The man returned; this time his expression was even more menacing. ‘You would have sold my grandchild like a piece of meat.’ He raised a hand and struck her across the face again. Not hard enough to knock her over, but solid enough to cause pain.
I tensed, ready to intervene at any second.
‘I wasn’t pregnant!’ she shouted. ‘I’m infertile!’
He stepped back, looking at the woman. ‘You’re doing exactly what the other bitch did. She acted all shocked and innocent. Until I heard the baby cry. Then it became clear. You kept my grandchild so I took her back.’
‘Oh my God. You killed Louise Simpson!’ Sigrid tried to scream but he clamped one hand over her mouth.
‘That’s when I realised that Simpson woman must have faked the scans. She would have needed an accomplice. Someone at that X-ray place. I watched all day yesterday. I was ready to leave when I saw something through the windows. What sort of cleaner uses the computers and leaves with envelopes?’
Sigrid couldn’t talk back. His hand gripped her reddened face even tighter.
‘I lost you in traffic when you left but your car has a yard sticker on it, same last name as your cleaning company.’
She spluttered and tried to writhe free.
‘Letting parents think their baby died and allowing them to grieve. You two are evil.’ His rage was building with every word. ‘You both deserve to die.’
I searched again for something to use as a weapon. There was a hot curling iron on the bathroom bench. I flicked
its power point on.
Sigrid was sobbing. He took his hand away.
‘I’ll tell the police everything. You can call them now.’
‘And see you just get a slap on the wrist? I don’t think so. What you did to my daughter, to my grandchild … You need to be punished.’
I looked through the gap in the doorway again and saw the flash of a carving knife in the man’s hand.
Chapter 102
SIGRID HALL BEGGED for her life.
‘I didn’t sell a baby,’ she cried. ‘There never was a baby. It was a scam. That’s all it was. I didn’t even know Louise Simpson. I just used her name. The ultrasound your daughter saw was fake.’ She sniffed. ‘I swear to God, there never was a surrogate pregnancy. Your grandchild never existed!’
The man straightened to his full height.
‘I found an abnormal scan in the X-ray archives,’ Sigrid continued, tears streaming down her battered face. ‘I changed the name and date. If you let me go, I’ll give you back the twenty-five thousand. Every cent. Please just let me go.’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘You expect me to believe my daughter lost everything because of a baby that never existed?’ He was mumbling to himself and pacing.
I knew as soon as he realised he’d killed an innocent woman and taken someone else’s child, Sigrid was dead. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my left arm then I texted Mary.
NOW.
I snatched up the curling iron and rushed down the corridor.
The man swung around, slashing at me. I deflected the knife with the hot iron and clamped it on to his hand. He screamed in pain as his flesh burnt.
At that moment, Mary kicked in the back door and knocked the woman and the chair out of the way.
The man, distracted, didn’t see her right cross coming. As he staggered back, she kicked him hard in the chest. He landed heavily and she trapped him, straddling him and pinning both arms with her knees.
He struggled to breathe.
I held the hot iron to his face. ‘Where’s the baby?’