She wasn’t deluded enough to believe that she could go back, reclaim her old life to the letter, but she was resourceful, clever and exceptionally determined – she always had been, ever since she was tiny – and she was certain that she could go forward into something good, something better, perhaps, even than before.
Reaching out, she stroked her hand gently down Oddie the cat’s body, from his head to the tip of his tail, enjoying the tickle of his silky fur against her palm. She had taken care of him as she had promised herself that she would. As she had promised Zoe’s memory. She had taken care of him, as she had taken care of the seagulls who had landed on her bedroom windowsill when she was a girl.
She stroked her hand from head to tail again, pressing harder, feeling the solid knots of his muscles underneath his skin, the ridged lines of his bones. He was cold now. Cold and stiff.
Curiosity killed the cat.
He had always hated her and she had always hated him because he was Zoe’s, her best friend, the only thing that she had truly loved. Opening the door, she slid her hand under his doughnut body. His head sagged as she lifted him. His neck was broken – she’d pressed harder than she had needed to and snapped his spine. Careless, when all she had intended to do was to cut off the oxygen and blood to his brain, send him gently to sleep.
No matter. The end result was the same.
Placing him on the grass verge, to sleep in a patch of sunlight, she climbed back into the car and started the engine. A plan had formed in her mind; she’d take the A3 north for a few more junctions. She wasn’t going to let anyone or anything derail her plans. She had worked too hard, suffered too much, survived too much for that.
57Past
Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham, Portsmouth
There was a clock on the wall and the girl fixed her gaze on it, though time had already lost all meaning for her. She could only measure its passing by locking on to the rhythmic sound of her own blood pounding in her temple, the hammering beat of her heart and the soft timbre of her baby’s tiny heart, that she could hear through the monitor the nurse had strapped to her stomach. With each pulse, each beat, the pain – the biting, twisting agony – of the contractions built, and with each one her fear intensified. She had been shut in a room on her own, not because she was a private patient, but to keep her away from prying eyes. Hide what was to come when her baby was born.
The contractions were relentless now and she could focus on nothing but the pain, each new wave coming faster than the one before, leaving her no space in between to breathe, to cry out. She was terrified and still no one came. She had been alone for most of her short life, but she had never felt as lonely, as abandoned, as she did now. Though she had borne a lot, she was struggling to bear this. But her baby was coming, to be born into wretchedness, whether she wanted it to or not.
The room lightened, daybreak, as the girl writhed there, chewing on her fingers to stop herself from crying out. She wouldn’t cry, had learnt, many times, that crying did no good. She sensed now that she was no longer alone, that there were others in the room with her, but the pain was so great that she was just drifting, floating and sinking, with each new wave of agony.
A blur of uniforms, the clash of metal instruments, noise, voices, faces swimming before her. Intense pain and a sudden, desperate need to push, to expel, the only need that mattered now.
‘It’s a baby girl,’ a voice said. A soft voice, with warmth in it. The first warmth that the girl had heard. ‘And she’s gorgeous. Just gorgeous.’
58
‘What?’ Jessie asked, shutting the incident room door behind her.
Burrows wouldn’t meet her gaze; Marilyn held it directly, throwing down a challenge.
‘Tony has dusted that doll we found in the Reynolds’ loft for fingerprints and found one clear set,’ Marilyn said.
‘Whose are they?’
With a slight smile, Marilyn shook his head. ‘Whose do you think they are?’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘I forgot to pack my crystal ball, Marilyn.’
‘Guess.’
‘Why? So I can be wrong and you can be smug? Because this case is a competition between us, isn’t it?’
‘That’s what we agreed at breakfast: that I need someone as intransigent as I am to work with. As intransigent and with the opposite viewpoint.’
Pulling out a chair, Jessie sat down. She tried to catch Workman’s eye, but she was gazing out of the window, faux nonchalantly, distancing herself from the palpable antagonism. Sensible lady. Workman was by nature a smoother, a facilitator, Jessie had surmised from their limited interactions. It was a personality type that would work well with Marilyn when he was on track, but with this case, and Zoe’s, Marilyn needed a rock to counter his hard place. My job.
‘Carolynn’s,’ she said.
