His aunt and uncle departed for the pub and Chummy brought an extremely sleepy Fred upstairs, lamenting keenly through tiredness as he wriggled on his mother's knee as she soothed him to sleep. By the time Peter had lifted himself carefully from the bath, she had not moved an inch from where she had lain on their bed and Fred too was spark out in his temporary cot.
As Peter walked across, he placed his palm gently on the boy's chest. The bandage on his chin that protected that cut looked like it needed changing and he would have to remind Camilla. There had also been an attempt having being made at removing what looked like chocolate from around his lips.
"Bet that was Mrs Bailey" he thought, remembering the times he and Philip would go and see her and the look on both his aunt's and mother's faces when they would return with bags of sweets, sticky fingers and a stomach full of Victoria sponge.
"Camilla" he whispered, feeling decidedly better, cleaner and less achy. "Camilla?"
Her eyes flickered open as she vaguely felt him squeeze her arm as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"My bally back is hurting so blasted much!" she whispered, careful the baby did not hear her, as she tried to lever herself up. "One should never have decided to lie down".
Peter laughed quickly as she just about sat up, stretching her legs that had become stiff at the knee. "Do you need a hand?" he said.
"I need a stretcher" she replied dryly. "Can you transport the bath in here and I can just topple these old limbs in?"
"Sorry, Camilla" he responded. "Come on. There's still plenty of hot water. Undress please".
"You are so romantic" she commented sarcastically, leaning forward to make an attempt at the button and zip of her trousers. "To think one day long ago you used to at least take me dancing first before you made any beastly advances".
"I'll remember that!" he replied. Beastly advances indeed.
"One can't even bend forward properly to undo these bothersome trousers!" she commented, forehead creasing in exasperation at the effort and the ache of her shoulders.
Peter tutted and stood up, hands on the waistband.
"Lift".
Tilting her hips she had so little energy she just let him get on with it, losing trousers and tights in one go before he sat down again. She felt the pad of his finger touch the length of the two scars that lay behind her knee.
"Don't be worrying about me Peter", she said, seeing his frown. "All of that is a long time ago".
"I don't understand how a child could not be shown love", he mused "I know I was cracked around the head a few times when I was a kid but Mum and Dad never used a belt on me".
He leant down and kissed the scar. Unmarried, she had only had a passing curiosity about the kind of physical love a husband could provide until it was offered to her and curiosity turned into this strange quandary of want, guilt, want and guilt. Before then, it was starvation of hugs and the kind of affectionate kiss that only a mother would give her child and when he had done something so simple as place his arm around her, or kissed her on the cheek, it had taken such a time to become used to. It was those small gestures that some days she could miss the most rather than all the bells and whistles.
"Peter?"
"Hmm?" he replied, as he untangled her trousers from the tights.
"Do you think I'm too affectionate with the baby?" she asked. It had been troubling her that perhaps she had been going overboard trying to ensure that Freddie would know his mother loved him; never be in any doubt in fact. The last thing she wanted was for him to turn out like her with a mother who she felt she had little link other than in name.
"No!" he replied, stopping his task. "Whatever made you think that?"
"One just has no comparison to know" she replied quietly. Were those kisses and hugs each morning and night normal? Was the need to just brush away that little lock of hair as he slept too much?
"No you are not too affectionate with him", he persisted. "You see the way he runs around after you for cuddles. He knows already he can come to you when he needs you".
She smiled sleepily back at him.
"Now come on you old cripple! I'll help you up and you can go and have a bath". He stood up, hands out to her. She pulled a face.
"Peter, please no, I positively don't think I can make it!"
"Arms!" he said sternly. She held her arms out, deliberately, limply, high in the air so he could grasp her wrists.
"Camilla you are not helping!" he scolded. He pulled her arms and she pulled back. Peter had not expected it and toppled forward, his head just missing a crashing contact with her chin by a hair's breadth.
"Ow" he said quietly after a moment, neck hurting at the sudden movement, as downstairs the telephone rang.
"Go on. You're closer" she said, pushing him gently on the arm knowing they were alone in the house and it was up to one or the other to answer it.
"Only by an inch" he retorted.
"You are still closer".
He had made them both a cup of tea by the time she had finished the call. Picking up the receiver he had not expected Jenny one iota and he had toyed with wandering past every so often to find out what was going on.
"Don't tell me something's happened?" he asked as she arrived through the back kitchen door to the steps where he was seated, tea in hand.
"No, no" she replied. "Not really". She took a seat next to him on the step, carefully lifting the second cup he had brought out. "She wanted to ask if I would ask you if the reason the Police asked her to go today was because the child in the drain had a strawberry birthmark on his arm and that the Roberts baby did too. But I don't expect you to answer". She straightened her skirt and looked out into to the night.
Immediately though, Peter ducked his head and she knew the answer straight away in his the silence of his response. Of the times he would go home to his lodgings and digest what he saw, playing it over in his mind and try to place it in its own box. Now, he had someone to talk to and she would listen to him with fascination and sometimes horror but the most important part as that she would listen and he felt comforted by that. There was, however, nothing until now that brought it so close to home.
She could tell however that he was ruminating on saying something and she was curious, but for his sake she would not be reporting it back to her friends.
"Do you think I'm going to be running around telling the neighbours?" she asked, half thinking she might be intruding, half thinking it was actually none of her need to know.
He looked up at her. "No" he replied quietly, taking a breath. "As far as we can take it that baby in the drain was Charlie Roberts. The birthmark was precisely where Jenny had recorded it in his notes. We were relatively sure just by looking at the medical notes. Same shape, same size. Her going down there was a formality" he confessed. "Sister Julienne knows but she has been asked to keep it confidential".
He saw his wife nod. "I won't say anything to anyone".
"Things may move on while we are here anyway. It may be old news by Tuesday. If Jenny confirmed it, the Inspector was going to speak to Dr Turner about whether he can help us and ask him to carry out a formal examination and assist in the removal of the baby from the Roberts".
"Take him from her?" Chummy asked, shock laced in her voice. As much as she knew that in all real terms all the evidence pointed in the most abhorrent way, the mother must have formed some kind of attachment to that child already.
"Maybe", he paused. "If the examination takes place and Dr Turner can confirm there is no chance that baby is Charlie, then he will go into foster care".
Chummy nodded sadly. "How horrible it all is" she said quietly. "She is the closest thing that baby has to a mother now and he'll be taken".
"But, he doesn't belong to her, Camilla" he replied. "His real mother is dead and he has been stolen".
