to do something to show their support. But these days, fewer and fewer people were recognizing them. The photos in the papers were out of date now; she and Ritchie were not the same people they'd been then. Ritchie wasn't the tiny child on the red truck any more. He was huge. People thought he was three, not two. He was learning how to swim. He was a little boy now, not a baby. And when the newspapers published the report on the court case, Emma was surprised to see the picture of herself that they used. It was one that had been taken a few months before the kidnap. A health visitor had taken a photo of her holding Ritchie when he was about five months old. She was thin, with black circles under her eyes. Angry and hostile-looking. Her eyes were slitted, her head lowered, her hair scraped back off her face. Had she really ever looked like that?

  Life was not perfect now. Emma still didn't know what she and Ritchie would do once the summer was over. Would they go back to their flat in Hammersmith? Maybe ask for a bigger one, now that Ritchie needed a room of his own?

  She'd seen Joanne a couple of times in London. Joanne and Barry had split up soon after Christmas. Joanne had come home from work early one day and caught Barry in bed with one of his female colleagues.

  'I'm well shot of him,' Joanne told Emma over coffee in Emma's flat. 'He was so controlling. It was only his friends he wanted us to meet up with, never mine.' She put a tentative hand on Emma's arm. 'I'm so sorry we lost touch, Ems. We should meet up more often now. Never let it happen again.'

  But was that what Emma wanted? To go on living in social housing, even in a larger flat where Ritchie had his own room? To go on meeting Joanne for coffees and pretending that their friendship could ever go back to what it had been?

  And money was still an issue. She was very much enjoying the camaraderie of the work at the Pie and Lobster, but the job was for the summer only. Once it was over she'd have to go back to dipping into her savings.

  At night, sometimes, she worried about all of these things.

  But the other day, walking home with Ritchie from the beach, where both of them had paddled in the sea and she'd laughed at Ritchie's face when he'd seen a crab, the afternoon had been so lovely she'd caught herself humming a song she'd heard on the radio earlier.

  The tide whooshed again. Emma stretched her arm out, opening and closing her fist.

  Tomorrow evening, Rafe would be here. How would things go between them? Would they get on well together? Run out of things to say? It was almost a year since she'd seen him. He'd been all around South America since then. He had emailed photos: the bar where he'd worked in Rio de Janeiro, a campsite by a glacier in Chile, a canoe he'd floated in, down through a gorge: 'I felt like Indiana Jones.' Her and Ritchie's life would probably seem very dull to him. Well, she hoped he'd enjoy the weekend. She'd like to show him Rich paddling, and the cliffs, and the places where the surfers went. It would be good if they could be friends.

  If you're serious about re-applying for the police, she'd written, you can put Ritchie and me on your CV.

  Three months. And here she was, still in Polbraith. She'd never intended to stay this long. She could see why her mum had loved it so much. People here looked out for each other. It would be a lovely place to bring up a child.

  A couple of evenings back, Ritchie had come flying into the kitchen to find her.

  'Muh.' He hauled on her sleeve, pointing towards the sitting-room. 'Muh.'

  'What is it? What's going on?'

  'Oh. Oh.' He panted, desperately trying to tell her.

  He pulled her into Mrs Castle's chintzy sitting-room, and scrambled up on to the window seat. Outside, it was getting dark. The flowers on the bush below the window glowed luminous pink. The line where the sea met the horizon was pink as well, the sky navy.

  'Woo,' Ritchie kept saying. 'Woo-ooo.'

  'A ghost?' Emma peered. 'Where?'

  Ritchie pointed vigorously into the garden, but it was clear he wasn't too sure where. His eyes searched. Then he was on his knees, pointing again and gasping dramatically.

  Emma said, 'Oh, now I see.'

  She did. A pair of white barn owls, swooping in the dusk over the bush. Ritchie's eyes, following them ecstatically, were filled with the pink light from the sea.

  'They're beautiful ghosts,' Emma told him.

  She looked down at him, at his heart-shaped face, his broad, intelligent forehead, and thought again, for the thousandth time, how incredibly privileged she was to have him.

  The owls swooped again. Their reflections flitted past the glass in a photo on the window sill. The photo was the one of Emma with her mum and gran, taken on the day of her gran's birthday. Her mum and her gran sat on the couch together, smiling at the camera. Across their faces, the two pale owls floated and soared.

  Ritchie pointed at the ghostly shapes in the glass.

  'Woo,' he said. 'Woo-ooo.'

  At work on Friday, Susan said to Emma, 'What's this? You're all dressed up.'

  'I am not.'

  'Yes, you are.' Susan came around the bar and put her hands on her hips. 'Definitely.' She looked Emma up and down. 'New top?'

  'Haven't I worn this before?'

  'No.'

  'Oh, well.' Emma wiped a smudge of peanut dust off the bar top. Over the past few weeks, she and Susan had become good mates. Susan had a little girl a year older than Ritchie who was in the Dolphins as well. Emma didn't know why she felt suddenly shy with her.

  'A friend of mine is coming to visit today,' Emma said. 'After work.'
r />   'A friend, eh?' Susan gave a knowing smile. 'Well, you look great.'

  After work, Emma collected Ritchie from the Dolphins. He came in from the garden at a funeral pace, his tongue sticking out, concentrating on a squashed yellow flower in his fist. He went to Emma and presented the flower to her. She took it from him, with difficulty, as the petals were stuck to his fingers.

  'Ah.' Jess tilted her head. 'Isn't that sweet?'

  'It's beautiful. Thank you.' Emma tried to kiss him, but he was busy wiping his hands on the front of his T-shirt.

  'Mess,' he said.

  Emma put the mashed flower into her bag. She said to Ritchie, 'We'll go home along the cliff path.'

  My last week in South America. My flight leaves from Lima on Tuesday. Right now, I'm in the Andes, and we've been trekking since dawn. We just got into this village an hour ago. The views are spectacular, but I can't appreciate them at the moment because I'm hot, and my feet are killing me, and the altitude is melting my brain.

  And now here, in this tiny market square, miles from anywhere, I find this message from you.

  It's great to hear from you, Emma. I'm really looking forward to seeing you both.

  The way home from the Dolphins took them up the hill. At the top of the hill, all that was left was the sea, sparkly in the distance, deep blue near the shore. Shhwooo it said as it came in, and there was a crackle as it slid back out again. They were on a cliff path with a wooden fence. Beyond the fence, twisty stone steps led down to the long, sandy beach. Further along the cliff, an old copper-mine tower, overgrown with creeper, stuck straight into the sky.

  Ritchie ran ahead, holding a long, spiral shell. Then he stopped, pointing down the cliff path.

  'Man,' he said.

  There was a man, halfway down the path. Leaning on the part of the fence that ran outside their house. A black rucksack lay at his feet, and his bright blue T-shirt matched the sea. The man had seen them too. He straightened, shading his eyes with his hand. Then he lifted his arm, fingers spread, a high, full-on salute. Emma waved back. She felt the smile in her eyes, then her mouth, then all over, every part of her involved. She waved again, standing on tiptoe to make sure he saw. The man came out to the middle of the path to wait. Emma's heart was beating faster. But of course, that would be the steepness of the path from the village. It was a very warm evening.

  'Come on, Rich,' she said.

  Ritchie had to sort his shell out first. He hunched down, carefully, to place it in the grass. The shell tipped a little; he steadied it in the grey curve of a rock. Then he stood up again and took Emma's hand. Together, they walked on down the path.

  THE END

  TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOW

  by Anita Notaro

  Most of us can remember a defining moment in our lives. A split second when time stood still and our lives changed forever. For Lily Ormond, that moment came late one night when she answered a knock on the door and discovered that while she'd been smashing garlic and rosemary and watching the soaps, her sister Alison had drowned.

  Coming to terms with losing her only sibling and best friend was devastating, becoming a mother overnight to Ali's three-year-old son Charlie was mind-boggling, but discovering that her identical twin had been leading a secret life for years was almost Lily's undoing . . .

  And so begins a journey linked with four men who'd been part of a life she hadn't even known existed. A journey that forces Lily to come to terms with a father who'd never really cared for her, a child who needs her too much and a sister who wasn't what she seemed.

  'An emotional rollercoaster that keeps you turning the pages' Patricia Scanlan

  9780553816853

  THE FIRST APOSTLE

  by James Becker

  An Englishwoman is found dead in a house near Rome, her neck broken.

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  But who are the liars? And what is it they are lying about to protect?

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  And to a deadly conspiracy which – if revealed – will rock the foundations of our modern world.

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  A gruesome secret is about to be unearthed . . .

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  But who was the young woman? And how did she die?

  It is the 1830s, and an impoverished medical student, Norris Marshall, is forced to procure corpses in order to further his studies in human anatomy.

  It's a gruesome livelihood that will bring him into contact with a terrifying serial killer who slips from ballrooms to graveyards and into autopsy suites.

  And who is far, far closer than Norris could ever imagine . . .

  'Fascinating . . . spectacularly gory . . . a fast paced novel that leaves you with a real appreciation of just how far medicine has come in the past century' Mail on Sunday

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