Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (25 page)

She went upstairs and tapped on the bedroom door, hoping that Rachel wasn’t asleep.

‘Come in,’ called Rachel, leaning over to slip something under the bed as Yolanda pushed the door open.

‘Sorry to bother you again, lovie. But they tell me they need to do some more tests, and wondered whether they could have Trevor’s toothbrush.’ She kept her voice matter-of-fact, brisk.

Rachel closed her eyes briefly, as if in pain, then replied with equal briskness, ‘Sure. Not a problem. Do you want me to get it for you?’

‘No need for you to get up.’ Yolanda went through to the ensuite. ‘Just tell me what colour it is.’

‘It’s the red one. With Homer on the handle.’

With that description, it wasn’t hard to find, stuck in the tooth mug next to a more sedate blue one. Carefully Yolanda slipped it into the evidence bag.

‘This is the one?’ She went back through and showed it to Rachel.

‘Yes.’ Rachel grimaced. ‘I gave it to him last Christmas, as a joke. It’s all worn out, but he won’t…wouldn’t…let me throw it out and get him a new one.’ The words ended on a stifled sob. ‘He loved that daft Homer Simpson toothbrush.’

‘Oh, poor lovie,’ Yolanda said impulsively.
It’s an act
, she reminded herself. Just an act. But Rachel mustn’t be allowed to suspect that she knew it. She pocketed the toothbrush, then came round the bed to hand Rachel a tissue.

‘Thanks,’ sniffed Rachel, wiping tears from her face. ‘I’m just being silly. Over an old toothbrush. Sorry.’

Mark had lost track of the time. It was dark; it was very cold. He had walked for a while in Gordon Square, then he’d got on a bus, though with no conscious destination in mind. The bus had taken him to Oxford Street, where he’d disembarked and spent some more time walking. The pavements were packed with Christmas shoppers laden with carrier bags, rushing past
windows
 
replete with tempting goodies and glitzy holiday displays. Mark pushed his way through the crowds, vaguely wondering why everyone put themselves through this each year. He was as guilty as the rest; he hadn’t yet started thinking about buying Christmas gifts.

He turned off Oxford Street, away from the lights and the people. He kept walking; at some point he was remotely aware that the frosty black sky had begun to dispense a few desultory flakes of snow.

Eventually he realised he was in Bayswater. He had at no point made a conscious decision to go to Callie, but his feet were taking him there.

To Callie. He turned, then turned again, into the road that would bring him to her door. The snow was falling in a more determined way; his feet left a trail on the pavement.

Up the stairs to the flat. Ring the bell.

And then Callie was there, opening the door. ‘Marco! You’re covered with snow! Where on earth have you been? You must be freezing.’

Tongue-tied, he stood and looked at her. So normal, and just the same as she’d been before his world had turned itself upside-down.

She drew him in, taking his icy hands between her warm ones. ‘Oh, Marco,’ she said.

Mark leaned over and kissed her lightly; her lips were as warm as her hands.

‘You’re so cold,’ she gasped. ‘I wish I had a fire going, but come over here by the radiator.’ She rubbed his numb hands briskly as she steered him along.

Still he hadn’t spoken.

‘You should have something hot to drink,’ Callie stated. ‘What would you like? Coffee? Tea?’

‘Coffee. Black.’

Callie flashed him a wry smile. ‘I can do that. Or I could do it any number of exotic ways, with my magical new machine.’
She released his hands. ‘You stay there and warm up. I’ll be back in a minute.’

And she was, with a steaming mug which she held out to him, then helped him wrap his fingers round.

The first sip was scalding, wonderful, going down his throat like fire. Mouth, throat, stomach—all felt better. Why hadn’t he realised how cold he was? It hadn’t even occurred to him that he was cold, until he’d been drawn into the warmth of the flat. Was that how people died of hypothermia?

‘Now,’ she said when he’d had a few mouthfuls of the coffee. ‘Now tell me what’s going on. Why have you turned up here, looking like the abominable snowman?’ She reached up and brushed a shower of now-melted droplets from his hair.

Till that moment, he hadn’t been sure he wanted to tell her. Now he was more than sure: but where to begin?

Just then the door flew open. A black and white dog—
currently
more white than black—tumbled in, followed by Peter. ‘God, Callie,’ he said, as both he and Bella shook themselves, dislodging a flurry of flakes. ‘Did you know it’s snowing out there? Like the clappers! Bella’s gone mad.’ He stopped,
looking
at the two of them, then made an apologetic face. ‘Oops. I haven’t interrupted anything, have I?’

It was almost inevitable: that night Rachel went into labour. This time there was no doubt about it, especially for one as experienced as Yolanda in these matters.

Yolanda was sleeping—more soundly than she would have expected—when Rachel cried out from the room next door. She woke instantly, tuned in to such sounds and knowing
instinctively
what it meant.

In a few seconds she was at Rachel’s side. Rachel was
struggling
to get out of bed, and there was no pretence now in the emotion she conveyed. ‘I think…I think my water’s broken,’ she gasped. ‘And…ooooh.’ She doubled up in agony.

‘It’s okay, lovie.’ Yolanda put an arm round her shoulders.

After a long moment of struggling through the contraction, Rachel went limp, her face sheened with sweat. ‘It’s really
happening
, isn’t it?’ she whispered, gripping Yolanda’s hand. ‘I’m having the baby.’

There was no point beating about the bush or denying the obvious. ‘Yes, it looks like it. But I’m here, and it’s going to be all right.’

Almost always, Neville’s preferred tipple was Guinness; it was only when he was suffering from a particularly severe bout of Celtic melancholy that he drank Irish whiskey.

Tonight was one of those nights. Unable to sleep, he had left his bed, fetched a bottle and glass, and taken up a seat by the window, where he could watch the snow drifting down in fat, silent flakes. There was something hypnotic about the inexorable snow, just as there was something anaesthetic to be found in the bottle, the glass. Once upon a time there would have been cigarettes as well, but it had now been several years since he’d quit; never had he regretted that decision more. If he’d had a packet of fags in the flat, he would have lit one up.

Neville knew that he should be feeling elated. Things were happening; the case was on the verge of a major breakthrough. They had Trevor’s toothbrush, and the lab would be pulling out all the stops to work on a DNA match.

He had no reason to be depressed. But depressed he was: profoundly depressed, doubting himself and his own abilities.

Yes, the murder of the jogger—whoever he might have been—was nearly wrapped up. But not through Neville’s skills, superior instincts, or even his hard work. Most of it had been blind luck, and any good police work that came into it had been achieved by Yolanda, not by him.

Was he past it? Had he been at this game too long?

Inspector
Neville Stewart. Where did he go from here? The rank of Chief Inspector had virtually been eliminated, and he’d certainly never make Superintendent. He wasn’t enough of a brown-noser, not willing to suck up to the right people just for the sake of career advancement. He’d made it to Inspector on merit and hard work but those qualities would take him no further.

Was it time to chuck the whole thing in? Do something completely different? Sell insurance, perhaps, or get himself some qualifications to repair cars or fix computers?

He’d always wanted to be a policeman; he’d never even imagined himself doing anything else. Maybe it was time to start thinking about it.

He poured himself another finger of whiskey and watched the snow. The snow reminded him that it was winter, nearly Christmas, and the year was almost over—and that reminded
him that next year he would turn forty. Forty! Once that had seemed impossibly old, the end of any sort of real life.

Forty. Christ Almighty. Over the hill. Past it.

At the bottom of his melancholy, of course, was the
inescapable
thought of Triona. He’d been trying to not to think of her. Trying for days, for weeks. Telling himself that he didn’t need her in his life. Didn’t need the aggro, the complications.

Neville took a sip of his whiskey, then a gulp to drain the glass, then slammed the glass down on the table beside the bottle. Damn it, Willow had been right. He
did
need Triona. Bloody hell—he
loved
her. There. He’d admitted it to himself.

“You’ll never be happy without her,” Willow had said. And he wasn’t. He was miserable.

Blindly he reached for the telephone, but stopped himself before he punched in her number. It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake. Triona wouldn’t thank him for ringing her now.

But if he waited till morning, till he was sober, he might change his mind.

Neville got up and went to his computer. He used it rarely, not being much of a one for e-mail; if anything, he mostly kept it around because the odd game of solitaire sometimes relaxed him when work schedules meant that recourse to the bottle wasn’t an option.

He called up his e-mail program: no messages. Thank God for that. Opening a new message, he typed with two efficient fingers. ‘Hi Triona, I need to talk to you. I think we should talk. Give me a ring and maybe we can get together. N.’

That should do. It wasn’t committing him to anything irrevocable. He hesitated for only a second before hitting the ‘send’ icon.

Unusually for a first baby, this one showed signs of making an appearance fairly quickly. Timing the contractions, Yolanda judged that they shouldn’t wait too long before going to the hospital. She rang for a taxi and started putting together a few things in a holdall.

‘There’s no one you want me to call? A friend or relative?’ The question was perfunctory; she knew what the answer would be, but she watched Rachel’s face as she shook her head.

‘No one. But you’ll come with me?’

‘Yes, of course I will.’

‘And you’ll stay with me?’ gulped Rachel. ‘When…when it happens? You won’t leave me?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. Very much.’

In spite of herself, Yolanda was touched. She told herself that she needed to maintain some professional objectivity—both as a midwife and a police officer—but she was finding it difficult. In spite of everything, in spite of the lies and the deception and the overheard hurtful words, she cared about Rachel Norton. Whatever Rachel had done—and they didn’t yet know exactly what that was—it had been for love. What woman hadn’t done foolish things in the name of love?

Rachel clung to her in the taxi, as it inched through the
still-falling
snow, and during the admissions procedure at the
hospital
. And when, before too long, Rachel went into the delivery room, Yolanda was at her side, holding her hand.

Jane Stanford left an oblivious Brian asleep in bed and crept to her favourite window on the landing, where in the dim orange glow of the street lamp she watched the snow’s silent descent. Already it blanketed everything in sight: grass, trees, pavement, road, parked cars and church alike. No cars were on the move at this hour, spoiling the snow’s perfection with tire marks. It was truly a winter wonderland, almost magical in its silent whiteness.

But Jane wasn’t thinking about the snow. Nor was she thinking about the subject which had obsessed her for the last several days: her desire for a baby, and Brian’s strange inability to understand why this was so important to her. She hadn’t yet managed to convince him that it was a good idea, to make him see that their out-of-the-blue legacy was God’s answer to her
prayers. No: in his more sensible moments Brian was still rather favouring a down-payment on a cottage near Brighton or Hove or Eastbourne, when his fancies didn’t tempt him to splash out on a cruise or a posh sports car.

Instead, Jane was thinking about the unexpected events of the evening. Reverting to childhood, Charlie had dashed out into the snow and gleefully attempted to build a snowman. But Simon had looked at the snow and shaken his head with a worried frown.

‘It’s not going to be very good for travelling if this keeps up,’ he’d said.

‘Travelling? But we’re not going anywhere,’ countered Jane.

‘Ellie and I are. Tomorrow. I’m sure we told you, Mum.’

Then he’d broken the news, as if she must already have known. As if it wouldn’t make any difference to her, one way or the other.

He and Ellie were leaving in the morning, to go to her
parents
’. The Dickinsons lived in a village in Northamptonshire, and would meet Simon and Ellie off the train at Kettering. They’d be there through Christmas, and would come back to London for the New Year.

Casually, just like that. Simon would not be at home for Christmas. For the first time in his life, he wouldn’t be at home with the family.

Christmas wouldn’t be the same. Not this year, and not ever again. Jane knew it with a certainty which alarmed and distressed her. Sick at heart, she wrapped her arms round her body, leaned her forehead against the cold windowpane, and watched the snow falling.

It took Frances a bit longer than usual to get to the hospital that morning, with the snow and the resultant traffic chaos. She went to her office first, to shed her coat and check her telephone voice mail and her computer for messages.

Nothing urgent, thank goodness. And no post of any
importance
, either. She was about to lock her handbag away and start
off on her rounds when there was a tentative tap on her office door.

‘Come in?’ Frances looked up to see Triona pushing the door open. ‘Oh! I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said, adding quickly, ‘Not that I’m not delighted to see you.’

Triona gave a self-deprecating grimace. ‘I hope I’m not bothering you.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Mind if I take my coat off?’

‘Be my guest.’ Frances gestured to the coat stand where she’d hung her own outerwear.

Triona complied. ‘Sorry to drop in on you like this. I tried to send you an e-mail to warn you, but my computer’s totally buggered up at the moment. I think it must have a virus.’ She made a face. ‘I hate technology anyway.’

Still unclear whether there was a particular reason for the visit, Frances pointed to a chair. ‘Did you want to sit down? Can I get you a coffee or something?’

‘No time for that. Didn’t I say?’ Triona glanced at her watch. ‘I have an appointment for a scan. Ultrasound. I’ve been to see my GP, and she thought it was a good idea to have one early on. Since I’m over thirty—ancient, you know. I just wondered whether you’d be free to come with me—to hold my hand and all that.’