Trust Me - T.M. Logan Page 0,34

more for . . .’

‘Test results.’

Gilbourne nods but says nothing. I recognise the tactic, to leave a silence and wait for me to fill it, but I just want to get this interview over and done with.

‘It wasn’t good news,’ I add quietly.

Gilbourne’s face softens. ‘I’m sorry, Ellen. That must have been a very hard thing to hear.’

I nod, once, and he lets another moment of silence pass. This time I don’t fill it.

‘And after your appointment,’ he says. ‘Did you go straight to the train station?’

‘Yes. The 2.11 to Marylebone, via High Wycombe.’

Gilbourne sits back in his chair, glancing at his partner.

‘It’s understandable, in the circumstances,’ Holt says, taking over from where Gilbourne has left off. He clicks his ballpoint pen open and shut with his thumb. Click-click. Click-click. ‘I mean, I understand how these things can happen. I get it.’

‘You understand what?’

‘A spur-of-the-moment decision.’

‘You mean Kathryn?’

‘I mean you.’ Click-click. Click-click. ‘The baby.’

17

I look from one detective to the other, a prickle of unease at the back of my neck.

‘I don’t like the sound of what you’re saying.’

‘The urge to have that baby,’ Holt says, ‘to hold her, maybe even keep her. To be a better mother to her than anyone else could be.’

I shift in my seat, the unease turning to frustration and anger.

‘That is an incredibly offensive suggestion, detective,’ I say. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.’

I look at him, this well-groomed, chisel-jawed, confident young man, and wonder if he has ever been denied anything in his entire life.

‘I seriously doubt that,’ I say.

‘I can imagine how strong that urge might be, how powerful, how all-consuming, if you’ve been hoping for a baby for years.’ Click-click. Click-click. ‘How you must feel when you’re told you can’t have a child of your own. Then an opportunity presents itself and it seems like fate is finally on your side.’

‘Hold on, a few minutes ago you were asking if I’d planned this with Kathryn in advance. Now you’re suggesting I took Mia as some kind of opportunistic kidnapping?’

‘We’re just trying to dig out the truth, Ellen.’

‘I’ve told you the truth; I was asked to look after her.’ I glance at Betteridge, sitting mutely beside me, but he refuses to meet my gaze. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘What happened to Kathryn Clifton?’ Holt asks, changing tack.

‘I thought that was what you were trying to find out.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ I frown. ‘She got off the train at Seer Green, like I told you.’

‘Because she hasn’t come forward, which is obviously a serious concern for us. No word from her at all in the last twelve hours, no phone calls, no sightings, no contact with family or friends as far as we can establish. And in the meantime you turn up at the front desk with a child you say she gave to you.’

‘You’re not seriously suggesting that I somehow took Mia from her, against her will? That’s crazy.’

‘What I’m suggesting is that you saw your chance on the train and decided to take this baby, to make her yours. Call it a . . .’ He shrugs, ‘a moment of madness. You saw an opportunity and you took it. This sort of thing does happen from time to time. And it felt so good to have that cute little baby in your arms, a baby you could call your own, so you just took her and walked out of the station.’

‘No.’ I can feel myself flushing, hating that my body is betraying me.

‘That’s why you didn’t alert a train guard, or go to a member of staff, why you didn’t approach uniformed officers on the concourse, you didn’t make a call right there at Marylebone. You just walked out with her. But at some point later you panicked, when you realised what you’d done and what might happen to you. Maybe when you saw yourself on the evening news.’

‘That’s wrong,’ I say, arms crossed tightly against my chest. ‘That’s not how it was at all.’

Gilbourne holds up his hands again, like a referee pausing a boxing match.

‘I’m sure you can understand, Ellen, that we have to explore all the possibilities until we can rule each of them out.’

‘I didn’t do anything to Kathryn, so you can rule that one out right now,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Look, I’m exhausted, I’ve hardly slept, I’ve told you everything I know and I just want to go home. I don’t know what