by Delaney, JP
“What do you mean?” I said, even though I knew exactly what she meant.
“Is there anything between you and Bronagh that I should know about?” she demanded.
I looked her in the eye. “No. No, absolutely not.”
And that was true, if you were thinking like a lawyer and taking her question at its face value. There was nothing she should know about. Very much the reverse, in fact.
68
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 34: Facebook Messenger exchange between Bronagh Walsh and Peter Riley, deleted by Peter Riley the next day and by Bronagh Walsh two years later.
Hey Pete, how’s tricks? The bike ride looks amaaaaazing!!! Actually going to be in York next w/e with some friends on a hen so we might look you lot up! We’re all qualified nurses so can tend to any walking (cycling?) wounded!!
Thanks Bronagh. Plenty of sore calves, aching groins & pulled muscles over here but we’re plowing on. Determined to make the target for the NICU!
Put like that it’s almost our duty to come around and patch you up isn’t it!!! (Hmm probably can’t do much for the pulled muscles or sore calves…)
69
MADDIE
THE DAILY MAIL ARTICLE appears on page eight, below a picture of a hunted-looking Pete. TIMES JOURNALIST “STOLE BABY”—BUT STILL WANTS OUR NHS TO PAY is the headline. It quotes the most damning bits of NHS Resolution’s report, as well as parts of the article Pete himself wrote, the one he’d told them couldn’t be printed yet, in which he’d described how traumatic it had been finding out about the mix-up. In this new context, it seems chillingly self-interested—a brazen attempt to paint himself as a victim, in order to prize more money out of the health service. Theo isn’t identified by name, “for legal reasons,” but instead is described as “Child X, an adorable toddler with a huge grin and an exuberant zest for life.”
As for why Pete stole him, the article makes it clear that Pete’s a cold-blooded, quick-thinking monster who saw an opportunity to foist his vulnerable, brain-damaged baby on someone else, then tried to profit from his own villainy to boot. Toward the end of the piece is a quote from an “expert,” some pop psychologist who’s appeared on various morning-TV programs. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be an example of ‘hero syndrome,’ ” he says helpfully. “We see it sometimes with firefighters and policemen, creating crises and setting fires purely in order to be the one who averts disaster and is admired as a result. But increasingly, we’re also seeing it with those who want to be perfect parents or caregivers.” The apparent contradiction between Pete as a heartless monster and Pete as someone who wants to be admired for his parenting skills is completely ignored, of course.
Pete himself seems utterly shell-shocked. That it’s a newspaper, his old industry, doing this to him only adds insult to injury. He becomes very quiet, his eyes wide, poleaxed and bewildered.
Anita recommends a colleague specializing in criminal law, who arranges for Pete to attend a police interview voluntarily. We should get our initial response in quickly, the new solicitor says, even though his advice relating to the interview itself is identical to Justin Watts’s: Answer “no comment” to everything, in the hope the police will decide the allegation is unprovable either way. I can tell Pete hates that strategy, and at the slightest encouragement from me would abandon it. By nature he’s someone who likes to cooperate, to be well thought of by authority figures. And we’ve all seen video footage of child molesters and serial killers monotonously answering “no comment” to the police’s questions, the implication being that they’re too callous even to admit their own crimes. I make sure I back the lawyer’s strategy every inch of the way.
This new solicitor, Mark Cooper, charges £220 an hour plus VAT.
I’d expected the police investigation to be as slow and Byzantine as every other part of the legal processes we’re now embroiled in. But while Pete is attending the interview, the doorbell rings. On the doorstep are a uniformed police sergeant, a WPC, and a man in plainclothes who introduces himself as a detective sergeant. He shows me his ID and a warrant to take Pete’s laptop and phone.
I don’t even have Pete’s phone—he has it with him. I watch as they unplug his MacBook and place it in an evidence bag. “Do you want the power supply?” I hear myself saying.
The detective shakes his head. “We’ve got plenty of those.” They’re almost the only words we exchange. Five minutes after entering the house, they’re gone.
Taking Pete’s laptop doesn’t fit with Mark Cooper’s prediction that the police will only go through the motions, I think. Or is that the point? That now they’ll be able to say they looked for evidence and found none?
The more I think about it, the more ridiculous this whole thing is. Even in some mad parallel universe where the allegations were true and Pete did steal Theo, it isn’t as if he’d have googled “how to steal a baby” beforehand. And anyone who knows him would realize just how crazy the notion of Pete as a heartless, calculating monster is.
But Pete as a would-be hero? an inner voice whispers disloyally. That’s more feasible. I remember the way he was so good in the NICU, even syringing my breast milk into Theo’s nasogastric tube so that the nurses didn’t have to do it. When Theo thrived, Pete, by extension, shared the credit. And yes, he’d undeniably basked in it, just a little. Saint Peter. The best, most caring dad in the NICU…
Stop. I dubbed him Saint Peter because he is a saint—almost irritatingly so, sometimes, but a saint nonetheless. No one knows better than me that his caring nature isn’t an act.
But he might have done it for you, the inner voice says.
And I stop dead, because I know that, at least, could be…not true, obviously, but not impossible. Pete kept the stark reality about hypoxia from me that day because he wanted to protect me. He would never have stolen a healthy baby for his own sake—but might he, could he, have stolen a healthy baby because he thought I couldn’t cope with the alternative?
Was it his very sainthood that prompted him to commit the most terrible of acts—not out of heartlessness, but the very opposite, love?
* * *
—
WE RARELY TALK THESE days about the period that brought us together. It was a wild time in my life—I’d moved to Sydney, gotten a job in television production, started working hard and partying even harder. I certainly wasn’t looking to fall in love, so when I fell for an older, married TV presenter it came as a shock. For three whirlwind months I convinced myself he was telling the truth when he said he was going to leave his wife and family for me. He didn’t, of course. I became depressed; there was a messy cry for help—an overdose I ended up not being able to keep down—followed by a long period of numb recuperation. And a good-looking, well-mannered English boy who didn’t seem in the least put off by the fact I was an emotional wreck, or by my frequent reminders that we’d never be anything more than friends. And slowly, friendship became something else—or rather, I suppose, I came to realize that friendship is actually a more important ingredient of a relationship than I’d given it credit for. When I did eventually sleep with him, it was more out of a sense of gratitude than anything else. There, that’s done now. But somehow, it didn’t stay as a one-off. On some level, I liked the comfort that sex with Pete gave me. And once you were sleeping with your best friend, you were effectively in a relationship. He was my rock, the one who cared for me at a time when to be cared for was what I needed more than anything else.
But would he really commit a crime for me? Surely not—the guilty conscience would plague him; his very sense of who he is would be shaken to the core. Yet here we are, with him effectively accused, and me doubting his innocence…
This is what happens, I realize. This is how couples get torn apart by circumstances like these. Doubt and mistrust, combined with financial stress and the agony of not knowing whether a judge is going to order our
child taken from us, would eat away at the strongest relationship. I mustn’t let it happen to me and Pete.
And yet I can’t help it, and the suspicion still lingers, deep in the recesses of my mind. That lie Pete told about the tag—was that really just to protect Bronagh, or was there something more to it as well? And what about the other insinuations in the NHS report? If the babies really were swapped deliberately, who else could it have been?
My phone rings. I answer it, thinking it must be Pete, out of his interview at last.
“Hello, Maddie,” Lyn the CAFCASS adviser says in her lilting Welsh tones. “Is now a good time? I need to chat with you about Peter, do you see?”
70
MADDIE
“WHAT ABOUT PETE?”
“It’s just that I’ve been alerted to a possible safeguarding issue, Maddie. I understand serious allegations have been made, which the police are now investigating.”
“Well,” I say slowly, “it’s true there have been some allegations—false ones, obviously. It’s fairly clear to us that Miles Lambert is somehow responsible—”
“Would you have any evidence regarding that at all, Maddie?” Lyn interrupts.
“Not as such, no.”
“Then I think you should be careful not to make statements like that. As it’s now a police matter.” Lyn’s tone, usually so soft and ingratiating, has turned steely.
“Of course. My point was, these are only allegations, with no evidence behind them.”
“Even so, my job is to think of Theo in this situation,” Lyn says firmly. “When a man is being investigated for a possible offense against a child, there are procedures, Maddie, do you see? We have to ask ourselves, is this child safe?”
“But this is the same child he’s accused—wrongly—of taking,” I say, genuinely baffled. “Of course Theo’s safe.”
“Nobody wants to be talking about removing Theo into emergency protection at this stage.” The steely note in Lyn’s voice is becoming more pronounced.
“What? Who said anything—”
“So I think it’s best if Pete finds somewhere else to stay, for now,” Lyn continues as if I haven’t spoken. “He can still have contact, but it will have to take place when you’re in the house. Or it could be supervised by someone else, do you see—there are specialist centers where that can be arranged. I can give you a list of addresses.”
“I don’t understand,” I say slowly. “Are you saying you have the power to break up my relationship with Pete?”
“No,” Lyn says evenly. “I’m saying I have the power to remove Theo into safekeeping if I’m not entirely satisfied with the arrangement that currently exists. Which at the present time, I’m not. However, if you were to give a written undertaking that Pete won’t be staying in the house, won’t be alone with Theo, won’t have him in his sole charge, and will otherwise only see him under supervision in a registered contact center, I could be persuaded that you’re working with us to provide a safer and more acceptable environment. So really, it’s your decision, Maddie. Which is it to be?”
Even though I can barely speak, I know I have no choice. If Theo is taken away from us now, the chances of keeping him in the long term will shrink dramatically.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Theo and to get David back,” I hear myself say. “So if you think Pete should go, I’ll tell him he has to move out.”
71
MADDIE
I WAIT IN A kind of daze for Pete to get back from the police station. It’s as if my brain is refusing to engage with what’s happening, unable to process more than one disaster at a time. Perhaps it’s a kind of defense mechanism. If I really grasped the enormity of everything that’s going on, I’d scream.
It’s another hour before I hear his key in the lock. He comes in looking exhausted. He drops his keys onto the desk, next to where his MacBook usually is. He glances at the dangling power lead but says nothing.
“They took it,” I say. “The police. They came earlier.”
“I know. They’ve got my phone, too. That’s why I couldn’t call you when I came out. And then…” He blinks, like a boxer who’s been hit in the face. “I walked most of the way home. I needed to think.”
“Do you know when you’ll get them back?”
“Soon, they said.” He runs his hand over his head. “They offered me a choice. Give us your PIN and passwords, so we can download everything immediately, or don’t give them to us and we’ll keep the laptop and phone until our technical people get around to opening them. And since not giving the passwords would look like I had something to hide…” He shakes his head.
“Pete, I’ve got more bad news,” I begin, just as he says, “Maddie…”
We both stop. “You go first,” he says.
“The CAFCASS woman phoned. Lyn. They’re claiming that because you’re now the subject of a child abduction investigation, Theo isn’t safe. I’m so sorry, Pete. She wants you to stay somewhere else until the hearing. And you can’t be alone with Theo.”
“Jesus. Jesus.” He closes his eyes.
“I thought maybe you could go to Greg and Kate’s.”
“I guess.” He looks around our downstairs room, as if for the last time. “Jesus.”
“What did you want to say?”
He takes a deep breath. When he starts speaking I know immediately this is something he’s prepared, that he’s been rehearsing it on the long walk home. “There’s something I need to tell you. About my laptop. When the police look at it, they’re going to know…” He stops, then continues. “They’ll be able to tell I’ve been looking at porn.”
I stare at him.
“Not illegal porn, obviously,” he adds quickly. “But Mark—the solicitor—said if they interview you, it’s something they might raise. To try to catch you off guard.”
“When?” I say.
“When will they interview you? It’s not even certain—”
“When do you look at porn?”
He makes a small, defeated gesture. “I don’t know. Does it matter? When Theo was at nursery, I guess.”
That nursery cost nearly two hundred pounds a week, paid for from my salary. But it was worth it, we’d agreed, if it allowed Pete some time to pitch and write articles. “How long has this been going on?”
He only shrugs. “A while.”
I’d had no idea. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, given the other problems in our relationship, but it never even occurred to me. It’s so contrary to my image of him—to Pete’s image of himself, for that matter. Generally, he’s so respectful to women, so principled. I think of some of the images I’ve stumbled across online, and wince. Is that who he is, deep down? And, if I’d never known that about him, what else might I not know?
Who is he, really?
He’s always said he needed to password-protect his laptop to prevent Theo from playing with it—“No screen time at all until he’s two, and no more than thirty minutes a day fully supervised after that. I read an article—in Silicon Valley, the people who really know about this stuff don’t even let their five-year-olds play with iPads unsupervised.” But had it actually been to protect Theo from coming across his browsing history? Or indeed, to stop me from doing the same?
If he could lie about that so easily, what other lies has he told? Could he even have lied about the most important thing of all?
“I’ll go and pack a suitcase,” he says when I don’t respond. He waits for me to say something. But I can’t.
Only as he starts trudging up the stairs do I manage to add, “What else happened at the interview?”
“Oh…” He shrugs wearily. “I said ‘no comment’ to every question. And I could see the detective getting more and more convinced I must have something to hide. So now it’s a trade-off—has he gotten so frustrated he’ll decide to investi
gate anyway, or will he think it’s a waste of resources when they have so little to go on?”
It seems inevitable to me now that there’ll be a full investigation, not least because so far, everything that possibly could go wrong for us has. And because, behind it all, guiding events with a push here and a nod there, I can feel the invisible, irresistible force of Miles Lambert, who’ll stop at nothing to get his son.
Perhaps if we’d handled it better, he’d have had less to work with. But now the tiny lie Pete told about seeing the security tag on Theo’s leg is the hairline crack that, when more pressure is applied, could shatter our family apart. Theo could be taken away. Pete could go to prison. And what will happen to me in that situation? If they decide I knew all along, my leave to remain in the UK could be revoked as well.
An abyss has opened up, and we’re teetering right on the edge.
“I’ll call Greg,” Pete says. Automatically, his hand reaches into his pocket for his phone. It comes out empty. “Shit,” he says, furious at his own stupidity. “Shit.” He takes a deep breath, and I know he’s trying to hold himself together.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “You go and pack.”
“Tell him…” He stops, then continues. “Tell Greg I’ll come late. When Theo’s asleep. I want to do bedtime. It could be the last one for a while.”
72
PETE
AS I UNDRESSED BEFORE lying down on Greg’s sofa, something fell out of my pocket. It was a card the police had given me. Headed Your Release from Custody, it explained that Inappropriate contact with anyone linked to your case, either directly or indirectly, through a third party or social media, may constitute a criminal offense. If found guilty, you could face up to life imprisonment.
