Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (19 page)

‘Or maybe a flat in London,’ suggested Charlie. ‘You could rent it out, and be near enough to keep an eye on it. When you retired, you could sell it and make a bundle. Then you could buy your seaside cottage.’

‘How about a flat in Oxford?’ Simon threw out. ‘We could live there. It would save lots of money. And it would be much more comfortable than living in college.’

He didn’t, Jane noticed, specify whom he meant by ‘we.’ She was certainly not planning to finance a place where her son could sleep with his girlfriend in privacy and comfort.

Charlie changed tack. ‘How about a new car?’

Brian, with a sheepish grin, made a confession. ‘I’ve always fancied a Jaguar.’

That elicited a whoop from Simon. ‘You sly old dog, Dad! And here was me thinking you drove a clapped-out old Escort because you had a sentimental attachment to it!’

‘Surely,’ said Charlie, ‘a sober black Mercedes would be more in keeping with a respectable clergyman than a flash sports car!’

‘A Volvo would be worth considering,’ Ellie contributed. ‘They’re very reliable cars, and they last for years. My
grandparents
have one.’

No one seemed to notice that Jane didn’t put forth any suggestions. It was only much later, after they’d retired to their bedroom, that Brian asked her.

‘What do
you
think, Janey? How should we spend the money? A holiday? A car? Or an investment?’

Sixty thousand pounds. Not a fortune to most people—not like winning the lottery—but enough to make a difference in their lives.

‘Well,’ she began. ‘It would be nice to splash out a bit on Christmas. Give ourselves, and the boys, a really special Christmas to remember.’

‘But that’s only a few hundred, surely.’ Brian, getting into bed, spread his arms wide. ‘Think big, Janey. Think big. Isn’t there anything you want?’

Jane climbed in beside him. ‘There is something,’ she said quietly. ‘Something we haven’t been able to afford.’

‘Tell me. Whatever it is, you deserve it.’

‘I want,’ said Jane, ‘to have a baby.’

On Wednesday morning, feeling guilty that she hadn’t managed it sooner, Callie went to see Morag Hamilton.

Morag welcomed her warmly. ‘Coffee?’ she suggested. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Great.’ Callie followed her through to the kitchen and sat down while Morag made the coffee; she couldn’t help thinking about her own kitchen and the state it was in. ‘My brother has moved in with me for a short while,’ she told Morag.

‘That’s nice. Or is it? Do you get on with him?’

Callie pulled a face. ‘Well, I suppose it
should
be nice. We’re very close, and I do get on with him—brilliantly, most of the time. When he’s not invading my territory.’

‘Ah.’ Morag nodded knowingly. ‘You’re used to living on your own, aren’t you.’

‘It’s not just that.’ Restless, Callie got up and paced back and forth, the length of the small kitchen. ‘To put it bluntly, he’s a slob. I’m by no means a clean freak, but—well, it’s not a very large flat. There’s no spare room, so there’s nowhere to contain him. I can’t just shut the door on him. He’s…everywhere. He and his mess.’

Morag gave a sympathetic cluck. ‘How long will this last?’

‘Until he gets his ceiling fixed, and that could be weeks.’ She shuddered, adding, ‘Or until I kill him. Or kill
myself
. That seems like a distinct possibility at moments. And he’s only been with me for a couple of days!’

With a start, Callie realised how self-centred she must sound, and how ridiculous. Morag, in her isolation, would probably welcome an invasion from any number of sloppy and difficult relatives. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said contritely. ‘I’m not here to talk about
me
. How are
you
?’

‘Managing.’ Morag handed Callie a mug, then led her through to the sitting room, where they sat on either side of the cosy gas fire. ‘Nothing new on the health front. I’m still waiting for an appointment to come through.’

‘And the family?’

Morag shook her head. ‘Yesterday afternoon I had a message on my callminder. From Alex.’

‘Your granddaughter!’ Callie glanced over at the family photos on top of the piano.

‘It was such bad luck that I was out when she rang.’ Cupping her hands round the mug, as if for warmth, Morag sighed. ‘I’d just popped out for a wee while, to the post office. When I rang back, Jilly answered. My daughter-in-law,’ she amplified, with a grimace.

The ‘painted doll,’ Callie remembered. ‘And?’

‘She wouldn’t let me speak to Alex. Said she was doing her homework and couldn’t be disturbed.’

‘But that’s…’ Callie didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Cruel? Ridiculous? She shrugged.

‘Pure spite, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Morag supplied. Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Oh, Callie. I’m that worried about wee Alex. She shouldn’t be at the mercy of that woman. I just wish there was something I could do.’

Neville arrived at the Coroner’s court with time to spare; he wasn’t going to give Sid Cowley any more cause to needle him.

Cowley, though, was there first. He leaned against the wall outside of the courtroom, smoking a cigarette. ‘’Morning, Guv.’

‘Sid! I thought you’d given up!’ Neville pointed accusingly at the fag. ‘And you were doing so well!’

‘Yeah, well.’ Cowley shrugged, not meeting Neville’s eyes. ‘Didn’t work out.’

Neville remembered Sid’s reason for quitting: his old flame from school, the one he’d re-encountered on the internet. ‘The girl? I thought you said that was going great.’

‘Not so great after all.’ Cowley took a long, luxurious drag and blew the smoke out through his nose. ‘Turned out she had a husband that she hadn’t bothered to mention to me.’

A rabid and self-righteous ex-smoker himself, Neville
nonetheless
enjoyed a bit of second-hand smoke when it came his way. Moving surreptitiously closer, he chuckled. ‘Getting a few scruples in your old age, are you, Sid? I didn’t think you’d let a little thing like a husband stand in your way if you really fancied someone.’

‘Scruples?’ Cowley snorted. ‘Fear, more like. He’s about two metres tall, and built like a brick outhouse. Said he’d beat the crap out of me if I came near his wife again. And I believed him.’

‘Sid, Sid, Sid.’ Neville shook his head, grinning. ‘When will you ever learn?’

Cowley changed the subject abruptly. ‘Listen, Guv. I was wondering about something.’

‘Yeah?’

‘House-to-house hasn’t come up with a bloody thing. D’you think there would be any mileage in staging a re-enactment? Say, on Friday morning, a week after the murder?’ He gestured with his cigarette. ‘The bloke jogging by the canal. The iPod. The kid in the hoodie.’

Neville wished he’d thought of it himself. ‘Not a bad idea, Sid. If you can organise the people, I’ll get on to the press. You never—’ He broke off as Yolanda Fish came round the corner of the corridor, escorting Rachel Norton. So she
had
wanted to come, even though this was nothing more than a formality. Not that he blamed her—in her place, he would have felt the same way.

Rachel was pale, and to Neville’s eyes, even larger than she’d been a few days ago. He hoped, fervently, that she wasn’t about to have the baby right there and then, in the middle of the Coroner’s court.

Jane had rung the GP’s office first thing in the morning and made an appointment. It had been quite a few months, if not years, since she’d last been to the GP; she was a very healthy individual who didn’t believe in bothering her doctor
unnecessarily
. Probably the last time she’d gone was to take one of the boys after he’d sustained some sort of sporting injury at school. Charlie, who tended to be a bit clumsy, had once had his wrist broken by a cricket ball, she recalled, and Simon had suffered a great many scrapes and bruises on the rugby pitch.

She’d asked for Dr. Forsythe, who had been their GP for as long as they’d lived in London, only to be told that Dr. Forsythe had retired some eighteen months before. ‘Dr. Orme has taken over his patients,’ the receptionist said. ‘I’ll give you an
appointment
with him.’

So Jane sat in the waiting room, unchanged since her last visit save for the name on the signage. There was the usual assortment of patients: an old man coughing in the corner, a younger man rubbing his arm, a hyperactive child who was probably
bunking
off school by claiming to be deathly ill and was now racing round the waiting room at full tilt while his mother tried to corral him. There was also, Jane noticed, a woman in the middle stages of pregnancy, unconsciously rubbing her bump as she leafed through an old celebrity gossip magazine.

Jane herself had another such magazine in her lap, but her
interest
in it flagged when she realised it was so ancient that fully half the celebrities featured in it had now split from the partners with whom they were pictured, and for whom they declared undying love. ‘He’s the one I’ve been looking for all my life,’ cooed one singing sensation; Jane knew for a fact that she’d recently married someone else, and that there had been at least one other
relationship
in between. What was the world coming to?

Instead, Jane replayed in her head the scene from the night before. She would never forget the look of astonishment on
Brian’s face. ‘A baby?’ he’d said, eventually. ‘A
baby
?’ Not a
holiday
. Not a car. A baby.

Preferably a girl, she’d told him. If that could be managed.

The receptionist interrupted her reverie. ‘Mrs. Stanford? Dr. Orme will see you now,’ she called from her desk.

Dr. Orme, Jane soon discovered, was young. Barely out of medical school, probably. Young, fair-haired, with pale, freckled hands and almost invisible eyelashes. ‘What can I do for you today, Mrs.…erm…Stanford?’ He looked down at her notes, flipping through them for clues.

‘I’m not ill,’ she told him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve come for…advice.’

‘Advice?’ His head came up.

Jane took a deep breath. It was too late to chicken out now. ‘I want to have a baby,’ she said.

He stared at her; was that, she wondered, a look of surprise, or of disbelief? ‘And you want to know whether I think that’s a good idea?’ he asked.

‘No.’ She was not interested in this young man’s opinion; the advice she required was of a more practical nature. ‘I need to know what to do.’

Biting his lip, he looked down again at her notes. ‘I see that you have…is it two sons? Evidently you’ve figured that part out for yourself.’

Oh, ho ho, thought Jane. A real wit. Refusing to rise to the bait, she explained. ‘Medically, I mean. I understand that folic acid is a good idea?’

‘Before conception? Yes, that is what we recommend. And for the first twelve weeks as well. It prevents spina bifida.’

‘Are there other things like that? It’s been quite a few years since my last pregnancy,’ she admitted. ‘I know that medicine has moved on since then.’

Dr. Orme opened a drawer and rummaged round, finally producing a leaflet. ‘This is the latest NHS advice,’ he said. ‘No drinking, if possible. And no smoking.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘And there are food issues, as well,’ he explained. ‘Foods to avoid: raw eggs, tuna, soft cheeses, pâté. It’s all in here.’ He shoved the leaflet across the desk towards her. ‘And caffeine intake should be limited.’

Jane took it and put it in her handbag. ‘I have another…
question
.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m hoping to have a girl. Are there any new…techniques… to make that more likely?’

Now he definitely looked surprised. ‘Not that I know of, Mrs. Stanford. Unless you’re willing to spend a great deal of money and undergo some fairly unpleasant procedures. Perhaps you should consider adopting or fostering instead? At your age—’

There it was, on the table. ‘I’m not that old,’ Jane said tartly. ‘Certainly not too old to have a baby. Lots of women in their forties have babies. It’s not like we’re Sarah and Abraham, after all!’

She’d used that same line on Brian, who had smiled wryly at the reference. Dr. Orme, though, gave her a puzzled look. He was, she reminded herself, very young, and young people these days just didn’t know their Bible stories. ‘Sarah and Abraham?’ he echoed.

‘Never mind,’ said Jane. ‘The point is, I’m not too old to have a baby. Everything is still…working.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not really the issue, Mrs. Stanford. Are you aware of the risks of pregnancy for women over, say, thirty-five? There have been studies recently, as more and more women delay having families. All sorts of problems and risks have emerged—difficulties conceiving, ectopic pregnancies, foetal abnormalities, miscarriage. Not to mention genetic anomalies like Down’s Syndrome.’

‘I know. I know.’ She
did
know. She’d read about the
studies
, seen the reports on the news. And in case she’d forgotten it, Brian had been all too happy to refresh her memory. But it didn’t matter. She was determined. She wanted a baby, and she would have one.

The inquest had been the formality everyone expected: it had been opened, the barest of known facts had been entered, and then the Coroner had adjourned it until some future date.