Hope to Die

‘I also know that by the time Ms Rowan was arriving at that Christmas party in 1997, her son was already in the care of an American couple in Edgbaston, who took him back to the US with them a few weeks later.’

Rowan is still unmoving, but there’s a rigidity about that stillness now. A tension and a watchfulness.

‘What I don’t yet know is what happened in the two hours between you leaving the hospital and your baby’s arrival at that Edgbaston home.’

She fixes me with her slatey stare. ‘You should be asking them that. Not me.’

‘The wife wasn’t there when the baby arrived. When she got back later that evening her husband refused to tell her what had happened. All he would say is that they had “rescued” the child.’

She starts chewing the side of her thumb. Which I know – and I’m sure Gow, sitting next door, has guessed – is the closest thing she ever gets to a ‘tell’.

‘What’s he saying now, this man?’

‘Nothing.’

She frowns. Parrish looks at Rowan, then at me. ‘But surely you’ve questioned him –’

‘As I said, right now, he’s saying nothing. Which gives Ms Rowan the chance to give us her version first. So,’ I force her to meet my gaze, ‘over to you.’

Silence.

‘Now’s the time, Ms Rowan. If you handed your baby to this man – if you met him at the hospital and made some sort of arrangement –’

Still nothing.

Carter sits forward. ‘Look, we all know you didn’t want that child, any more than you wanted the others. There’s no way you were going to bring it up on your own. So perhaps those Americans seemed like the perfect solution – perhaps you took pity on them –’

She flashes him a look, then turns away again.

‘Is that where you went?’ I ask. ‘Edgbaston? After you left the hospital? The timing adds up – it would have been barely out of your way –’

Rowan sighs, then takes a deep breath and turns to face me.

‘OK,’ she says. ‘OK.’

‘OK what?’

‘That’s what happened.’

‘You went to their house?’

She picks up the can and throws back a slug, then wipes her mouth on her sleeve.

‘No. I met him on the way back from the hospital.’

‘You definitely didn’t go to the house?’

‘I never knew where they lived.’

‘So why didn’t you say all this back in 2003? Why go to prison for something you didn’t do?’

She hesitates, then shrugs. ‘I don’t know – I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight.’

I sit back. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

She smiles. ‘Well, thankfully, that’s not my problem.’

OK, I’ll run with this. See how far she takes it.

‘How did it come about – this arrangement to give them your son? How did you meet?’

‘At the hospital, like you said.’

‘Where?’

She picks up the can. ‘In the café. I met him in the café.’

‘He approached you – you approached him – what?’

‘He came to me.’

It’s like drawing teeth. Desai is already on his second page of notes.

‘When was this?’

She gives me a sarcastic look. ‘Well, it must have been the 23rd, mustn’t it, genius?’

‘You only gave birth that morning – you’d really recovered enough to nip downstairs for a coffee?’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t tend to let these things cramp my style, Inspector. As I’m sure you know.’

And I can’t argue with that. She’d been on her feet within hours of the other births.

‘So what did he say?’

Another deep breath, a draw on a fag she doesn’t have. ‘He said he’d seen me on the ward and I was obviously a single mother –’

‘Had he? Seen you on the ward?’

She shrugs. ‘Maybe. I don’t remember seeing him, but he was pretty nondescript.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘I just told you – nondescript. Brown hair. Boring.’

She said the same thing about ‘Tim Baker’ to South Mercia, all those years ago.

‘Go on.’

‘He said he could see I was a single mother – that it would be understandable if I was feeling daunted. That if I was considering giving up my baby, then him and his wife would give it a great life.’

‘What did he say about his circumstances?’

‘Nothing. He just said they were desperate for a baby.’

I stare at her. ‘And that’s it. You gave your child to a stranger, based on that?’

Her eyes flash. ‘I gave the others to strangers. What’s the bloody difference?’

‘Those were strangers who’d been carefully vetted by the adoption service – this man could have been anyone – a paedophile, a child trafficker –’

She rolls her eyes. ‘He didn’t look like a paedophile.’

‘They rarely do. As I’m sure you know.’

She shrugs again. ‘If you say so.’

But it’s just a diversion and I didn’t come down in the last shower of rain.

She empties the can and puts it down on the table. ‘He showed me a picture of his wife, OK? She seemed nice.’

‘But you never met her.’

‘No.’

‘What did she look like?’

She frowns. ‘What?’

‘You saw her picture – what did she look like? I mean, I can’t believe you don’t remember. This was the woman who was going to bring up your child.’

She starts making circles on the table in the moisture dripping from the can. ‘I don’t know. Ordinary. She looked ordinary.’

‘You’ll have to do better than that. If you want us to believe you.’

She looks irritated now. ‘Small, probably smaller than me.’

‘How do you know that?’