The New Mother : A Novel (2022) by Crouch Julia

Author:Crouch, Julia [Crouch, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘Who’s gorgeous? You are.’

When Abbie gets back to her bedroom after clearing up the kitchen and walking Sam, Barney greets her in his usual flattering manner. She lets him out of his cage and gives him a handful of dried worms as a reward.

She showers and smooths one of her newly acquired creams into her skin. Then she wraps her bathrobe around herself, grabs her gratitude journal, her iPad and Galaxy and sits on the sofa with the telly on in the background. Barney settles on her head.

‘We’ve got work to do,’ she tells him.

‘You are lovely,’ he says.

She opens her journal and starts to write her reasons to be grateful. She’s grateful that Rachel is her sister. She’s grateful that she is becoming indispensable to her. Most of all, she is grateful that she has finally had an email back from Ms Ayo Dafé, saying that although they still do not think it is in the best interests of Harry and Taylor to see her at present, she is hopeful that she will get permission from the review board to visit Zayn.

It’s not perfect, but Zayn is the one she misses most, as he was seven when he was taken from her. She had hardly got to know Harry, who was only one, and of course Taylor she only had for a couple of days after she was born.

But she’ll show them what a good person she has become. She’ll get them all back in the end, now she’s with Rachel.

She notes all this down. Underneath the writing, she draws a picture of herself, Rachel and the children, all smiling together on the sofa with Sam and Barney. It’s not great art or anything, but it says it all really.

She puts her journal aside and strokes the iPad open. The rest of the evening is going to be all about a hunt. Thanks to Posh June, who spent many hours passing on some of the knowledge she acquired over a lifetime of committing major fraud, Abbie has surprisingly advanced research skills.

Because of this, she knows how easy it is to leave an online or paper trail that could trip you up, and has adjusted her own identity accordingly. She has, for example, changed her name from her father’s – Speakman – to her mother’s – James. This means that no one will discover how she met Posh June, which was some six years ago, after an unfortunate incident when a man called Kieran got on the wrong side of Abbie and came off very badly for it. Abbie spent two years in Eastwood Park, a women’s prison just outside Gloucester, and she and June were cellmates.

What with what happened with the children and everything when she got out, Abbie hasn’t ever put the skills June taught her to use. She did become part of PJ’s ‘outside’ network, though, looking after certain items when necessary. Hence the reason June helps her out on occasions.

But it is these skills she plans to use to locate Scotty2002.

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