I had to interrupt. ‘Showing him off to his grandparents?’ ‘No. I kept putting that off. I hadn’t spoken to Mum and Dad, or to Dawn, since I left with Paul. When I went back with my new baby I wanted it to be a real surprise. I’d planned to do it last Christmas, to drive up there and just turn up on the doorstep, but Paul came down with something, so we decided not to expose Tom to his bugs all the way up there in a car. We decided that we’d wait till Easter, but a couple of weeks before that, he told me he’d have to go to the US on business, so that got shelved. After all, there was plenty of time. Oh, yes,’ she said, in a tone that was suddenly hard and bitter, ‘all the time in the fucking world.’
She faltered, staring up at the drapes that shaded the glass roof, blinking hard and biting her lip.
‘Or so I thought,’ she went on quietly. ‘So the stupid, doe-eyed, earth mother Primavera thought.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘It was just another Saturday, Oz, a couple of months ago. We had a routine on Saturdays: we’d go food shopping, all three of us. If the weather was bad we’d take a taxi to Putney, but if it was nice we’d walk across the bridge to Waitrose on the King’s Road, get what we needed, have a coffee, then cab it back with the bags. I was all ready to go, but Paul said that he thought Tom was still a bit sleepy and to be honest so was he, so why didn’t I just leave the guys together and go on my own? I took him at his word: I suppose if I’m being totally honest, I was quite pleased. Tom had been getting to be quite a handful. It was a nice warm spring day, and the sun was shining, so I walked. I took my time over it, got quite a lot of stuff, locked it in one of those safe deposit things in the supermarket, had a coffee, walked down the King’s Road and bought a nice outfit, then picked up my shopping and took a taxi back home. And when I got there he was gone.’
She paused for another slug of Bacardi. ‘I walked in, as usual, expecting the happy smile and the hug, as usual, but all I got was silence. I thought nothing of it at first: I just supposed that he’d decided to take Tom to the park. So I put the food away, and went to try on my new trouser suit again. When I went into the bedroom, I saw that Paul’s wardrobe was open and empty. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat down on the bed and started shaking. And then the quietness got to me, and I realised what had happened.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The quietness, Oz, the absence of noise: when there’s a baby in a house there’s always something going on, or he’s asleep. Tom never sleeps at midday any more. I ran through to the nursery. . I still remember my heart hammering in my chest as I did. . but it was empty too. The cot was there, and some of his toys, but all the rest, and his clothes, they were all gone.’
‘You’re saying that he’d taken Tom?’
‘Of course,’ she shouted, suddenly. ‘Do you think I’d be this torn up about the fucking money? He stole my son, Oz. That bastard Paul Wallinger stole my son!’ The crying began again, in earnest.
I left Susie to deal with that and went back through to the kitchen to mix Prim another drink, a real one this time. When I got back, she was sitting in her wicker chair, her shoulders hunched, rocking very slightly, backwards and forwards, as if that gave her comfort. ‘Here,’ I murmured, handing her the fresh Bacardi. She took it from me without even looking up, and drank half of it in a single swallow.
‘What did you do about it?’ I asked her.
‘For a couple of hours I just sat there, trying to comprehend what had happened. I used my imagination as best I could, to see if I could come up with a logical explanation. But I couldn’t and it just left me all the more scared. Finally, I called the police and told them that I wanted to report a child abduction. They responded quickly enough, two uniforms, then a couple of CID, but when I told them what had happened I could see them glaze over. They told me that since Paul’s Tom’s father, there had been no crime, and that, well, basically, ma’am, you’re just wasting our bleedin’ time. So I asked them if I could report them missing, and they said no, because, ma’am, he isn’t bloody missing. He’s packed and he’s gone: Mr Wallinger knows where he is all right, and where his son is. His son, remember. He just doesn’t want you to bloody know, does he? So then I said what about my baby, and they asked me if I had any reason to believe that Paul would harm Tom, and I had to say no, and they said, well, there you bloody are, then. They told me to sit tight, be patient and wait for the phone to ring and then they buggered off.’
‘And did you? Sit tight, I mean?’
‘What else could I do? I was terrified, I’d had a couple of drinks by that time, no, more than a couple, and even if I’d wanted to get out I couldn’t, could I, in case Paul phoned to tell me where he was? I sat tight, all right. . tight as a tick most of the time. I sat there for three days, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and into Tuesday, drinking a lot, eating very little and barely sleeping a wink. Finally, I made myself believe what had happened and believe that there wasn’t going to be a phone call. So I got myself sober, had a bath, and made myself take a few hours’ kip. When I woke up, on the Wednesday morning, I made some calls. The first was to a lawyer I’d used when I bought the flat. I told him what had happened and asked what I could do. He told me to sit tight again … advice that I did not thank him for. . while he hired a detective to make some preliminary enquiries.’
‘I thought that would have been your first call,’ I said, ‘given that you and I were in that business together.’
‘I told you, my mind was fucked up, or I would have. No matter, a man came to see me within two hours: his name was Gary Anderson, and he said that he was an ex-cop. He interviewed me, I gave him all the detail I could, and he said that he’d get on with it. He was very good, better than you and I ever were, or much quicker, anyway. He came back to see me at four o’clock next day, Thursday. He told me that Mr Paul Wallinger had flown from London Gatwick to Minneapolis on the previous Saturday afternoon, on a Northwest flight. His infant son Tom was with him and they had travelled club class.’
‘Minneapolis is a hub airport,’ I told her. ‘Did he have an onward booking?’
‘No, he didn’t: Anderson checked that. I asked him how he’d been able to get Tom on the plane without a passport. He told me that he’d been to the US Embassy and put him on his own, as an American citizen, which he is, just as much as he’s British.’
‘He was well prepared,’ said Susie.
‘He’d had two fucking years to prepare,’ Prim shot back bitterly. ‘Anderson checked his business background, at least the details I’d given him. Everything was phoney: the company he said he worked for didn’t exist. You probably think that makes me an idiot, living with someone for that long and knowing so little about what he did during the day. But honestly, it isn’t so daft. I’d never visited Paul at his office, or had any reason to: he told me that his wasn’t always a desk job, and that he spent most of his time out looking at the businesses he was interested in. That figured, for he’d often be away for a couple of days at a time, even when I was nearly due, and even when Tom was just an infant. As for a business phone number, he said that he didn’t have a direct line and that he always used a mobile. “So what’s he been living on?” I asked Anderson, but I didn’t have to: I knew. He’d been living on me. When I checked, all the household costs had come either out of my Visa account. . I’d given him a card of his own, hadn’t I? … or out of a joint account he’d set up for us, but never put anything into himself. Do you know, I even paid for his fucking flight to America, the one he left me on?’
‘I hope you cancelled the card,’ said Susie indignantly.
‘Too right I did.’
‘Did you keep the last statements?’ I asked.