Baby Love

by Maureen Carter

  The crunch of scattering gravel outside the room’s stained-glass windows suggested her minder was home. Behind leaded panes, a gleaming black people-carrier hove into view. Carol watched closely, expecting Laura to relax a little. Whatever emotion flitted across the teenager’s face, it wasn’t relief.

  Laura sat up, straight-backed. Her voice was too loud and too high. “I’m tired now. I want you to leave.”

  The clack of heels on marble preceded the crash of door on wall. Martha Kemp briefly assessed the tableau, then storm-trooped her way across polished floorboards. Shiny black boots and an ankle-length leather coat underlined the SS effect.

  She stamped into Powell’s comfort zone. “How dare you? How dare you come in to my house and talk to my daughter without my permission?”

  The DI looked as if he’d been caught smoking behind the bike sheds. Carol Mansfield rallied faster. She rose to take advantage of her five-ten height. “Laura isn’t a child. She’s eighteen. We were invited in. She’s been under no pressure to speak.”

  Three reasonable points, calmly delivered. Kemp paused, briefly. “I don’t want you in my home when I’m not here.”

  “Why?” Carol asked. “We’re trying to catch the man who raped your daughter. Isn’t that what you want?”

  Kemp ran a hand over her face. Of course it was; she just loathed not being number-one controller. She had the grace and sense to cede. “Sorry. Please, sit down.”

  Carol resumed her seat next to Powell.

  “So, Laura...” he started.

  “Mum, I don’t feel too good.” The teenager paused, then pushed the point. “Like I’m about to faint, you know?”

  Kemp crossed to Laura, laid a hand on her daughter’s forehead, then turned to Powell. “I’m sorry. She’s burning up. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

  The DI was on his feet. “No problem.”

  Carol was thinking on hers.

  Kemp held the door open and Carol, as she passed, shoved the earring in front of the other woman’s face. “This yours, by any chance?”

  Kemp’s eyes lit up. “Wonderful. Where did you find it?”

  “Ask your daughter.” Carol glanced back at Laura, who was keeping her head down in more than one way. Her earlier twitchiness hadn’t been due to her mother’s absence. Quite the reverse.

  “I don’t understand,” Kemp said.

  Carol did – and its implications. “When did you lose it?”

  “Them, actually. I lost them both about a month ago. They were insured, of course, but it’s the sentimental value, isn’t it...?”

  Carol nodded. Emotional cost in this case was going to be shattering.

  “Where did you find it?” Kemp repeated. “Any sign of the other one?”

  Carol paused, letting Kemp work it out. Maybe she couldn’t. After an increasingly uneasy few seconds, the detective told her it had been discovered at the railway embankment in Moseley, embedded in a sleeper. Martha Kemp wasn’t stupid. Carol didn’t need to spell it out further.

  Kemp glanced back at Laura, curled foetus-like on the sofa, softly crying and visibly shaking. “But that means...”

  Carol nodded. Either the rapist was also a jewel thief who’d just happened to nick Martha Kemp’s earrings or Laura had a penchant for diamonds and was lying through her teeth.

  Carol didn’t put it quite like that. Neither did she mention immediately that she’d glimpsed a tattoo under Laura’s left buttock. One rip in the jeans had momentarily revealed a tiny black heart.

  The wires and wherefores were in place to trace future malicious calls to the Becks, should the obnoxious little shit have further faeces to dump. Patrols would keep an eye on the property but 24/7 surveillance was too costly. Bev’s considered opinion was that the caller was a sad sack rather than a psycho. And family liaison and Terry Roper were both in residence for the foreseeable.

  “I reckon it’s covered,” Bev said. “I’m gonna head off.”

  Mandy Forsyth was making tea. “Drink before you go?”

  “Mandy, after this morning my blood group’s PG. I’ll just pop my head in to say ’bye. Catch you later.”

  Mother and daughter Beck were ensconced in the small, cluttered sitting room again, mute and immobile. Bev had noticed it before. When anxious relatives wait for news, their world often shrinks to the same four walls, shattered lives go on hold as if to stave off further damage. Bev lifted a hand in farewell.

  “Give us a bell any time, Nat. Day or night. But you’ll be seeing me again. Regular Arnie, me.”

  Maxine hadn’t a clue. “You what, love?”

  “Arl bee beck.” Natalie’s Schwarzenegger impression was spot on but Maxine was still perplexed. Natalie gave Bev a knowing look. “Don’t worry, mum. Everything’ll be OK.”

  The transformation was stunning, given how she had lost it earlier. Two hours Bev had sat with her, held her, talked to her. Two hours desperate to connect, using everything from inconsequential chitchat to life-and-death stuff. Flake by flake, she’d chipped a way through Natalie’s brittle carapace. Tiny step by tiny step, Natalie had come back from empty-eyed zombie to teenager stable as any in her appalling circumstances.

  The breakthrough, Bev discovered, was tapping into the daughter’s love for her mother. Bev convinced Natalie that Maxine needed her even more now, that her mum’d never survive the next few days without Natalie’s support. It was touch and go but the need to be needed, combined with the teenager’s caring nature, gradually won whatever battle her mental demons were waging. Bev had no doubt there’d be wobbles ahead, but for now Natalie had a reason to carry on apart from her missing baby. She had to look out for her mother.

  Bev was at the front door when Natalie placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Thanks for all that. Appreciate it.”

  Bev made eye contact, held it. “I’m here for you, Natalie. I’ll help anyway I can.”

  Natalie’s eyes brimmed. “Find Zoë, Bev. That’s all.”

  12

  Fading light and falling hopes.

  Bev called off the search at four that afternoon. It’d be resumed first thing but as of now it was thirty-nine hours since Zoë Beck was last seen. The search paraphernalia had been packed away, the personnel headed for home or back to base. Bev was taking a final solitary pass round the Wordsworth before hitting Highgate and a stack of paperwork. The estate was like a ghost town after the day’s frenetic activity. A feral cat rooted in an upturned bin. A mangy dog defecated in the gutter. An elderly dosser was kipping on a bench under a cardboard duvet.

  The old codger was missing the fireworks. They’d actually been going off all day. Now that it was dark, at least the kids could see their pocket money going up in smoke. Multi-coloured showers and starbursts flashed intermittently against a swathe of sable velvet. Bev scowled. It’d been the same for weeks. It was November 15th, not the fifth, but bonfire night these days went through to Christmas and New Year.

  Christmas. And what of Baby Zoë?

  It was a train of thought Bev refused to board. She slipped Aretha Franklin into the CD player and took a left. All the houses in Blake Way looked the same: dingy little boxes, so normal, so ordinary. Number thirteen should be weeping and wailing and wiping its windows. God, she wished she had better news for the Becks.

  The search teams had covered the area like nappy rash and not come up with so much as a sniff of the kid. She smiled wryly, recalling some of the items they had found stashed around the place: pirate DVDs, counterfeit designer labels, a warehouse full of hot white goods. Fact was, an unofficial amnesty was operating along the lines of ‘you scratch my back’... If a local villain came up with a tip-off, they wouldn’t nick him for giving Curry’s a run for its money.

  Meanwhile, every cop with a snout had put feelers out. A few informants had come forward anyway. Not with decent dope but promises to keep their eyes peeled. Crimes against kids were the most despicable in the book. Normal rules of engagement didn’t apply.

  “OK,�
� she told herself. “Once more around the block, dear friend, then hit the nearest chippy.” Food. Fuck. Frankie. The thought association stemmed from the fact that Frankie’s dad, Giovanni, ran an Italian restaurant. Bev still hadn’t phoned Frankie to apologise for failing to show yesterday. She made a mental note: ring Interflora. And grovel.

  Then joined Aretha Franklin, who was saying a little prayer.

  “You look like you need this more than me, Bev.” Vince Hanlon was on the front desk. Highgate’s longest-serving sergeant drank more tea than Tony Benn, and he’d just brewed. Big Vince raised a Charles and Camilla wedding mug in one hand and half a Wagon Wheel in the other. “You’re a star, Vincie. Anyone ever told you that?” Vince parked brawny forearms across an impressive paunch and looked set to launch into the latest gossip. She loved the man but he could talk the hind legs off a donkey sanctuary.

  Scooping up both offerings, she blew him a kiss and hit the stairs. A call in the car from Carol Mansfield had put a spring or two in Bev’s step. Not only did Laura Kenyon have a tattoo, but she’d blatantly lied when she first said she hadn’t been wearing earrings during the attack. Not surprising, given she’d nicked the studs from her mother. Laura had eventually admitted ‘borrowing’ other items of jewellery from Kemp over a period of some months, mostly selling them to eke out her allowance, but she’d taken a shine to the diamond studs. She’d lied because her mother scared the shit out of her.

  The file Bev needed to check was in the Street Watch incident room. If Laura had lied about an earring, it raised several questions about mothers and daughters, especially their lines of communication. It was just possible, for similar reasons, that Kate Quinn had been less than frank on the tattoo front.

  Carol had informed DI Powell about Laura’s tattoo, but Bev knew he hadn’t yet instigated any action. Question now was whether she should follow the lead herself? She jotted down a couple of numbers but a decision was deferred in favour of answering a phone. “Bev Morriss.”

  “What are you doing there?” The guv, who’d sounded happier.

  “Answering the phone.” Whoops, wrong reply. The quality of silence at the other end was severely strained. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to be flip. I’m the only one around at the mo.”

  “I want DI Powell.”

  Someone had to. “Can’t help you, guv. He’s not here.”

  “Have you seen the TV news?”

  Yeah, in between painting my toenails and licking Haagen Dazs from Johnny Depp’s every orifice. “Nope.”

  “I’ve just watched footage of Natalie Beck in the back of a police motor being driven into Highgate.”

  “What?” Unbelievable. It had to be connected with the Beck girl’s rape. Powell must have got her in to go through albums of known offenders. It was a bit hot off the mark, considering what the poor kid was going through.

  “Precisely,” Byford said. “I told him to hang fire.”

  Casting her mind back, Bev caught a loophole in the guv’s argument. As she recalled his conversation with the DI, Byford had been referring to a different issue entirely – that of putting Natalie Beck in front of the TV cameras. “You were talking tearful appeal, guv, not mug shots.”

  There was an audible groan from the guv’s end. Either way, Bev couldn’t see how Natalie’s premature public appearance could jeopardise the baby inquiry. Given the complete lack of progress, the young mother’s time in the wings had been coming to an end anyway. An emotional plea from Natalie via the nation’s media was the next logical step.

  “May as well fix an appeal, then?” Bev asked.

  “Tomorrow morning. 11.30.”

  She snatched the receiver from her still ringing ear. And a good night to you too, guv.

  It wasn’t a good night. Bev was pissed off returning to an empty house and an empty bed. Oz hadn’t even left a message on the answer-phone. Come to that, no one had. It was little wonder she couldn’t sleep. Her stomach churned and her head was spinning with a zillion thoughts, fears, hopes and ideas. The missing baby was foremost but the Street Watch girls were going round in there as well. The tattoo question still bugged her. Powell had done sod all so far. Surely it couldn’t hurt if she put in a few quick calls, had another little chat with Tattoo Man, Luke Mangold? She’d scanned the rape latest before leaving Highgate. The team had been out all day interviewing. It was routine stuff: no new leads or fresh lines. One name rang a bell with Bev: David Carver, the English lecturer at Queen’s. She’d interviewed him herself after Kate Quinn’s attack. He’d seemed straight, apart from fancying himself rotten. She smiled, recalling his nickname with the students: Heathcliff. Not that his missus bore the slightest resemblance to Cathy. Helen Carver was so determinedly upbeat she made Pollyanna look like a manic-depressive. Powell’s interview notes were a bit sparse; maybe she’d have another word with Carol Mansfield.

  The mug-shots session had been a no-no. Bev discovered this when she’d phoned Natalie to tell her the arrangements for the telly appeal and make sure the teenager was up for the ordeal. No problem: she’d do anything if it helped get Zoë back. As it turned out, Natalie could kill two birds with the proverbial; she was due back in Highgate anyway, to help put together an E-fit of her attacker.

  The alarm was set for 6am. It was almost midnight. Tomorrow would be the third day in the hunt for Baby Zoë. Bev reached out a hand – best make that 5am.

  A dark shape was barely perceptible in the shadows, watching, waiting. He’d been there two hours, biding his time, making sure. He’d seen a rat scuttle into the alleyway opposite; a tabby had brushed against his trousers then slunk away; the last piss-heads had staggered past ages ago. Apart from the occasional firework, the place was dead.

  The man didn’t want to be here tonight. The pictures on the news had forced his hand. He lifted his gaze as a cascade of colours burst across the night sky. It put him in mind of the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The man was still smiling as he checked the time. He’d already checked his pocket to make sure the matches were there. Humming softly, he adjusted the rucksack, headed for the house.

  The baby was fractious, the now-frazzled woman inexperienced, unable to contact the only person she could ask for help. The little one couldn’t be hungry; she’d refused the bottle again. And her nappy was dry. The mousy woman checked it anyway. She took the naked child into her arms, gently tucked the tiny head under her chin and stroked the smooth perfect skin. The baby wriggled and squirmed, hot, flushed, crabby.

  The woman tried to recall what the books said. Some recommended soothing motion to calm a crying child. A drive in the car often helped. No, she decided, too many people around. On edge anyway, she jumped at what sounded like distant shots, quickly realised it was only fireworks. The booms and bangs had spooked her a couple of times already that night. Maybe the sudden noises were unsettling the baby.

  The nursery would be quieter. Supporting the baby’s head, she cradled the tiny form gently in her arms and stole up the stairs. A soft tap set the rainbow swaying. The baby seemed to follow the motion with her eyes. The books said babies couldn’t focus before six weeks old, but this baby was clearly special. The woman smiled proudly as she gazed at the tiny face, her incipient panic replaced by renewed confidence.

  After all, it was early days. It would get easier in time. Everything would get so much easier.

  13

  Scarlet flames licked at the agonised face, jagged fire-fingers stretched towards the skull, the tiny body was already charred black. Thirty or more firefighters stood round helplessly, beaten back by intense heat, choking smoke. Bev, restrained by Oz in a powerful grip, kicked and fought, desperate to free herself, desperate to save the baby, knowing it was too late. Scalding tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched the baby’s head become a ball of fire.

  Bev screamed then, a lung-bursting, ear-piercing scream that shattered her sleep, jarred her awake. Heart racing, pulse pounding in her throat, she could barely catch her breath. Only vague
ly aware of its ring, her hand reached automatically for the phone.

  Something big was going off on the Wordsworth estate. A control-room operator at Highgate said they’d received five triple-nines. “It’s being treated as a major incident, sergeant. Thought you’d want to know.”

  “Cheers.” She squinted at the clock: half-one. “What’s happening?”

  “Fire. Domestic. Blake Way. Still patchy but four occupants unaccounted for.”

  With a foot on the floor it took five minutes. She ran six reds and nearly mowed down a drunk who was doing a big Fred Astaire number in the middle of the Moseley Road. Emergency vehicles nose-to-tail blocked Blake Way. Nearest access was round the corner. She ditched the MG, legged it the rest of the way. A cacophony of sound: engines, pumps, generators, radio transmissions, shouted instructions. Eyes closed, it was the noise of a fairground. No eau de candyfloss, only smoke. Cloying clinging suffocating fumes.

  It was impossible at first to see past the vast bulk of the fire engines. Their revolving lights cast sickly blue-grey hues on the faces of the crowd. It looked as if the entire neighbourhood had turned out: women smoking, men with pyjama bottoms flapping under their coats, kids feigning indifference, even a couple of toddlers. It wasn’t Towering Inferno but it was live action.

  Please God. Let it be live action.

  Smoke stung her eyes, caught in her throat as she assessed the situation. The blaze looked under control; crews trained hoses at what appeared to be the seat of the fire, the front sitting room. Damping down was in operation elsewhere. Anything not destroyed by flames or smoke was under four inches of water. Bev grimaced; the Becks hadn’t had much to begin with.

  She glanced round, recognised a few of the firefighters from previous incidents. It was the main man she needed. A uniformed cop pointed her in the right direction. As she approached the house, though there were no flames, a huge pall of smoke hung in the air. More drifted or billowed from blackened blistered window frames.