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down. He came downstairs for tea but she let him take it up to eat, so I doubt he noticed the state she was in. Then, at seven, the police came.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Devastating,’ she said simply.
    A waitress began clearing the table. Valerie checked her watch.
    â€˜And when you heard they’d charged Damien Beswick?’
    â€˜Relief.’
    â€˜You never had any doubts?’
    â€˜Good grief, no. He owned up, the evidence fit. Kids like that: dysfunctional family, drugs, crime – sooner or later there’s violence.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘We see it all the time.’
    The wind had brought rain with it – not heavy yet, just squalls that spat drops at me. As I walked back through the complex in the direction of the car I felt dwarfed by the buildings lowering over me and a little overwhelmed by the investigation. It wasn’t the complexity of it; after all, it boiled down to one question: was Damien Beswick lying then, or now? But it was the frustration of not being able to tell whether he was guilty or wrongly convicted and the sense that there was no easy path I could follow to clearly establish that. Before his conviction the emphasis had been on proving Damien culpable beyond any reasonable doubt; now the reverse was true. In the balance of probability he had killed Charlie – it would need some stunning evidence to convince anyone otherwise.
    Ray had left me a text: clothes – no joy . So I called into Children’s World on my way home. It stocked every possible accessory and accoutrement. I found myself drooling over patterned towelling Babygros and funky baby sweaters, instead of just grabbing the two-for-a-tenner value packs in the dump bins. I could have spent a fortune and stayed all day but I got a grip, reminded myself that Jamie might be gone by teatime and settled on three cheapish cotton all-in-ones in powder blue, dusky rose and white with stars and moons.
    The place didn’t sell small sets of nappies; the ones they had would need a forklift truck to shift them. But there was a special offer on starter packs of three reusables. They’d a terry towelling inside and a plastic outer coating, fitted with velcro tabs. I’d used something similar for Maddie when I’d read how it took hundreds of years for disposables to degrade in landfill.
    As I negotiated the traffic home, I mused on how the world seemed full of babies: Jamie, Chloe’s little one, Libby’s daughter. How old was Rowena? Due in June, Libby had said, so she’d be three months or so. The possibility stuck in my mind like a fishbone in the throat. I couldn’t dislodge it. With it came a creeping unease, a quickening of my pulse. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? Because it seemed so unlikely – that a new client would dump her child on me? It was unlikely whoever had done it. It was ridiculous – still I had to ring her, had to know.
    Parking in our drive, I pulled out my phone and found her number. I would get myself invited there to give her feedback – explain I understood it would be harder for her to come to me with a baby in tow. If she tried to wriggle out of it, then I’d know I was on to something. Maybe I’d have to ask her outright. My throat felt dry as I entered her number.
    Libby answered the phone and I heard the deafening cries of a howling baby close by. Relief rippled through me like a drug. ‘Libby, Sal Kilkenny.’
    â€˜Hi.’
    â€˜Not a good time? I just wanted to fix up a meeting. Are you free tomorrow?’
    â€˜I can do mid-morning, say, half ten.’ The crying became even more frantic. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to go,’ she added.
    â€˜See you tomorrow.’
    It was quiet in my house. I peeked in the lounge and found Jamie, wrapped in a blanket, asleep on the sofa. Ray was in the kitchen, reading the paper after his lunch. I was five minutes later than I’d said.