The Forgotten Child

by D. E. White

  Chapter 8

  ‘Do you want a glass of water?’

  She could hear someone running a tap, an arm around her shoulders, but she was still miles away, years away, crouched alone in the flat with a dead woman. It wasn’t until the emergency services arrived that the other body had been discovered. A three-month-old baby girl had been suffocated where she lay, and hidden under the pile of blankets. At last she sat up, blinking away tears. ‘Sorry. I tried not to think about it and I’ve managed to shut it all away. But now …’

  ‘It’s all right, you’re doing well. I’m sorry to have to ask and upset you, but this could be really important.’ DC Marriot leant across the kitchen table again. ‘Can you manage to finish for us, do you think?’

  Holly took a gulp of water and nodded. The shame flooded her, as she had known it would. But she had admitted all this in court, there was no point in denying it now. ‘The ambulance call handler told me to start CPR, and I … I told her I was doing compressions, but I wasn’t. I just froze, and I couldn’t bring myself to press down on her chest. I just stared at her all that time …’

  ‘I read the coroner’s report, Holly, and you must know what it said. Larissa died of strangulation. Going by the estimated time of death, by the time you arrived there was probably nothing anyone could have done. She was dead already,’ DS Harlow told her.

  ‘I know …’ But there might have been a chance, a chance she could have saved her, and nothing anybody said – then or now – could convince her otherwise. Holly bit her lip, and continued slowly, ‘I was terrified they would find Jayden outside somewhere, dead too, but later the police said he was a suspect. There was so much blood, I was sure it had to be at least partly his. There was never anything mentioned about another child, though. There wasn’t!’

  ‘No, we reviewed the files, and it appears that Larissa was never officially registered at any doctor’s surgery or hospital, and her child, or children, weren’t either. In fact, legally her baby didn’t exist. I’ve double-checked, and it looks like – if I had to hypothesise – perhaps if they had another child, they slept on the sofa-bed? It does seem odd that there was no evidence at all of a boy.’

  ‘They would have been so near in age that perhaps any baby clothes, supplies and toys would have been assumed to be the dead girl’s.’ DS Harlow shrugged. ‘If this boy was living there with his parents and sister there was nothing obvious to suggest his existence. In fact, the few possessions they owned were already packed up, as though a move was imminent.’

  The other woman nodded. ‘It was assumed that once he had the money, your brother and his family were going to run. But after Larissa’s murder, Jayden never got back in contact at all? Not even to collect the money you were bringing him?’ DC Marriot was tapping the table idly with one hand now. Her fingernails were short and colourless.

  ‘No. The money he took from Lydia wasn’t in the flat, and his bank account hadn’t been used for months.’ Holly looked directly at both police officers. Her voice flat, she said, ‘The investigation was pure hell for my family, with police interviews and then dealers from the Seaview being arrested. The other families blamed us for bringing police onto the estate; my dad had a fight with DI Harper …’

  There was a glimmer of amusement, quickly hidden, in DC Marriot’s glacial eyes, and even Holly, torn between emotions and fighting hysteria, felt her lips quirk.

  Steph continued, ‘But the evidence showed the blood in the flat belonged to Alexi and Roman Balinta, the men who eventually confessed to killing Larissa and her baby girl. There was no sign that Jayden had harmed either his baby or his girlfriend. Yet both men denied seeing your brother. It was Larissa who attacked both men with a knife, obviously defending her children.’

  Holly nodded, fiddling with her phone. ‘Yes. I still remember how in court they said Larissa fought back.’ Her voice shook precariously but she carried on, ‘But Jayden was gone again, and then just before Christmas, the police came round to say that some random dealer, a real small-time player, had confessed to helping get rid of Jayden’s body. He said he dumped it off Rydden Bay soon after Larissa was murdered, and that he did it on Roman’s instructions.’

  Holly choked a bit. ‘As you know, his body has never been found, and Roman wouldn’t say anything at all about the dealer’s claim. As far as I remember he just kept saying no comment. I suppose I almost hoped Jay was dead by then. The waiting for the court case and seeing Lydia and my dad struggling to get by … It was all in the papers about Jayden’s past, and our family got dragged through the dirt. They made it sound like we were pure evil. It was a really shit time, but we just about got through it.’

  ‘Larissa was one of the girls trafficked by Joey and Gareth Nicholls, wasn’t she? I saw on the files that Gareth was charged with several offences, but he only served three years because of a technicality. There’s been nothing on him since.’

  Again, that change of tone when the Nicholls brothers were mentioned. Nicholls Transport were still doing their thing, all these years later, and the police still couldn’t touch them. ‘Yes. It came out that Larissa originally thought she was engaged to some bloke up in Yorkshire – that’s where she came from – but she was only fourteen, and he turned out to be part of a scheme to round up girls arranged by Joey. Larissa’s mum was a junkie and Larissa had been skipping school, hanging around the town. I suppose she was an easy target, and when you lot looked for her, she’d just vanished. She apparently told her mum she was moving away with her fiancé.’

  ‘They call it the “lover boy” sting, or the “Romeo game”,’ Steph volunteered. ‘These men find vulnerable girls, sadly often those who have fallen through cracks in the care system, and present themselves as romantic interests. Once the girl is hooked, they slowly draw her away from any friends or family, and then when she runs off to “get married” it comes out that girl is a frequent runaway, skips school, maybe has a history of petty crime already … In reality of course she is then sucked into a system of abuse and is exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to trace. We do our best, and naturally missing children are a priority, but I’ve worked on cases where a teenager has been missing for weeks before anyone starts to take notice.’

  ‘I never could understand why Jayden didn’t mention Larissa and the baby when he asked for money,’ Holly said. ‘We never even found out how they originally met, but I suppose it might have been when he was dealing. The boys used to deliver to the clients at these special houses, and then eye up the girls who were working there. But if Jay had fallen for Larissa so much that they’d not just had a baby, but had two children, why didn’t he tell me?’

  ‘Your brother knew you were friends with Cathryn Davies, so perhaps he thought you might be angry he had left her, and his other children, for Larissa,’ DC Marriot suggested. In her mind’s eye Holly could see the boy, Jayden’s boy, lying helpless and unconscious under his white shroud of hospital sheets. Another child.

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Roman and Alexi were high, weren’t they, when they went to collect Jay’s debt? Mason was always bigging up his sons, even Niko, the baby of the family, saying they were going to inherit the business, going to be millionaires … But they were always losers, and violent with it. They didn’t have to kill Larissa, or her baby.’ Holly felt empty now, hollow and sick. She still had nightmares about the baby, even though she hadn’t discovered the tiny body.

  ‘Supposing the boy in hospital is Jayden’s … He would have been around a year old when his mother was murdered, so perhaps your brother took him to safety? We aren’t saying your brother is definitely alive, but I would say it’s a possibility. The other possibility, of course, is that Jayden did escape that night, with his other child, but was later murdered, and the child has been raised by someone else.’

  ‘If he is alive … Fuck, I can’t even think …’ Holly shook her head, scraping back her hair with all ten fingertips. ‘I just can’t imagine it, but my dad is going to go mental when you t
ell him it’s a possibility.’

  The two women stood up to go, and DC Marriot turned back at the front door. ‘Holly, be careful, won’t you? This isn’t just about the boy, and his possible identity. We also have to consider who left him in your car.’

  Holly sighed. ‘I’m hardly going to forget, am I? But yeah, thanks, I’ll take care.’

  ***

  Holly watched the two policewomen get into their car and head off to her dad’s flat. He still lived next to the betting shop, but one of her cousins ran the bookies business now. Most of the time her dad was too pissed to remember his own name, so good luck them getting anything coherent out of him. They’d probably get the wheels nicked off their car too, just for going onto the Seaview.

  What a mess. Her head was buzzing, and she wandered around the house picking things up and putting them down. Jayden’s son? If he was alive why had he never been in touch? Larissa had had another child – given the timeframe, it fitted. Either that or they were wrong about the age of the boy in hospital and Jayden had survived, and got over Larissa pretty quick. Perhaps they were right with the second theory. Maybe her brother had given his baby son to someone he trusted to look after him, but then got himself in trouble with the wrong people. Again.

  Chapter 9

  Holly reached for her phone. ‘Cathryn?’

  Her best friend answered on the second ring, her voice quick and sharp. ‘Where the hell have you been, girly? I’ve left four messages on your voicemail since you came out of hospital, and I’ve only had one text and one phone call. What’s going on, Holly? I’ve been so bloody worried about you.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s been weird. Look, can I come over?’

  ‘Of course. I’m just putting Angel down for a nap. I’ll open a bottle.’

  ‘It’s twelve o’clock,’ Holly said, her heart lightening, despite herself.

  Cath was always there for her, always ready to help despite being a single mum with five kids. She was the type of girl who only ever wanted to have fun, and had slowly morphed into the type of woman who inspires awe in her friends by juggling kids and work on her own, whilst being blatantly honest about how tough it could be. Her huge clan of aunts, uncles and cousins all helped out with the childcare, but the kids’ dads had all buggered off. The fact that two of the dads were Niko and Jayden hadn’t altered the friendship. Holly’s best friend, Lydia often said with a smile, was a force of nature.

  ‘Whatever, I’ve had a bitch of a week, babes. We’ll walk to school to get the brats later, then I can take the twins in the buggy and they won’t screech so much.’

  Holly grabbed her coat, pulling the fake fur hood snugly around her face, and set off for the Seaview. Her road of respectable Victorian semis ran down to the railway bridge. After that the houses became blocks of flats, with smaller buildings squeezed together, dwarfed by the grim tower blocks.

  The light drizzle was whipped across Holly’s face by an icy lash of wind. She crossed the road, head down, and took the footpath that led to Cathryn’s house. High wooden fences either side killed the wind, but the path was dank, and gloomy, the mud strewn with cigarette butts, rubbish and empty bottles.

  Stepping over an odd assortment of rotting furniture, which included a sofa and the remains of a double bed, Holly allowed her mind to drift again. Every step was familiar from here onwards. She and Jayden had played football in that road, had smoked in that playground, spinning slowly on the creaking swings, feet scuffing the gravel. Niko had tried his luck with Cathryn behind those green-encrusted concrete garages. Roman, Alexi and Devril had played basketball next to that tower block, and Cath’s mum owned the chippie in the next road. She would give the kids greasy paper bags of salty chips drenched in vinegar and only charge them half the usual price. The usual mix of emotions when she came back to the Seaview made her stomach roll uneasily. There was sadness, nostalgia, a touch of fear that she didn’t quite belong anywhere now.

  A car screeched past, jammed with teenagers, the radio blaring, and there was a gang of five kids playing football on the scrubby grass that bordered the Seaview, on the edge of Beach Road. Their yells echoed across the wasteland, bouncing off the concrete walls of the tower blocks.

  Cathryn’s house, part of a block of grimy terrace houses, was strewn with the chaos of five children, and Holly, as usual, felt instantly at home. The rooms smelt of polish, perfume and babies, and there were piles of clean washing on the table, contrasting with the piles of dirty washing on the kitchen floor. Make-up covered the tiny worktop, and Cathryn’s uniform was hung up to dry over the sink.

  Relaxing, she sank down with a sandwich and a glass on the crumb-encrusted sofa, narrowly avoiding a dozen plastic Lego bricks.

  ‘Right, babes, what the fuck is going on?’ Cathryn sat opposite her, baby monitor wedged between two cushions, wine bottle on the table between them. Her long platinum-blonde hair was tied up in a knot, her pretty face was bare of make-up, and she wore her usual ripped skinny jeans and cropped pink velour hoodie top, which showed off her flat, improbably tanned stomach.

  Holly took a deep breath. ‘The police came over to mine after I dropped Milo at school this morning. They said they got the DNA results back from the lab, and the boy in hospital is related to me. Cath, they reckon he’s Jayden’s kid.’

  Cath stared with her mouth open, baby blue eyes wide and shocked. ‘But Jay’s dead, so how …’ She stopped talking, leant over, and sloshed white wine into both their glasses. ‘The fucking bastard. Do you really think he’s just been living somewhere else all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know. They don’t know either. Going by the age of the boy they reckon he’s Larissa’s kid, unless Jayden had someone else on the go. Suppose Jayden is alive, I don’t understand why that dealer would have lied and said he helped get rid of the body?’

  ‘Dunno, but if I find out he’s still alive …’ Cath took a long, shuddering breath, ‘Why would he not contact us? Me and the kids, Lydia, your dad and you? Even just to say he was on the run or whatever? I’ve had to tell Sean and Ronnie that their dad’s dead and now what do I do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Holly told her quickly. ‘We can’t do anything because we don’t know if he is alive.’

  ‘You said before that the police went on about Niko and Devril?’ Cath was frowning. She lifted her glass to her mouth but put it down again without drinking, and sloshed wine all over her fingers. ‘I can’t believe this.’

  ‘Yeah, me either. Do you think there’s something going on? Niko’s out, Devril is hanging around again, and then Jayden shows up with his kid?’

  ‘I really don’t know, but if they’re planning some kind of business takeover they can forget it. The Nicholls have everything sewn up round here, and nobody asks any questions. Rohan, you know he’s one of Joey’s sons, and he is fit, well he came over a few months ago asking about Niko. I think they were checking him out, because it was before he got released.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘To see if he was worth talking to? I dunno. I told you, Niko had always said he had some money stashed. When we were together he used to go on about it and how we could move house and all that. Am I a mug or what?’

  ‘You’re not, even if I really can’t see how you could have sex with Niko, let alone have a kid with him,’ Holly told her. ‘Not that I can talk, but your taste in men is terrible!’

  Cath flicked her a V-sign, and continued, ‘And the Mancinis are doing a lot of the driving and a lot of the dealing now, so they’re well happy being part of the Nicholls’ operation. Mason’s about to croak, your dad won’t give a shit who’s doing what … I dunno. My family just do their thing no matter who’s in charge, whether it’s legal or not, as long as they get paid.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Except my mum, but she’s got the chippie, hasn’t she? Anyway, Dev would never hurt you, Holly, whatever’s going on. Did you know he’s a journo now though? Freelance and does a bit for all the red tops. Lots of dramz and uncovering juicy sto
ries.’

  ‘No! Since when? I knew he was a writer but I never thought of journalist.’ A journalist – Devril had chosen a profession that they had all hated ever since Larissa’s death. It was almost as bad as joining the police. Holly bit her lip, swallowing hard. Her experience of journalists, from Jay’s trial to the present interest surrounding Jay’s son, wasn’t good. They were tricky bastards, and they wrote whatever they wanted, no matter what you said. ‘You never said!’

  ‘You never asked. Actually it was only the day before you had the car accident that I found out, so there hasn’t exactly been a good moment to tell you. I heard a bit of gossip, and I’m a nosy cow, aren’t I? Hell, you know what this place is like, but I googled him and for once the old bags are right. The word is he’s come back to get a story on Niko’s release, but I’m sure that’s a load of crap. Niko’s hardly the most interesting crim, is he? But Jayden, fuck me, my mind is totally blown …’ Cath shook her head, blue eyes suspiciously bright as she chattered away. ‘We need to change the subject for a bit, so I can get my head around this. Talk to me, Holly. How’s Tom behaving? Any more bitchy texts? I bet he’s absolutely loving all this drama. It proves he was right all along about your dodgy past.’

  Holly was still thinking about Devril’s career change. It wasn’t mentioned on his social media pages. She had supposed he must be a copywriter or something. It had never crossed her mind he would be a reporter. Had he been following her? What story could he hope to get out of her? ‘Tom’s still an arsehole. He also thinks the accident proves I’m an unfit mother and he accused me of sleeping around. Actually, since I asked him about the texts they’ve stopped coming. He told me I was going crazy and I must have sent them to myself.’

  Cath rolled her eyes, seizing her sandwich and taking a huge bite, as Holly continued, ‘He popped round with another massive gift for Milo, and pissed off back to his fancy lecture tour. Total bastard. What about Liam?’ Cath’s most recent ex had left her with another child and more heartbreak.