I nod. I can see from the look of shock on Lorcan’s face that this is the last thing he expected. Despite his calm and encouraging words of support, I realize, with a jolt, that he has only been humouring me.
Until now.
‘I don’t understand,’ Lorcan goes on. ‘Who would pay him to keep quiet about a baby not being dead?’
I stand in the freezing air, letting it all sink in. ‘I don’t know . . .’ I say. It’s hard to say the words out loud. But all the evidence seems to point in this direction. ‘Oh, Lorcan, I think it’s possible Art paid him . . .’
‘What?’
I tell him that Lucy O’Donnell claimed Art was part of the plan to steal Beth and about the £50,000 MDO money I found in an account marked ‘Personal’. The words tumble out of me like I’m vomiting them up. This can’t be true. Please, surely, this can’t be true. ‘Art denies it all, but he couldn’t explain what the fifty grand was for. He said it was just a business thing, but it’s the only big amount that went out of an account that didn’t use one of the normal Loxley Benson trading names, and the money was paid out just after Beth.’
‘Okay, but . . . but . . .’ Lorcan frowns. ‘It just doesn’t make sense. The fifty thousand . . . surely that’s nowhere near enough to make a private doctor tell such a massive lie.’
‘I wondered about that myself.’ I hesitate. ‘But suppose it was just the first of several payments . . . suppose there were other lump sums paid through other accounts . . . or even cash . . . that could add up to hundreds of thousands of—’
‘Did Art have that kind of money back then?’
‘Not personally. And someone would notice if he was taking money out of investment accounts, wouldn’t they?’
‘That depends. He was . . . is the MD,’ Lorcan says. ‘At least we know Rodriguez wasn’t talking to Art just now. He said quite clearly: “She’s with someone. Not her husband.” That means there has to be someone else involved.’
He’s right. ‘But who?’
I follow Lorcan’s gaze as he turns to look at Rodriguez’s house. Ground floor. First floor. A small light above the front door gives off a dim glow, casting shadows across the brick wall of the house. There are no lights on anywhere else.
‘Looks pretty deserted,’ Lorcan says.
I nod, suddenly feeling desolate as the adrenalin that’s been coursing through me for the past half-hour drains away. I’m certain now that Rodriguez lied about Beth . . . that he knows what really happened to her. And yet I have nothing concrete to go on . . . nothing more than suspicions to take to the police . . . nothing to counteract the huge and overwhelming evidence that Beth was stillborn.
Lorcan moves closer to the house, then points to a window at the far end of the ground floor. It’s shrouded in darkness but, even so, I can just make out that the bottom sash isn’t entirely closed.
‘What?’ I say, though I know already what he’s thinking.
‘No one’s here.’ Lorcan’s voice drops to a whisper. ‘We could sneak inside . . . go up to that room . . . find whatever Rodriguez said he locked away . . .’
‘We can’t.’ Even as I say the words I know they’re not true. I breathe out a mist of cloudy air then shiver as a gust of icy wind whips around my face.
‘We can.’ Lorcan’s voice is low. Intense. ‘If we’re careful he won’t ever know we’ve been here.’
‘This is insane.’
‘Yes.’ Lorcan looks at me. He’s waiting for me to decide.
The heavy, depressed feeling of the past minute lifts. Adrenalin courses through me again. Can I do this? It’s a chance to find out what Rodriguez was doing in that room upstairs . . . what he was referring to when he said ‘It’s safe’. On the other hand, it’s a terrifying risk . . . it’s breaking the law . . . it’s . . .
A new determination grips me. I have to find out what I can.
‘Would this be burglary or house-breaking?’ I set off towards the house.
Lorcan says nothing. Just follows me to the window. Our feet grind noisily in the gravel. We reach the glass pane and Lorcan grips the wooden base. I watch his strong fingers press against the sill. Force it upwards. It moves a fraction then jams hard.
Lorcan steps back with a sigh. ‘Locked,’ he says.
‘That’s it, then.’ But even as I’m saying the words I know I can’t stop now. A cold fury fills me and I look around for something solid and heavy, something that will break glass.
‘Gen?’ Lorcan asks. ‘What are you doing?’
My eyes light on a group of three plant pots standing against the far wall of the house. I walk over. I have every right to break into this man’s home. He lied to me. I pick up the smallest of the pots and return to Lorcan. I hand him the pot and point to the window. Lorcan blinks rapidly. For the first time since I’ve met him he’s lost his laidback air.
‘If we do this,’ Lorcan says, ‘Rodriguez’ll know we’ve been here.’
‘He’s knows we’re on to him anyway.’ The logic of this sinks into my brain. I am fiercely rational. Aware, with one part of my brain, that what I’m about to do is lunacy, and yet coldly sure that if I want to know what happened to my daughter this is my only option. ‘If we don’t act now, if we just walk away, then Rodriguez will be able to move whatever he’s hiding here – or destroy it. I can’t risk losing this chance to find out.’
Lorcan blows out his breath. ‘Right.’ A second later he slams the pot against the glass. The sound shatters the silence. Glass shards smash to the ground – such a pretty sound for such a violent act.
I stand, stock still, waiting for a response. Nothing comes. No lights. No voices. I glance around. The house is well-secluded from its nearest neighbour. There are no signs that anyone has heard us.
Lorcan has taken off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm. He reaches through the broken pane of glass, punching out a large shard that pokes out from the side. With a swift click he undoes the window lock. A moment later he lifts the sash window.
‘I’ll go through here.’ Lorcan has already hoisted one knee up onto the sill. ‘Let you in the front door.’
I nod. ‘Go.’
Lorcan disappears into the gloom of the room. I can’t see any furniture clearly, just a few dark shapes along the far wall that could be armchairs or cupboards or even a low bookcase.
A minute later the front door opens. I scurry across the gravel and join Lorcan inside. Lorcan flicks a switch beside me, and the room floods with light. We’re in an entry hall – very middle England, with textured wallpaper leading down to a smooth, cream dado rail, cream carpet and elegant, over-ornate, antique wooden furniture. Several oil paintings in muted tones hang on the wall.
‘God, this stuff must be worth a fortune,’ Lorcan says, looking around. ‘It’s like a set for Antiques Roadshow in here. Whatever else he is, your man is definitely loaded.’
I think back to Rodriguez’s professional manner on the day that I met him. He was kind and charming and totally reassuring. Fury wells up inside me. My charismatic doctor was a conman and I fell for his act. Completely.
A polished wooden table stands to the left of the door below a gilt-framed mirror. I catch sight of myself as I pass and barely recognize the intense eyes and pale face of my reflection.
Lorcan is just behind me. The features of his face are composed and relaxed but in the silence of the house I can hear the anxiety in his rushed, shallow breathing. I turn to him, overwhelmed that he is here, risking everything.
‘Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t have done any of this without you.’
‘We’d better make it count, then.’
I turn off the hall light and follow him up the stairs.
Up on the first-floor landing, Lorcan checks off the rooms, counting past windows until we reach the room we saw Rodriguez in just minutes earlier.
It’s an office. Small, with similar décor to the hall downstairs, and heavy brocade curtains at the window. A large oak desk stands
against one wall alongside a matching bookcase. Piles of papers are ranged neatly on the top of an elegant antique cabinet that runs under the window.
As I gaze around, Lorcan strides over to the desk, sits down and switches on the computer. It hums into life and Lorcan starts tapping away at the keyboard.
‘What are you doing?’ I say.
‘Checking to see if Rodriguez has got any files under your name,’ Lorcan says without turning round. ‘Why don’t you look inside that cabinet? But hurry, he could come back any moment.’ I pull the curtains shut in case anyone notices the flickering computer light, then squat on the floor and flick through the papers on top of the cabinet. I make my phone a torch so I can see what I’m looking at. Nothing but recent bills and invoices. I tug at the cabinet handles. The door is locked, but I can tell the lock isn’t solid. It would be easy enough to snap the catch. Again I hesitate for a second. Lorcan is still bent over the computer.
I grit my teeth, then I grab the handles with both hands and wrench the doors open. The wood splinters easily.
‘Easy,’ Lorcan murmurs from the desk. ‘We still need to keep the noise down.’
‘I know.’ Trying not to think about the vandalism I’ve inflicted, I gaze inside. Stacks of box files meet my eyes. My heart sinks. It would take all night to go through this lot properly.
I pull out the first file and flick through the contents. Mostly household bills, as far as I can see. I move on to the next box file. Conveyancing information on the purchase of the house. The property cost £1.3 million. Rodriguez exchanged contracts about ten months after Beth.
I shove the papers back in the box. That proves nothing.
The next box file is full of family photos. Mostly showing Rodriguez as a young man surrounded by parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
I move on to the next. It contains a selection of newspaper clippings and articles torn from magazines.
I look up at Lorcan. He is concentrating hard on the PC in front of him. He pushes back a curl.
‘How’re you doing?’
He grunts. ‘Can’t get past the password. I’m going to check the drawers of this desk. Maybe Rodriguez wrote it down somewhere. Lots of people do.’
I nod and turn back to my file. Most of these cuttings concern medical breakthroughs to do with IVF treatments. They are almost all dated from the early nineties, before the internet made paper files less essential. I reach the bottom of the file and am about to shove it to one side when an entirely different cutting catches my eye.
It’s much more recent than the rest – dated nearly eight years ago – and is a small report from what looks like a local Oxford newspaper about a hit-and-run accident on the outskirts of the city. A man was killed. I peer at his photo and at the name in the caption.
Gary Bloode, anaesthetist at Fair Angel maternity hospital.
It’s like a slap round the face.
I remember him now quite clearly – the way he chatted to me before he put me under, explaining how the injection would feel cold, asking me to count backwards from ten. He made a joke of his name: ‘Bloode . . . yeah, patients tend to pass out at the sight of me.’ I didn’t see him afterwards. Didn’t think about him.
And now it seems he was killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident, just a few weeks after taking part in Beth’s delivery. Exactly the same manner of death as Lucy O’Donnell. Surely that can’t be a coincidence?
A soft, rattling sound from across the room makes me look up. Lorcan has prised open the top drawer of the desk and is shaking a small metal box he’s found inside. I watch as Lorcan opens the box and picks out a memory stick.
‘This has a date written on the side.’
‘Tell me.’ I scramble to my feet, shoving the newspaper cutting into my bag.
‘June the eleventh.’
The room spins around me.
‘That was Beth’s birth date,’ I say.
Lorcan’s eyes meet mine. Without speaking, he pulls the top off the stick and turns back to the computer to insert it in the USB port.
My guts twist into a sickening knot.
And then, from downstairs, comes the sound of the front door opening. Lorcan turns to me in horror. I hold my breath, as the distinct sound of footsteps cross the hall and climb the stairs towards us.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I stand frozen to the spot as the footsteps reach the landing. For a second I brace myself, ready for Rodriguez to burst in and confront us. And then I realize that the footsteps are fading slightly. He must be heading away from this room, walking along the corridor in the opposite direction. My heart leaps. I’d assumed he’d noticed the broken window downstairs but maybe he hasn’t seen it.
Does that give us a chance to get away?
I catch Lorcan’s eye. He looks as desperate as I feel. He takes the memory stick out of the computer. With a single, soft stride he’s at the door, peering outside.
I close my eyes, my heart drumming against my throat. I can’t believe I’m in this situation. I’m nearly forty – a married and respectable sometime author and tutor – and I’m about to be caught red-handed having broken into someone’s house with a man who is not my husband.
For some reason Morgan’s face appears in my mind’s eye, complete with the shocked expression she would almost certainly be wearing if she could see me now. A throb of nervous laughter threatens to burst out of me.
‘Gen!’ Lorcan’s fierce whisper jolts me back into the moment. ‘Come here!’
I race to the door and stand beside him. The corridor leading off the landing is empty. I peer into the shadows, my heart pounding.
‘Where is he?’ I hiss, all the humour of the situation evaporating.
‘Must have gone into one of the other rooms,’ Lorcan whispers. ‘Let’s go.’ He grabs my hand and leads me out.
We creep silently along the corridor. I can hear Rodriguez now. He sounds like he’s moving furniture . . . pulling open doors. A series of dull thuds echo towards us, as if he’s dropping piles of books on the floor.
Lorcan drops my hand as we reach the top of the stairs. I scurry down, trying to tread as lightly as possible. Lorcan speeds down behind me. Across the hall, I reach the front door first. There’s something wrong with the way it’s hanging on its hinges but there’s no time to examine it properly. Holding my breath I push it open. The door creaks noisily. I freeze, a trickle of sweat running down my neck, even as the cold air outside sweeps over my face.
Upstairs, the thudding noises stop. Footsteps sound along the corridor.
‘Run!’ Lorcan hisses in my ear.
I tear through the door and across the drive. Lorcan pounds after me. The gravel churns under our feet, the noise huge and harsh in the still night air. I reach the gate, panting, and glance back to see if Rodriguez has seen us . . . if he’s following. As I scan the first-floor windows, my eyes are drawn to the office we just ran away from. The curtains are open and the light is on. A male figure stands at the window, staring out at us.
‘What?’ Lorcan says, his mouth dropping open in shock.
Because the light in the room is glinting off the man’s blond hair and, even though his pale face is in shadow, he is most definitely not Dr Rodriguez.
‘Who the hell was that?’ Lorcan grips the steering wheel, manoeuvring onto the main road.
Ten minutes have passed but, inside the warmth of his car, with Oxford vanishing in a blur of buildings and street lamps, it feels more like ten hours.
I sit back in the passenger seat and close my eyes. I can hardly believe what we just did . . . the risk of it . . . the illegality.
‘I don’t know but he must have broken into the house after us,’ I say. ‘We didn’t leave the front door like that.’ For a second I feel like bursting into tears. And then another thought strikes me. ‘Oh God, do you think we left fingerprints?’ My eyes are wide open with horror.
‘Hundreds,’ Lorcan says grimly. He glances over at me and I suddenly remember the me
mory stick, marked with Beth’s birth date, that he found in Rodriguez’s desk.
‘Do you still have—?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Lorcan pats his pocket, then draws out the stick. ‘My laptop’s on the back seat. Do you want to take a look at what’s on this?’
I reach round and drag the rucksack on the back seat towards me. A white MacBook is inside – an oldish model with dirt in a crack that runs along the casing. I open the computer and insert the memory stick.
A line of code flashes up, then the message that the contents are encrypted.
‘I can’t read it,’ I say. ‘I mean, it won’t read.’
Lorcan glances across at the computer which is propped open on my lap.
‘Shit,’ he says.
I look out of the window. We’re passing fields and trees. I’m reminded, as I often am outside London, how quickly cities turn to countryside. There’s a misty glow over the treetops. In fact . . . I strain my eyes, certain I can see snow in the distance.
‘What do we do now?’ My voice reflects how I feel after all the energy and excitement of the past few hours: flat and lifeless.
‘You need to see whatever’s on that stick,’ Lorcan says, changing gear. ‘I’ll get Cal to take a look. That’s my son – he’s an IT geek, remember, I told you? He’s genius with stuff like that.’
‘Really?’ Hope fills me again.
‘Sure.’ Lorcan shrugs, his voice gruff. ‘Might as well get some use out of that expensive education Elaine insisted on.’ He hesitates. ‘Cal’s really smart when it comes to computers, maths . . .’
He tails off, sounding awkward. I sense he’s just embarrassed, self-conscious about showing pride in his boy.
‘Was that something you and Elaine disagreed on, the private education?’
‘Not really, it’s just she can be a bit . . .’ Lorcan pauses, clearly trying to choose his words carefully, ‘. . . a bit insistent and . . . well, I don’t like being told what to do.’
I raise my eyebrows, noticing for the first time how his face in profile is perfectly proportioned. ‘Nobody likes being told what to do.’