‘Why, what did you think, Ben?’
‘She might have been looking after somebody else’s baby. She might have been babysitting for a friend. She might have been working as an unregistered childminder. She might have been one of those women who are so desperate for a baby they take somebody else’s. There are lots of possibilities.’
‘Not according to Grandma. Anyway, if you spent less time in bookshops and more time reading the files, Ben, you’d know that Marie’s GP has removed any doubts on that score.’
But Gooper hadn’t really been in any doubt. The impression from Marie Tennent’s house had been quite clear. Marie had been a mother, and her baby was somewhere they hadn’t looked vet.
‘What about the garden?’ he said.
Fry sighed. Despite what she had said, Gooper knew she was thinking the same as he was.
‘The uniforms are being issued with spades,’ she said.
Mrs Lorna Tennent was brought back to West Street after identifying her daughter in the mortuary at the hospital. She was made tea and settled in an interview room. She cried tor a while until her eves were red and swollen, and then she talked about her daughter and about the baby, little Ghloe.
‘Of course, I came down to be with her when the baby was born,’ she said. ‘I stayed with her for a week, but 1 had my job to go back to in Falkirk.’
‘Did she seem all right?’ asked Fry. ‘Able to cope with the baby?’
‘She was taken up with Chloe completely. But Marie wasn’t very practical. 1 wanted her to come back with me to Scotland, so I could help her to look after the little thing. But she wouldn’t do it. She wanted to be on her own with her baby, and she didn’t
want Grannv being in the way. She hardlv even seemed to want
j & j j
the little jacket I knitted for her.’ ‘A jacket? What colour?’
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‘White.’
‘Would you be able to identify it?’ ‘Of course. Have you found it?’ ‘We might have.’
o
Mrs Tennent nodded sadly. ‘Marie didn’t want Chloe wearing it. She thought I was interfering. You’re right, she wasn’t really up to coping properly, but she wouldn’t take any help. Of course, it’s always a bit difficult with a first baby.’
Fry paused. ‘But, Mrs Tennent, it wasn’t Marie’s first baby, was it?’
The woman stared at her, then her tears began again as she understood what Fry was saying. ‘I always wondered/ she said. ‘Marie told me nothing, but 1 could guess. She managed to make excuses for not seeing me for months, and when I did sec her, she looked ill.’
‘When was this?’
‘Over two years ago. She’d come to live down here because she fell in love with the area. We used to visit Edcndale every year when she was younger.’ Mrs Tennent paused. ‘I suppose she had an abortion, did she? She wouldn’t want to tell me, because we’re Catholics, you see. Marie was brought up a Catholic.’
‘No, we don’t think Marie had an abortion,’ said Fry. ‘She’d given birth before.’
‘But …’
Fry showed her a cutting from that morning’s newspaper. ‘We think this could have been Marie’s first baby. This was also where the jacket was found which I’ll ask you to identify.’
Mrs Tennent read the article twice. ‘Do you know how the baby died?’
‘Not yet. In fact, we may never know.’
‘Marie told me she had a new job in a clothes shop and was too busy to come to see me, or to let me come and see her.’ Mrs Tenncnt sighed unsteadily. ‘I should have followed my instincts, and I might have been able to do something. I suppose nobody knew she’d had that baby at all?’
‘It seems possible, I’m afraid.’
But, like Fry, Mrs Tennent was following a line of logic. ‘Poor little Chloe,’ she said. ‘It’s terrible to think of all the things that
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might have happened to her. Marie wouldn’t have done anything deliberately to hurt her, though. I’m sure of that.’
‘Her doctor says she was suffering from some anxiety about the baby, even before it was born.’
‘I know, 1 know. But that’s not the same as wanting to hurt her. is it? I thought she would pet on better once she’d got
‘ o o o
rid of the old boyfriend — if you could call him a boyfriend. He was married, of course. He went back to his wife after a few months, but not until after he’d knocked our Marie about a bit. She always had poor taste in men.’
Fry sat forward with more interest. ‘Who was this boyfriend?’
Mrs Tenncnt had looked ready to start crying again, but she scowled at the question.
‘I told and told her she could do a lot better for herself. Marie said he ran his owTi business. But after all, he was only a window cleaner.’
The number of potential interviewees had been mounting steadily, without a matching increase in the number of staff for the enquiry teams, although a trickle of officers had been seconded from other divisions. Ben Cooper had been knocking on doors fruitlessly with a file full of interview forms in his hand, when he had found himself within halt a mile of Underbank. It occurred to him to wonder whether Eddie Kemp’s car had been returned. Kemp would find it impossible to do his work without it.
Rather than attempt the steep, cobbled street from the Buttcrcross itselt, which hadn’t been cleared of snow, Cooper chose to approach the Underbank area from the opposite direction. He worked his way to Eddie
