“My plan was to quit the London Met in another year or two but after your bombshell on Thursday, I knew the game would be up sooner than anticipated. Yesterday I got Lander and our nest egg out of the country. After I ensure no evidence or witnesses are left, I’ll be following him.”
Gunshots sounded, heavily muffled. Dresden cocked her head.
“That’s right. I’m not here on my own,” Bex assured her. “We’re in the middle of executing a search warrant.”
Dresden gave a grim smile.
“You’re too late.”
Dresden’s words were punctuated by a concussive burst of staccato shots. A devious look crossed her face.
“Vitalis won’t go down without a fight, so he’ll keep the police engaged in the main part of the bomb shelter. My guess is they don’t even know about this entrance. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here on your own, would –” she broke off as the pattering of feet echoed towards them.
A child burst through the door, skidding to a stop at the sight of them. Her frilled skirt was torn and the pink leggings she wore with the pussycat faces on her knees were dirty; messy, silky soft hair fell from two straggling pigtails over skin as pale and delicate as an eggshell. Her mouth dropped open, her attention riveted on Dresden.
“You came! You came to save me! Detective Superintendent Sophie Dresden, I’m so glad to see you!”
She danced forward on her slippered tiptoes. Her eyes were shining.
“I knew I was right to phone you! No matter what mother said about it being the wrong thing to do and punishing me yesterday! She didn’t know the bad men with guns were going to come today. But you’ll save us, won’t you?”
Fairchild obviously recognized Dresden from her television appearances.
Dresden’s face turned sour as she realized who the child was and fear scored through Bex. What would Dresden do to the child who had wrecked her death for sale business?
“Fairchild!” Bex called, fighting to keep the fear out of her voice. “Fairchild, remember we spoke on the phone?”
A puzzled look gripped the elfin face. “I don’t know who you are. I phoned Detective Superintendent Sophie Dresden.”
“That’s right. Come here, Fairchild,” Dresden said, the fingers of her free hand curling inwards as she urged the child towards her.
Fear sank into Bex’s bones. Dresden couldn’t let Fairchild survive because she knew too much. She wouldn’t destroy every scrap of paper trail and leave alive a witness. How could she convince the child she had spoken to her rather than Dresden?
“Fairchild, remember this number?” Bex repeated her phone number.
Fairchild’s head tilted in Bex’s direction, her expression confused. She poised on tiptoes, midway between the two women, her back towards the door.
“How do you know Superintendent Dresden’s number?” she asked.
“Because it was actually me you spoke to.”
“Please come to me, so you can be safe!” Dresden raised her voice over Bex’s, her revolver leveled towards Fairchild’s chest.
“Run, Fairchild!” Bex shouted, at the same time lunging towards Dresden.
Dresden’s hand swiveled. The gun fired. A bullet punched into Bex’s protective vest, sending her sprawling, even as it richocheted. With a whoosh, a spark from the casing ignited a flame from the gasoline.
Bex’s head flung backward, bounced against the rough ground and stars sprang before her eyes. A scream reverberated through her pounding skull. Fairchild!
She struggled to raise herself. Through her blurred vision she saw Dresden grappling with Fairchild, her tiny body squirming and her arms and legs thrashing. The gun was knocked out of Dresden’s hand, skidding across the ground. Bex raised an arm to shield herself from the fire now racing along the gasoline, licking at the papers spread over the ground and flaring high up the stone wall behind her. Her fingers groped blindly for the pistol.
For a few seconds Dresden’s eyes locked with Bex’s as her fingers scrabbled over the cold ground. Deliberately Dresden lifted Fairchild in her arms. A slipper fell from one of Fairchild’s dangling feet.
Fury flickered in Dresden’s eyes. Her mouth, normally a cupid’s bow, was flattened with rage. Helplessly Bex watched as Dresden pitched Fairchild like a football through the air towards the flames.
Chapter 32
Saturday March 24
Fairchild’s scream kicked through Bex’s gut as she watched Dresden spin on her heel and dash through the door. Without a second thought she abandoned the gun, driving her body towards Fairchild to break her fall. Heat slapped at her exposed skin. Quickening breath burned in her lungs. A voracious crackle beat against her eardrums.
She caught hold of a thin arm, clawing the prone child out of the flames. Fire ate at her frilled skirt and Bex ripped the singed fabric free.
Enveloping Fairchild in her arms to stifle her smoldering clothes, Bex coughed as she inhaled a mouthful of smoke. Panting, she struggled to draw oxygen into her lungs from the smoke choked air. Fairchild was not heavy, but her limp body was a dead weight in her arms as she hurried back through the corridor to the metal ladder leading to the outside world. She pushed her protesting muscles to keep moving through the black smoke now wrapping around her.
The fire’s roar rumbled through the open doorway, echoing along the stone corridors, so loud it masked Cole’s footsteps clambering down the metal rungs.
“Bex? When you weren’t upstairs, I –”
“No time to talk! Help me carry her up,” she spluttered, as a coughing fit doubled her over.
She felt Fairchild’s weight lifted from her arms. The smoke was so thick now she couldn’t even see the first few rungs and reached out blindly to haul herself up. The flames were crackling their way along the corridor and she could feel the heat, like a hot summer day, roasting her back, heating the metal around her. Sheer willpower drove her feet from one rung to the next until Cole reached out a hand to haul her out of the manhole. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, her chest heaving as she sucked in long draughts of fresh air.
Cole propelled her along with one arm supporting her and Fairchild slung over his other shoulder.
“This house is a tinder box about to explode. Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Chapter 33
Saturday March 24
As soon as daylight touched her eyelids, Fairchild’s tiny frame jerked rigid and she screamed her lungs out. Over the top of her head, Cole’s startled eyes looked helplessly at Bex. Small bare feet kicked, lashing out at a world that had become terrifying to a child who had never experienced anything beyond her bunker, Bex realized.
Carefully avoiding her blistered skin, Bex put her palms against Fairchild’s face to still her desperate agitation. The screaming subsided to whimpering hiccups. Sadness pierced her heart at the sight of Fairchild’s wide, apprehensive eyes rolling from side to side, the whites glossy with fear, as she took in the frightening sounds and sights of a bustling squad of armed police now swarming around the property. Several officers rushed past them with fire extinguishers to battle the flames behind them.
Bex held her arms out, clutching Fairchild and turning her face into her chest to hide the world from her view.
“You’re safe now,” she crooned. “I promise everything will be alright.”
Fairchild’s thin arms twisted around her neck.
“Where’s mother?” The trembling voice was hoarse from screaming.
The question sliced through Bex. What could she say? She looked to Cole for inspiration and he motioned with his head towards the bunker where two gurneys were being wheeled out.
“They resisted. It ended in carnage,” he muttered. “They’re alive, but in critical condition.”
Even from a distance Bex could see the spreading wet red stains against Smithson and Orla’s makeshift bandages. It was too bloodied and gory a sight for a child.
Fairchild seemed to sense what they were talking about. She fought herself free of Bex’s
grip, wriggling down to the ground and making a dash towards the two bodies, her silky hair fanning out behind her. Bex sprinted after her, scooping her into her arms before she reached her parents. Fairchild clawed at her, but Bex held her firmly. Cole loped towards them and helped Bex carry Fairchild back towards the manor house.
With Cole’s help, Bex wrangled Fairchild into a bathtub of cool water, after stripping away her clothes, to help ease the pain of her red, blistered skin. After her outburst, Fairchild lay absolutely still and silent in the water, her eyes open but cloudy and vacant. Her lips fluttered and Bex thought she heard Fairchild counting, repeating numbers over and over in a soft, humming croon.
She stood in the doorway, her gaze resting on the child, nursing her own hands which had been scorched by the flames.
Beside her Cole said, “Ambulances and fire and rescue are on their way.” He lifted one of her hands and she winced. “You need medical attention as well.”
“I’ll ride with Fairchild to the hospital,” she said. “Paramedics can treat me in the ambulance.”
“There’s no need for you to accompany her. I’ve contacted child protective services. They’re sending someone to meet her at the hospital and take her into custody. They’ll make sure she’s okay.”
“I said, I’m going with her to the hospital,” Bex retorted fiercely. “Somebody needs to explain Fairchild’s situation to the social workers. The sights and sounds she’s just experienced have left her almost catatonic after a lifetime of living closeted away in a subterranean hideaway. I just hope it’s not too much for her to process.”
Bex strode across the marble tiles to kneel beside the bathtub. She plunged her hands in the cooling water and squeezed Fairchild’s fingers. There was no responding pressure. Fairchild seemed oblivious to her touch.
“It might take time, but she’ll adapt. She’s young and she may even learn to forget her childhood,” Cole said.
Bex didn’t feel so confident about the wheels of justice, already spinning to swallow Fairchild into its system.
Chapter 34
Sunday March 25
Bex considered the two sets of names and phone numbers written on the pad in front of her. They were the distilled essence of a hectic thirty hours at London Central Hospital and a chance conversation with talkative nurse, Maria Lopez. She had been agog at discovering the identity of the two emergency patients and, learning that Bex was a police detective, she had given her tongue free rein.
“Orla Vitalis and I worked together in the same ward! OMG, I can’t believe she’s now a wanted felon. Shot in the chest in a police shoot out! She had a reputation for being the calmest nurse on the ward. Nothing could faze her. That’s why we always left Orla to deal with the stillbirth parents. And you say that little girl is her daughter? OMG, I had no idea Orla had gotten pregnant!” Her brow creased, although her busy hands continued to clean and bandage Bex’s hands. “Wait, how old did you say the girl is?”
“Eight and a half,” Bex supplied the information.
“Oh, so Orla and her husband adopted?”
Bex’s attention finally zeroed in on Maria’s words.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, I was working with Orla eight or nine years ago. If she was pregnant it never showed. I was under the impression she couldn’t conceive. I’m sure I would’ve remembered if she’d become pregnant.”
Perplexed by her statement, Bex’s own brow creased, wrinkling the plaster dressing Maria had just applied. If Orla had been pregnant or adopted Fairchild, why had she kept it secret? What had she been hiding?
Replaying Maria’s conversation in her head, an idea struggled to the surface. A quick phone call to Cole had produced a warrant to access the hospital’s birth records the year Fairchild was born, the same year she discovered that Orla had worked in the obstetric and pediatric intensive care wards.
London Central had recorded 56 infant deaths that year, five had been female stillbirths and seven deaths had been recorded for infant girls under the age of twelve months. In total the hospital had recorded twelve deaths of babies who would have otherwise been close to Fairchild’s age. Unfortunately there was no way to compare Fairchild’s DNA to those of the dead infants because, by law, the hospital had destroyed their DNA samples after five years.
Double checking the hospital entries showed the seven dead infants had been removed from the hospital by their parents for burial. Bex questioned the hospital administrator, Dr. West, about what measures the hospital had put in place to manage the stillbirth baby deaths.
“We have a bereavement suite where parents can stay with their babies. At that time, we had a cold room where the stillborn babies were kept so the parents could spend time with them before they were buried. Now we use heated cots that parents can take home with them.”
“Is this mandatory for all parents of stillbirths?” Bex asked.
“No, not at all. It depends on the parents, and the way they prefer to grieve. Some are too upset to spend time with their dead babies. For others it’s a way to experience their child before they have to say goodbye.”
Working on the recorded dates of death and when the babies had been released from hospital, she was able to narrow the figures to two sets of parents who had foregone spending time with their babies. These two female stillbirths were recorded as being cremated almost immediately after death. No ashes were returned to the parents. Bex questioned the neonatal matron about it.
Amanda Garrett was a large woman with a double chin that quivered defensively as she protested, “That was the way stillbirth cremations were handled at the time.”
“How does the hospital check for death?” Bex asked. “I mean, could there have been a mistake over the diagnosis?”
“The babies are hooked up to machines to check for heartbeat. There’s no chance of error,” Garrett said firmly.
Bex was less certain. What if the nurse on duty hadn’t hooked the machine up properly, so no heartbeat was recorded even though the baby was actually alive? When she demanded to see the obstetric records for the two families, in both cases she found Orla Vitalis’s signature as the nurse in attendance. Was that just a coincidence or had Orla taken matters into her own hands?
Bex stared down at the names in front of her again. She only had Maria Lopez’s word that Orla had difficulty conceiving. Even so, was it possible that Orla Vitalis had miraculously become pregnant and given birth to Fairchild herself? Those sorts of miracles had been known to happen.
But in that case, it would leave Fairchild without parents, for if the Vitalises survived their injuries they would be incarcerated for a long time. Fairchild would languish in the governmental care system. If she was very lucky, she would end up being fostered by a loving family. More than likely she would spend her childhood passing through a number of caregivers. With Fairchild’s unusual upbringing, Bex doubted that she would assimilate easily into normal life.
Bex was still chewing over her decision to contact the two families who had experienced stillbirths and ask them to undertake a DNA test to determine whether their daughter was in fact alive, when Cole bounced into the office. With shock she registered his long legs in faded jeans and muscular chest hidden under a loose green knit sweater. She jerked her gaze back to his face.
“What are you doing here on a weekend?”
Grinning his lopsided smile, Cole folded his long frame onto the chair in front of her office desk. “I need to catch up on some paperwork before Monday. But somehow I knew you’d be here, after that urgent call yesterday to organize a warrant to access hospital records. What is it you’re searching for?”
Bex explained her predicament about contacting the parents.
The breath left Cole’s lungs in a noisy whoosh and his tanned face paled dramatically.
“You can’t do that!” he protested. “You can’t raise the hopes of parents who have buried a child that their daughter might still be alive! It’s too heartbreaking!”
<
br /> Bex was surprised by his strong reaction.
“I know it’s a long shot, but if you thought you’d lost a child through stillbirth and then someone told you there was a possibility that that child might still be alive, wouldn’t a part of you want to hear that news?”
Cole’s face clouded, the hazel eyes darkening to brown. He avoided her gaze, dropping his eyes to his clenched fists sitting atop his knees. His lips were pressed tight in a rigid line.
Bex studied him carefully. Powerful emotions flickered across his clammy, paper white features. Something about her words had resonated deeply with him. He dragged a hand through his short, dense hair before returning her look.
“You’re right. As difficult as it would be to bear that hope if it didn’t pan out, as a father I would want to know if there was any possibility at all that my daughter might still be alive.” His voice broke and his gaze flickered from her face to the paper under her hand. “Do it, Bex. Give the families a call.”
Chapter 35
Monday March 26
Bex shifted in the uncomfortable but stylish plastic chair opposite Chief Superintendent Vincent Titus. They were seated at a small round table overlooking the rooftop terrace of New Scotland Yard. Bex was too tense to spare more than a casual glance out the window at the stunning view that swept from Big Ben to the London Eye, with the choppy breadth of the Thames in between.
This was her first face-to-face meeting with the chief superintendent. Dresden was usually the intermediary, fielding whatever commands came from on high. His was a name that Dresden had invoked on occasions when she wanted to punctuate the importance of an order.
Behind them, heels clicked on their way to the elevator. There was the soft ping of its arrival and the quiet whoosh of its doors closing. In front of her an untouched coffee mug sat cooling.
As Titus poured tea from a pot, Bex took the opportunity to scrutinize him carefully. As well as being chief superintendent of police, he was also Isla Standing’s father and there was a look of Isla to him in the shape of his eyes and the arrogant tilt of his head. His hair was a faded reddish gold overtaken by wiry gray.
Bex Wynter Box Set 2 Page 17
