Baby Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  Paula Scanlon came to the front door almost immediately the bell was rung. Mariner held out his warrant card. ‘Mrs Scanlon? Might we have a word?’

  Her eyes were instantly wary. ‘It’s not really convenient. I was just putting the baby to bed. Could you come back another time?’

  ‘Not really, this is important,’ Mariner persisted. ‘Can we come in?’

  With clear reluctance, Paula Scanlon let them into the bungalow, along a narrow hallway past what Mariner assumed must be bedrooms and into a lounge/diner at the back of the house. A door opened onto the kitchen and Mariner could see the side door by which she’d entered the house. In a corner of the lounge was the baby in her car seat. No doubt about it, this was baby Ellie who, like Katarina, seemed to have grown since the last time they had met.

  ‘And this is—?’ Mariner asked pleasantly, smiling at the baby who gurgled in response.

  ‘Lauren,’ Paula Scanlon snapped irritably, but the irritation masked a deeper, darker fear. It was in her eyes. She was twisting her wedding ring round and round on her finger, leaving a white indentation.

  ‘And when was Lauren born?’

  ‘August 28. She’s adopted, as I’m sure you already know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mariner. ‘We’d like to talk to you about that. All right if we sit down for a minute?’

  ‘If you must. I’d like my husband here. Can we wait until he gets home? He shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Mariner pleasantly.

  ‘While we’re waiting, can I get you a cup of tea?’ The offer was grudgingly made.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mariner cheerfully. ‘That would be good.’

  On her way out of the room she switched on the TV, for their entertainment presumably, though Mariner would have been content to enjoy the quiet. Paula Scanlon was gone for some time, during which they could hear taps going on and off and the clatter of mugs on a tray. Baby Ellie dropped the orange plastic teether she’d been holding and it fell to the floor. Mariner, who was nearer, picked it up and handed it back to her. ‘Hello,’ he smiled as he did so. Perhaps she recognised him because, at that precise moment, her little face crumpled and Ellie started to wail.

  ‘What did I do?’ said Mariner uncomprehending.

  ‘It’s what you said,’ remarked Knox.

  In any event the noise prompted Paula Scanlon’s return. She practically threw the tray of mugs onto the table, urging them to help themselves, before hurrying over to baby Ellie, removing her from her car seat and holding her close. ‘It’s all right, darling,’ she soothed. ‘Mummy’s here.’ At the same time the lounge door opened and David Scanlon appeared, clearly startled to see such a gathering in his living room. Blond and bespectacled he looked shattered, his suit crumpled.

  ‘These are the police,’ his wife told him.

  Even in this situation good manners prevailed and Scanlon, a tall man with unruly blond hair, shook hands with them before asking ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘They want to talk to us about Lauren.’ As Paula Scanlon spoke Ellie’s crying rose to a new crescendo, competing with the TV. ‘She needs to be fed and put down,’ she said, making it clear that Mariner and Knox were causing a nuisance.

  ‘Why don’t you attend to that, darling,’ said David Scanlon. ‘I’ll talk to the officers and you can join us when Lauren’s asleep.’ He leaned over and kissed the baby girl on her downy head.

  ‘Go ahead, Mrs Scanlon,’ Mariner said, if only for a bit of peace.

  ‘Can you bring in her bottle when it’s ready?’ she asked her husband.

  ‘I’ll be through in a minute.’ As he spoke, Scanlon sat down in the armchair opposite the two policemen.

  Mariner thought about asking for the TV to be turned off, but knew that some people liked the background babble, and now that Ellie was out of the equation they were perfectly able to converse. ‘Mr Scanlon, we need to know exactly how you came to adopt Lauren, and we’ll need to see all the paperwork you have for her.’ Mariner began. They’d come onto baby Jessica later. ‘How did Lauren come to be with you?’

  Unlike his wife, Scanlon seemed sanguine about it. ‘We went through a private adoption agency. Horizons,’ he told them, calmly.

  ‘How did you find out about Horizons?’

  Something bleeped in the kitchen. ‘That’s Lauren’s bottle warmer. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, carry on.’

  ‘She’s well-cared-for,’ remarked Knox, when Scanlon was out of the room.

  Mariner couldn’t disagree. ‘The irony is that, long-term, she may stand a better chance with them. But nonetheless, if we’re right, she has a mother desperate to be reunited with her, and what they’ve done is illegal. Not to mention the small matter of abduction.’

  Moments later Scanlon was back again to pick up the story. ‘We were having treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital,’ he told them. ‘It’s a long way to travel but the unit does some pioneering work and our GP had referred us. We had undergone a total of four cycles of IVF and the consultant was worried that this was taking its toll both physically and mentally on Paula. He suggested that we talk to a counsellor, so we did.’

  Another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. ‘Sheila Fry,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Sheila, yes, that’s right. Anyway, she recognised that we’d come to the end of the line where IVF was concerned, and suggested we come home and think about whether we really wanted to put ourselves through that again. She asked if we had considered adoption, which we had of course, but had been told that we were too old. Then a couple of weeks later, out of the blue, we received a flyer through the post.’

  ‘Do you still have it?’

  ‘I might. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Is it like this one?’ Mariner produced the orange flyer he’d been carrying round with him for the past week.

  ‘Yes. That looks very like it. Anyway I rang the number and was told I was through to the Horizons adoption agency, who could offer us the opportunity to adopt a baby from an Eastern European country, in return for a payment for administrative costs. The woman at the other end sounded highly professional and explained that while this kind of adoption arrangement was not illegal, neither was it encouraged in this country, so discretion was important, but that she could offer us a quick and simple adoption process.’

  ‘So you took it up.’

  ‘I researched it a little on the internet and found that this has happened before, and I couldn’t see why there would be a problem with it.’

  ‘Didn’t the level of secrecy bother you?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘We were told that the service wasn’t publicised because if it was, the agency would be unable to meet the huge demand that would ensue,’ Scanlon told him. ‘We were told that we had been referred due to our particular circumstances.’

  ‘But you’d also been “referred” without your knowledge. Didn’t that strike you as odd?’

  ‘Mr Mariner, Paula’s whole aim in life has been to have a baby of her own. For the last ten years, ever since we got married, our lives have been completely dominated by that desire. I can’t begin to describe what it’s like. Since we were told that she was unlikely to conceive we’ve been through hell. Four rounds of IVF that have left us financially and emotionally broke. It hit Paula very hard. On one occasion she even tried to end it all. When you’re that desperate it’s easy to overlook the details. I’d have done anything for Paula at that stage and Horizons promised that within just a few weeks we would have our own baby. How could we resist an offer like that? And aside from the secrecy, which seemed perfectly explicable at the time, it all seemed kosher. We already knew a little about how the adoption process works and Horizons seemed to follow all the right procedures. A woman came and visited us to do a home assessment—’

  ‘Do you remember her name?’

  ‘I’m sure we have it written down somewhere.’

  ‘Could you describe her for me?’

  ‘Well, she was very sm
art and professional, blondish hair, about fifty.’ Trudy Barratt. ‘Then there were endless forms to complete. We were given a passport and birth certificate for Lauren.’

  ‘Have you got those?’

  Frank Scanlon went to a drawer and took out an envelope containing the documents. On first examination they looked like the real thing, but Mariner didn’t doubt that their experts would find the flaws.

  ‘They’re forged, Mr Scanlon,’ he said, with confidence. ‘They’re very good forgeries, admittedly, but sooner or later they’d be found out. Did these people tell you where your baby was coming from?’

  ‘They said they worked closely with various orphanages in Eastern Europe, including one in Tirana, Albania. We were shown photographs of the place. We were told that over there many mothers abandon their babies because they can’t afford to look after them. Lauren was one of those babies. We thought we were giving a loving home to an otherwise unwanted child.’

  Mariner couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. In many ways the only thing he was guilty of was astonishing naiveté. It was the predators who had ruthlessly taken advantage of the couple’s highly vulnerable state. Mariner wanted now to move on to the day of Jessica’s kidnap. ‘We really need to talk to your wife now, about the day Jessica Klinnemann went missing,’ he said. ‘Do you think the baby will be asleep?’

  ‘I’ll go and check.’

  Scanlon seemed to be gone rather a long time and Mariner was just beginning to get itchy when he appeared again, alone. His face was ashen. ‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘She must have slipped out of the front door while we were talking. She’s taken my car.’

  And they’d heard nothing, because the TV was on. Shit!

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Where will your wife go?’ Mariner demanded.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Is she likely to do anything to harm the baby?’

  ‘In truth? I don’t know. Since all this started Paula’s had some problems—’

  But Mariner was already on his mobile, contacting the local police to put out an alert for the black Megane. He couldn’t believe that they were going through all this again.

  ‘Phone round anyone you can think she may go to,’ Mariner said to Scanlon. Apart from that, all they could do was wait. Forty minutes later they got a call from local CID to say that Paula had been located at a nearby beauty spot, Heywood Bridge.

  When they got there the Megane was parked up, surrounded now by police vehicles and with a team of divers standing by. A police helicopter hovered.

  ‘Over there, she’s all yours.’ The lead officer at the scene raised his arm, and in the middle of the suspension bridge in the darkness, Mariner could see the lone figure of Paula Scanlon, hugging baby Ellie to her. A cold wind whipped around them and it was spotting with rain. They needed to get this over with. ‘Mrs Scanlon,’ Mariner called, edging slowly to the end of the bridge.

  ‘Go away!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t have her. She’s my baby and I love her.’

  Mariner walked forward a step.

  ‘Don’t come near me!’ she shouted. ‘If I can’t have her then nobody will! I’m her mother. She needs me.’ As Mariner looked on in horror, Paula Scanlon climbed unsteadily onto the parapet of the bridge, the icy waters rushing by under their feet, the dark current bubbling and swelling dangerously under the floodlights.

  Mariner stopped walking. ‘I only want to talk to you, Paula,’ he said, trying to keep his voice soothing as he yelled above the noise of the angry waters below. ‘Paula, I’m sure we can resolve this.’

  ‘Will you let me keep my baby?’

  Mariner couldn’t answer her.

  ‘Then I don’t want to talk to you. If I can’t have her then no one else will.’ And with that she tipped slowly off the bridge, plummeting into the icy waters below.

  Chaos ensued as the team of divers plunged after her into the water, with those on the banks shining floodlights and yelling directions. Amazingly, within minutes they had recovered Paula Scanlon, bringing her safely back to dry land and even more amazingly she still clung to baby Ellie, but when eventually she could be persuaded to relinquish her, the child was found to be barely alive.

  She and Paula Scanlon were rushed to hospital for Paula to be checked over, after which she would be driven with police escort to Birmingham to be questioned. Leaving the Scanlons under the protection of the local police, Knox and Mariner went on ahead. They were silent in the car. ‘Wasn’t your fault, boss,’ said Knox eventually. ‘She’d have gone in anyway. She had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘But what will it do to her head? We’ll have to rely on the Scanlons to testify. We can appeal for other couples to come forward but if they do they might lose their children, so who’s going to do that?’

  ‘David Scanlon will be a good witness,’ Knox said. ‘We’ve got enough.’

  Mariner hoped he was right.

  Both Trudy Barratt and Sheila Fry had been brought in for questioning to Granville Lane but it was too late to start on that tonight, and Goran Zjalic had still not appeared. The following morning, armed with a search warrant, a team was sent to Jack and the Beanstalk nursery to search Trudy Barratt’s office.

  They came across a whole file pertaining to Horizons private adoption agency, including social services forms, paperwork and the names and details of a number of other ‘adoptive parents.’ The area office of social services confirmed that many of the documents were forgeries. Her computer files were encrypted and the hard drive was sent to the lab to be decoded.

  ‘We also found this,’ said PC Mann. He handed Mariner a copy of a letter sent to Emma O’Brien, a cheque enclosed, a pay-off from the nursery, ‘in the hope that we can move on and put this terrible episode behind us.’

  ‘I guess that’s when Emma O’Brien changed her mind about the documentary,’ said Mariner. Unsurprisingly, Trudy Barratt remained calm under questioning, if not protesting her innocence then feigning ignorance of what she might have done. Despite the hours in a cell her hair and makeup were as immaculate as ever.

  ‘Tell us about the Horizons adoption agency,’ said Mariner. ‘How did it start?’

  ‘Like lots of things, by pure chance,’ Trudy Barratt said. ‘I knew what went on at number thirty-three, you only had to watch the numbers of men knocking on the door at all hours. It would have taken an idiot not to work it out. But to be honest it didn’t matter to me. No one there ever caused any trouble and they kept a low profile. I don’t think any of our parents were aware, nor many of the staff for that matter. Then one morning I came down to the nursery for a routine visit and there was a girl outside sobbing her heart out. She didn’t speak much English, but she managed to convey to me that she was pregnant, which, I imagine, didn’t go down very well in her “workplace.” She said that she would be turned out onto the streets and left to fend for herself and she wanted me to give her a job. She had no money and no legal papers. I couldn’t employ her, but neither could I just ignore her so I took her into the nursery to calm her down and was going to call social services.’

  ‘Weren’t you the good Samaritan?’

  ‘She was very distressed. I’m sure you would have done the same. Anyway, while she was in my office I remembered that some days previously I had been talking to one of our parents, Sheila Fry. She works at the fertility unit up at the hospital and had been telling me a dreadful story about a couple in their forties who had just had their fourth unsuccessful attempt at IVF and how desperate they were to have a child. The woman’s health was suffering and they couldn’t risk another cycle of fertility treatment, but they had left it too late for adoption.

  ‘I saw a business opportunity, as simple as that. The young girl I had here in my office was going to have an unwanted child, and I knew of a couple who were desperate, but unable, to have a baby. It just seemed logical and to everyone’s advantage that I bring the two together.’

  ‘This has happened more than once though,’ Mariner
produced the details of the other couples.

  ‘When I thought about it I realised that there may be other young women in the same situation. I persuaded the girl to introduce me to her Mr Zjalic.’

  ‘I told him of my proposal. He was very taken with the idea. I thought it would be a one-off, but Mr Zjalic felt that there may be other opportunities in this direction. He was involved in businesses both in this country and in Eastern Europe where this was not an uncommon occurrence, though I understand that often the girls are persuaded to end the pregnancies. At the same time there was Sheila, who regularly met couples who were in a similar situation, so we decided to set up an agency that could help to solve two problems at once.’ She spoke as if she was performing a public service.

  ‘So how did it work?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘Goran would identify a girl who was due to give birth and arrange for her to come to the house on Wilmott Road to deliver her baby. Sheila would send out a flyer to any couples we thought might be eligible. If they got in touch, which all of them did, Sheila or myself would go out and interview them and do a background check to ensure that they would be suitable parents.’

  ‘What in the world qualifies you to do that?’

  ‘I used to work for social services, and I know what makes good parents.’ She was so very sure of herself. ‘When all the vetting and paperwork was completed, we set up the handover. Goran or one of the girls would bring the baby to the nursery first thing in the morning, and I would supervise the new parents to come and collect their child during the afternoon.’

  ‘If this was all so above board, why not just hand the baby over?’

  ‘It seemed a convenient way to do it.’

  ‘And more acceptable for the staff.’

  ‘Couples were advised not to engage with the staff.’

  ‘I’ll bet they were. So what went wrong on the day when Jessica went missing?’

  ‘Usually I’m at the nursery to supervise the handover. But on that particular day, I was called to the other nursery on an emergency. I tried phoning and texting the mother to stall her until I could get back, but she had her phone switched off, so when she arrived, I wasn’t there. Remembering what I had told her earlier, she took the child in the green babygro.’