‘I’m sorry… I can’t remember.’ Holly had hated herself, had shaken her head and repeated the same line again and again.
And then Geraldine had suggested she carry out a pregnancy test.
When the blue line appeared, Holly couldn’t believe that Geraldine didn’t throw her out of the house.
‘We’ll help you look after the child,’ she had said. ‘And when you’re completely well, we’ll set you up in your own place.’
There was a doctor who came to the house several times a week. One day, Holly peered through the crack in her door to see Brendan paying him in cash before he left the house.
When Brendan was home, Holly now stayed upstairs. Geraldine seemed to be interacting with her husband perfectly normally.
One day, she’d crept onto the landing and listened to them talking at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Why has it taken her so long to recover?’ Geraldine had hissed.
‘The doctor said some people have a particularly adverse reaction to Rohypnol,’ Brendan had replied. ‘I told him someone spiked her drink when she was out. Good job we never gave her any Ecstasy as we’d planned.’
When Patricia came into her bedroom to vacuum, Holly closed the door behind her. Patricia eyed her suspiciously.
‘Am I the first girl to come here?’ Holly asked, keeping her voice as level as she could. ‘Or have there been others?’
‘There have been two others like you.’ Patricia shrugged. ‘They also got themselves into a state like this and had to leave. Now it is you.’
Holly could see that the housekeeper viewed her as just another inconvenience to clean up after.
‘I’m having a baby,’ she whispered.
Patricia shrugged. ‘So were the others, but they both miscarried. Miss Geraldine, she is always disappointed.’
Everything had fallen into place then like a sinister jigsaw. Right back to Brendan’s interview, him so interested in Holly’s life story, her parents and heritage… the pressure for her to get into shape, keep healthy… The whole thing had been planned.
Brendan and Geraldine had done this before.
She had pushed past Patricia and run downstairs, confronting the two of them.
‘You drugged me… raped me!’ she spat at Brendan, and then turned to Geraldine. ‘And you knew all along what would happen. All because you’re desperate for a child.’
‘Calm down!’ Geraldine had slapped her face and Holly had been stunned into silence. ‘You’re talking nonsense… you’re losing your mind. We’re offering you support, that’s all. Nobody wants to take your child.’
Holly had cried and Geraldine had held her like a baby, soothing her with words. She felt so confused, so alone… Was it true? Was she losing her mind?
These two people were all she had.
* * *
Holly grew stronger, became well, and the whole incident was ring-fenced as a no-go area.
Geraldine treated her like glass.
‘I’ve told Brendan I want a divorce,’ she said one day when they were out for lunch. ‘You’re like a sister to me now, Holly. He’s going to move out and I’ll help you look after the baby.’
Holly had felt as if she was playing a lead role in some kind of sick play. Without Geraldine, she had literally nothing; she was penniless, alone and pregnant.
But despite Geraldine’s assertions that she was furious with her husband, Holly felt she wasn’t quite as innocent as she claimed. After all, Patricia had told her there had been two others.
Holly had tried speaking about the other girls, but Geraldine had shut her down.
They shopped for baby clothes, a cot, a car seat… and the nursery was currently being decorated in lemon.
Geraldine accompanied Holly to her hospital appointment, playing the role of the baby’s father almost. Geraldine paid privately for Holly to have an early ultrasound scan which included photographs.
‘We’d like to know the sex of the baby if possible,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ the medic had said. ‘You’ll need to wait until your daughter is a minimum of sixteen weeks.’
Holly watched as Geraldine’s jaw set in irritation at his mistake but she said nothing.
* * *
Holly went into labour two days before the expected delivery date.
‘I’ll stay with you the whole time,’ Geraldine had said, clasping her hand in a caring manner. ‘Don’t be afraid, we’ll get through this together.’
A doctor and a foreign nurse who couldn’t speak any English came to the house, but Holly didn’t feel sad or lonely or afraid. She simply felt dead inside.
She had an epidural and the birth was straightforward. But before she could hold her baby, Geraldine had taken him from the nurse and spoken quietly with the doctor.
When she returned to Holly’s bedside, her cheeks had been flushed and her eyes bright.
‘Evan is doing fine,’ she told Holly. ‘He’s the perfect weight and the doctor says he’s strong and healthy.’
‘Evan?’ Holly had frowned.
‘That’s the baby’s name,’ Geraldine had told her.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Holly
Holly had been watching Cora for a long time.
It had soon become apparent that every time Cora visited the bank, she shot straight upstairs, closing her bedroom curtains.
She had complained several times to Holly about mistrusting banks and how disgusting it was that people got no interest at all on their savings in the current economic climate.
She sometimes talked about her late husband’s set ways and strong opinions, but as far as Holly could tell, she had seemed to perpetuate these needlessly, long after his death. Holly had often wondered who Cora used to be before a controlling marriage had slowly stripped her of her true self.
Then there had been all the shuffling and scraping that day Holly had stood listening outside the bedroom door. The high colour and heated sheen on Cora’s face indicated that she’d been over-exerting herself, perhaps lifting… and suddenly, pairing this knowledge with the contents of the letter Holly had found, all the pieces had come together and Holly knew.
She’d waited until Cora went out again and then crept upstairs to her bedroom. She’d tucked both hands under one corner of the mattress and pushed up with all her might… and there it was.
She’d stared at it, her eyes filling up with the realisation that she had at last uncovered the key to finding her son again.
Now all she had to do was to work out the best way of getting her hands on it.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Holly
On the way into work the next day, Holly stopped at David’s kiosk.
‘I need to speak to you tonight,’ she said urgently. ‘Can you come around to the house?’
He tore his eyes away from the top of the car park. ‘Yes, of course. I…’
‘Are you listening to me?’ She stood in front of him to make him look at her.
‘Yes, it’s just that…’ He did a double-take. ‘Are you feeling all right, Holly? You look so pale, and your eyes are bloodshot.’
‘If you must know, I feel terrible.’
David stood up and shrugged on his high-vis jacket with urgency. ‘I’m so sorry, Holly. I have to deal with this. Give me a second.’ He pushed open the kiosk door and shouted, ‘Excuse me, can I have a word?’
The man who’d just got out of a silver BMW looked back at them.
‘Just a word, sir.’ David spat the word out as if it offended him to say it.
Holly watched as the driver checked his watch, openly sighed and then walked slowly towards them.
She felt woozy, like her centre of balance was off.
‘Are you aware, sir, that this is a private car park?’ David said pompously, pushing his shoulders back as he consulted his clipboard. ‘My records show that in the last two weeks, you have parked here illegally on a number of occasions…’
Holly gripped the side of the kiosk to stay standing. She tried to gulp in air, but her chest was burning. David’s voice faded out until there was nothing but a furious rushing noise in her head.
She stared at the driver and he stared back.
David’s mouth stopped moving. His head flipped from Holly to the driver and back again.
‘Markus,’ she whispered before she fainted.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
David