Tania Carver - The Surrogate

She nodded and he left her to it. She opened the first file, marked Lisa King, and began to read. She hadn’t reached the photos before she felt her stomach start to lurch. The uniform placed the coffee down on the desk and she took a mouthful. It tasted bitter. She felt it swirl around in her stomach. She kept reading.

Her head began to swim. She swallowed hard, blinked. Picked up the next file: Susie Evans. Read on. It became harder to breathe. Despite the room being large and open, it felt stuffy and hot. She needed air. Her stomach lurched and a heaving sensation began working its way up her chest. Her hand went to her throat, tried to hold down the rising acid and bile. She looked again at the photos.

And knew she was going to be sick.

Phil Brennan pulled the Audi into the car park, switched off the engine.

‘Come on,’ he said to Clayton, unfastening his seat belt and swinging open the door. ‘Report to write. Let’s see if Anni’s back yet.’

Clayton didn’t move. ‘You go on without me, boss. Just got something I need to do.’

‘What, put in a harassment claim because I made you listen to Neil Young? Again?’

Clayton managed a polite smile. It had sounded like the same three-note song all the way back. He had hated it. ‘Just got an idea,’ he said. As he spoke, his eyes darted round, looking anywhere but at Phil. ‘Thought someone in that scrapyard looked familiar.’

‘Who?’

Clayton began to get out of the car. ‘Not sure. Give me a couple of hours.’

‘Don’t take too long,’ said Phil.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Clayton, turning and walking away. ‘First twenty-four hours and all that.’

Phil bit back the retort, tamped down the irritation he felt at his junior officer. Let him go, he thought. Give him his head. He entered the building, pushing through the doors, swiping his pass. He felt tense, on edge.

Nothing to do with seeing Marina again. All to do with the clock ticking, he said to himself.

He made his way up to his office.

Marina stood outside the bar, trying to pluck up courage to enter once again. She knew what they must be thinking of her.

Civilian. Can’t stand the heat. Can’t take the pressure. Shouldn’t do it, then. And a woman, what can you expect?

She knew. Was sure they were saying it out loud. Normally she would be in there, confronting them, facing down anyone who dared to question her fitness for the job. But not this time. This time she didn’t blame them. This time she even agreed with them.

She put her hand beneath her coat, cradling the baby growing inside her. It might not have been planned, but she didn’t want anything to happen to it. To her. Not like in those reports, those photos. Dead mothers. Dead babies.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to the bar, walked back in. A few heads turned in her direction, then went back to what they had been doing. She walked over to her desk, sat down again, picked up a report.

‘You okay?’

She looked up. Fenwick was standing over her, concern in his eyes. She gave a quick look round the room. Saw only sympathetic looks in her direction, nothing judgemental.

She nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s just…’

‘Don’t worry. Nobody blames you for your reaction. I told you this was a bad one. I mean, I’m sure I’ve dealt with worse, but I really can’t remember when.’

She nodded again.

‘There’s something else,’ said Fenwick, leaning over her. ‘Now that you’ve had a look at the files I should tell you. In the first murder the baby was cut up in the mother’s stomach. In the second it was removed. The baby in this morning’s murder is missing.’

‘Oh God…’

‘So work your magic, the quicker the better, please.’

He laid a hand on her shoulder that could have been either comforting or patronising and walked away, leaving her to it. She watched him go into his office, close the door.

She looked at the reports in front of her, then to her notebook. She opened the Susie Evans report again, began to read once more. She was here to do a job.

She became engrossed, didn’t notice someone standing at her side until they spoke.

‘Hey.’

Her breath caught in her throat. She stopped reading. She wanted to look up but didn’t dare until she was ready.

‘Hey yourself.’

He looked good. A bit thinner perhaps but that was no bad thing. She found a smile for him and sat upright in her chair. ‘You still here, then?’

‘They tried to get rid of me, kept coming back.’

‘Bit like me,’ she said.

Phil smiled, then looked round the room, as if aware that people might be staring. Marina was unsure how many people knew of their relationship or its ending and she felt herself blushing. She picked up the coffee mug to cover it, put it to her lips. Cold. She made a face, replaced it on the desk.

‘I’ll get you some fresh,’ he said.

‘Doesn’t matter. I doubt it’ll taste any better.’

Silence. She saw Phil’s mouth move, as if rehearsing what he wanted to say. But knew he wouldn’t say it.

‘Ben Fenwick been looking after you?’ he said eventually.

‘My every whim catered for.’

Phil gave another smile. ‘Is that right. You got everything you need?’

She nodded.

‘Good.’ Another look round, then back to her. ‘How’s…’ He paused.

She knew he was only pretending to forget the name.

‘Tony,’ she said, prompting him.

‘Tony. Right. He okay?’

‘Fine.’ She looked into the coffee mug. ‘Everything. Fine and Jim Dandy.’ She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, breathed in, her stomach suddenly feeling enormous.

‘Whoever he is,’ said Phil. ‘Well, you look like you know what you’re doing. I’ll leave you to it, right?’

‘Okay.’

‘Right.’

‘You said that already.’

He laughed. ‘Right.’ Laughed again. ‘Well… I’m sure I’ll see you later.’

‘Later.’

He moved away, walking towards his desk. She kept her eyes on him the whole time, then shook her head. No, she thought, that’s the last thing I need right now.

She put her head down, looked again at the paperwork in front of her but couldn’t concentrate. There had been too many things left unsaid between her and Phil. Things they should talk about. If she decided she wanted to. But they would have to wait.

She went back to the reports. Concentrating this time.

Because lives depended on it.

Emma Nicholls sat down behind her desk and gave DC Anni Hepburn a smile intended to convey confidence and professionalism but which instead screamed tension and barely suppressed emotion.

She was dressed as if for a normal day at work as a head teacher: black two-piece trouser suit, light-coloured blouse, hair cut into a long bob. But the day was no longer normal. Two of her teachers had been murdered and now the school had been invaded by police.

DC Anni Hepburn had been a detective long enough to develop a detachment that enabled her to do her job effectively while still retaining sympathy for the victims of violent crime. She hoped she always would. Human debris, was how she often secretly referred to them. Broken remains needing – and hoping for – repair. But she had also been a detective long enough to know that that wouldn’t always happen.

Emma Nicholls, she thought, would be all right eventually. She hadn’t seen what Anni had seen earlier that day in Claire Fielding’s flat, smelled what she had smelled. And, as the headmistress kept stressing, her relationship with Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson had been mainly professional.

‘Please understand,’ Emma Nicholls said, tipping her head back and appearing to audition words in her head before trusting them to leave her mouth, ‘that my primary concern is for this school.’