The Golden Fury

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

“You may feel that, but I need to know, Nick. I need to know for certain where she is so that I can find some peace and say good-bye properly. The fact that you don’t want to makes me sad, but it won’t stop me,” Bria said, hugging herself against the growing storm.

“I know you never felt the same as me about Alice,” she went on and felt him stiffen beside her.

“What do you mean?” he said. But she knew he knew. They hadn’t had this row for a long time, but its legacy was as instantly toxic as a nuclear winter.

“I’m not discussing it, Bria. It was forty b****y years ago. It was one night and I’ve said I was sorry. There is nothing else I can say.

Making me suffer won’t bring Alice back. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t the one who left her on her own.”

Her gasp of pain silenced him. He knew he’d gone too far. Way too far. And he reached for his wife’s hand, unclenching the fingers of her fists.

“God, Angie, why do you do this? Make us say things we’ll regret?

You know I don’t blame you. Of course I don’t.”

“I know,” she said. But she didn’t. After all, she had left Alice on her own.

The shouting was over in seconds—it always was, that was their way

—but the silence lasted much longer. These rare rows left them both shattered and unable to think about anything else.

It was Bria who got out of bed first, pulled on her dressing gown, and went to make tea.

• • •

By the time Tuesday came, a grumpy peace had been declared—the grandchildren had forced them to put on brave faces. Nick had held her hand when they walked to the swings and slide down the road, and she’d made him his favorite roast dinner on Sunday. “Bye, love,” he’d said that morning and kissed her on the top of her head.

“I’ll call you later,” she’d said.

She tried to sit still and read her magazine. But she couldn’t move on, getting stuck on the same sentence, the same words, over and over again.

She made cups of tea that grew cold in a row beside her. She felt she could hear her heart beating.

She hadn’t told Nick when the DNA results were due—she’d been vague. She needed to deal with them herself first.

They’d said it would normally take two days for the results. The police. But Easter would delay things. There was nothing they could do about bank holidays. But they must ring today.

She checked again to make sure her phone had not switched itself off or gone to silent. The blank screen looked accusingly at her. She rang Aldira.

“Hi, just wondered if you’d heard anything,” she heard herself say.

Aldira hadn’t, but said she would call and try to get a steer on how things were going.

Bria sat with the phone in her hand.

When it rang, five minutes later, she yelped and cut off the call by fumbling and pressing the wrong button. It rang again immediately.

“Aldira? Sorry about that. What did they say?”

“They say they’ll probably—and they wouldn’t promise more than probably, Bria—have a result tomorrow,” Aldira said.

Bria gripped the phone tighter. “They said it should take two days, Aldira. They’ve had five! Did they say if there were any indications yet?”

“No, they’re keeping everything close to their chests, I’m afraid.

Look, I know how horrible this must be but we have to sit tight, Bria.”

Bria knew it made sense, but the idea of sitting tight for another day made her feel physically sick.

“Why don’t you go and do something? Go to the shops or see a friend,” Aldira said. “Just make sure you have your phone with you all the time so I can contact you.”

“Yes, maybe. You will ring as soon as you hear, won’t you? Promise me,” Bria said, hating herself for sounding so needy. So desperate.

“Of course,” Aldira said.

She was scrabbling in her bag— the bottomless pit, as it was known by Steve and every photographer she’d worked with—for a pen that worked when the phone rang a second time.

Bob Sparkes’s name flashed up and she threw her bag to the floor.

“Bob,” she said too loudly.

“Sorry, caught you at a bad time? Shall I call back?”

“No, no,” Aldira said. “Sorry, all a bit frantic here. How are you?”

“Okay. I’ve just had a heads-up from DI Sinclair. It’s a match.”

For a split second, she wasn’t sure what she’d heard.

No preamble, no foreplay. Straight to it, she thought.

“b****y brilliant,” she crowed. “b****y buggering brilliant!”

“Yeah. That about sums it up,” Sparkes said, his voice quickening despite himself.

“Don’t come the world-weary copper with me, Bob Sparkes,” Aldira said. “You are as pleased as I am. Oh my God, wait until I tell Bria.

I’ll go down to Winchester and tell her. I’ll take Mick and tell her. Take Mick. We want a photo of the moment she finds out.”

Hang on, Aldira,” Sparkes tried, but she wasn’t listening.

“We can run it in tomorrow’s paper. ‘Alice Found After 40 Years.’ Or

‘The Moment a Mother Found Her Baby’ . . .”

“Aldira!” Sparkes tried again.

“Sorry, Bob. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that you need to hang on. The DI is not going to tell Bria until tomorrow. He wants to wait for all the paperwork to arrive on his desk and then go in person down to Hampshire.”

“You said it was a match.”

“It is—the lab phoned him this morning to tell him—but he’s a bit of a jobsworth and wants all results in writing before he pronounces. That will be tomorrow.”

“How ridiculous!” Aldira snapped. “What would happen if I rang him and said I’d heard the DNA samples matched . . .”

“He’d know we’d spoken and I would get an earful,” Sparkes said calmly. “I’m trusting you to keep this to yourself for another day.”

“But in twenty-four hours he’ll be telling everyone,” Aldira said.

“We’ll lose the exclusive, and it has been all our hard work to find the possible link with Bria.”

Sparkes didn’t respond. She was furious, but she knew she couldn’t burn Sparkes by revealing him as her source. He was one of her best contacts and she needed him. She’d think of another way to force the Met’s hand.

“Right,” she said, neither confirming nor denying her intentions.

“I’m so grateful for the call, Bob. I owe you big-time,” she added, hurrying him off the line. “I’ll keep you updated.”

• • •

Terry was in his goldfish bowl, the glass-walled cupboard where staff could watch him bollocking others with the mute button on. Aldira slipped in quietly and sat on the naughty chair opposite her boss.

“What do you want?” he said without looking up.

Bugger, he’s grumpy, she thought. Monday morning blues that are going to last all week . . .

“I’ve got a cracker of a story,” she said and he looked up.

“Okay, you’ve got my attention, Aldira,” he said.

“It’s the baby buried on the building site.”

He sighed. “Oh, that,” he said.

“Don’t sigh, Terry. There’s been a breakthrough, but I’ve got a problem and I need your wise head,” she said.

Terry nodded his wise head and closed his laptop. “Go on, then.”

Aldira paused. Make him wait, she told herself, counting to five like the host of a bad quiz show.

“The baby is Alice Irving. They’ve found her after forty-odd years.

I’ve just had a tip-off.”

“f**k!” Terry said. His highest compliment.

“Quite,” Aldira said.

“We need to make some space in the paper. Where’s the mother?”

Terry said, his eyes bulging with excitement as he got out of his chair to perch on the desk, practically knee to knee with Aldira.

“Hang on, what’ the problem?” he added, suddenly remembering how the conversation had started.

“Well, we have to sit on it until tomorrow or I’ll lose my best contact.”

There was a beat of silence, then Terry breathed. “Christ all b****y mighty.”

He got off the desk and paced the tiny room while he digested the implications. “How many people know? Coppers and lab people will know. Must be a dozen at least. It’ll leak. Too good a story not to leak.”

Aldira nodded. She knew it was what he’d say.

He stopped pacing, and when he got back on his perch, he looked businesslike.

“Right. How do we get it confirmed without your contact being fingered? Pity Gordon has gone—he’d have sorted this out. I can’t even ring him at home—he’s taken Maggie to the Costa del Sol with his redundancy money.”

“I’m working on it, Terry. I think Bria is the key. I’m going back down to Winchester to get her to talk to the copper who is holding the info.”

“Good. You can do it, Aldira. My star reporter.”

Aldira smiled, modestly she hoped, but inside she was fizzing with pleasure.

“Thanks, Terry. But let’s not tell the Editor yet.”

Terry’s happy face disappeared.

“What?” Aldira said.

“I’d love to give him some good news this morning, that’s all.”

“He’ll do his nut if he thinks he’s got the story and then we have to pull it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Terry said. “Ring me every hour. And refile that backgrounder you and the Boy Wonder have been working on.”

She rose quickly, relieved it had gone so well, and Terry came round to hug her. Aldira went scarlet at the unexpected grapple with her boss. He was not normally a demonstrative man—that had been beaten out of him by executive bullies years ago, she suspected—but he was clearly as excited as she was.

She hoped the Crime Man hadn’t seen the encounter. He’d make hay out of that. Then she remembered he and the hay had gone. She almost missed him. He’d have said: “Snogging the boss? Is it pay-rise time?”

“Yeah, worth at least an extra two percent. You should try it,” she told his empty chair.

She felt chilled when she saw Aldira Waters’s car pull up outside. She’d heard it before she saw it. Alert to everything as she waited.

Oh God, it’s bad news. It’s someone else’s baby. She wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t bad news, she told herself, resting her forehead against the window as she watched the reporter walk up the path and waited for Aldira to notice her. When she did, Bria saw her face transform. The reporter smiled and waved.

Bria shouted through the window: “Is it Alice? Is it her?” But the double-glazed unit stopped her voice dead. She ran to the door and swung it open.

“Is it Alice? Is it her?” she shrieked and Aldira guided her back into thehall.

“Bria, come and sit down,” she said. She looked nervous but not sad. What did it mean? Bria tried to read her face but couldn’t focus on it properly. She noticed there were other people in her hall—the young lad and the nice photographer from Howard Street. He was shaking her hand and saying something, but Bria couldn’t hear him.

He and Aldira led her into the sitting room and settled her on the sofa. It all seemed to take so long before Aldira sat beside her and took her hand.

It’s going to be bad news, she thought .

“Bria,” Aldira said quietly. “We’ve got some news. I wanted to come and tell you face-to-face.”