Chapter One
They were late for school. Very late. And she had no one to blame but herself. She had forgotten to top up the electricity meter, the power had gone off sometime in the middle of the night and, as a result, her clock radio had failed to wake her at eight o’clock.
Waiting at the pedestrian crossing, she pushed her left sleeve up and looked at her watch. It was two minutes past nine.
“Fuck.”
“Naughty word, Mummy.” Tommy pulled her hand.
“I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said the naughty word. Oh, there’s the green man. Keep hold of my hand, it’s after nine o’clock.”
They crossed the street and she crouched down outside the school gates. She gave him a hug and a kiss, put a clean handkerchief in his trouser pocket and was about to pass him his bright yellow school rucksack when feet approached quickly from behind. She went to straighten up and move aside when she was given a hard shove and she found herself sprawled and winded on the footpath on top of the rucksack. Heaving herself up onto her hands and knees, she peered behind her as a dark-haired woman picked Tommy up and ran across the pedestrian crossing with him.
“No.” She tried to scream, but the word only came out as a croak.
She got to her feet and ran after them onto the crossing as a car horn beeped and tyres screeched on the tarmacadam...
Okay, this was strange. Why couldn’t she see clearly? Everything was fuzzy but, focusing as hard as she could, she could see the outline of someone sitting in a chair. Reaching out, her fingers found the edges of the bed. It was a single, so she couldn’t be in her double bed at home. So, where was she? Inhaling a strong whiff of disinfectant, her nose wrinkled. Hospital? How had she ended up in hospital? Blinking and widening her eyes made no difference to the fuzziness so, shutting them, she slept.
When she opened her eyes again her vision was clear. Blue curtains surrounded her single bed. She could hear feet rushing up and down outside and someone throwing up a little too close to her for comfort. It could only be an Accident and Emergency cubicle. Rolling onto her back, she winced as her head began throbbing. Fuck. No, don’t swear. Mustn’t swear in case Tommy heard. Tommy! She tried to sit up but couldn’t, she was lying on her hair. Twisting around for the emergency button, she spotted Stephen. Inhaling her breath, she coughed and almost choked.
Sitting and leaning slightly forward in a plastic chair beside the bed, he was holding a lock of her waist-length curly blonde hair in his fingers and watching her without a sound. Oh, bloody hell, of all the officers in the London Metropolitan Police, it had to be Stephen. Coughing, she lay back on the pillow until it passed. Then her head started pounding again and he spoke.
“You’re in the Accident and Emergency Department at St Hilary’s Hospital. You have bruising and mild concussion.” She nodded and instantly regretted it. “What do you remember?”
“What information do you have?” she asked.
“You first,” he replied and she heaved herself up a little on the pillows, spotting huge purple bruises on her elbow and upper right arm, but relieved she was still wearing her T-shirt and jeans.
“I was outside the school gates saying goodbye to Tommy. I gave him a hug and a kiss and I was about to pass him his school rucksack. Then—” She went to shake her head but stopped herself just in time. “Then, I heard feet running up behind us. I went to step to one side with Tommy to let whoever it was pass us but she pushed me over and grabbed Tommy from me. She picked Tommy up and ran across the road with him. I got up and went after them but a car got in the way.”
He nodded. “The woman has been described as tall, well-built and dark-haired.”
“It was Jackie,” she said and watched him shrink back from her.
“Jackie Burns?” he demanded. “You’re sure?”
“You think I’d forget my only sister-in-law and what she and you did?”
“Do you have a current address for her?” he asked, instead of rising to the bait.
“No, I bloody don’t but she’s probably still at the same fancy apartment.”
“Okay, I’ll send some officers there. I won’t be a moment.” Taking a smartphone out of the inside pocket of his black suit jacket, he got up and pulled the curtain aside before going out. She heard him speaking in low but urgent tones to someone and being told to turn the phone off by a female voice.
“When was the last time you spoke to Jackie?” he continued, coming back into the cubicle. “Or seen her?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“And Tommy is how old?” he asked, retaliating at last.
She glared at him before throwing back the bedcovers. Gingerly, she got out of bed, and carefully crouched down at the bedside locker. Opening the door, she saw that her jacket and shoes, handbag and plastic hair clasp had been shoved inside and she began pulling them out, feeling him watch her every move.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m not staying here exchanging smart comments with you, Stephen,” she replied, throwing the items onto the bed. Straightening up, she gathered her hair together and pinned it up as best she could with the plastic clasp. “Get a nurse, I’m discharging myself.”
“What? No. Absolutely not. For God’s sake, you’ve got a head injury, you need to be admitted and kept under observation.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “If you won’t get a nurse, I’ll go and find one myself.”
Swearing under his breath, Stephen pulled the curtain aside and left the cubicle again.
Ten minutes later, they left an exasperated staff nurse behind and waited for the lift to come down from the fourth floor.
“Detective Constable Jan Carter will be assigned to you as your liaison officer,” Stephen told her. “She’s on her way to your flat now. We got your address from the school.”
“Not you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then, who’s heading the investigation?” she added.
“I am,” he replied, extending a hand as the lift doors opened and she went in. “I’m a Detective Inspector now. So don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.” He followed her inside, the doors closed, and he pressed the button for the ground floor. “When exactly were you going to tell me I had a son?”
“When exactly were you going to tell me you were sleeping with my brother’s wife?”
He sighed. “It happened once. It was the biggest mistake I have ever made.”
Not wanting to stare at him as the lift brought them up from the lower ground floor, she took the opportunity to observe him in the mirrors lining the walls. The black suit he wore was creased, his cheeks were heavily stubbled, and he seemed exhausted. Had he been in the hospital all night with her? If it had been night time. What time was it, actually? She pushed her jacket sleeve up her left wrist to look at her watch but it wasn’t there. She sighed and focused her attention on the mirrors again.
Stephen’s dark hair and stubble made him appear deathly pale but that could be shock, too. Finding her again after so long and discovering he had a five-year-old son was enough to knock anyone sideways. Six years ago she’d thought he was the love of her life but then he’d betrayed her in the worst possible way. How did she feel seeing him again now and hearing his regret? She went to raise a hand to her throbbing head before lowering it, not wanting to hear another lecture on how she should still be in bed and under observation. She just wanted Tommy back. She’d contemplate her feelings for Stephen when she could think straight.
Tailing him across the hospital car park, she watched as he beeped open a black Ford Focus and opened the passenger door for her.
“Who knows about us?” she asked, getting in as he walked around the car before getting into the driver’s seat.
“No one.”
“But you’ll never be able to keep it a secret.”
“Just you watch me. I’m quite good at keeping secrets, too.” He reached for his seat belt. “Look, if you’d prefer for someone else to take over, just tell me.”
“No, but be careful for God’s sake.”
Following her directions, he pulled up in a car park located in front of three dilapidated 1960s tower blocks.
“Which one do you live in?” he asked, craning his neck to get a better look at them.
“Tommy and I live on the top floor of the middle one.”
“The top?” he echoed and she saw him try to hide a grimace.
The lift wasn’t working yet again so they climbed the stairs to the twenty-fourth floor, stepping over hypodermic needles and used condoms. In a way, she was relieved, who knows what delights they might have seen or smelt in the lift. She waited for Stephen to make a comment but, to her surprise, he said nothing.
A young woman with short ginger hair was waiting outside the flat and Stephen introduced her as Detective Constable Jan Carter. Becca searched her handbag for her keys, hoping they weren’t lying on the road outside Tommy’s school, before finding them beside her watch at the very bottom. She opened the battered front door and the three of them went into the flat, Stephen telling the Detective Constable that he had been given an address and officers were on their way there.
The two-bedroomed council flat was like going through a time warp back to the nineteen seventies. Everything was brown – the colour of poo – as Tommy had once described it. She hadn’t been able to afford to re-decorate yet, except for Tommy’s bedroom with wallpaper she had bought in a closing-down sale, and to paint over the horrific swirly living room wallpaper with the cheapest Magnolia-coloured paint she could find.
“Are you up to being questioned?” Jan asked her gently.
“Questioned?” She threw her handbag onto the ancient, sagging, and bloody uncomfortable brown sofa. “Jackie Burns took Tommy and I want him back.”
“Sir?” Jan turned to Stephen, standing at the scratched chipboard display cabinet examining the framed photographs. He had one of Tommy in his hands. God, they were so alike.
“Tommy’s birthday?” he enquired, looking straight past Jan and at her.
“Yes. His fifth. Take it.”
“‘Concepta aged ten’.” Jan had picked up and glanced at the back of a framed photograph of her as a ten-year-old and which had been inscribed by her mother.
“I’m Concepta,” she explained. “Well, I was. The first thing I did when I left school was to change my name by deed poll. I’m Rebecca Hills now. Becca for short.”
“Concepta – bloody hell.”
“Tell me about it.” She almost smiled. “So, you can understand why I much prefer Becca. At school, I might as well have had a notice tattooed on my forehead with, ‘Bully Me’ on it. Except, no one dared to.”
“Why not?” Jan frowned.
“My original surname was Burns.”
“Burns.” Jan’s face paled. “You’re a member of the Burns family from the East End? Your mother is Ma Burns?”
“That’s right. She had six kids and I was the only girl. You might have heard of my eldest brother, Pat?” she enquired.
Jan nodded. “So Jackie Burns is your sister-in-law?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen nor spoken to her for nearly six years, nor to any of my family for a good few years before that.”
“Why is that?” Jan took a notebook from her handbag and opened it.
“My mother had named me after her mother, so she never forgave me for changing my name. But I’d always felt different – like I didn’t belong with them – and I longed to escape. She’d done her best to turn me into her – so I could take over from her when the time came – or become head of my own family of drug dealers eventually. She sent me away to a posh boarding school and I wasn’t allowed to mix with the local kids when I was home. But I hated my names and I hated being brought up wrapped in cotton wool so I changed my name and I moved away. But they couldn’t – or wouldn’t – leave me alone. Six years ago my brother, John, left Jackie for another woman shortly after they discovered she couldn’t have children. Jackie went to pieces. Somehow, she managed to track me down and she found out I was pregnant. She was jealous. She couldn’t allow me to be happy while she wasn’t, so she slept with my partner. It worked.” Becca gave Jan a bitter smile. “I left him.”
“Even though you were pregnant?”
“He didn’t know.”
“I see,” Jan murmured, scribbling in the notebook. “And when did you last see her?”
“Not since I found her and my partner in bed together,” she replied without looking at Stephen.
“Strange that she didn’t tell your partner you were pregnant?”
“It was,” she admitted. “But better for Jackie to have her family and mine fussing over her rather than me.”
“So have you any idea why Jackie would target you or your son now?” Jan added and she shrugged.
“Jackie clearly hasn’t come to terms with the fact she can’t have children and that my brother left her because of it. I don’t know how she’s managed to track me down. After she found me the last time, I’m extra careful who I give my name and address to. I haven’t been in contact with her or the rest of my family for six years. Oh, God, I hope she hasn’t told them all where I am, that’s the last thing I need.”
“How long have you lived here?” Jan turned a page over in her notebook and waited, pen poised, for her to answer.
“Just over a year. I asked to be re-housed because the estate Tommy and I lived on was becoming a no-go area and I didn’t want Tommy growing up there. I want him to be able to go outside and play with other children. This estate has a good playground and is paradise in comparison.”
Going to the drawers in the bottom of the display cabinet, she crouched down. Trying not to wince at the throbbing pain in her head brought on by any sudden movement, she opened one and took out her address book. She flipped through the pages to surnames beginning with B and straightened up.
“This is the only address I have for Jackie, but it’s where the officers have already been sent to. She gave me the address John moved to after he left her and it’s in here, too. They’re from six years ago but take them.”
“I’ll have them checked out,” Jan replied, taking the book from her and putting it in her handbag. “Anything else, sir? Sir?”
“No,” Stephen answered, passing the photograph of Tommy to her. “Take this, too.”
“Take..?” Jan frowned. “You mean I’m going, sir, not you?”
“That’s right,” Stephen told her. “You’re going.”
“Yes, sir.” Jan had to obey, but looked and sounded thoroughly puzzled.
“Aren’t we all going to Jackie’s?” Becca demanded. “For God’s sake, let me go there and get Tommy and bring him home.”
“No.” Stephen spoke quietly but firmly. “Jan will liase with the other officers at the address you gave me for Jackie Burns. She will see if there is a child there and, if there is, she will use the photograph to identify the child.”
“Yes, sir.” Jan squeezed the photograph into her handbag and Becca watched helplessly as she left the living room and a moment later the front door opened and closed.
“Did you deliberately only send her so you could stay here and read the riot act to me?”
“Can I see some more photographs of Tommy, please?” Stephen asked instead of answering.
Becca nodded, going to the drawers again. She lifted out five photograph albums and they went to the sofa. Sitting down on the uncomfortable springs, she turned the pages in one of the albums until she reached the baby photographs, before passing it to him. She watched his face as he sat down beside her, his thigh rubbing against hers, and she made a pretence of trying to make herself comfortable on the sofa while moving as far away from him as the small sofa allowed. His black stubble was almost a beard and she clenched her fists in an effort to stop herself reaching out and touching it.
Stop it, Becca, she ordered herself. You don’t want him touching you, but you still want to try and touch him. You can’t have it both ways. Remember what he did with Jackie and, she realized with a pang, he’s probably married with children of his own now, anyway.
He went slowly through the pages then on to the next album, and the next, remaining remarkably calm. His brown eyes finally rested on one photograph – Tommy in his school uniform grinning at the camera on the morning of his first day at school the previous year. He sighed and for a moment she thought he was going to crack at last.
“He looks like you,” he said.
“No, he doesn’t,” she replied. “Every time I look at him I see you.”
“Then, why not tell me, Becca?” he demanded. “Did you really hate me that much?”
“Yes. You had sex with Jackie.”
“Yes, and it was the biggest mistake of my life.” It was the second time he had said that. It made her feel uneasy and her head began throbbing again. “Becca, are you all right?”
“My head hurts,” she admitted.
“You shouldn’t have discharged yourself.”
“Yes, I should.”
“No, Becca, you shouldn’t.” Putting the photograph albums on the floor, and taking her head in his hands, he gently tilted it to one side. He sank his fingers into her hair just above her left ear, running them lightly over her scalp. She winced at the pain but felt goose pimples running up and down her spine at his hands touching her again after so long. “You have an enormous lump here.”
“Yeah, well, leave it alone.”
“Sorry.” He extracted his fingers from her hair. “When did you last eat?”
“Don’t know. Anyway, I’m not hungry,” she lied. She was famished but knew that if she ate anything, she’d only throw up.
“All right. Can I see Tommy’s bedroom?”
“Yes.” She heaved herself up off the sofa and he followed her down the hall and into the room. “He likes the Teletubbies.” She explained the colourful wallpaper. “Well, he did. I think he’s outgrowing them a bit now.”
“I still like Sesame Street.”
She began to laugh, but it quickly turned to tears. She sat down on the bed with her throbbing head in her hands. “How the hell did Jackie find us? Why now? Why can’t she just leave us alone?”
“You know that money and drugs buy information, Becca. I don’t know. And because she clearly needs help.” He sat beside her again, far too close for comfort, and she fought another urge to move away from him.
“When did you see her last?” she asked, sniffing and fumbling in her jeans pocket for a handkerchief before remembering she had given it to Tommy at the school gates.
“That morning,” he replied. “She’d got what she wanted. Thanks to her I’ve missed out on so much with you and the son I didn’t even know I had.”
“Don’t, Stephen. Please. Not yet.”
“All right. Do you work?”
She nodded and winced. “Yes. I went back to work part-time when Tommy started school last year.”
“What do you do?”
“I work in a bookshop. Mornings. Bloody hell.” She clapped a hand to her pounding forehead. “I must ring Bill.”
“Let me,” Stephen offered.
“I can manage.”
“Becca,” he said patiently and she grimaced.
“Okay. The number is on the notepad by the telephone.”
He got up and returned to the living room. She followed but continued on through to the tiny kitchen and switched the electric kettle on. Her stomach was about to start rumbling. Hopefully, a mug of coffee would quieten the hunger pangs for a little bit. Hearing Stephen speaking with Bill, she made two mugs of coffee, added a spoon of sugar to his, stirred it and brought it to him when he ended the call.
“Thanks.” Stephen smiled, taking the mug. “He said that he tried to leave a message but couldn’t.”
“The answering machine part is broken. I’m saving up for a new telephone.”
Stephen took a sip of coffee, glanced at the telephone, and put the mug down beside it. “How the hell have you managed on your own?”
She shrugged. “I’ve always been a stubborn cow.”
His smartphone rang before he could respond and she returned to the kitchen for her mug.
“Connor. Yes, Jan. What?” Stephen exhaled a long sigh and she hurried to the kitchen door, her heart thumping. “Is Tommy okay?” he added. “Good. Where? Jackie Burns’? Okay, we’ll be right there.” He ended the call and put the phone in his jacket pocket. “Becca, Tommy is fine but Jackie’s dead. Looks like suicide.” She quickly put her mug down and covered her face with her hands. “Tommy is fine,” he assured her, taking her hands down from her face and squeezing them gently. “Jan is looking after him. He was sitting on the living room floor watching television. Come on, let’s go and fetch him.”
There were three police patrol cars and an ambulance outside the luxury apartment block where Jackie Burns had lived. Becca and Stephen travelled up to the third-floor in the glass-panelled lift, hurried along the corridor to the front door, and found Jan waiting there with Tommy holding her hand.
“Mummy!” Breaking free from Jan, he ran to her.
“Oh, God, Tommy.” She fell to her knees, hugging him tightly. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right.” He struggled out of her grasp giving Stephen a curious stare and she got to her feet.
“Stephen, this is Tommy,” she said shakily.
He nodded. “Go with Jan to the hospital. Get Tommy checked over. I’ll speak to you later.”
With that, he walked past them and into the apartment, leaving Becca staring after him in astonishment. Was that it? Wasn’t he going to greet his son for the first time?
“Becca?” Jan prompted and she turned to her. “Shall we go?”
Two hours later, Becca, Jan and Tommy arrived back at the flat. Tommy was put to bed, despite his protests, and Becca went back to the living room, sinking down onto the sofa with a groan.
“Shall I make you a coffee before I go?” Jan suggested.
“Yes, please,” she replied gratefully. “I can still taste that awful stuff from the machine in the hospital. Make one for yourself, too, and pour that disgusting cold stuff away.”
“Do you take sugar?”
“No, thanks.”
Jan smiled and went into the kitchen, returning five minutes later with two mugs of fresh coffee.
“What happens now?” Becca asked, taking a mug from her.
“Tommy will have to be interviewed.” Jan sat down in one of the battered brown armchairs, making a spring in the seat protest loudly.
“By a child protection officer?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Jan nodded and Becca saw her trying to find a comfortable position. “How are you?”
She pulled a weary expression. “I don’t really know. It hasn’t all quite sunk in yet.”
“You live on your own here with Tommy?” Jan added.
“Yes.”
“Tommy’s father isn’t around at all?”
“No.” She blew at the hot coffee before taking a sip.
“Sorry.” Jan crossed her legs, the spring in the seat protesting again, and she grimaced as she uncrossed them. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Becca smiled. “It doesn’t matter, it’s your job. No, it’s just been Tommy and me. Have you got kids?”
“No.”
”Doesn’t really go with the job, does it?”
Jan shook her head. “No. I want to try and make sergeant before I’m thirty. DI Connor thinks I will.”
“Oh. Good,” she replied, feeling an unwelcome stab of jealousy.
“He became a detective inspector at thirty-one,” Jan explained.
Thirty-one? So he threw himself into his work after she had disappeared. “Married to the job, is he?”
“Yeah.” Jan sighed. “No wife, no kids, no social life. It’s a pity, and an awful waste, because he’s gorgeous.”
No wife, no kids, no nothing? Why had Stephen become a recluse, Becca wondered, the knowledge dampening her welcome surprise. Despite their jobs, they had always enjoyed an active social life.
“I’m not sure how wise it is to have an affair or start a relationship with a colleague,” she told Jan, despite knowing she was a hypocrite for saying so. “Especially if you want to be a sergeant by thirty.”
“You can dream, though, can’t you?” Jan smiled.
“Oh, yeah,” Becca gave her a knowing nod. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
“Mummy?” Tommy began shouting from his bedroom. “Mummy, come here.”
“Coming.” She got up and went to him. He was sitting up in bed. “All right?”
“Do I have to stay in bed?” he moaned. “I’m bored.”
“Aren’t you tired?” She sat on the bed beside him and stroked his hair. His hair was curly, like hers, but it was very dark, and he got that and his brown eyes from Stephen. “You’ve had quite a day.”
“No. Can’t I watch television instead?”
She lowered her voice. “Jan is still in the living room.”
“Oh, please?” he begged.
“Okay, get dressed, and don’t have the television on too loud.”
“I won’t.” He climbed out of bed as the doorbell rang and ran to his clothes, neatly folded on a chair in a corner of the room. “Doorbell, Mummy.”
“I’ll get it,” she called to Jan as she went to the front door and opened it. Stephen stood on the step, a little out of breath after climbing the stairs. “Come in.”
“Thanks.” He followed her into the living room.
Jan was standing at the window examining the framed photographs on the ledge. She put one down and went to the armchair for her handbag. “Well, thanks a bunch, sir, for taking me for a complete idiot.”
“What are you talking about?” Stephen replied sharply.
“That.” Jan spun around, pointing to a photograph in a wooden frame. Stephen looked past her and Becca followed his gaze. The holiday photograph had been taken on the Mediterranean island of Crete ten years ago. They were on a beach, arms around each other, as if without a care in the world. “Once you knew Tommy was your son, you should have handed the case over, sir. The chief inspector is going to go nuts.”
“Well, if she does, then, it will be with me and I will take any blame.”
“Too right.” Jan snatched up her handbag and headed for the door. Reaching for the handle, the door opened, and Tommy came in. She stared down at him and he stared up at her before she sighed, shaking her head. “I must be getting really stupid in my old age.”
Tommy watched her go out with a puzzled expression before looking across the room at them. “Can I still watch television, Mummy?”
“Yes.” She took Stephen’s arm. “You come with me. We need to talk.”