Кара Хантер - In the Dark

*

In the morning, I’m up first, and when Alex comes down she finds us in the kitchen. The boy in the high chair with a bowl of mashed banana, and me at the dishwasher. I drive Alex mad re-stacking everything she puts in it, so I’m trying to finish before she comes down. The radio is on and I’m humming. Though I don’t realize that until Alex comes in. She’s in a pair of pale jeans and a white T-shirt, and her hair is down. With no make-up, she looks younger somehow. Perhaps I see too much of her in lawyer mode.

She smiles at me. ‘You sound happy.’

She’s staring at what I’m doing with the dishwasher, but she’s obviously decided not to mention it; she’s determined not to spoil the mood.

‘I shouldn’t. I’m likely to have a grim day.’

She moves closer to the boy and puts her hand gently against his hair. ‘Are you going to have to work all weekend?’ Her tone is light; lighter than it usually is in circumstances like these.

‘I’m sorry. You know how it is.’

She picks up the carton of juice and shakes it. ‘Pity. I was hoping we might do something. Go somewhere –’

She stops herself but I hear the words all the same. As a family.

I turn back to the dishwasher and start stacking again, moving cups, shifting plates. Displacement activity in every sense of the word. ‘Look, there’s something you need to know.’

She pours a cup of coffee. Carefully, with exaggerated calm. ‘Oh yes?’

‘We had the DNA back. The boy’s father. It isn’t Donald Walsh.’

She leans against the worktop and lifts the cup to her lips. ‘I see. So it was William Harper after all?’

‘Yes. Vicky identified him.’

Her eyes widen slightly, but that’s the only sign. ‘She’s talking?’

‘A little. A couple of words. We can’t afford to rush her.’

‘No,’ she says quickly. ‘Absolutely not. That could do untold damage.’

I straighten up, feeling the pain in my knees. ‘Look, Alex –’

‘I know what you’re going to say, Adam. That this is only for a few days – that I’m not his mother.’

I move a little closer, put my hand on her arm. ‘I just don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you getting attached to him – or him getting attached to you, for that matter. It wouldn’t be fair. Or kind.’

Her lips tremble. ‘To him? Or to me?’ And as her eyes fill with tears I pull her towards me and we stand there, my arms round her, kissing her hair. The boy looks up from his bowl and stares at us, his huge eyes locked on mine.

***

At 7.15, Gislingham has already been up for three hours. He eventually gave up trying to get off again and slid out of the bed, leaving Janet buried in a sleep even Billy hadn’t broken. And now, his son nestling in the sling across his chest, he’s moving about the kitchen, tidying up, warming milk, singing Johnny Cash.

‘Who says men can’t multi-task, eh, Billy?’ he says, smiling down at the gurgling baby. ‘But it’s our secret, OK? Cos if Mum finds out she’ll have the both of us with a list of chores as long as your arm. Actually, make that as long as my arm. Oi,’ he says, seizing a chubby foot, ‘that’s some left kick you’re developing there, lad. We’ll have you playing at Stamford Bridge yet.’

‘Oh no you won’t,’ says Janet, trailing into the kitchen in her dressing gown and bare feet. ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it.’ She slides heavily on to one of the kitchen chairs.

‘You look done in,’ says Gislingham carefully. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed for a bit?’

She shakes her head. ‘Too much to do.’

Gislingham looks round the kitchen. ‘I think I’ve done most of it. Washing’s on, dishes are done, Billy’s fed.’

She sighs then hauls herself up again and comes over, reaching to extract Billy from the papoose. The little boy starts to kick and then to cry, his face puckering into a red wail.

‘He was fine,’ says Gislingham. ‘Really.’

‘He needs changing,’ she says over her shoulder as she bends to pick up a packet of nappies out of the carrier bag Gislingham brought home with him and then marches the still howling Billy out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

‘Well, I didn’t think he needed changing,’ announces Gislingham to no one in particular. He unstraps the papoose and goes over to pick up the empty carrier bag. He scrunches it up for recycling, and then stops. Sits down at the table and gets out his phone.

Just had a thought. That carrier bag Pippa had with her at the bus stop – I think it cd have been from Fridays Child. CCTV a bit fuzzy but I think I recog the logo. Its that place on Cornmarket

He presses ‘send’ and goes over to boil the kettle again. Upstairs, Billy is still wailing. He tips a teabag into a mug and hears the phone beep.

That’s only going to help if she paid by credit card

Gislingham makes a face at the phone and sighs. Do I have to do absolutely every bloody thing myself?

I bought J’s bd present there. They had a list at the till where you cd sign up for offers etc. You had to leave your name and number. Prob a long shot but worth a try?

This time the reply is almost immediate.

Genius. Thanks mate will let you know. I owe you a beer.

Gislingham makes another face at the phone, then tosses it across the table and gets up to make that tea.

***

‘The name is Walker. Pippa Walker. Are you sure there’s nothing?’

The girl at the till rolls her eyes. ‘I have looked , you know.’

The sign outside says FRIDAY’S CHILD . . . IS LOVING AND GIVING! but the girl at the till doesn’t seem very keen on the latter, not when it comes to information, at any rate. She’s chewing, her mouth slightly open, and there are studs through her nose and top lip. It’s all rather at odds with the displays of sparkly pink and gold jewellery and girly accessories. Quinn takes a deep breath. Normally he’s pretty good at dealing with women, but this one seems entirely immune. A dyke, he thinks. Just my bloody luck.

‘Can you look again – or better still, can you let me do it?’

She looks at him suspiciously. ‘Ain’t there supposed to be rules about that? Data protection or something?’

He smiles. ‘I am a police officer.’

Which is true. As far as it goes.

What goes a lot further, at least by way of distraction, is a group of Japanese schoolgirls, suddenly exclaiming over a rack of sequinned purses and flowery headbands.

Left alone at the counter, Quinn reaches across and swings the list round to face him. He scans down and finds ‘Walker’, only the initial looks more like a T than a P. But the number is very similar to the one she gave him – just with two digits transposed. Easy mistake to make. He gets out his phone and calls. Straight to voicemail. But it’s her – it’s Pippa’s voice. He waits for the tone: ‘It’s me – Gareth. That statement we talked about – can you come into St Aldate’s?’ He pauses. ‘Look, if you must know I’m really in the shit on this. So I’d really appreciate it, OK?’

***

At his PC, with a headache and a throat like gravel, Gislingham is scanning the pages of the Oxford Mail for June 2015, looking for some clue about what might have interested Hannah Gardiner on the Cowley Road. Everything and nothing, is the short answer. School fêtes, under-tens football, a new traffic scheme. All good and worthy but hardly riveting. Not in bulk, anyway. After twenty minutes he gives up and tries a different tack. He googles ‘Hannah Gardiner’ and ‘Cowley Road’, and comes up with a couple of stories she covered on the BBC and a smattering of photos. One of her reporting on a controversial planning application, and another a selfie at the Cowley Road carnival in 2014 that she posted on Facebook. There are dancers in feather plumes, a Chinese dragon, a man on stilts. And in the foreground, the family: Rob, Hannah, Toby.