Hope's Vengeance (37 page)

Another contraction welled, the ensuing agonised screams bouncing from the walls, and as it subsided Linda placed her hand on the little patch of silken black hair that had appeared, wet from the cocoon it had grown in. “Baby’s crowning now, Penny. You’re doing an excellent job, sweetheart. I want you to give me one more push, but when I tell you to stop, just pant, stop pushing.”

“Uh-huh!” Penny’s face was screwed up with the effort of forcing the child she didn’t know she was going to have from her body.

Charity popped her head around the door. “They’ve found your Mum, she’ll be here any minute, thank God!”

“Easy, sweetheart, pant, pant, don’t push, baby’s head’s just coming, just keep panting for now, good girl, you’re doing an excellent job.”

A wave of nausea flowed through Charity, having glanced at the scene in her elegant lounge by mistake. “My God, I think I’m going to faint.” Her hand clasped her forehead, her skin paling rapidly. Linda caught her colleague’s eye, and Becky rushed over, guiding Charity to one of her designer armchairs, assisting her until she was to seated to let the sensation pass.

“That’s it, baby’s head’s through. Next time you feel the urge to push, go with it, sweetheart.”

Moments passed and Linda could feel the tell-tale tightening of Penny’s abdomen. She cradled the baby’s head, preparing to guide it into the world. “Becky, can you get the towel from over there, the one on the radiator on the radiator? Just hold it out for baby, it’ll be nice and warm.” With a deep growl Penny pushed for the final time, the tiny body slithering from hers into Linda’s waiting hands, and a gentle mewing wail echoed around the room. Linda laid the pink bundle on the towel, scanning the tiny human for disabilities. “Congratulations Penny, you have a beautiful, healthy baby daughter.” She clamped and cut the cord, before wrapping the baby tightly into the towel, swaddling her securely for comfort.

Exhausted, the teenager shuffled around to see her child, tentatively lowering herself onto the wet cushion, scared to sit in case it hurt. Comfortable, she took a shy peek at the miracle that had come from her body, soaking up the magical first moments of maternal bonding. Thick, dark hair cradled the baby’s head, and her stunningly intense blue eyes focused on her mother’s, curious and intrigued at what was happening to her. A giant wave of encompassing warmth flooded through Penny, and suddenly she could accept she was a mother, that this was her child, and she wanted to hold her close, to protect and guide her now and for life. Linda presented the baby to her, she took her carefully, instinctively holding her close to her chest. “Hello! I’m your Mummy.”

Breaking the heart-warming moment of a mother meeting her child for the very first time, a commotion could be heard in the kitchen, and Hope’s voice, urgent and scared, rang out. “Where is everybody? What’s going on?” She had been lowered into the garden, a waiting policeman had freed her swiftly from the harness, and she’d sprinted towards the back door, still totally clueless to why she’d been escorted back. One of the policemen who stood in the hallway, needlessly guarding the lounge door, motioned to the room, and Hope darted through.

In the warm amber hue that flooded through the tasteful, expensively decorated room, Hope desperately scanned the room to find the source of the panic. First she saw her sister sat, pale and beaten, curled in a seat. Gently nursing her was a woman in a nurse’s uniform, and Hope’s fears rose. Her despairing eyes moved to Olive, who stood with the toes of her slippered feet pointing together, hands behind her back, and a relief that one of her children was unhurt flooded briefly. She moved on, another nurse, the deep blue of her outfit enhancing her fiery auburn waves, was dismissed and Hope’s eyes settled on Penny. Penny with a baby.

Moments passed innocently, a light smile on her face from relief. She briefly wondered whose the baby was, and why Penny was holding it, until it dawned on her that Penny was naked. Penny was naked with a baby on her lap. Penny. Was naked. With a baby on her lap! Hope’s eyes darted about the room, questioning everybody, desperate for somebody to fill her in. Had Penny just had a baby? Had her thirteen year old daughter just had a baby? The sickening realisation gnawed at her stomach, forcing up bile, forcing up disgust. She stared at her daughter, incredulous. “Have you just had a baby, Penny?”

Penny grinned her childish smile, the one that had become a rarity the past few months. “Hi Mum, meet your new grand-daughter.”

Grasping out, desperate hands searching for support, Hope guided herself into a chair, shocked, sickened, terrified, and suddenly only one thing mattered. “Rick’s?”

The new mother smiled, she nodded the answer Hope was dreading. Her husband to be. The father of her grandchild. It was hideous. Hope clenched her arm, the shooting, gnawing pain intensifying. Hatred burned for the man she could now never have, for the man who’d impregnated her child. And now she wished she’d just stuck to her original plan, killed him, and killed Griffin, the two people who’d given her so much pain. This hurt too much.

Unsure whether to be exasperated or angry at her daughter, she had a thousand questions to ask. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“I didn’t know. I was so hungry all the time, I thought I was just putting on weight.”

She settled on neither, her voice quietened with resignation. “Me too. Penny, me too.” Hope shifted uncomfortably, debating the words in her head, knowing that if she didn’t phrase her next sentence perfectly it could be misconstrued as a rejection. “Penny, I know that’s my grandchild, and I promise I will love her, but you need to give me some time for it all to sink in.”

“Fine! I’ve got to let it sink in too!” Penny shrugged, not removing her gaze from the baby.

“Obviously I’ll help you practically, a new baby’s a big job, especially with you being so young. But I need to accept this before I can deal with it properly. Do you understand, love?”

Penny, who had been terrified her mother would order her to have the baby adopted, nodded, and her nervousness dissipated as the tenseness in her shoulders relaxed. To lose her unexpected surprise now would break her heart, the love she had for the little miracle was already titanic.

Speeding

Krein’s Vectra hurtled along the roads, overtaking slow lorries and cars when the opportunity arose. He was breaking the speed limit, but Claudia wasn’t about to object, she shared his urgency to find Hope before she disappeared again. The officers at the sister’s house had been briefed not to let her go anywhere unless absolutely necessary, if the daughter had needed to go to hospital, at least they’d still know where she was.

A constable had contacted them to inform them of the baby’s safe arrival, and, more to the point, a check over at the hospital wasn’t required. They’d be arriving in Tunstall soon, finally a chance to interrogate Hope on her probable involvement in Griffin’s overdose. Claudia felt like a traitor, knowing they were duty bound to prosecute Hope if she’d forced the tablets on him against his will, but the mitigating circumstances were significant. The vital decider on her punishment now rested on whether Griffin lived or died.

Reminded that she hadn’t heard from the colleague who had accompanied Griffin to the hospital, Claudia radioed for an update. “Saz, how is he?”

“Not good, Claud, not good. They’ve pumped his stomach, he’s covered in wires and machines, still comatose. They’re running tests on his drug levels, and the only further treatment they can give him is a charcoal solution. At first they thought he’d come round, but he hasn’t.”

“Are they going to administer it with a tube to the stomach then?”

“I don’t know, to be honest, Claud, there’s a lot of people to-ing and fro-ing. All I know is he’s in a bad way.”

“Thanks.” Claudia ended the conversation and updated Krein on the critically ill patient’s condition. “If he dies she’ll be sent down, Dave.”

He waved a hand, dismissive. “You’re jumping the gun, Claud, she hasn’t necessarily had anything to do with Griffin, she may not even know he was staying at the hotel, maybe it’s just a huge coincidence.”

She snorted sarcastically. “Come on Dave, you don’t believe that for a second. Both Hope and Eva were at that hotel today, it’s no coincidence that their mutual childhood abuser suddenly ends up struggling for his life.”

In a rare move for the vigilant detective, Krein took his eyes from the road and focused on Claudia. “Just remember we’re the only ones who know everything at the moment.”

She sighed, relieved, the weight of guilt in her chest floating away. Krein was one of the genuine guys, a truly caring person, and she knew that his private life had been horrendous for the past year. She wasn’t certain she’d read between the lines correctly, but she had a strong suspicion that he would consider hiding Hope’s trail from the investigation. She hoped so, it felt like the right thing to do, more palatable. Justice would be served then.

Shocked by her vigilante thoughts, Claudia leant over and clicked the radio on to distract the thoughts from her mind, but Krein switched it off immediately. “No, Claud.” He paused for a while, his face contorted while he thought deeply. “I want you to tell me what he did to her, every sordid, sick detail. It might make it easier to listen to what Hope’s got to say if I knew what he did to her.”

“I’ll tell you, Dave, but I want you to imagine your daughter when she was seven while you’re listening. That way you’ll really feel the pain that she felt when I interviewed her.”

The New Father Arrives

In the car, driving towards Tunstall, the two constables explained the reason Hope had been rushed away to Rick, and he mentally calculated the dates, realising with horror that he was probably the infant’s father. Not only would Hope be furious, but he’d be a father to a baby he didn’t want, and a co-parent to a lying child he didn’t even like. Not a religious man, he prayed deeply to whoever else’s God that the baby was tiny, premature. Not his.

As they pulled up at Charity’s house, the affluence hitting him for the second time that day, he leapt from the car, desperate, yet terrified, to find out the truth. Nearing the lounge, pushing past the police officers in the hallway, the silence screaming from the room warned him in advance of the icy atmosphere he was about to step into.

He was wrong, the only eyes that met his as he came through the doorway were Penny’s and Hope’s, the identical blues boring into him, one with fire, one with contentment at their shared lovechild. He stood, lame, unsure who to go to first. He glanced at Penny, the chubby child who had replaced the attractive groupie he’d shagged for laughs. This was no laugh now, though. Her Mona Lisa smile, the maternal love for him and his child beaming from her eyes. He couldn’t see much of the baby, her head obscured by the midwife’s arm, fixing her on to her mother’s barely formed breast. And he realised he didn’t care. The only children he wanted were with Hope. Not her daughter.

Fixing his bewildered stare on her, the sadness pouring from the despondent, dulled eyes, he wanted to rush over, hug her, reassure her, but he couldn’t. Her lids lowered, now scanning the carpet sightlessly. “Congratulations, Rick, meet your baby daughter.”

The words slapped him on both cheeks, biting him furiously with the implications. “Hope, we need to talk. In private.”

She rose slowly, every ounce of energy depleted by shock, and meandered, devastated, towards the door. As she neared, innocent to Griffin’s discovery, one of the officers from the hall blocked her way, and she faced him, stunned. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we’ve been asked to keep you on these premises until a couple of detectives have had a word with you. They’re on their way now, so you’ll…”

“A couple of fucking detectives! What the fuck’s going on? I’ve just been stopped by policemen, tied to a helicopter and dropped off in my sister’s back yard…” Charity winced at the debasing slight of her expensively landscaped garden, “only to be met with a grand-daughter I didn’t realise I was about to have, whose father happens to be the man I’m supposed to be marrying!”

Hope stopped for breath, aware that everybody in the room was enrapt in their conversation, but she couldn’t care less, she was furious. “Unless you have an arrest warrant, you cannot hold me against my will. Now, if you’ll please get your arse out of my fucking way, I’d like to go in the kitchen with the father of my grandchild who just happened to fuck me earlier today!” She shoved the policeman aside harshly, feeding a hand behind her to grasp Rick’s, leading him through to the kitchen. The glare she fired at the three constables who propped up the granite breakfast bar was enough for them to move swiftly to the hall. Hope closed the door.

Now they had privacy from the prying eyes, she played with her fingernails, uneasy, not sure where to start. “Obviously it has to stop with us now, now you’re the father of my grandchild.”

“Only biologically.” He quickly realised his mistake, the black glare of maternal protection stunting him. “Look, I’ll see Penny okay, her baby. But the only babies I want to have are with you.” His hands grasped her elbows, her arms emotionally defensive. “Hope, it’s hard for you to hear, but I have a reputation and it’s deserved, I’ve slept with shitloads of women. But every time I moved from one to the next it was because she wasn’t right. That’s stopped with you. Completely. Because you are right.”

There was no time for her to respond, a loud rapping on the door halted the conversation. “Hello? It’s Detective Superintendent Krein, here. Is everything okay in there?”

Rick and Hope glanced at each other, sharing a nervous look. They both shouted ‘yes’ together

Unable to stand in the background any longer, following her mentor’s lead, Claudia leant into the door. “Hope, it’s Claudia Horseferry, is everything okay?”

“What are you doing here?” She was incredulous.

“We need to talk to you. Can we come in?”

Hope faced the door, a rabbit caught in the headlights. “No! What do you need to talk about?”