Until You're Mine Read Online Free Page B

fine
.
    ‘Let me see then. Hmm. In this picture I look like an alien with huge pink lips and no hair. And in this one I think I’m half human and half horse with a mane down to the ground.’
    ‘Nooo!’ the boys chant in unison. They giggle, and Noah shoves Oscar. He stands his ground. ‘Which one, which one’s the best?’
    ‘I love them equally. You are brilliant artists and both winners. Can I keep them?’
    The boys nod in awe and their mouths hang open, exposing tiny teeth. They run off happily and I hear a waterfall of Lego as an entire box is tipped out in the playroom.
    ‘I think you’re a hit,’ Claudia says. ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask me?’
    ‘Yes,’ I reply, unable to help the glance at her bump. It’s as if someone’s revving the accelerator to my heart. ‘When’s the baby due?’
    It’s what I’ve been dying to ask all along.

3
    DETECTIVE INSPECTOR LORRAINE Fisher had never thrown up on a job before. Leaning against the wall, she wiped her mouth across the back of her hand. She didn’t have a tissue.
    ‘Who are you?’ she said to a man standing in the flat’s tiny hallway. Her throat burned and her expression was sour.
    ‘Will you give me an exclusive statement, Detective? Do you believe this is a murder inquiry?’ he said.
    ‘Get him the shit out of here, you idiots, this is a crime scene,’ she barked at her colleagues.
    A white-suited flurry of activity ensued and it was as if the journalist had never existed.
    Lorraine felt another surge rising in the gurgling, disgusted pit of her belly but she knew there was nothing else left inside. She’d not had time for breakfast, skipped lunch, and dinner was looking unlikely. Even that bag of crisps wasn’t inside her now.
    ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she said, raising her hand to her forehead. She snapped it back down when she realised the gesture could give the wrong impression to those who didn’t know her. Twenty years in the force and nothing this grim or pitifully sad had come her way. As a woman – as a
mother
– she was angered to the core. She pulled the white mask down over her face again and drew in a deep breath – partly for courage and partly so she didn’t have to suck in the decaying stench that filled the small bathroom.
    It had all taken place in here, she could see that instantly. There was no blood anywhere else in the flat. The ceramic tiles, once white with mouldy grout stretching around the edge of the bath, were spattered and smeared with blood – some of it pinky-red and some of it dark burgundy, almost brown, as it crazed the tiles like some weird piece of congealed art at the Tate Modern.
    Sweet Jesus . . . what had gone on in here?
    In the basin there was a claw hammer and a kitchen knife. The knife was part of a set from the flat’s kitchen. Both were bloodied. The bath tap was dripping every couple of seconds, making a clear river of white one end of the blood-stained plastic bath. The woman lying in it was half naked. The plug was in. The baby was blue and lifeless, its powdery skin mottled and delicate. Finger-shaped bruises decorated its shoulders from when, she supposed, it had been pulled from the womb.
    Lorraine stopped herself.
It?
she thought.
It’s a boy
, she chastised herself inwardly.
A little baby boy.
    She thought of her own children and glanced at her watch. Stella had a piano exam tomorrow morning and practice hadn’t exactly been top of her agenda recently.
    She had to think of these things – force her mind to focus on the normal, the everyday, the mundane.
    Then there was Grace and her damned A levels. She had several exams after Christmas and Lorraine had no idea if she was on track with her work. She made a mental note to find out as she stared at the mess in the bath. Images of her girls as babies flashed through her mind.
It’s OK
, she thought.
I’m fine . . . just grounding myself in this fucked-up world
. What didn’t seem OK or