Page 23 of Savage Justice

I can only gape at him. “Lucy knows all about…”

Nico takes up the conversation again. “She doesn’t know that we brought the man back here and questioned him before he died.”

“Died?” I gasp. “He’s dead?”

“Very. It wasn’t a pleasant end, but no more than he deserved. His name was Johnny Dunbar. Does that mean anything to you?”

I shake my head.

“What about Borys Glodowski?”

I feel the blood drain from my face. “B-Borys?”

“You do know him, I assume?”

I briefly consider lying. This is my business after all, my problem. Except, they made it theirs when they intervened last night. And if they already know this much…

“He… he’s Noah’s father.”

“Ah.” Nico rests his arms on the back of his chair. “Go on.”

“I met him through my work. I’m an artist, he’s a dealer. We had an affair. It wasn’t serious. At least, not to him. We saw each other on and off for a few months, then I found out he was married. That was it. I dropped him. He didn’t care, it had run its course anyway. If I’d known he had a wife I would never have… Well, I was younger then. And stupid. And, as it turned out, pregnant.”

“You told him about the baby?”

“No, actually. But we run in a small circle, know a lot of the same people, show in the same galleries. Our affair had been fairly common knowledge. It was just a matter of time before someone tipped him off. What I hadn’t realised was that he and his wife had been married for ten years and had no children. Borys wanted this one, but he didn’t want me. He saw no problem with that. I was already a lone parent, surely, I wouldn’t want another. So, the solution was simple, at least in his head. He offered to buy the baby from me and seemed genuinely astonished when I turned him down flat. He upped his offer from ten thousand to fifty thousand euros, then a hundred thousand. I still refused, so he tried threats. He’d ruin my career. No one would ever buy my work again.”

Nico frowns, cocks his head to one side. “Could he do that?”

“No, not really. I’m quite well known. And respected, as a sculptor and portrait artist. People buy my work, and I do okay. I ignored him, called his bluff. Then, the baby arrived, and Borys tried to steal him from the hospital. Luckily that’s easier said than done. There’s all sorts of security, and the staff wouldn’t just hand him over. Obviously.”

I pause to sip my coffee, which has gone cold. Tony pours me a fresh cup. I’m glad of the breather, but now I’ve started I just want to get to the end of my tale.

“We came home. My next-door neighbour was there. She’d been looking after Lucy while I was in hospital. She told me Borys had been hanging around outside the house, in his flashy car. He stayed, parked at the end of my drive, staring at the windows. It got so we couldn’t leave the house. He would ring up at all times of the day and night, demanding that I hand Noah over and threatening me with the courts. Said he’d get custody and I’d never see my baby again.”

“Sounds like a real charmer.”

“If he’d been even remotely reasonable, we could have worked something out. I mean, a child needs his dad, right? I’d have happily let him see the baby, be a part of his life. But Borys wanted everything. He wanted Noah to himself, to hand him over to his childless wife like some sort of birthday treat. It was just weird. Creepy. No way was I going along with that, but I couldn’t get him off my back. It was upsetting Lucy. She couldn’t bring friends home anymore. Enough was enough. I went to the police and reported him for stalking.”

“What did they do?”

“Not a lot. They asked me to keep a diary, but until he actually did something violent, they couldn’t help. I’d never denied that Borys was Noah’s father, and they seemed to think he was just trying to assert his rights. But he had no rights. He was just… just…”

“An entitled bastard who won’t take no for an answer?” Nico suggests helpfully.

“Exactly. Eventually, I’d had enough. I decided to move, to disappear. At that time, we lived in Newcastle, but I wanted to get away, somewhere new. So, I bought a house in Glasgow, the one you saw. I furnished it from scratch again and just left everything we owned behind. I couldn’t risk him getting wind of what I was doing. No packing cases or removal vans. We sneaked out in the middle of the night. I simply put my kids in the car and came here. That was three months ago.”

“Has he been in touch since?”

“No. At least…”

“Not until yesterday, when he sent his little helper to sort out the problem,” Nico puts in helpfully.

“That’s about it. I guess I’ll need to up and go again. Pity, I liked that house, and Lucy was settling in at her new school. The problem is my work is well known. It’s difficult to be anonymous, to keep a low profile. I suppose I’ll have to, though, at least for a while. Until he gets bored.”

“Or something happens to change his mind. Something that might convince Glodowski he needs to have other priorities.”

“Such as?” How could anyone have priorities more pressing than their own child?

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