Tania Carver - The Surrogate

She didn’t know how long she stood there. Time for Hester became elastic and stretched, then fluid and flowed away. Then finally solid once more as she opened her eyes. Her voice was silent, her throat raw. She felt empty, spent. She looked round. The baby’s body was still lying in the grave. She picked up the shovel, began to heap earth on to it. Each spadeful fell with a flat, spattering crash until eventually the body was covered. She tamped and smoothed down the earth, stood upright once more.

The emptiness she had thought she felt wasn’t there. The pain inside her that had caused her to wail was. It had returned when the baby had become obscured by dirt. In fact, it was growing stronger. Her earlier memories of shame and rage were now totally forgotten, or at least suppressed once more. This was a more immediate pain. This called for a direct resolution.

She was holding the dead, headless chicken.

Here, said her husband. You’ll know what to do with that.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the patch of smooth earth. ‘The baby’s gone…’ she said once more. The words, she knew, were unnecessary, but she felt she had to say something. Fill in the gap between the earth and the sky.

‘We were goin’ to be a family,’ she said.

Her husband was silent. She continued.

‘The baby was goin’ to make us a family.’

We’ll get another one.

Hester smiled, eyes shining. ‘Can we? Because that’s what couples do when things like this happen. It’s what makes them families.’

There’s more on the list.

Another smile played across Hester’s features. ‘Have you got one in mind? Have you been out hunting again?’

I’ve got one in mind.

Hester could have kissed him, she was so happy.

‘When can we get it?’

Soon. Now take that hen inside and get to work. I’m gettin’ hungry.

Hester went inside. She gave barely a backward glance to the flattened mound of earth. She didn’t need to now. That was in the past. Water under the bridge and all that. This was the present.

She had something to look forward to. She was going to have a baby. She was going to be a mother again.

She was going to be complete.

‘ Morning.’

Clayton locked his car, strode across the car park, smiling at Anni. She tried to return the smile, found her facial muscles wouldn’t allow her to be wholly successful. Instead she nodded. He reached her, stopped, his own smile evaporating. Scrutinised her face, caught her mood. Frowned.

‘What’s up?’

She dug deeper, crinkled the corners of her lips upwards. ‘Nothing. Everything’s fine.’

Clayton’s smile returned, reassured. ‘Good. Glad to hear it.’

It didn’t take much, she thought, to make Clayton’s world right again. But then he wasn’t the deepest of thinkers. He was charming, though. And handsome. And she was sure she wasn’t the first woman who had been taken in by him.

‘So,’ she said, still deciding what she was going to say, ‘what did you do last night?’

He shrugged. ‘This an’ that. Went to the gym.’ He smiled, as if at a private joke.

She nodded.

‘What about you?’

‘Surveillance. Brotherton.’

A shadow passed over his face. ‘When?’

She shrugged, tried to keep her voice non-committal. ‘Late on. Not been long off it. Should still be in bed.’

‘Why aren’t you?’ he said, very quickly.

Anni smiled inwardly. Feeling guilty? she thought. Think I’ve come in to have a little chat with Phil? ‘Suppose I should be. Still, got to make the most of the overtime, haven’t you?’

He smiled again, clearly relieved to see she was thinking the way he was. ‘Too right.’

She had come straight to work from the surveillance, telling herself she would get cleaned up at the station. She had sat in her car in the car park, waiting for Clayton to turn up. She didn’t have anything specific planned to say to him, but she wanted to confront him before they went in, see what he said about escorting Brotherton’s girlfriend back to the house last night. About what happened in the car.

‘You have a good workout, then?’

Clayton looked puzzled. ‘What?’

‘The gym.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Another relieved smile. ‘Yeah. Should join me sometime.’ The smile took on another, unmistakable meaning. ‘Work up a sweat together. Might be fun.’

Her turn to smile then. But not in the way he necessarily imagined. She opened her mouth to speak, the thought transferred directly to her lips, bypassing her brain. Why don’t you take Sophie? she thought. Give more than her facial muscles a workout. But she stopped herself in time. She had nothing to gain from doing that. And everything to gain from keeping silent.

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

‘Good. I’m lookin’ forward to it.’ Clayton gave her another smile, as if he could imagine exactly what would happen. This was the moment, she thought, when she was expected to squirm and look grateful. He should know her better than that.

He began walking towards the doors.

Anni held back. ‘I’ll join you in a bit. Just got something I want to check out first.’

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

He turned, walked away. Smiling at another woman he passed.

Anni shook her head. He just couldn’t help himself, she thought.

She paused, looked at the entrance, watched Clayton disappear inside. She tried to analyse her feelings, her reactions to Clayton’s responses. She felt spurned, for sure. He had used her for sex, and while she had tried to pretend to herself that she was using him too, she had found herself hurt all the same. But if that was all it was, she would have confronted him about it, told him exactly what she thought of him.

No, it was something more. It wasn’t just the fact that she had seen him with another woman. That woman was at the very least a witness in a multiple murder case. Possibly an accessory even. He was keeping things from the team. Things that could potentially harm the investigation. And she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

She had thought about the best way to deal with it, and had given him the chance to say something. He hadn’t taken it; in fact he had lied to her, looked scared that she might have found him out.

Anni turned, walked towards the double doors, her mind made up. She would say something, but not yet. First she was going to find out everything she could about possible links between Clayton and Sophie Gale.

Phil looked round the room. The Birdies were there, Clayton; even uber-geek Millhouse had torn himself away from his computer screen, his eyes red-rimmed behind his black-framed glasses. Anni sat at her desk, Marina at hers. His gaze lingered on her a beat too long.

No sign of Fenwick.

The room was exactly as it had been the previous day. The board still dominated in front of the bar, the TV/VCR/DVD set up next to it. Phil scanned the room once more. Already the strain was beginning to show on his colleagues’ faces. It wasn’t so much that they were tired but that they were all feeling the collective responsibility of having to come up with a positive result, and quickly. And in the intense spotlight glare of the media and the public. Not to mention the police themselves. Catch the killer, find the baby alive. No pressure there, then.

‘Okay,’ he said with energy, trying to inject some adrenalin and focus into his group, ‘let’s make this quick and get out there. What have we got?’

‘CCTV,’ said DC Adrian Wren. He crossed to the TV, turned it on. Slipped a disc in, took the remote, sat down in the nearest seat. ‘Came through first thing. Watch.’