Bye Bye Baby Read online

  Bye, Bye, Baby

  by Allan Guthrie

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2010 Allan Guthrie

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

  www.allanguthrie.co.uk

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover photograph by Alexander Steffler

  www.flickr.com/photos/alex-s

  Cover design by JT Lindroos

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  All Smashwords books are sold DRM-free, without copy protection or encryption. This means you're trusting your customers not to pirate your books. In our experience, the vast majority of customers are honest. Yet without proper education and proper reminders, a generally well-intentioned customer might feel inclined to share your book with someone else.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Author's Note

  Towards the end of February 2008, I was invited to write a short story for Shattered: Every Crime Has A Victim, an anthology of crime stories for the charity, Victim Support Scotland. The remit was to write a story written from the perspective of the victim. For a long time, I'd been looking for an opportunity to explore a very unusual idea, one that I wasn't sure would work, and this seemed like a great chance to try it out. The story turned out pretty well. At least, I was happy with it, the editor was happy with it, and once the book was published, I received more positive feedback on it than any other story I've written. I realised there were a lot more possibilities for telling this story, particularly if it was narrated from an outsider's perspective. So I approached Barrington Stoke, an Edinburgh-based publisher, to ask if they'd like to see a novella based on the original idea. They said yes, and I set about writing it. I found I had to make several changes to the original for the longer version to work. Changing the perspective was only a small part of it. But the premise remains the same. What follows is the novella. The original short story it was based on is included afterwards for those who might be curious to see how the central premise unfolds from a different perspective.

  TUESDAY

  1.

  I was on my way downstairs to grab a can of something fizzy from the drinks machine when I passed Detective Sergeant Dutton's office. I made the mistake of looking up. He saw me and waved me over.

  His room was tiny. The desk took up most of the space and it wasn't a big desk. I wondered how Dutton managed to pull the chair out far enough to squeeze himself in. He was a beefy guy with a porn-star moustache, which he was stroking as he listened to the caller on the other end of the phone.

  I stood in the doorway catching the faint smell of tobacco smoke from Dutton's clothes.

  He scribbled a few notes, grunted something, then said goodbye and hung up.

  "You can have this one, Collins," he said to me. "Missing kid."

  "You serious?"

  Dutton didn't like me. Few people did, mainly because of my uncle. But with Dutton it was personal.

  I'd told his wife she should leave him and she'd told him what I said.

  Yeah, I know, I should mind my own business. But I'd heard the way he spoke to her and it was ugly. I'd happily do the same again.

  "Why wouldn't I be serious?" He pulled a face. An attempt to look hurt. "Well, if you don't think you can handle it …"

  "How old's the kid?"

  "Seven."

  "Where's the mother right now?"

  "At home."

  "You have the address?"

  "Right here." He tapped a scrap of paper on his desk with his pen. "You sure about this now?"

  "You think I'm not up to the job?" I held out my hand.

  But he just chewed the inside of his cheek and peered at me. "Maybe it needs someone more senior at the helm," he said. "I think I should take it."

  He knew I'd been after a high-profile case for ages. I'd decided a couple of months ago that if I didn't get promoted in the next year, I was going to get out of the police force. Too much paperwork and overtime and arseholes like Dutton for me to stay a constable forever. I had bills to pay, or I'd have left already.

  I said, "You decided yet?" If Dutton was waiting for me to beg, he'd have a long wait.

  We stared at each other for a while. Then he said, "Don't make me regret this," and handed over the address. "The mother's spoken to Uniform. I'll get her statement. Fill you in over the radio."

  "I can speak to them when I get there."

  "I've already sent them door to door. Need all the bodies we can get out looking for the kid." He pointed his pen at me. "One other thing. Won't be a Family Liaison officer free for about an hour. You better take a female passenger with you."

  "You left the mother on her own?"

  "She picked a bad day to lose her son," he said. "But she knows we're on the way. She'll be fine." He pushed his chair back, gave himself just enough leg-room to get to his feet. "Now bugger off and show me what you can do."

  2.

  The Scottish police do almost everything in pairs. You'd think we'd have partners like on the TV cop shows, but no, you find whoever's available and invite them along. In our office, we called them passengers.

  The office where us lowly constables worked was open plan, blonde wood desks with foot-high partitions on legs that we all kept moving when nobody was looking. Everybody wanted that extra inch or two of desk space.

  I glanced around, hoping to spot one of the female officers.

  Hell, I didn't need to drag a woman along. I'd be fine with a bloke. Mother's lost her kid, we could deal with that. The mother would be upset, of course, and it'd be hard to begin with, but we'd manage.

  Two of my male colleagues, detectives Moore and Temple, were in the kitchen area in the corner, making coffee.

  I caught Moore's gaze and nodded towards him. He ignored me, turned to Temple.

  I wasn't surprised.

  God knows what I'd been thinking when I joined up. I used to be a bus driver, enjoyed that more than any other job I'd ever done. Then Holly got pregnant and we got by for a few years. Then she got pregnant again and we knew we were going to struggle so I applied for the police. No big deal. I don't deny that my uncle was a big help.

  After I'd been in uniform for seven years, I applied for CID. They turned me down, despite my uncle. And the next time they turned me down too. Third time, I was accepted. Thanks to my uncle, so I heard.

  Becoming a detective was a major step up in the career of Frank Collins. Didn't take long to see that I wasn't going to get any further though.

  My uncle told me I had to keep my mouth shut and learn to kiss some arse.

  Two skills I didn't possess.

  I scanned the office again, still looking for a passenger. A detective I hardly knew was sitting at his desk, making a call. The only other officer around was DC Erica Mason.

  I hadn't worked on a case with her in a while. I'd been avoiding her. Or she'd been avoiding me. Maybe a bit of both.

  I walked over to her desk and cleared my throat.

  She looked up from her computer screen, her olive-green eyes unblinking. She reached behind her head, tightened her pony tail. Her hair was dyed, russet. Her fingernails matched her hair.

  "Why do I feel as if I'm not going to want to hear thi
s, Collins?" she asked.

  "Might have a missing kid."

  She nodded. "And you want me as a passenger?"

  "For the mother's sake," I said. "She'll feel a lot more comfortable with a female officer there."

  "That's total pants."

  "Just grab your jacket," I told her.

  "I didn't say I was coming."

  "Erica, the boy's only seven."

  She took a deep breath and said, "What's his name?"

  3.

  The boy, Bruce Wilson, lived in a three-bedroomed detached house on a quiet street in the Blackhall area of Edinburgh. I noted the well-tended garden. The burglar alarm. The brand new Range Rover parked in the driveway.

  There was no sign of the uniformed officers Dutton had sent to canvass the neighbours. I wondered where they'd parked. At least one patrol car should be touring the area too, using a megaphone to ask if anyone had seen the boy. We hadn't passed it on the way but it would be out there, driving around. Standard procedure. Dutton would have seen to it. No matter how much I despised him, I couldn't deny that he knew his job.

  The boy's mother answered the door before we reached the end of the path.

  "Are you the police?" Mrs Wilson was 31 years old, according to the information Dutton passed along. But you'd have guessed at 40. She wore a light sweater, jeans, sandals. Her face looked as if the skin was being stretched in different directions. Her eyes were wet and red. She winked at me, which was odd. I wasn't sure whether to wink back or ignore it. Then she winked again and I realised it was a twitch.

  I introduced myself. Erica did the same.

  Mrs Wilson looked into Erica's eyes and said, "I'm so glad to see you."

  She led us inside.

  The sitting room had red walls. And a red ceiling. Ought to have been too much but it was a big room and the colour scheme worked. Lot of light, too, from the bay windows. Picked up the shine from the varnished floorboards, which was maybe why the room smelled faintly of floor polish. An enormous expensive-looking rug lay in front of a green-and-silver marble fireplace. The sofa and armchairs were white. And spotless. I was impressed she managed to keep them so spic and span with a kid around. Probably had a cleaner in a couple of times a week to give her a hand. No question she could afford it.

  Mrs Wilson invited us to sit down on the settee. We did, to make her comfortable. She sat down too, crossed her ankles and uncrossed them again.

  Erica perched on the edge of the settee, opened her notebook and said, "In your own time, Mrs Wilson. Would you mind running through what happened once again?"

  Mrs Wilson looked at her feet. "I went to pick up Bruce from school." She raised her head. Her gaze moved from Erica to me, back to Erica. Then back to the floor. "He wasn't there."

  "You usually pick him up where, exactly?" I asked.

  "No," Mrs Wilson said, shaking her head.

  "No?"

  She kept shaking her head. "Not 'usually'," she said, her voice louder. "Always. I always pick him up outside the school gates. I'm always there when the bell rings."

  "And he wasn't there today?"

  "That's right."

  "He wasn't in his classroom?"

  Mrs Wilson breathed in slowly. Didn't answer the question.

  "Maybe one of the other parents …?"

  Mrs Wilson was shaking her head furiously again, so Erica stopped talking, scribbled in her notebook.

  I wondered if I should say something. After all, it was my case.

  I was about to speak when Erica asked Mrs Wilson, "How can you be so sure?"

  "I stay out of their business. They stay out of mine."

  "What do you mean by that?" I asked.

  Erica pursed her lips, probably annoyed with me for cutting her off.

  "Nobody wants to hear about tragedy," Mrs Wilson said. "People want to get on with their lives and tragedy holds you up. Even someone else's tragedy can hold you up. It can infect you like some kind of wasting disease." She laughed without any trace of humour. "Surprised no one's asked me to wear a bell round my neck so they can hear me coming."

  I gave Erica a quick look.

  "What tragedy?" she asked Mrs Wilson.

  Mrs Wilson breathed deeply.

  "If you don't mind telling us," I said.

  "Talking about it doesn't hurt quite so much now." She looked up from her hands. "John's dead," she said. "Bruce's dad. He's dead."

  The officers who took her statement must have told Dutton about this and he should have let us know. I wouldn't be surprised if he had deliberately withheld the information.

  Mrs Wilson was talking again. "Car crash." She put her fingertips to her temples. "Got ploughed into head-on by a drunk driver." She lowered her hands, gripped her thighs. "He took a corner on the wrong side of the road. Killed John."

  "I'm very sorry to hear that," I said. "How old was your son at the time?"

  "It happened seven years ago in March. Bruce was just a baby. Eight months old."

  I looked at Erica again but she was no help. I asked, "Do you have a photo of Bruce, Mrs Wilson?"

  "Bruce is camera shy."

  "It doesn't have to be a good photo. Anything will do. Just so we have a likeness."

  She said it again, slower this time. "Bruce is camera shy."

  "You don't have any photos?" I asked again. She must have given one to the uniformed officers. "Just one — "

  "He doesn't like having his photo taken," she said. Then maybe she realised she'd been a little loud and said it again, softly, looking at her feet.

  "What about a school photograph?"

  "What is it you don't get?" Mrs Wilson stood up, banging her shins against the coffee table so hard I winced. But she didn't seem to notice. "I won't put Bruce through any kind of an ordeal. I won't do that. He's suffered enough, losing his father. Can you imagine what that's like? I know he's too young to understand, but the older he gets, the more it shows and he acts up and … and I let him, I suppose. Maybe I spoil him a bit. But he hurts. I know. I feel it." She was crying. Big messy tears, runny nose. She wiped her face with her hand.

  Erica plucked a tissue from a box on the coffee table and handed it to Mrs Wilson.

  Mrs Wilson blew her nose. "My boyfriend says Bruce is damaging our relationship. Can you believe that? Blaming my baby?"

  "What's your boyfriend's name?" Erica asked.

  "Les. And he's my ex-boyfriend." Mrs Wilson dabbed at her nose. "I got fed up with his jealousy. I finished with him last week. Told him to leave us alone. And that's what he's done."

  "Les who?"

  "Green. Les Green."

  "Do you have his address?"

  She gave it to us and Erica wrote it down.

  "I'm sorry to have to ask this," I said. "But did your relationship with Mr Green end on good terms?"

  She shrugged. "He called me a 'mad bitch'. But he didn't throw any punches. If that's what you mean."

  "Might Mr Green have picked up Bruce from school?"

  "Les wouldn't dream of it."

  "I think we should talk to him anyway," I said.

  "Whatever you think."

  We sat for a bit, staring at each other. Then Erica said, "Could we see Bruce's room?"

  "Why not." Mrs Wilson got to her feet, led us down the hallway and up the stairs. She swung a bedroom door open and stepped inside.

  We followed her in. A little boy's room. Piles of books in the bookcase, games stacked in the corner, toys in their boxes. But there were things I would have expected to see that weren't here.

  "No TV?" I asked.

  "I don't like him watching too much television."

  "Computer?"

  "He's not old enough to be interested."

  "Really?" I asked. "My two were into computers from before they could speak."

  "You have two boys?" Mrs Wilson looked me in the eye and there was no sign of the twitch.

  "Yeah. Older one just had his thirteenth birthday. His brother's ten."

  She looked
as if she was about to ask something else, but Erica interrupted. "Have you tidied up in here?"

  "No need. Bruce is a neat little boy."

  "Very," Erica said. "Noticed anything missing? Clothes, maybe? Money?"

  "Money?" Mrs Wilson leaned back slightly, her head tilted to the side.

  "I just wondered," Erica said. "Kids sometimes have a bit of cash stashed away."

  "Not Bruce. He doesn't need money. What would he need with money? I have money."

  "Clothes?" Erica's voice was calm but firm. "Any clothes missing?"

  Mrs Wilson shook her head.

  "Can you take a look, please," I said. "Just to make sure?"

  "For God's sake." Mrs Wilson pulled out the drawers, scanned through the wardrobe. A couple of minutes later, she crossed her arms and said, "Everything's here. Apart from what he's wearing."

  "And what was that?" Erica asked.

  Mrs Wilson told us he was wearing his school uniform, and described it, and mentioned the Hearts scarf he liked, but wasn't allowed to wear in class. It matched the information we'd got from Dutton. At least he'd got something right.

  I asked Mrs Wilson, "There's not one single photo of him?" I wondered what Uniform were working with. Just a description?

  She looked as if she was going to leap across the room and choke me. But instead she said, "John was the positive one."

  I had no idea what she was talking about. She must have picked up on my confusion.

  "Bruce's dad," she said. "My husband. Remember?"

  I nodded. "Yes, yes, John, of course," and no doubt sounded like a total idiot. But I hadn't forgotten her husband's name. I just didn't see how her reply had answered my question about Bruce's photo.

  But who knew how her mind was working right now.

  "You know what it's like not being able to say sorry?" Mrs Wilson asked, clenching her fists. "We'd argued, me and John. Just before … It was a silly thing, didn't know it would become important. He hadn't shaved for a couple of days."