Playing Nice

by Delaney, JP

  “Of course.”

  I picked up a mini roll, then hesitated. If I let Theo have it, he’d shut up for a minute or two, granted, but I’d also have committed the cardinal sin of giving in to a tantrum, and I couldn’t do that, not even for CAFCASS. I reached into the back of the cupboard for a foil-wrapped biscuit instead, consoling myself with the thought that since it wasn’t actually a mini roll, technically I’d carried out my threat. “Here, Theo. Eat some of the cheese on toast, then this.” His eyes lit up as he grabbed it. There was no chance he’d eat the toast first, of course, but at least he’d have to unwrap the biscuit, which would be good for his fine motor skills.

  “Right,” I said into the phone. “Go ahead.”

  “All it was, was to ask if you would be prepared to attend some parenting classes,” Lyn said. “Now, a lot of parents think they wouldn’t be useful, or that it’s like going back to school, which it isn’t at all. Because really, we could all learn something about being better parents, couldn’t we? I know I could. And it would help to counter anyone saying that parenting style is a particular issue here, do you see? I’m trying to be helpful, Peter. Because it would show that, if there were any behavioral issues, you were just as keen to address them as we are.”

  For a moment I couldn’t speak. I actually felt dizzy with rage. The idea that my parenting was the issue here—when Miles’s idea of good parenting was probably teaching Theo how to cheat at rugby—was so ridiculous, so utterly twisted, it made me want to throw up.

  I heard my voice say, “Well, if you think it could help Theo’s turn-taking, of course I’ll attend parenting classes.”

  “Excellent, Peter.” Lyn sounded relieved. “I’ll put that in my letter, then.”

  64

  MADDIE

  AND THEN WE WAIT.

  For the next ten days the law takes its slow, winding course. We shouldn’t in any case expect too much from the first hearing, Anita’s warned us: The judge will simply read the recommendations in the safeguarding letter, encourage the parties to come to an agreement, and set a date for the final hearing, the only one that really matters.

  Pete attends his first parenting class. He goes determined to show the instructors he’s got nothing to learn, but comes back saying it was actually quite useful.

  “There are some children who basically don’t learn from punishment, so things like naughty step are wasted on them,” he reports. “They respond better to reward. But you have to start off by giving the reward instantly, so they learn you really mean it, before you work up to deferred rewards on a schedule.”

  He starts by rewarding Theo for quite ordinary things. “Theo, you’re playing with that train really nicely. Here’s a chocolate button.” “Theo, I noticed you’ve been quiet for five minutes now. Have a raisin.” Initially, Theo is somewhat surprised by this sudden shower of treats, but he quickly gets the idea that doing certain things results in a reward. And if a nice drawing, done on paper instead of the wall, leads to a handful of chocolate buttons, what will eating his cheese on toast without complaint provide? Soon the downstairs walls are covered in star charts for bigger prizes—for eating his breakfast quickly, for getting ready for bed, for sleeping through. It seems to work, too. Personally I’m not sure if it’s really because of the charts, or if Theo is simply growing out of his terrible twos at last, but the transformation is certainly impressive.

  A week before the hearing, CAFCASS’s safeguarding letter arrives. The long list of allegations in Miles’s application has effectively been ignored, as Anita predicted it would be. Instead, the letter points out that Pete is voluntarily attending parenting lessons and is cooperating fully with the adviser. It recommends no further action on CAFCASS’s part.

  Anita’s positive. “It’s as good as you can hope for at this stage. They’re laying the foundation for the court to rule that Theo can stay with you.”

  “And David?” I ask.

  “David will be a tougher proposition. Have you heard from the social worker dealing with his case yet?”

  We haven’t. That’s normal, Anita tells us.

  The negligence claim against the hospital has also gone quiet, which suits us. With any luck, the custody cases will be done and dusted before we have to concentrate on the hospital one.

  Sometimes, when Theo is being particularly trying, I find myself wondering if we’ve made a mistake fighting for David as well. Can we really cope with two different diets and two completely different levels of need—Theo with his always-on, supercharged brio, and David, with his quiet, vulnerable placidity? But then I think of David sitting in the Lamberts’ huge playroom, idly twirling rollers on a baby gym, and my heart overflows. Of course we’ll cope. That’s what families do when they have a disabled child. And Pete is the man to do it. When I see his infinite patience with Theo, never getting cross or losing his temper, I know we’ve made the right decision.

  When Justin Watts calls Pete late on Friday, therefore, I’m not expecting anything particularly dramatic to have happened. But I can immediately tell by Pete’s startled expression, and the way his gaze turns toward me, that it has.

  “What is it?” I ask, concerned. “Are they settling?”

  He shakes his head. And then—something he never does—he raises his free hand and puts it over his ear to block me out. His face has gone white.

  “What is it?” I say again a minute later, as he puts down the phone.

  “NHS Resolution are saying it wasn’t the fault of any of the hospitals,” he says slowly.

  “Well, that’s ridiculous. They can hardly deny that two families have ended up with the wrong children—”

  “It isn’t that,” he interrupts. “They’re saying the babies must have been swapped deliberately. Mads, I think they’re trying to imply that it was us. That you and I somehow stole Theo from the Lamberts.”

  65

  Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 33: NHS Resolution Preliminary Case Investigation Report, authored by Grace Matthews and Thomas Finlay, extract.

  55. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

  55.1 As the evidence from the Consultant Neonatologist and specialist Neonatal Transfer team confirms, there seems little possibility that the paper ID tags were accidentally transferred between the mobile neonatal incubators before admission. Both incubators were closed throughout the transport process, prior to their arrival on the NICU.

  55.2 Similarly, the possibility of even one tag being transferred during admission seems remote, given the number of specific procedures that were being carried out on the infants and the correlatingly high number of professionals there to witness them. The chance of both tags simultaneously traveling in opposite directions, therefore, from one incubator to the other and vice versa, seems vanishingly small.

  55.3 Even if the paper tags had indeed been transferred in this way, or gotten lost, both neonatal nurses would also have had to attach the security tags without following proper procedures, such as cross-checking with the BadgerNet record system, in order for the electronic tags to have ended up on the wrong babies.

  55.4 Mr. Riley asserts that he saw the electronic tag on “his” baby approximately thirty minutes after admission, soon after the baby was transferred to the hospital incubator. This is contradicted by the evidence from the senior registrar, who noticed its absence when checking the cooling suit some two hours later. It is a matter of considerable regret that the senior registrar did not draw this to anyone’s attention at the time.

  55.5 However, the lack of a security tag at that stage was not directly relevant to the initial misidentification of the two babies. This is evidenced by the fact that Mr. Riley was already standing next to an incubator that he appeared to believe contained “his” baby, rather than beside the other incubator, which actually did. The misidentification had therefore happened, or was in the process of happening, by that stage.

  55.6 On the b
alance of probabilities, therefore, we conclude that the misidentification was caused deliberately—in other words, that during or shortly before the transfer of the two babies from the mobile incubators to the hospital incubators, a person or persons deliberately swapped or removed the two paper tags, and thereafter continued to uphold the deception that each baby was in fact the other.

  55.7 This being the case, we are adjourning our investigation and passing our evidence to the Metropolitan Police, for them to investigate the possible wrongful removal of a child without parental consent under the Child Abduction Act 1984.

  55.8 Subject to the outcome of any criminal investigation, it may be necessary to further refer our findings to the NHS Counter Fraud Authority.

  66

  PETE

  “CUI BONO,” JUSTIN WATTS said. “It means ‘who benefits?’ And in this case, unfortunately, they’ve decided it’s you.”

  “But that’s crazy,” Maddie said desperately. “Crazy. Why on earth would we do such a thing?”

  It was nine o’clock on Monday morning, and we were sitting in Justin Watts’s smart office. We’d tried to get him to see us on Saturday, but no-win no-fee lawyers like their weekends off, apparently. We’d spent the last two days climbing the walls with frustration.

  “Well, they’re not speculating,” he said, glancing through the report again. “But no doubt the police will. And the most likely inference is that you ended up with a healthy, intellectually normal baby and the Lamberts didn’t.”

  “But we couldn’t have known that was what would happen,” Maddie insisted. “At the time, all they told us was that our baby was very unwell and might have been starved of oxygen.” She looked across at me. “That was literally all we knew. Wasn’t it?”

  “I spoke to the paramedics in the ambulance,” I said slowly. “I asked them what hypoxia meant. One of them explained—he was very honest. I didn’t tell you at the time, Mads. You were already suffering enough. Besides, he said nothing was certain. So I kept it from you. Everything except the bit about the next few days being crucial.”

  “Oh Jesus.” Maddie stared at me. “So they think you knew. They think they can prove motive.”

  “But not opportunity,” Justin Watts said mildly.

  I shook my head. “There were times while the doctors were rushing about when I was alone with both incubators. I wish there hadn’t been, but if that’s all they need to prove…” I’m done for, I wanted to say, but I knew how melodramatic that would sound and swallowed my words. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “Well, luckily that isn’t all they have to prove.” Justin Watts picked up the report again. “This is ninety percent insinuation and ten percent balance of probability, which is very different from the standard of proof required in the criminal court. You may be asked to go to a police station to be interviewed under caution, but that’s as far as I’d expect it to go.” He paused. “You’ll want to engage a specialist criminal law solicitor to go with you, but if it does come to an interview, my strong advice would be to answer ‘no comment’ to every question. Currently, they’ve got nothing, and if you give them nothing else to work on, they’ll almost certainly shelve the whole thing.”

  “ ‘No comment’? Isn’t that what guilty people say?” Maddie said disbelievingly.

  “It’s what people who want to avoid charges say. Believe me, if you can stop this from turning into a criminal trial, you should.”

  Criminal trial. Jesus, had it come to this? Was I going to stand in a court, in the dock, accused of deliberately snatching Theo? I couldn’t get my head around it.

  And all because Miles Lambert had walked into our lives. If he hadn’t persuaded me to sue the hospital, none of this would have happened.

  “Of course,” Justin Watts was saying, “a cynic might be tempted to believe that NHS Resolution would prefer this to be a criminal matter, rather than negligence, because it gets them off the hook financially. But nevertheless, the police will have to investigate the allegation on its merits.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “Do you mean that if the NHS succeeds in muddying the waters, they might not have to pay us anything?”

  Justin Watts shrugged. “It will certainly put them in a stronger negotiating position. And as they point out in their final paragraph, if either you or the Lamberts were aware of the abduction, it follows that one of you is committing fraud.”

  Maddie and I exchanged a startled glance.

  “I’m afraid it also calls into question the basis of our relationship,” he added. “You’ll recall that the Conditional Fee Arrangement is tied to us having a reasonable likelihood of winning. If circumstances change, we have to get a second opinion. And there’s no doubt that this allegation does change things substantially.”

  “What?” I stared at him. “You might leave us in the lurch?”

  “Not at all. But we’d have to start invoicing you for our time. And ask you to pay the costs incurred so far, of course.”

  I put my head in my hands. “We’ve already remortgaged our house to pay for the family-law solicitor.”

  “Ah.” Justin Watts made a note. Probably reminding himself to get a bill out to us ASAP, I realized, before we ran out of funds.

  “What if we pull out?” I said desperately. “What if we just forget about this whole thing?”

  “I definitely wouldn’t advise that,” he said. “If you withdraw now, you’ll have to pay all the other side’s costs as well as ours. And it might look like you’ve got something to hide when it comes to the criminal investigation.”

  “I’ve had enough of this,” Maddie said abruptly. She stood up. “You’re our lawyer, for fuck’s sake. You’re meant to be fighting for us. And instead all you bloody care about is how much money you can make out of us. Well, you won’t get a cent unless you come up with a plan for making this go away.” Her Australian accent, usually quite muted after almost three years in London, was as strident as I’d ever heard it. “Come on, Pete. Let’s leave this gutless limp-dick to it and go home.”

  67

  PETE

  “ ‘GUTLESS LIMP-DICK’?” I whispered. “Where did that come from?”

  We were pressed together in a crowded Jubilee Line carriage, either side of an upright bar.

  “I dunno. My dad, I guess.”

  “This is all shit, isn’t it?”

  Maddie nodded. Without warning, she started to cry, silent fat tears that ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her collar. Awkwardly I reached around and hugged her, the bar still between us. Like embracing someone from inside a prison cell, I thought, even though of course it wasn’t. They don’t make prison cells like that anymore, except in movies.

  * * *

  —

  THERE WAS SOMEONE WAITING outside our house—a young man. It was only when he headed rapidly toward us, his phone held out as if he was imploring us to answer it, that I realized who he was. Or rather, what. Journalists don’t use notebooks these days. They have recording apps on their phones instead.

  “Kieran Keenan, Daily Mail. Is it true you stole a baby, Mr. Riley?”

  “Go away,” I said irritably, pushing past him. At that moment a photographer jumped out from where he’d been hiding between two parked cars. He crouched down to get the classic shot, snap-snap-snap: the guilty party brushing off the journalist who’s asking difficult questions.

  “Don’t you want to put your side of the story, Mr. Riley?” Kieran called after me.

  I stopped and turned. “I know your editor,” I said disbelievingly. “Well, the travel editor, anyway.”

  Snap-snap-snap. The photographer was making the most of this.

  “I’ll give him your regards. What made you do it, Mr. Riley?”

  Maddie had gotten the front door open and was already inside, waiting to slam it behind me. But something made me stay where I was
, facing the reporter. God, he really was young. He must be an intern. “We didn’t do anything. Do your research. We’re not the bad guys in this.”

  “So who is?” he pressed, but I realized I’d already said too much. I stepped in and Maddie slammed the door.

  * * *

  —

  “THAT WAS DOWN TO Miles,” Maddie said flatly. “It must have been.”

  I flopped into a chair. “Of course. His lawyer would have been sent a copy of that report as well. And Miles’s first thought would have been to ask himself how he could use it to his advantage. If people think we took Theo deliberately, they’ll think we definitely shouldn’t be allowed to keep him.”

  “Can you call your contact at the Mail? Ask them not to run the story?”

  “I think that might make it even worse.”

  We sat in silence, too exhausted even to make coffee.

  “Why did you lie about the security tag?” Maddie said at last.

  I glanced at her uneasily. “What do you mean?”

  “When you told Grace Matthews you saw the tag on Theo within minutes of him being moved to the hospital incubator, that wasn’t right. You know it wasn’t. And now one of the senior doctors has contradicted you.”

  “I must have been mistaken.”

  Maddie’s eyes searched my face. “Did you do it for Bronagh?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

  “Why?” Maddie said simply. But nothing was simple in this situation anymore.

  “She’s been suspended,” I said eventually. “I wanted to help her out.”

  “Oh Jesus.” Maddie started to laugh, a hollow laugh that turned into a howl. “We’re losing our son, and you wanted to help a nurse. Which in turn has implicated you in a criminal offense. You are…You are such a cretin sometimes, Pete. Always trying to be the good guy. Always—” She stopped suddenly. “Is that all it was?”