‘Sure, but if someone comes in, I gotta bail for a minute. I’m on my own today.’
‘No problem,’ Penn answered. Who was he to stand between a man and the sale of a pork joint? ‘Was there any bitterness between the two of you?’
Thomas leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. ‘Oh yeah. Afterwards, she called me to tell me I was a loser, and I couldn’t argue with her. I bottled it. I loved her, but I wasn’t ready for a kid. I was there when she was born, and I panicked. I left the hospital, and I never went back.’
Penn tried to imagine what that must have felt like for Ashley. A new mum, just given birth to a child, and her partner just disappears.
‘Not my proudest moment,’ he admitted, looking genuinely shameful. ‘Sickens me every time I remember it, but at the time I just needed to get away.’
‘She did good,’ Penn said, feeling the need to let him know it hadn’t broken her.
‘I knew she would.’
‘You have any contact with her afterwards?’ he asked.
He shook his head. ‘She never came after me for money or anything. I looked for her on Facebook, you know, just to see what the kid looks like, but she’s locked up pretty tight, and I didn’t think she’d appreciate hearing from me.’
‘I’m here because we’ve got a situation involving Ava,’ Penn said, wishing the man would at least learn his child’s name.
Concern etched his features as a woman in her early thirties entered the shop. ‘Sorry, mate, gotta sort this.’
Penn nodded his understanding and waited patiently as he served the woman minted lamb chops and a homemade apple pie.
‘Sorry, you were saying?’ Thomas said, resuming his position.
‘Ashley’s husband, Daniel, he stepped up. He’s been in Ava’s life since she was two years old. He loves her so much, but he has no legal right to her, and Warren Chance is trying to gain custody.’
Thomas looked horrified. ‘He’s a lowlife. No way they’ll give her to him.’
‘There’s a very real possibility they will,’ Penn said. ‘He knows how to play the system and put on a show, and Daniel has no parental rights.’
‘Fucking hell, mate,’ he said, running his hand through his hair.
‘I don’t suppose you’d be able to take her until?—’
‘No chance. I don’t know her. That ship sailed a long time ago. I’ve got two young ones at home and another on the way. My missus doesn’t even know what a prick I was back then, and I ain’t about to tell her.’
He was resolute, and Penn knew there was no point pushing it. It had been a shot in the dark, and anyway it wasn’t the real reason he was here.
‘Listen, Daniel loves that kid like she’s his own, and she adores him, but he has no legal standing. The Chances want her solely for the financial rewards.’
He nodded. ‘Already worked that one out. They’re scum.’
‘I need to ask you, Mr Smith, would you be prepared to sign over your parental rights to Daniel Reynolds?’
His face showed an array of emotions from sadness to regret to indecision. Despite his lack of involvement, it was clear that he felt some kind of connection to Ava.
Penn waited for his answer with no idea what it was going to be.
Sixty-Nine
A drive through the Hollytree Estate was never a pleasant experience for anyone, but for Kim it meant revisiting the worst memories of her life, ones she fought to keep at the back of her mind.
Sometimes they seeped into her consciousness. She remembered sitting on the fence next to the bin after school with Mikey because sometimes the old lady in one of the ground-floor flats brought out her rubbish at quarter to four. If she saw them sitting there, she didn’t put the bag straight into the bin; she placed it on the ground. Sometimes there was a cheese sandwich and some Ritz biscuits in there. As Kim had portioned it out between the two of them, she’d marvel at how wasteful the old lady was. It wasn’t until much later she’d realised she wasn’t wasteful. She was just kind.
Kim lowered her gaze and checked her phone as they passed the three tower blocks at the estate’s centre. Chaucer House still had the power to send a finger of fear along her spine.
‘Anything?’ Bryant asked.
