"Pay me to go away somewhere and keep quiet, to disappear...?"

Garth looked away from her. That thought had crossed his mind, but heknew that if he had voiced it, it would have been to open himself toeven more verbal ridicule from her, to make himself and through him,Claudia, even more vulnerable. Because this was what all this wasabout, he guessed intuitively. It wasn't so much him the wretched girlwanted to get at but Claudia. He could sense it, feel it, smell it almost, as he listened to the hostility, the resentment and the jealousy in her voice whenever she mentioned his wife.

"I suppose she's trying desperately to get pregnant again, but I've beaten her to it," she boasted triumphantly, confirming his suspicions.

"I'm the one who's going to have your baby first. Just think," she added cooingly, 'my baby and hers will be blood relations. "

"If you are carrying my child, then certain arrangements will have to be made," Garth persisted determinedly. He knew he would never forget the sick feeling that filled him as he recognised that, through him, Claudia was now vulnerable to the malice of this malevolent harpy, this this creature, who looked at him with eyes as old and as knowing as time.

Thank God she didn't know the whole true story; thank God she had no idea that for Claudia there could never be another child.

"Don't you want to feel it ... touch it?" she asked slyly now, thrusting her small taut stomach to wards him.

Nervously, Garth looked away, his emotions contorted by the vice like grip of his pain as he compared the obvious blooming health of her pregnancy with the pale wanness that had been Claudia's.

It was all so bloody unfair. You only had to look at this wretched being to know she could never be half the mother that Claudia would have been.

"Been struck dumb have you?" Katriona taunted. Sullenly, she added, "If you want me to get rid of it, you're going to have to pay me. It won't be cheap. I should have done it before... I meant to...1 shouldn't have let it go on so long."

She was talking more to herself than to him, Garth recognised. He also recognised that beneath his instinctive rejection of her suggestion ran an ugly thread of relief. Why not give her some money. why not.

He closed his eyes as he felt the sweat break out on his forehead. For Claudia's sake, for everyone's sake, it would be the best thing, the sensible thing to do. For everyone's sake. including the child's. his child's. "I don't have any money on me--' he began.

"But you can get it," Katriona interrupted him swiftly. Her supplier was getting impatient for her to pay him what she owed. She hadn't been able to work much recently. She hadn't been feeling well enough.

She felt sick a lot.

"Bring it here tomorrow," she snapped at him, 'and make sure you do. Otherwise. otherwise Claudia could find out what her precious husband has been up Half an hour after Garth had gone, Katriona opened the door to the man she was sharing the squat with.

"Come on, we've got to get out of here," he told her tersely.

"We're leaving."

"I can't," Katriona objected.

"I've got a John coming round tomorrow.. he owes me."

"Let him," he retorted forcefully.

"We're leaving." Even as he spoke, he was looking shiftily over his shoulder. Tm in big trouble, girl, and you're going to be in it with me. I owe some bad men some big money.

There's some guys I know. They're on the road. travellers. we can join up with them. "

Katriona frowned and nibbled on her bottom lip. She and her companion had been 'friends' but not lovers on and off for several years. She knew he was heavily involved in the drug scene both as a pusher and a user and she knew what he meant when he talked about bad men with big money. It wouldn't mean anything to them that she wasn't him if they broke in here and found that he had gone and she was here. If they were out for revenge. for punishment. Set against what she had to lose, the money she could expect to gain from Garth was nothing.

"Are you coming or not?"

"I'm coming," she agreed.

Jxatriona's turned up Garth's head jerked back in an involuntary re action to Claudia's casual announcement. They were eating a late supper, both of them having been working late.

"Katriona?" Garth questioned dry-mouthed, hating himself for the pretence he was enacting, the carefully tailored tone in his voice that suggested he couldn't really remember who "Katriona' was when, of course, he could. Of course.

For over a month after she had accused him of fathering her child, he had tried unsuccessfully to find her, but that had been over six months ago. He had told himself in relief that the whole thing had been a try-on, an attempt to get money out of him, and that it was impossible for him to have been responsible for her pregnancy and that he had been a complete idiot to ever let her panic him into believing that he could be. But he had still not said anything to Claudia.

"Mmm... Remember... she was one of my cases? Apparently, she's been on the road travelling. She just turned up at one of the squats. She was there the other day when I went round to see someone else. She'd been asking for me, or so one of the other girls said. They tell so many lies it's sometimes hard to know when they're telling the truth."

"So she's back?"

"Mmm-hmm, and not alone. She's had a baby."

"A baby...?" Garth abruptly put down his fork, his appetite lost.

"It seems she gave birth while she was on the road. The baby's a girl, a pretty little thing. Of course, Katriona is refusing to say who the father is--if she knows. I don't think she's feeding her properly--she can barely look after herself, never mind a baby. One of the other girls in the squat seems to be helping out with the baby to some extent. The baby's such a darling. Garth. I just wish..." Quick tears filled Claudia's eyes and she looked down at her plate.

Outwardly, she might seem to have come to terms with her miscarriage and to be getting on with her life, but no one else knew, no one else saw as Garth did, the nights when she woke both herself and him with the sound of her heartrending grief. Then Garth would hold her and comfort her and eventually she would grow calm. But there were other times, times when the anger and the pain were so great that she turned them on Garth as well as herself, screaming at him that he should leave her and go find a woman who could be a proper woman, who could give him children as she no longer could.

Garth said nothing of any of this to their parents. So far as they were concerned, the two of them were simply biding their time before trying for another baby.

His own father had even congratulated them quite recently on their foresight in waiting until Garth had established himself in his new career before taking on the additional responsibility of a child.

Not that they saw much of his parents lately. His father's work took him abroad a great deal, and increasingly, Claudia tended to shun family gatherings or indeed any events that might either bring her into contact with children or remind her of what she had lost.

He had had to turn down so many invitations from his colleagues at work that he was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable.

Claudia's heavy work schedule had been given as the excuse, and it was true that she was working longer and longer hours. But both of them were working increasingly long hours--because neither of them could face the reality of what their empty flat actually meant. They had deferred thinking about making a move until they both felt they could put more enthusiasm into it.

"There's something I need to talk to you about," he told her now as he tried to dismiss the memories Claudia's words had raised. It made him feel edgy and uncomfortable to realise that Katriona was in contact with Claudia, even though with the breathing space that time had given him, he was convinced that Katriona had simply wanted to panic him into giving her money. So what if she had identified that mole on his inner thigh. He had been so out of it with the whisky he had drunk that she could have been in the flat for any length of time before he had woken up, certainly long enough for her to have pushed back the bedclothes and. And what? Looked at his naked body? Just looked, or had she. had they.

"Garth, you said you wanted to talk to me about something," Claudia reminded him, adding tiredly, "I hope it isn't going to take too long.

I've got some case notes to write up and I want to go in early in the morning. "

She looked as well as sounded tired. Garth acknowledged. She was working far too hard, using her work like a tourniquet pulled tight over a gaping wound, but all it was doing was stemming the loss of blood. It wasn't doing anything to promote any real healing and the moment it was removed. "Garth," Claudia prompted him irritably.

"Oh, yes. Nick Forbes is thinking of retiring. His wife isn't very well, as you know, and her doctors have advised that she needs to live in a warmer climate. Since Nick is the agency, without him..."

He paused as he saw the way Claudia was frowning.

"What are you trying to say?" she demanded.

"Is Nick trying to get rid of you? Does he--' " No, nothing like that. Far from it," he reassured her hastily.

"In fact, what he's suggesting is that I set up on my awn. I've already got a good portfolio of my own clients. He's been of and Betray 257 fe red a very good financial deal by one of the other agencies and of course there's no way I could ever be in a position to buy him out. "

"Set up on your own, but--' " It makes sense," Garth interrupted her.

"I had a word with Dad about it over the phone."

"You spoke to him before saying anything to me7' Claudia protested angrily.

Garth gave a small sigh.

"You've been pretty tied up with your work recently," Garth reminded her tactfully.

"It will be very risky--setting up on your own," Claudia commented, her expression reflecting her concern.

"Yes, but Nick seems to think I can make it work. More and more blue-chip companies are turning to PR agencies these days to handle certain aspects of their business for them. It's all about presenting the right image to the public, showing their human face, not being seen as unapproachable institutions."

As she listened to Garth's increasingly enthusiastic explanation of what he planned--what he wanted to do--Claudia had to close her eyes against a sharp stab of envy.

Garth loved his work in a way that she did not love hers. Her relationship with what she did was more of dependence and resentment.

She needed to work to stop herself thinking about. about the past, but there were so many things about her job that she disliked, so many times when she was aware of the fact that she could not give each case the time she could see it needed. And it wasn't really an 'it'. Each case represented a human being, a person whose needs she knew she simply did not have the time to meet. No matter how many courses she went on, how much she absorbed about the ways to best reach each individual, what was the point when she simply did not have the time to put that learning into practice?

On her latest course, there had been people who were in private practice, and listening to them had been a revelation. Seeing how much sense of achievement they derived from following a case through, from being actively part of an improvement in the life of their client, had reminded her of just why she had been drawn to her work in the first place, something that tended to get overlooked in the sheer volume of work with which they were confronted. And now suddenly and unexpectedly she felt a sharp stab of envy for Garth. He had so much to look forward to. a new career. a new life. and most probably a new woman, a wife who could provide him with the family that she could not.

Claudia closed her eyes tightly, but it was no use; the tears still burned their destructive path from behind her eyelids and down her face.

"Clo, please don't, please don't," Garth soothed her gently as he came round the table to lift her out of her seat and take hold of her.

"It's so unfair. Garth. Everything's so unfair," Claudia protested.

"Even someone like Katriona.-.a drug addict who'll be lucky if she lives another year, can produce a healthy baby... a baby she doesn't even want, never mind love. But I can't," she cried bitterly.

"You ought to leave me, find someone else... I'm no use to you, I can't..."

Garth suppressed the emotions threatening to rise inside him. It was pointless reminding Claudia that they had been through all this before, pointless and cruel.

"I don't want anyone else," he told her.

"I only want you."

And as she looked into his eyes, Claudia saw that it was true now, but would it always be so?

"We've got each other," Garth assured her softly, 'and that's all we need. "

Only it wasn't, not for her, Claudia acknowledged, lying awake beside him in bed later that night. Much as she loved him, it wasn't enough.

She ached, yearned, needed to have a child, to be a mother. Just looking at Katriona's baby earlier on today had awakened all the feelings she had been trying so hard to suppress. When Katriona had casually dumped the baby on the filthy, thin blanket on the floor of the squat beside her while she turned to squabble with the girl who had just come in, Claudia hadn't been able to resist picking the baby up and holding her.

She had smelled of stale milk, urine and vomit, but that hadn't meant a thing to Claudia. She had been overwhelmed with such a surge of fiercely protective love for her that she had momentarily forgotten that anyone else existed. The urge to hold the baby close to her, to nourish and protect her, to love her, had been so strong that she had instinctively found her hand going to her blouse to unfasten the buttons before she realised what she was doing.

And as though she, too, shared the same need to be close, to love, the baby, so quiet and wideeyed in Claudia's arms as she focused silently on her, had started to cry in protest when Katriona suddenly turned round and snatched her back.

"Give her to me," she had demanded aggressively.

"She's mine."

"If you haven't already done so, you'll need to register her birth," Claudia had reminded Katriona with a Herculean effort to detach herself and remain professional. She would need to tell the local health visitor about the baby as she was obviously a child at risk.

Possibly suffering effects from Katriona's drug addiction.

"I'll... do it when I'm ready," Katriona told her sullenly. They had had this discussion before.

Claudia knew better than to ask Katriona any questions about her little girl's father. To do so would inevitably provoke a stream of invective and anger, and apart from her personal dislike of being under that kind of attack from a professional point of view, for Katriona's own sake, the last thing Claudia wanted was to put herself in a position where Katriona might refuse to have anything further to do with her.

For Katriona's sake, or for her baby's?

Deliberately, Claudia looked away when the infant made pathetic little mewling noises and pushed her face hungrily against Katriona's breast.

"Not there, you little rat," she heard Katriona screeching angrily.

"Here, have this," she added more practically as she reached for what Claudia guessed was a cold and certainly very unhygienic-looking half-full bottle of milk. Then she shoved it into the baby's mouth without any apparent concern for whether the child could suck on it properly or not.

"No prizes for guessing what you're thinking," she told Claudia sneeringly with one of those flashes of sharp intuitiveness that still managed to surface past the drugs dulling her brain. One of the things that depressed Claudia most about Katriona's situation was the fact that the girl was obviously very, very intelligent.

"If she'd been yours, she'd have been breast fed Well, she's not yours, although..." She stopped and then suddenly smiled, giving Claudia a mocking, taunting look that made the tiny hairs prickle at the back of her neck. So knowing and secretive and yet at the same time almost sadistically triumphant was the look she could see in Katriona's eyes.

Her heart started to thump heavily, her chest tightened, and the familiar sensations of fear, panic and bitter resentment gripped her by the throat. Surely Katriona couldn't have guessed the truth that she could never, ever have a child; surely she couldn't know of the sense of helpless longing and envy, of isolating pain and desolation, she experienced every time she saw another woman with her child. How could she know? No one knew, apart from herself and Garth.

"Here... take her." The abruptness with which Katriona thrust the baby at her took Claudia off guard. Automatically, she held out her arms to take hold of the small bundle, instinctively and deftly positioning her comfortably against her own body as she picked up the bottle.

But the baby wasn't interested in the milk-didn't need or want its questionable comfort now she was back in Claudia's arms--or so it seemed. She nestled happily there as though Claudia was her mother and not Katriona, opening her eyes to gaze up unblinkingly into Claudia's face with a grave intentness that made Claudia catch her breath as she was swamped by a responsive rush of fiercely protective and yearning mother love.

It was like falling instantly and compulsively in love, Claudia recognised. The feeling was so intense, so strong, so sure, that as she gazed into the baby's dark green eyes, Claudia felt as though she had stepped through a special door into a private place, a special world where only the two of them existed.

"Reminds you of someone does she?"

Katriona's taunting question and sharp voice brought her back to reality.

"She looks very like you," Claudia told her diplomatically, even though in reality she could see no resemblance between the baby and her mother.

"Think so?" Katriona gave her one of her cruel, catlike smiles. The, I think she looks more like her dad. What's wrong? " she challenged Claudia.

"Surprised I know who the father is? Oh, I know all right. She's got a very special daddy, this one has. She wasn't fathered by some scummy punter. No, he didn't have to pay me for sex."

She gave Claudia a sidelong, mocking look and asked her softly, "Want me to tell you about it?"

Katriona had tried to goad her before, but never quite so specifically as this. There was no reason why she shouldn't talk sexually explicitly to her, Claudia acknowledged, but for some reason she knew that she was already recoiling from the idea, unwilling to have Katriona confiding the details of her baby's conception to her.

"He was good. He was very good," Katriona told her smugly without waiting for Claudia to make any response.

"He even went down on me. He said that he wanted me to be really wet and ready before he had me. He said that he was fired of having sex with a woman who didn't know how to enjoy herself, how to enjoy him; a woman who didn't know how to pleasure him properly. I pleasured him properly all right, so properly that he gave me her," she added, nodding in the direction of the baby Claudia was still holding.

The self-satisfied, purring tone of Katriona's voice jarred Claudia's nerves like the rasp of metal on glass, her distaste so intense that she almost physically shrank from her. The temptation to forget professionalism and to demand acerbically of Katriona just why this apparently so doting male was no longer on the scene was one she only just managed to resist. And as she fought it back, she felt herself break out in a cold sweat. Too many times recently, she had experienced this frightening sensation of being close to the edge of a precipice, of being one step away from total loss of self-control. As though she could sense her distress, the baby started to cry. Instantly, Claudia forgot her own problems, holding the infant close, soothing her.