Little Darlings. Melanie Golding
but she could hear them, ragged phlegmy breaths and two – definitely two – high-pitched voices murmuring. She took a step inside the cubicle, moving to get a better look, more from curiosity than anything else because she could see at once that this woman shouldn’t be there. She must be homeless. She wore several layers of clothing, as if she were cold even though it was oven-hot in the hospital. But when Lauren stepped closer she began to shiver. She was at once aware of the thinness of her hospital gown, cold air surrounding her, whispering around her exposed legs and entering the gown from below so that she wrapped her arms across herself to stop it. There must have been an air-conditioning outlet right there above them. It was a damp cold and there was a muddy, fishy smell which must have been coming from the homeless woman. Lauren sensed that she had been noticed, she knew it, but the woman hadn’t moved at all, not a millimetre. She was singing again.
She throwed the babes a long ways off aye-o
She throwed the babes a long ways off
The more she throwed them the blood dripped off
Lay me down me dilly dilly downwards
Down by the green-
‘Listen, I don’t mean to be rude but can you stop singing, please? You’re going to wake everyone up.’
The woman stopped singing with a sharp intake of breath. She raised her eyes from the basket. Lauren heard a high whining sound, another layer of hum but getting louder. It came from nowhere but inside her own ears. Run, it told her, leave, go, now. But her feet were rooted. Heavy as lead.
It took a long time for the woman’s eyes to meet hers and when the moment finally came Lauren had to blink away cold sweat to see her. She was young, perhaps eight or ten years younger than Lauren, but her eyes seemed ancient. She had hair that had formed itself into clumps, the kind of hair, a bit like Lauren’s, that would do that if you didn’t constantly brush it. The woman’s face was grimy, and when she opened her mouth to speak the illusion of a rather dirty youth who could even be beautiful if given a good scrubbing was destroyed. She seemed to have no teeth and a tongue that darted darkly between full but painfully cracked lips. There was something about the way the woman eyeballed her. What did she want?
‘You’ve twin babies,’ said the woman.
‘Yes.’ The word had tripped out, travelling in a cough. Lauren wanted it back.
‘Ye-es,’ the woman drew the word out lengthily, ‘twin babies. Just like mine, only yours are charmed.’
Lauren couldn’t think what to say. She knew she was staring, open-mouthed at the woman but she couldn’t not.
‘Mine are charmed too,’ said the woman, ‘but it’s not the same. Mine have a dark charm. A curse. You are the lucky ones, you and yours. We had nothing, and even then we were stolen from.’
She must have had a terrible time, this woman. And those poor little mites in the basket, what kind of life would they have? There were people who could help her, charities dealing in this kind of thing. She must be able to access something, at least get some new clothes. The long dirty hair hanging in dog’s tails each side of her face was doubtless crawling with infestation. It wasn’t healthy.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lauren, ‘shall I see if I can get someone to help you?’
The woman stood up and took a few steps around the basket, towards Lauren. The muddy smell became stronger and the air, colder. It seemed to come out of this woman, the cold. There was an odour of rotting vegetation stirred up with the mud and the fish. Lauren wanted to look into the basket but the woman was standing in the way. Closer now, she lowered her voice, breathy, hissing.
‘There’s no one can help me. Not now. There was a time but that time passed, and now there’s more than time in between me and helping.’
The woman moved slightly and Lauren could see that the basket was full of rags, a nest of thick grey swaddling and she couldn’t see a face, not even a hand or a foot. She hoped the woman’s babies could breathe in there.
‘Maybe social services could find you somewhere to stay,’ said Lauren. ‘You can’t be alone with no help, it’s not right.’
‘I’ve been alone. I’ll be alone. What’s the difference?’
‘But the babies.’
They both looked at the basket. The bundle was shifting, folding in the shadows. One of Lauren’s boys sneezed from behind the curtain and she was unrooted.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go, my baby.’
She leapt away from the woman, out of the cubicle, into the dry heat.
‘Your baby,’ said the woman. And she lunged, crossing the space between them in an instant. A bony hand gripped Lauren’s wrist and she tried to pull it free but she was jerked bodily back inside the curtain walls. They struggled, but the woman was stronger.
‘Let’s deal,’ hissed the horrible woman, bringing her face up close to Lauren. ‘What’s fair, after all? We had everything taken, you had everything given. Let’s change one for another.’
‘What?’
‘Give me one of yours. I’ll take care of it. You have one of mine, treat it like your own. One of mine at least would get a life for himself, a taste of something easy. What’s fair?’
‘You must be mad, why would I do that? Why would you?’ She pulled against the woman, their arms where they were joined rising and falling like waves in a storm. Nothing could shake her off. Lauren felt her skin pulling, grazing, tearing in the woman’s grasp, filthy nails scoring welts that she was certain would get infected, would likely scar. ‘Get off me,’ she said through gritted teeth. She would bite the woman’s fingers to make her let go. But they were disgusting.
‘Choose one,’ said the woman, ‘choose one or I’ll take them both. I’ll take yours and you can have mine. You’ll never know the difference. I can make sure they look just the same. One’s fair. Two is justice done.’
The sound that came out of Lauren was from a deep place. It burst from the kernel at the centre of her, the place all her desires were kept, and all her drive. It was the vocal incarnation of her darkest heart, no thoughts between it and its forceful projection into the grimacing face of the woman. A sound of horror, and protection, a mother’s instinct, and her love. The shape of the sound was No.
And in that moment the sound took her arm from the iron grip of the woman, her body away to the trolley where her babies lay, her feet to carry her and the sleeping twins into the hospital bathroom where she swung the handle into place to lock the door.
July 15th
7.15 a.m.
Police Headquarters
Jo Harper parked her white Fiat Punto in the underground car park. The place was almost deserted, only a few civilian vehicles dotted about and a line of sleeping patrol cars against the far wall. A cool early-morning breeze flowed down the ramps from outside, shivering around her knees and elbows, and she hugged herself as she walked across to the doors. The outfit she wore was too brief for the current temperature but she knew she’d appreciate the light cotton knee-length skirt and short-sleeved shirt later on in the day when she was out and about in the full force of the sun.
She stood in the lift, nostrils full of the smell of the sun cream on her skin and the car park’s oily, mechanical odour, waiting for the four-digit security code to register. A long beep, the lift doors slammed shut and a second later she stepped into the foyer.
The uniformed desk sergeant looked up as she walked towards him. ‘Morning, Harper, early again I see.’
‘Just very, very diligent, Gregson, you should try