THIRTY-THREE

Kate

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012

It took another two days for Sparkes, Angela Irving, and the officer on the case to speak and for Angela’s DNA test to be booked.

“It’s only three phone calls,” Kate said to Joe. “How can it take this long to make an appointment?”

Her frustration was amplified by the cat-and-mouse game she was playing with the news editor and his sudden interest in putting Kate on every story that landed on his desk.

She had managed to kill off three of Terry’s ideas before Bob Sparkes finally left a message on her mobile. “Contact made with Angela Irving and have passed on her details to the London boys. Speak soon.”

Before she could call him back, Angela phoned. She was so agitated she forgot to say hello.

“Kate, I’m coming up to London tomorrow,” she said. “I said I’d rather come to them than do it here. They want to test me to match against Alice . . . the baby.”

“Hi, Angela,” Kate said, trying to sound neutral. She knew that, despite herself, her feelings for the bereaved mother had been affected by the new information from DI Rigby. He’d talked about an Angela she hadn’t known and the words “cold fish” had stuck in her head.

“It’s great that they are doing the tests but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.”

“Yes, sorry. But I can’t help it. You can’t imagine what it feels like, after all these years, to be so close to finding out.”

“Of course. But the news may not be good, Angela,” Kate said.

Angela paused.

“I know. I’m trying to keep calm. But it is so hard. And I’m not even sure what would be good news. Whatever the results show, it’ll be bad news, really, won’t it? If it is her, my baby is dead. And if it isn’t, I am still in this terrible limbo. But there may be some hope. Oh God, I can’t think straight.”

“Of course you can’t. You must be going through hell,” Kate soothed. “It must be so emotional for you. And your husband.”

“Nick? Oh yes, he’s as anxious as I am,” Angela said.

Kate noted the change in tone.

“Is your husband coming with you tomorrow?” she asked.

There was another pause. “I haven’t asked him yet. I think he’ll be too busy,” Angela said.

She hasn’t told him, Kate thought. How interesting.

She moved the conversation on swiftly: “Who did you talk to in the Met, Angela?”

“A DI Sinclair.”

“And how did he sound when he spoke to you?” Kate wondered how seriously the Met were taking this new lead.

“Friendly. But he didn’t give anything away. Just said they would do swab tests and come back to me.”

“Nothing about any forensics so far?”

“No. I’m not sure they’ve even started, to be honest. That’s what DI Sparkes said,” Angela added. “He’s a nice man.”

“He is. So would you like to meet afterwards for a coffee?” Kate said. Keep her close. Just in case.

“Lovely, thanks. The appointment is at ten. Mr. Sinclair said it would only take a few minutes.”

“But they’ll want to talk to you about Alice as well, Angela. It won’t just be a mouth swab. It would be a good idea to take all the documents you’ve got. Everything helps.”

“Yes, I will. Shall I give you a call when I’ve finished?”

“Great and I’ll come and meet you.”

•   •   •

When Kate rang Bob Sparkes back, he answered immediately.

“Kate,” he said. “All sorted?”

“Yes, thanks, Bob. Angela is coming up to town tomorrow. She’s in a terrible state. I hope they’re nice to her. What did DI Sinclair say when you called him?” she asked, throwing in the name to show she was on the case.

“Not very hopeful. He thinks it’s pretty impossible—identifying an infant after what is probably decades underground is incredibly difficult. Newborn babies don’t have fully formed bones so there isn’t much material to test for DNA. And what there is might be too degraded to be useful. And with a newborn you know that he or she won’t be on the database and so we are straight into the imprecise world of familial DNA, trying to find parents from, effectively, half a profile. It really doesn’t look likely that a match will be found.”

“Have they done any tests yet?” she asked.

“The basics, but lots more to do. He did say there were what looked like shreds of paper and a plastic carrier bag sticking to the remains so can’t be earlier than the sixties—that’s when plastic carriers first appeared in the UK—but nothing more concrete on dates. Look, don’t get your hopes up on this one, Kate. Let’s see.”

She refused to join in with his negativity. “Of course it’s an outside chance but I’ve got a feeling about this, Bob,” she said and heard him laugh at the other end of the phone.

“You’ve always got a feeling, Kate. Speak to you soon.”

And he was gone.

“What did he say?” Joe asked.

“Hey, are you earwigging my every conversation?” she snapped.

“Couldn’t help overhearing. And I am working on the story with you,” he said. He’s learning, she thought.

“Okay. In a nutshell: The Met hasn’t started the full forensics yet; the copper with the file thinks it’s an impossible case; babies are difficult to test; blah blah. Onwards and upwards, I say.”

Joe smiled and nodded.

“Look, while the detectives are buggering about with the DNA, why don’t we look at the Howard Street residents from the sixties and seventies?” Kate said. “I had a funny phone call the other day from a woman who called herself Anne Robinson. Pretty sure it wasn’t her real name, but she said she lived in Howard Street around the right time and there was a house full of drug addicts in the road. She wouldn’t leave a number or anything, but it’s worth checking out. We have no idea what happened to that baby or who was living round there. And we can get out of here for the rest of the day.

“Thought I’d show Joe some old-style investigation tricks, if you don’t need me,” she called across to Terry.

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” he said, waving her good-bye. “Don’t lose him . . .”

•   •   •

Parking near Woolwich Library was murder, but Kate finally found a space and reversed, badly, into it. I hate bloody parallel parking, she screamed in her head and tried to have cooling thoughts before peeling herself off her seat.

“Come on,” she said to Joe, who was still scrolling through Facebook on his phone. “We’re going to look at something made of paper for a change.”

In the reference section he trailed behind her, his eyes fixed on his phone, as she asked for old electoral registers for Howard Street.

The woman librarian sniffed at the request—They must train them to do that, Kate thought—but brought her the voters’ lists for the area from the 1960s and 1970s without any further comment.

“Thanks,” Kate said to her departing back and pulled the bulky, unbound documents towards her. The pages had curled at the edges over the years and she wondered when they had last been turned.

The residents’ names were listed by roads and house number, and she went straight to Howard Street and the terrace where the baby had been found.

“We’re looking specifically at numbers 61 to 67, Joe. The houses that backed onto the building site area. Oh, for God’s sake, put that phone down!” she hissed.

He did as he was told and sat expectantly at a Formica table. Kate knew she was still glowing from her Top Gear rush-hour-parking challenge. It had triggered a flush and she could feel every inch of her skin pulsing with heat.

“Are you all right, Kate?” Joe said. “You look a bit red.”

“I’m fine. Bit hot in here, that’s all,” she said tetchily.

“Oh right,” Joe said.

She knew what he was thinking. Menopause. And for menopause, read old, irrational, past it, a woman. She bridled, furious that he was judging her professionalism on her estrogen levels. He probably couldn’t even spell “estrogen.” But the lecture would have to wait. She had work to do. She forced a smile and thought cold thoughts to make the flush recede. She’d read about it in a well-woman leaflet once. Nonsense but anything was worth a go.

She pushed the 1960s towards him. “You do this lot. Write down the names and dates of everyone who lived in the terrace. And at number 81—the drug den. Then we’ll look for where they are now when we get back to the office.”

She pulled the 1970s towards her.

After ten minutes, they had a list. It was shorter than Kate had thought—the folks of Howard Street had been long-term residents in the sixties and the transition from family homes to rented bedsits and flats had taken a few years after that.

“How many have you got?” she asked.

Joe counted them slowly. “Twelve,” he said. “Nobody moved in or out. Married couples, I think, with adult children, maybe.”

“Great,” she said. “Any names we know? Laidlaw for instance?”

“No. One of the families was the Smiths, at number 65.”

“Damn,” she said, too loudly, alarming the man reading the Times at the next table.

“Sorry,” she mouthed.

“Any more unusual names?” she asked Joe. “‘Smith’ is a nightmare.”

“Speering, Baker, and Walker,” he reeled off.

“Right,” she said, checking her notes. “I’ve got two of the same families in the early seventies. But everything was changing. Look, six different names for number 63 by 1974—and they are all singletons. People moved on every couple of years.”

“The people at 81 don’t look very interesting,” Joe said. “It’s the same couple throughout the sixties.”

“And then no names on my list. The woman who rang in said they were squatters or something, so there’s unlikely to be an official trace. We’ll ask around. We’ve got our hands full anyway.”

Joe ran his finger down the page. “There are loads of them. How will we find them?”

“We don’t need to find all of them. Just some. You’ll see. Find one person and they’ll lead you to others. Have a little faith, Joe.”

Kate tidied up her careful notes and Joe photographed the pages with his mobile phone.