Debbie removed her hand from his.
‘She was a whore. I wanted you. You! How dare you ever bring that up!’ He spat in her face and pushed her away. Without so much as a glance back, he left and locked the door, leaving her once again in darkness, with only the outside noises to occupy her.
‘Please make the call,’ she yelled, as she burst into uncontrollable sobs. ‘What did you do?’ She rocked back and forth and closed her eyes. ‘Make the call. Please!’ She heard the bottom door slam.
* * *
‘Damn it, damn it,’ he said as he locked the door. He stared at the grey skies above as he stood outside the main house. The curtains were still closed. He’d not got round to opening them.
‘Have you got my bread?’ the old woman asked as she opened the front door, letting the dog out.
The little black spaniel jumped up around his legs. ‘Get lost, Rosie,’ he said, giving it a kick and brushing past his mother.
‘Where’s my bread?’ she yelled.
‘You’ve had your breakfast. I gave you bread. Honey on toast, you wanted.’ He began pacing the hallway as he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Where have you put my other phone?’
The old woman stared at him blankly. ‘Are we going to the shops?’ She walked over to the coat stand by the door and began putting one of his old coats on inside out. Her illness was taking a toll on him. The dog bounded back in, shaking its wet fur off against the wall. ‘Dog – get out,’ his mother shouted. ‘Get out. Get out. Get out.’
He hurried over to her and grabbed her arm. The woman yelled in pain as he shoved her outside and slammed the door, shutting her and the dog out. He bent over and stared through the letter box. She was still standing there, wearing his inside-out coat, waiting. For what? He had no idea. He wasn’t taking her shopping today. He wasn’t taking her shopping ever.
The kitchen. He’d last seen the phone in the kitchen drawer. He ran and opened it, smiling as he grabbed the phone, the one where he kept all the old photos he’d taken of Debbie before they’d got together. He grabbed the charger and plugged it in. Just a couple of minutes’ worth of charge would be enough to make the phone call. He couldn’t lose Florence forever. He needed to call the police. He opened the top cupboard and a straw hat fell out. He grabbed his mother’s old scarf, which had been folded up underneath it. It would be useful to distort his voice. His Debbie phone had never been registered and he’d bought it with cash. It was safe to use. He’d drive out, into the middle of nowhere, make the shortest call ever, destroy the SIM card and head back.
There was a knock at the door and the dog barked. He dashed to open it, letting his mother in. The woman was shivering and crying. He took her hand and led her to her chair in the living room. ‘Sit there, Ma. I won’t be long.’
‘I want to go to the shop.’ She began to sob as she rocked back and forth. He grabbed one of her chicken pies from the sideboard, opened it and handed it to her. The dog lay by her feet, waiting for crumbs.
‘I’ll be back soon.’ He kissed her on the cheek and left, locking the door behind him.
Nine
Gina threw her bag into the corner of her office and turned her computer on. It was almost lunchtime.
Several emails pinged up as her computer finally came to life. As expected, a mass of calls had been made to the helpline in relation to the baby. Jacob and the team had sifted through a handful of them and only come up with one that was meaningful.
She picked up the phone and dialled his extension. ‘Jacob, I’m back in my office. Pop through and we can talk through these calls,’ she said, searching in her drawer for some paracetamol. She placed the receiver back in its cradle and massaged her temple as she popped a couple of pills onto her desk.
Jacob knocked and entered with a steaming Styrofoam cup. ‘Coffee. You are my saviour,’ she said, taking it from him. She placed the pills in her mouth and took a gulp, flinching as the heat from the coffee burned the back of her throat.
‘You’re welcome. Feel more human yet?’
‘I will do in a minute. My head has been pounding since I left the hospital.’ She swallowed and grimaced, realising that her throat was starting to feel like sandpaper.
Jacob grabbed the chair opposite her and placed his notebook on the desk. ‘How were things there?’ he asked as he loosened his tie.
‘Just routine. I spoke to the doctor in charge, a Doctor Nowak.’ Jacob scribbled the name under the rest of his illegible notes. ‘I asked him to circulate a message requesting that the staff keep an eye out for anyone coming to the hospital and acting suspiciously.’ Gina scrolled through her emails and came across a flagged email from Jacob. ‘What’s this? Must be important if you’ve flagged it.’
He leaned forward. ‘We had one call that struck a chord. It just came in a few minutes ago. The rest are still being sifted through, but they were basically descriptions of the many people that had been in the area that day. We have tall, short, fat, thin, workmen and women, wearing yellow jackets and suits – the usual. There wasn’t anything that really stood out on the first scan except the one I’ve highlighted. The officer who took the call said the man sounded distressed. The recording is very crackly. It sounds like the caller had a piece of cloth over his mouth. He appeared to be mumbling to himself, taking about a baby and his love. To cut a long story short, he basically begged us to run a DNA test on the baby. He screamed and yelled before bursting into tears.’
‘I can see why you flagged that one up. Why would someone call and request that we do a DNA check on the baby? I wonder if he’s the father. Or maybe it’s another crank.’
Jacob looked into her eyes. ‘He also said that the baby had a birthmark on the back of her right leg, just above the knee.’
Gina took another gulp of coffee. ‘Have you verified this?’
‘I called the hospital immediately and spoke to the nurse in charge. She confirmed the presence of the birthmark.’ He began to chew the end of his already worn-down biro as he stared at his notes.
‘We need to get that baby’s DNA sample to the lab. I’ll get it cleared with Briggs. There’s more to this story. Where’s the mother, for heaven’s sake? Have we traced the call? It sounds like our suspect was on the phone for a long time?’ Gina swigged the last of her coffee, pulled a cereal bar from her bag and began eating it.
‘Not as long as we’d hoped. He blurted everything out at speed then hung up. The only thing we managed to get was that the call came from an unregistered phone. We tried to call him back but the line was dead. He’s probably ditched it already.’
‘That’s a bit of a pain but not unexpected,’ she replied. The intensity of her headache began to reduce. She cleared her dry throat and smiled. ‘Right. I’ll arrange the DNA sample. Go through the recording again and listen for anything that may help us. Something’s really off about this case.’
Jacob stood and walked towards the door. ‘If you want a sausage roll, there’s a bag in the main office. O’Connor brought them in. Apparently, his wife made them yesterday.’
‘What would we do without O’Connor and his talented wife?’ Gina asked. Jacob smiled and closed the door as he left.