It had been over thirty years since she’d last bought a pregnancy test and Helen felt a fraud surveying the family planning section.This area was usually the preserve of anxious teens or hopeful thirty-somethings, not fifty-something ex-coppers who were slowly going out of their mind with worry.She felt ill at ease, a fake, and yet she had never been a coward, so after selecting two of the most expensive, most reputable, tests she hurried to the checkout.She kept her helmet on throughout, hoping that in doing so she might disguise her age, yet still detected an inkling of curiosity from the checkout girl as their eyes met.
Helen left as decisively as she’d arrived and was soon back on the roads, racing home.The familiar sights and sounds seemed to pass in a blur, driving on autopilot, barely registeringher surroundings.She felt as if she was in a dream, a strange darkening fantasy which she might awake from at any minute, breathless, startled but relieved.But the minutes passed with no release and before long she was pulling into the underground car park beneath her building, bringing her Kawasaki to a halt in the usual bay.
Cursing the fact that the lift was out of order, Helen made her way to the towering stairwell.Gripped by nausea and unsteady on her feet, she nevertheless took the stairs at speed.Each second of delay now felt like agony.She wanted to do the test, find out it was negative, then spend the evening berating herself for being so foolish.Even if that wasn’t the case, if she was somehow pregnant, more than anything she just wanted to know.
Eventually she crested the top-floor landing, heading fast for the front door.As she did so, her phone pinged loudly in her hand.Looking down, Helen clocked that she’d received a text from Harika Guli, the manager of the Kurdish Welfare Centre, asking if she’d made any progress in her search for Selima.Ignoring the message, she shoved the phone back into her pocket, before pushing inside the flat, slamming the door shut behind her.Helen wasted no time in heading to the bathroom.Only now did she pause, seating herself tentatively on the loo seat, her heart hammering in her chest.Did shereallywant to do this?
Summoning her courage, Helen ripped open the packet, removing the contents and took the test.To her it was as if nothing and nowhere existed apart from this small room, which even now seemed to fill with a tense, expectant hush.She barely dared to look down at the results, fearful of what she might discover, but glancing at the applicator, she saw that she had an answer.
She stared at the clear blue line, feverishly checking the box once more to ensure she wasn’t mistaken, but there was no doubt.The test confirmed that she was pregnant.Tossing the applicator into the bin, she swiftly ripped open the second test, determined that this time thecorrectresult would be delivered, the only result she could countenance.But moments later, her fragile hopes were dashed, the second test confirming the initial result.
Helen was carrying a child.
Chapter 42
She felt giddy with excitement, stunned at the good fortune that had just fallen into her lap.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Emilia drove speedily, but steadily, keen to get her hoard home as fast as possible.She was alert, focused, yet still she couldn’t help stealing a gaze at the dirty holdall now wedged in the passenger footwell.As soon as she’d returned to her car, she’d locked the doors and torn open the bag.To her immense surprise, the contents were just as her father had described, two dusty, but reassuringly substantial, gold bars.Shocked, overwhelmed, Emilia had immediately closed the holdall, fearful that a passer-by might peer inside, clocking her illicit haul, but she hadn’t pulled the zip totally shut and even now she could spot a tell-tale glint of gold.
Her dad had been telling the truth.Emilia still couldn’t really compute this – his tale had seemed outlandish, her mission to Louisa’s preposterous, and yet it was hard to argue with the evidence.Nestling next to her was a stash worth £100,000, a potentially life-changing sum.Already Emilia was scrolling forwards, imagining all the ways in which this hefty wodge of cash could transform the lives of her and her siblings, clearing their debts and opening up a brighter future, but immediatelyshe caught herself.There were many fences to jump first, if she was to pull this off.
Fence was an apt word, for this would have to be her first port of call.Ernesto had given her the address of someone he’d used many times before – Bruce Carley, a man of questionable morals, with an extremely flexible approach to the law.Emilia was heading there now, her satnav guiding her inexorably towards the darker parts of Eastleigh.But could she trust this guy?And how would their encounter play out?She would not stumble blindly into their meet, making sure she knew her escape route and that she had her taser and pepper spray in her bag, but even if this ageing fence was benign, would he not still try to screw her on the price?She had to be ready for this, summoning her father’s steel, perhaps even using the threat of press exposure or police involvement as a stick to ensure his compliance.Even if shedidescape with the requisite cash, she would still have to be careful, taking a circuitous route home to confuse any future police investigation and wiping the address memory from her satnav.Emilia was not a seasoned criminal, but she knew caution must be her watchword.
She’d made good time so far, but now her smooth progress stalled, a line of red brake lights in front of her forcing her to come to a gentle stop.Exhaling slowly, Emilia tried to remain calm, but in truth her nerves were jangling.Already she’d missed three calls from Louisa, her hostess presumably bemused by her sudden departure.Had she sensed that the whole visit had been a ruse?Was she even now in the basement, pulling the boxes away, seeking out the damaged brickwork?Emilia had no way of knowing and it was certainly possible her father’s ex-lover might divine what had gone down tonight, which meant the sooner the gold was out of Emilia’s hands the better.But what would she do thereafter?How would she protect, process anddisperse over a hundred thousand pounds worth of cash?There was no way she could keep it at the family home, that would be far too dangerous, but nor could she deposit it in a bank, without provoking awkward questions.Where then could she stash her haul?
Drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, Emilia craned round to try and work out what the cause of the hold-up was.She could just make out a large red van further down the street whose hazard lights were flashing.Was there some kind of problem?Had the driver broken down?Or was he just making a delivery?Emilia sincerely hoped it was the latter, but even so the delay made her nervous and she angled a glance in her rear-view mirror, contemplating a swift three-point turn.To her dismay, however, there were already several vehicles backed up behind her, ruling out any chance of retreat.
Ahead of her, the queuing motorists were now losing patience.A couple of them had emerged from their cars and, peering ahead, Emilia could make out an argument breaking out between the van driver and the aggrieved drivers.What the hell was going on?If he really had broken down, then those behind her would simply have to back up.Now the van driver was raising his voice, gesturing furiously, but still the cause of the delay remained a mystery.Cursing loudly, Emilia clicked off her seat belt and threw open the driver’s door.
Emerging, she shut the door firmly, locking the car with the fob and taking a few steps forward, once more craning round the idling vehicles to see what was going on.The altercation seemed to be heating up, the van owner shoving the nearest driver.Jesus Christ, what was the issue?If he was making a delivery, he should just get on with it.If he had broken down, then the others should help him get his vehicle off the road, so they could all get moving.Angry, Emilia took another fewsteps forward, but now peace suddenly seemed to break out, the van driver holding up his hands in apology and shamefacedly backing away.Shaking her head, Emilia turned back, annoyed but relieved that it had all been a fuss over nothing.
Then she heard something.A high-pitched, insistent whine that set her nerves on edge.What was it?A drone?An animal in distress?A distant siren?The sound grew louder and now Emilia realized what it was – the squeal of a moped’s engine.Without knowing why, Emilia suddenly felt anxious and exposed, picking up her pace as she hurried back to her Corsa.To her horror, however, she now saw that someone else had got there first, a moped with two men on it pulling up sharply next to her car.
‘Hey you, get away from there …’
The two men were peering through the car windows, as if searching for something.Desperate, Emilia sprinted towards them, but the men had now found what they were looking for, swinging a hammer at the passenger window.The glass exploded noisily, the car alarm shrieking into life, but the thief did not hesitate, reaching down through the broken window to retrieve the holdall.Effortlessly, he pulled it free from the car, slinging it onto his shoulder.Emilia only had seconds to act now so she threw herself across the bonnet of the car, grasping at the holdall strap.The thieves, however, were just ahead of her, the driver ripping back the throttle before she could make contact.With a shrill squeal, the bike shot forwards, leaving Emilia clutching thin air.
‘Hey, come back here …’
But already the bike was thirty feet away, driving down the narrow corridor of space next to the queuing cars.
‘You bastards, come back …’
Emilia felt herself choke, tears pricking her eyes.All her hard work, the risks she’d taken had been for nothing, her role in thisscam that of a patsy.She had believed her dad, hadtrustedher dad, but it was crystal clear that the whole scheme had been a ruse from start to finish, a carefully orchestrated trap.
One she had walked straight into.
Day Four
Chapter 43
Helen drew deeply on her cigarette, inhaling the noxious fumes.She knew she shouldn’t do it, yet felt compelled to undertake this petty act of rebellion.She hadn’t sought this situation, didn’t want it, and desperately needed something to calm her nerves.Once she’d mainlined on pain to drive away her demons, now she favoured nicotine.
Raising her head, she blew out a long trail of smoke, her gaze drifting towards the anonymous office across the road.A year ago, the National Crime Agency had set up its elite financial tracking unit in Southampton, dozens of highly trained accountants, investigators and online experts working feverishly to track down fraudsters, gangsters and hackers, behind the tinted glass walls.Helen had never visited their office, indeed it had barely got going by the time she resigned from the Force, but she would break her duck this morning, as she had some surprising news to impart to her lover.
Finishing her cigarette, Helen drew out another, annoyed that the office had not yet opened despite the clock having hit nine o’clock.She pressed the cigarette to her lips, raising her lighter, but as she did so, she caught the eye of a young girl walking up the street with her mother, dressed smartly in her school uniform.The expression on the little girl’s face was apicture, curiosity morphing swiftly to disgust, modern society’s view on the evils of smoking clearly having been drilled into her.Embarrassed, Helen replaced the cigarette before concealing the offending articles in her pocket.Was she imagining it or did the little girl give a little nod of approval as she passed by, as if congratulating herself on a job well done?Either way, Helen’s eyes remained glued to her, watching the youngster as she strolled away down the street, hand in hand with her mother.
It was an unremarkable sight, something you witnessed every day of the week, and yet it struck Helen forcibly this morning.The bond between mother and daughter seemed so simple, so natural, and yet it was something Helen had never experienced.Her father had beaten her, whilst her mother had neglected her, turning a blind eye to her children’s suffering.Helen had never received any love or encouragement from her parents, forever the victim of their vices, rather than the beneficiary of their virtues.She didn’t know what being a mothermeant, nor what a healthy parent–child relationship felt like.Indeed, the only person who had ever looked out for her had been her sister, Marianne, and that had not ended well.
