The Secrets She Keeps, page 34
Tucking the pistol into my bag, I cover it with nappies and wet wipes and two bottles of formula. The clock says 5:55—time to go.
Where?
Away from here.
Foolish. Foolish.
Shut up!
You could have ended this yesterday if you weren’t such a coward.
I have a plan.
Tahiti! Is that your plan? Foolish girl!
Slipping Rory into the sling, I adjust the knot, securing him snugly against my chest, then button my coat around him. I leave through the rear door, along the lane, passing Lucy’s school before cutting across the edge of Barnes Common to the railway station. I buy a coffee from a man with a van who wears fingerless gloves and sells homemade muffins. He banters, chirpy for the hour, but I’m not in the mood for small talk.
Bundles of free newspapers are stacked beside the station entrance. I look at the front page and find no mention of Baby Ben or of me. I look at pages two and three. Nothing. I expected my picture to be all over the papers by now—the woman who stole Baby Ben. Instead they’re still fixated on Rhea Bowden and her affair with Jack. Poor Meg. It’s bad enough being cheated on without it becoming public. I blame Hayden. He must have thought he was so clever, selling that story to the papers, but all he’s done is jeopardize a marriage.
You should hate her.
Why?
She has what you want. She’s rubbing your nose in it.
That’s not her fault.
Fuck her up! Show her how it feels.
What feels?
Losing someone you love.
Waiting on the eastbound platform I am joined by a handful of early-morning commuters, breathing in clouds and stamping their feet against the cold. The train rounds a distant bend, appearing from the mist and slowing to a halt. The doors open. I take a seat in a quiet corner before retrieving my phone and inserting a new SIM card.
Hayden will probably be asleep or under arrest or both. Whatever the case, they’ll be listening to his calls.
He answers groggily.
“It’s me,” I say.
“Aggy?”
“Yeah.”
There is a long pause. He has covered the phone as though he’s talking to someone. Another voice comes onto the line.
“Agatha, this is Brendan MacAteer of the Metropolitan Police.”
“I want to speak to Hayden.”
“You can speak to him, but first I have to ask if Baby Ben is with you and if he’s all right.”
The question irritates me. Why is he asking about Ben? It’s always been about Ben, never about Rory. I want to scream at him. How dare he ignore my child!
“Put Hayden on,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Listen to me, Agatha. I know you’re scared, but I can help you. We all want to see that nobody gets hurt.”
“Put Hayden on the phone right now or I’m going to hang up. I won’t be calling back. You have three seconds.”
“Agatha, please listen to me.”
“Two seconds.”
“I want to help you.”
“One.”
“Here’s Hayden.”
The phone is handed over.
“It’s me again,” he says. I hear someone in the background mention the word “train.” They’ll be looking for me.
My voice falters. “I guess you’ve worked it out by now.”
“A while ago.”
“I’m sorry that Rory isn’t your baby.”
“That doesn’t matter now. How is Rory? Does he still have a fever?”
“No. He’s better.”
“He could have meningitis.”
“I don’t think so. He’s hungry again.”
“That’s good.”
Someone in the background is feeding Hayden lines, trying to keep me talking while they search.
“What about you?” Hayden asks.
“I’m OK.” Tears are splintering my vision and my nose has started to run. “I didn’t mean to trick you. I thought that if you spent time with me and Rory you might fall in love with both of us.”
“You were right,” Hayden says, his voice breaking. “When you first told me you were pregnant I didn’t want to be a father. I wasn’t ready. Even when I came home for the birth, I told myself that I wouldn’t change my mind, but I was wrong. From the moment I set eyes on Rory, I knew my life would never be the same.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Uh-huh. There’s something I haven’t told you. It was going to be my Christmas present to you. I wrote to the navy last week and resigned my commission. I planned to get a job closer to home. Nearer to you and Rory.”
“I’m sorry,” I sob, feeling even more miserable.
Glancing out the window at the factories and warehouses, I picture the police trying to find me. How long will it take to trace the call? Do they have satellites trained on me now? You see that in all the spy films—satellite cameras that can zoom down and pick out a car license plate or a face in a crowd. The train is pulling into Clapham Junction. There are no police on the platform.
“Did you tell the papers about Jack and Rhea Bowden?” I ask.
“No, I swear. She must have sold the story herself,” says Hayden.
I want to believe him.
“Give yourself up, Aggy. Tell us where you are. I’ll come and get you.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Rory isn’t ours.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll give him to Meghan,” I whisper, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
Hayden doesn’t answer straightaway.
“I know the police are listening. Tell them I’ll give the baby to Meghan. Nobody else. Understand?”
“I don’t think they’ll go for that idea.”
“Remember that place you took me to on our first weekend together? You wanted me to learn things about the navy.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the place.”
“What time?”
“This morning. I don’t know what time. Remember what I said. It has to be Meghan. Not the police. Tell them I have a gun. If I see a copper, I’ll shoot Rory.”
“You wouldn’t hurt Rory.”
“How would you know? I’ve killed babies before.”
“Don’t say that, Aggy. Just come in.”
“Not this time.” I muffle a sob with my fist. “Hayden?”
“Yeah.”
“These past weeks—with you and Rory—have been the happiest of my life.”
“Mine too,” he says, and I believe him.
MEGHAN
* * *
Arriving at Chiswick police station, we’re taken directly to MacAteer’s office on the second floor and told to wait. Through slatted blinds, I view the incident room where dozens of detectives are on the phones or poring over train timetables and CCTV footage. The helter-skelter of activity should bolster me, but I’m beyond reassurance.
MacAteer’s voice echoes across the room.
“There are three million fucking cameras in this city and you’re telling me not one of them has picked her up?” He kicks at a chair, which rolls into a bin. Detectives keep their heads down, not wanting to make eye contact.
The DCS is issuing orders. “Tell the Imperial War Museum we want full access to their control room and security cameras. Front office staff will be replaced by undercover officers and the public have to be kept away from the foyer.”
“How do we do that without alerting her?” asks a detective.
“I don’t care—just do it.”
MacAteer is walking and talking. “We need eyes on her as soon as possible, which means putting plainclothes officers at the nearest train stations and bus stops. They’re to follow from a distance. Nobody, I repeat nobody, approaches her until we have the SWAT teams in place. Is that understood?”
Nods all round.
MacAteer has reached the office. He shakes Jack’s hand and smiles at me, trying to be reassuring.
“Thank you for coming.” As though we had a choice. “How much have you been told?”
“Agatha called her fiancé,” says Jack.
“We’ve traced the signal to a South West train traveling between Wandsworth station and Clapham Junction at six twenty-four this morning. By the time we intercepted the train, it had reached Waterloo station. She wasn’t on board.”
“What about Ben?” I ask.
“We believe he’s with her.”
“Is she going to give him back?”
“She says she’ll hand Ben over to you. She wasn’t clear on the time, but we think she’s heading to the Imperial War Museum.”
“Why there?” I ask.
“It’s where Hayden Cole took her on their first date.”
MacAteer glances at a message on his phone. “We’re going to put a female officer in your clothes—someone with the same build and hair color.”
“But Agatha knows what I look like,” I say.
“I’m not putting you in danger.”
“Won’t she get angry if someone else shows up?”
“It won’t be an issue.”
“How can you say that?”
I look at Jack, hoping he might back me up. Come on! He remains silent.
MacAteer continues. “We believe Agatha Fyfle spent last night at a supermarket in Barnes. She entered after hours and disabled the alarm system. An employee reported the break-in at six this morning, when he arrived for work. Somebody stole nappies, baby formula, and food. The manager had a handgun locked in a drawer below the cash register. The gun is now missing, which is why I won’t risk putting you anywhere near this woman.”
“Agatha wouldn’t shoot me.”
“You don’t know that.”
I begin to argue, but MacAteer cuts me off. “Five years ago, Agatha was interviewed about the abduction of a baby girl in Brighton. Although never considered to be a serious suspect, she was traced by officers using accommodation records to locate any visitors to Brighton that weekend.”
“The baby was never found,” I say, the words like cotton in my mouth.
“How do you know that?” asks Jack.
“I heard the mother being interviewed on the radio. Emily. That was the baby’s name.”
Anxiety expands in my chest like a balloon. I picture the stone markers found beside the canal near Leeds. What did Agatha do? Did she panic and hide the evidence? What will she do if I don’t show up?
* * *
MacAteer answers a knock on the door. A car is waiting to take him to the Imperial War Museum.
“Please let me come,” I beg. “Ben is going to need me.”
“It’s safer if you stay here,” he says.
“You either take me or you arrest me.”
The detective looks at Jack, hoping for a supporter.
Jack raises his palms, as though opting out of the debate. “If I were you, I wouldn’t argue with my wife.”
AGATHA
* * *
At Clapham Junction, I catch a train to Three Bridges in West Sussex before changing platforms and taking a London-bound service to Victoria. The city passes the window—railway workshops, besmirched brick walls, and pitted asphalt car parks that give way to terraced houses and blocks of flats. A blur of blue, white, and yellow rushes past in the opposite direction, making the windows rattle and the air pressure change.
Unwrapping a new SIM card, I slide it into my phone, pressing it on. The screen lights up. I call another number. There are phantom clicks on the line. A woman answers.
“I’d like to speak to Meghan Shaughnessy,” I say.
“Are you a reporter?”
“No.”
“Are you a friend of hers?”
“She knows me.”
“Mrs. Shaughnessy is busy at the moment. I can take a message.”
“Tell her it’s Agatha.”
The woman on the phone seems to choke on her own saliva.
“Please hold,” she says, covering the phone. I can still hear what she’s saying. “It’s her! Trace the signal. Let the boss know.”
She uncovers the handset. “She’s coming now.”
“You’re lying. Put her on or I’ll hang up.”
“She’s upstairs.”
“No she’s not.”
The phone is covered again. I hear muffled voices. Instructions.
“Here she is,” says the woman.
Meg is breathing hard. “It’s me.”
“Are they listening?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. Is Ben all right?”
“He’s fine.”
“They said he was sick.”
“He’s better now.”
There is a pause. The silence weighs more heavily on Meg. “The police say you’re going to give him up.”
“Only to you.”
“Can it be someone else?”
“No.”
“They say you have a gun.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
“The police don’t know that.”
Another silence. I take a deep breath and begin to explain. Meg interrupts.
“You’re on a train. You could leave Ben at the ticket office or give him to a conductor.”
“No.”
“But if you did that—”
“You’re not listening,” I say sharply.
She apologizes. I begin again, unsure where to start. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Maybe Meg will never understand what it’s like to be me. She grew up in a loving family and went to the best schools and then to university. She got a dream job, working for a women’s magazine, where she got to flirt with Jude Law over lunch. She married a handsome, successful man, and fell pregnant at the drop of a hat. How can she ever understand my life? What it’s like to live in a cramped, claustrophobic tunnel that gets smaller and darker as each year passes. There is no light at the end—no paradise, no rest. I am stuck in this squalid, fetid hole with a creature that slithers in my guts, telling me I don’t deserve the light, that I am not a real woman because I cannot have a baby.
I don’t know if I’ve said any of this out loud but I realize that I’m still talking as the train crosses the Thames and the water below me swirls and eddies around the pylons of Chelsea Bridge, foaming and bubbling on the outgoing tide.
A clipped female voice comes over the intercom: “We are now approaching London Victoria.” The train brakes—the metal wheels squealing.
Meg will have heard it. So will the police. I feel as though I’m trapped between two worlds—the past and the present. I cannot see beyond today, because others, luckier than me, have taken my future and left me no room.
“If you want your baby—you have to come and get him. I’m not giving him to anyone else.”
MEGHAN
* * *
By the time the police reached Victoria Station, Agatha had slipped away into the maze of crowded walkways, corridors, and exits that lead to other lines or onto the street. Now they’re studying the CCTV footage from dozens of cameras, hoping to discover which way she went. Three Tube lines intersect at Victoria, as well as an overland service that brings tens of thousands of people into the West End every day.
Wipers thrash and sirens wail. From inside the police car the noise sounds strangely muted and it takes me a moment to realize that we are the source of the sound, making heads turn and cars pull aside.
Traffic is stretched back for more than half a mile along Westminster Bridge Road on the approach to the Imperial War Museum. Motorcycle outriders have joined us, ahead and behind, unblocking intersections and finding a route through the bottlenecks.
Lisa-Jayne is behind the wheel with Cyrus in the front passenger seat. Jack and I sit in the rear. He reaches out and takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine.
I keep remembering my conversation with Agatha, replaying it in my mind, looking for some new detail that might help. She said she was sorry, which is a good sign.
“Did she sound rational?” asks Jack, as though reading my thoughts.
“I don’t think she’s crazy.”
“Of course she is—she faked a pregnancy and stole a baby.”
“And fooled everyone.”
“Clever people can be crazy.”
Cyrus doesn’t comment, but I suspect he agrees with me. In all of our dealings, he has never used words like “crazy” or “deranged” or “delusional” when referring to Ben’s kidnapper. Agatha has always been a victim in Cyrus’s mind, something Jack will never accept. He’s forever denouncing psychologists and psychiatrists for creating the “age of victimhood” where everyone finds someone else to blame for their problems rather than take any personal responsibility.
“We need to talk about what happens next,” says Cyrus, turning in his seat. “DCS MacAteer won’t put you in danger—it’s more than his job is worth—but Agatha may insist on speaking to you. If that happens, you need to have answers ready.”
“What sort of answers?”
“She may want to test you. She may change her mind. You have to be ready to convince her.”
I nod.
“First and foremost—you ask to see Ben. It’s called proof of life. You have to be sure that she has him.”
“OK.”
“Agatha is likely to be anxious and frightened. She may seem calm but have conflicting emotions, particularly at the hand-over. When she sees someone pick up the baby, she’ll likely realize that she won’t see him again. That’s when she could change her mind.”
“What do I do then?”
“Keep her calm. Engage with her. Listen when she’s talking. Show that you understand. Agatha will want to dictate the terms, but you can start to move her.”
