She’s clearly getting under Quinn’s skin. I wouldn’t have said what he did, but now it’s out there I’m intrigued to see how she reacts. Shock, surely. Then what? Anger, sorrow, disbelief? But whatever she’s feeling, her face gives nothing away. She lifts one hand and starts gnawing at the skin around her thumb.
‘Is there anything you’d like to say?’
Her voice is stronger now. ‘When am I getting out?’
‘That’s not up to me. But we’ll need a whole lot more information first. Information I’m sure you’ll be able to give us.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Like what, for fuck’s sake?’
‘Like where your son’s been for the last twenty years. You know, small details like that.’
‘Ha fucking ha,’ she says. ‘Think yourself quite the fucking comedian, don’t you.’
The sudden rash of expletives is telling.
I smile. ‘Not at all. I’m just doing my job: asking questions.’
‘I’ve answered a million fucking questions already. I told those goons at South Mercia I gave the kid to its father. I don’t know what the fuck happened to either of them after that, and I don’t know where the fuck the kid’s been since. Satisfied?’
‘Not by a long way. You still claim the father was Tim Baker? Despite what came out in that TV series?’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Yeah, well, none of that came from me, did it.’
‘You’re dissociating yourself from it? You never made any of those allegations?’
She smiles; the balance of power has evidently been restored. ‘No comment.’
But I’m not playing that game, not with her. Time to take back the initiative. ‘Do you know how we can contact Tim Baker?’
She gives me a withering look. ‘Don’t you think I’d have mentioned it before now if I did? Like fifteen fucking years ago? And in any case, you must know his name, right? You know, from a credit card or something.’
I play dumb. ‘I thought his name was Tim Baker?’
There’s colour in her cheeks now.
‘Not him. You know. My – son.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m afraid there was nothing to identify him. No cards, no wallet, no phone. Nothing.’
She frowns. ‘That’s crap. It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘I agree. Especially when we know for a fact that he had all those things with him when he arrived.’
It’s trick-bait, but she doesn’t take it. She doesn’t ask how I know that, she doesn’t ask anything at all. She just sits there, gnawing. The skin around her thumbnail is starting to bleed.
‘But you can rest assured we’ll get to the bottom of it, Ms Rowan. It may take a while, but we’ll work it out. We’ll find out what really happened to your baby all those years ago.’
She looks up, meets my gaze, and I smile.
‘It really is only a matter of time.’
‘Christ, she was a hard-faced cow,’ says Quinn, slamming the car door shut behind him.
‘Prison will do that to you.’
We sit for a moment in silence. It’s starting to rain. A fine drizzle misting the windscreen.
‘What do you think?’ he says after a long pause.
‘About what?’
‘Do you think she was surprised? That the kid was still alive, I mean.’
I’ve been asking myself the same question. Asking, and finding it startlingly hard to answer.
‘Not enough,’ I say eventually. ‘News like that, dropping from nowhere after all this time – she should have been reeling. And vindicated. Triumphant, even.’
Quinn laughs. ‘Right – she should have been rubbing our faces right in it. I would have, if it was me.’
‘Exactly. So it’s obviously not that simple. There’s something else in there too. Something muddying the waters.’
‘Like what?’
I turn to face him. ‘I have no idea.’
‘You all right, Rowan?’
She turns and looks back at the prison officer standing in the doorway, her hand on the bolt. She’s frowning. Behind her, people are moving past across the landing.
‘Bad news, was it?’
Rowan turns away. ‘You could say that.’ Her thumb is still bleeding and she lifts it to her mouth and starts to suck it.
The officer takes a step closer; in the bottom bunk, Rowan’s cellmate turns over and settles again.
‘Anything I can do?’ says the officer in a low voice.
Rowan glances at her and their eyes meet.
‘Maybe.’
* * *
Interview with Camilla Rowan, conducted at Calcot Row Police Station, Gloucester
27 August 2002, 11.00 a.m.
In attendance, DI H. Lucas, DS L. Kearney, Mrs J. McCrae (Appropriate Adult)
LK: We’ve asked you back today, Miss Rowan, because we’ve still been unable to locate your missing son.
CR: He’s not missing, he’s with his father.
LK: So you say, but we haven’t been able to track him down either.
CR: [shrugs]
It’s a common name. Must be hundreds of them.
LK: Fifty-six, to be precise. Fifty-six men called Timothy Baker, born in the UK, who would have been between the ages of 17 and 30 at that time. We’ve spoken to every single one of them and none of them has your child, or knows anything about you.
CR: [silence]
LK: Do you have a photograph of this man?
CR: No.
LK: Can you describe him?
CR: Brown hair, brown eyes – he was just ordinary.
LK: Are you prepared to sit down with a police artist and draw up an e-fit of this man?
CR: Yeah, whatever.
LK: Did he have an accent? Birmingham, say?
CR: No, he just sounded ordinary. Like everyone else.
LK: And you’re sure you have the right name?
CR: [silence]
*Duration of silence confirmed as 27 seconds*
It could have been Dacre.
LK: You’re saying his name was Dacre?
CR: I’m saying it could have been.
LK: Tim Dacre?
CR: Or Tom. Maybe.
LK: You don’t know the first name of the man you were sleeping with?
CR: Slept with twice. Five years ago.
HL: I think most women would remember the name of the man who fathered their child, even if they did only have sex with them twice.
CR: [silence]
LK: So let me get this straight. It could have been Tim Baker, Tim Dacre, Tom Baker or Tom Dacre. That’s what you’re now saying? Or are you just deliberately throwing sand in our eyes?
CR: I’m trying to help you.
HL: You’re not helping yourself, Miss Rowan.
CR: [silence]
LK: We can’t find the baby, we can’t find the baby’s father. You must know how this looks.
CR: I don’t care how it looks – I’m telling the truth.
LK: I should tell you we are now conducting a systematic search along the route you say you took from Birmingham and Solihull General Hospital to Shiphampton. Lay-bys, parks, woodland, disused ground, anywhere you might have disposed of the body or buried remains. We’re searching it all.