Lullaby (38 page)

Suddenly their radios crackled into life, and I lost both men’s attention. The marksmen were straightening up, chucking fags down, pulling hats back on.

I repeated myself frantically. ‘What’s going on, Silver?’

‘We’ve had various reports from local residents: a woman and a baby were seen boarding a boat at the harbour here in the early hours. These boats aren’t usually inhabited; the harbour-permits are strictly for
fishing. We don’t think anyone’s disembarked again; they certainly haven’t sailed because it’s been so stormy. Now there’s a gale-force warning.’

‘Maxine?’ I asked Silver. Adrenaline surged through me.

He shrugged. ‘We don’t know yet, but it’d make sense. Blonde, apparently, and tall.’

And then I was gripped by panic. A sense of…impending doom, perhaps.

‘Silver, the guns—’

‘Just a precaution, Jess, like we said.’

‘But I really don’t want guns around my baby. It’s not
Miami Vice
or something you know.’ An unbidden image flickered through my head; a bullet slicing straight through Louis’s heart, him floppy and doll-like in my arms, cold like Robbie had been yesterday. Me screaming like I’d never stop. I clapped a hand to my mouth. Silver looked down at me, took a small step closer.

‘Just keep calm, Jess. It’ll be all right.’

But I didn’t believe him and he knew it.

‘I’m going to try to get onto the boat in a minute. I won’t let anything bad happen, I swear.’ He grasped my hand and squeezed it tight, so tight the bones cracked painfully. Then Glasses made his way towards us, followed by a man in some kind of nautical uniform.

‘Bet they’re feeling seasick now. Don’t think that fucking boat looks seaworthy myself,’ remarked Glasses cheerfully, pulling his cheroots from his pocket. Then he noticed me. If he rued his pessimism, he didn’t show it. ‘Oh—hello.’

I didn’t even attempt a smile. A dull drone in the background was getting louder; and then, between the houses and the seawall, a speedboat came in sight, a big, expensive-looking beast, gleaming cabin perched on top. DCI Malloy had his binoculars out; the boat was heading into shore.

The harbourmaster frowned officiously. ‘Don’t know who that’d be. You need a special permit to moor here, you know.’

Malloy looked at Silver and jerked his head. ‘You’d better get a move on, Joe. We haven’t got time to waste.’

And so we all watched quite helplessly as Silver detached himself from the hidden group, and made his way down to the sea. I’d never noticed what a lolloping gait he had, and I wanted to shout ‘Good luck, good luck’ but my mouth felt like it was full of feathers, full of sawdust now, and anyway I knew I must keep quiet. And for the first time in my life, I wished I smoked, just to have something in my hands, something to do. Instead I sought my inhaler out and took a squirt, and I felt Deb eyeing me warily. She took my arm and held it protectively, almost possessively, like your best mate does at school.

We were all desperately spying through any gaps we could find. The speedboat had cut its engine now, and was throwing down its anchor, still out to sea. And then all eyes were drawn to a figure, a woman, who staggered out onto the deck of a faded green boat called
Miranda Jane.
The woman waved at the other boat with obvious relief. A mutter went through the police, and Malloy swiftly switched his gaze to her. She was
wearing some sort of hooded sweatshirt, the hood snugly up against the wind, and I couldn’t see her face from where I stood—but in her arms she carried something carefully, and my heart soared right up to the moody sky. Louis! Then she turned slightly, and I saw it wasn’t him at all; just a heavy bag that she was clutching in her arms.

And then Silver reached the jetty and called out to her, and she jumped and dropped the bag. She fell against the boat’s side and her hood slipped down as she turned, and I saw it was Maxine. I took an involuntary step forward, but Deb was quicker, and held me back.

‘Maxine Dufrais, sir,’ Deb muttered to her boss, who nodded curtly. And Silver was talking to her, but all we heard was the sharp cries of mewling gulls, and the distant slap of the ever-roughening sea against the wall, against the boats. And as we watched, Maxine looked around quite desperately, wondering where to go. Nowhere, was the answer—there wasn’t anywhere to run—but I couldn’t see how Silver could get onto the boat unless she let him up. We could see he was trying to reason with her; a lot of gesticulating was going on, and occasionally she looked towards the small gangplank, raised up on the deck.

‘Where’s Louis? Just get Louis out, please God,’ I was muttering aloud, and Deb took my hand and squeezed it, and then Maxine was peering out to sea, and moving round the deck. A burly figure on the other boat waved at her, almost carefree he seemed, whoever this man was.

And now Silver was walking away, then he turned back to her and said something else, and she was obviously crying now, pleading with him frenziedly, starting to look hysterical as she saw she had no way out. She paced back and forth across the tiny deck as the wind whipped up higher, chopping the water even more now; and she stumbled badly as the boat lurched once more.

The man on the speedboat, almost just a little match-stick man from where we stood, he was waving and gesturing more frantically too.

‘What’s the silly bugger doing?’ grunted Malloy, training his binoculars on the man. ‘He don’t seem to have a Scooby that he’s in big trouble if the baby’s with the blonde.’

And then, suddenly, all hell broke loose. Maxine turned from Silver and made a dash for it; she went diving awkwardly into the sea. As one, we all surged forwards. And, almost at the same time, Silver ran the other way and he grabbed a tatty plank lying between the lobster pots, and hurled it up to the boat. By some feat of genius, God knew how, he was up that precarious walkway, onto the deck. We couldn’t see where Maxine was now, she’d gone over the side away from us so she was hidden from the shore, and I was thinking, ‘This is it, thank God, this is it,’ and I broke into a run. I skirted the lumbering Malloy and dapper Glasses and left Deb behind, falling over my own feet, and I went down once into the grit, but got up again; my hand was bleeding now but I didn’t care because Louis must be in my sights—

And then Silver was backing down the deck, and
there was someone else there on the boat. A figure standing just inside the cabin, so I couldn’t quite make them out. And Silver put his arms up in a sort of conciliatory way, and I realised, with my heart almost in my mouth, that the figure was pointing what could only be a gun, straight at Silver’s chest.

‘Stay there, Jess,’ he shouted, and I skidded to a halt at the foot of the plank. And the figure, who was wearing some sort of hooded cagoule, laughed and shouted back. And the tobacco and the mentions of seasickness, those little signs, those clues that had so eluded me, all spun together, came together in that one moment—and now finally I knew it. Who it was who’d stolen my son. So desperate for a baby she’d do anything—even sail right out to sea with him. I pictured her face as she opened the door of my sitting room and saw me sobbing on the floor above my bawling baby, and I remembered the fear that had crossed those benign features. It had been followed swiftly by something else, something fleeting that I’d shut out—but nevertheless it had been there. Anger. No, not even that. Jealousy.

‘Freddie,’ I gasped, but no one else could hear. The figure was talking again now, waving the gun at Silver.

‘No, tell her to come here. The rest, they can stop right where they are,’ and I felt the pack behind me slow down and stop, and I thought, I know that voice, and then she stepped outside onto the deck and I realised I’d been wrong. This woman moved elegantly, was much too slight of build. She wasn’t tall enough. It wasn’t Freddie at all…

‘Is Louis there? Have you got my son?’ I shouted, and my voice went kind of wobbly. How could I have been so wrong? It was my nemesis who’d taken Louis—of course it was. My rival in love and luck—the indomitable Agnes.

‘Maybe,’ she sneered, without looking at me. Her gaze was fixed on Silver, his gaze was on the gun. And then there was a terrible commotion in the water, and I could see Silver and Agnes both look down into the sea. The man on the speedboat was yelling now; I still wasn’t near enough to hear his words but I realised he was pointing frantically at the water, and Silver said to Agnes very calmly, ‘Let me just throw her the lifebelt, Agnes, okay?’ and Agnes curled her lip disdainfully, and said, ‘If she’s so stupid as to jump, she should pay the price, I think.’

Silver kept trying to cajole her, but she ignored him. He glanced at me, and I could have sworn he winked, just once, and then suddenly he dived into the sea.

‘For Christ’s sake, Silver,’ I yelled, but it was too late. Now he’d also vanished from my view. And Agnes trained the gun at me, and said icily, ‘If you ever want to see your son again, come here,’ and so I obeyed. I glanced down towards the road, and I saw the little huddle of coppers frozen there. Deb looked like she was going to cry. I turned my back on them, and walked the gangplank to my fate.

I didn’t care if she shot me dead; I didn’t care at all right then. I didn’t care about anything but seeing that Louis was still alive. The boat creaked and swung in
the wind, and I tensed my feet against the tarry deck, and sought my sea-legs. The gulls were so bloody loud, it was almost impossible to hear much else, but I strained and strained to listen for my Louis.

‘Have you got him? Is he here?’ I demanded, as I faced her on the deck now. She looked terrible; her hair frizzed out beneath her cagoule hood, her face all smeared with engine-oil. Worse, a tic was going in her cheek, jumping up and down it was, uncontrollably. The gun she held was big and bulky, not an ordinary gun, but one to shoot distress flares from, I guessed.

‘Have you got my son?’ I asked again, a little louder now, and she shrugged almost nonchalantly, though defiance blazed in her flinty eyes.

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Agnes, stop playing silly-buggers. There’s no way out of this, you know.’

Perhaps I should have been more scared; rationally, I’m sure I should, as she stood there so deranged, cocking some old gun at me like she was Clint Eastwood. But an amazing sense of calm suddenly suffused me; the knowledge that I’d die gladly for my son—take any punishment I must. My heart was going so damn fast it almost hurt, but I could sense that Louis was near, I knew he was, and every maternal instinct I’d ever felt rang its bell; kept on ringing till I was almost deafened.

She kept the gun pointed at me, but her hands were shaking now and it seemed to weigh her down. Her face and body spoke of utter exhaustion and defeat. It had begun to rain; a thin harsh drizzle stung my face, and I almost savoured getting wet.

‘Why did you do it, Agnes?’ I asked quietly, and I took a little step towards her.

‘Why not?’

‘That’s a bollocks answer, and you know it.’

‘Because, okay? Why should I explain to you?’ and she was spitting venom now, pushing her hood back, the rain drenching her angular face. I sensed an internal battle in her head, but she looked me squarely in the eye. ‘Because you had it all, and I had nothing any more, okay? Because I wanted Mickey’s baby and I wasn’t—I couldn’t do it.’

‘Why?’ I scoffed. ‘Because you didn’t want to give up your designer lifestyle?’

She looked at me like I was mad, drew herself up. ‘What are you talking about? I would have given anything to have his child.’

‘Well, why didn’t you then?’

‘Because I couldn’t.’ Her lip curled. ‘Surely he told you that?’

I thought back, my mind scrambling over the obstacle course of recent events. ‘No. He said you didn’t want to.’

She looked like she was going to cry. She straightened up the gun. ‘He never said that, you liar. He never would have said that.’

I didn’t like the steady gun, and the look on her face was quite mad now. ‘No, all right, he didn’t say exactly that,’ I agreed quickly.

‘I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But I couldn’t do it. I was—unwell.’

‘Unwell?’ I shook my head uncomprehendingly.

‘We tried for years. I couldn’t. In the end, I had to—’ she glared at me ‘—I had an operation.’

I remembered the folder in the attic. The Harley Street doctor. The advice on recuperation after major surgery. The penny finally dropped.

‘I had a hysterectomy. So that was that. You see. Nothing. No child of my own. Impossible.’

‘But,’ I tried to gather my thoughts, ‘Mickey said that you—you
wouldn’t
give him kids.’

I thought back to that horrible scene in the Soho restaurant and my heart sank. I realised it was only how I’d read his words, not what he’d actually said. I saw his angry face, unusually flushed, his dark eyes snapping with pain, his long fingers crumbling the bread-roll into a thousand tiny crumbs.

‘And you said they—weren’t your thing. You told me that yourself,’ I persisted, but I was wincing at my naivety now. ‘When I met you at the hotel.’

‘Why should I tell you the truth? I hated you. Why would I tell my enemy the thing I wanted most?’ She dashed back rain—or tears, I couldn’t tell—with the back of her hand, and I felt a sudden and unexpected sorrow for her. Poor, perfect Agnes, who had everything money could buy and more, defeated by the one thing she desired more than life itself. My anger finally dissipated.

‘But this isn’t the right way to get a child,’ I said, and I hoped desperately that I sounded soothing. ‘It’s mad, Agnes. It was hardly your only option, surely? I mean—you didn’t have to do this—this stupid thing, did you?’

‘But I didn’t want
a
child. Not any child. I wanted Mickey’s baby—and that was all.’

‘Yes, okay. I understand it must have been horrible for you.’

‘You don’t understand. You became pregnant without even trying—apparently.’ Her tragic eyes flooded with tears again.

‘Okay, you’re right.’ Instinctively, I put my hands out, trying to placate her. ‘But I can sympathise.’

‘I don’t want your sympathy. You know, I’d worked so hard to make everything so perfect, but it wasn’t. Because in the end, well—I knew Mickey, you see. Oh God, you have no idea how well I know that man.’ She pushed her hair out of her face, and I saw that her nails were chewed down to the quick now. The gun-hand was wavering again, tired and unsure. ‘Mickey would never take another man’s child into his house. He’s not like that, you must know that yourself. He is too—proud.’