Hope to Die

Quinn gives a low whistle. ‘Jesus, all those years she’s saying she never harmed the baby –’

‘She didn’t. That’s the point. Strictly speaking, it’s the truth. She didn’t kill him and she didn’t harm him. She just left him.’

‘Oh, come on,’ begins Gis. ‘A kid that was only a few hours old dumped in the middle of winter in a plastic bag?’

‘Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying I agree, not for a minute. I’m just saying that’s how her mind works. How many times have we seen her do that – all those “lies” that turn out in the end to be quarter-truths? This is just another one: “I never harmed my child”.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

It’s Barnetson, looking up from the second letter.

‘Have a read of that.’

* * *

‘Hold on a sec, let me write that down.’

Hugh Tomlinson notes down the registration number and finishes the call, then turns to Malloy. ‘You were bang on – a Mrs Noreen Sullivan has lived upstairs in that block for the last ten years. She was recently disqualified from driving due to failing eyesight, but she is still, at this precise moment, the registered owner of a grey Vauxhall Nova.’

Malloy feels a little surge of triumph, almost despite herself.

‘So I’m going to pop over to the car park and look for that car, which I’d lay a good deal of odds isn’t there.’

‘What about me?’ says Malloy, feeling suddenly useless again.

‘You,’ says Tomlinson with a grin, ‘are going to go straight back in there and stop Sullivan giving her girlfriend a heads-up that we’re on to her. And then you’re going to phone DI Adam Fawley of Thames Valley Police and tell him what a bloody clever copper you are.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

29 October

12.45

‘She set him up,’ says Quinn. ‘“I’m sorry if that makes you angry”, my arse. She sent him bowling in all guns blazing to a couple of paranoid old gits who were terrified about intruders. And the kid didn’t need sodding Companies House to find them, either. She laid it out on a bloody plate. “Swanning around”, “a manner like gentry” – she knew he’d work it out.’

‘All guns blazing wasn’t just the kid,’ says Gis grimly. ‘She knew better than anyone about that incident with her dad and the shotgun after the trial. On top of which the train was late, so the Swanns had already gone to bed and would’ve been even more jumpy. That poor bastard, how unlucky can you get.’

Barnetson shakes his head. ‘I still can’t believe she did that to her own son.’

I turn to him. ‘But what other explanation is there? She deliberately inflamed the situation, then told him how to find her parents, knowing exactly what the consequences might be.’

‘All she cared about was herself,’ says Gis. ‘She thought that baby had been dumped in landfill twenty years ago. And suddenly, out of the blue, he’s not just alive but knows what she did and is threatening to talk. She had to shut him up.’

‘“Don’t tell your mom”, yeah, right,’ mutters Quinn.

Gis turns to me. ‘So what now, boss? I assume we don’t believe that crap about her father abusing her?’

‘Well, we know from the DNA that he wasn’t the father of the baby,’ I say. ‘But even without that, no, we don’t. It’s just another one of her lies – what she did was so horrific, the only possible excuse was something even more appalling. Saying her father had raped her was the one thing Noah might just, conceivably, forgive.’

‘So where does that leave us? We can try and bring her in but is there any point? It’s never going to go anywhere – she’s already served fifteen years.’

‘That’s not up to us. We apprehend people who’ve committed a crime, regardless of what time they’ve already served. As far as I’m concerned we now have pretty conclusive evidence of attempted murder, which Rowan never stood trial for. So we find her, and we bring her in, and after that it’s up to the CPS.’

‘Easier said than done, though,’ says Quinn. ‘Given the start she’s had, she could be bloody anywhere by now.’

‘Right, so let’s get on with it, shall we? Starting with an All-Ports Warning –’

My phone is ringing, a number I don’t recognize.

‘Adam Fawley, hello?’

A woman’s voice, slightly breathless at first but then she gets into her stride.

‘I see – you think they were in a relationship? What’s the reg number?’ I grab a pen. ‘Right, and what does this prison officer look like? Yes, I think I saw her when we were at Heathside. Could you ask her to produce her passport, and if she won’t – or can’t – get a search warrant. Brilliant, thank you. Good work. And keep me posted.’

I put the phone down and turn to the others. ‘That was Surrey. Seems Rowan was involved with one of the prison officers at Heathside – a woman called Andrea Sullivan –’

‘Using her, more like,’ mutters Quinn.

‘Either way, this woman just so happened to be on shift when Rowan was released this morning and Surrey are pretty sure she gave her a lift. Not just a lift, in fact, but quite possibly a car as well.’ I rip out the sheet and hand it to Gis. ‘A grey Vauxhall Nova. Let’s get an ANPR alert out on that, straight away, please.’

‘Right, boss.’