The Chinese Egg (9 page)

Andrew Wilmington got back to his home early on Friday afternoon after a delayed flight during which the sympathetic crew of the Pan American jet kept him up to date on the news coming in over the radio. It was no news as far as he was concerned. He had slept briefly and deeply for an hour and woken up ashamed of having allowed himself to slip into unconsciousness. Not that keeping awake helped anyone, and he'd had no sleep the night before after receiving that first appalling message. When he let himself into his house at a quarter-past two Paolo was waiting for him in the hall and it didn't need words for Andrew Wilmington to see that there was still no news.

“Where's Mrs. Wilmington? Upstairs?” he asked, but before he'd finished the question Sally was out on the landing and running down the stairs into his arms. He was disturbed by the frantic way she clung to him, by her shaking, and when he saw her face even more by the disfigurement caused by a day of misery and fear. Her eyes seemed to have sunk into her head, there Were lines from nose to mouth, the skin round her eye sockets was puffed and reddened. Seeing her like this gave the horrible story an immediate reality it hadn't quite had before. He took her into the dining-room and made her sit at the breakfast-table, pretending to be more anxious for his coffee than he really felt in order to give her something to do, in the hope that when she was going through the ordinary routine motions of looking after him, she'd calm down. After that first demonstration she tried to put a firm guard on herself, tried not to cry—she knew it annoyed him and upset him when she cried—tried to answer
his questions, to tell him just the facts and no more. She couldn't control the shaking of her hands, or the lump in her throat that sometimes prevented her from speaking. He persuaded her to drink some coffee too, but she couldn't eat. They sat at the oval polished table with the sunlight coming in through the elegant French windows and making patterns of light and shade over the pretty room, while she told him the story as well as she could.

“What are the police doing?” he asked.

“They've been very good.”

“They haven't found anything at all? No clues?”

“They say they have ways of finding out things like this. I don't know what.”

“Didn't anyone see it happening? There must have been plenty of people about at that time in the afternoon.”

“They couldn't find anyone. People might not have noticed. . . .”

“Don't upset yourself, Sally darling.”

“I was just thinking. . . .”

“What?”

“If you see someone lifting a baby out of a pram, you don't think of her stealing it. You think she's just going to take it with her into the shop. That's what. . . .”

“That's what. . .?”

Sally Wilmington was crying now so that he could hardly hear her when she said, “That's what I ought to have done.”

The telephone bell had rung all the morning and it didn't stop now. Sally's mother to ask how she was, should she come to London to be with her? The police to ask when Superintendent Price could come round to see Mr. Wilmington. No, they had nothing to report. Sorry, sir. One of Sally's friends, just disembarked from a cruise holiday, having heard nothing and wanting a cosy chat. The chief cashier of Grey, Teake and Whipple to ask if Mr. Wilmington would be coming into the office today, and to offer his condolences. Sally's best friend Alison, asking if there was anything she could do to help. It went on and on. And each time the bell rang, Sally was at the phone before anyone else could reach it, waiting in the hope that there might be news. She imagined it so intensely, she could almost hear
Price's kindly voice telling her, “We've found your baby, Mrs. Wilmington. She's alive and well.” Each time another sickening drop of the heart, despair gradually creeping in where she'd allowed hope to well up in spite of everything. After a time Andrew left her, to drop into the office for half an hour. He found Nora, miserably occupying herself at a pretence of tidying a cupboard in the nursery, and sent her to sit with Sally. Though afterwards he wasn't sure that they'd be good for each other. It was just that he didn't like the idea of leaving Sally on her own.

There wasn't much for them to say to each other, but Sally did find it comforting to have Nora there. From time to time they talked a little, about ordinary subjects; about Maria's mother who might come to England on a visit next year, about Paolo's new and wonderfully coloured shirt. About Nora's holiday in Yugoslavia last year, about Sally's mother's dog. It was important to avoid the subject both of them were thinking about in case they couldn't keep up the pretence of being ordinary. Each time the telephone bell rang and Sally rushed to answer, Nora saw and ached for her. When Price rang again she saw Sally's face quiver, heard the hope in her voice as she said, “Superintendent, there's news?” and felt the misery when she heard that it was only to confirm that he'd be coming to the house that afternoon. When he'd rung off, Sally sat there still, the receiver still in her hand, tears running down her face. She looked, Nora thought, like someone who had heard a death sentence. She forgot about Sally's age, she forgot that this was her employer, she saw only a girl like herself in deep trouble, and she went over to her and put her arms round her. Sally turned and put her head on Nora's kind shoulder and allowed herself to cry. What was the point of pretending that everything was ordinary and sane and bearable, when she'd lost Caroline Ann and the world was black around her?

It was at this moment that the telephone rang again. Sally's hand went out automatically. Nora drew a little away, she didn't want to seem to intrude.

Sally looked puzzled. She said, “I'm sorry I can't hear you.”

Nora heard the voice the other end speaking louder, “Who is that speaking?”

Sally said, “Sally Wilmington. Who do you want to speak to?”

There was a click as the connection was broken. Sally said, “Funny! I wonder who it was?”

“You didn't recognize his voice?” Nora asked.

“No. It was a callbox call, too.”

“Could have been a wrong number,” Nora said.

“I suppose so. I thought perhaps it would be. . . .”

“I expect he'll ring back if it was important.”

Sally said, “I can't think of anything else that's important now.” But she seemed to have recovered from the last outburst of tears, and she allowed Nora to get coffee and even drank a little while they resumed the only occupation possible: waiting.

When Superintendent Price arrived in the early evening, Andrew took him straight into his study and shut the door, hoping that Sally hadn't heard the door bell.

“No news, I'm afraid, sir,” Price said, sitting in one of the big leather-covered armchairs.

“Absolutely nothing? You haven't any evidence to go on? There must have been people around. Someone must have seen something.”

“Trouble is, sir, there were too many people. And seeing a woman take a baby out of a pram isn't suspicious in itself. Mothers are doing it all the time. No reason why anyone should take any notice. Of course, because of all the publicity, we've had the usual number of crackpots writing in and telephoning to say they know something. . . .”

“One of them might really have something useful to tell you.”

“We shall follow them all up, don't worry about that, sir. But at present there's nothing, I'm sorry to say.”

“What can you do, then? You must be able to do something,” Andrew said.

“We're interviewing some of the assistants in the shop. The exit from the supermarket is near the front, of course. It's just possible that if one of the girls who do the checking-out wasn't too busy she might have glanced out into the street and seen something. We're asking them all. Then there are the neighbouring shops and the shops opposite. Only the High Street's too wide to see across easily, especially with the amount of traffic there is
on it. I'm not very hopeful about that.” Superintendent Price sighed.

“What else?”

“Well, of course, we've broadcast an appeal to the public for anyone who might be able to come forward. And we've got our people all over the country keeping a look-out for a girl with a baby she can't account for. And hospitals, in case she had to take the baby in for anything. But it's early days yet. Barely twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty-four hours is a long time in a baby's life,” Andrew said drily.

“Of course, I do appreciate that, sir. We're doing everything we can. By the way, how is Mrs. Wilmington this afternoon?” Price asked.

“She looks dreadful. I don't know how much longer she can keep going if there's nothing. . . .”

“Has her doctor seen her?”

“I think he was round yesterday. If she isn't better this evening I'll ring him and get him to come back to see her again.”

“I would, sir. I don't want to seem gloomy, but things like this sometimes do take several days before one gets to the bottom of them. Especially when this amount of time has elapsed after the taking of the baby. There are some women who snatch a baby, and within a few hours they've brought it back, or taken it to a hospital, or brought it to us. They get frightened, you see. Start thinking over what they've done and want to cry off. But after twenty-four hours you can't count on that sort of reaction. By now it looks as if whoever has the baby must have gone off with it somewhere and means to keep out of harm's way for the present. That doesn't mean that the baby's in danger, it just means that much longer anxiety for you and Mrs. Wilmington. Which is bad enough.”

“And if that's the pattern, what happens next?”

Superintendent Price hesitated. “Difficult to say without knowing the motive. When it's a woman who's done it on impulse, as you might say, she doesn't generally want anything, only the child. In the ordinary run of baby snatching it's something like that. But in this case it could be different.”

“How do you mean, different?”

“There's the question of money,” Price said, almost apologetically.

“You mean a ransom demand?”

“That's it. You haven't had one, I suppose? Or Mrs. Wilmington?”

“No. How would it be made, do you think?”

“Letter or telephone. There haven't been any anonymous calls, have there?”

“Not as far as I know. What do we do if we get one?”

“Try to keep him talking. I'm having all calls to the house monitored, if there's anything suspicious we should be able to find out where it's coming from.”

“If they ask for money, what do we do?”

“Stall. Haggle a bit if you can. Don't give in too easily or they might become suspicious. Don't turn them down flat; when they warn you against letting us know, try to sound doubtful, as if they might be able to persuade you. More convincing that way.”

“You really think all this is possible? Likely?”

“It's impossible to say at this stage, sir. I just don't want you to get taken by surprise and wish afterwards you'd said something else.”

“Thank you,” Andrew Wilmington said. Price might know his job inside out, but lie was not the sort of person from whom Andrew was accustomed to taking orders.

“And there's another thing. If you don't mind my mentioning it, sir. Your good lady. She's likely to see it differently. She'll be all for agreeing to whatever they say as long as she gets the child back. Don't let her, if you can help it. Some of these people haven't any scruples. You can't tell, just because you give them the money without telling us, that they're going to hand over the child. Don't say that to her. Just warn her to be careful.”

He saw the sick look on Andrew's face and said quickly, “Once they've made contact and asked for the money it's much easier to track them down. Don't give up hope, sir. I haven't, not by a long chalk.”

Andrew Wilmington groaned.

In the Stanford kitchen an argument was in process. Chris, Vicky and Stephen sat round the table getting warmer and warmer and more and more convinced, each, that he or she was right and that the others were wrong. So far everyone had been fairly polite, but the moment was approaching when that would no longer be true.

“I don't know what you want us to do. We haven't got anything to go on,” Stephen said for perhaps the fifth time.

“You could go and tell the police. . .” Chris said.

“What? What on earth could we tell them that they'd take any notice of?”

“That you see things that haven't happened yet.”

“A lot of help that would be.”

“You sound as if you didn't want to be able to see what's going to happen.”

“I don't,” Stephen said.

“Why not?”

“You wouldn't if it was you,” Vicky said.

“Yes, I would. If it was going to be useful. . . .”

“We've been very useful to date, haven't we? Seen an old lady knocked down and a baby stolen and helped to prevent both of them,” Stephen said with heavy irony.

“I know if it was me I'd do something!” Chris said hotly.

“I ruddy well wish it was you and not me, then.”

They glared at each other. Stephen was astonished to hear himself speaking like this to someone he hardly knew. Especially
a girl and such a pretty one. He quarrelled with his friends, of course, but he'd never spoken so angrily to a girl.

There was a pause, then Vicky said, “It isn't like you think, Chris. You're talking as if it was something like watching telly. Getting news, only early, before anyone else does.”

“Well? What is it like, then?”

Vicky hesitated. “You feel sort of funny. Nothing's quite real. Only it's not like dreaming. In a way it's more real than real things. More important. A bit like fainting. There's just a minute before you go right off when you feel, That's it!' and then you've gone. It's like that.”