Little Face (26 page)

`Yes. Is that why I feel dizzy?'

`It's a very strong painkiller. How long ago did you have your Caesarian?'

`I'll stop taking it,' I say. I need a clear head. I was never happy
about taking allopathic painkillers, but Vivienne told me I needed
them. I believed her. `I'm also taking two homeopathic remedies,
hypericum and gelsemium.'

`That's fine.' Dr Allen smiles tolerantly. `They might not do you any
good, but they won't do you any harm.' Patronising bitch, I think.

I hand my completed quiz back to her. For a bonus of one hundred
points: is Alice crazy or not?

`Thank you,' she enthuses, as if I have given her the crown jewels.
She sets about reading my answers with great concentration, breathing heavily over them as if trying to get to grips with an impenetrable
problem. She reminds me of a horse.

`What if the baby is sick?' I whisper. `Little Face. What if she's sick?'
My head reels with all the fear and excitement of a new idea. `Maybe
that's why someone wanted to swap her, for Florence, who's healthy.'
I remember the Guthrie test, blood being taken from Florence's heel.
David joked that the test involved singing a selection of Woody
Guthrie songs to newborn babies and seeing how many they could
identify. Florence's results were fine; there was nothing wrong with her.
`She seems healthy, but ... perhaps ... could you arrange for some
tests to be done? On the baby? On Little Face?' I begin to hyperventilate. `That might be it!' I squeeze my hands together. `And if that is
the reason why Mandy swapped the babies, or why somebody did,
that means Florence is probably safe! Do you see what I mean?'

Dr Allen looks as if she might be a bit scared of me. `Excuse me a
moment, Alice,' she says. `I'll just nip outside and have a quick word
with Vivienne.' If I were at all interested in her opinion, I would
object to her sharing it with Vivienne instead of me, but since I know
that I am not mad, I don't care what she says, or to whom. I watch her
hurry from the room. I wish she would leave. I wish she and Vivienne
and David would all leave. I could take Little Face away from The
Elms and never come back. David would never be able to torture me
again. But I know I cannot do anything so spontaneous. People would
see my car. They would see me and Little Face. We would be found and
brought back here.

I hear Dr Allen talking to Vivienne outside the door. `Well?' Vivienne
demands. `What's the verdict?'

`Oh dear! I'm afraid I am quite concerned about her,' says Dr Allen.
Neither she nor Vivienne cares that I can hear them. She tells Vivienne
most of what I said. I feel terrible when I hear her say that I seem to
want Little Face to be sick because that will prove Florence is well. I
don't want anything bad to happen to any baby, any child. That
should be obvious.

`Look at this,' Dr Allen says to Vivienne. `For the question "How
often do you feel you can't cope?" she's ticked "Never". That's one of our key warning signs. Everybody who's just had a baby sometimes
feels that they can't cope. It's natural. So those who deny it ... '

` ... are deluding themselves,' Vivienne concludes.

`Yes. And heading for possible trouble. That sort of denial puts too
much pressure on a person. Eventually something has to give. I'm so
sorry,' Dr Allen croons. `I think perhaps Alice ought to see a therapist
or a counsellor.' I would love to. He or she would have to be on my
side; that is a therapist's job description. I could cope, if just one person were on my side. But Vivienne would never allow my mind to fall
into the hands of a psychiatric professional. She believes such people
try to control the thoughts of others.

... seems to be a very firmly embedded delusion,' Dr Allen is
saying.

`What makes you so sure it's a delusion?' Vivienne asks. My heart
crashes wildly around my chest. What has happened to my confidence,
to make me so grateful for even the smallest sign that not everybody
is against me? `Can I ask you a question, Dr Allen?'

`Of course.'

`Florence has been bottle-fed from birth. She wouldn't breast-feed,
you see. The baby upstairs seems quite happy with the same Cow and
Gate milk that Florence drank. Does that mean she's likely to be
Florence?'

I nod. It's a good question. Vivienne's mind is open. She is trying to
apply logic to the problem.

`Well ... ' Dr Allen hesitates. `A breast-fed baby might protest if she
was suddenly switched on to bottles. But if she was bottle-fed in the
first place . . . '

`But there are several different brands of formula milk, aren't
there?' says Vivienne impatiently. `Wouldn't a change of brand pose
a problem?'

`Maybe, maybe not. Cow and Gate is one of the market leaders.
And every baby is different. Some will only take breast milk, some will
drink any old thing quite happily. The fact that the baby will drink Florence's usual milk doesn't prove anything either way.' Dr Allen
sounds uncomfortable, keen to leave. She is probably wondering if all
the residents of The Elms are insane.

I feel encouraged. In the absence of concrete proof, Dr Allen and
Vivienne are completely at a loss. I might be miserable, tormented by
my husband, desperate for my daughter and without even the hope of
help, but at least I know the truth. I have that one thing in my favour.

Tuesday, October 7, 2003, 2 PM

GOING INTO PRISONS; Simon had never got used to it. He hated
standing in the queue with the other visitors, some of whom he knew
for a depressing fact were concealing about their persons-sometimes
even inserted into their private parts-lumps of heroin, to be passed to
their loved ones under the table at the appropriate time. The screws,
mostly corrupt, knew it went on and did nothing about it.

Simon stood with the half-dressed, undernourished girlfriends of this
or that nonentity or gangster, depending on your point of view. Their
bare legs were mottled, mauve with cold. They teetered on high heels,
giggled and whispered. Simon heard the word pig. Even without the
uniform, people knew.

After the queue came the frisking, then all prospective visitors were
sniffed by police dogs. Finally, approved, Simon headed through the
dingy visits hall to HMP Brimley's inner courtyard, waiting for the
familiar din: `Fucking pig! Scum! Fucking filth!' Accompanied by the
rattle of cages from all directions. The courtyard was surrounded by
cells, and the scrotes always chanted enthusiastically. It wasn't as if they
had a lot else to look forward to.

Simon stared straight ahead until he'd made it to the secure cell
block. The screw who was escorting him led him to a small mustardcoloured room with a brown, ribbed, threadbare carpet. The customary table and two chairs. A camera fixed to the wall, its dark, square glass eye peering down. On the table was a thick plastic ashtray.
Any D with sense knew that it was pointless to turn up without
tobacco and Rizlas, or a packet of B&H, depending on how generous
you were feeling. Scrotes expected it, in the way that waiters expected
tips. Optional-compulsory.

Simon felt itchy and uncomfortable. The room stank of stale sweat
and staler smoke. Also a salty, sexual smell. Simon didn't want to think
about that one. He shuffled on his chair. He'd had a shower that morning, tried to feel clean in spite of his surroundings.

Look where you are, said a voice in his head. Disheartening to
think that this was the grubby environment he inhabited, worlds
away from Alice Fancourt, from The Elms. He pictured Alice as she
was when he first saw her, standing straight-backed at the top of
the curved staircase, then sitting on the cream sofa in the living
room, her long, blonde hair fanned out against the cushion. People
like her shouldn't have to share the planet with the scum that
ended up in here. Simon wasn't sure who he had in mind, Beer or
himself.

Charlie had instructed him, without eye contact or a smile, to ask
Beer about the murder weapon and Laura Cryer's handbag. Whatever
Proust had said to her during their head-to-head had done its work.
She was making a big production of her new, conscientious approach.
There was an unnecessarily large number one on the board in the CID
room, with David Fancourt's name beside it, and she had taken to talking in a loud voice about the importance of reviewing all the files on
Laura Cryer. Simon wasn't fooled. He doubted Proust was either.
Charlie had done this sort of thing before, behaved in a way that was
beyond reproach at the same time as making it clear that her head and
heart were violently opposed.

Immature, undignified. But what irked Simon most was that he
seemed to be the main object of her hostility. He couldn't understand
what he had done to offend her. He'd made some good points about
the Cryer case. He'd hoped for praise, expected grudging admiration and a heated argument. Instead, Charlie had stopped looking at him.
She spoke to him as if she were a zombie reading from an autocue. Sellers and Gibbs didn't seem to have noticed; she was all charm and
smiles to them, as if to underline the point.

Simon had heard it said that women were irrational, but he'd
thought Charlie was an exception. She had to know that Simon
wasn't responsible for the dressing down she'd had from Proust.
Her own carelessness had got her into trouble, the stupid things
she'd said at the team meeting that sounded more like gossip than
police work.

The door of the fetid little room opened, and a youngish man was
pushed into the room by an even younger-looking screw. It took
Simon a few seconds to recognise Darryl Beer. A crew-cut had replaced
his ponytail, and he had put on weight. Beer had been a lanky little
shit. He'd had the look and manner of an agitated rodent, scrabbling
for scraps. Now his face had fleshed out and he looked more ordinary,
like a man who might spend his Saturday afternoon buying garden
furniture, power drills, firelighters for the barbecue.

Simon introduced himself. Beer shrugged. He couldn't have cared
less who his visitor was, or why he was here. Simon was familiar with
the attitude: a pig was a pig, and it was never nice to see one.

`I've got some questions regarding the Laura Cryer murder.'

`Aggravated assault,' Beer corrected him automatically, folding his
hairy arms across his belly. His top was too small. A pouch of pale
flesh had escaped, spilling over his belt.

`Stabbing a woman with a kitchen knife. Leaving her to bleed to
death. I call that murder.' Beer didn't flinch.

Simon produced a packet of Marlboros and a lighter from his
pocket and Beer reached out a hand, one that had `HATE' tattoed on
its knuckles. He lit the cigarette, took a long, slow drag, then another.
`Did you do it?' Simon asked.

Beer looked surprised, then amused. `You taking the piss?' he said.
Simon shook his head. `I pleaded guilty, didn't I?'

`What did you do with her handbag? What did you do with the
knife?'

`Do you know anything about who Laura Cryer was, the work she
did?' Beer asked. His tone was conversational. `If she'd lived, she
might have found a cure for cancer. Her research team probably will
at some point, thanks to the work she started. Did you know that she
was the one who persuaded Morley England to invest forty million
dollars in BioDiverse, to fund the work? She could be famous one day.
I could be famous.'

`What did you do with the bag and the knife?'

`I don't remember.' Beer grinned, delighted to be of no assistance. He
scratched his exposed midriff with the overgrown fingernails of his
`LOVE' hand. `I was out of it. Why do you want to know that now?'

`Do you remember stabbing Laura Cryer at all?' Beer's attitude had
lit the fuse of Simon's temper. Fire crackled in his stomach. All for Beer,
or had it been there already, lying dormant? He pictured himself taking an extinguisher and turning it on the flames, as Charlie had once
advised him to do. `Think wet foam,' she told him. `Even the words
sound soggy.' It worked. Could the sensible person who had said that
and the overgrown bitchy schoolgirl stomping around the CID room
today be one and the same?

`I must have done it, mustn't I?' said Beer. `There was all that evidence.' The sing-song sarcasm was intended to provoke.

His face belonged in the ashtray. Simon's arms itched to put it
there. `Listen, shit-head. There's a mother and baby missing. The
baby's less than a month old. If you tell me the truth, it might help us
find them.' As a boy, Simon had had his mouth washed out with soap
on the one occasion when he swore in front of his mother. He'd heard
the way other cops used profanities-with casual imprecision. His foul
language was deliberate and meaningful. Grateful. He savoured each
of these words that belonged to a world which excluded his parents.

Beer shrugged. `You're wasting your time, pig. I reckon your mother
and baby are dead.'

Simon took deep breaths. It wasn't true. Was that what Charlie
thought too? Why couldn't he bring himself to ask her? Before she disappeared, Alice had made him feel uncomfortable by pointing out his
inadequacies as a protector. Her death would confirm everything
Simon feared about himself. To think of her as alive and missing was
the only way he could banish her disillusionment from his mind,
focus on the faith she had once had in him. It still gave him time. The
story wasn't over.