‘Baby’

Old Grey Lynn villa. 1910. Paper walls. Scrim and timber, bleeding sound.

Jayne stands barefoot on cold kauri boards. Listening. Scrape. Hitch. A ragged little wail climbing through the dark. Jayne doesn’t blink. Jayne takes notes. Under the lamp, her pen scores 3.14 a.m. beneath a single word: Baby.

Seventy-two hours without sleep. The world strips down to wire and bone. Focus gets razor-sharp. Through the hollow wall, she builds the case. The blunt thuds. The dead silences. The raw screaming while the bastards across the hall do nothing. They don’t deserve a kid. Animals. Monsters. She presses the ballpoint until the tip tears clean through the blue lines. Not a diary. An indictment.

Then the front door takes three heavy hits.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Shakes the brass. Shakes the leadlight glass.

Outside, red and blue strobes pulse through rain-slick pohutukawa branches, cutting across the verandah. Jayne moves fast. Slips the chain into the slot, cracks the door two inches. A badge. Dripping coat. Rain in the detective’s eyes. He opens his mouth. Amber Alert—

Jayne cuts him off.

Shoves the notebook through the gap, points across the hall. ‘Flat Two,’ she whispers. Cold. Triumphant. ‘Every hour logged. They’re unfit.’

The detective doesn’t take the book. He looks at the pages. Looks at her face. Shakes his head. Slow. ‘Flat Two is dead space, ma’am. Gutted back in May. Just framing studs and concrete dust.’

The air leaves the hallway. Behind him, Flat Two’s door hangs wide. Exposed wiring. Clear plastic flapping in the draught. Nobody lives there. Nobody has.

Ice drops down Jayne’s spine. If the wall is dead … Behind her, deep inside her dark flat, a floorboard groans. From inside her cracked wardrobe, buried beneath winter wool, comes a tiny, wet cough.

Then the breathing resumes. Soft. Rhythmic. Close.