Tania Carver - The Surrogate

And now the new baby.

Unplanned but welcomed, at least by Caroline. Because if she was honest – and lying in the dark awake when the rest of the world was asleep was the time for honesty – she had nothing else. No friends since the move, apart from the other young mothers. Her two kids treated her as their personal servant. Her husband ignored her. So yes, this baby was welcome.

She looked at Graeme again. The man she had given all her dreams and wishes to. Her heart and soul. Her one-time Romeo, now snoring and drooling from the side of his mouth.

He had better not be having an affair. That would mean the baby was all she had to look forward to. Please, let him not be…

The baby kicked again. She shifted, tried to get comfortable.

Sighed. It was going to be one of those nights.

Phil sat on the sofa in his living room, took a mouthful of beer. Held it in his mouth, rolled it round, swallowed. Head back, eyes closed. The remains of an Indian takeaway on the coffee table in front of him, Elbow playing on the stereo, ‘The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver’. He sighed, listening to the song, Guy Garvey singing about there being a long way to fall.

He had come in from work thinking about the case, particularly Fenwick’s behaviour. But a quick weights session on his home gym had worked that out of his mind. Now, when he should have been formulating approaches, strategies for tomorrow, he found himself thinking of Marina. Only Marina.

When she had walked out of his life she had broken his heart and he had been bereft. And the way she had done it, cutting him out completely, after all they had meant to each other. No phone call, text, email, nothing. Like he was dead to her.

His bursting emotions had gone through several recognisable stages. Firstly incomprehension at her actions. A creeping guilt that she blamed him for Martin Fletcher. Then anger when she wouldn’t allow him to explain why he was innocent of her imagined charge. That anger upped to rage as he tried to hate her out of his system, telling himself she was no good for him and failing massively. Finally a numb emptiness as he realised he would be facing the rest of his life without her. All the while playing and replaying conversations with her, inventing and imagining new ones that they might possibly share, different scenarios and possible outcomes.

His reverie was cut short by the phone ringing.

He jumped to answer it, thinking at first that it might be Marina, but then in a more professional frame of mind realising it might be someone from the station with an update about the case. Or even another murder.

God, don’t make it that. Please don’t make it that …

It was neither.

‘Hello, son.’

Phil relaxed. It was Eileen Brennan. The nearest thing he had to a mother.

‘Hi, Eileen.’ He flicked the remote, muted the sound. ‘All right?’

‘Very well, Phil. And Don sends his love too.’

Phil had forgotten. He always made a Wednesday-night call to Eileen. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was going to call you.’

‘It’s all right. Doesn’t matter.’ She sighed. ‘We saw the news. Those girls… terrible. I said to Don, that’ll be our Phil working on that.’

Phil heard the pride in her voice. Smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘And that’s why you had to stand poor Lynn Lawrence’s daughter up.’

‘Oh, please…’

‘Couldn’t you even have met her later? Gone for something to eat?’

‘I don’t think I’d have been much company.’

‘I know, Phil.’ She sighed. ‘Terrible. We live in a terrible world.’

‘Not all of it,’ said Phil.

‘Don wants to know all about it. I said you couldn’t tell him. He knows that but it doesn’t stop him asking. So how’s…’

And she was off. Phil relaxed, took another couple of mouthfuls of beer while he talked to her. Hearing Eileen’s tales of friends he barely knew and Don’s troubles with how to work their new DVD recorder was just what he needed to hear after the day he had had. It told him that, contrary to what Eileen might have said, the world wasn’t the terrible place he saw all too frequently, but a place where people went about their normal, everyday lives. He heard some of his colleagues talk about parents and responsibilities as if it was something boring that they hated doing. Not Phil. He loved these phone calls with Eileen.

She was coming to the end now, building up to her familiar sign-off. ‘I wish you could meet a nice girl, Phil. Settle down.You deserve someone nice. Someone to give you a bit of happiness.’

He responded in kind. ‘I know, Eileen. But I never get the chance, do I? Never meet any women through work.’ Only dead ones , he thought, but thankfully didn’t add.

‘Well, I did try. But you’re a grown man, you can look after yourself. Anyway, Don wants to know if you’re still coming over on Sunday. I think he just wants someone to go to the pub with and watch the football. Don’t know why he wants to do that, either. We’ve got Sky here.’

Phil could imagine her sitting in the armchair of their big detached 1950s house in Mile End, just beside the mainline station. Mock Tudor, beamed inside and out. Tastefully decorated, torn apart by generations of foster children and lovingly repaired again. He loved that house. A noisy and energetic environment but also a warm, comforting one. It seemed empty now since they had both retired from foster care and there was just the two of them. But Phil still loved visiting. It made his Sundays special.

‘I’m still coming. And I’m looking forward to it.’

They said their goodbyes, Eileen rang off and Phil was alone once more.

He sighed. Her words had hit a nerve. He looked around the living room of his own home. It was well furnished, with books on shelves, CDs and DVDs. Prints on the walls. It told of an interesting life. A full one. He was happy with his own company. He had been on his own for most of his life. But sometimes, he thought, sometimes he would enjoy having someone to share it with. Someone to come home to.

He laughed out loud at how self-pitying he sounded.

‘Maybe I’ll get a dog,’ he said, to no one in particular.

He took another mouthful of beer, pointed the remote at the stereo. Elbow started playing again and his mind was immediately cast back to Marina. He had been listening to the album when they first got together. Each track reminded him of some aspect of her, but one in particular stood out. He knew that was coming soon, looked forward to it with both longing and trepidation, knew it would bring back memories he found almost too powerful to cope with, but memories that he wanted to be reminded of nonetheless.

They had met through work. The Gemma Hardy case. And the attraction had been instantaneous. He had looked up from his desk that day as Fenwick had escorted her across the office and done a double-take that verged on the comedic. She was so beautiful. In an office full of hard-bitten, badly dressed, sweating, cynical police officers, even more so. It looked like she had arrived from another planet, a more cultured and enlightened place. He couldn’t help but stare.

He vividly remembered their first meeting at the briefing, even down to what she was wearing. He recalled it now. A black velvet dress that accentuated her trim figure and flared out around her legs, plus high-heeled knee-length black leather boots that made her appear taller than she actually was. Thick black curly hair, pushed back at one side, held in place with a glittering hair slide that matched her necklace and earrings. Round, expressive hazel eyes. Full red lips. His first thought: he had never seen a woman that looked so perfect.