Lullaby (13 page)

Someone woke me by shaking me so roughly that I thought I was being attacked. Still deep in sleep I lashed out, until I finally connected the voice repeating my name over and over with that smell of lemon, not quite so pungent this time. I sat up all confused, peered through the gloom at Silver standing by the bed.

‘What is it?’ Oh God. I pulled the duvet round me, felt my skin itching with pure fear.

‘Get up,’ he said urgently, ‘I’ve got some news—some good news.’

I hurtled out of bed but he was already gone. I pulled back the curtain to let the streaky dawn light in, tugged my old dressing-gown on, tripping over my own feet in my rush to get downstairs. In the kitchen, the copper with the little belly, DC Kelly, was drinking coffee from a cardboard cup, eating something toasted from a greasy bag. He nodded politely and kept munching.

‘What is it please?’ My voice was all taut with stress.

Silver pulled a chair out and shoved me in it, shoved a fresh stick of gum in his mouth. He had faint scratches across one cheek.

‘This one you’re sitting down for, kiddo.’

‘What’s going on? Have you found Louis? Is he—’

He cut across my words. ‘No, sorry, it’s not quite that good. But,’ he looked jubilant, like he wanted to punch the air triumphantly, ‘he is alive! We’ve got definite proof that he’s alive.’

If I hadn’t been sitting, I would have fallen. ‘Of course he’s alive,’ I whispered. ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ But still I felt relief crash through me like the sea, sucking all the air from me on its tide.

‘So where is—’ but I couldn’t breathe again. I scrabbled around in my pocket for an inhaler but there wasn’t one. I gestured frantically at the drawer. ‘Inhaler, please,’ I wheezed, and Silver delved around until he came up with my lifesaver. He plonked a cup of steaming tea in front of me, ladled sugar into it and ordered me to drink. Deb came into the kitchen with a package she gave to Egg-belly; smiled blearily but encouragingly at
me. Egg-belly disappeared into my living room, leaving a sickly smell of melted cheese in his wake. Silver called me through.

‘Come in here please, Jess.’

I sat tentatively on the sofa, desperately tried to stop my hands trembling as I clutched my tea to me. The dawn air was already humid, but I still searched for warmth. Deb, next to me, patted my knee reassuringly, and I resisted the urge to fling my arms around her and sob into her flat bosom. DC Kelly knelt by the video on the floor, leaning so far over that a great expanse of white flesh was exposed above his builder’s bum. He switched the machine on, the sweat rings saucering his underarms. And there, suddenly, almost larger than life on Mickey’s plasma screen, was Louis, blinking, bewildered but alive, absolutely definitely alive. He was lying next to a copy of yesterday’s
Daily Mirror
that bore our photo on the front.

My tea scalded my leg, splashing down over the white sofa that scared me each time I sat on it.

‘See,’ I said hysterically, never taking my eyes from the screen, from my son’s perfect cherub face, ‘white’s so impractical.’ I was gibbering with joy, clutching at Deb next to me. ‘He’s beautiful, isn’t he? I told you he was.’

‘Yes, Jess, he is. Absolutely beautiful.’

‘Thank you. Thank you,’ I murmured. ‘Beautiful. He looks okay, doesn’t he?’ I gazed at Louis on the screen, at my son, thanking a God I didn’t believe in until now. Then the camera moved away from his little hands that chopped and whisked the air—his helicopter arms, we
used to say so fondly—moved from his wispy feather-head, his softly folded double chin, and panned down to a note scrawled in chalky capitals on the flagstone floor beside him.

‘NOW YOU’VE SEEN ME, LEAVE ME BE. I AM QUITE SAFE’ was all it said. A ghostly light flickered across the message again and again.

‘What the fuck does that mean?’ I snarled. Desperately I looked around, at Silver, at Deb, at Shirl who’d just stumbled into the room rather indecently clad in just a T-shirt, afro akimbo from restless sleep. I was looking for some explanation.

‘What do they mean, leave me be? Leave
who
be? Louis? Why would they think I would do that?’ My words were running out, my chest crackling like an old lady’s. ‘Why would I leave my own son be? Oh God. Where is he? You need to find him now.’

‘Breathe, Jess. Just keep calm and breathe.’ Silver stepped towards me as Deb handed me my inhaler again. ‘That’s what we’ve got to work out, kiddo. What these people want.’

‘What
do
they want?’ asked Shirl.

‘What people? Who the hell are they?’

‘We’re working on it, believe me. They haven’t asked for anything yet. This doesn’t seem to be a traditional kidnap. There’s no ransom demand, not yet. No demand for anything, just this one, to be left alone. It might suggest a more—well, a more psychologically disturbed case than we first thought.’

‘Disturbed?’ I whispered.

‘Very often young babies are taken by women who
are desperate for babies; who have been thwarted somehow.’

Deb clocked my face. ‘They nearly always care for the child impeccably.’ She squeezed my arm.

‘Nearly always?’

‘Always.’ Her vein flickered.

‘They’ve got to be kidding. They’ve got my son and they think I’m going to leave them alone? Just leave him there? They’re fucking mad.’

The video suddenly ran out, the rattling white noise at the end made us all jump. I clutched Silver’s arm.

‘Can you rewind that please? To the bit—to where Louis is again.’

Tears streamed down my face, my nose was running, dripping down my chest, mingling with the tea on my kimono. Shirl tried to thrust tissues into my hand but I was crawling towards the TV screen where I traced my son’s face with my fingers. I saw him smile. He smiled! My heart snapped in two. He was happy enough to smile—but he was happy without me. All my guilt compounded to thump me in the gut: this was my punishment.

‘Where did you get this?’ I croaked.

Silver was standing behind me now. ‘It was sent to Scotland Yard on a bike,’ he said.

‘On a bike?’ Shirl repeated, incredulous.

‘A courier’s bike. It was dropped off in the early hours. This is a clone, the original’s with forensics. We’re tracing the courier company now; the package was signed for at the Yard. We’re going to find him, Jessica.’ He was so near I could feel the heat from his body on my back. ‘I promise you we’ll find Louis.’

‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘can you just give me a minute on my own.’

‘Sure,’ Shirl said. She herded them all out. I fumbled for the remote control and when I found the pause button, I stopped it on Louis’s smile. I sat and stared at him. Numb with shock, I just stared at him.

Some time later, Silver made me jump again as he trod silently back into the room.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked quietly, sitting on the sofa behind me. ‘I know it’s a shock. But it’s good to see him, kiddo, isn’t it? It must be a relief.’

I tore my eyes from my son’s image that juddered on the screen, turned to Silver, who was followed by an anxious Shirl. ‘There’s something, DI Silver, that I should have mentioned earlier.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘When I got back from the hospital yesterday, from, you know—’

‘You know what?’

I cleared my throat nervously. ‘From, you know, my accident.’

‘Ah yes. Your accident.’

‘Well, I’m sure someone had been in my room. Going through my things.’

I had his attention now. ‘Really? Like what things?’

‘Well, the folder where I keep my papers for one. I’ve checked for Louis’s passport, and it’s still there, but all the papers—they were out of order.’

‘Right.’ He frowned. ‘You should have told me straight away, you know.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s my fault,’ Shirl chipped in, embarrassed. ‘I told her she was imagining it.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well, next time, come to us, okay, Jessica? That’s what we’re here for.’

‘Of course. I will. I should have told you anyway, I realise that now. It’s my fault, not Shirl’s.’

‘Yep, well, it’s got to be your responsibility to keep us informed. I’ll get the fingerprint lads up here again.’

I flushed. ‘Right.’ Standing, I found myself at eye-level with the welts on his cheek. ‘Been partying?’ I said without thinking.

‘That’s right,’ he muttered back, so only I could hear. ‘With a little wildcat. She whacked me this morning when I woke her.’

I flushed redder still, and turned quickly away—but not before I caught Shirl’s raised eyebrows, the makings of a grin on Silver’s tanned face. And as I couldn’t think of an apt response, I went upstairs and got dressed instead.

As soon as I knew Louis was alive, every vestige of anger with Mickey finally fizzled out. I rang the hospital to break the news, but he was still sleeping and they didn’t want to wake him. Sister Kwame was back on duty and she was polite and pleased to hear the news, though she seemed a bit distracted. Then I rang Leigh, just back from the gym. She was still cross with me about Robbie.

‘I don’t understand why you let him in.’ I heard her light a fag.

‘I didn’t. Deb did.’

‘Yeah, well,’ she took a deep drag, ‘he’s bloody lucky he didn’t get arrested right there and then.’

‘Oh Leigh,’ I said, ‘you don’t even know if he’s in trouble now. Give him a break.’

‘Jessica, Robbie’s always in trouble. You’re such an easy touch when it comes to that boy.’

‘Yeah, and you’re too harsh. He says—’ I debated whether it was worth repeating. ‘He says he wants to help.’

She laughed scornfully. ‘And you believed him? God, Jess, there’s one born every minute.’

‘Did you know he’d spoken to Mum?’

‘When?’

‘A while ago, apparently. Before I had Louis. He said he knew I’d got married.’

‘No. No, I bloody didn’t know. Why wouldn’t she have told us?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t work it out. I mean—well, when it comes to Robbie and her, you never can tell.’

She inhaled crossly. ‘Yeah, I suppose. But whatever, it still doesn’t mean you should trust him.’

‘Look, Leigh, I know he hurt you, but right now I don’t know who to trust. Or what to do. I’m—I feel like I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth.’

Another drag, another exhalation. Her voice softened. ‘You’re doing brilliantly, Jess. Just hang on in there. We’ll have Louis back before you know it.’

My eyes filled. ‘Yeah, well, I just hope you’re right. All the statistics say that if a baby’s not returned within the first forty-eight hours—well,’ my voice cracked. ‘And it’s been three days now. If he doesn’t come back—’

‘What?’

‘If anything happens to him, Leigh, I won’t—I couldn’t bear to live.’

‘Jessica!’ Shock flooded her voice, ‘Don’t you dare talk like that!’

‘Why not?’ I stared at the floor. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘Jess, you’re a fighter, babe. Come on.’

‘I’m tired of fighting now. I’ve been fighting all my life. I thought this was meant to be the good bit.’

‘Look, nothing’s going to happen to him. What did that note say? He’s safe, thank God.’

‘Yes,’ I said bitterly, ‘but he’s safe with someone who’s snatched him from his own mother. So how safe is that?’

I slipped out of the house when Deb was using the bathroom. Shirl had gone to work and I was meant to be going to the hospital for my own appointment but I honestly found the idea horrendous. I wasn’t sitting down with any therapist, thanks very much, and pawing through my private life. I wasn’t that mad—yet. I put on an enormous pair of dark glasses and Mickey’s old baseball cap, and shrugged myself down into my poncho, though it made me sweat. Just in case Silver was having me followed.

He was sitting at the counter with a pint already half drunk, a whisky chaser by its side. He looked haunted and older than his years, and I felt my heart yearn for him, for all he could have been. I cursed my father silently, I cursed the hurt he did us back then, the scars he left, however often he said we were his darlings. I thought of Robbie following my dad like some small shadow, and my heart went out to him now. Illogically, perhaps I still wanted to protect him, just like I’d done back in those crazy mixed-up days.

On cue, Robbie looked up and smiled at me, and I heard him order a drink. I was touched that he remembered my favourite—but my sentiment quickly went crashing to the ground when he looked appealingly at me for cash—could I pay? I pushed Leigh’s harsh words from my mind and obligingly fished some change from my shorts.

‘Blimey, Jess, you going incognito now?’

I smiled, sort of, and took the glasses off. The pub was dark and there were few drinkers so early in the day.

‘I’m not meant to just do one without letting the Old Bill know where I am. I just fancied a little peace and quiet, you know.’

‘Don’t blame you,’ he said, and offered me a roll-up. I frowned. He grinned goofily. ‘Oops! Sorry, Jessie. I didn’t think. Mind if I do?’ But he’d already lit up. He spat tobacco from his tongue.

‘Just blow away from me.’ I perched on the stool beside him, taking a sip of the vodka that slid down very nicely, tracing a warm path past my aching heart. ‘I haven’t got much time,’ I said, and he checked his watch. It was cheap and scratched and I said, ‘Remember those fake Rolexes Dad got us that time? From Greasy Wilf on East Street?’ and Robbie grinned and I felt an affinity with him I’d almost forgotten, that made me glad—until he said, ‘I flogged mine actually. Some old dear bought it when I swore it was real.’

‘Robbie!’ I admonished, but I was hardly surprised.

‘What? She was a mug with too much money. Anyway, I was, you know, down on my luck.’

‘You’ve been down on your luck since you were sixteen, according to you.’

He downed the end of his pint. ‘Fill her up, mate, can you?’ He shoved the glass at the rotund barman. I shifted a little closer. There was a scrap of paper on the bar beside his tobacco; various phone numbers for someone called ‘General’ scrawled in Robbie’s terrible writing, next to some sums, big figures being added together and divided.

‘Robbie, what’s been going on? I—’

‘You what?’

‘I missed you.’