by Tania Carver
‘Do you know why?’ asked Fenwick.
Phil shook his head. ‘Habit? First response? I don’t know. I’d like to talk to them both again, separately. But I’m sure he’ll be keeping her on a short leash at the moment. I’ve got the post-mortem from Nick Lines.’
He shared it with them. The blade used, the drug, the size and build of the attacker.
‘I’m liking this Ryan Brotherton more and more,’ said Fenwick.
Phil didn’t answer him. ‘But Lines did say we have only a limited window to find the baby alive. If it’s not being looked after, it could be just hours. A day at the most.’
Silence as his team took in the words.
Phil turned. ‘Adrian, Jane. CCTV? Door-to-door follow-ups? ’
‘Nothing as yet from CCTV,’ said DS Jane Gosling, ‘but we expect the tapes from the block of flats and the streets by tomorrow morning. We’ve looked into possible sex offenders in the area, anyone known to us with any kind of deviant behaviour that might overlap with this. Nothing. There was this, though. A couple of residents in the flats reported seeing a large figure dressed in a long overcoat and hat in the area last night. No sign of them after what we assume to be the time of death.’
‘Brotherton?’ said Anni.
‘Could be,’ said Fenwick. He had a hunter’s gleam in his eye.
‘Right,’ said Phil. ‘I think we can assume that this was done to get Claire Fielding’s baby. Julie Simpson’s husband has been interviewed, and while we can’t be entirely certain, I’m pretty sure she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘Like Claire,’ said Anni.
‘Absolutely. But if it’s all about Claire, then that’s one thing. However if this is the same person who murdered Lisa King and Susie Evans, it could be the baby they’re after. Either way, that doesn’t necessarily rule out Brotherton.’
‘What d’you think, Phil?’ said Fenwick. ‘ Gut feeling. Is it him?’
Phil frowned. ‘If it had just been this one incident, these two murders, then I would have said yes. Case like this, it’s almost always the husband or boyfriend. Well, nine times out of ten. But because of the other two…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He’s lying to us, but I think we need something more definite. We need to find a connection.’
‘We need to find the baby,’ said Anni.
‘Let’s pull him in, then,’ said Fenwick, balling and unballing his fists. ‘Get him in the box, sweat him. See what he has to say then.’
Nods all round the room.
‘Good,’ said Fenwick. He stood, impatient to be doing something. ‘That’s a plan, then. First thing in the morning, Phil, get him in. Get him talking. Get him singing.’
More nods, more assents. The team were buoyed, focused on their target. A voice cut through their thoughts.
‘There is one thing you haven’t fully considered.’
All heads turned to Marina. She was looking up from her notebook, waiting until she had all their attention.
‘What?’ said Fenwick, clearly irritated at the interruption.
‘That it isn’t him.’
20
‘ Stop it, stop it, stop it…’
Hester clamped her hands over her ears and stomped round the room, angrily shaking her head. No good. The baby’s wailing still penetrated. She clamped her ears harder, opened her mouth.
‘La, la, la, I’m not listening… no, no, no, I can’t hear you…’ Shouting at the top of her voice, stomping all the harder, her eyes screwed tight shut, flinging her body round, letting all the impotent rage out.
‘La, la, la…’ Screaming now.
But it was no good. She could still hear the wailing, no matter how hard she screamed.
Hester slammed to a halt, turned to look at the baby, the thing that had promised so much happiness and contentment but which was bringing nothing but trouble. It lay in an old rusted tin bath with a none-too-clean blanket underneath it and another one covering it. The cot that Hester herself, the whole family, had used as a baby. She should have been sentimentally attached to it – after all, it was a family heirloom – but she wasn’t. Her mind didn’t work that way. Perhaps as a baby she had felt safe and secure in her cot. But she didn’t know. Couldn’t remember that far back, she told herself, had blocked it out. Those memories belonged to a different person. And she never wanted to be that person again. She couldn’t be.
She took her hands away from her ears. The baby was still making that noise. It wasn’t the same crying as earlier, strong and loud; this was more like one unending cry of pain. If anything, it was worse than the shouting. She stomped back to it, picked it out of the cot, held it under its arms, looked right into its mewling, shrieking, stupid little face.
‘Shut up!’ she screamed. ‘Shut up! I’ll… I’ll…’ She shook it hard. The movement just made the sound vibrate. It sounded funny. She would have laughed if it wasn’t so annoying. ‘Shut up! Or I’ll fling you against the wall! Yeah, that’ll keep you quiet…’
But the baby didn’t seem to understand her. It just kept on wailing. Hester looked between the wall and the cot, then, with an angry exhalation, flung the baby back down into the tin bath. It bounced on the blankets, looked startled for a few seconds, stopped wailing in surprise. She scrutinised it. Smelled that smell.
‘You stink… urgh…’
The baby was thinking about wailing again. She could tell. She had to do something quickly. Maybe that was it. Maybe it needed its nappy changing. It was still wrapped in the blankets her husband had put it in when he brought it home. Wasn’t even in a proper nappy. Not yet. That was okay; she had seen them get changed on TV. The babies always lay on their backs kicking their legs and laughing while the pretty young mums smiled and wiped their bottoms with a special cloth and put a new nappy on them. Well, that was easy. She could do that. And if she did, the baby would smile again and she could smile again. Easy.
She cleared space on the workbench by sweeping the tools out of the way with her thick, muscled arm and blew any sawdust or iron filings off the surface before hefting the baby out of the cot and placing it down. It remained silent, startled at being moved. Hester smiled. This was what a mother would do. Good. It was working.
She unwrapped the blankets one at a time, pulling them off as quickly as she could, throwing them on the floor. The silence encouraged her to speak in baby talk again, like she was supposed to. She took a nappy out of the bag and picked up a cloth to wipe the baby with.
‘Be prepared,’ she gurgled in an approximation of baby talk. ‘Mummy’s got to be prepared…’
She looked at its body. All pink and blue blotches, like its face. But there was yellow in there too. Was that right? She didn’t think so, but it was still moving so it must be. And it was cold as well. Were they supposed to be cold? She had thought they would be warm. Something else the TV and books had got wrong.
Hester smiled to herself. Maybe she should write a book on babies. Or go on TV to talk about them. Tell the truth about what they were really like. She grinned at the thought and began to undo the final blanket. What she found there wiped the smile off her face.
‘Urgh… no…’
She didn’t know what to do. She had the cloth ready but didn’t want to touch it. She wished her husband was there to help, but knew he wouldn’t do anything.
Lookin’ after babies is women’s work, he always said. Don’t mind gettin’ you one, but you’re lookin’ after it yourself after that.
And she had accepted that. So it was down to her.
She took the cloth and set to work, holding her breath all the time. She did it eventually, throwing the soiled cloth in the pile of blankets. She brought out the wipes that came alongside the nappies. When they were wiped with these, the babies smiled. She wiped it. It didn’t smile. Or laugh. But it didn’t wail. That was something. She wiped it again. That was better. Getting it clean. She threw the wipe after the cloth and the blankets. Looked at the naked baby lying there.
It had a thing sticking out. Little and wrinkled, but with quite a big bump underneath. It was a boy baby.
‘Oh.’
She reached out, got its little thing in her big fat hand. Tiny. Felt a sadness build within her. A tingling somewhere in her body to accompany it. The sadness increased.
No. That was in the past. She was what she was. She was Hester. She was a wife and a mother. She was happy. Happy.
She let go of its thing, started to put a nappy on it. It couldn’t be that difficult. She looked at the picture on the packaging, tried to copy it. While she worked, she thought. About the baby’s little thing. She hoped her husband wanted a boy. He should do. They did, didn’t they? Fathers wanted boys. Another shudder of sadness rippled through her. Most fathers. Some wanted girls. Some made them girls.
She looked again at the baby as she covered its thing up. Smiled.
‘Let’s hope he wants a son,’ she said, baby-talking again, ‘or he’ll have that thing off you quicker than you can say…’ She thought. There was a phrase she should use but she couldn’t think of it. ‘Well, quick, anyway.’
She pulled a one-piece suit on to it.
‘There. Don’t you look handsome?’
It just lay there, kicking its legs slightly. Eyes still screwed tightly shut. But at least it wasn’t screaming.
She checked her watch. Her husband had been back and gone out again. Should be back soon. She could usually feel when he was going to return. Time to feed the baby in the meantime.
She crossed to the fridge, took out a bottle of milk. She knew she couldn’t feed it from her body; that would be stupid. So she got milk from the shop. Full fat. She had read that it should be given powdered milk and something called fortifiers. But she didn’t know what they were. And the powdered milk she didn’t like the sound of. Better off with proper milk. From a cow. Full fat was good; that would have all the fortifiers and stuff in that it needed. That was being responsible, because she had read that children shouldn’t be given diet things. Coke was all right when it was older, a few months maybe, but not yet. She knew that. She wasn’t stupid.
She squirted the milk into her own mouth. Cold. Too cold. Pop it in the microwave. She did, waited for the ping, watching the baby all the while. It lay on the bench, kicking its legs again. She smiled. She liked it like that, when it was quiet. That’s how she’d imagined it would be.
The microwave pinged. She took the bottle out, squirted milk into her mouth. Bit hot. But that might be good. It was cold in here, warm the baby up a bit. Put a bit of colour in its cheeks, make it smile.
She crossed to the bench, shaking the bottle in her hand to cool it a little. She scooped the baby up in one meaty, powerful arm, held the bottle to its mouth. Looked at it, just lying there, its face twisted into a permanent scowl, like a miniature gargoyle. Not what she’d imagined at all. It looked weak, too. Weak and yellow. Like a very old and wise Chinaman in a temple from a martial arts film. She smiled, looked again. No. It just looked tired, like it wanted to sleep. Well, it could. After it was fed.
She ran the bottle along its lips, moistening them. It moved slightly. She took advantage of that, put the bottle in. It jumped.
She laughed. ‘Ooh, almost opened your eyes there.’
She jammed the bottle all the way in. Let it suck. It was good for it.
The sadness was still within her. She forced it away, along with the earlier rage. This was a time for mother and baby. A time for contentment. She had read that somewhere. She sat down in a chair. Sighed. It wasn’t like she had expected it to be. But then she had also read that it never was.
This was her new life, she told herself. She was a complete woman now. Wife. Mother.
‘This is me,’ she said out loud to the baby. ‘This is me. And look… I’m complete.’
The baby didn’t reply. Just lay there, slowly taking in milk but too weak to swallow, letting it run down its sickly yellow face.
Hester didn’t notice. Just smiled.
21
‘ It’s all wrong,’ said Marina. ‘Nothing fits.’
Phil joined the others in looking at her. He knew what they would be thinking: the profiler should stick to her day job, leave the police work to the professionals. He suppressed a smile at her nerve.
She continued, ‘I know I’m running to catch up at the moment. I haven’t visited the crime scene yet or spoken to anyone concerned. All I’ve done is read the case notes this afternoon. And I still haven’t delivered a profile.’ She waited. No one interrupted. ‘But based on what I’ve read about the previous deaths and what I’ve picked up about Ryan Brotherton, he’s not the killer.’
‘Why not?’ said Fenwick, his irritation palpable.
‘Because he’s a spousal abuser, not a killer. They’re two different things.’
‘He could be both,’ said Fenwick.
‘I’ll explain,’ said Marina. ‘For a spousal abuser, it’s all about isolating their partner, keeping them locked away from the rest of the world in order to control them. He’d want to injure her, yes, but not kill her. What good would she be to him dead? He wants her alive to keep tormenting her.’
The silence in the room became very uncomfortable.
‘Now, the baby…’ Marina paused. ‘And we’re assuming here that Claire Fielding, or rather Claire Fielding’s baby, was the subject of the attack… Well, most spousal abusers wouldn’t be happy that their partner was pregnant in the first place. They’re childish and needy and want attention. A baby will take that attention away from them.’
‘Wouldn’t that make them angry?’ said Anni.
‘Not that angry. Because the baby is still part of them. They’ll be jealous that the woman is carrying it, but they won’t try to harm it. And there are another couple of things. No links with the two previous murders-’
‘That we know of,’ said Fenwick. ‘Yet.’
‘That you know of,’ Marina said. ‘But there’s the fact that he drugged her first.’
Phil understood what she meant. ‘He would have wanted her to scream,’ he said. ‘Wanted her to suffer. The drug would have taken that away from her.’
Marina looked at him, smiled. Phil couldn’t help but return it. Then straight back to business.
‘Or he didn’t want her to wake up the whole block,’ said Anni.
‘There is that,’ said Marina. ‘Now, putting aside the baby for a moment, let’s look at what actually happened.’ She pointed to the photo of Claire Fielding’s body without actually looking at it. ‘Here is Claire Fielding. Tied to the bed, spreadeagled. Why?’
‘Ritual?’ suggested Phil.
‘That was my first conclusion,’ she said, almost looking at him once more. ‘But it seems to be more about control. She’s been injected with a drug to induce paralysis. As the post-mortem report said, whoever did this is not a professional. Therefore they didn’t know exactly how much of the drug was needed. If they got the dose wrong, the victim might scream or struggle. Kick. Hence the ropes.’
‘So…’ said Phil, ‘it wasn’t ritual, it was… what? Expedience?’
Marina nodded. ‘It could well be. And her legs had to be open because…’ She took a heavy breath.
‘He enjoyed it?’ said Phil.
‘Perhaps,’ said Marina. ‘It could be as simple as that. But it’s still an aspect of control, of subjugation.’ She checked her notes again. ‘Now what were the restraints made of?’
Phil consulted his own notes. ‘Rope. Thick, heavy-duty. We’re waiting on DNA.’
‘So he came prepared,’ said Marina. ‘He brought the knife and the rope.’
‘And the drugs,’ said Phil.
‘And the drugs.’
‘Well, what about the sex aspect?’ Fenwick’s voice was rising in pitch, getting clearly agitated. He looked to Phil like someone who had been told their birthday party had been cancelled.
‘Post-mortem states there’s no evidence of sexual activity.’
‘This still doesn’t rule Brotherton out, though,’ said Fenwick. ‘If he wanted to, I don’t know, show her who’s boss, couldn’t he do it by ripping the baby out of her? Wouldn’t that show her who’s in charge?’
The attention of the room turned back to Marina. ‘Put like that, I suppose it sounds plausible, yes,’ she said.
Fenwick held his arms up as if in triumph. ‘Well then.’
‘But it doesn’t sound likely. And then there’s the fact that it might not be a man at all.’
‘What?’ said Fenwick. ‘A woman?’
‘Why not?’
That was too much for Fenwick. ‘Because a woman isn’t physically capable of doing what this person did. And someone answering Brotherton’s description was seen in the area.’
‘Look at it logically,’ said Marina. ‘Who wants babies? Not men, women.’ She paused, continued. ‘I’m generalising. But you get what I mean.’
‘So it could be a big, angry woman,’ said Anni. Behind her, Fenwick shook his head.
‘It’s possible,’ said Marina. ‘There are a few documented cases of this kind of thing happening, but mainly in the States and always with some kind of personal connection. Partner leaves, takes up with a new woman, gets her pregnant. The spurned girlfriend takes revenge by cutting out the new baby.’
The room flinched en masse.
‘Could be a man,’ said Phil, almost thinking aloud, ‘doing this for a woman. Getting a baby for her.’
‘Brotherton,’ said Fenwick. ‘Doing it for his girlfriend.’
Marina sighed. Fenwick picked up on it. ‘Something to say?’
Marina said nothing, just kept her head down.
Fenwick nodded. ‘Good.’
Marina looked up. Phil saw the redness in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes. Knew she was about to unleash her Italian temperament. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do have something to say. You asked me here to give my professional opinion and you’ve done nothing but talk over me and attempt to belittle me.’