The Child

by Fiona Barton

  “Hang on, Kate,” Sparkes tried, but she wasn’t listening.

  “We can run it in tomorrow’s paper. ‘Alice Found After 40 Years.’ Or ‘The Moment a Mother Found Her Baby’ . . .”

  “Kate!” Sparkes tried again.

  “Sorry, Bob. What were you saying?”

  “I was saying that you need to hang on. The DI is not going to tell Angela until tomorrow. He wants to wait for all the paperwork to arrive on his desk and then go in person down to Hampshire.”

  “You said it was a match.”

  “It is—the lab phoned him this morning to tell him—but he’s a bit of a jobsworth and wants all results in writing before he pronounces. That will be tomorrow.”

  “How ridiculous!” Kate snapped. “What would happen if I rang him and said I’d heard the DNA samples matched . . .”

  “He’d know we’d spoken and I would get an earful,” Sparkes said calmly. “I’m trusting you to keep this to yourself for another day.”

  “But in twenty-four hours he’ll be telling everyone,” Kate said. “We’ll lose the exclusive, and it has been all our hard work to find the possible link with Angela.”

  Sparkes didn’t respond. She was furious, but she knew she couldn’t burn Sparkes by revealing him as her source. He was one of her best contacts and she needed him. She’d think of another way to force the Met’s hand.

  “Right,” she said, neither confirming nor denying her intentions.

  “I’m so grateful for the call, Bob. I owe you big-time,” she added, hurrying him off the line. “I’ll keep you updated.”

  • • •

  Terry was in his goldfish bowl, the glass-walled cupboard where staff could watch him bollocking others with the mute button on.

  Kate slipped in quietly and sat on the naughty chair opposite her boss.

  “What do you want?” he said without looking up.

  Bugger, he’s grumpy, she thought. Monday morning blues that are going to last all week . . .

  “I’ve got a cracker of a story,” she said and he looked up.

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention, Kate,” he said.

  “It’s the baby buried on the building site.”

  He sighed. “Oh, that,” he said.

  “Don’t sigh, Terry. There’s been a breakthrough, but I’ve got a problem and I need your wise head,” she said.

  Terry nodded his wise head and closed his laptop. “Go on, then.”

  Kate paused. Make him wait, she told herself, counting to five like the host of a bad quiz show.

  “The baby is Alice Irving. They’ve found her after forty-odd years. I’ve just had a tip-off.”

  “Fuck!” Terry said. His highest compliment.

  “Quite,” Kate said.

  “We need to make some space in the paper. Where’s the mother?” Terry said, his eyes bulging with excitement as he got out of his chair to perch on the desk, practically knee to knee with Kate.

  “Hang on, what’s the problem?” he added, suddenly remembering how the conversation had started.

  “Well, we have to sit on it until tomorrow or I’ll lose my best contact.”

  There was a beat of silence, then Terry breathed. “Christ all bloody mighty.”

  He got off the desk and paced the tiny room while he digested the implications. “How many people know? Coppers and lab people will know. Must be a dozen at least. It’ll leak. Too good a story not to leak.”

  Kate nodded. She knew it was what he’d say.

  He stopped pacing, and when he got back on his perch, he looked businesslike.

  “Right. How do we get it confirmed without your contact being fingered? Pity Gordon has gone—he’d have sorted this out. I can’t even ring him at home—he’s taken Maggie to the Costa del Sol with his redundancy money.”

  “I’m working on it, Terry. I think Angela is the key. I’m going back down to Winchester to get her to talk to the copper who is holding the info.”

  “Good. You can do it, Kate. My star reporter.”

  Kate smiled, modestly she hoped, but inside she was fizzing with pleasure.

  “Thanks, Terry. But let’s not tell the Editor yet.”

  Terry’s happy face disappeared.

  “What?” Kate said.

  “I’d love to give him some good news this morning, that’s all.”

  “He’ll do his nut if he thinks he’s got the story and then we have to pull it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Terry said. “Ring me every hour. And refile that backgrounder you and the Boy Wonder have been working on.”

  She rose quickly, relieved it had gone so well, and Terry came round to hug her. Kate went scarlet at the unexpected grapple with her boss. He was not normally a demonstrative man—that had been beaten out of him by executive bullies years ago, she suspected—but he was clearly as excited as she was.

  She hoped the Crime Man hadn’t seen the encounter. He’d make hay out of that. Then she remembered he and the hay had gone. She almost missed him. He’d have said: “Snogging the boss? Is it pay-rise time?”

  “Yeah, worth at least an extra two percent. You should try it,” she told his empty chair.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Angela

  TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012

  She felt chilled when she saw Kate Waters’s car pull up outside. She’d heard it before she saw it. Alert to everything as she waited.

  Oh God, it’s bad news. It’s someone else’s baby. She wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t bad news, she told herself, resting her forehead against the window as she watched the reporter walk up the path and waited for Kate to notice her. When she did, Angela saw her face transform. The reporter smiled and waved.

  Angela shouted through the window: “Is it Alice? Is it her?” But the double-glazed unit stopped her voice dead. She ran to the door and swung it open.

  “Is it Alice? Is it her?” she shrieked and Kate guided her back into the hall.

  “Angela, come and sit down,” she said. She looked nervous but not sad. What did it mean? Angela tried to read her face but couldn’t focus on it properly. She noticed there were other people in her hall—the young lad and the nice photographer from Howard Street. He was shaking her hand and saying something, but Angela couldn’t hear him. He and Kate led her into the sitting room and settled her on the sofa. It all seemed to take so long before Kate sat beside her and took her hand.

  It’s going to be bad news, she thought.

  “Angela,” Kate said quietly. “We’ve got some news. I wanted to come and tell you face-to-face.”

  Angela waited. She could no longer speak but her brain was screaming Just tell me!

  Kate moved slightly back from her as she realized Mick was taking pictures of Angela from across the room.

  “The police have got the results from the DNA tests, Angela. I haven’t had it officially, but I’ve been told they are a match.”

  “Alice.” Angela breathed in the name. “It’s Alice.”

  She didn’t hear anything else Kate said. Her head was full of her child. I’ve found her.

  She could feel Kate trembling when she took her hand again.

  “I’m so pleased for you, Angela,” she said, and the two women sat looking at each other, eyes locked together.

  Angela felt she could have sat like that all day, but Mick said: “Can you look at me, love?” and she turned her face to his camera, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  Kate stood up to let him get his pictures and went to perch on the arm of an armchair. Joe was standing near the door. He kept looking at Angela and away, as if he couldn’t bear to see.

  When Mick put his camera down, Kate went back to the sofa.

  “You need to ring the officer on the case, Angela,” she told her. “He said the results would be back today, didn’t he?
So you can ring him and ask. He must tell you.”

  Kate sounded worried and Angela wondered if she was being told the whole story.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

  Kate looked down at her hands.

  “The thing is, Angela, I’ve been told very much off the record that there is a match, so I need to get it officially before I can write the story. Do you see?”

  Angela nodded. She wasn’t really sure she did see, but she wanted to help the reporter. She’d found Alice.

  “What do you want me to say to DI Sinclair?” she asked.

  Kate wrote down the questions to ask and said Angela should insist if the officer wouldn’t give her answers.

  “You have a right to know, Angela. You are Alice’s mother and you have waited long enough,” she said.

  Angela picked up the phone and dialed the direct line she’d been given.

  The detective answered straightaway and Angela tried to play her part.

  “Hello, DI Sinclair, it’s Angela Irving.”

  “Mrs. Irving, how can I help you?” he said, all business.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but you said you would have the results today and I am going out of my mind waiting.”

  “I know it must be very difficult for you,” DI Sinclair said, his voice softening. “But I’m just waiting for the results to be typed up.”

  “But when will that be?”

  “Tomorrow, I hope,” he said.

  “I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow, DI Sinclair. It is making me ill, the wait,” she said. “I’ve waited too long already.”

  Kate pointed to the next question she’d written down for Angela.

  “Do you know what the results show?” she asked obediently, and DI Sinclair hesitated.

  “Yes, Mrs. Irving. I’ve had a verbal report from the technicians, but I like to have all the paperwork in front of me before I release the information. And I’d planned to discuss it with you and your husband, face-to-face. I’m sure you understand my caution.”

  “Please tell me what you know, DI Sinclair. I’m begging you.”

  There was a silence. Angela looked at Kate and held her breath.

  “It’s a match, Mrs. Irving,” he said finally.

  “A match,” she said out loud for Kate’s benefit, and the reporter punched the air like a tennis player at Wimbledon.

  “Yes. The DNA sample we took from you matches the DNA from the remains. The baby’s skeleton, I mean.”

  “So it is Alice,” Angela said and started to cry.

  “As I said, Mrs. Irving, I haven’t had it in writing, but yes, it does appear so. I’d still like to come and see you and your husband tomorrow to discuss the results and how we will take the case forward. I’d like to bring a Family Liaison Officer as well. So that you always have a point of contact. Is that okay?”

  “Of course, of course. Thank you so much for telling me. I don’t know what to say. Please come. What time do you want to come?” she said, falling over the words.

  “I’ll be with you at nine thirty, if that’s okay,” he said. “I’m glad the waiting is over for you. I will see you tomorrow morning.”

  Kate’s feet were still dancing when Angela put the phone down.

  “Well done, Angela. You did so well,” Kate said. “Tell me everything he said.”

  Angela looked at her, hollow eyed, the initial euphoria of getting the news draining away rapidly.

  “My baby is dead,” she said.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Emma

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2012

  I hear the news on the radio. The newsreader with the posh voice, Charlotte someone, says that a missing baby has been found after decades, and I freeze. On a building site in Woolwich, she says. A baby called Alice Irving, she says. Taken from a hospital in 1970. And I stare at the radio. This is all wrong. The baby has a name. And a mother.

  There’s a clip of the mother, saying how relieved and devastated she is. I stand listening in the kitchen and crying with Mrs. Irving. I’m as relieved as she is. But for different reasons.

  Nobody will be coming to my door. No reckoning. Not yet.

  Later, when I go to buy a pint of milk at the corner shop, I see the headlines in the papers and buy the one with the exclusive interview with Alice Irving’s mother. I try to read it as I walk home, but I keep stumbling and bumping into garden walls so I put it under my arm in the end. Don’t want to look like a madwoman.

  At home I read every word, poring over the details, reading some bits out loud. I can’t quite take it in, but I feel a sort of euphoria rising in me. Maybe everything is going to be all right.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Jude

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2012

  She heard the news on the radio as she waited for the kettle to boil. She was only half-listening as she wrote a shopping list in her head, but the words “Alice Irving” stopped her at natural yogurt. She turned up the volume until it shrieked in her ears and her neighbor thumped on the wall.

  FORTY

  Kate

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2012

  Simon the Editor stopped at her desk as soon as he arrived that morning.

  “Well, you must be pleased with yourself, Kate,” he said, grinning his yellow smile. “Great interview and most-read story online.”

  She grinned back at him, happy to be back in the sunlit uplands of the Editor’s favor.

  “And you,” Simon said, turning to the hovering figure at his elbow, “your first front-page byline.”

  Joe looked like he might burst with pride. Kate had given him an additional reporting credit—his name in italics at the end of the story where it turned to page four and five—but the back bench had bumped his name up to join Kate’s on the front. She’d ground her teeth over it when she’d checked the page proof, but she understood. Joe Jackson was the Editor’s golden child.

  “Right, what’s today’s story, then?” Simon asked. “What are the police saying? Any leads on who took her?”

  Joe looked like a rabbit in the headlights.

  “We’re talking to the cops, Simon,” Kate said.

  “And we’ve got a second bite at the Angela Irving interview. Life without Alice,” Terry called across as he stood to join the impromptu news conference.

  “Sounds good,” the Editor said and walked off.

  Joe looked at Kate and beamed. “Thank you for giving me a byline, Kate,” he said. “I really didn’t do much.”

  She grunted. Then relented. “You did a good job, Joe. Now let’s stop the backslapping and find out what happened to baby Alice.”

  • • •

  DI Sinclair was not a happy bunny when she called him.

  “Did Mrs. Irving ring you yesterday, Miss Waters?” he asked. “Your story was completely premature. I’ve only just got the file.”

  “I called her, DI Sinclair. We’d already done a story with her and I knew the results were due yesterday.”

  “Did you ask her to ring me?”

  “DI Sinclair, do you really think a woman who has waited forty-odd years to find her child needs telling? Angela Irving was desperate to know.”

  “Yes, okay. I just wasn’t ready and the press office has been inundated.”

  Kate’s mouth twitched, but she stopped herself from smirking. He’d be able to hear it in her voice.

  “It’s a big story, DI Sinclair. Anyway,” she said, moving things out of the danger zone. “What is next? Are you setting up a murder inquiry?”

  “Not necessarily. We don’t know how the baby died yet. We may never know. We haven’t got much to work with and the forensic team is only just starting on the other material from the scene. We’ll know more in the next few days.”

  “So you don’t know when it was buried?�
�

  “Not yet. Investigation ongoing.”

  “Okay, and when are you talking to Mrs. Irving?”

  Kate knew he’d already been to the house but wanted the officer to feel he was in control of some information.

  “Saw Mr. and Mrs. Irving this morning. They’re helping us with our inquiry.”

  “Any links with southeast London?”

  “None we can see at the moment. But we’re looking. It was a long time ago and people’s memories are not what they were.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kate joked. “I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone in the 1970s.”

  “I can’t believe that, Kate,” he said, and she ticked the fact that they were now on first-name terms.

  “I’ll let you get on—I know you must be busy—but thanks so much for talking to me. And let me know if I can help in any way. When you want to put out a public appeal for information.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m planning a press conference, but I’ll let you know when.”

  “Great,” she said. “Is there a direct line I can contact you on if we hear anything at the paper? People might contact us direct.”

  He gave her his mobile number and told her to call him Andy.

  “Speak soon, Andy. Thanks a million,” she said. As soon as the line went dead, she turned to Joe.

  “He’s onside. Let’s get on with it. Where’s that list of names from Howard Street? The police must be all over it by now.

  “And let’s not forget Marian Laidlaw. Where is she now?”

  FORTY-ONE

  Kate

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2012

  It was groundhog day at the Royal Oak. Dolly was still singing, pleading with Jolene over the speakers, and the same backs were facing out from the bar. Kate found herself being treated as a regular by the workmen who nodded silently at her. She wanted to talk to the pub landlord, but she’d have to wait until things quieted down. He noticed her and called across the heads, “Your usual, Kate?” and she laughed and called back her order.