‘Well, I hope you aren’t going to be this disobedient all day. You know you must sit up if you’re to get your honey on toast,’ he said as he looked down at her quaking body. ‘Sit up,’ he yelled.
She clenched her teeth as she forced her legs straight and attempted to throw them over the side of the bed to sit up. Pain shot from below and through her abdomen as she tore her tender area a little more. To hide her yelp, she grabbed the blanket and held it over her mouth, only pulling it away from her body as she reached a full sitting position. There was no point saying she wasn’t hungry, just like there was no point expressing how much pain she was in. He refused to see or care. She was there to service him and his delusions, and the last thing she wanted to do was antagonise him. She grabbed the hem of her soiled nightdress and pulled it over her knees.
‘I knew you’d do anything for your honey,’ he said with a grin as he watched her eating. She chewed on the toast, almost gagging every time she swallowed. Once finished, he passed her a cup of lukewarm black tea. He hadn’t given her hot drinks since she’d flung one at him in the early days. ‘You love your tea warm. I make it just how you like it. You really are my sunshine,’ he said, whistling again. He stared into her eyes as he whistled the melody. She coughed and spluttered the brown liquid over his knees. ‘Filthy cow!’ he yelled, leaping up and slapping her once across the cheek. ‘You seriously need to clean yourself up.’ He grabbed the cup and plate before slamming the door and leaving her in darkness once again. Clean herself up? With what? He left her in filth, in dirt, in her own secretions.
She stared into the suffocating darkness. She used to stare into nothing and see her family, she used to be able to dream about them, but now she’d resigned herself to never seeing them again. She shuffled on her bottom until her back was against the wall, then she dragged the blankets back over her shivering body. She yelped as she turned. For a moment, she allowed her mind to wander back to the day before.
* * *
‘You know you mustn’t yell. Little Florence is on her way. This is what you and I have been waiting for all this time. The fruit of our love. You do love me, I know you do.’ She dreaded the thought of the baby being a boy. He didn’t want a boy and she knew exactly what he was capable of. Thankfully she’d pushed out a little girl. A light but healthy little girl.
A few minutes was all she’d been given to hold her daughter. She was left empty as he dragged the screaming infant from her arms and closed the door to her cell. The baby screamed and screamed. The sound echoed through the building.
‘Take the feed, you bloody little runt,’ he shouted. Her weary heart beat ten to the second as the sounds of her distressed newborn emanated through the building. ‘I can’t have you scaring mother with your wailing. You will take the feed. You will take the bloody feed! Shut up!’
* * *
That was a day ago, and she was reliving it continuously. Her heavy breasts began to trickle and she wiped the milk away. What had he done with her baby? She gasped for air as she sobbed. She thought he’d hurt her all he could, but this hurt like nothing she’d ever experienced before. That little life had been the only reminder that she was still alive. For years she’d felt as if she were dead, but that baby, her baby, had awoken something in her. She grabbed the smaller blanket that lay on the end of the bed, rolled it up and placed it between her legs. She’d remove the soiled blanket she was lying on later, when she had more energy, but for now she needed to recuperate and think. She needed her body to heal, just in case – but in case of what, she didn’t know. She needed to remember her baby. There was nothing more he could take from her now. She yelled into the dusty blanket and hit the wall before taking a few deep breaths.
He turned up the volume on the television and she listened in. The weather passed and the local news came on. Rain, more rain, and it would be cold. That was no surprise. It hadn’t stopped raining for days. That question ripped through her heart again. What had he done with her baby? Isobel. Her baby was not called Florence and she wasn’t his. She wasn’t evil like him.
‘It’s been reported that early last night a newborn was discovered in the doorway of Cleevesford Library. Anyone with any information—’ He turned the television off and bounded down the stairs. She heard the main door slam shut and his car start up outside. She smiled. Her baby was safe; the police had found her. As she sobbed hard and loud, her tears soon turned into manic laughter. Her baby was alive and free.
Six
Gina entered the hospital and followed the signs to ward six, where the baby was being treated. The good night’s sleep she’d hoped for hadn’t materialised. ‘Excuse me, you can’t go in there,’ a nurse called, stepping in front of Gina.
She pulled out her identification and held it up. ‘DI Harte. I’m investigating the abandoned baby case.’
The nurse examined her identification, smiled and stepped out of the way. ‘You can’t be too careful. I’ll show you through. Doctor Nowak will be coming round shortly.’ Gina followed the nurse through the long, sterile corridor, past several smaller rooms. She caught a glimpse of a couple sitting beside a baby. Tubes, beeping monitors and the father’s ashen face all left an imprint in her mind. ‘Here we are. If you want coffee, there’s a machine just there.’
‘Thank you. I might just be in the market for one of those. What time did you say the doctor was coming around?’
‘He’s due in about half an hour. I’ll let him know you’re here though. He’ll probably finish up with the patient he’s with and come and see you,’ the nurse replied as she left. Gina felt around the rubbish in her pocket, moving receipts and crumpled tissues aside before finding a few coins to buy a coffee with. As she fed the coins in the machine, she noticed another liver spot appearing on the back of her hand. Her forty-six years were beginning to show and the stress Hannah was putting her under certainly wasn’t helping. Her reflection in the coffee machine revealed that she also needed to dye her roots.
She lifted a plastic chair from the pile and placed it next to the baby’s cot and sat. Steam arose from the cup, warming her cold nose. She gripped the warm cup with both hands and looked at the baby. ‘Who left you there, little baby?’ she thought as she took another sip of coffee. The infant slept peacefully, a feeding tube neatly inserted into her nose.
Gina had been twenty-three when her daughter Hannah was born. She’d been a sleepy baby, just like the little one in front of her, except for the night of the thunderstorm, the night her mind kept getting drawn back to. Despite trying to move on from the past that haunted her, Gina’s bad memories were as tattooed in her mind as every gruesome crime scene she’d ever attended.
Despite Hannah’s most recent demands, attending her husband’s memorial service was out of the question. He’d been gone a long time, too long for any memorial service but Hannah had arranged it and insisted on having it. Gina didn’t want to remember. She was being forced to remember a past that would never leave her alone.