Liz Fielding - Baby on Loan

Bertie was intermittently bawling and stuffing his fist into his mouth. Jessie threw on the first things that came to hand and then she picked him up. He needed changing. The nappies were downstairs. In the kitchen. It figured.

Baby? Patrick grabbed hold of the edge of the sink and hauled himself to his feet, doing his best to ignore the thumping pain in his head, the rush of nausea. That was the smell. Warm milk, baby cream, talc, that stuff Bella had used to sterilise bottles. That was the scent that had eluded him. How could he have forgotten it?

He’d come back after the funeral and it had seemed to fill the house. It had taken him months to get rid of it. He’d got to the point where he’d thought he’d have to move. But in the end he’d realised that the smell existed more in his head than in reality. A faint ghost of his lost family that would forever haunt him. Moving would have been pointless.

Where the hell was Carenza? He clutched onto the sink for a moment while the kitchen spun around him, determined that whatever happened he wouldn’t be sick. When he felt strong enough to risk opening his eyes, he discovered that he was being regarded suspiciously by a uniformed policeman.

‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Officer, there’s a mad-woman in my house. She hit me with a cricket bat.’

‘Why don’t you sit down, sir? The ambulance will be here in just a moment.’ He didn’t need a second invitation to sink into the nearest chair. His trousers squelched damply beneath him. ‘Maybe, while I’m waiting we could just deal with the details? If you feel up to it. Shall we start with your name?’

‘Shouldn’t you caution me?’ he demanded.

‘Just for the record, sir.’

He let it go. ‘Dalton. Patrick Dalton.’

The man made a note. ‘And your address?’

‘Twenty-seven Cotswold Street.’

‘That’s this address, sir.’

‘That’s right. My name is Patrick Dalton and I live here,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘This is my home,’ he added, just to make the point.

The man made a note, then turned as the front door opened. ‘The medics have arrived. We’ll sort all this out later, sir, down at the hospital.’

Patrick recognised the calming tone of a policeman confronted with a man he thinks is crazy. A policeman covering himself with excessive politeness in case he was wrong. He considered telling the man that he was a barrister, a Queen’s Counsel, and that he’d find him listed… But his head was throbbing too much to bother. Hospital first, explanations later.

Then he’d take great pleasure in telling that woman to take her baby and her cat and get out of his house—right after she’d told him where he could find Carenza.

‘Would you like to tell me what happened, miss?’ The policeman stood by impassively while Jessie tried to change Bertie with fingers that didn’t seem capable of removing the peel-back strips from the tapes of the disposal nappy.

She’d been calm, very calm under the circumstances, but reaction was about to set in and she was nothing but jelly. The policeman, seeing her difficulty, helped her out while she explained, haltingly, what had happened.

‘Mr Dalton said you hit him with a cricket bat.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Then she flushed guiltily as she saw the cricket bat still lying on the floor where he’d dropped it. ‘Dalton? Is that his name?’

‘Patrick Dalton. So he says. He has a very nasty gash on his forehead.’

‘I know. I think he must have hit his head when he fell.’ She picked up Bertie, cuddled him. ‘From the noise, I can only assume he stepped on the cat and lost his balance, although what he hoped to find in the fridge I can’t imagine.’

‘You’d be surprised. The fridge and freezer are favourite places to hide valuables. Unfortunately the villains know that, although the gentleman did say that he lives here.’

‘He said that to me, too. It’s not true, you know. I rented the house from a Miss Carenza Finch. I only moved in today.’ Bertie grizzled into her shoulder. ‘Maybe he has a concussion.’

‘Maybe.’ The man cleared his throat. ‘There’s no sign of a break-in, though. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but this wouldn’t be a domestic situation would it?’

‘Domestic?’

‘A lovers’ tiff that’s got a bit out of hand?’

‘Lovers’…’ Jessie stared at him open-mouthed, temporarily lost for words. ‘Officer, I’ve never met that man before in my entire life. And if I meet him again it will be too soon. I told you, I moved in here today,’ she explained. ‘The owner was going abroad for the summer and needed someone to make the place look lived in, to take care of her cat, her plants. Is this a high-crime area?’

‘Not particularly. Most people have burglar alarms. You have one yourself,’ he pointed out. ‘Was it switched on?’

‘Well, no. Actually, it wasn’t. I was tired, what with the baby… I just forgot. Maybe I forgot to lock the door, too.’ He nodded, understandingly. ‘Do you want to see the lease? It’s on the table in the hall. Oh, and that man left a bag out there, too. Evidently this wasn’t his first job tonight.’

The policeman glanced at the lease, made some notes and then picked up the bag. ‘I’ll leave you in peace, then, miss. Maybe you could come down to the station and make a statement in the morning?’

‘Yes, of course.’ More time-wasting, Jessie thought, with a groan. Why did the wretched man have to choose her house? She followed the policeman to the door. ‘What will happen to Mr Dalton? If that’s his real name.’ He glanced at the bag with its airline labels and flipped one over. It read Patrick Dalton, but there was no address.

‘Maybe he stole the bag,’ she said. ‘And the name.’ And if he hadn’t? If he was telling the truth? His eyes didn’t have the look of a man who lied. But then Graeme had eyes that promised the earth and she’d believed him. She was no judge.

‘Right, then. I’ll leave you to put the little one back to bed. Don’t forget the alarm, now,’ he reminded her as he headed down the front steps.

‘I won’t.’ There was no way she was going through that again, she thought as she closed the door and set the alarm.

But, supercharged with adrenalin, she wasn’t going to get back to sleep. She cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, trying not to think about her good-looking burglar with the honest eyes. Or the way his body had felt beneath her. It wasn’t easy and a touch desperately, she connected her computer and set to work.

‘I don’t know how much longer I can hold out, Kevin. I miss him so much.’

‘Me too. Weird, isn’t it? The quiet actually hurts my ears.’

‘Do you suppose it’s worked yet?’

‘I shouldn’t think so, sweetheart. They wouldn’t just pitch her out onto the street, would they? Not just like that?’

‘Wouldn’t they?’

‘We said we’d give it a week, Faye.’

‘I’m not sure I can hold out that long. Suppose she can’t cope? Suppose—?’

‘Jessie is the most capable woman I know, and she was brilliant with Bertie on Sunday.’

‘Yes, but I was there on Sunday.’

‘You left enough instructions to fill a baby book. And if she has any problems she’ll…’

‘She’ll what?’

‘She’ll do what she always does. She’ll call up someone on the internet. Come and have a cuddle.’

‘That’s what got us into this situation in the first place.’

It had been light for an hour when Bertie woke. Maybe she was beginning to get used to less sleep, or maybe it was just that she’d made serious headway with the project she was working on, or maybe it was just the fact that she had somewhere to live for a few weeks, but Jessie felt on top of the world as she bent over the cot and picked him up.