Annual Crime Story Competition

When I got back the baby had gone. I stood for a second staring at the place where the pram had stood. That was it then. It was real. I crashed back into the shop with beating heart screaming for someone to call the police. People were running around everywhere and I remember the police arriving, sirens and everything. I must have sounded pretty hysterical shouting ‘My baby! My baby!’ all the time. I had to go with the police to the station. I knew Mum would be right pissed off, Dad being in the clink and everything, but what do you do when someone’s stolen your baby? You get the police, right?
When I started crying, it seemed like all the times I’d never cried before just came back and made me cry really hard. I told the story how I’d just wanted to pop into the shop and see if I had enough money for jeans, how the door was like too narrow for the pram and I was only going to be really quick. Then I saw this dead cool pair and just had to try them on. Then I saw the price label and said like ‘thanks but no thanks’ and went out. The pram had been right there in front of the shop, but then it wasn’t. That was when the screaming started. And the crying. Real tears just running all down my face. Well messy and this really young police woman giving me bits of bog paper all the time and looking all white in the face like it was her baby what had got stolen.
The police never found nothing. The cameras in the shop were for like inside not for outside on the street. Mum couldn’t believe it. She’d said all my life that I’d have a teenage pregnancy. She’d said if my face was my fortune I’d starve. She didn’t know about this though did she? Not that I did it to show her. I’m not like that. But it was because of her that I did it really.
She works for this woman what Mum calls ‘Me-Lady’ and she makes me go there too and help. I’ve always helped. I think I was hoovering and ironing when I was ten at Me-Lady’s place. Mum was always nice as pie to me when her Ladyship was around but bawled me out when we was alone in the house. One time she poured boiling water on my arms and one time she got me by the hair and banged my face on the kitchen table. She never paid me for the work either. Just took my dole money and landed me one.
It was one evening when I was pretending to be a real smart waitress at one of Me-Lady’s parties that I started thinking about the rest of my life. I started wondering how I’d live if Mum suddenly died and I was alone in our house. I had put make-up over a black eye to do the waitressing job that evening. This bloke came into the kitchen. He was one of them. One of Me-Lady’s lot. Black suit, bow tie, the lot. Asked me what time I finished. Gave me a pack of smokes. I don’t smoke but Mum does, so I took them. He was waiting for me outside the back door at midnight when I got off. Walked with me as far as the common. Asked if I wanted to change my life. Get money and a new job, my own flat and a car. I looked at him like he was well barking. How could I earn enough to get a flat? He said he’d give me £500 there and then if I’d meet him on the common the next day. Well of course I took the money, didn’t I? Met him the next day too.
That’s when he said about the baby. Could I have a baby? Well I didn’t know if I could, did I? He said if I could have a baby, he’d give me £5,000 when I was three months pregnant, £5,000 when I was six months pregnant and £10,000 when I’d had it. Then I’d hand it over and we’d never see or hear from each other again. I should forget his face and never tell the police nor no one who he was or what he looked like. Well, I was looking the whole time at my trainers what was like really falling apart and shaming, and the hem of my jeans what I’d shortened myself. I didn’t look at him properly anyway.
‘Open a bank account,’ he said. ‘Pay in the £500. Use this address. It’s a PO box number so you won’t get any correspondence at home.’
‘How do I like – you know...’
‘The father can be whoever you like. Just don’t choose anyone who’s going to interfere with your plans for the baby.’
And he gave me this well wicked mobile phone. I wasn’t allowed to use it to phone anyone but just to get text messages from him. He programmed a number into it for me to send him messages.
‘Text me when you’re pregnant,’ he said.
I knew Scottish Steve had a transit. That part was easy. Mum started creating when she found out about the baby. I knew she would. Told me to get an abortion. Wanted to know who the father was so we could ‘make the bastard pay’. She specially gave me the heavy work knowing my back hurt and my feet swelled up in the heat.
When I was six months pregnant, I went to the bank and put my card in the cash point. It showed £10,500. There was a woman behind me waiting to use the machine. I could see she was pregnant too. She smiled at me and asked when my baby was due. I said June and she said hers was too. I wanted to smile but she was older than me, more like Mum’s age, knocking forty. She seemed to think we was the same in some way. I kind of liked her, but how can we be the same when she’s older and got a Me-Lady accent? She looked like the girls at school who always did like perfect homework. She had smooth hands and tight shoes. I said could she feel it kicking yet, and she said yes, starting at five months. She said it like she’d read that in a book too. I said you haven’t got really swollen feet then, and she said not everyone did. She said it really quickly like I’d accused her of something.
I kept the baby for three weeks until I got the message where to leave him and what time. They was something those weeks. All on my own in the house with him, just washing him and feeding him and rubbing cream into his skin. I used to sit just looking at his great long eyelashes when he was asleep. Every day was like a sunny Saturday. Mum didn’t shut up swearing the whole time about lazy bitches who can’t earn their own living. But it was still like the first holiday I’d ever had. Everything felt really different and strange. I never thought of a name for him, knowing there was no point. I started calling him Teddy though, because I cuddled him all the time.
I had to do all that crying for the police. Make it look like I was well upset. I had to spend hours with this counsellor woman. Trouble with getting into a real hysterical fit for the police was that I couldn’t stop snivelling when I got home. I don’t know how those Hollywood actresses do it. You’re left with this dead feeling under the ribs. I felt like I’d drunk car oil and wanted to puke but couldn’t. It was like swilling around inside me and wouldn’t come out.
I found a flat soon afterwards a long way from home. But even standing in that new white kitchen on my own without Mum, I kept up the snivelling like at the police station. Snotty nose and sore throat.
I walked up the road looking at the shops. I went into this hairdresser’s and got a new cut and streaks. Then there was this like play group for little kids. There was babies there too. Creche, or something. There was a notice up saying ‘Staff needed – apply inside.’ Well as Mum wasn’t around to tell me I was useless, I went in, didn’t I? Just like that. Went in the door and looked at all the little kids. This woman with short hair was there trying to get the kids to like not spill paint everywhere. She saw me and smiled at me first. Kind of brave that. To smile at someone before they smile at you. Said could she help me, and I said about the job. She said I had a caring face. Said I could work there if I wanted to.
That was the start of another strange time. Being on my own a lot. Wearing new clothes and washing my hair really often. Scottish Steve turned up again and said his uncle had taken him on to learn plumbing and help in the firm. He said I looked all right and he was really sorry about what had happened to the bairn. I didn’t see Mum for a long time. It was kind of weird not having anyone getting at me. Just seeing people who thought I was all right. I still had the dead feeling though, and the car oil.
Once when I was walking home after working at the play group, I saw the Me-Lady type what I’d seen at the bank that day. She was getting a pram out of the boot of a Range Rover. It was parked in the drive of one of them monster big houses. I went up to her and said had she had her baby. She said yes and did I want to see it. She got the baby out of the car seat and put it in the pram. I looked down at it and saw my Teddy. He had the same long eyelashes and the same tiny mole under the chin. His face had sort of opened up a bit and the hair looked a bit damp around the forehead. I said hello baby and he looked at me. Like he remembered my voice after all those weeks. I felt the dead feeling go off a bit and the sunny Saturday feeling come back. I said
‘Do you need a babysitter?’
She said: ‘Yes.’ And I smiled at her.

Shortlisted
The Runner-Up in the crime story competition was Susan Eames, Worplesdon, Surrey. Entries shortlisted to final judging stage were received from: Celia Kay Andrew, Wootton Courtenay, Minehead, Somerset; Michael Clare, Worthing; Julie Day, London SE23; Joyce Hicks, Oulton, Lowestoft; Janet Hurst-Nicholson, Durban, South Africa; EP Jenner, Bembridge, Isle of Wight; Paul Meanwell, St Albans; Desmond Meiring, St Cyr sue Mer, Var, Provence, France; Anne Neal, Redhill, Surrey; Steven Newit, Kings Norton, Birmingham; Prue Phillipson, Hexham, Northumberland; Mike Smail, Warter, York