Baby Love (16 page)

She buttoned her mouth. The words on the tip of her tongue should probably stay there. Three pairs of eyes were waiting for a response. “I can assure you we’re do...”

Roper pointed a finger. “You’re not. Doing enough. Tell her, Natalie.”

“I’m talking to the papers and the telly and that.”

Bev frowned. “You’ve done an appeal, love.”

“They want more than that,” Roper sneered. “They’re after interviews.”

“Paying, are they?” Bev asked.

“No!” Natalie was Little Miss Indignant. Not Roper. Bev reckoned he was already counting the cheques. “It’s not about money. I’ll do anything to get her back.” There were tears in Natalie’s eyes. Bev
didn’t doubt the girl’s sincerity. She rose, flicked the lollipop stick in the bin.

“So will I, Natalie.” She lifted a hand. “Catch you later.”

She turned when the girl called. “What name did they give you? The punters who phoned?”

She made great play of racking her brains. “Nope. Sorry, love. It’s gone.”

Helen Carver gazed into the huge gilt mirror that dominated the apartment’s hallway. Her make-up was immaculate, of course, but it would take cosmetic surgery to lift those tired lines. She widened her eyes and attempted a
bright smile that failed. Maybe she could still get away with botox.

She listened at the nursery door. Veronica, stupid woman, was reading a story to a baby barely a month old. Helen slipped the key from the pocket of her jade silk kimono and unlocked the study door. David was so precious about his personal space. She
never locked her studio. Anyone could go in and look at her work.

Not that she’d done any recently. The landscape series was only half-finished. She sighed. Would she ever paint again? She was exhausted all the time and it seemed to be getting worse. David assured her it would get easier as the baby got older.
Was that another lie? Like tonight. He said he was going out with a male colleague – but the colleague had just phoned to have a chat with David.

She stood with her back against the door, wondering where to begin, seeking peace of mind as much as anything. Her palms were damp and she felt sweat trickle down her spine as she slid open a desk drawer. It was David’s fault. She hated snooping
like this. He knew it upset her.

“Damn.” The nail was broken. Badly. She sucked at a few drops of blood as she glanced round. Theatre posters covered the wall, David’s college productions alongside the classics. Carver and company. Helen raised an over-plucked
eyebrow. Delusions of adequacy.

The décor was not to her taste. The dark greens and darker woods were so macho, so obvious. She wrinkled her nose, lips pressed in disapproval. He still smoked in here. Another lie. Then a nostril flared as she caught the faintest trace of an
unfamiliar perfume. The next drawer was flung open. And the next. She searched filing cabinets, riffled books and magazines, ran a hand along and under shelves. Nothing incriminating. She sighed her relief. White lies she could handle. What had she been
expecting, after all? David didn’t have time to be unfaithful.

Her glance fell on the small black velvet pouch as she was leaving the room. It was on top of a speaker, not even hidden. She opened the drawstrings and tipped the contents into the palm of her hand.

Three earrings. Different designs. None hers. Blood drained from her face as she slapped a hand over her mouth and gagged. She’d read about earrings in that night’s newspaper. Only the reporter used another name to describe them: trophies.
Snatched from young rape victims.

She barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up.

Veronica Carver watched from the door of the nursery, hoping the drama-queen hysteria wouldn’t wake the baby.

As each day passed, the mousy woman felt more at ease. Maybe her increasing confidence conveyed itself to the baby. Or maybe the little one sensed the bond between them as it grew, strengthened. Either way, the child was less
fractious, slept more deeply and for longer periods. The woman gazed down, an adoring smile transforming her plain features.

She brightened further at the prospect of tomorrow. Supplies were due to arrive: more nappies for the baby, food for them both, a few basics. She’d already prepared the next list. She sighed, then banished faint stirrings of a dark mood. She
could cope with another few months. For Angel, she’d endure anything. Anything at all.

Angel. It sounded wonderful. As soon as the woman had heard it, she’d known it was the perfect name. She leaned over the cot and tenderly stroked the baby’s head. Angel. Angel. Running a finger along the curve of a delicate cheek, she
whispered it softly.

“Sleep tight, my darling Angel.”

Bev laid the phone down pensively. She’d been picking Nick Lockwood’s journalistic brain. Now she grabbed a pen, worked figures on a lined pad. On a rough calculation, Terry Roper stood to net around twenty grand in
interview fees. Made thirty pieces of silver look like small change. She creased her eyes, sucked on the day’s third Drumstick. Unwittingly her cheeks were going like bellows.

“You shaving your head next, sarge?” DC Darren New ran a hand over his pate as if she needed sign language to follow the drift.

Kojak jokes were going round like circles. She tapped a beat with her fingers. “Next clown’s gonna get a stick shoved where the sun don’t shine.”

Dazza’s “Promise?” prompted a chorus of snickers.

It was a rare moment of levity in an incident room heavy with disappointment and near-despair. Twenty-plus detectives made phone calls, ran computer checks, input data or chased paper. When any one of them glanced up, the baby’s image stared
back from the walls and picture boards. Many felt it was the only connection with her they’d ever make.

The early brief had thrown out a load of negatives: nothing on the hospital front, nothing on the latest sightings, nothing on the hoax calls. It went with the territory; police work was often a process of elimination. But nothing was filling the
gaps. Now they were treading the same ground: re-interviewing witnesses, checking reports and records. Uniforms were out on the streets with clipboards and questions. It was plod-work and it was inevitable, given the state of play. Didn’t make it
appealing.

Bev pursued thoughts following on from the Lockwood call. Nick reckoned each media outlet would cough up two to three grand for an exclusive one-to-one with the mother of the missing baby. Roper had already tried negotiating a deal with the
Beeb’s London operation. If the slimy toad timed it right, he could flog any number of exclusives. If all the material came out on the same day, who’d argue? Wall-to-wall scoops. Everyone happy.

“Except Natalie.” Unless she knew cash was part of the equation. “Friggin’ blood money, if you ask me.”

Oz’s fingers hovered over a keyboard. “Say something, sarge?”

She gave a half-smile. “Talking to myself.” She watched as he continued tapping out whatever lack-of-progress report he was writing. Her smile grew when a tiny pink tip appeared between his lips. Always happened when he was concentrating.
He’d not been aware of the tongue thing till she pointed it out ages ago. When a lock of hair fell across his forehead, she itched to stroke it away. She glanced at the time. “Lunchin’, Oz?” She was already on her feet, bag
hoisted.

“Love to, sarge.” She sensed an unspoken but. “I’m meeting someone in town. Maybe tom...”

“No prob.” The incident room had fallen silent. Or was that her imagination? She dropped half-a-dozen lollipop sticks in the bin on the way out. Who loves ya, baby?

The crystal glass held three fingers of single malt. Helen Carver, who hated the taste of alcohol, drained it in two gulps. The liquid burnt her throat, set fire to her belly. For a woman who desperately needed to feel in control,
Helen’s thoughts were spiralling. And the mental turmoil was David’s fault. The earrings could mean only one thing: she was married to a rapist. A man who’d attacked three teenage girls. The Beast of Birmingham.

She threw her head back and laughed out loud. It was ridiculous. There could be any number of reasons why the earrings were in his study. So why not ask? And why act the lush? She half-filled the heavy tumbler this time, caught her reflection in the
glass: beauty and the beast. She laughed again, neither loud nor convincingly. She looked like a dog. She’d barely slept and well past midday was neither showered nor dressed.

What should she do?

Her gut reaction had been to call the police. That lasted the two minutes it took for her head to react. Helen knew only what she could
not
do.

Already swaying a little, she stepped carefully across the deep ivory carpet. The lounge was her favourite room: every item handpicked, exquisite, expensive. She pressed her forehead against the picture window, gazed across Brindley Place bustling as
usual with businessmen, bright young things, loud tourists. She could not give this up. Would not.

A key turned in the door. Veronica, the old hag, back with the baby. Helen stumbled on the way to the bathroom. She locked herself in and stared at her ravaged features in the mirror. She loathed imperfection, hated ugliness. In that instant, Helen
knew what she would do. It was David’s fault. He’d pay for his sins. He’d brought it on himself.

A lunchtime mooch round Moseley had done sod all to boost the Morriss morale. She’d nipped into her usual retail therapists: patchouli-scented shops full of arty-farty flimflam and ethnic mood music, the odd singing whale or
chanting monk. She loved it all. But its magic hadn’t worked. Bev had spotted Oz folding his long legs into Sumitra Gosh’s low-slung two-seater in the car park at Highgate. A threesome with Johnny Depp and Joseph Fiennes wasn’t going to
erase that particular image.

She shifted the bag on to her other shoulder. Its awesome capacity was nearly breached. It now contained a birthday present for her mum and a few bits to cheer up Sadie. She’d try to get there tonight. The Sicilian pizza she’d been
munching on her solitary travels was already making its own alimentary journey. She popped in the last mouthful as she passed the front desk. Vince Hanlon was spooning sugar into a mug. She waggled her fingers and headed for the stairs.

“Not out celebrating?” Big Vince had a broad grin. Think Cheshire cat. On happy pills.

Lottery? Promotion? Gold handcuffs? Bev waited patiently. Vince was clearly dying to share, rubbing his hands together. It put her in mind of copulating sausages.

“Uniform brought the rapist in. Half-hour back. He’s banged up downstairs. Powell wants the bastard to sweat before he gives him a grilling.”

DI Powell was in the pub with the lads. Bev raised Carol Mansfield on the phone for the detail. Apparently three punters had called the Street Watch incident room in response to the visuals compiled by Natalie. All supplied the same
identification – a twenty-eight-year-old man named Callum Gould. A squad car had picked him up in Balsall Heath.

Bev ended the call and gave a low whistle. Her whopping great porkie to Natalie in the hospital last night had turned out eerily prescient. She took the stairs two at a time and got an eyeful through the cell’s spy-hole.

There was no crucifix dangling from an ear. Apart from that, Bev reckoned the guy could have posed for the E-fit. There was a minuscule white nick in the right eyebrow and an ink-spot mole over the top lip. Callum Gould was the Beck girl’s
rapist made flesh.

He sat straight-backed on the bed. His mop of black hair looked limp and greasy but that was probably down to the constant raking of his long tapering fingers. Nut-brown needle-cord strides and an open-neck check shirt gave him the look of a trendy
geography teacher. Which he was.

“Having a nose, Morriss?” The DI’s stealthy approach was presumably meant to startle her.

She refused to jump. “You charging him?”

Powell leaned against the wall, arms folded. “Natch.”

“With?”

“The Beck girl’s rape, for starters.”

Bev rose on her toes, took another butcher’s. No doubt about it: he was a dead ringer for the E-fit. Natalie either had perfect recall, or she’d lied about only catching a glimpse of her attacker. “What’s he saying?”

“What they all say. She asked for it.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Bev hissed. “These are real people. Not stock baddies from some naff B-movie. What’s Gould
actually
saying, as opposed to the crap script you’ve given him?”

“Natalie Beck was gagging for a shag. Clearer?”

As mud. They’d had sex. But was it consensual? Or was Gould a lying two-faced bastard? He’d hardly admit the offence; on the other hand Natalie wouldn’t be the first girl to cry rape. But why so long after the event? And why the
sudden clarity of vision? And had any of it got a flea’s thighbone to do with the Street Watch attacks?

“Let’s face it, Morriss, Gould’s hardly going to put a hand up to raping an ex-pupil.”

“Gould was her teacher?” She sounded as if she’d been at the helium. But if Gould had taught Natalie, why hadn’t she blown the whistle before?

“I know what you’re thinking. Took her frigging time, didn’t she? Scared shitless, that’s why. He threatened to kill her. ’Course,” he drawled “That was the first time.”

What? She rarely spluttered; she did now. “First time?”

“Back in January. Gets the horn, comes back for more. Raped her again. Friday night.”

Her thoughts swirled. A million questions tumbled round. Was Callum Gould Zoë’s father? Had Natalie told Gould about the baby during Friday’s alleged attack? Paternity could be proved with DNA samples: DNA from a baby who went missing
within hours of the alleged rape and five days later still hadn’t been found.

It could be kosher. On the other hand, Natalie could be away with the fairies. The wicked fairies, if she was stitching up some innocent sod out of spite. Bev shook her head. It boiled down to the same old same old: his word against hers, Callum Gould
v Natalie Beck.

Natalie Beck had gone to ground. It was early evening. Bev and the guv were having a jar in The Prince of Wales.