Roxy's Baby (20 page)

She ran into the path of the first fire engine. It had to screech to a halt as she stood in front of it.

A fireman jumped to the ground and ran to her, caught her just as she crumpled to the ground. He looked from Roxy to the woman running behind her.

‘Evil,' Roxy murmured. ‘She's evil. They're all evil.'

Dragon Woman threw herself on the ground beside
her. ‘Where's Alfred!' she screamed at Roxy, trying to pull her from the fireman's arms. ‘What have you done with Alfred?'

She would have shaken the life from her if the fireman hadn't pulled her hands away.

‘What's going on here?' he yelled.

‘Where is he?' Dragon Woman screamed again.

Roxy turned her eyes to the blaze, raging through the house. Sparks and flames rose to the midnight sky. Not a room, not a corner would escape that inferno. Dragon Woman followed her gaze and let out a roar like a wild animal. Roxy knew then that he had been in there searching for her. Was he still there now? Trapped in the fire. Trapped with the body of Stevens? Roxy had a picture of Dragon Man running, trying to find a way out, enveloped in fire.

‘Alfred!' Dragon Woman screamed, pushing Roxy from her and running towards the house. One of the fireman was after her, holding her back, though she struggled wildly screaming her husband's name over and over.

Roxy watched her unemotionally. Well, she thought, at least there was something she loved.

‘How are you doing?' the fireman asked her.

She clutched at his arm. Was there ever a face so kindly? Here at last, a smile she could trust.

‘Help me,' she said. ‘I think I'm going to have my baby.'

Even as Roxy lay there in the fireman's arms, Dragon Woman was trying to concoct some crazy story to explain a houseful of pregnant, foreign young girls. Trying to convince them that her husband had perished in a fire losing his own life to save Roxy, not kill her. A story to make the firemen and then the police (when they arrived) believe that the Dyces were caring, philanthropic people. Philanthropic. Roxy was sure that was the word she had used.

No one believed her. It was too late for the Dyces. There were no real explanations for the girls who clambered out of the jeep, frightened, bewildered, unable to speak any English.

‘Evil,' was the only word Roxy had the strength to say, and then she couldn't say any more. Her baby was coming. And all she wanted was her own mother, there with her, to comfort her, to hold her hand.

Roxy's baby was born in an ambulance. Roxy was hardly aware of who was there or what was happening. She wasn't even aware any more of the pain. She was too overcome with a blessed feeling of relief. She was safe. She had saved her baby.

She had to wait two more days to see her mother. Two more days too in which she learned just how evil the Dyces really were.

Roxy knew then she'd been wrong again, as she had been wrong so often before.

The Dyces weren't witches.

There are worse things than witches.

Witches are a storybook fantasy. What the Dyces had been doing was real-life horror, worse than anything Roxy could ever have imagined. Whose evil mind had come up with the trade they were involved in?

When Roxy had been told what she had saved herself from, and not just her own baby, but all those other girls' babies too, she had hugged her son – this tiny thing who relied on her totally – close against her, as if even now the Dyces might reach out and snatch him from her.

The Dyces had been selling the babies, but not for
adoption. They had been selling them for their organs. ‘Harvesting their organs', was the way the police had explained it to her during one of the many interviews she had with them.
Harvesting
, such a beautiful word, debased, abused by the nightmare use the Dyces had made of it. The Dyces were killing their babies for their organs. They had been involved in a black-market trade for babies' organs, sold by unscrupulous people for profit. Used for transplants, operations and research. And then they were sending the girls back on the streets to get pregnant again, so the whole nightmarish process could begin once more.

Roxy had put her hands over her ears to blot out the words, couldn't bear to hear any more. She couldn't take in the magnitude of what they had done, to Babs's baby, and Agnes's. What they had done to Sula's. They'd never had any intention of sending her home. She was an investment they could make money from again. The police assumed that when Sula had realised this, she had fought for all she was worth, and that had sealed her fate.

‘And Aneeka?' Roxy had asked.

‘We've found Aneeka,' they told her. It seemed that Aneeka had been at Dragon House before, had been
told then that her first baby had died. Back on the streets, pregnant again, she realised too late what the Dyces had really done, and planned to do again.

They had taken all the babies and killed them.

‘How does anybody kill a baby?' she had asked the policewoman who had told her the whole horrifying story.

‘There are evil people in the world, Roxy. And this was a worldwide organisation. With your help we've tracked it to Italy, stopped it. These people were on the lookout for vulnerable young girls, usually illegal immigrants, migrant workers – the kind who have no one to turn to, no rights under the law – and then they made them believe they were actually helping them.' The policewoman had paused then, taken a deep breath, as if even recounting it made her feel faint, too disgusted to carry on. ‘All they wanted was for the girls to grow strong healthy babies inside them, and when they were born they were taken away from them. It was a sick, evil industry, but you can pride yourself on the fact that you helped stop it, Roxy. Mrs Dyce and the rest of them will go to prison for a long, long time.'

Not long enough, Roxy thought bitterly. Too late for Anne Marie, and for little Aidan as well. That was all
she could think about. How could Anne Marie bear this news when she heard it? And she would hear of it. It was in all the papers. And where was Anne Marie now?

‘Did Mrs Dyce do all this because she'd had a baby adopted?' Roxy had asked, remembering the story Mrs Dyce had told her.

That was when she had found out the real truth about the Dyces.

‘Oh, there was a baby, Roxy,' the policewoman explained, ‘but it wasn't adopted. It died. According to Mrs Dyce, because there was no transplant available. It made her very bitter.'

Roxy leapt to her feet at that. ‘That's not an excuse!' she shouted. ‘They won't let her use that as an excuse, will they?' For Roxy had a vision of some clever lawyer getting Mrs Dyce off, and that old witch's smug smile as she left the court room, a free woman.

The policewoman assured her. ‘No, Roxy. No chance of that. Nothing could justify such evil. The Dyces had been arranging illegal adoptions for a long time before they became involved in this. As far as we understand, Dragon House, as you call it, was chosen especially because of its isolation. Set up especially for its evil purpose.

And now it was destroyed, Roxy thought. And she was glad.

The policewoman went on. ‘No, the Dyces were mainly motivated by money, lots of it. That, and a hatred for the girls they were dealing with. “Lowlifes”, she called them, who were bringing more lowlifes into the world.'

Roxy had been sick then. Couldn't stop herself. Sick that anyone could look at her baby, her beautiful baby, any beautiful baby, and think of it as a lowlife.

Roxy cried when her mother arrived with Jennifer. She had so much to explain, so much to apologise for.

But as soon as her mother stepped into the hospital room she ran to Roxy and hugged her. No explanations were necessary. No apologies. And suddenly, Roxy understood that too. She was a mother herself now, and knew she would always understand and forgive her own child. Jennifer forgave Roxy too, immediately. The baby saw to that. She rushed to his crib.

‘Can I hold him? He is gorgeous. Look at his beautiful eyes.'

They wouldn't listen to her mumbled words of apology. All they wanted was Roxy and her baby.

Roxy named him Andrew, after her father. How
proud he would have been of his little grandson, and Roxy swore she would set about making them both proud of her too.

Yet, if everyone loved Andrew, Andrew adored Paul. Clutching his finger with a tiny fist, gurgling happily whenever Paul would lift him. And Paul adored him too, and Roxy tried to accept that and enjoy it for her mum's sake.

‘Papa Paul, he can call me,' Paul had said as the baby lay contented in his arms. ‘I wouldn't want him to call me Grandpa.'

She liked him for that, realised as the weeks went on that she liked him for a lot of things.

When Roxy had first gone, her mother and Jennifer had almost fallen apart, blaming themselves for Roxy running away. They had worried about her, tried to find her – had never given up. Even when the letter had come telling them she was fine – oh yes, Roxy realised she had fallen right in with the Dyces' plans writing that letter – her mother and Jennifer had never given up trying to find her. In fact, the letter had spurred them on, had given them hope that she was still alive. But it was Paul who had held them all together. Paul who had taken charge of everything.

Her life was so different now. Back home, safe with her family. But what about Anne Marie? The police could find no trace of her. And Roxy gave up waiting to hear from her. But Roxy knew she would never forget her soft Irish voice and the friendship she had shared with her those months in Dragon House.

Maybe Roxy would never find out where she was or what happened to her. Perhaps, she told herself, that was for the best. That way, she could believe that Anne Marie had made it, that she had somehow been reunited with her baby. She prayed it was so every night. That Anne Marie was even now somewhere safe back in Ireland with little Aidan running about, playing and laughing. That Anne Marie would live out her days happy at last, with Aidan, the love of her life.

I had just finished a school event and as I drove home I switched on the radio in the car. A young girl was being interviewed. I was so shocked by what she was saying that I stopped the car to listen. The girl was an illegal immigrant, vulnerable and pregnant and alone in a strange country. When people had offered to look after her, she had been grateful for their kindness. When her baby was born and they told her the baby had died, she had no reason to disbelieve them. Only later did she find out the truth, and the truth was the most horrific story I had ever heard.

Someone has to write a book about this, I thought in that instant.

Then I had another thought. Wait a minute, I'm a writer. Why don't I write a book about it? But how could I write a children's story about such a horrific subject?

Then I realised that this was happening to young girls, the girls I write about and for. And by the time I arrived home Roxy's story was in my head and I was desperate to write it down.

It wasn't an easy book to write. Part of me felt guilty about writing it as a thriller. After all, these things were really happening. It was a story too that made me cry. I still can't read the last sentence without a lump in my throat. But, this was Roxy's story, and she was such a wonderful character to write about. Roxy starts off as a selfish little madam, who thinks the world revolves around her, who thinks only about herself. Yet she ends up a tigress who will kill to protect that baby of hers. I love Roxy for all her faults and failings.

Most of all I have to thank Bloomsbury for trusting me to write this book based solely on the passion I felt for Roxy and her baby.

A special thanks to Sarah for trusting me to write Roxy's story, and to Roxy Clark for letting me use her wonderful name

Run, Zan, Run

Missing

Bad Company

Dark Waters

Fighting Back

Another Me

Underworld

Worse Than Boys

Also:

Nemesis 1: Into the Shadows

Nemesis 2: The Beast Within

Nemesis 3: Sinister Intent

Nemesis 4: Ride of Death

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin and New York

This electronic edition published in September 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3DP

This edition published in 2009

Copyright © Catherine MacPhail 2005

The moral right of the author has been asserted

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