When She Finds You Read online

  She gathers the new sleepsuits, nappies and cartons of milk and packs them away. I scan the cellar looking for something I can use against her. My eyes rest on Lou. Is it my imagination, or has her head moved a fraction? I stare harder, but her eyes are still closed. At least I can see her chest rising and falling.

  Roz disappears into a shadowy corner. My heart plummets when she reappears with a car seat. She really means to go through with this. I suck in air and cup my hand around the baby’s head. I can’t let her take him. I won’t.

  ‘What will you do?’ I say dully.

  ‘Get as far away from here as possible. Don’t worry, I have a plan. And I’ll look after him, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘They’ll find you in the end.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘The police. They’ll find you and arrest you and you’ll go to prison for murder and snatching a child and grievous bodily harm. You’ll lose him then anyway.’

  ‘Are you still talking?’ She glares at me. ‘Anyway, I won’t. They’ll have to send me to a mother and baby unit until he’s eighteen months old.’

  ‘But he’s not your baby!’ I cry. ‘And if I’m dead and Matt can’t cope he’ll be taken into foster care and sent for adoption like Katy. You don’t want that to happen, do you?’

  She hesitates for a second and I seize my chance. ‘If you let us go I promise you can be part of our lives. I’ll help you get treatment for your BPD. You can be his godmother. Please Roz, at least think about it.’

  ‘Thought about it, decided against it. But thanks for the offer.’

  She delves into her handbag and produces a second syringe.

  ‘What’s that?’ I whisper.

  ‘I’ve decided an overdose is the way to go. Heroin and fentanyl. Spike says it should be enough.’

  Tightness grips my chest. ‘Spike?’

  ‘My mother’s dealer. Christ knows how he’s still alive. He owed me big time for giving her the batch of skag that killed her.’ She holds the syringe up to the light and studies its contents. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be like drifting away on a cloud.’

  My heart pounds as adrenalin races around my bloodstream. She’s going to kill me. Here and now in this dank, dark cellar a few feet under my beloved Cam. If it wasn’t so sick it would be funny. The baby has fallen asleep, his mouth open. A snail trail of colostrum is trickling down his chin but I daren’t wipe it away in case Roz realises he’s stopped feeding.

  ‘Are you going to inject Lou, too?’

  She shakes her head. ‘You’re the only one I need to get rid of. The authorities will stop looking for us eventually. We’ll be two more in a long line of missing person reports. But mothers - mothers who give a shit, anyway - never give up looking for their children. I can’t risk you finding us.’ She stares at me with dead eyes. ‘You need to die.’

  She lays the syringe on the shelf next to my phone and car keys. There’s a roaring in my ears and I hold my precious cargo tighter and rock from side to side.

  Roz holds out her hands again. ‘Give him to me.’

  I shake my head. Tears are streaming down my face. ‘I can’t, Roz. Please don’t make me. Please. Take anything. Take my house, take Matt. But not my baby. Not my little boy.’

  I hold him as tightly as I dare and swivel away from her grasping fingers. But she’s too quick, too strong, springing forwards and wrestling him from my grip.

  I scream, the piteous sound magnifying as it bounces off the walls, and lunge forwards to take him back. Roz kicks me in the stomach with such force that I’m thrown back onto the floor. The pain is so intense I must pass out, because when I come around a few seconds later my wrists are bound again and my baby, now dressed in a white sleepsuit, is strapped in the car seat at the bottom of the stairs, the blue fleece blanket wrapped around him.

  I don’t know what makes me look at Lou. Intuition, perhaps. Her eyes are open. I blink and look again just to make sure. I glance at Roz. She’s stacking her bags next to the car seat. I turn back to Lou. She is mouthing something to me and nodding towards Roz. I can’t hear what she’s saying but I have a pretty good idea.

  On my own, there’s no hope of overcoming Roz, but with two of us we stand a chance.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Now

  I rack my brains, wondering what we can use to overpower Roz. I dismiss Geoff’s neat rows of gardening tools because they are on the far side of the cellar with Roz playing piggy in the middle. I look at Lou. She’s still mouthing something and pointing to the floor beside me. I pull a what-are-you-talking-about face and glance around wildly. At that moment Roz switches off the light and the cellar is plunged into darkness.

  I feel around on the floor. Lou must have seen something. The bricks, laid in a herringbone pattern all those years ago, feel rough against my hands. I’m about to give up when my fingers alight on something smooth. It’s the leather strap Roz gave me to bite down on during labour. I pick it up. From memory it’s about two-foot long and has holes at one end. It was probably once a belt, although the buckle has long gone.

  When Roz turns on the torch app on her phone I almost drop the strap in shock. She walks over to the shelf where my phone and keys lay next to the syringe she is going to kill me with. I shoot another desperate look at Lou. She nods and I drop the strap and shift my weight so I’m sitting on it.

  Roz advances towards me, the needle in one hand and her phone in the other. ‘Ready for oblivion?’ she coos. ‘I need to find a vein. Where’s that old belt?’

  She sweeps the beam of the phone’s torch on the floor beside me and I mentally cross my fingers, hoping she doesn’t shine it over Lou.

  ‘No matter. I’ll make do without. Christ knows I’ve seen it done enough times.’

  She kneels beside me, places the needle on the floor and reaches in her pocket for a small knife which she uses to saw through the duct tape around my wrists. She grabs my left hand, shines the torch at the pale skin on the inside of my arm and slaps it several times until the vein is raised.

  She’s still gripping my hand when Lou groans. I hold my breath, wondering how she’ll react. Lou groans again and begins to struggle to all fours.

  Roz is on her feet in an instant, her arm raised high in the air. She swipes at the back of Lou’s head but Lou swerves just in time. My hands close around the leather strap and I stagger to my feet, conscious of the fact that I’m wearing nothing below my shirt. But there’s no time for modesty. As Roz raises her hand to strike Lou again there’s a plaintive whimper from the car seat.

  My baby.

  My baby.

  Rage zips through my body with the speed of a bush fire and I bounce on the balls of my feet, ready to strike. With one fluid movement I whip the strap around Roz’s neck before she even realises I’m behind her.

  Fury makes me strong and I pull as tightly as I can. Roz struggles, her arms flailing as she tries to loosen the strap, but the more she thrashes the angrier I become, until the red mist descends and I lose it completely.

  ‘You bitch!’ I howl, pulling tighter still. Roz’s movements become weaker as the blood supply to her brain is slowly cut off. She sways on her feet and for a second I loosen my grip, only to tighten it again when she starts plucking at the strap. Her body goes limp and she slides to the floor, unconscious.

  Lou appears by my side. She’s wiggled free of the duct tape and is waving something in my face. It’s only when she grabs Roz’s arm and starts looking for a vein that I realise what she’s planning.

  ‘No!’ I yell.

  ‘But she was going to kill you!’

  ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison? Because I sure as hell don’t.’

  ‘It’s self-defence. Reasonable force. Us or her.’ Lou brings the syringe closer to Roz’s arm.

  ‘Giving someone an overdose isn’t reasonable force.’

  ‘And strangling someone is?’ she explodes.

  ‘I’m not strangling her. She’s still bre
athing. Look.’

  Roz’s eyes are closed but her chest is rising and falling. The baby whimpers again and Roz’s eyelashes flutter. I tighten my grip on the strap.

  ‘Call the police before she wakes up,’ I beg.

  Lou’s brown eyes are locked on mine. ‘If you let her live she’ll come looking for you, you know that, don’t you? You’ll always be looking over your shoulder, worried she’s there. She’s obsessed by you. You, Matt and the baby.’

  I glance at the car seat but all I can see is the blue blanket. I pray the baby is alright. Unshed tears thicken my voice. ‘She won’t be able to hurt us. She’ll be in prison.’

  ‘You hope.’ Lou still hasn’t released her grip on Roz’s hand. ‘We could finish this here and now. You can be free of her. You need never look over your shoulder again.’

  ‘You’re probably right. But I can’t live with the guilt.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I’ll do it. It’ll be on my conscience, not yours.’

  My eyes are wide. ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘You’re my best friend. I’d do anything for you. Call it a long overdue payback for the abortion. I know it almost broke you. Let me make amends.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s not right. Let the police deal with her and she’ll get the help she needs.’

  Lou shakes her head. ‘You always were too soft.’ She lets go of Roz’s hand and it drops limply by her side. ‘You win. I’ll call the police.’

  She takes my phone from the shelf and I tell her my passcode. She peers at the screen. ‘No bloody signal. I won’t be a minute, OK?’

  She bounds up the cellar steps to the door. Roz still feels like a dead weight in my arms but even so I know I should tie her hands and feet in case she comes to before the police arrive. I lay her on the floor and study her face. Her breathing is shallow, but her eyes are still closed. She looks strangely at peace.

  Before I go in search of the duct tape I check the baby is OK. He’s asleep, his tiny fists above his head and his face turned towards me. I gaze at his features greedily. His perfect snub nose. Lashes as thick and curly as Matt’s. Lips pursed in an Instagram-worthy pout. He’s so beautiful I can’t drag my eyes away.

  At the top of the steps Lou is barking instructions to the police call taker. The police station is only a couple of miles away. Soon they will be here, Roz will be arrested and this nightmare will be over. Lou was looking for redemption when she offered to kill Roz, but she was wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

  Save a life, however, and you might be in a position to seek redemption for a past wrong. I killed one baby, now I’ve saved one, too. Maybe, once this is all over, I’ll be able to forgive myself for the abortion. I run a finger down the baby’s cheek and smile as his lips twitch in response.

  I shall call him Edward. Teddy for short. I hope Lou won’t mind. I don’t think she will. It’s clear now that by shutting her out of my life I hurt her as much as she hurt me. We wasted so many years. I’ll never make that mistake again.

  ‘You OK?’ Lou calls.

  ‘We’re fine.’ I smile up at her.

  ‘I’m going to make sure the door is open so the police can get in, alright? I won’t be long.’

  I pull a towel from one of the black sacks, wrap it around my waist and make myself comfortable on the bottom step so I can keep stroking the cheek of my sleeping baby.

  My back is to Roz as I sing the opening lines of the first lullaby that pops into my head. My voice is shaky so I clear my throat and start again. ‘Rock a bye baby on the tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock.’ I shiver in the chill cellar air and tuck Teddy’s blanket around his narrow shoulders. ‘When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.’

  I stop to take a breath. That’s when I hear it. A shuffling sound, like a sack of potatoes being dragged across the floor. My head snaps round. Roz has vanished. As I grip the handle of the car seat a cold hand wraps around my mouth and the sharp blade of a knife is pressed against my throat. Roz’s breath is fetid as she rasps in my ear.

  ‘Give me the baby, Sophie. He’s mine now.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Now

  I scream and, though my voice is muffled by her hand, Teddy’s eyes flutter open. I’m glad his sight is still fuzzy and he’ll never remember the next few minutes.

  Roz is muttering incoherently in my ear and I feel drops of spittle on my earlobe. She presses the knife into my neck with one hand while the other snakes around me and grabs the handle of the car seat. Once again anger consumes me. I will not let her take him. Silently I count to three, summoning all my strength. I only have one chance.

  I stamp on her foot and swing my right elbow between her ribs with as much force as I can. She gasps and hunches over, the knife falling to the floor. I swing my elbow again, breathing heavily as she crumples to the ground. Grabbing the car seat, I run up the steps as fast as my legs will carry me.

  The garden is in darkness apart from the weak light cast by the solar fairy lanterns strung over the wrought iron gazebo and the wooden archway into the rose garden.

  I call Lou but am met with silence. I hobble towards the oak door. She must have walked down the drive to meet the police at the bottom. I set off to find her. I need to put as much distance as possible between me and the cellar. It’s only four hundred metres to the road but it feels like four kilometres as the combined weight of Teddy and the car seat grows heavier with every step.

  ‘You weigh a ton,’ I tell him softly, shifting the seat onto my other arm.

  It occurs to me that I have no idea how much he weighs and how long he is. He has missed his vitamin K injection and I don’t know what his Apgar score would have been. Roz had denied us the things other people take for granted and I will never forgive her for that. Bitterness strengthens my resolve and I pick up my pace.

  The orange glow of a street light grows brighter and I make out Lou standing at the end of the drive, her hand shading her eyes from the glare of car headlights as they rumble along Stone Street.

  ‘Lou,’ I call again. I’m light-headed, as if I’ve drunk a double gin on an empty stomach, and I sway. Lou sprints over and takes the car seat in one hand and my elbow in the other.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she cries.

  I suck in lungfuls of air. ‘Roz woke up. She was going to take Teddy. I had to stop her.’

  ‘What did you do?’ she whispers. ‘Tell me, Sophie. We need to get our story straight.’

  ‘She threatened me with a knife, so I elbowed her in the ribs. I must have winded her.’

  ‘Did you lock her in the cellar?’

  The look on my face tells Lou everything she needs to know, because she gives me what she obviously thinks is a reassuring smile and pats my arm. ‘Don’t worry. Even if she gets out the police will find her. They’ll be here any minute.’

  The wait seems interminable, but it can only be a couple of minutes before the familiar sound of sirens fills the air. Lou hands me back the car seat and steps into the carriageway, waving her arms like an air traffic controller. A marked Skoda Octavia with its blue lights flashing screams to a stop a few feet in front of her.

  Lou rushes around to the driver’s door and gesticulates wildly. She steps back and the officer throws the car into gear and speeds up the drive, sending gravel flying in its wake. Seconds later a second patrol car arrives and follows the first, and a couple of minutes later a third joins them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask Lou, who is staring myopically at the screen of my phone.

  ‘Calling Matt. Do you want to speak to him?’

  I shake my head. I’m emotionally and physically spent. I’m not sure I can deal with anyone right now, even my husband.

  As it is, he doesn’t answer anyway. Lou leaves a curt voicemail ordering him to call the minute he picks up the message.

  ‘We should go back,’ she says, jerking her head towards Cam. ‘They’re sending an ambulance f
or you and the baby, but they’ll want to speak to you first. Can you face it?’

  ‘Not really.’ I give an apologetic shrug. ‘I’d rather go home. But I don’t suppose that’s an option.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it is. Shall I take the baby?’

  I nod, and hand her the car seat again. Lou links her other arm with me and we trudge back up the drive towards the flashing blue lights.

  ‘You’re calling him Teddy?’

  I glance sidelong at her. Her expression is unreadable and I feel a flicker of anxiety. ‘Is that alright?’

  Her face breaks into a smile. ‘Are you kidding? Of course it’s alright. It’s better than alright. It’s bloody brilliant!’ She swallows. ‘Ed would have been made up.’

  ‘Did you ever tell him about the other baby?’

  She shakes her head. ‘It wasn’t my secret to tell. He never knew.’

  I bite my lip. ‘I wish I had told him. He had a right to know.’

  ‘You were seventeen,’ Lou says. ‘You did what you thought was right. It all worked out in the end, didn’t it? Ed and I had Josh, and now you and Matt have little Teddy.’

  We are both quiet for a minute, lost in our own thoughts. Then she squeezes my arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says quietly.

  ‘What for?’ I ask, puzzled. I’m the one who should be thanking her. She was prepared to go to prison for me tonight.

  ‘For forgiving me. Because I think you have, haven’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  Her face falls.

  I smile and squeeze her back. ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’

  An earnest-looking officer introduces himself as Sergeant James Holland.

  ‘Have you arrested her?’ Lou demands.

  He can’t meet our eyes and my heart skips a beat.

  ‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’

  ‘We’ve searched the cellar and are conducting a search of the garden, but yes, it seems she has.’