Baby Love Read Online Free Page B

make sure.”
    Two uniforms were upstairs searching every inch of number thirteen. Maxine Beck was unaware the men had been instructed to remove bath panels, lift floorboards and check for false partitions. Bev seriously doubted they’d find a body; but grief
didn’t necessarily preclude guilt, and children – including three-week-old babies – are more likely to die at the hands of a supposedly loving parent than a paedophile.
    That there was grief in the house was not in doubt. It had moved in, taken over, dripped off the walls.
    “Whatever needs doing. Whatever it takes. We just want her back.” Maxine Beck looked like a stuffed doll that had been in a fight. And lost. She was cradling her daughter in her arms. Bev hadn’t recognised Natalie at first. Not
surprising. The girl had been at death’s door last time she’d seen her. She looked only marginally better now, though that was caused by emotion, not lung infection.
    Within minutes of entering the place, Bev had assessed the girl’s story and initiated a full-scale hunt while Highgate rang every news desk in the Midlands. If ever the media were called for, it was when a child went missing. In the meantime,
every available officer and dog handler was either on or en route to the Wordsworth estate.
    And Les King was already on gardening leave. Bev had heard on the Highgate grapevine that the guv had come close to decking the lazy slob. There’d be an inquest later as to why King had dragged his feet. But if Byford had any say, the suspension
would be permanent. Les King had lost them precious time. How much more had been wasted was unclear. What Bev knew, or had been told, was that Baby Zoë had been asleep in her cot at 3am. By 9.10am the baby had vanished. Now the nursery looked as if
it had been ransacked, but that was because Natalie had up-ended everything in sight to find the one thing she couldn’t. The empty cot told its own story. God knew what it was doing to the Becks. Bev knew it would loom large in her nightmares.
    “Let’s run through it again, Natalie.”
    The girl was sixteen going on thirty. Think scrawny Britney Spears on a bad hair day. Bad everything, Bev reckoned. Lank blonde locks framed sullen features dotted with spots. Natalie mumbled a few words into her mother’s neck. Maxine looked as
if she’d never let her go. They were cuddled up on the sofa opposite, a brown mock-leather affair scarred with cigarette burns and stained with what looked like red wine. A baby’s dummy was wedged at the back of a cushion.
    “The time you got in? Can you narrow it down at all?” Bev looked at her notes. A rare occurrence: Oz usually took care of the written word. DC Khan – lucky best man – was at a wedding in Brighton. According to Bev’s scrawl,
Natalie had arrived home after midnight but before 2am. Talk about window of opportunity.
    Natalie eased herself from Maxine’s embrace and sat clutching her bare mottled legs. “Can’t remember.”
    “Why’s that?”
    She shrugged, concentrated on her toenails. “Just can’t.”
    Bev wondered why girls Natalie’s age, any age come to that, thought it was cool to have pierced eyebrows. Ears yeah, nose maybe. But eyebrows? It was painful just thinking about it. She tried another tack. “Did you notice anything out the
ordinary? Door unlocked? Window open?”
    “Nah. Nuffin’.”
    Blood. Stone. Out of. Bev didn’t think Natalie was being deliberately obstructive or evasive. She reckoned the teenager had been on the piss. Alcohol fumes were wafting across. On the other hand, they could just as easily be emanating from
Maxine.
    “What about your mates? Anyone see you back?”
    It was an innocent question, so why the furtive look? Guilt? Shock? Bev wasn’t sure. The recovery was too quick for further pondering. “Yeah, my friend and me got off the same stop. That’s right. We walked back together.”
    Bev jotted down the friend’s address.
    “How about you, Mrs Beck? You reckoned it