A daughter.
His daughter.
Oh, it was so painfully tangible. He was touching the very chance. Yet, deep in his being, he knew all of it was forbidden, he couldn’t, he shouldn’t, allow it. He looked up into Hope’s beautiful pleading face; she was begging him to say yes, to keep the baby, to accept Minnie, to share the secret. How could he deny her? He only ever wanted to make her happy, to fix her, to please her. That’s where his joy and his purpose lay. Here she was, asking him the most momentous question ever. How could he say no?
Yet he KNEW KNEW KNEW he should.
There was right and there was wrong.
He’d been raised well. He knew the difference. Poor Hope was in hell and he desperately wanted to rescue her. It was a powerful need in him, to be her hero. And now, he also wanted to be the hero for this little girl.
At exactly that key, precipitous moment, there was a slamming of a car door outside.
There were many cars in their street. There were many car doors. There were many slammings. It was nothing unusual, but for some reason, both Hope and Quiet Isaac stopped in their tracks, dead still for a dreaded moment, then Hope jumped up to go to the window and look out.
‘It’s the police!’ she cried. ‘Oh Jesus …’
In that critical moment, Quiet Isaac made his big decision. He jumped off the precipice. Without a word, he stood up with the swaddled baby still in his arms. He left the front room and raced down the hall into the kitchen, out of the door on to the fire escape and fled down the metal steps, across the yard and out through the back gate into the alley beyond. He was gone like a fox at sunrise.
Hope was still buttoning up her blouse when the doorbell rang. She was in shock. Where had Isaac gone? For a moment she was rooted to the spot, uncertain of what to do.
Then, suddenly and surely, she knew exactly what to do. She took a crucial deep breath and left her flat, down the communal stairs to the front door where she could see the unmistakeable outline of police officers through the glass. She opened it.
‘Hello, Ms Parker? I’m Police Constable Cheese. Deborah. This is Constable Taylor. May we come in?’
‘Er, yes, of course. Is everything all right? Nothing’s happened to Isaac, has it?’ Hope was alarmed. Not really alarmed. Cleverly fake alarmed. She was thinking fast.
‘Let’s just go inside, shall we?’ Debbie tried to be comforting as she and her colleague followed Hope back into the hallway, past the annoying bike and up the stairs to her flat.
Hope stopped halfway up and turned around. ‘Please tell me if he’s OK. I can’t bear it. This has been the worst day of my life – please tell me if it just got even worser … it can’t …’ She slumped against the wall. She noted with interest that she actually DID feel a bit wobbly. Perhaps it was the stitches, perhaps it was the stress, but it wasn’t taking much skill to fake it. Debbie Cheese took her arm and guided her on up.
‘Don’t worry, come on,’ she reassured her.
Once in the flat, Hope went into the kitchen straight away, mindful to keep them away from the front room where Minnie last was, just in case they might somehow know. Would they smell her? Surely not. But still. Hope’s heart was beating fast; she knew she had to keep her wits about her.
The bag which had contained the concealed Minnie was still open on the table. Hope saw Debbie glance into it. Hope sat down at the tiny table, and immediately stood up again.
‘Do you want a cup of tea? Or something? Or … I don’t know what …?’ Hope offered, confused.
‘No, no, thank you,’ said Debbie. ‘We just want to ask you a few questions. There was an incident at the hospital this morning and you might have some information for us, or might have noticed something …?’
‘So, Isaac is safe?’
‘Sorry, who is Isaac?’
‘He’s my … boyfriend. OK, that’s fine, so long as he’s OK, it’s not about him.’
‘Where is he at the moment, then?’
‘He … drove me home and now he’s gone out to get some … things … and he’s taken some of the … baby stuff … to the charity shop … I just didn’t want it here, I can’t look at it …’ For a brief moment, Hope dipped back into the feelings she had been having in the early hours of that morning when she realized Minnie was gone. Since then, her heart had been on a roller coaster, but she could still remember where it started, with the tiny limp body. She conjured the picture in her mind and she started to weep for it all.
Constable Debbie immediately sympathized: ‘Ms Parker, we know you experienced a trauma this morning, and I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions, but there’s a life at stake here …’
‘What’s happened?’ Hope enquired snottily through her waterfall of true tears.
‘A baby has been snatched from a room on the same ward where you were. Perhaps you could just fill me in on everything you saw when you left earlier … And if it’s all right with you, Constable Taylor will have a quick look around …?’
‘Yes, of course, go ahead,’ Hope replied with confidence.
