Hope to Die

He points a finger at me. ‘That’s the crux of the Rowan case. Right there.’

I leave a pause, clear my throat. ‘She didn’t ask how he’d tracked her parents down either. Not that I could have told her. All she wanted to know was when she was getting out.’

He gives a quick, grim laugh. ‘Right. I bet she did.’

‘You still haven’t answered my question, sir.’

He sits back. ‘You want to know what I think now? I think this case is a bloody minefield. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.’

I make a face. ‘Join the club.’

That gets a smile. A desert-level dry one, but a smile.

‘Is there anything you’d do differently now, sir, with the benefit of hindsight?’

He considers. ‘Nope,’ he says eventually. ‘I think we did pretty much what any competent investigation would do. Then or now.’

‘You and your team put in a hell of a lot of hours tracking down baby boys of the right age, and yet you never found him.’

His eyes narrow. ‘My lads did a good job. You won’t find otherwise.’

‘And I’m not suggesting otherwise. But the baby must have been there, all the same.’

He sits back again. ‘There’ll be an explanation. No bloody clue what, mind you. But there’ll be one.’

He picks up his coffee.

‘What would you do now, sir, if you were running this inquiry?’

He gives me a dark look. ‘Leave the country? No, seriously, I assume you’re doing familial DNA on your vic?’

I nod. ‘Underway.’

He shrugs. ‘Then you’re doing what I’d be doing.’

‘Did you consider – at the time – whether Rowan might have had the baby adopted? Illegally, that time?’

‘She sold the kid, you mean? Yes, we did look at that.’

‘I don’t remember seeing much about it in the files.’

His eyes narrow. ‘That,’ he says quickly, ‘is because there was sod all to say.’

I wait. Count to twenty. I suspect he may be too.

‘As I’m sure you’re aware,’ he begins, in a voice heavy with irritated patience, ‘the illegal adoption trade only really took off after the internet. Back in ’97 it was mostly just friends of friends type of stuff – someone who knew someone who knew someone. You know as well as I do that it’s near nigh impossible to run that sort of thing down, especially five bloody years later, which is what we were facing. We did have a few leads – West Mids had some contacts and put us on to one or two – but none of ’em came up with diddly.’

‘I see.’

‘And if Rowan did sell that kid she didn’t get much for it – she certainly never came into any significant cash around then; we checked. The only thing she did spend any money on was that bloody tattoo – “Sweet freedom”. Now there’s an irony.’ He’s getting into his stride again. ‘And remember how narrow the time window was – she left Brum at three and was at home for the Christmas party by five. She had half an hour, max, to get rid of that kid, so if she handed it off to someone she must have made all the arrangements beforehand. And how would a girl like her even find an illegal adoption agency? I mean, they could hardly put ads in the bloody paper, now could they? And she lived in Shiphampton, not bloody Sparkhill.’

‘But she did give birth in Birmingham, and the psychiatrist who assessed her pre-trial said she almost certainly researched the hospital sometime beforehand. As she probably did with the first baby as well.’

‘So?’

‘So she could have met someone that way. If she’d been hanging about the hospital she could have met another mother – another girl in her position. They might have given her a contact.’

Kearney shifts in his seat. He’s frowning.

I sit forward a little. ‘Then after the birth she calls them from a hospital payphone and arranges to meet to hand the child over.’

He raises an eyebrow, sardonic. ‘Let me guess – at a lay-by on the A417?’

I shrug. ‘Why not? We both know the best way to get away with a lie is to invent as little as possible. What if everything she said about that day was true, apart from the one central, crucial thing? She did meet someone at that lay-by, she did hand over the child, but the person who took it wasn’t its father, it was a backstreet baby broker.’

I wait, again, and eventually he nods.

‘Yes, I suppose it’s possible.’

‘It would also explain why the people who took the baby never came forward. Either the broker or the people who adopted him. They all had too much to lose.’

‘But she didn’t, did she – Rowan? Why didn’t she come clean? Perhaps not straight away, but at least once she was facing a murder charge? An illegal adoption would’ve been chicken feed by comparison.’

There’s a silence. ‘I know. That part doesn’t make sense.’

He pulls a wry face. ‘Welcome to the warped world of Camilla Rowan. None of it makes any bloody sense – it never did. Apart from her killing it. That always made sense. Trouble is, that’s the one thing we now know for an absolute fact did not happen.’

* * *

Importance: High

Sent: Thurs 25/10/2018, 12.10

From: DCVickyRoom@GMP.police.uk

To: DCThomasHansen@ThamesValley.police.uk

Subject: Jamie Fox