‘If you or your baby needed to be seen by a doctor or a nurse you really should have registered at the front desk otherwise how would we know you were here?’
The woman thought about it and then apologized. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’ She looked around her. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place like this.’
‘There are notices – everywhere. That’s why you’ve ended up waiting for so long.’ Lucy tried out a smile. ‘We always try and see babies really quickly.’
The woman’s eyes were wide open, somewhere between grey and hazel with dilated pupils. They remained focussed on a spot behind Lucy rather than on the nurse herself, but there seemed no real comprehension behind them. No reason, no intelligent thought. They were blank, curiously devoid of emotion. Yet she had brought an ailing baby to a hospital and sat for hours without being dealt with. It made no sense.
Something clicked in Lucy’s mind. A premonition, some panic, some warning that here everything was even farther from the norm than she had first realized.
‘Can I take a look at Poppy?’ Lucy put out a hand to draw the shawl away from the child’s face but without warning the woman’s expression changed. She glared at the nurse with unmistakable hostility, clutching the bundle tighter to her breast, fastening her arms around it and interlocking the fingers so Lucy couldn’t grab at it. She thought quickly. The woman appeared in her early forties. She was around five feet four and probably weighed around ten stone. She was not going to be able to take the baby forcibly from her. Lucy glanced at the adjacent chairs for clues as to the woman’s character but could not see a handbag, purse, mobile phone or car keys. Possibly they were in the pocket of her fleece.
She sat and waited, still making observations. The woman was wearing little make-up, a smear of lipstick, some mascara. That was all. She had a good complexion and her hair, though sprouting a few grey hairs, was short and professionally cut. She was wearing little jewellery except a platinum wedding ring, pearl studs in her ears and a gold watch. And rather incongruously, almost hippy-like, purple glass beads around her right wrist.
Again Lucy tried to lean over to take a peek at the baby. Just to check it was all right but the woman responded by leaning back and tucking the blanket even more firmly around ‘Poppy’.
Lucy glanced up at the clock. A quarter to eleven. She should have gone fifteen minutes ago. Inwardly she sighed. She couldn’t go home and leave this mess. She must keep trying. ‘What’s your name?’
A drip of saliva appeared in the corner of the woman’s mouth. She loosened her hold on the infant to wipe it away. ‘Alice,’ she said. ‘Alice Sedgewick. Mrs.’
‘OK, Mrs Sedgewick.’ Lucy gave one of her bright smiles. ‘You know you’re in a hospital, don’t you? In Shrewsbury.’
Alice Sedgewick nodded. ‘I thought it was the right place to bring Poppy,’ she explained.
Oh, bugger!’ Lucy thought again. She’s been here for ages. No one took care of her. We all left her. We didn’t notice her because she was sitting in the corner, quiet. And now?
The feeling was creeping down her spine, like an icicle. In the ten to fifteen minutes since she had noticed the woman she had not heard the child cry. Neither had she seen it move. No stretch or yawn, whimper or grunt. From the bundle of pink blanket she had seen absolutely no sign of movement. No sign of life. Again she looked around her. There was no nappy bag nearby with a bottle or change of clothes, none of the paraphernalia that surrounds a live infant.
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, ‘that you’ve had to wait, Mrs Sedgewick. We’ll see Poppy now. This very minute.’
Alice looked straight into Lucy’s eyes and touched her arm timidly. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. We didn’t mind waiting. There’s really no hurry, you see.’ She gave a bright smile and spoke down, to the baby, this time. ‘We can wait all night if need be, can’t we, Poppy?’
From the bundle there was no response.
Lucy felt a real chill now. But she could not simply grab the baby. It was not allowed. She must persuade this Alice Sedgewick to hand the child over voluntarily. And to do that she must gain the woman’s trust. Somehow.
She glanced at the clock again. Ten fifty.
‘How old is Poppy, Mrs Sedgewick?’
Alice shrugged. ‘I don’t really know exactly,’ she said.
Lucy felt sick now. ‘She’s not your baby then?’
Tears appeared in the woman’s eyes. ‘Not my baby?’ Her eyes were brimming with tears. ‘Not my baby? How can you say that? It’s not true. I look after her. I love her. She’s mine. She has to be mine. Who else’s could she be?’
Lucy felt a further sinking feeling. It was an abduction. They’d had one of those last year from the post natal ward and the police had kept the staff on tenterhooks, interviewing, re-interviewing, interviewing again. They had all felt guiltily responsible and the hospital had spent months running an enquiry and finally tightening up on the security arrangements in all areas where babies and children were treated. It had upset and unsettled them all and writing statements had taken up a lot of time. Time they simply didn’t have. Particularly her. Not just before the wedding.
She held out her hands towards the woman and child. ‘Can I take a look at her, please?’
Alice peered down at the bundle. ‘She’s asleep now,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t try and wake her when she’s so nicely settled.’ She looked up. ‘Babies need such a lot of sleep, don’t they? You must know that – as a nurse.’
‘I won’t wake her,’ Lucy promised.
Alice scrutinized her as though wondering whether she could trust this nurse with her precious child.
‘I’m due to go off duty now,’ Lucy said. ‘But it would be nice if I could see to Poppy before I go.’
Alice nodded. ‘All right.’ She loosened her grip on the bundle but did not hand her over.
It was going to take more coaxing. ‘Why did you bring her to the hospital tonight, Mrs Sedgewick? Is she ill?’
The woman’s eyes dropped. She swallowed and her eyes moistened. ‘Don’t take her away from me,’ she whispered. ‘Not again. I couldn’t bear it this time. She is mine. Don’t take her. Please.’
‘Alice,’ Lucy said, ‘you need to give Poppy to me so I can help her. Make her better.’
The expression in Alice’s eyes changed now ever so slightly. They still looked frightened and guilty but there was a flickering light. Something was humouring her. ‘I don’t think so,’ Alice said, smiling now. ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to make her better. It’s a little late for that.’
Lucy’s hands reached out. ‘She’ll be safe with me,’ she promised and at last, at long last, Alice Sedgewick handed the bundle over.
It was very light, was Lucy’s first thought, as she grasped it. She drew back the blanket, peered inside and almost dropped the thing , making a sound of utter revulsion, as though she was retching. Members of staff came running then from all directions as Lucy Ramshaw held the bundle as far away from her as she could, her face shocked and revolted.
TWO
The hospital slipped straight into Correct Protocol, there being one for every single situation. Almost.
The priority is to isolate, to keep dramas away from the public gaze and minimize disruption and upset. Dr Jane Miles and a couple of porters ushered Alice Sedgewick into the nearest available private area, Sister’s Office. Lucy Ramshaw took the bundle and placed it in an empty cubicle with hospital security keeping guard. They had expected Alice to make a fuss when she was separated from the baby but she was surprisingly quiet.
Sarinda rang the police.
A squad car was usually marauding somewhere in the vicinity of the hospital A &E department. If it was a quiet night outside the police could, if they wished, find customers in here. Drunks, druggies, people who’d been in fights. Then there was the other side of the coin, the victims, the rape-or-not cases, the prey of minor thieves who’d got a black eye for try
ing to defend their possessions and tonight there were plenty of people who’d been in slips and slides or prangs and bangs in their cars, slithering around on the icy roads. All in a night’s work on a Saturday evening for an average Shropshire copper like Police Constable Gethin Roberts. So after cruising round the town, picking up waifs and strays, he’d stuck round the hospital casualty department and was waiting for customers to roll in. If they didn’t, there were consolations; the nurses were generally friendly and generous with cups of coffee and chit-chat. A &E departments had been the birthplace of many a romance between copper and nurse or copper and doctor. Police Constable Gethin Roberts had been sitting outside, watching the sliding doors open and close and wondered which nurses were on duty tonight. So within minutes of Lucy Ramshaw uncovering the child’s face and Sarinda’s desperate call, his size elevens were striding towards Sister’s Office. Tall and thin with a large Adam’s apple that was bobbing up and down his nervous neck, he hardly knew what to do. This was not in the police manual. He had a quick word with Dr Miles who filled him in with the bare details. He followed her into the cubicle, peeked at the contents, wished he hadn’t and spoke quickly and nervously into his phone.
‘Roberts here. Yes. I’m at the A &E now. I’ve got a woman here who…’ He ran out of words. ‘She turned up with a bundle wrapped up in a blanket. She’d been here a while, I think.’
He paused, listening.
‘Staff don’t know how long exactly…’
There was more talk on the other end.
‘It’s a baby – or it was a baby.’
Dr Jane Miles could well imagine the next question.
What do you mean it was a baby?
‘It’s in a state of decay.’
How long’s it been dead for?
‘I don’t know.’ Roberts’s response this time was truculent. ‘I’m not a pathologist, am I?’
Have a guess when it died .
‘A long time ago, I think. Anyway. It’s definitely dead now and I could do with some backup.’
He listened for a while to the invisible voice before adding, ‘Well – I’m going to need a police surgeon because I’m going to have to bring her into custody.’
He folded his phone back into his pocket and spoke to Dr Miles. ‘OK then,’ he said, with a cheerfulness and confidence he definitely did not feel. ‘Let’s take a look at her.’
As he approached the door he glanced through the glass at the woman who was sitting bolt upright, staring into space in front of her. ‘A psychiatrist wouldn’t be a bad idea, surely, doctor?’ he commented.
‘Possibly,’ Jane Miles said briskly. ‘It’s hard to say how disturbed or psychotic she is. And until you or we do a bit of delving we won’t know her psychiatric history. At times she appears composed and lucid and at others…’ She gave the bony police constable a friendly grin, ‘Well, to use a well known medical phrase, “barking”.’
PC Roberts pushed the door open. His instinct had been to interview the woman somewhere that seemed less like a fishbowl. Sister’s Office was a little too public with a glass window which overlooked the entire cubicled area. He’d thought there were rooms set aside for grieving relatives but Jane Miles explained that it was already taken by the girlfriend and parents of the road traffic victim who were trying to come to terms with the idea that their loved one wasn’t coming home tonight. Not only that but he had suddenly become a valuable collection of spare parts. So PC Roberts had to make do with the distraction of a ringside seat which overlooked all the dramas being enacted in the department. It was hardly private. Not only could he look out but others could look in. And they did. Peering in like the people who suddenly find themselves on the television when an interviewer walks the streets. He would have had curtains drawn or screens put around, but curtains and screens had been banned from the hospital a few years ago by the Infection Control Team. As he entered the room the first person he noticed was Lucy Ramshaw who was sitting, white-faced, her chin in her hands, staring ahead of her with a shocked expression on an already tired and pale face. Perhaps they both needed a psychiatrist, was Roberts’s next thought. A doctor too. And a nurse. Staff Nurse Lucy Ramshaw looked as though she was about to be sick.
He was glad when one of the night nurses came to sit with her, filching a cardboard vomit bowl underneath her chair. He had sympathy with Staff Nurse Ramshaw. He knew exactly how she felt. He too had been horrified at the sight of that tiny, wizened face with its parchment, blackened skin and hollowed eyes.
Alice Sedgewick was sitting in the corner, looking at the floor. Gethin Roberts sat down next to her and introduced himself, flicking his ID card in front of eyes that were completely uninterested in her surroundings. He drew out his notebook
‘What’s your name, love?’
The woman stopped staring at the floor and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Alice Sedgewick,’ she said. ‘My name is Alice Sedgewick. Mrs.’ Her accent was not what he had been expecting. It was middle class. Almost posh. And her voice was soft and polite. So how come she had wandered into the A &E department of the local hospital, carrying a long-dead child, Roberts thought? What was going on?
He wrote the name down, trying to make sense of the situation and failing completely.
‘Where do you live, Mrs Sedgewick?’
‘The Mount. Number 41.’
No sign of her being ‘barking’ so far.
Roberts looked up, his pen lifted off his pad. The Mount was a smart road, one of the nicest in a very smart town, a row of large Victorian detached and semi-detached houses. He looked again at the woman and noticed for the first time that although her trousers were paint-spattered and she was wearing a dark fleece, she was also wearing expensive-looking black patent leather shoes with a small, neat heel. And when she moved her arm he also noticed a gold watch that looked understated rather than flashy and whispered ‘money’ to him. It matched her voice, which was low and controlled. Not hysterical. She seemed detached. A bit unreal but not barking. All the time he talked he would be revising his judgement of her, moving up and down stops, changing as many times as the picture when you look through the end of a revolving kaleidoscope.
Roberts frowned. So she was not an escapee from the local psychiatric unit then. Or an ex-con from the prison but a local from a smart area in town. And yet somehow a long dead baby had come into her possession and instead of ringing the police, which would have been the normal thing to do, she had come here – to a hospital. What on earth could have been her motive in bringing the child here, nursing it for what could have been hours instead of handing him or her over to the nursing staff?
‘Can you tell me anything about…’ He let his gaze drift out of the window, towards the space where the curtains were tightly drawn round the cubicle, the security officer standing guard, arms akimbo, legs apart, like the coppers who stand outside 10 Downing Street. Alice Sedgewick followed his gaze and momentarily lost the blanked-out expression. Now she frowned and looked confused. Then she turned her gaze back at the gawky policeman and looked at him as though she had only now seen him properly. Her eyes drifted around the room, passed straight over Lucy Ramshaw and then her body gave a great shudder and appeared to actually recoil as though she had suddenly realized what it was she had been holding. She gave a little shriek of revulsion, as if she had woken up from a nightmare. PC Roberts witnessed the change open-mouthed; luckily for him that was the very moment when Sergeant Paul Talith arrived and took over.
To them all Talith’s bulky presence was reassuring. He had a quick word with Roberts who led him outside into the cubicle. With a gloved hand Talith twitched back the blanket and peered down. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, his face contorted. ‘What the heck is that?’
Roberts shrugged and tried not to think too much about it. He certainly did not even attempt to answer the question.
Talith recovered himself. ‘Right. We can arrange for this -’ he couldn’t quite keep the loathing from his voice or face – ‘t
o be removed to the hospital mortuary and take it from there. We’ll inform the Coroner’s Officer first thing Monday morning. She’ll instruct us further. There’ll have to be a post-mortem, though God knows how long it’s been dead for. Looks to me like one of those Egyptian mummies. All shrivelled up and black.’
They left the cubicle. Talith glanced through the window at the woman who looked so very ordinary, sitting quietly, her hands folded on her lap. ‘Whatever she’s got to do with it I don’t know,’ he muttered, ‘but we’re going to have to question her down at the station, preferably with a solicitor present.’ He looked across at Gethin Roberts. ‘She’s married?’
‘I think so. She’s wearing a wedding band.’
‘Better wake her husband up and tell him then.’ Talith grinned. ‘He’s in for a shock.’
They were both wondering the same thing. Was it her child? His child? What was the story?
‘Perhaps she had it years ago,’ Roberts mused, ‘and because she didn’t want her family to find out she buried it.’
‘Then dug it up, Roberts?’ Talith’s voice was mocking. ‘Why? Why now?’
‘I don’t know.’
They still didn’t enter Sister’s Office but stood outside, talking quietly. ‘It’s just a baby,’ Talith said. ‘Probably a newborn. Why bring it here?’ he mused. ‘Tonight? Look at the state of that thing. It’s been dead for years. Kept somewhere. Not buried, I don’t think. More like kept somewhere. What was the point of bringing it to a hospital? What did she think they were going to do?’
Gethin Roberts shrugged. ‘It’s where you would naturally go. Or perhaps…’ he ventured, then found inspiration from somewhere. ‘Sanctuary?’
Frozen Charlotte Page 2
