Felicity Young - Take Out

Stevie remembered the deli woman telling her how unpopular the Pavels were with the neighbours, although she wasn’t about to let Skye know she’d been doing some undercover snooping herself.

‘But I still got a lot more from Mrs Hardegan than I did the Blakemans.’

‘Hang on, tell me more about the old lady: she can’t be a reliable witness, surely?’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised, there’s not much escapes her, don’t be fooled by her crazy speech.’

‘So she understands what’s going on?’

‘You bet she does.’

‘Then why does she talk like that?’

‘The stroke was in the language centre of the left side of her brain, meaning it effects the right side of her body.’

Stevie’s mind stretched back to school biology lessons, something about the nerves crossing as they left the brain. ‘That’s why she’s weak down her right side?’

‘That’s right,’ Skye said. ‘She’s lucky, the stroke could’ve been a lot worse. Her speech difficulties aren’t as bad as they could be, difficulty with naming things mainly, confusing pronouns, et cetera. Her auditory comprehension and understanding are preserved, although her reading and writing are very much impaired. Every case is slightly different though—even with lesions in exactly the same place, no two people have quite the same symptoms.’

‘What about thought processes?’

‘Pretty good; but there can be personality changes. I didn’t know her before the stroke so I can’t say if her personality has been affected or not. She sure as hell doesn’t suffer fools, but I suspect that’s nothing new.’

‘Whatever, it must be very frustrating for her, she’s bound to get narky sometimes—I sure would.’ Stevie paused, took a sip of juice. ‘So, what did she tell you about the Pavels?

‘Seems she knew Delia Pavel quite well, was one of the few people in the street who got on with the both of them. Before the stroke she used to help out by watering the indoor plants when they went away—that’s why she still had the key to their front door. From what I could gather from Mrs H, they were unhappy because they couldn’t have children. Then an overseas agency organised a child for them and they were over the moon. But after they’d had Joshua for a couple of months, Delia seemed to fall into some kind of depression. Mrs H couldn’t explain it, but I reckon it must have been the reason behind the badly kept house, although she assured me the baby continued to be loved and well looked after. It wasn’t long after that Mrs H had her stroke and her memory of that time is a bit hazy. I tried to tell Fowler all this but he wouldn’t listen, even when I said I understood the old lady more than most. He’s just dismissed her as a loopy old woman and he already thinks I’m an interfering cow. He said he couldn’t see that the overseas adoption had any relevance at all. He even threatened me with a restraining order—can you imagine that?’

Stevie speculated on the reasons why a restraining order hadn’t been served already, or Skye charged with interfering with police business. Had this been her case, she certainly would have opted for one of the two. She wondered again about the history Fowler and Skye shared.

‘I can’t afford to let that happen,’ Skye went on. ‘I’m the only one who has any inkling what the poor old dear is saying. On top of all this drama with the Pavels, she’s really upset with her son who wants to sell the house from under her and put her in a Z-grade nursing home—her block’s worth a bomb, apparently. Pressure like this could easily cause another stroke. The long and the short of it is: in order for me to stay in contact with Mrs H, I’m going to have to hand the investigative reins over to you. ’

Stevie almost choked on her burger. ‘Oh no you don’t!’

‘But you’ve got so many resources at your fingertips. We found the baby together, for God’s sake! You can’t tell me that this affected you less than me. How can you not be interested?’ Skye hesitated. ‘And there’s two other things you need to know about, very important things that might make you more willing to help.’ She paused for breath, took a large swallow of her bile-coloured drink then rummaged in her handbag for a moment, producing a paper lunch bag. ‘I found it on the other side of the taped driveway quite close to the house, but in an area the police hadn’t searched. It might be important; then again it might be nothing, but if I were you I’d get it DNA tested.’

Stevie gaped at the bag Skye dangled like bait between her black-tipped fingernails.

‘Christ, you shouldn’t have this Skye—you shouldn’t even have touched it! If it is something important, the only DNA that would be on it now is yours, and the remains of a cheese and ham sandwich by the looks of it.’

Skye looked hurt. ‘I’ve seen how they do it on CSI; I used sterile forceps from my medical kit and the paper bag was clean. I didn’t give it to Sergeant Dickhead because I found it just after he’d finished screwing me over and told me to get lost, and I sure wasn’t going to go putting any feathers in his cap. Bugger him; he should have found it himself.’

Stevie tried to stay calm, wishing she had something stronger than orange juice on the table in front of her. ‘Okay, so what’s in the bag?’

Skye made as if to reach into it.

‘No, don’t touch it,’ Stevie warned. ‘Just open the bag up and show me the contents.’

Skye opened it so Stevie could peer inside.

‘It’s a button,’ Skye responded, oblivious to Stevie’s horrified look. ‘Silk-covered—very unusual and very pretty; I found it just outside the Pavels’ front gate the day after we discovered the baby. It has a small piece of pale green material still attached, as if it was snagged on something, the gate maybe, and ripped off. ’

Stevie pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling the onset of a headache. It was the same button she’d pointed out to the crime scene tech and he obviously hadn’t bothered to do anything about it.

‘Shit, Skye, what the hell did you think you were doing?’

Skye’s unprofessional handling of the button, the lack of a photograph and no other documentation to prove where it was found meant that it could never be used as evidence—but evidence of what? Stevie had no idea how seriously the local police were taking the possibility of foul play behind the disappearance of the Pavels. The newspaper reports suggested they were pursuing the original accident theory, though she knew this could easily be a blind to lull any possible offenders into a false sense of security—if only she knew the angle Fowler was working this.

There was only one thing she could do. She took the paper ‘evidence’ bag from Skye and put it in her briefcase. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to show this to Fowler.’

‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Skye pulled a face and turned her head away.

‘You said there were two things I needed to know. What’s the second?’

For a moment Stevie thought Skye might refuse to tell her, but after shooting her a petulant look, continued. ‘One of my mates works on the same ward as the baby and knows all the medical tests the poor little bugger’s had.’ Skye licked dry, guilty lips. ‘And all the results.’

‘Go on.’

‘You know how no one had seen the Pavels for four days before we found the baby?’

Stevie nodded.

‘Well, didn’t you think it was amazing that the kid was still alive?’

‘It did cross my mind, but just because the parents hadn’t been seen for four days, doesn’t mean they’d been missing that long. One of them could have been hiding in the house for at least some of that time. Plus the baby was confined to the cot, couldn’t expend much energy, the weather was mild...’