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see why not. I’ve been CIO on high-profile cases before.’

    ‘That’s not what I meant.’ Fenwick’s voice was quiet. Solicitous.

    Phil couldn’t speak for a few seconds as he absorbed the impact of Fenwick’s words. He knows.The bastard knows.

    His heart started to beat faster again. It’s the case, he told himself, the baby, the seconds ticking away. That’s all it is, not . . . ‘Yes, sir, I can handle it.’

    ‘Good. Then I’ll talk to her. Because we’re going to need all the help we can get on this one. There’s a budget for this; it’s been upgraded as high priority so we don’t need to worry about that aspect. Extra manpower too. Personpower I should say. Let us not speak the language of dinosaurs in this department.’ He gave a snort.

    Phil wasn’t listening. He had butterflies in his stomach.

    ‘Right. Well, we’d better get going. The clock’s ticking and all that. ’

    ‘Right you are, sir.’

    Phil broke the connection. Stood staring at the phone, stunned at Fenwick’s words. But he didn’t have time to think about them now. He had another call to make.

    Somehow it didn’t seem to matter too much.

    Clayton emerged from the block of flats, joined him.

    ‘Ready, boss?’

    ‘Nearly,’ said Phil. He looked at Clayton, looked at his handset. Do it now. Get it over with.

    ‘Just got a call to make. Won’t be a moment.’

    He walked away for privacy, dialled the number. Hoped Clayton was out of earshot.

    It wasn’t good for morale to hear your boss get told off by his mum.

7

    H e had done it. Actually done it. Gone out and got her a baby, just like she had asked, just like he had promised to. Hester couldn’t believe it.

    But she looked down at the baby and frowned. It wasn’t right. Not right at all.

    She knew what babies looked like. Especially newborn ones. She’d seen them on TV. They were always happy and smiling, with hair. This one wasn’t. Small, wrinkled, shrivelled and pinky blue. More like Yoda than a baby. And it didn’t smile. Just twisted its face up and made a gurgling, wailing noise, like it was being tortured underwater.

    But it was a baby, so Hester would have to make the best of it. A baby of her own. And when you had a baby, you had to clothe it and feed it and make it grow. She knew that.

    It was wailing now. Hester brought her face into a smile.

    ‘Do you want feeding, baby?’ Her voice was an approximation of baby talk. Like she had heard on TV. ‘Do you?’ More wailing. ‘Mummy’s got something for you.’

    Mummy. Just the word . . .

    She went to the fridge, took out a bottle, placed it in the microwave. She had given him a list of what she wanted and he had got the lot. Powdered milk. Bottles. Nappies. Everything the books said.

    She waited for the ping. Took it out.

    ‘Just right,’ she said, squirting some into her own mouth. She stuck the teat into the baby’s mouth, waited while it sucked hard. ‘That’s it. That’s better . . .’

    Yes, it was tiny and pink and shrivelled. Yoda. But unlike Yoda its eyes wouldn’t open all the way, no matter how much Hester pulled at them. That wasn’t important, though. She looked down at the infant. She had wrapped it in blankets because that was the right thing to do, but it still looked cold. Like its skin wasn’t the right colour. But it didn’t matter. Hester had a baby. At last. That was the important thing. And she had to bond. That was important too.

    She looked down at it again, feeding, managed a smile. ‘I’ve been through a lot to get you,’ she said, her usually broken voice sounding like a baby coo, ‘a lot. I could have just walked in somewhere, taken you, but that wouldn’t have been right, would it? No . . . Because you’d have been someone else’s by then, wouldn’t you? You’d have a different mummy and you’d have to forget her before you met me.’ She sighed. ‘Yes, I’ve been through a lot. But you were worth it . . .’

    The baby spat the