The Forgotten Child. D. E. White
obviously know about your brother,’ DS Harlow said gently.
‘What? But Jayden’s dead. Oh shit, how old do you think the kid is?’ Without waiting for an answer, words tumbling from her mouth, Holly continued, ‘Oh my God, what’s my aunt going to say? You’re saying this is Jayden’s kid, aren’t you?’ Quickly she did the maths. What had the doctor said? That he thought the boy was about twelve. That would make him Larissa’s child. Her other child. Not the lifeless baby girl the paramedics had found in the flat. Another child. But there had been no trace of another kid in the flat … There hadn’t!
Holly pulled some mugs from the cupboard, hands shaking. One of the handles slid from her grasp and shattered on the tiled floor. ‘Shit!’ She burst into tears, blood oozing from a cut thumb.
DS Harlow got up, and took the remaining mugs from Holly, gently disentangling her fingers. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll make the tea. Sorry, Holly, but this is why we wanted to break the news in person. I understand it must be a shock.’
Wiping her eyes, Holly slumped opposite DC Marriot, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at her, instead staring at the wooden table. She grabbed a tissue and wrapped it around her injured digit. ‘Have you spoken to Lydia? To my dad?’ Fucking hell, Donnie would go mental when he found out. Depending on whether he was having a day off the booze, or if he was busy drinking himself insensible. Mind you, he’d taken zero interest in Milo.
Whatever Donnie had been up to in previous years, he no longer played an active part in anything unless it came out of a bottle. It was hard to believe he used to be the kingpin of all the local crime families. In the years before her mum died, Donnie had dipped a toe in most illegal activities you could name: drugs, of course; trafficking; robberies. There had once been a lot of money to burn but now it was gone.
She and Jayden had grown up knowing that other people were scared of their parents. They’d been raised with the Balintas, the Mancinis and later the Nicholls’ kids. And that had turned out so well. Holly dropped her head in her hands for a moment, lost in the past. A past she had turned her back on. For a while she had been successful, but now it seemed that everything was slowly unravelling. At the back of her brain the words beat a drum tattoo: ‘Another child, another child.’ If the police were right, she had a nephew. Milo had a cousin.
She raised her head and looked up at DC Marriot. ‘Sorry. Just a bit of a shock. Oh thanks. Um … Are you sure about this? I mean, is it possible there’s some mistake? My brother is dead. He … We had a memorial and everything.’ She trailed off. The other woman put a mug of tea in front of her. Holly, seeking mundane comfort, wrapped her hands around the hot mug, inhaling the steam.
DC Marriot was watching her, blue eyes intense, and when she spoke, she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. ‘We’ll talk to your dad next, and then your aunt. Holly, I’m sorry to have to ask this, but is there any possibility that your brother is still alive?’
Holly blinked hard, seeing his face, seeing Larissa’s face. The room seemed to spin, and her hands grasping the mug seemed her only link to reality. Christ, no wonder the child had seemed to have an edge of familiarity. There had been that niggling thought that she did know him, but she hadn’t been able to place him. Despite the fact Jayden had been blonde, and even though this kid had been asleep when she saw him, now she knew she realised he was the image of his dad.
They had always been a funny pair, her and her brother – striking, with their totally different looks. She was so dark, with her skin and hair colour a legacy from her mother, and he was so blonde and green-eyed. Donnie had been blonde of course, and when Jayden had been her dad’s golden boy, doing as he was told, it had all seemed perfect. Donnie had a son to take over the business, and that was all he cared about. But father and son had been estranged for years by the time Jayden died. Donnie hadn’t even bothered to come to the candlelit memorial Lydia had arranged when, seven years after they last saw him, Jayden Hughes was officially declared dead.
The police officers waited patiently, as she got a hold of herself, pushing through memories. ‘You lot told me he was dead! I saw what they did to Larissa and the baby, so I had no reason to assume otherwise. You said Jay’s blood was in the room, and his footprints, and then when that dealer said he’d helped get rid of his body …’ Holly was getting agitated again now, fighting her emotions, trying to stay in control. For the first time in ages, despite the recent dramas, she felt like she needed to fight. The sweet release of tension, the sweat and the pain in her muscles, and the high of victory that beat anything drugs could offer.
DS Harlow passed her a box of tissues, and she grabbed one, wiping away the tears in annoyance. She wasn’t generally a crier, but the last few months she seemed to have spent her whole time bursting into tears.
‘It’s okay to be upset and you don’t have to hide it. I’d be in total shock if it was me. This was eleven years ago, wasn’t it? Can you talk us through the last time you saw your brother?’ DS Harlow said gently. She was taking notes on a pad, chewing the end of her pen, whilst her colleague tapped away on her iPad.
‘You must have it all on file. You know all about it, and bloody DI Harper was there!’ It came out defensively, but DC Marriot just nodded. ‘Holly, I’m not going to lie to you, this is an oddball case. That’s why we are trying to get as much background as possible. Naturally DI Harper has provided us with the previous case files, and we know all the officers involved believed Jayden to be dead, even before he was legally declared so. There was never any mention of another child, though. We just think it might help to go over the details from your point of view again, which may in turn tell us why the boy is here.’
‘It won’t help me,’ Holly muttered, scrubbing at her flushed and wet cheeks with another tissue. What the hell was going on?
DC Marriot propped her chin on one hand, studying her iPad, eyes flicking from Holly to her screen. ‘There are other options, of course …’
‘Let’s go with the theory that this is Jayden’s son, to start off with,’ DS Harlow said, with a quick glance at her colleague.
Holly took a deep breath and waited another long moment. She found she was flexing her fingers, feeling a tremor that rippled along her biceps, instinctively clenching her fists. ‘I saw Jayden the week before Larissa was killed. He’d cleared off eighteen months previous and we thought that he’d moved right out the area. But he was waiting outside the gym late one night. I’d been teaching a class, and suddenly there he was, just the same as ever, asking for money. He asked for ten thousand pounds to pay off the dealer he owed. He knew I didn’t have that kind of money, but he said he was desperate. We’d been there before. I’d lent him money, my mum lent him money before she died, my aunt, everyone … I was … shocked to see him. Angry too. I thought he’d gone for good, and maybe finally sorted himself out.’
‘And your dad? Did he lend him money?’
‘No. He did to start with, when he thought Jay was going to be useful in the business. You know, dealing and that, but when Mum died he told Jay to fuck off, quit using the merchandise and sort his life out, so instead Jay worked mainly either dealing for the Balintas or helping out Gareth Nicholls on deliveries. You know, Nicholls Transport?’
‘We know it,’ DC Marriot said dryly, exchanging a quick, loaded glance with her colleague.
‘Joey and Gareth were pretty young when they first came down to the Seaview, and my dad always said they wanted to be the top dogs. They pretended to be happy with a three-way territory split with my dad, and Mason Balinta, but I know they started paying Alexi Mancini to do them favours, give them contacts, right after they arrived,’ Holly found she was rambling now, with Dev’s cheeky grin all mixed up with the horrors of the trial. But there were happy memories further back. All of them as kids, her and her best mate Cath beating the boys at basketball, and her discovery that she was good at boxing. Bloody good. She was soon competing for the local club, progressing to the NABC Boxing Championships, and it had escalated from there: the agent, the professional photos … It was a long time ago now.
‘Anyway,