She sat on the bed with the box on her knee but it was several minutes before she could brace herself to lift the lid. There it was, wrapped in white tissue paper that had discoloured with the passing of time. Reaching in, Jodie gently folded the paper back to reveal the two small blue shoes.

These were knitted ones, blue ribbons laced through and tied in a bow at the front. They were possibly smaller than the ones that had arrived today. She picked them up carefully as if afraid they would disintegrate under her touch and held them to her face, smelling them as if in the hopes they’d have a scent of her child. Not that they could have, she’d never been permitted to see him, touch him, certainly never been able to put the little shoes on his tiny, tiny feet.

A deep sense of longing swept over her, as it always did in the rare times she allowed herself to think of the child she’d had when still a child herself. Giving him up had been the best thing to do. Her mother had convinced her of that then, she was still convinced of it now. It had given him the best chance in life. She had to believe that.

She put both pairs of shoes into the box and took it with her as she went back to the kitchen. Her friend would arrive soon. A smile quivered. Rivka thought she was coming to discuss her career disaster, little did she know it had been put into second place of the things she had to worry about.

Because the person who had left the baby shoes, had to be the person who had given her the first ones.

Victor Hill.

The man Jodie had helped put in prison.

14

Jodie almost smiled at the look of shock on Rivka’s face when she put the open box in front of her. ‘This pair–’ her fingers brushed over the blue ribbon of the older pair ‘–were the ones Victor gave me when I told him I was pregnant. The other pair came this morning.’ She pushed the box gently. ‘You can touch them, they won’t bite.’

‘That doesn’t make them any less dangerous.’ Rivka moved the box away and looked at Jodie with a worried crease between her eyes. ‘You think Victor left them? You should go to the police. Isn’t this stalking or something?’

‘I can’t see them taking the leaving of a pretty gift on my doorknob as being any kind of threat,’ Jodie said with an attempt at humour. She reached for the lid of the box and shut the contents away from sight. ‘I haven’t seen or heard from Victor since the day he was sentenced.’

‘But you must have been notified when he was released?’