Despite the fact I lived with the guy, and worked with the guy, I felt like Paul and I hadn’t had any couple time in ages. The rigours and task allocations of the case meant that we weren’t often in the same space at the same time, and if we were it was in the presence of the multitudes. Tonight Maggie was out at the movies with Rudy, so it was just the two of us, well, almost three of us. Four if you counted the cat who was curled up on what was left of my lap. It felt an absolute luxury to be parked on the sofa at home, ensconced in my PJs and fluffy slippers, snuggled up to the man, hot Milo in hand, watching crap TV.
‘Is it odd to feel guilty because this pregnancy is going so well, and everything is straight forward and there’s no drama when not everyone is so lucky, especially, well, you know…?’
He gave me a little squeeze.
‘I wouldn’t say odd. I think I’d say it’s stupid, ya dumb nut.’ Paul was always great with terms of endearment. He was right though, it was silly to feel bad about being happy, and although my head knew this, I still couldn’t help it.
‘How did your visit with the family go today?’ he asked.
It was getting to that time in the evening when Bubs started to get a bit active, usually when I started relaxing. I could feel the first fluttering of her movements. Would she be this predictable when she was on the outside?
‘It was great, actually. It felt such a relief to finally meet them in person. Being deliberately excluded from contact was really hard, and I don’t know if this sounds weird, but seeing them and feeling what they are going through makes it easier, if that’s the right word – to fight for them, to fight for justice for Aleisha. It shouldn’t make any difference. I know that I would put in the same work and strive for them whether I had met them or not, but it feels far more personal now.’
‘I’ve gotten used to your level of weird. Nothing you say surprises me anymore.’ He gave my hair a scriffle with the arm draped around my shoulder.
‘You do realise I’ll take that as a challenge?’
‘That doesn’t surprise me, either.’
‘Touché.’
Torie the cat, or Queen Victoria, as we called her when she was naughty, had been leaning against one side of my belly, and I could feel Bubs giving her a few prods from the inside. Her Royal Highness looked mildly perturbed. She then looked almightily perturbed when Bubs gave a massive kick that I swear jolted the cat off her spot. With an extremely unimpressed look on her face, she moved position around to the other side of my lap and resettled herself, out of the firing line.
‘I did learn something interesting when I visited them – something that hasn’t been noted or recorded earlier as far as I’m aware.’
‘Oh? What was that?’
‘We got onto the topic of affairs and illegitimate children.’ Paul sputtered on his Milo and almost spat it across the room.
‘Say what? How?’
‘Ha – I said something that surprised you! I win.’ He gave me the side-eye. ‘It came up in conversation. I’d made a comment about paternity…’
‘I don’t know that I even want to know how that topic of conversation came up. It’s not the sort of thing most people would talk about when meeting the family of a victim of crime involving a baby. Tactful – not.’ If his left eyebrow could have risen any further it would have been embedded in his hairline.
‘It just sort of accidentally popped up – not something I purposefully asked about. And Justin Newman was laughing when he told me the baby’s parentage wasn’t in question. It wasn’t a whoopsie, or awkward moment, if that’s what you were wondering.’
‘So maybe not quite so bad as I had imagined. What was it that you managed to find out that they hadn’t mentioned before?’
‘That Aleisha Newman had an amniocentesis done – to the baby to screen for some really awful genetic disorder that runs on both sides of the family. They had the procedure when they were expecting Charlotte, too – their first child. The thought of having a monstrous great needle going through me and being so close to something so precious gives me the willies, so it must have been a huge concern for them to risk it.’
‘I can tell you now, if you’d needed amnio, I wouldn’t have been there to watch.’
‘Great support you’d turn out to be. I didn’t know you were squeamish about needles.’
‘I’m not. I have no problem them sticking them into me, but it’s a bit different watching someone do something risky with a pointy sharp object to people that you love.’
And there he confirmed what I’d known all along: that he was a big softie with a hard-shell exterior. And that he had the knack of a good save.
‘Fair enough. I’ll let you off the hook. You do have to be there for the birth though, squeamish or not.’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he said with a wink. ‘It is interesting that they had amniocentesis. I know when Smithy interviewed the husband, he was very thorough and asked a lot of questions about the pregnancy and who was involved in their care, but Justin didn’t mention it then. You do have quite the gift for finding things out.’ If I wasn’t mistaken he sounded almost proud. It was very endearing. And he wasn’t wrong. Maybe I just had one of those ‘tell me all about it’ faces. Or gave off the kind of vibe that made people feel comfortable offloading all sorts of stuff. I was often amazed what people would confide in me about, and not just in the job, but in everyday life. Friends and strangers alike.
‘I know. To be fair, it probably helped that the initial shock is wearing off and they’ve had some time to reflect on things. But it’s got me to thinking more about why someone would do something as desperate as murdering a woman for her baby. The fact that Hope has been returned tells us it wasn’t about possessing or having a baby – or selling a baby, baby trafficking, that kind of thing.’
‘Unless the publicity around Marty The Fly’s failed financial enterprise spooked them, and they decided to quit and run.’
‘Long shot, and please don’t mention Marty. I still want to wring his scrawny little neck.’
‘You’d have to join the queue.’
An accurate observation.
‘As I was trying to say, before I was so rudely interrupted by talk of that waste of space, I was already starting to think that it was something about Hope herself that was pivotal to all of this, some specific characteristic that made her the target, with Aleisha the unfortunate person standing in the way. With the amnio, Justin and Aleisha had a full screening for everything, including the disorder that plagued their families, so that information was out there, on their records. As well as that, yesterday I went down to the crime scene because I’d wanted to see for myself where it had happened, get a feel for it. I saw something there, something that sparked an idea. It was the boys’ tag. They hadn’t got very far along with it before they discovered Aleisha, but it was going to be their name: “BloodBroz”, short for blood brothers.’
‘Not a bad name.’
‘Pretty catchy. But the name prompted me to get thinking about blood and whether there was something medical behind this case, some health motivation. Justin talking about the amniocentesis has just reinforced that idea.’
‘So what are you going to do with this information and with the spark?’
‘I’ll run it by Smithy in the morning, but I want to check back on basically any recent reports that have involved a baby and odd medical concerns. Take it out broader than abductions, and see if there have been any common threads. And I’ll find someone to talk with about exactly what sort of things an amniocentesis can show, along with the chromosomal stuff.’
‘Another phone call to your pet pathologist?’
‘If you’re referring to Alistair, then maybe.’ I don’t know that Paul had ever gotten over me describing Alistair as being like the class goldfish that someone took home to look after for the school holidays. ‘Or I was thinking of our midwife, Naomi, because a midwife would have a pretty good idea. Otherwise one of the obstetricians I met at the hospital or someone at the med school. There are a few good options.’
‘The more I think about it the more it makes sense that there could be something medical behind this.’ Paul put his empty mug on the side table and reached across to give Torie a rub around the ears. She started to purr her appreciation. ‘Perhaps we should go back to Justin and ask if he can think of anything unusual that had happened around Aleisha’s treatment and investigations while she was pregnant. It might trigger something he hasn’t really thought about before. It’s as good a lead as we’ve got so far.’
‘It’s worth a try.’
During our conversation I had felt that odd, squirmy and slightly gross sensation of the baby turning herself around. The purpose of her movements soon became apparent as I felt a hefty kick against the very spot where Torie was now leaning. The cat was nonplussed, but had apparently had quite enough of this invisible onslaught. She vacated my lap in a big hurry.
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and Paul sat up, his legs having been used as a runway for the feline scramble off to the side. Judging by the pained expression on his face he’d have the claw marks to prove it.
‘What the hell was that about?’ he said in the direction of the escapee. ‘Whatcha doing ya crazy, fluffy mutt?’
‘Oh my God, Paul,’ I said trying to control my mirth. ‘We’re in for some trouble.’
‘What do you mean?’
I placed my hands on either side of my belly and gave it a little jiggle.
‘This girl isn’t even born yet, and she’s already terrorising the cat.’