This Lovely City. Louise Hare

deeply.

      ‘I don’t believe that. Most of us know to do what’s best. You know that.’ Delia blew a smoke ring, thinking it over. ‘That place is still open, isn’t it? Where your mother went.’

      ‘I suppose.’ Evie didn’t like to think about what might have happened if her mother had abandoned her there, at the home for unmarried mothers just off Clapham Common, not far from where this poor mite had been found. ‘Either way, they deserve to suffer, whoever’d do that to a child,’ she said finally.

      As they packed up their things and prepared to head back to the office, Delia slid the topic of conversation back to the more pleasant territory of fashion. They decided to go along to Arding and Hobbs before they had to go back to work. Maybe she should think about buying something new to wear to the Lyceum. Lawrie might be working, but it would be their first proper night out together, and Evie wanted to look the part.

3

      The room they’d left him in was inhospitable, but he supposed that was the point. Barely bigger than a large cupboard, it was windowless and even colder than outside. Lawrie watched his warm breath swirl like smoke beneath the harsh flickering of the bare fluorescent tube above him. Its relentless blinking made his head ache. The rectangular table before him was empty but for his own hands, fingers splayed across its dull scratched surface and his fingernails full of the same pond mud that coated his trousers and his coat. He wanted to change, to wash away the dirt on his hands that was making him itch. He’d asked for a glass of water but the policeman who’d left him in the room had not replied. Distant male voices could be heard along the corridor and he felt a coward for not going out there and demanding they give him something to drink.

      The detective would be in soon. That’s what they’d told him. And it wasn’t like he was under arrest. He’d given a brief account by the side of the pond, his head turned away from that sad bundle on the grass. The constable had asked him to walk back to the station with him and give a full statement. Lawrie hadn’t been able to think of a good enough excuse for not complying.

      Eyes open, eyes closed, it made no difference. He could still see that tiny hand and the curl of black hair fixed in his vision, hear the hiccupping sobs of the dog walker. He’d turned away when the foolish constable began to unwrap the blanket that Lawrie had closed up out of respect, staggering back with a yelp as he discovered why the woman was so upset. Served him right for doubting them, but for a moment Lawrie had hoped – had prayed – that he was mistaken. The woman had been allowed to leave once she’d given her brief version of events. She reckoned she hadn’t touched the body, though how she could have seen the baby without doing so, Lawrie didn’t know. He could still feel the weight of the bundle in the muscles that ran up his right arm, could still feel the swift release of that tension as he’d let it fall to the ground.

      The door opened. ‘Lawrence Matthews?’ Lawrie nodded as the man entered. ‘Detective Sergeant Rathbone.’

      The detective was smartly dressed, his jacket pressed and his dark navy tie neatly knotted. In his thirties, Lawrie guessed, with a narrow moustache and pockmarked cheeks that cried out for a beard. He sat down opposite and placed a manila folder between them. He didn’t look at Lawrie.

      Rathbone pulled out a notebook, a packet of cigarettes and his matches, laying them neatly by the folder. He took a cigarette from the pack, not offering one to Lawrie. Striking a match, he sucked the flame into the open tobacco before shaking it out and dropping the spent match to the floor. There was no ashtray, and Lawrie found the careless action irritating, his lips turning upwards a little as he realised how ridiculous it was to bother about such a small thing.

      ‘What you smiling at?’ Rathbone looked up suddenly.

      ‘Nothing, sir.’ Lawrie leaned back and swallowed, his throat dry. ‘I just had a silly thought. That you could do with an ashtray.’

      Rathbone cupped his hand behind his ear. ‘I can’t make out what you’re saying, son. You’ll have to speak more clearly if you’re going to keep on in that accent.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ He slowed the pace of his words, but not too much in case Rathbone thought he was trying to be funny.

      The detective pulled a pencil from his jacket pocket. ‘From the beginning then. Since this morning. I want to know exactly what you did, who you saw, everything. I’ll tell you if I want you to stop.’

      ‘Since this morning?’ Lawrie’s forehead creased as he thought back. ‘I left the house just before five o’clock.’ He paused and Rathbone waved him on. ‘Went to work same as always.’

      ‘You’re a postman?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ Could this man not see the uniform he was wearing? ‘Sir, is there any chance of a glass of water?’

      Rathbone arched an eyebrow. ‘Don’t change the subject. I said I’d let you know if I wanted you to stop talking.’

      Lawrie blinked. ‘Yes, sir. Well, after I clocked off, around midday, I decided to go for a ride to Clapham Common.’

      ‘Why there? Why not Brockwell Park, somewhere closer to home?’

      ‘The sun was out and I thought… well, the Common is where I first stayed when I arrived in this country, see. I like it there.’ His palms were sweating now, thinking about that damned parcel. Guilt must be written all over his face.

      Rathbone put down his pencil and looked him directly in the eye for the first time. ‘This all seems rather coincidental, don’t you think? Way I see it, you had no good reason for being by Eagle Pond.’

      ‘Wrong place, wrong time is all. I mean, do I need a purpose to use the Common? Does anybody?’ Oh God, he was babbling now. ‘Sir, it’s just a park after all. I was just passing by, I go there all the time. At least twice a week.’

      Rathbone stared; Lawrie looked away first.

      ‘It is rather convenient though, you must admit.’ Rathbone tapped ash from his cigarette onto the floor. ‘A baby dies, through some manner or other, to be determined. Perhaps it’s a loved child, perhaps it was an accident or the family couldn’t afford a burial, perhaps at least the person responsible for her death regrets it. That’s what it looks like to me. He doesn’t want her body to go unfound. So he waits until dark before placing her body by the edge of the pond, knowing that people walk their dogs there. Then he starts to worry – what if she isn’t found? He goes back to check and lo! There comes our Mrs—’ Rathbone checked his notes. ‘Barnett. Perfect timing. She panics and, seeing a man on a bicycle, she runs towards him seeking sanctuary. He steps in and rescues the body as planned so it gets a proper burial. Make sense?’

      ‘The last bit, about her running towards me, yes.’ Lawrie sat up and leaned forward. ‘She was the one who found the…’ His tongue wouldn’t form the word. He’d barely touched the child but he could still feel the slip of its – her – skin against his, the catch of her tiny fingernails as he’d snatched his hand away. ‘You’ve got the woman’s statement right there in front of you. She was there first. She was the one made me go and look.’

      ‘Because there was no one else there.’ Rathbone fired out the words. ‘No one around but a nigger on a bicycle. You think she’d have gone to you for help if there’d been a single other person around?’

      ‘I don’t… I mean… what’s that got to do with me?’ Lawrie felt small all of a sudden, unprepared. He took a breath and tried to order his words. ‘I just went there for some fresh air, not looking for trouble.’

      ‘So when she says that you cycled past the pond once, then again not ten minutes later, you don’t think that seems like odd behaviour?’

      ‘No! And I did a good thing, helping that woman. I coulda just cycled off, you know? She was acting all hysterical, like a madwoman. And that dog of hers… But I could see