The Chinese Egg (19 page)

“Who said its life was in danger?” Mrs. Plum demanded.

“The parents are very wealthy people. The usual thing in these cases is a demand for money. If it isn't paid, the child's life is threatened.”

“I'm sure that girl wouldn't do anything to harm it, poor little thing.”

“What about the man?”

“I didn't see much of him.”

“And you didn't like much of what you did see?”

“Well. He spoke very nicely, to me, he did.”

“But not to the girl?”

He was quick, this one, Mrs. Plum had to admit. “I did think once or twice she acted as if she was frightened.”

“What do you mean?”

She hadn't really meant to tell this part of the story, but it came out. “There was one night the baby cried and cried, and she went and sat in the toilet with it. One of my lodgers, a Mr. Bodman he's called, he found her there next morning. Asleep on the floor she was. When I asked her, she said she didn't want the baby to wake Johnny. That was what she called him.”

“She never said anything to you about him? About how they'd met? Anything like that?”

“Only about her wedding. According to her they'd had a big wedding. But she did say not to talk to him about it, and I thought, that's funny. Why should a young chap mind having his wedding spoken about? If it really happened, that's to say.”

“You think they weren't really married?”

“I didn't say so, did I?”

“So you were wondering about them even before your friends talked to you about the Wilmington baby last night?”

“I was and I wasn't. One minute I'd think everything seemed quite ordinary and the next I'd find myself really. . . .” She stopped suddenly.

“You've remembered something?”

“It was the way she used to contradict herself, sometimes. When I asked her where she'd been lodging in Birmingham, because I've got a sister there and I know some parts of it quite well. She told me the name of the street she lived in, and then the next time she said something different.”

“What was the name she said, do you remember?”

“Funny name it was the first time. Second time she said that name, same as the baby's.”

“Linda?”

“Wilmington. That's what she said.”

“She said Wilmington?'

“That's right.”

By the time they let her go home, Mrs. Plum felt as if she'd been put through a mangle. She felt that she hadn't any private thoughts, let alone private life. She also felt sorry for that poor girl, who wasn't bad, but hadn't a clue. The only thing that comforted her was thinking what a lot she'd have to tell Pat and Marge and Walter at the pub that night. It wasn't every day they'd pinned down a kidnapping between them. She was fair, Mrs. Plum was. She knew she'd never have done anything about it on her own.

When Maureen had got back into the bedroom that same morning with the bottle ready for the baby, Skinner was up and dressed and waiting for her.

“What've you been saying to that old bag?”

“I didn't say anything. She asked about the baby, that's all.”

“I heard what she said. What I'm asking you is, what did you tell her about where we come from?”

“I said Birmingham, like you told me, Skinner.” Maureen didn't want to have to look at his face, it frightened her.

“You said something else, you must have. Yesterday, was it? She was on at you just now about the street you'd been in.”

Maureen said, “No, I never,” but she hadn't finished saying it before Skinner hit her hard on the face. She called out, but his hand was over her mouth and he put his face right up to hers and whispered, “If you so much as squeak I'll do you in.”

She couldn't help crying, her face hurt so much.

“Now then. Going to tell me? Or do I have to hit you again?”

She shook her head and he took the hand off her mouth.

“What did you say?”

It was difficult to talk out of her bruised mouth. Maureen said, “She kept on asking where we'd been. I had to say something.”

“So you had to say Wilmington? You bloody stupid bitch! You yapping bigmouth! You. . . you slobbering freak. . .” he swore at her horribly. Lots of words Maureen hadn't even heard before. She didn't say anything, partly because it hurt to speak, partly because she was hoping he hadn't heard the worst of it.
It had been bad enough to say the baby's name, though it was a thing anyone might have done after seeing it in the papers such a lot. But if he'd known that she'd first said Brady Drive, Maureen thought he'd have killed her.

“Come on. Don't stand there like that. We've got to get out,” Skinner said.

“Can't I just. . . the feed's all ready. . . .”

“Damn the feed. Don't you understand? We've got to go! We can't stay here. She's probably going round to the station to jabber about us now.”

“No she hasn't. She was going shopping. . . .”

“Get moving, will you? Pack everything up and make it double quick or you'll get another on the other side of your stupid face. Hurry, can't you?”

Maureen hurried. She didn't understand, but she was frightened enough to do what she was told. They packed everything. Fortunately there wasn't much. When they'd got everything—except the nappies hanging on the airer in the scullery, and Skinner said they'd got to leave those—into the big blue suitcase, Skinner went round the room wiping everything with his handkerchief. He wiped the ends of the bed, the knobs on the chest of drawers, the electric light switch, the ash tray. Maureen said stupidly, “What're you doing that for?” but he only said, “Finished? Now don't touch anything, see? And keep the kid quiet while I go and see what's up.”

The bottle was nearly cold, but Maureen didn't know any other way of keeping the baby quiet than giving it to her. She supposed that was wrong too, but there wasn't any choice with Skinner like this. He'd gone out of the door quite ordinarily, not especially trying to be quiet. Maureen had heard his steps along the passage and a minute later she heard the toilet flush. He came back and shut the door behind him and whispered again.

“She's back upstairs. You go down and straight out. If she sees you, or anyone else, say you've got to go out this early to go to the doctor. Go along the street to the left and round the corner and wait at the bus stop. I've got to get the case out without anyone seeing. I'll bring the pushchair down for you, you just put the kid in it and scoot. And mind! If you act stupid, or say
anything, you've had it. You won't have to worry about what happens next, because there won't be any next for you.”

They went down the stairs. Maureen could hardly see to get down, she was so scared. She went first, carrying the baby with the bottle still in its mouth, and Skinner came just behind her with the carry-cot and the pushchair. Maureen could hear the whine of the vacuum cleaner from the second floor, and over and above its noise, Mrs. Plum whistling a tune off key. Maureen had noticed she always did that when she had the cleaner on, as if she couldn't bear not to be making more noise than anything else going. As they reached the bottom of the stairs the cleaner's whine stopped and Maureen stopped too, petrified. She felt Skinner's hand on her back, pushing her on, and the next minute the cleaner started up again. At the front door, Skinner opened the latch with his handkerchief round his fingers. Outside he opened up the wheeling part of the pushchair and put the cot in it, and Maureen laid the baby in it. Skinner gestured one way, Maureen supposed it was left, like he'd said, then he went back into the house, and Maureen started along the street, looking back over her shoulder all the time as if she expected someone to come along and grab her any minute, which was how she felt.

The bus stop was only a little way along the next road. There were quite a lot of people waiting there, mostly on their way to work, reading newspapers and peering along the road to see if the next bus was theirs. Maureen waited in the queue and presently found she was at the front of it, only of course she couldn't get on a bus because she didn't know which one Skinner meant to take. She had to shake her head when the lady behind her asked her if she didn't want to get on the number 917 and offered to help her with the chair, but she didn't say anything, she was too frightened of saying something wrong. She wondered what Skinner would do if, when he came, he found she'd got on a bus and just gone away. She'd have liked to do that, to get out of this mess. She didn't want to have to look after the baby any longer and now she was really frightened of Skinner, she didn't want to stay with him. She'd leave the baby in its cot and just get on a bus and never come back and never tell anyone what had happened. At
this moment it seemed the most beautiful thing she could possibly ever do.

Another bus drew up beside her, and the man behind her waited for a moment to see if she was going to climb on. Maureen's foot actually went forward an inch, she wanted to go off so badly. But she didn't follow it. She knew that if she did that, Skinner would hit her again and harder. She didn't really think he'd do her in as he'd threatened, but then there was the baby. If she left the baby, what would Skinner do with it? He didn't mind what happened to it so long as he got the money he was after. Maureen thought he might quite easily do something really bad to it. Perhaps just leave it somewhere to die. Or hit it hard because it cried and woke him up. Maureen fingered the side of her face. It hurt a lot and it was coming up in great lumps. If Skinner hit the baby like that, he might kill it. Maureen stayed waiting at the bus stop.

Just then she saw Skinner. He was coming quickly along the street, carrying the big suitcase. He didn't stop at the bus stop but just said over his shoulder, “Come on!” and went on walking. Maureen hurried after him with the pushchair.

“Aren't we going to get on a bus?” she asked, breathless.

“After you've been standing there for everyone to look at? ‘Course not. Train,” Skinner said.

“Where to? Where're we going to, Skinner?”

“Oxford Street.”

“Oxford Street? What for? What for are we going to Oxford Street?”

“You'll find out,” Skinner said, walking quicker than ever towards the tube station so that Maureen had almost to run to keep anywhere near him.

She didn't understand. She didn't understand why they left the pushchair in the underground part of Oxford Circus station, and she had to carry the baby. Or why Skinner put the suitcase into one of the lockers there and dropped the key down a grating in the road when they came up. She didn't understand at first why they went into one of the big chain stores or why Skinner should be buying her clothes at all when he was mad at her. He bought clothes for the baby too. Then he bought two shopping bags and
put the clothes in one, and told her to go to the Ladies and change. She was to change all her top gear and the baby's too. She wasn't to keep on anything that showed, not even shoes. She was to meet him by the ticket office back in the station in ten minutes. “And if you aren't there I'll come and find you. I know what you look like even if no one else will. If you know what's good for you, you'd better be there,” Skinner said, pushing his face against hers and with that dreadful look that Maureen couldn't bear. She said, “Yes, Skinner,” and went off with the baby to look for a Ladies where she could change.

It wasn't easy, changing in one of those little cubicles, and with the baby too. When she came out and saw herself in a mirror, she was surprised to see how different she looked. Before, she'd been wearing a green coat Skinner had bought for her and a red dress underneath and no hat. Now she had a brown sort of trouser suit, a bit too long in the leg, she'd had to turn over the elastic hem at the waist, and a big floppy brown hat she could hardly see out from under. And the baby was wearing a suit thing, blue with a cardigan over the top. She'd been all wrapped up in a shawl before. Maureen quite liked herself in the trouser suit, except that it didn't do anything to slim her down. But it was always nice to have new clothes. She felt better as she went back to the tube station to meet Skinner.

At first she hardly recognized him. He'd got on a denim suit, cut very tight and he'd changed the soft hat he always wore for a cap with a peak. He'd got a pair of glasses too, with thin wire rims. They made him look clever somehow, like a teacher or something like that. He was waiting for her, she'd been slower than him, but then she'd had two of them to change, hadn't she? He didn't say anything, just started walking down the escalator, back towards the trains. Maureen said, “Where'll we go now, Skinner?” several times, but he didn't answer. Maureen said, “What about the baby's feeds, Skinner?” and he didn't answer that either. In the train he sat reading a paper he'd got hold of and Maureen sat holding the baby, who'd been lulled into quiet by the motion of the train, glad of a chance to get some of the weight off her arms. While the train slid through endless dark tunnels, Maureen looked at her reflection in the window opposite.
She wasn't sure about the hat, she'd never had one like it. She looked at Skinner's reflection too, and saw that the new clothes and the peaked cap hadn't changed his face. She looked at his mouth, and she shivered. It was hot in the tube train, stuffy, even, but Maureen suddenly felt cold.

That same Tuesday, late in the afternoon, Detective Chief Superintendent Price called, by appointment, at Kensington Walk. He didn't want to raise false hopes and the information they'd received didn't mean that they were going to be able to get the baby back safe and well, but at least he had some advance to report and something to go on, instead of endlessly having to say, No, he'd got no further, in answer to poor Mrs. Wilmington's questioning.