Little Darlings

Irritated, by the look of you, thought Harper. And tired. Very, very tired.

‘Dr Gill. I’m the duty psychiatrist. And I’m afraid I’ve just had an emergency call, so I really must leave, I’m sorry.’

There was a time, probably only ten or so years ago, when DS Harper’s delicate stature and artfully messed-up blond ponytail caused people to utter that line about police officers getting younger every day. The comments trailed off as the years passed, and now they didn’t seem to happen anymore, ever. She was thinking about what it might mean for her, that not only had people stopped saying she looked young for her profession but that this doctor – this fully qualified, adult doctor standing in front of her now, looked about twelve.

Dr Gill tried to side-step her once again, but she went with him. He sighed in frustration.

Harper spoke quickly. ‘This won’t take long,’ she assured him, ‘no need to worry. A patient, Mrs Tranter, called 999 this morning. Is there anything you can tell me about that?’

‘Yes,’ said Dr Gill, apparently pleased to be able to provide a speedy answer, ‘it was a medical emergency, not a police matter. I had hoped someone would contact you about it.’

‘They did, but I wasn’t quite clear about the circumstances.’

‘Well, that’s standard, you wouldn’t be. It’s confidential. All I can tell you is that the patient in question, when she called you, was experiencing problems relating to a temporary impairment of her mental health.’

‘So, nothing to do with an intruder?’

A flicker of incredulity crossed the face of Dr Gill, before the curtain of professionalism dropped down. Very tired indeed.

‘In my field, officer, patients often see things that are not there. And a lot of the time they call the police about it, believing what they see to be real. I’m surprised you haven’t come across it before.’

Harper gave the child-doctor a long look. She wondered how old she would have to be for him not to talk down to her. But then, maybe that was it. Maybe she was already so old at thirty-nine that he saw her as a geriatric, losing the plot.

‘Can I talk to her?’

As he shrugged a don’t-see-why-not, something vibrated in Dr Gill’s pocket and he pulled out a small device, checking its screen. ‘Look, I’ve really got to go. You go ahead though, officer. On the left, by the window. She’s a bit sleepy because we gave her a mild tranquilliser to calm her down. But she’ll talk to you. I’m sure you’ll find there’s nothing to worry the police with.’

As Dr Gill strode away, Harper flipped open her notebook and wrote the words: Dr Gill: sceptic. 8.07 a.m. Royal Infirmary Hospital.

In some areas of the police service they had devices with note-taking apps, but nothing could beat a paper notebook. It meant that Harper could burn her notes if she needed to. The fact you could no longer erase things properly from computers or phones meant her job was easier in a way and harder in another, depending on which side of the fence one stood and whether or not one had anything to hide. She herself didn’t usually have things to hide, of course. But it was nice to have the option.

The bay had four cubicles, but only two had beds in them. In cubicle A there was a red-haired woman, her baby’s hair even brighter than her own. Diagonally across, by the window, the woman in cubicle C sat in bed holding two sleeping infants, one in the crook of each arm. Brown hair, very curly, long enough to cloud around her shoulders. Late twenties, light brown skin, silver wedding band. Harper couldn’t tell height and weight with any accuracy while Mrs Tranter was sitting but she seemed average, perhaps a tad taller than average. Her face was slack, motionless. The babies were paler in complexion than their mother, and both had wisps of curly blond hair. One was dressed in a green sleep suit and the other in yellow.

There was a spot of blood seeping through a bandage on Mrs Tranter’s left wrist. She was dressed in a hospital gown. On the floor between the bed and the wall there was an open suitcase spilling its contents – baby clothes, nappies and what were presumably Mrs Tranter’s own clothes. She’d dressed the babies, but not herself.

Something about her face reminded Harper of a photograph she had of her own mother as a young woman; the large brown eyes rimmed with sadness, gazing softly into the distance, unreachable. Harper was gentle when she spoke.

‘Lauren Tranter?’

The woman turned her head towards Harper’s voice. As the seconds slipped by, she gradually came to focus. It seemed a gargantuan effort. Lazily, her eyelids dropped shut and opened again, the slow blink of the drugged.

‘Yes.’

‘My name’s Jo Harper. I’m a police officer. I’m here to talk to you about last night.’

‘Oh.’

Lauren’s gaze drifted down towards the baby in yellow, and then across to the other. They were identical.

She said, ‘I thought they called you. I thought they told you not to come.’

‘They did,’ Harper smiled, gave a little shrug, ‘but I came anyway. It’s my duty to investigate when there’s been a report of a serious incident. You called 999 at half past four this morning, or thereabouts? The report mentioned an attempted child abduction.’

Mrs Lauren Tranter’s face crumpled. Tears cleaned a path to her chin. ‘I did call.’

Harper waited for her to go on. A machine was beeping in the next bay. The sound of footsteps in the hallway, a door banging.

Awkwardly, Lauren wiped her nose with the back of a hand, getting a bit of wet on the yellow-dressed baby’s arm. ‘But they said it wasn’t real. It didn’t happen. They said I imagined it. I’m so sorry.’

‘It must have been very frightening for you,’ said Harper.

‘Terrifying.’ The word out came out on a sigh. Lauren searched Harper’s face, looking for an answer to some unasked question.

‘You were right to call.’ Harper laid a hand on the younger woman’s arm, not making contact with any part of the baby she held there, but the mother flinched at the touch and the sudden movement shocked the baby, whose eyes flew open, its arms and legs briefly rigid before they slowly drew in again as Harper watched. The baby in green on the other side rubbed the back of its head on its mother’s arm, side to side, yawning and rolling its tongue into a tube. The little eyes remained closed.

‘Sorry,’ said Lauren, ‘I’m a bit jumpy.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ve been through a lot, I get it.’

‘I’m really tired. I didn’t get much sleep, not last night, not since I had them. I’m not complaining though. It’s worth it, right?’

‘Right,’ said Harper, ‘they’re beautiful. When were they born?’

‘Saturday night.’ She nodded to the one in yellow. ‘Morgan was born at 8.17. His little brother came out at 8.21. He’s called Riley.’

‘Lovely,’ said Harper. She scrabbled for a platitude to fill the silence. ‘Well, you’ve certainly got your hands full there.’

Lauren turned her eyes on Harper. ‘Do you have children?’ she asked.

Harper didn’t know why she didn’t answer immediately. All her life she’d been answering immediately, giving the same almost stock response, No, not me, I’m not the maternal type, said in a way that made it clear she didn’t want any more questions. Today was different somehow; Lauren wasn’t making small talk. She wasn’t implying, like some people did, that Harper’s biological clock was all but ticked out. She was asking Do you understand what just happened to me? Standing there in front of Lauren Tranter, so devoid of artifice, not just hoping but needing the answer to be Yes, yes I do, the truth was on her tongue. But she swallowed it.

‘No, not really,’ she said, immediately hearing how stupid that sounded. Not really? What did that mean? Lauren made a small frown but didn’t say anything more. Harper went on, ‘I’ve got a little sister. A lot younger than me. So I guess I sometimes think of her as my kid. But no, I don’t have any children of my own.’

Lauren’s eyebrows went up and she seemed to drift away, unfocussed. Newly etched lines mapped the contours under her eyes, the topography of her recent trauma.

After a moment Harper said, ‘What happened to your wrist?’

The spot of blood on the bandage had grown from the size of a pea to the size of a penny in the time Harper had been standing there.

‘Well, she, the woman, she . . .’ Lauren seemed confused. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Did someone hurt you?’

Lauren turned her head towards the window. Across the car park people were shuffling in and out of the big glass doors, needlessly high doors that dwarfed the people below. The doors were opening, shutting, opening, shutting, reflecting the morning sun as they met and flashing, leaving orange spots in Harper’s eyes. Lauren kept her eyes wide open into the blinding light.

‘That man, Dr Gill. He said I did it to myself.’

‘And what do you think, Mrs Tranter?’