Baby Love (29 page)

“Think of the baby, Natalie. Think what’s best for Angel.”

The girl half-turned, brow furrowed. “You what?”

“Let me keep her. I’ll give her a better...”

Natalie probably didn’t mean it to happen. She’d already decided to grab Zoë and get the hell out. She’d heard about a red mist before the eyes, but until the woman’s final words she’d never known what it meant.

Gripping the banister, screaming, she swung a leg and smashed a boot into the woman’s face.

Sally Barnes seemed to hang in mid-air, but it was an illusion. Although Natalie could still see the woman’s suspended form even after the sickening crunch when her skull hit the hall tiles.

The unknown woman, babe now in arms, was drinking coffee. Bev kept a low profile outside, watching through Le Bistro’s window as she waited for Carol Mansfield. Caz had been with Powell the day they interviewed David Carver and
had seen Jessica in the flesh. A positive ID before going in could save them all a lot of egg-stained faces.

Dazza was on the phone: Carol had been out since first light knocking on doors in Windsor Place, should be with them any time. Continuing the covert surveillance, Bev thought the woman looked ordinary enough: thirty-ish, short blonde hair, make-up a
touch over the top; more Coco the clown than Chanel. If she had snatched the baby, her body language was giving nothing away. You’d think she’d be a tad on edge. Bev chewed her lip. Everyone was desperate for a result. Too desperate?

“Sarge.” A slightly breathless Mansfield loomed.

Bev nodded a greeting. “She’s by the far wall over to the left.”

Carol took half a minute or so, ostensibly studying the menu on the window. “Can’t tell. The baby’s facing the wrong way.”

“Wrong way?”

“The birthmark.”

What birthmark? Bev frowned. Of course. That day in the loo at Highgate, Carol had started to say something about the baby. “You were going to tell me. Shit. I should’ve picked up on it.”

“Sorry, I...”

Bev lifted a hand. “Not your fault.” I shouldn’t have let it slip. “Where’s the mark? How big?”

Carol drew her mouth down. “Poor little mite. From one side, she’s perfect. But all over the right side of her face there’s this massive damson stain, like a bruise that’ll never fade.”

The Carvers hadn’t even mentioned it. Bev closed her eyes, unaware she’d spoken the thought aloud.

“The mother’s in denial, of course.” Carol sighed. “The elephant in the sitting room thing.”

Bev nodded. “Don’t mention the war.”

She filed worrying thoughts for later. First things first. The woman was still in situ. “Come on. I’ll get the coffee. You know where to sit.”

They didn’t drink the espresso. The woman lifted the baby just as Bev placed the tray on the next table. The only mark on the child’s face was an impression of the crocheted shawl on which she’d been sleeping.

That was only one reason why the coffee remained untouched. The other was a call to Bev’s mobile from a hysterical Natalie Beck.

Barely alive, Sally Barnes peered through a slit in her eyelids. Warm foul-tasting blood streamed from her split lips and shattered nose. Through a red veil, she could just make out Natalie’s form slowly descending the stairs,
both hands clutching the banister as though her legs were about to give way. As she came closer, Sally could see a pierrot face, all eye-liner, tears and snot.

Sally parted her ragged lips, desperate to speak but unable to form words. Maybe Natalie sensed it. She went closer, knelt, lowered her head, hair reeking of sweat and smoke. Sally closed her eyes, imagined the baby’s tiny delicate skull, her
sensuous soft pink flesh. She knew she was dying, wanted Angel to have everything: the house, the money, the investments. There was no one else. She loved her so. She opened her mouth again. She had to see Angel just once more...

Natalie recoiled. The woman’s face had caved in, white bone visible through glistening blood. She gagged as she felt Barnes’s hot moist breath in her ear. She tried, really tried, to make out what the woman was saying but the words were
lost in shallow breaths. Dying breaths?

She sprang to her feet in panic. She had to get Zoë and leg it, no questions asked. She hit the stairs running. It was freezing; the place was like a morgue. Her hands shook so much she could barely grasp doorknobs. She tried three rooms before
finding the nursery.

Standing on the threshold, breathing in baby smells, Natalie was overcome by emotions she never knew existed. She’d come to believe she’d never see her baby again. Now she was inches away. Slowly she tiptoed to the cot, hardly daring to
breathe, gazing down through a blur of tears. Zoë was asleep, tiny fingers clutching at a sheet. Gently Natalie lifted her baby, held her gently against her breasts, swore she’d never let her out of her sight again.

But a woman lay dead or dying at the bottom of the stairs. What was the sentence for murder? Life? No way was Natalie going to take the fall. Think, girl, think. She hit on an idea, examined it more closely. Maybe it had been in the back of her mind
all along. Why else bring the knife?

Carefully she tucked the baby back in her cot, accidentally sent the mobile spinning as she straightened. She saw what it was now. A rainbow. Weren’t they supposed to be lucky? She snatched it, stuffed it in her pocket. Natalie needed all the
luck she could get.

She ran back to the kitchen, pulled on gloves, frantically scrabbled in her bag. The blade was sharp and shiny. Tel looked after his toys. She laid it to one side, took out the bank statement and till printout. She’d intended shoving them in the
woman’s face if they got into a slanging match. No one could argue with evidence. They proved Roper was in it up to his neck. And she’d bury him.

Could she do it? It wouldn’t be easy. But what was the option? Losing Zoë? Yeah, right.

Twenty minutes later everything was ready. Natalie made the first of two phone calls. Whatever happened now, it was out of her hands.

She watched through a narrow gap in the nursery’s curtains. The baby was asleep, thank God. Natalie couldn’t stand still, willed herself to stay calm, at the same time wondering if it was too late to do a runner. She could still get away
with it. She’d wiped her prints, planted the paperwork, didn’t think there was anything incriminating.

But that wasn’t enough. Roper was going to pay.

Bastard should be here by now. She crossed her legs to stop the trembling. Luring him in was always going to be the trickiest part. She’d played the innocent during their short terse dialogue. He’d fired questions; she’d feigned
indifference. She’d kept cool, even though sweat oozed or dripped from every pore. She was banking on the keywords
money
and
cops
. Either usually punched Roper’s buttons.

A scarlet two-seater pulled up at the kerb. Couldn’t be Terry, unless he’d splashed out... She gasped, stuffed fingers in her mouth. Roper stood by the driver’s door, scanned the street in both directions, then stared at the
house.

She pulled back sharply. Close to panic, she made the second call.

She’d left the front door slightly ajar. Couldn’t risk him not having a key. She was on the landing now, standing in the shadows, holding her breath as the heavy wood inched slowly open. She watched as he took a tentative step into the
hall. How could a man who looked so good be so evil? She itched to pummel him, smash his lying teeth.

After the initial wariness, he swaggered in as if he owned the place, shouted Sally’s name as if he owned her. The act was short-lived. He soon saw where she was, saw that she was in no condition to answer. She lay in a pool of blood and piss at
the bottom of the stairs. Her face looked like a pomegranate and there was a knife through her heart.

Roper froze. This wasn’t in the stage directions. He was almost at the door when Natalie made her entrance.

“Going somewhere?”

He spun round, nearly lost his footing. “Fuck’re you doing here?”

Her slow steady descent continued. “Took the words out of my mouth.”

“I’m off.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you...?” He glanced at the body.

She stepped over it, couldn’t avoid treading in the blood.

“’Course I didn’t.” She glanced down, cool, calculating. “Got here too late, didn’t I?”

“For?”

“Sounded dead scared on the phone, she did. Come as soon as I could, like. But she was already...” Her boot pointed at the body.

“So who...?”

“Why, you, of course, Terry.”

The laugh was weak and uncertain. “You’re mad. Totally barking.” He stared at her. “You’re serious.”

“Deadly. She was there, you’re standing over her with a knife. What’s a girl to think?”

“You’ll not get away with it.”

“Wanna bet? See, she’d had a change of heart. Guilty conscience, like. Specially after you took the other baby.”

He took a step towards her, fists balled. “Slut.”

“She was gonna grass you up. Get you sent down. She called me to come and collect Zoë. ’Course, what happened before I got here... I can only guess. Heard you shouting and her screams, like.”

She caught his move in the corner of her eye. Her fingers were already round the handle of the kitchen knife in her pocket. “Back off.” He stiffened, the blade inches from his face. Seeing him there, remembering what he’d done, the
lies, the deceit, she’d have his eyes out if he so much as twitched.

He stepped away. “Listen, Nat. We can work something out. Go away, maybe...”

“Oh, you’re going away, Tel.” She tilted her head at the body. “Recognise the knife?”

Not until he knelt for a closer look. He was silent, probably examining shrinking options. He rose, trying for a rueful smile. “I was gonna tell you.”

“Tell me what? That you stole my baby?”

“Think of it as borrowing. I’d’ve tipped the wink to the plod. You’d have got her back. We’d’ve been quids in.”

Natalie’s grip tightened on the knife. If the cops didn’t turn up soon she’d kill the bastard and have done with it.

“Anyway,” Roper reasoned, “it’s not like she isn’t my kid as well.”

“Don’t kid yourself, arsehole. If you were her dad, I’d have given her away.”

He was quicker this time. And an angry cry from upstairs distracted her. As she glanced up, he grabbed her wrist.

“I should’ve finished you in the fucking fire.” Saliva hit her in the face as he spat the words.

She jerked away, slipped in the spreading pool of blood and toppled back. As she hit the tiles, Roper fell on her. The blade glinted between their bodies. It was the last thing she saw before a fade to black.

Bev hit the blue light, put her foot down. Traffic on Broad Street parted like waves. Carol Mansfield was on the radio putting out an all-units call. A dead body at 6 Montague Place was all she had. All Natalie Beck had gabbled
before collapsing into hysterics.

“Know which one it is?” Bev asked.

“Second right, off Askew Road.” Bev took the corner on two wheels. Carol didn’t open her mouth; white knuckles said it all.

Bev registered the big houses, the wide tree-lined road, gleaming motors. What was the Beck girl doing in a place like this? She pulled up behind a red sports car outside number six.

The door was open. Bev slipped on gloves, pushed it further. “Sweet Jesus.”

Three bodies were sprawled on a red carpet: an unknown woman on her back at the bottom of the stairs, a man close by spread-eagled over a third body. Bev lifted her hand to halt Carol. Talk about crime scene. It was a bloodbath.

“Get on the radio, Caz. The full works.” Carol knew the drill: pathologist, police photographers, SOCOs, uniforms, detectives. So why no action?

The DC tilted her head. “We can’t just leave it crying, sarge.”

Bev hadn’t even heard the baby. “Just make the call, Carol.”

It’d be on Bev’s head if evidence was contaminated. She kept close to the wall, watched where she placed every foot. As she approached, she realised she’d been mistaken. It wasn’t a red carpet. It was a vast pool of blood. She
was wrong, too, on the body count.

The girl trapped under the man was still very much alive.

“Took your time, didn’t you?”

The blade had missed Terry Roper’s heart by an inch. He’d live. And then get life, if Natalie Beck was to be believed. Roper was under police guard in hospital. A couple of detectives were there too, waiting to question
him.

It was two hours since Bev had entered Montague Place. She’d taken a short hurried statement, then made way for SOCOs, who’d be there for at least the rest of the day. Before the interview could be resumed, Natalie had showered and changed
into fresh clothes, courtesy of a skinny probationer. Natalie’s gear was with forensics.

Midday now, Bev faced the Beck girl across a metal table in Interview Two at Highgate. Carol Mansfield had notebook and pen; the tape was running.

“Take it from the top,” Bev prompted.

As far as it’s possible on a high-back chair, the girl sprawled, legs spread, arms tight across her chest. “Not till I get my kid.”

Bev closed her eyes, swallowed hard as she re-played the scene at the house. She’d gone up to the nursery, gazed down on a red-faced furious scrap of humanity writhing in a sodden nappy, damp hair plastered against hot skull. She’d gently
lifted the baby, amazed when the crying ceased. She’d held her close for a minute or two, stroking her head, whispering, soothing, thinking hard. The look on Natalie’s face as Bev placed the baby in her arms was a picture she hoped
she’d never forget. The look when the social worker took Zoë away, one Bev wished she’d never seen.

“A few things need sorting first.” Understatement of the year.

Bev had a quick look at her notes. According to Natalie, Roper had stolen the baby for cash. Sally Barnes paid fifty grand, then had a change of heart. She’d summoned Natalie to fetch Zoë, intending to call the cops, turn Roper in. But
Roper must’ve got there first. The woman was dead when Natalie arrived; Roper then attacked her. They’d stumbled; he’d fallen on the blade; she’d blacked out.