‘I’ve run another search on the DNA database to see if Zoe’s DNA matched anyone else,’ Workman continued. ‘Because nowadays, now that pregnancy out of wedlock isn’t frowned upon, young girls who get pregnant accidentally tend to keep their babies, don’t they? It’s often only marginalized people who give up their children for adoption, or have their children forcibly removed. I thought, in that case, that one or both of Zoe’s biological parents might have a criminal record and that their DNA might be on the database.’
‘Good thinking, Workman,’ he muttered into his palms. ‘And …?’
‘And, I was … I was right.’ Was he imagining the hesitant delicacy in her tone?
‘What is it, Workman?’
‘You’re not going to like this, sir.’
Marilyn sighed. ‘Ruby Lovatt,’ he said. ‘Ruby Lovatt was Zoe Reynolds’ biological mother, wasn’t she?’
‘How on earth did you know that, sir?’
‘Just call me Uri Geller.’
75
Carolynn ran her hand across Jessie’s dresses, feeling the roughness of cotton against her palm, the slickness of lycra, the warm bobbliness of wool. The last dress, the pale blue silk dress that Jessie had been wearing in that laughing selfie shimmered as she took it from its hanger. At the bottom of the cupboard, she found a matching pair of pale blue stiletto-heeled sandals.
In Jessie’s bathroom, she pulled off her dirty jeans, yanked her stained T-shirt over her head, peeled off her bra and knickers and dropped them into the dirty clothes bin. She tucked her shoes neatly, side-by-side, behind the door. The silk dress was waterfall soft against her skin as she slid it on. The pale blue set off her blonde hair and contrasted stunningly with her dark eyes. In the bathroom cupboard, she found Jessie’s make-up bag and made herself up carefully with medium-beige foundation, blusher and coral lipstick. She wouldn’t have chosen the blue eyeshadow, but it was all that Jessie had, it matched the dress and at least it wasn’t neat, reliable, dowdy, playing the role. She had no intention of ever playing the role again. It was another woman’s turn to play that role now.
Planting her hands on her hips, Carolynn twisted left and right, pouting at herself in the mirror, ignoring how the straps of the dress sat awkwardly over the coat-hanger ridge of her collarbone, how the skirt bagged over her bony hips. She looked good, almost as good as she had used to. Before.
A sudden voice, calling up the stairs. A man’s voice.
On bare feet, Carolynn tiptoed to the bedroom door and listened. The man again, calling for Jessie. Callan?
Smoothing a hand down the dress, fluffing up her hair, Carolynn stepped on to the landing. She had no bra and no knickers on, but who cared? Jessie hadn’t had either in that photograph and her boyfriend, Ben Callan, had looked to be enjoying every second.
Jessie would doubtless love her looking like this, would see her as an equal. And Callan? He would love her looking like this too, wouldn’t he?
76
From the upstairs bedroom window, Roger watched Dr Flynn spin her car around in the narrow lane and roar off towards the main road.
The only person she trusts is you, Dr Flynn. So where do you live?
He had always been convinced of Carolynn’s innocence, hadn’t been able to let his mind go to a place where the woman he had lived with for twenty years might have wrapped her hands around a little girl’s neck – their little girl, she was still theirs, irrespective of her biology – and squeezed the life out of her. He would never have stood by Carolynn if he had suspected, for one millisecond, that she was guilty. But had he been in denial? Jammed his head, ostrich-like, firmly into the sand. He had let her dominate him for years, he realized that now.
Who’s in control in your relationship?
Carolynn, unequivocally. Though when Dr Flynn had asked him so baldly, he had bristled, ashamed to voice that reality. Why had he let Carolynn dictate their lives so comprehensively, when his family’s wealth had paid for everything? God, when he looked back, really thought about it, he realized how pathetically impotent he had been.
He had watched some programme years ago on animal behaviour. He’d forgotten most of it, but the frog had stuck in his mind. Toss a frog into a pan of boiling water and it will leap straight out, save itself, but put a frog in cold and turn the temperature up slowly and it allows itself to be boiled alive.
He had been that frog. The only time he’d railed, tried to climb out of the saucepan, had been when Carolynn had snapped with Zoe, told her that she wasn’t their child. He couldn’t even remember what the poor little girl had done to precipitate Carolynn’s vicious outburst. He’d said something then. He had said something. But she had wheeled around and screamed at him: ‘Go fuck yourself, Roger.’ Her accent had been different too, all wrong, slipping in that moment of extreme aggression.
Slumping down on the edge of the bed, he put his head in his hands. I did say something then. Would that be his moral defence if it turned out that Carolynn murdered Zoe? I did say something. Once. I DID. A moral pygmy of a voice, lamely protesting a giant’s actions.
If Carolynn really was innocent, why had she snuck out last night while he’d been sleeping?
He didn’t feel as if he knew anything any more. Which way was up, which down, what was right, what wrong, who was good, who evil.
77Past
Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham, Portsmouth
Ruby felt desolate. As depthlessly sad as it was possible to be. Her tummy ached and between her legs throbbed, and she sensed the wetness of blood on her thighs and none of that mattered. Twisting on to her side, she curled her knees up, wincing in pain at the movement, hugged the doll that she had retrieved from the bin to her chest, and tried not to cry. An unbearable
