No Child of Mine Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  What if you knew a child was in danger – and no one believed you?

  Alex Lake’s day job is all about helping people, especially children. She cares about them passionately and does everything in her power to rescue them from those who mean them harm.

  When the case of three-year-old Ottilie Wade comes to her attention, Alex finds herself completely unable to detach from the child the way she should. She feels an overpowering need to make a real difference in little Ottilie’s life, but no one is prepared to believe that Ottilie is in danger.

  In the end, Alex makes a decision that has consequences for her, her family and Ottilie – consequences that no one, least of all Alex, could have foreseen.

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-eight novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. Having resided in France for many years she now lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Susan is a supporter of the childhood bereavement charity, Winston’s Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk and of the breast cancer charity, BUST: www.bustbristol.co.uk

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  To James, just because ...

  ‘Hello. And who are you?’

  The little girl’s deep brown eyes stared unblinkingly at Alex Lake; she seemed almost ethereal, Alex was thinking as she stooped down in front of the swing, as though she might have stepped from an Impressionist painting. Her creamy cheeks were smudged with tiny rosettes of colour, and the wiry cloud of dark hair that rose and dipped in whimsical curls made her seem so delicate – and perfect. How old was she, Alex wondered. Three? Four? Definitely closer to three.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Alex asked with a friendly smile.

  The child didn’t answer, simply continued to stare into Alex’s eyes and clutch the chains of the box swing. Her legs were dangling over the tarmac, too short to reach it so she was unable to make herself rock back and forth, and there didn’t appear to be anyone close by to push it. There was a hypnotic quality about her that Alex was sure she’d felt even before she’d spotted her. It was what had pulled her attention from the children she was with, her niece and nephew, who were still a few yards away swishing gleefully down the slide into their mother’s arms.

  ‘My name’s Alexandra,’ she told the little girl, ‘but most people call me Alex.’

  The girl blinked and Alex smiled at the slowness of it, and felt strangely moved by the fine blue lines in her lids, and the extravagant curl of her lashes.

  Her mother, or nanny, must be one of the group of young women sitting on the grass nearby. The instant she spotted a stranger talking to her child she’d no doubt come running, fighting down panic and appalled with herself for having turned away, even for a moment.

  A moment was often all it took.

  ‘She’s very shy, I’m afraid.’

  Alex looked up to find a man smiling down at her. With the sun behind him she couldn’t make out his features, but he was dressed in a lime-coloured polo shirt and khaki chinos, with a tan leather belt sitting just below his ample waist. He wasn’t tall, maybe five eight at the most. As she stood up she could see his neatly combed hair more clearly; his eyes, the shape of half-moons, though friendly, contained a look of wariness. Only to be expected from a parent who’d found a stranger talking to his child, she thought.

  ‘She’s also very pretty,’ Alex said, wondering where he had suddenly come from. She hadn’t noticed him anywhere, and there weren’t many people around for him to get lost amongst. Then she spotted a woman sitting alone on a blanket several yards away, her hands buried in the grass behind her, her face turned up to the sun.

  Probably the mother, Alex decided.

  ‘Come along,’ he said, lifting the child off the swing and setting her on her feet. A small Paddington Bear, with boots but no hat, fell to the ground. The little girl quickly picked it up and tucked it under one arm. When her head stayed down Alex looked at the feathery curls and felt something stir deep inside her – a desire to scoop her up and make her laugh, the way she did with her sister’s kids. There was also an awakening of unease that Alex didn’t like at all.

  Something wasn’t quite right with this child.

  She watched the little girl’s hand go into the man’s, a precious jewel slipping into a shell that completely engulfed it.

  The man’s smile was affectionate and cheerful as he said, ‘Best get her home, I suppose,’ and turning her around he began walking her away.

  Alex stood watching them, expecting them to stop at the sun-worshipping woman, but they simply went straight past. A few yards further on the little girl glanced over her shoulder, and feeling a catch in her heart, Alex lifted a hand to wave. Working in child protection could be a hazardous thing, making her see crimes where none were being committed.

  Or were they?

  ‘Shame on you,’ her sister Gabby teased, coming up behind her.

  Alex looked puzzled.

  ‘Trying to pickup a bloke by making friends with his kids,’ Gabby explained with a nudge.

  Alex’s smile was weak. Glamorous and vivacious though her sister was, her humour was often a bit off. Her gaze returned to the child and the man who’d almost reached the park gates by now. Surely she wasn’t watching an abduction? No, it couldn’t be possible. The girl had given her hand without being asked; she’d clearly known him – and if she belonged to anyone else in the park they’d almost certainly be screaming blue murder by now.

  Yet for some reason they didn’t seem to belong together.

  ‘You’re getting that look about you,’ Gabby warned.

  ‘What look?’

  Gabby rolled her eyes. ‘Not every man you come acros
s is a child molester,’ she reminded her. ‘And that one looked pretty respectable if you ask me. Quite dishy, in fact.’

  Alex was surprised. ‘Did you think so?’ she replied, having failed to see it herself.

  Gabby shrugged. ‘I suppose I didn’t get that good a look, and he was a bit on the short side – though taller than you.’

  ‘Not difficult,’ Alex said with a smile. At five foot two she was at least four inches shorter than Gabby, and also unlike Gabby she had fine, ash-blonde hair, sea-green eyes and a petite frame that her father had always said just didn’t seem big enough to contain so much energy, or such a big heart. ‘Not forgetting all that attitude,’ her mother would snipe, though that had mostly been when Alex was in her teens.

  She was twenty-eight now and Gabby was thirty-three, with inky dark hair, toffee-coloured eyes and a smile that used to be dazzling, but lately had started to lose some of its lustre. Having two kids was tiring. In many ways she was coming to resemble their mother, a dubious fate that would never befall Alex. Nor would she ever come to look like their father, for the simple reason that, unlike Gabby, she had been adopted into the family, rather than born.

  Both their parents were dead now – their father having succumbed to cancer two years ago, while a heart attack had taken their mother ten months later. Alex still missed them, especially her father, but not as much as Gabby did.

  ‘Right, better go and round up those rascals,’ Gabby declared.

  As she started off to the maze of climbing frames where Phoebe and Jackson were twirling and leaping about like monkeys, Alex turned to look for the man and child again. Unsurprisingly, they’d disappeared into the world beyond the park, and yet, oddly, it was as though something about them was lingering invisibly in the air; or perhaps it was settling inside her like a curiosity, or a concern – it actually felt, she realised, like an affinity with the girl.

  As a social worker she knew better than to become fanciful where children were concerned, or let her feelings run away with her, but there were occasions when she simply couldn’t help it. And for some reason this was seeming like one of them.

  She was thinking about the man again and what Gabby had said, that she suspected every member of the opposite sex of being a child molester. It wasn’t true, not even close – why would she, when most men she knew would never harm a hair on a child’s head? However, she knew better than to be taken in by appearances; some of the worst offenders she’d had to deal with weren’t from the sink estates on the edge of town, or other sorts of deprived backgrounds. Attributes such as charm, sophistication, and high levels of education often provided an effective mask for those with depraved and monstrous intent.

  Her real father hadn’t been that kind of a monster, but he’d been one all the same.

  ‘Auntie Lex, Auntie Lex,’ her niece and nephew cried, bounding towards her.

  Laughing as they threw their arms around her waist, Alex hugged them back and smiled at her sister who was ambling on behind, loaded down with bags. Since Gabby was married to such a wonderful man, Alex knew she’d never have to fear for her five-year-old niece and nephew.

  ‘Can we stay at yours tonight?’ Jackson begged. ‘Please, please, please.’

  ‘Oh, Jackson,’ Gabby groaned, ‘please don’t start that again. You know we’re driving back to Devon tonight. You want to see Daddy, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes!’ he cheered, and punching a fist in the air he zoomed off like an aeroplane.

  ‘Auntie Lex,’ Phoebe said, putting her head back to look up at Alex.

  ‘Yes, my darling?’ Alex responded, cupping her niece’s flushed, sweet face in her hands.

  ‘Who was that little girl you were talking to?’

  Turning to stare across the empty parkland to where the traffic was coming and going beyond, Alex said, ‘I don’t know, Phoebs. She didn’t tell me her name.’

  Chapter One

  ‘HI HONEY, I’M home.’

  Alex had never actually watched the nineties TV series of that name, nor was she old enough to have plucked the phrase from the fifties. However, she often sang it out when she walked in the door because it was what her parents used to do, and it had usually made them laugh – or at least smile.

  It generally had the same effect on Jason, but not this evening apparently, because he didn’t seem to be at home. Unless he was in the garden braving another attempt at putting the new shed together. It was going to be hard to get anything as polite as a smile out of him if that was the case. In spite of him being a fully qualified builder his last effort had ended with a hammer boomeranging off the back wall of the house, while he performed a weird sort of Friday prayers next to the compost heap.

  Since then, the offending shed parts had been banished from sight, and were quite likely, Alex suspected, to stay that way until they were ready to behave like the reasonable, easily assembled components they were supposed to be, according to the website they’d ordered them from.

  Dropping her heavy work bag and grey denim jacket at the foot of the stairs, she quickly checked the time on her watch and groaned inwardly to see how late it was already. She had less than an hour to shower, change and grab a snack before needing to head out again. After the day she’d just had she wouldn’t have minded simply crashing in front of the TV for the rest of the evening, or outside on the patio in their smart new loungers with a bottle of half-decent wine. On the other hand, she was excited about tonight – so excited, in fact, that merely thinking about what lay in store was enough to dispel her exhaustion and infuse her with so many exhilarating waves of energy that she could sing, dance, even turn cartwheels across the lawn if required.

  That would have given old Millie Case a bit of a chuckle, if she’d still been in the cottage next door. Sadly, Millie had been moved to a care home a few weeks ago, her Alzheimer’s making it impossible for her to carry on living alone.

  Quickly adding a visit to Millie to her list of must-dos at the weekend, Alex entered the kitchen to find it empty. However, both top and bottom halves of the stable door were open to the patio, and the buzz and roar of the lawn mower careering up and down the back garden explained why Jason hadn’t heard her come in. Inhaling the delicious scent of freshly mown grass, she was about to go and commend his manly horticultural skills when the phone on the dresser started to ring.

  Tucking the receiver under her chin, she opened the fridge to take out some wine. ‘Hi, the Vicarage,’ she answered. Though the house no longer belonged to the church it had retained its name since her father, the rector, had bought it, and its position of splendid isolation at the top end of the village (with Millie’s cottage attached) made it one of the area’s more desirable homes. Not that it was particularly large, or well modernised – in fact it could boast none of the grandeur of most renovated vicarages around the country. It was the views that made it so sought after, both out across the open fields behind, and down over the random sprawl of village rooftops in front. Alex was always mindful of how lucky she was to be living here now that her parents had gone, but knew that the day would soon come when Gabby would want to sell.

  What was she going to do then on her paltry salary?

  No time to think about it now.

  ‘Hi Alex, is that you?’ a voice demanded from the other end of the line.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ Alex replied, gliding effortlessly into her evening persona of joint founder/director/producer of the Mulgrove Village Players. Alex the child-protection worker would fall away magically when she shook out her hair and removed her specs. Or so she liked to think. In reality, the problems of the day never really went away, they simply went off backstage for a while, very often to work themselves up into something superbly melodramatic ready for a middle-of-the-night session when she was unable to sleep. ‘How are you, Hailey?’ she asked chirpily.

  ‘Oh, you knew it was me,’ Hailey gushed delightedly.

  Alex couldn’t help but smile. Hailey was the most self-effacing writer wi
th talent she’d ever come across – not that she’d come across many writers, but there had been a few. ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, half-filling a glass with perfectly chilled Chardonnay. A sudden cloud threatened. ‘Please don’t tell me you can’t make it tonight.’

  ‘Oh, no, no,’ Hailey cried hastily. ‘I mean, yes, of course I’ll be there. I’d never let you down, you know that. I was just checking to make sure I have the time right. Seven thirty at the village hall.’

  Suspecting Hailey really just wanted to speak to someone who’d understand how nervous and excited she was, Alex, in her role as director, said, ‘I know you won’t be late, and having you there will make the world of difference to everyone.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that,’ Hailey protested. ‘I’m just glad that it all seems to be going so well. I never dreamt that I’d ever actually have one of my plays produced.’

  ‘So you see, dreams do come true,’ Alex told her, grimacing at her own corniness, while feeling amazed all over again that timid little Hailey Walsh from a neighbouring village had managed to come up with such a boisterous comedy. OK, it was cheesy in parts, and very definitely over the top, but if the hilarity during rehearsals was anything to go by, the show itself would have their friends and neighbours rolling in the aisles. ‘I’d better ring off now,’ she said, glancing at the clock on the wall, ‘or I’ll be late getting there. See you at seven thirty.’

  ‘On the dot,’ Hailey assured her, and Alex didn’t doubt it.

  No sooner had she hung up than the phone started off again. Checking the caller ID she clicked on with a merry, ‘Hello Mulgrove Vicarage, Alexandra Lake at your service.’

  Chuckling, her Aunt Sheila said, ‘Hello dearie, how are you? Is this a good time?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ Alex admitted, spotting Jason taking a call on his mobile. ‘Unless it’s urgent. Is it?’

  ‘No, just ringing to let you know I’ve received my tickets.’

  ‘For the opening night? Fantastic. So you’ll be able to make it?’

  ‘I’m certainly going to try, but you know how busy I am here. I can’t think when I last had a day off, and I’m far too old for it all really.’