The woman briefly glances at her with the faint acknowledgement of a smile, a silent code of recognition between mothers that she’s observed, like they’re all secretly thinking the same things.
‘Beautiful day,’ she remarks to the woman.
‘Lovely isn’t it,’ the woman agrees, sizing her up, presumably to determine whether she is deemed worthy enough of her conversation. But she’s not worried; she has the right pram and George is impeccably dressed in Petit Bateau’s finest, Breton stripes and brand-new Converse boots, and he’s clutching his squidgy Sophie giraffe, a giraffe that seems to be a benchmark among mothers in the clique, a rubber toy that is akin to a VIP pass to an exclusive club. George begins to uncharacteristically grumble.
‘He wants the bread for himself.’ She rolls her eyes, smiles.
‘You’re not supposed to feed them, you do realise,’ the woman says bossily.
‘Children or the ducks?’
The woman glances at her, unsure of how to take the remark. ‘There’s a sign,’ she points to it, a wooden placard down at the water’s edge that clearly requests, in peeling red paint, that patrons refrain from feeding the birds. ‘Recently some hideous teenagers injured one of the swans you know, threw sticks and stones at the poor thing and tried to feed it crisps and chocolate…’
‘That’s horrible,’ she says. ‘Do you know if they prefer salt-and-vinegar flavour…? Think I have some Pom-Bears in my baby bag.’
The woman doesn’t appear to have heard her. ‘Little sods… their parents should be ashamed.’
‘Yes, they should be locked up, the parents.’
Sensing a kindred spirit, the woman moves closer now.
‘Spenny and Camilla adore animals. We have two dogs, a cat and some chickens in our garden. They’re so at one with nature and animals, they love the flora and fauna… I’ve brought them up vegan… They tried chicken once but never again, neither of them enjoyed it. You live around here?’
‘Yes, in Beckenham.’
‘Ah lovely. We used to live there, moved to Langley Park this year.’
‘Moving house with two little ones and all those animals – bet that was a joy. How old are they, Spencer and Camilla?’
‘Three and a half, they’re twins. And yours?’
‘He’s almost ten months.’
‘Gosh, believe me it goes so fast, like a whirlwind. Not sure how I’ve gotten through it all really, Pinot and Dominos mainly… the two ‘o’s mainly.’ She laughs loudly, like gunshot across the pond. ‘Yours is at the age when they’re still so dependent, my two are just beginning to find their feet. I can’t even go to the bathroom alone for a few minutes now.’ She guffaws, a horrible horsey laugh that makes ‘Rachel’ want to spit in her face.
‘It’s tough, yes,’ she says, ‘but so rewarding.’ These are the things she’s overheard mothers saying, words and phrases they seem to share with each other, lying to each other and themselves.
‘I’m still bloody recovering from the birth three and half years later… Fifteen hours of sheer hell, but I still managed to have them naturally, only a little gas and air. Spenny was the most difficult because they thought he was breach at first, they were going to attempt to turn him but I got a second opinion, which turned out to be correct. He was the right way round after all… so glad my husband insisted in the end. Had them in The Portland, the private place up near St John’s Wood.’
‘I was just five hours with him, not even gas and air. Chose a water birth. He came into the world listening to Mozart. I had him at home.’ Ha! Take that! She senses the woman is one of those middle-class, pompous, competitive baby mothers who is always trying to best other mothers with her birth stories and children’s milestones. That should royally piss on her fireworks.
‘That’s unusual for your first, a home birth,’ the woman looks put out.
‘Easy pregnancy,’ she shoots back, ‘midwife and doula were present, no complications.’
George is still grumbling and he throws his giraffe onto the floor and begins to cry. The woman stoops to pick it up and leans over to give it to him.
‘There we go little man, here’s your… Oh, it’s George!’ she says, taking a step back and looking at her. ‘This is George, isn’t it?’ The woman looks confused. ‘Magenta’s boy… are you?’ she looks at her with a puzzled expression, ‘are you Mags’ new nanny?’
She feels her sphincter muscles contract. The stupid woman has only gone and recognised George, only knows that silly cunt of a mother of his. They must be friends.
‘No,’ she says calmly, ‘this is Milo isn’t it say hello Milo.’
The woman is staring at her blankly. ‘But, but this is George… I’m Mags’s friend, Lavinia, we come here all the time together… I didn’t see his face until now, but…’ she points, ‘that’s George.’
She can see that Lavinia’s mind has gone into overdrive.
‘You must have that wrong,’ she says coolly, ‘maybe he looks like George, whoever George is, but I assure you this is Milo, MY Milo.’
The woman is closer now, fearlessly inspecting the pushchair and looking at George in the way posh and privileged people are want to do.
‘You have the same pushchair and pram toys… George has a Guess How Much I Love You? buggy book and a Sophie the Giraffe toy. Look, that’s definitely George. I recognise him, that’s definitely Mags’s George. I see them here in the park all the time. Who are you?’ Concern suddenly flashes across her face.
‘Sorry, you’re mistaken. Like I said, this is my son, Milo. We don’t know any Georges and I don’t know anyone called Mags or Magenta.’ George is still grumbling and she hands him some bread, instantly silencing him.
The woman steps forward defiantly and she feels a rush of adrenaline flush through her body. Lavinia starts to speak but suddenly Rachel gasps, ‘Watch out!’ and points behind her, to where Lavinia’s two children are standing dangerously close to the water’s edge. ‘I think you should be more concerned about your own children than mine,’ she says before grabbing the pushchair and steering it away.
‘Camilla! Spencer! Away from the edge now!’ The children scramble obediently back up the small bank towards their mother. ‘Hold on a moment,’ Lavinia barks, following Rachel and placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her from trying to leave.
She looks down at the hand on her shoulder and then back up at the woman. ‘Put your fucking hand on me again and I’ll chop it off and feed it to those fucking swans,’ she hisses, ‘do you understand me, you jumped-up, sour-faced old cunt?’
The woman springs backwards, visibly shocked.
Rachel walks away at a steady pace and, once she’s sure that she’s not being followed, she glances back over her shoulder back.
Lavinia is already on the phone.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Talk about bad fucking luck. Why did she have to bump into someone who knew George and that silly bitch mother of his? She assumes the woman, Lavinia, has gotten straight on her phone to Magenta and is now asking all sorts of questions. Perhaps she can talk her way out of it; perhaps she can say that Lavinia must’ve got it all muddled up, or explain that she’d said she was his mother just to fit in, play for pity. Fuck, fuck, fuck. But Magenta is not the particularly understanding or empathetic type. It’s no good; this has fucked everything up. She’ll have to bring her plans forward, do it this afternoon, a little sooner than planned and then she’ll be out of there. Magenta is in Bath, visiting family she says, but she’s lying. She’s seen the weekend spa confirmation that she’d left on the kitchen table some days ago. Selfish bitch is off pampering herself with a couple of peri-menopausal friends, no doubt on the lookout for some rich dick to suck while they’re at it. Sluts and whores dressed in respectable designer clothes, that’s all they are. No more than prostitutes who think just because they drive four-by-fours and shop in Waitrose, they’re superior to a council-estate whore who shops in Primark or Lidl and sucks off men for a six-pack. Wel
l, Magenta would soon suffer the consequences of her neglect and self-serving behavior. Soon she’d be joining a very different club altogether, one no parent ever wants to join. She’ll take George home now, feed him and then bath him, cuddle him to sleep one last time. Her beautiful, precious Baby Bear. She remembers Magenta’s words during her interview for the job, ‘He sleeps like an angel, Rachel’ – and it makes her smile.
The sound of her mobile pinging makes her heart sink as she approaches the house. That stuck-up snitch at the park… grabbing it she opens the text message, only it’s not from Magenta at all. It’s from Daniel. Dan, Dan the disappearing man. Her heart begins to race. He can’t stop thinking about her. He wants to see her, tonight. And she swiftly feels her spirits returning as though the angels themselves are looking down upon her.
Of course he does. They always do.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Fed, bathed, changed and full of ‘milkies’, George is asleep in his cot. He looks so beautiful, so peaceful as she studies his face, like a porcelain doll, so perfect. His eyes are closed, like someone has drawn them on his face with a pen in the shape of ticks.
‘Oh Baby Bear,’ she whispers to him, gently stroking his soft skin, feeling the gentle pulse in his temples, the skin still thin around them. She gazes at him lovingly as she holds the nursing pillow in her hands. She wants to watch him slip away beneath her, to feel his final breath, to say goodbye to Baby Bear forever as he joins Mummy and Daddy for all eternity. And then all will be well. But at the last moment she decides against it. Not yet.
She leaves George sleeping in his exquisite nursery and goes into the master bedroom to try on dresses from Magenta’s wardrobe. Magenta’s style is not to her taste, but there are some items, dresses, that she probably owned before she’d had George that appear to be her size. She places them on the bed to inspect them. Demure yet appealing is the look she’s going for. A hint of sexuality combined with coy respectability. She won’t sleep with him tonight even if he begs her to. She will show Daniel what a lady she really is. The kind of lady he could marry and spend his life with. A lady he could run away with and start a new life where no one knows them. She thinks of the cottage again, of the miniature climbing roses around the wooden door and the window boxes she’ll painstakingly plant – ones the neighbours will secretly envy and admire in equal measure. She feels a flutter of excitement, of hope once again.
She can’t decide between the black shift dress from Jigsaw or the slightly more fitted plum-coloured one from Whistles. It’s a soft crepe material that feels fluid against her body and is the marginally sexier of the two, she decides, though because of its knee-length and high neck it’s still what most would consider demure. Yes, the plum dress screams architect’s wife. She’s arranged to meet him at Limonia, a lovely, vibrant Greek restaurant in Primrose Hill. She’d been there once before with a group of colleagues she’d briefly worked with many years ago when she’d come out of hospital. The occasion has escaped her but she remembers they had been nice people, the evening a pleasant one, and the food delicious. The night stood out in her memory for the simple fact that it had been so normal, uneventful even. She had enjoyed her temporary colleagues’ company and, more importantly to her, they had appeared to enjoy hers.
After showering, she dresses herself and styles her platinum blonde wig before securing it to her head. She wants to be blonde tonight. As blonde as when she was born. Reborn. She peruses the selection of perfumes on Magenta’s baroque-style dressing table: Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Chloé, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Jo Malone… Yes, the Jo Malone, Lime Basil & Mandarin, her new favourite which reminds her of Daddy Bear. She places the small Tiffany diamond earrings he had gifted her in her ears. She checks on George one last time, kissing his forehead and placing the tiny bear inside his cot next to him. It is wearing a little nappy and has a tiny dummy in its mouth, made especially for her sleeping George. She hopes he likes it.
‘Goodnight my beautiful Baby Bear. Sleep tight,’ she says, as she turns off the light.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I can’t crumble. I can’t afford emotion. So I tell myself to feel nothing at all. I tell myself that I’m a copper. A good guy. I owe it to everyone to hold myself together, so I will. I turn into a robot. For now, at least.
As far as evidence goes, hard evidence I mean, I’ve got nothing, well, not enough anyway. Rebecca’s lock-up has thrown up nothing of note. Not a fucking damn thing, can you believe it? So her prints are all over Karen’s apartment, but even a rookie brief could clear that one up in court, she was her friend and neighbour after all, she had a key, said she was in and out all the time, her DNA presence makes sense. We’ve got the CCTV from La Reymond but that’s sketchy at best. The security bloke at the apartments, yeah, we have his statement and a positive ID and a not-so-positive one from the brass who saw her and Nigel Baxter going into suite 106 on the night of his murder. I’ve got Dr Magnesson’s testimony, the background and a profile on Goldilocks’ miserable past, which certainly makes her capable and could even be classed as motive, but it’s all circumstantial, there’s nothing of real concrete substance, no hard forensics. It all points to Rebecca Harper of course: the fake IDs, the alleged murder of her own mother, the suspect CCTV footage, wigs and bears and tote bags and numerous fake identities… It’s enough for the CPS to proceed, but to successfully prosecute, prove beyond all reasonable doubt? In this kind of case you need watertight evidence, forensics and irrefutable DNA. No one’s going to put someone away for a double – I’m hoping not triple – murder without it. I know there’s not enough physical yet, that a half-decent barrister couldn’t easily discredit without breaking a sweat. I need a confession. Fuck, I need a drink.
I shower and change. She’s agreed to meet at a Greek place up near Camden. I’m not familiar with the restaurant. It’s not one me and Rach ever went to and I’m thankful about that at least.
I put in a call to Delaney and ask for a trace on ‘Florence’s’ number. I tell him to make it an urgent priority.
I think about calling Davis and organizing back-up. I know that’s what I should do. The thing about this job is that you can’t afford any ‘if onlys’, you have to think in advance, to plan for every eventuality. And I can’t afford to fuck this one up, not least because what I’m doing is at best unorthodox and at worse could pretty much guarantee my very early retirement. I pick up my phone at least twice before I do eventually call Davis. I tell her and Baylis to be outside the restaurant by 7 p.m. and wait for my instructions. I’ve made the reservation for 8 p.m. I tell Davis to have an unmarked vehicle covering any exits, that I’ve had a tip off our Goldilocks is going to be inside the restaurant. She asks questions but I keep things on a need-to-know basis, largely for her own good, in case there’s an enquiry, you know? ‘Just be there’ I say before hanging up.
As I shower I try not to think about the fact that Rebecca Harper could, right this very moment be murdering a child – a baby – and that maybe I could’ve prevented it. I’m gambling with my own conscience, which is not an experience I would recommend to anyone, even those I don’t care much for. I know that if I’m too late then it’ll be game over and I’ll take the guilt to my grave with me – and if she gets off, then I can add failure to win justice for Janet Baxter, her family and Karen to the list too. Yet my intuition tells me that this way, the way I’ve decided to play it, I am more likely to get a confession from her. I sense that sending a swat team to kick her door in and arrest her will cause Rebecca Harper to clam up like a shell and we’ll get nothing from her. She trusts me. Something… don’t ask me why, I hardly know the woman, fuck, I don’t know the woman at all as it transpires, and yet I feel that she feels she knows me. We had a beautiful moment, fleeting in time.
And it’s this hunch, to use a word I don’t particularly like, that I think will lead me to the pearl inside that closed shell. Whatever the outcome, and I hope to hell it’s the latter because regardless, Woods is go
ing to have me by the proverbials for this one.
I spritz myself with the Tom Ford cologne that Rach loved. ‘Good enough to eat’ she used to say whenever I wore it, which was a massive compliment coming from a chef. I wear a white linen shirt and dark indigo Diesel jeans, my best pair, with a pair of Superdry black Chelsea boots, casual-trendy, or trendy-casual, I’m never sure which it is. I style my hair with some sweet-smelling putty stuff I’ve had in the cabinet since The Spice Girls were at number one. It’s getting a little long on top and I’ve noticed a few more greys recently, but Rachel always liked it a little on the longer side, ‘I’ll make a hippie of you yet!’
I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and I’m hit by a wave of sadness. Grief and fear strike me simultaneously like an out-of-control truck. Rachel, Nigel and Janet Baxter, Karen Walker… and worse still, Rebecca Harper. I try to will it back and remind myself of my duty, but it’s there, grief and sadness for her too. I sluice with some minty mouthwash and tell myself to save these emotions, save them for when this is over; it’s almost over now and I need to show up for myself more than ever. I can’t afford sentiment, but I still feel it inside, I feel like I’m losing my nerve; it’s not a strong as it once was, not as strong as it was when Rachel was alive.
I check my watch, it’s almost 7 p.m. Davis should be at the restaurant now and I need to get going. ‘Wish me luck,’ I whisper to myself in the mirror, but really I’m talking to her – the ghost of Rach is all around me. I switch off the light.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Camden is around three miles from Islington and should take no more than twenty minutes in the car, but there’s been a burst water main and there’s a tailback that’s almost as long as the distance I need to cover. I don’t want to put the lights on but eventually I acquiesce and feel relief as the stationary vehicles begin to make a path for me. I can’t afford to lose a minute. I’m almost pulling up at Limonia when Fiona Li calls.
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