Lullaby (8 page)

‘I’m sure he doesn’t.’

‘He does, Leigh. Anyway, whatever, I don’t care. I’m going back to look for Louis. You two, you sit and eat my eggs. Why not? Feel free.’

I started up the stairs, and then I saw the copper’s face come round the kitchen door, and, as my bosom throbbed, I was sure he smirked at the wet patch on my front. Something just went click. With a thud I thought of DC Jones, and I went flying back past Silver, my breath coming in big ragged gulps. The box of eggs
was open, half full, on the side. I selected one, nearly crushed it in my hand. It was cool and smooth, and for a second I had the urge to roll it slowly down my scalding cheek. But I didn’t. Instead, I lifted my arm and hurled it at the wall. It smashed with a glorious, satisfying crunch, a slick of yolk sliding down the shiny tiles. I took another, then one more. As my arm went back for the throw, a hand grabbed my wrist.

‘Get off me.’ I was gasping for breath, struggling to get free.

‘Mrs Finnegan—Jessica. Please. You’re hysterical.’

‘I’m—if you don’t let go, I’ll—I’ll have you for assault.’ I freed myself. ‘I can’t believe you think I’m lying.’

‘I didn’t say that. Look, I know you’re feeling terrible. But this isn’t going to help. We need to work together, don’t we?’ He wheeled me round to face him. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, really.’

‘Why don’t you tell me what will help?’ I hissed, pulling away. ‘No, actually,’ and I could hardly get my breath now, ‘I’ll tell you, shall I?’ I went very close to him, so close I could see the flecks of yellow in his hazel eyes. ‘Just get my baby back. That’s all that will help. Get Louis back for me, please. Before I go insane.’

‘We will. We’re trying.’ Silver stood looking at me for a moment, and then he went away. I collapsed into the old wicker chair in the corner. Leigh bustled over, all consternation. The phone rang and my heart skipped. She bustled out again, and Deb slid into the room, no doubt sent by her incredibly sensitive boss.

‘All right?’

This time I let her take my hand. The fight was seeping out of me, leaving me limp and broken.

‘Listen,’ Deb said quietly, leaning in. ‘He can be a little blunt sometimes, I know.’

‘Blunt? That’s a polite way of putting it.’

She patted my knee sympathetically. ‘But he’s a really good guy to have on your side, I promise.’

‘He thinks I’m lying.’

‘He’s just being thorough. No stone unturned, you know. Bear with him, okay?’ I looked away, then nodded slowly. She smiled encouragingly. ‘Now, Jessica. When you’re ready, if you’re feeling up to it, DI Silver would like you to do a TV appeal. Jog people’s memories.’

He appeared silently in the doorway.

‘Who was on the phone?’ I found myself addressing the wall behind his ear.

‘I think it’s your sister’s husband.’

‘Oh.’

‘Someone must have seen
your
husband, Mrs Finnegan, when he left the Tate. We’re waiting for the CCTV tapes now, but the appeal is a really good idea. They usually generate a lot of public support, especially when there are kids involved.’

‘Whatever you think,’ I said dully.

‘We need witnesses to the struggle Mr Finnegan must have had.’

‘The struggle with who?’

‘With—with whoever took Louis.’

My chest tightened further. Scrabbling for my inhaler, I caught the warning look Deb shot Silver.

When I’d recovered myself a bit, I asked them to
take me to where Mickey had been found. ‘I want to check it for myself.’

‘And you’ll do the appeal?’

‘I’ll do anything, everything it takes.’ I looked at him steadily and he looked back.

‘Good lass.’

I nearly retorted that I was hardly a lass, but instead I said, ‘I’m going to get dressed.’

‘Great,’ said DI Silver. ‘Then Deb’ll make you some toast, you need your energy, and then we’ll go.’

I paused at the foot of the stairs. Leigh was still simpering down the phone.

‘Oh,’ I said icily, and for once I got to look down on Silver. ‘Don’t you do toast then?’ I swept up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door behind me.

When I first had Louis and I went out without him, I used to panic. Not because I didn’t want to be alone—the truth was I did, quite badly. And not that I got to leave him very often, but whenever I did, I’d suddenly remember him with a gut-wrenching lurch. I’d scrabble around desperately, wondering where the hell I’d put him. I’d be queuing for coffee, or buying a magazine, and my heart would suddenly stop. So quickly did I get used to being tied to this other little body that being alone—much as I did yearn for it from time to time—seemed strange, alien even. And each time the sense of relief when I remembered he was safe somewhere was overwhelming.

I waited for that wash of relief again; every time the phone rang or DI Silver’s mobile chirruped, I clenched my hands, my stomach, my heart, and I waited for Silver to punch the air and shout, ‘He’s found.’ But inside, really deep down in a place I daren’t go, I waited for the words that would finish me forever. And I tried desperately to dispel the memories of the lust for my
lost freedom I’d felt quite often since Louis’s birth.

DI Silver and Deb took me to the street where Mickey had been found last night. Just an innocuous little alley on the way to Tower Bridge, dirty and grey in the cloudy morning light. I looked nervously for bloodstains, I craned my eyes for clues—but of course there was nothing. Just a pile of dried old dog-shit on the corner, and a week-old page-three girl idly flapping her wares in the sticky summer breeze.

And then we went back south to Lewisham, to the monstrous new police station, where Leigh awaited us. We trooped into a room where T-shirted men with TV cameras lay in wait, looking bored, and young women with expensive flicky hair and tight, anxious faces clutched microphones and notepads and checked their watches all the time. They reminded me of the squirrels that darted across our garden foraging for that last hidden nut, and I felt very alone as I waited to walk up onto the small stage, though DI Silver was with me. Before we took our seats, he gave me a reassuring wink, and for the first time I was glad that he was there.

‘They’re just doing their jobs, kiddo,’ he murmured, reading my mind, ‘you’ll thank them in the end,’ and then he adjusted his shirt cuffs almost imperceptibly, the smooth white fabric immaculate above his suntanned hands.

Leigh came up with us, as polished as ever, despite the air still thick as sludge; despite the fact I looked like I’d been dragged through forty hedges backwards. I shied away from the thought that Leigh was almost enjoying this. As a kid she’d had dreams of stardom;
she even went to stage school for a bit until my dad had finally gone, along with all our income too. I used to clap faithfully along to everything Leigh sang into her old pink hairbrush—but actually she was pretty rubbish, tone-deaf with two flat feet, my Nana always said, slipping me a fiver because she felt sorry for me. Because I never got the attention from my mum that Leigh and my little brother did.

But this time the attention was all on me, however hard Leigh might try, and really I didn’t want it, all I wanted was my Louis back, and I tried not to whisper when I said what we’d agreed I’d say. Silver did his bit first, about the first twenty-four hours being crucial, and I tried not to think what happened after them. I pulled myself together and breathed deeply to stop the shake that travelled through my voice. I looked straight at the cameras, the flashes turning my eyes kaleidoscopic, sending diamonds of light spinning through the air. I was going to read something Silver’s team had prepared for me, but in the end I simply begged. I said, ‘Whoever’s got my baby, please, give him back. I just want him back. Please don’t hurt him,’ and the idea that someone actually could made me feel like my brain might explode; it was filling up with cotton wool and everyone in the room suddenly felt so far away even though they were all staring right at me, and I was a tiny speck of nothing floundering in a sea of agony.

Then DI Silver put his arm around me and I smelt his lemony male smell that seemed too close, and he led me off the stage to a little room where someone
brought me more sweet tea and I scrabbled in my pocket and clutched Sister Kwame’s bottle of pills with relief.

I was forcing down a sandwich that, however hard I chewed, turned to sawdust in my mouth, when Deb entered the room. There was an urgency about her that I didn’t like, which made that horrid sandwich stick right in my throat as I watched her gesture discreetly at DI Silver. His eyes slid over me before he crossed the room to her. Then another man with a funny little potbelly and thin slicked-back hair came in looking tense and worried and leant in towards his boss. Deb detached herself, came bustling over, wearing a false smile.

‘Good to see you eating at last, Jessica,’ she said, but by now I had stopped and was staring at the men behind her. She knew where my eyes were trained but she kept on anyway.

‘Another cup of tea, love?’ she asked, but I shook my head. I was drowning in the stuff.

‘What is it?’ I said, and I looked her in the eye. She nearly flushed but her training was better than that and she kept very calm and still, and just sat beside me. Leigh was still on her mobile as DI Silver came towards me and, for the first time since I’d met him, I could swear he looked rattled. Leigh kept laughing, a throaty kind of laugh that meant it must be Gary she was talking to, and I wanted to slap her but instead I stood up and went towards Silver.

‘What is it?’ I said, and I clutched his arm inadvertently. I nearly choked on the words. I didn’t
want to ever hear the answer, but I asked it anyway.

‘Don’t panic, Jess,’ he said. He’d never called me Jess before. ‘Don’t panic but I’ve got some news, and I’m not sure it’s very good. Let’s just sit down again.’

I held my ground. ‘Just tell me. I’m not a kid you know,’ but my hand was going sweaty where I grasped the fine cloth of his suit.

‘Apparently someone’s—a pushchair has been found. A pushchair and a bag,’ he added, almost reluctantly. ‘Can you describe yours to me please?’

‘Louis’s pushchair? Describe it again?’

‘Yes please, Jessica. If you don’t mind.’

‘It’s blue,’ I whispered stupidly. ‘Blue for a boy. It’s that make—’ but my mind was blank. I scrabbled for the name. ‘Like the racing cars.’

The other policeman joined DI Silver. ‘Was the bag you lost green?’

‘No!’ Relief flooded through me. ‘Not green. His bag’s bright red! That’s not mine then, thank God. My changing-bag’s bright red. With a—it’s got a big zip across the front.’

The other man muttered something in Silver’s ear.

‘Did you have a handbag, Mrs Finnegan, when you lost your son? Another bag that was with him?’

‘I didn’t lose my son,’ I corrected him, ‘someone
took
my son. Someone’s taken him.’ My head was spinning; I stumbled where I stood. I whispered, ‘Yes, I had a bag. A green bag.’

‘Leather? With lots of pockets and a—’ he looked at his notebook. ‘A platinum tag?’

I nodded miserably. A birthday present from Mickey.
The most expensive item I’d ever owned; I’d been scared to even use it. ‘Have you found it?’

The policeman with the potbelly cleared his throat. ‘Looks like it, Mrs Finnegan. Not the red bag though. Just a green one. And a Maclaren pushchair.’ Maclaren. That was it.

‘Where?’ I asked quietly. My world was finally caving in. Finally and irrefutably it was collapsing round my ears.

The policeman shifted from one foot to the other, tight little belly straining against his cheap striped shirt. ‘On the river beach, down by Tower Bridge Pier.’

‘And—and Louis?’ I croaked, and my knees went weak. DI Silver held me up. Leigh had stopped laughing and ran to support my other arm.

‘There’s no sign of Louis, Jess,’ Silver said. ‘No sign at all. Which is a good sign, at this point.’

And I wavered for a moment. It was like being on a tightrope, high above a fatal drop. The way I looked at it right then was that there were two ways down. I could fall and go under forever: the obvious route perhaps, but it wouldn’t help my son. Or I could do what I eventually did. I steadied myself; with every ounce of strength I had left I pulled myself up tall and I decided right there and then that if they hadn’t found Louis, well then of course I would.

‘So you’ve got nothing to report except a soggy bag then?’ I said steadfastly, ‘so that’s okay then, isn’t it?’ and I walked away, past them, out of the door into the horribly beige hall, through the buzzers and the swing doors into the street.

*

I walked so fast that I lost myself in minutes. I didn’t know where I was going but I went there anyway. I just wanted to be alone, to get away from all the sympathy, to dodge the prying, over-anxious eyes that watched my every move. I needed to clear my head but it was so hard to focus. So I just walked; wondering every second if I was near my Louis. I looked through every window, peered into every car, stared at women with babies until they seemed unnerved; stared at the babies, willing them to be mine.

At one point some leather-faced builder shouted, ‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ and I went right up to him, so close I could see the sweat glistening like dewdrops on the curly chest hairs above his vest, and I said right into his surprised face, ‘Yes, but you see, it already has,’ and he shut up pretty flipping fast. I walked and walked and walked until I felt like I was going to drop. And when I couldn’t walk any more, I found a cab and I went home.

When I got back it all went very crazy. They were all there—Leigh, Silver, Deb—but they didn’t hear me come in because they were glued to the six o’clock news, to Mickey’s cherished enormous television where an immaculate presenter looked both doe-eyed and serious, and talked about ‘over twenty-four hours now’. Suddenly Louis’s little face flashed up on the screen, and he wasn’t smiling. Why hadn’t they picked a picture of him smiling, I wanted to know. I didn’t choose that photo, so who had? But then there I was, looking like some waif and stray, bedraggled and blotchy and absolutely stunned, like the proverbial rabbit in headlights. Beside me, the composed Silver looked horribly together. I should have brushed my hair, I thought illogically.