Lauren nodded. Then, “Do you know how long Patrick will be with the babies?”

“Sorry, flower. I don’t. Shouldn’t be too long a wait, though. You must be looking forward to seeing them.”

Lauren pointed her face at Escape to the Country, and told herself to be calm, normal, like nothing was different. She felt a twitch in her cheek and rubbed at it, tried to control her breathing. She was afraid she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t have those things near to her, and pretend they were her own. She missed her boys so much.

Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Hope Park Estate had ancient stone pillars on each side of the entrance, but the blank metal security gate was an incongruous modern addition. Harper had driven Patrick and the twins from the hospital; his car was still at the riverside where he’d left it earlier. She drove up close to the intercom, reached out and pressed the buzzer under the blue and white NHS logo.

“Hello?” said a nasal voice, emitted from a grille.

“Detective Sergeant Joanna Harper, and Patrick Tranter. We’re here to see Lauren Tranter. The twins are with us. We’re expected.”

“Look at the camera, please,” said the unseen doorkeeper. Patrick leaned over so that the security procedure could be completed. The camera swivelled on its little stalk, pointing itself at their faces and making a digital shutter-sound to indicate that it had recorded their image. The gate juddered open at an agonising rate, revealing the leafy surrounds within, one centimetre at a time.

Three or four huge old oak trees stuck out of a lawn the size of a farmer’s field. The richly landscaped setting gave an illusion of easy affluence, but the electric gates and high perimeter fence, barely masked by low shrubs, told the real story. This was a place of refuge, for those in crisis, but it was also, effectively, a prison. As Harper drove towards the car park she could see people in twos and threes dotted about the grounds, pushing buggies or playing with babies in the shade. Each patient, without exception, was accompanied by a nurse in a white tunic.

The unit itself was a low, modern building—what Harper’s mother would have described as a monstrosity of concrete and glass. Nearby, what must once have been a grand country house made the new structure even uglier by comparison. The older building stood a short distance away, handsome but neglected, the paint on the double front door peeling, one or two panes in the leaded windows cracked or missing and replaced with sheets of ply. Encircling the old house was a metal fence, the type they used to fence off building sites, each panel held in place at the bottom by two concrete blocks. On the gabled roof, dark windows stood out like eyes.