Baby Love

by Maureen Carter

  She led the way up a curving carved staircase as Powell checked out marble floors and big mirrors, Regency stripes and old paintings. Carol, who he reckoned was nursing a cold, was bringing up the rear. She shouldn’t have much to do. Sitting-in job really, like Martha Kemp. He’d do the talking.

  Laura Kenyon, bolstered by pillows, was sitting up in a four-poster bed that was covered in candyfloss. Netting and drapes, actually, but Powell didn’t do soft furnishings. He did know Laura looked like a princess, the fairytale kind. Stick a petit pois under her mattress and she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. She’d had none last night. There were coffee-coloured smudges under double-glazed eyes. She didn’t even try to stifle a yawn.

  Given Laura’s fragile state, Powell tried to cover the main points first; mop-up sessions would follow. It appeared Laura was grabbed from behind as she walked home from a friend’s house in Fair View, half a mile from the rape scene off the Alcester Road. The attacker dragged her through a gap in the wire fencing, then down the slope to the abandoned rail line.

  “What time was this, Laura?” he asked.

  “I kind of lost track, sorry.”

  He let it go for the moment, concentrated on physical details of her assailant. He was taller and heavier than her – she was probably a size eight – but she couldn’t estimate by how much. He’d put some sort of bag over her head and tied her hands behind her back. And threatened to kill her if she screamed.

  “What about the voice, Laura? Young? Old? Any accent?”

  She shook her head. “The mask... Everything was muffled.”

  And she’d been so terrified she could barely breathe. He had a knife. And scissors. As with the other victims, he’d further violated Laura by hacking off her pubic hair. For Laura it was almost the worst moment in an ordeal that had lasted... how long? Powell still hadn’t got a fix on the timings. The triple-nine had come in at 5am after she’d dragged herself up to the wire fence and been spotted by a shift-worker. She’d either left her friend’s house way too late to be walking home alone or she’d lain around down there for hours.

  “You’re doing really well, Laura.” There was a warm smile in Carol Mansfield’s voice. Powell had forgotten she was there.

  He asked Laura if the attacker had said anything before fleeing.

  “He warned me not to move. Said he’d cut me. He untied my hands. Ordered me to close my eyes. Removed the bag...”

  Powell pounced on what that could mean. “And you saw...?” The prompt came out more like a prod.

  The tears that had threatened throughout coursed down her cheeks. “I was scared. My eyes were closed. I was tired... So very, very tired...”

  And she fell asleep? Powell found that hard to believe. Unless she’d been on the jolly juice. “Were you...?”

  “That’s enough for now.” Martha Kemp’s voice brooked no argument. Hands tucked under her armpits, she’d listened to every word from the foot of the bed. Carol Mansfield thought the woman would be better occupied comforting her daughter. Laura was in bits.

  They were at the bedroom door when Mansfield turned. “Just one thing, Laura. Did your attacker take anything? An earring, perhaps?”

  “No.” A trembling hand shot to her earlobe. “No. I wasn’t wearing any.”

  The answer was quick. Too quick? “You’re sure?” Mansfield asked.

  “She’s sure,” Kemp spat. “Look at her. Don’t you think he took enough?”

  Mike Powell was behind the wheel. He wanted another look at the crime scene and it was always good to keep the guys on their toes. It was a bit stop-start; traffic was generally slow through Moseley on farmers’-market Saturdays. He glanced at his passenger. Carol Mansfield was dabbing her nose with a tissue. As well as the sniffs, her eyes were streaming. He hoped to God he’d not come down with it as well. Aside from the cold, he reckoned she was well fit. He liked his women with curves. He preferred petite blondes and Mansfield was tall and very dark but at least she wasn’t lippy. Like Morriss.

  “What were you going to ask Laura, sir?” There was a blank look on his face. “You didn’t get the question out. Ma Kemp called time.”

  Of course. He’d made a mental note to check with the medical man. “Blood tests. Jot it down, would you, love?”

  Patronising prick. “Blood tests?”

  “Yeah. I was going to ask if she’d been drinking. Could be why she was out of it for so long. And how she ended up in it in the first place.”

  “How d’you mean?” As if she didn’t know.

  “Girls nowadays, go out of a night, get tanked up. Alcohol lowers the resistance. And a few other things, if you get my drift.”

  She was beginning to understand Bev’s deep antipathy for the guy. She bit her tongue.

  “I’m not saying they ask for it...” He checked his hair in the driving mirror.

  “That’s exactly what you’re saying. And it’s bollocks.” It just came out.

  The lack of a comeback suggested he suspected he’d gone too far; he was certainly taken aback. He cast a surreptitious glance: bloody woman was probably on the rag.

  The continuing silence was punctuated by the odd sniff. He switched the wipers off, wondering how long ago the downpour had ended. He sighed. The rain would’ve played havoc with the crime scene. It was a quagmire down there and only a slim chance of lifting a decent cast. Fucking lethal as well. At least he had his boots with him this time. He glanced again at Carol, who was looking queasy – probably feeling a touch contrite.

  “Meant to mention it before, love.” He was good at people skills. “The earring? Good question. Joined-up thinking.”

  The eye-roll was hidden beneath a tissue. “It was Sergeant Morriss’s,” Mansfield offered. “She’s convinced he takes them as trophies.”

  “Word in the shell-like, love. Morriss isn’t exactly flavour of the month. I’d keep your distance if I were you. The lads call her...”

  Lonely. “I’m fully aware what a handful of wankers call her. And know what? It’s double bollocks. Can you open the window, sir?”

  “Sure thing.” Change the subject. “Need some fresh air.”

  “Yeah. The car stinks of shit. Did you step in something?”

  7

  Few crimes are bigger than child kidnap. Child murder is one. While there was the slightest chance of finding Zoë Beck alive, every available body was out there hunting. Blake Way and adjoining streets were teeming with police officers, dog handlers and squad cars. Off-duty uniforms and detectives, who’d offered their services, were swelling the ranks. Volunteers were being briefed and would be employed on non-specialist tasks. Every householder had to be interviewed; every shed, outbuilding, garage and lock-up searched. If Baby Zoë wasn’t found quickly, leave would be cancelled and unlimited overtime up for grabs. It would be taken eagerly. Crimes against kids touched every copper. Those who committed them were scum.

  Bev registered the action with a glance as she stepped out of number thirteen. The fresh air was welcome after the suffocating atmosphere inside. And it had stopped raining. Puddles still pooled and pavements glistened but a weak sun appeared, determined to shine.

  At six-five, Superintendent Bill Byford was a head above most of his officers and head and shoulders above the press pack. Bev spotted him, standing out against a roiling sea of pushy hacks shoving mics and camera lenses in his face. The notebooks had been shunted to the back.

  With half an ear and growing incredulity, she listened to a string of questions that at this stage no one could answer and at any stage no one should ask. It was a close call, but most crass was: how’s the mother feeling? The usually unflappable Byford was riled. She saw it in the tightened jaw and raised palms. The journalists must be fully aware nothing further would be released before the one o’clock news conference. She checked the time: 12.15. Three hours since the baby was reported missing. She closed her eyes, mouthed a silent prayer.

  Unless God now answered prayers via a mobile, someone else was try
ing to get through. She ferreted for her phone in the depths of a seemingly bottomless shoulder bag. The number displayed didn’t ring a bell. She adopted her I’m-a-busy-woman-don’t-bother-me voice.

  “Nick Lockwood here.”

  “Nick?” Beeb bloke. Boyish fringe. Brown eyes. Beer gut. Not exactly a pleasure but it could be worse. “What can I do for you?”

  He laughed. “Don’t sound so suspicious.”

  “It’s in the job description, mate.” She listened to the newsman’s take on events at the crime scene in Moseley that morning, realised that the baby snatch had pushed Street Watch on to one of her many mental back burners. Powell’s pratfall was a laugh but she had the nous to know Lockwood was after something in return.

  “I’m after a new line, Bev.”

  At least he was up front. “I’m not up to speed, mate. I’m on the missing baby. I’ll have a sniff round, get back to you if I come up with anything.” Hacks weren’t her favourite people but she knew the old saying about tents and urine.

  “Appreciate it.” She sensed there was more. “Don’t fancy a drink tonight, do you?”

  It would be a miracle if she was off before midnight. “Prince of Wales ’bout eight?”

  No harm in keeping him sweet. She felt a hand on her shoulder as she stuffed the phone back into her bag.

  “Sergeant?” Byford, fresh from the media mauling, wanted the top lines from the Beck interviews. He’d listen carefully to every word, keep his thoughts to himself until she’d finished. That was his way. Like lowering his voice when he was about to erupt. Like making his face a blank screen. Bev often tried copying the technique. Hers was an open book with pop-up illustrations.

  After digesting the gist, his neutral knack appeared to have deserted him. The big man’s screen was showing a double feature: frustration and fury. Not surprising. He had two grown-up sons, third grandkid on the way.

  When he heard there were no photographs of Zoë, Byford shook his head and sighed. The image of a missing child had immense impact on the emotions of a telly-viewing, newspaper-reading public. Some may already have seen something significant; others might, over the next few hours and days. With thousands of potential witnesses out there, the importance of a visual was impossible to over-estimate. “For Christ’s sake, Bev. A baby’s only got to break wind and its parents shoot a roll of film.”

  In Perfect Land maybe, where mummy and daddy live happily ever after. “That’s another thing, guv. We haven’t got a steer on the kid’s dad yet. Natalie won’t say who he is.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He stroked an eyebrow. Ominous.

  She didn’t fancy Natalie Beck’s chances in a run-in with the big man. Not in his current frame of mind. Given how long the guv had been around, it was odds-on he’d been one of the officers on the Baby Fay abduction in the late eighties. The tiny body – burned and abused – wasn’t discovered for three weeks. The kidnapper never found. As a schoolgirl, Bev had followed the news coverage with equal degrees of horror and fascination. Details were hazy but going by the guv’s grim face, now would not be a good time to ask him to share.

  “You the cop been talking to Maxine Beck?”

  She swung round, eyes flashing, as a hand tapped her bum. It was attached to one of the best-looking blokes she’d seen in a long time. But it wasn’t aesthetic appeal that saved him from a verbal hammering. It was what he clutched in his other mitt.

  Bev took it from him without speaking. The photograph was probably a good likeness; shame the baby’s eyes were closed. Little Zoë was asleep on her back, tiny perfect fingers loosely splayed, wisps of pale blonde hair only just discernible on a head fragile as eggshell. Bev bit her lip. The line about newborns all looking like Winston Churchill was dead wrong.

  “Where’s the rest?” she snapped. The pic was lovely but not brilliant for publicity posters and handouts.

  The guy shrugged. “Can’t help with that. Sorry.” It was the only photograph around because it was the only one Maxine Beck had given away. Terry Roper – Mr Blue Moon – said he’d driven over with it the minute he heard it was needed. Max had phoned and told him to look out for a woman cop in blue with a chin-length bob and a mouth on her.

  “She was right.” Roper winked. “’Bout the blue.”

  Bev arched an eyebrow Byford-fashion, didn’t return the cheeky grin. She had him down as Lovejoy meets Jack the lad: an alumnus of easy-charm school. His soft black curls looked just washed and striking slate-grey eyes glinted from a face that could sell skin-care products. He was only five-six but every inch looked as if it visited health clubs. Daily. The leather coat was dark chocolate, the chinos and granddad shirt mocha and milk. Tasty.

  “Where were you last night?” Bev didn’t beat around bushes. Not when a baby could be hidden there.

  “I was with Max,” he said.

  Bev narrowed her eyes. So Max was telling porkies.

  “Till half-eleven.”

  Had she given Maxine’s lie away in her face? Roper’s was doing a poker. A diamond stud twinkled in his left earlobe.

  “And then?”

  He’d gassed the car and picked up a balti on the way home. Bev wrote times and names. “We’ll check. Naturally.”

  It should have taken the wind out of his overblown sails, but he only nodded. “I’ve probably got receipts in the motor if it’ll get me out of the frame.”

  “Watch The Bill, do you?” Bloody cops-on-the-box. Telly addicts knew as much police procedure as some of the uniforms.

  “I’m not thick, sergeant. Stands to reason you’ll look at anyone who knows the family. But do it quick. ’Cause some bastard out there’s got the baby. And if I get to him first, he’ll be lucky if he survives.” Roper’s fists were clenched at his side. The tremor was detectable, as were the tears in his eyes.

  Easy words. Byford had heard it all before. “We’ll need to talk to you again, Mr Roper.”

  “You’ll find me at Max’s. I’m staying here till this thing’s sorted.”

  They watched him walk away, then headed for the motor. As Byford got in, he pointed skywards. A stunning double rainbow overarched the ugly sprawl of the Wordsworth estate.

  “Know what, guv?” Bev said. “I’d rather find the baby. You can stick the pot of gold.”

  8

  Bernie Flowers, the head of the police news bureau, had commandeered Highgate’s biggest conference room. The vast space only just coped with the numbers. The media turnout here was almost on a par with that of the officers flooding the Wordsworth estate.

  A baby-snatch wasn’t a filler at the bottom of an inside page. Zoë Beck’s tiny face would be splashed across every newspaper and television in the country, posters would soon be going up all over the Midlands and uniform would shortly be swamping the city with thousands of leaflets. Within hours the baby’s image would be imprinted on the national psyche in the same way as that of James Bulger, Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman, Sarah Payne... The list was too long. To Bev’s way of thinking, one child’s name was too many.

  She was uncomfortably hot and sweaty under the telly lights and she had to keep screwing her eyes against the glare coming off the table. It was distracting and something was bugging her; she couldn’t pin down the errant niggle. She itched to get back to the action. Under the conference table’s highly polished mahogany her legs jiggled, desperate to get up and go. Sitting on her butt listening to stupid questions was a complete waste of time. Four hours and counting since that empty cot was found.

  She glanced right. Though Byford was in the hot seat, Bernie was taking most of the flak. Not that he couldn’t handle it; a passing resemblance to John Major was misleading. Bernie was a grey suit but had one of the brightest brains in the nick, not to mention a technicolor turn of phrase. He’d started in news on Fleet Street and ended up editing a redtop in Docklands. Not a bad background for dealing with the current barrage.

  “I’m not dodging the question, mate. I don’t have the answer.” Bernie poure
d water into a glass, glanced up and gave a tight smile. “Next.” He’d already given them the bare bones of the incident. There was no meat to offer.

  The reporters now had a name and timings: when Zoë was last seen, when her absence was discovered. They’d been asked to go big on witness appeals and hot-line numbers for the public to ring. Someone, the cliché goes, must have seen something. Bev reckoned they invariably had and it was usually Elvis galloping round the Bullring on Shergar. Whatever. Experienced officers would vet the calls, ditching the dross and the loony tunes. Other teams were already going through paedo registers and child-porn sites. Still more were checking every crime, cold case or not, anywhere in the country, that bore the slightest resemblance to the taking of Baby Zoë.

  None of this satisfied the journos. The pack was after the mother. A harrowing tearful plea for the baby’s safe return was the story at this early stage. Bev knew the guv had thought long and hard but eventually vetoed all requests. Saturation coverage was a given in the first day or so. When it began to flag, he could whisk Natalie from the wings and inject more impetus.

  She also knew – because he’d told her – that he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. There was another less palatable reason for not putting Natalie Beck out there for public consumption. A surly sixteen-year-old from a grotty estate on the wrong side of town was a hell of a lot less appealing than a picture of her three-week-old baby.

  Being denied the star of the show wasn’t the only reason the press were hacked off. The guv had also quashed requests to be interviewed live on lunchtime news bulletins. Byford didn’t give a toss about journalists’ deadlines. Not when he had one of his own. Bev knew the big man would happily do a turn – Christ, he’d cartwheel down New Street in the buff – if and when there was something worth saying. She watched him scribbling furiously into a notebook: ideas, reminders, checks, passing notions. He’d carry the pad around, adding more lines as inspiration struck. It was another Byford habit. Not one to which Bev subscribed.