The Secret Child (DI Amy Winter #2)(53)

‘Luka,’ his mama said. ‘What are you doing here?’ Wiping her hands on her apron, she took him into a side room which was filled with mops and cleaning products of every kind. Upturning two empty buckets, she sat on one and patted the other for him to do the same. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, her face pale and strained.

His expression screwed up as he tried to find the right words. He remembered Deborah’s warning. Mama was ill. He could not upset her by telling her how bad things were. She had lost weight since he last saw her, her thick black hair now streaked with slivers of grey.

‘I want to go home,’ he finally said. ‘I hate this place.’

‘You do?’ She drew him close, her arm around his shoulders as she met his gaze. ‘They told me you liked it here. That you wanted to stay.’

Luka shook his head so fast it felt like a spinning top. Lately, his time with his mama had been rationed to just minutes. Extra hours cleaning the old building as well as serving the workshop students in the kitchen kept her busy during the day. In the evenings, he was so tired from the experiments that he slept. Holding him tightly, Sasha rocked him until his sobs subsided. His tears dampening her apron, he finally drew away.

‘Can’t we leave this place, Mama? Can’t we run away?’

‘But where will we go without money?’ She asked. ‘They send my allowance to Ivan. They’ve taken our passports too.’ She said it with authority. Had she looked for them? Had she thought about leaving too?

‘Tell you what,’ she said, clasping her palm against his cheek. ‘I’ll speak to the doctor. The trials will be over soon. If we explain that you’re scared . . .’

‘But Mama!’ Luka blurted. Wasn’t she listening to a word he said?

‘Shhh, don’t fret,’ Sasha replied, pausing to kiss his forehead. ‘He’s a doctor, not a criminal. He can’t keep us here against our will.’ Just the same, she checked to ensure nobody was listening. Leaning forward, she kept her tone low. ‘If that doesn’t work, I’ll do some snooping. We’ll find our own way out.’

Luka slowly nodded. He did not trust the doctor, but what choice did they have?

‘I’ll speak to Deborah too,’ Sasha continued. ‘I’ll tell her you’ve had enough.’

But Luka lacked his mama’s faith. Deborah was kind and she looked out for him, but she was in no hurry to allow either of them home.





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

After securing her bike in the rear car park, Amy accessed the police station through the back. The private entrance was available only to police and today she was grateful for that. Once inside, she made a beeline for the ladies’ toilets. Locking herself into a cubicle, she sat on the closed toilet seat. Her legs still felt like jelly and she needed a few seconds to compose herself before facing her colleagues. The muted tones of the tannoy called an officer to the front counter, followed by the urgent footsteps of her police colleagues as they bustled down the corridor. She wasn’t the centre of the universe, Amy told herself. Her colleagues were too busy getting on with their work to think about her. So why did her feet feel glued to the floor?

Sliding her mobile from her pocket, she flicked through her texts and missed calls. There were three notifications from Paddy and a voicemail from Sally-Ann, her sister, checking in with her. A text from her brother Craig, asking if she was OK, followed by a smutty one-liner about Flora almost catching him in the act with an ex-lap dancer named Divine. Amy’s lips curved into a weak smile, relieved he was playing down the news, which had probably blown his mind. They were all tarred by association – the family who had taken in the daughter of killers Jack and Lillian Grimes. Amy sighed as she scrolled down her phone to find three missed calls from DCI Pike. Rising, she pocketed her mobile, unable to put off the inevitable. She checked her watch. Still on schedule. Despite everything that was happening, she could not bear to be late to work.



‘I trust you’ve seen this.’ Pike raised the newspaper in Amy’s direction as she entered her office minutes later. Amy stared at the tiny cactus plant gracing Pike’s desk. She could not bear to look at the headline again. It stank of betrayal. And this from the man who claimed to still love her. If that’s love, you can keep it, Amy thought, nodding three times in response to Pike’s sharp tones. In the short walk to her DCI’s office she had come to a decision. Her father had adopted her because he wanted her to have a better life. She would not betray his memory by throwing everything away now. She was wary but ready to fight. If Pike thought she was kicking her off the team, she had another think coming.

‘I owe you an apology,’ Pike said. Her response could not have been any more unexpected.

Amy lifted her head, wondering if she had heard right. Was she really saying that she wanted to apologise? She waited before speaking, reluctant to ask Pike to clarify for fear of looking like a fool. Such battles were better fought with carefully chosen words.

‘I’m sorry for how I reacted when you came to me about Lillian.’ Pike gestured at her to sit down. ‘If Robert were here now, he’d give me a serious telling-off.’ The mention of his name brought a sad smile to Pike’s face. It was true. Robert had treated people as he found them. His beliefs had not been forged from others’ opinions or the type of life people were born into. In contrast, Pike had been less than sympathetic when Amy told her about her connection to Lillian Grimes. ‘Not that it’s an excuse, but I’ve been struggling to get over Robert’s death,’ Pike continued, filling the silence between them. ‘I should have listened when you said you didn’t want to speak to Adam Rossi.’ She folded over the newspaper and deposited it in the bin beneath her desk. ‘You’re a good detective . . . Who am I kidding? You’re a brilliant detective, and you’ve taken everything thrown at you with the integrity I’ve come to expect. I turned my back on you, and that shows weak leadership on my part.’