Lullaby (7 page)

*

I didn’t speak on the way to Silver’s car, and when we got there I let Leigh go in the front though I knew the policeman wanted to talk to me. I just couldn’t concentrate on questions; my head was whirring with possibilities. Mickey travelled a lot with work, but I couldn’t think now if he had a trip coming up. Why the hell would he have his passport on him otherwise? My mind was a huge black hole churning the information round and round.

The big car purred effortlessly onto the deserted road. Anyone with any sense was tucked up safe in bed, safe from this sticky night. We circled the concrete monstrosity that crowned Westminster Bridge, crossed the top of Waterloo, heading south again. Two young girls stepped suddenly from the darkness onto a crossing, and DI Silver stamped on the brakes. We all lurched forwards as the teenagers giggled at their own daring, obviously drunk, bare midriffs milky under the fluorescent streetlights, navel rings a-glimmer. The policeman’s jaw set.

‘Bloody stupid,’ he muttered. I leant my sore head on the cold glass of the window and listened to the crackles on the police radio. My swollen bosom throbbed agonisingly. In the front, DI Silver cleared his throat perfunctorily.

‘Mrs Finnegan, I know you’re tired, but you’ll appreciate I must ask some questions. I need to take a statement from you when I get you home.’ He caught my eye in the mirror, and held it. In the gloom his eyes were almost black. ‘Until your husband regains consciousness, you’re our only connection with your son.’

Levelly I held his gaze. I knew he was right, and I
was about to agree when suddenly the huge chimneys of the Tate loomed over to my left.

‘Stop!’ I shouted, and he slammed on the brakes again.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Leigh swore, pushing herself back from the dashboard. ‘It’s like the bloody Dodgems in here.’

‘I need to get out,’ I said, fumbling for the handle.

‘Are you feeling ill?’ she asked.

I shook my head impatiently. ‘No. I just need to go there now.’

‘Where?’

‘Back to the Tate. I never should have left.’

‘Jess, don’t be silly. It’s shut now,’ Leigh said, turning in her seat.

‘Not
into
the Tate. To the river. To where they found Mickey. Did they find him here?’ I realised I didn’t know. ‘I need to make sure Louis is not—I mean, what if he’s still here?’

‘Jess, wait! I’ll come with you,’ but I was already opening the car door, scrambling out, running across the road. Leigh’s voice faded quickly as a lone motorcycle whizzed past me, so close I felt the wind against my cheek, so near I heard the driver’s curse. But I was infallible. I was running, back to where I’d come from today, back to where I’d last seen my son. Of course-this was right! Why had I ever left? I was mad; I should have stayed. I could have found him. I ignored the voices behind me, the shouts. I ran and ran, past the shuttered coffee stand, through the high, pruned hedges, until suddenly I hit the river.

I stopped for a second. I breathed in the dark night air. The city on the other bank looked magnificent, lit up like a great fairground in the sky. And somewhere here was Louis. Somewhere near—

I felt an arm go round me, a quiet, calm voice speak in my ear, a northern drawl. I realised I was shaking.

‘Mrs Finnegan, I can assure you that our teams are out looking. They’re scouring every corner of the city. There’s no sign of Louis here, you know. And actually your husband was found some way away.’ He turned me round to face him but I wouldn’t meet his eye.

‘We should go now, don’t you think?’ Gently he persisted. ‘You’re going to make yourself ill and you’ll be no good to anyone. Let me take you home.’

I doubled over. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t stand it. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. I was racked with pain in every little crevice, every part of me cried out for my only child. So this was mother love. It hurt like fucking hell.

‘Please,’ I begged, and I heard my voice crack hoarsely. ‘Please, just let me look. Just for five minutes,’ and he looked at me, and he must have sensed my desperation, because he did. He held my arm and we walked up and down and round and round for a bit, and I could feel him trying not to march me. And I could see that it was all tidy, that there was no baby here. My baby wasn’t here.

But I couldn’t bear to leave. I slunk out of his grasp and sunk down on the ground and I lay my head on the tarmac still warm from the day’s sun. Tears slid down my face without sound. I put my hands flat down
as if I could pick the earth up and spin it round my head, and I wondered what I’d done wrong to make me lose my son.

Eventually I let the policeman pick me up again; gently he brushed me down, like I was a child, a little child, and then he led me by the hand to the car where Leigh was waiting, smoking anxiously in the warm night. She saw my face and ground out her fag, offered me a rather grubby tissue, all lipstick-stained. Then she hugged me clumsily, and, awkwardly, I submitted. And this time I got in the front of the car, and took a pill that Leigh handed me, from Sister Kwame’s bottle, and I answered all Silver’s questions as he took me home.

Someone was calling my name, over and over again. I swam up to the surface. As I bashed against sedation’s spongy crust, it was too late—I had remembered. Frantically I tried to burrow back down into oblivion, but oblivion had gone.

I covered my face with the sheet until eventually I was forced out by Leigh. She stood above me, steaming cup in one hand, pill bottle in the other, and I sat bolt upright in hope but she quickly said there was no more news, not yet. Mickey was still unconscious, Louis still not found—but not long now, eh? Leigh was carefully cheerful—over-cheerful in fact—and her make-up was perfect. She said DI Silver was back, downstairs, and he wanted to go through things again. And then the doorbell rang, and my stomach leapt. She went down to answer it.

‘It’s just Deb,’ she called up and I sank back down again, forlorn.

I was befuddled. The bed was all wet; I couldn’t think why. Then I realised that my milk was spilling
out, the bed soaking it up. I sipped and burnt my mouth-on the boiling drink, I clutched my damp knees and tried not to shake. Then I got up very suddenly and went into the glossy en suite with the roll-top bath and the shower so powerful it stung my skin every time I stepped beneath it, the bathroom that used to excite me so, and I threw up. I retched and retched until there was nothing left inside. I slumped over the toilet. I thought that I would kill myself if my baby was not alive. After a while I forced myself up off the floor; I wiped my face and cleaned my teeth.

I tried to think for a minute but my brain felt like the fuzzy bit when you can’t tune a telly in. Then I picked up the phone and I dialled my mum in Spain. There was a hiss on the line like I was ringing outer space and then George answered, out of breath. I didn’t tell him anything. Irrationally, I wanted my mother, but she was out, of course, probably playing bridge and drinking gin, or shopping for more headscarves. He was jolly old George and he made me want to cry again but I didn’t, the tears had dried for now. Instead I asked that she ring me back as soon as possible, and then I went down to see DI Silver.

Leigh was fussing round him in a way that immediately put me on edge. I slopped more coffee from the pot on the side into my cup. My eyes felt hot and sandy as the policeman smiled at me, folding his used napkin very tight. It was rather a lopsided smile, out of kilter with his measured movements.

‘The au pair?’ Silver asked politely, placing the napkin
neatly on the table in front of him. I waited impatiently as he unwrapped a stick of gum. Last night, I wondered, why didn’t I warm to you?

‘Maxine Dufrais—is she here? I’d like to speak to her.’

I glanced at his plate, wiped totally clean; looked over at Leigh. She flushed. ‘Eggs, Jess?’ she asked, and turned back to the hob. I shook my head. The thought of food made me want to retch again.

‘Is Maxine up?’ I asked, and I tried hard not to see the pile of Louis’s bibs folded neatly on the counter. Leigh moved herself surreptitiously to stand in front of them.

‘Haven’t heard her.’

I went out into the hall to call Maxine. Anything to get away from Silver’s polite but probing stare. My head felt strange and woozy; I was puzzled that my sister was flirting with this stranger in my kitchen. Then I thought of Louis and how much I needed the stranger, and I shoved my discomfort down.

Maxine wasn’t stirring apparently. I went up to the next floor and called again. Silence met me. Balancing precariously on one bare foot, I craned up through the twisting stairwell. I could just about see her bedroom door from here, up in the attic. It was very slightly ajar.

‘Maxine,’ I called again. Nothing. Muttering, I tramped up the attic stairs.

She wasn’t there. The room smelt fusty, the bed was rumpled. God knew when it had last been changed. It was stifling already, and the bedside clock said it was only 8 a.m. If she wasn’t getting up to help me, Maxine
slept in for hours. She must have stayed out last night. I pulled back the curtain and threw back the little casement window to let some air in. A saucer of fag-ends rested on the ledge outside; presumably a boyfriend’s. Mickey would have a fit; it was his smart Thomas Goode china. Wrinkling my nose, I picked up the once-white saucer, dislodging a bus-pass holder tucked underneath. The plastic was damp with dawn dew, so I wiped it on my dressing-gown and chucked it on the small desk beneath the window. But as I turned to go back downstairs, something caught my eye. As it landed, the holder had fallen open, and tucked inside was a folded page of passport photographs. Photos of my son.

I took the stairs two at a time, brandishing the shiny strip like some kind of trophy, thrusting them at the policeman, gabbling about the girl I’d welcomed into my home, paid to be in my home.

Calmly, Silver studied them. I began to bite my thumbnail. Then he pointed out the two photos that featured both of them: Maxine grinning, her squashy nose in profile, holding up my baby; Louis in green and white stripes, staring huge-eyed and surprised into the lens.

‘She’s his au pair. She’s probably very fond of him, isn’t she? I mean, he’s a cute kid. Why not have photos taken?’

‘Why hide them? She’s got loads of photos of Louis. Her ex bought her some flashy digital camera, for God’s sake. Why go to all the hassle of sticking Louis in a photo booth?’

Silver shrugged imperceptibly. ‘Who says they were being hidden? Do you have any reason to suspect Maxine? You didn’t say so last night.’

‘Not really. But—well, where is she now?’

‘Has she stayed out before?’

I considered for a moment, then nodded glumly. ‘Yes. I suppose she has.’ Quite often, if truth be told.

‘So, honestly, why not have them taken? It’s the kind of thing kids do to fill in time. God knows, babysitting can be quite dull.’

He was so horribly detached; I, on the other hand, so horribly desperate.

‘Oh, and you’d know, would you?’ I snapped.

‘Yes, I would actually.’

‘I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.’ I poured myself a glass of water just so I didn’t have to look at him, drank long and hard.

‘Believe me, I am. Look, really, I don’t mean to insult you, Mrs Finnegan. Have you any other worries about the lass? You must tell me.’

I didn’t. Not a single one that came to mind right now.

‘Are you concerned that—’ he paused.

‘That what?’

Silver twisted his gum packet between two fingers. ‘That your husband and the au pair might be—’

‘No!’ I stopped him quickly. ‘Absolutely not. It’s never even crossed my mind.’

‘So we’ll wait until she’s back and talk to her before we rush to any assumptions. Does she have a mob—’

‘I’m sorry—’ I was abrupt. He wasn’t all that tall,
but still he towered over me. For a moment I saw myself like some scrappy little terrier yapping at a big sleek labrador. It riled me even more. ‘—perhaps you haven’t noticed, but my son’s still missing? I’m just trying to be useful.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I realise that. And I want to know everything you think is relevant. So,’ he rubbed his jaw, ‘DC Whitely from Lambeth tells me that you reported an argument with your husband.’

I was thrown. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Well, he seemed to think you’d rowed about something.’

‘I never said that. It was just a silly, you know, disagreement about—’ About chocolate cake. About hormones and insecurity.

‘About?’

‘About nothing, really. This isn’t helping, DI Silver. It’s irrelevant.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I am. If you really want to know, it was about me eating Mickey’s cake. It wasn’t, you know,
that
kind of row.’

‘What kind of row? You’ve got to be honest with me.’ I’d got his interest now.

‘Please, you’re confusing me.’

‘Are you really telling me everything you know?’

I stared at him. ‘How can you doubt that? Do you really think I’d hide anything?’

‘I presume not, Mrs Finnegan.’

I rushed out of the kitchen. Leigh was reapplying her lip-liner in the hall mirror.

‘What’s wrong?’ She tried to hold my eye, but I wriggled away. ‘You need to calm down, Jess. You’re going to drive yourself mad.’

‘You calm down.’ With supreme effort, I kept my voice very quiet and low. ‘You calm down next time Polly and Samantha go missing. You come round and tell me how you feel, okay, Leigh?’

‘Look, Jess, is this—’ She stopped short.

‘What?’

‘Is this police thing, is it because—well, you know.’

Don’t say it.

She did. ‘Because of Dad? Because of what happened then?’

My fingers went white where I clutched the banister. I’d buried it extremely deep. ‘It’s not about anything apart from Louis, Leigh. It’s
only
about Louis.’

‘Are you sure? Cos you really need to chill out with that copper.’ She jerked her head towards the kitchen. ‘You need him on your side. He’s only doing his job.’

‘Is he? Why does he look at me like that, then? Like I’m a liar?’