‘Not as good as you’d have been, of course.’
‘Is your stand-in as good as you when you’re away?’ she demanded.
‘Of course not. Go on. Then what?’
‘Then, like I said, I remembered what happened when you took us to the Players Theatre.’
‘What’s the Players got to do with the price of eggs or the current crimewave? Apart from that song, that is?’
‘It was the song that did it for me. When it so took Ma’s fancy. We were talking about it, remember? And you told Ma that it was about children being stolen away by gypsies and she said that was a different one and — anyway, that was what we’d talked about and I suppose it put a worm of a notion into my mind. When Ma woke up in the middle of that TV item, I suddenly saw what had happened to the babies.’
‘So? Why couldn’t you tell me then?’
‘Don’t start that again, please. I was — oh, silly maybe. It seemed a bit romantic. Far fetched. That was why I went to see Mrs Popodopoulos this afternoon. I wanted to be sure.’ She leaned forward and picked up the baby’s photograph and gave it to him. ‘The thing is, that baby there is not the baby I autopsied.’
He looked at the photograph and then at her and at the photograph again. He said sharply, ‘You’re sure.’ It wasn’t a question but she treated it as one.
‘Yes, I’m sure. I remember checking the notes again, not all that long after I’d done the PM though it feels like ages ago. I noticed an anomaly then, but I dismissed it. The baby was measured when he was born and I measured him too, of course — that is, I measured the baby I autopsied. There was a difference. I put it down to post-mortem changes in muscle tone — quite reasonable — but I was wrong. It was definitely a different baby.’
‘I’d trust your memory anywhere,’ he said. ‘Though whether a court would is another story.’ He looked up then. ‘But we’re a long way from going to court. The only known crimes we have are the deaths of the Oberlander baby and Harry Rajabani. No one’s made any suggestion that there was anything wrong — legally speaking — about these cot deaths, have they?’
‘No, but they could be linked with the murders, couldn’t they?’
‘It’s possible.’ He was silent for a while. ‘But listen, if you’re right and the babies that died here aren’t the ones who were born here, what’s happened to the other babies? Why was it done? And as you said on the phone, how? I mean, finding dead babies lying around to swap for live ones ain’t what you’d call the most likely of scenarios.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m trying hard to see any connection with our known cases. This is odd, and needs investigating, I grant you, but I say again, what has it got to do with the murders of the Oberlander baby and Harry?’
‘I’ve a theory,’ she said. ‘Not evidence, and I know that matters, but it’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense.’
‘Well?’
‘It’s an adoption scam.’
‘What?’ He looked as alert as a terrier with its ears up. ‘Tell me more.’
‘People who are infertile get desperate. Look what Angela and Viv Chowdary put themselves through to get their baby. Well, if they can’t have their own, adoption is the next best thing. And there was a hell of a demand for Romanian babies, I remember, when they first found out what was going on there. I remember TV programmes about it.’
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes. You could be right. But how can substituting dead babies for living ones help adopters? Call me dumb, but I just don’t see it.’
‘I’m not sure I do,’ she said candidly. ‘All I can think of is that for some reason these babies are being taken from our Matty block to give to adopters and they’re getting hold of dead babies to replace them with and cover their tracks. Maybe these Romanian babies are brought here and they’re ailing and die and rather than disappoint the people waiting for the babies they do a swap?’ She shivered suddenly. ‘It’s the most cruel of things to do. It means, if I’m right, that these three babies are alive and well somewhere, while their real parents are breaking their hearts over their deaths. Well, two of them are at any rate. Not the first one —’
‘The first one?’
‘She’s vanished. Homeless drug abuser, apparently.
Walked out of here and seemed unworried not to be taking a baby with her, so Sister Lichfield said. When I asked her.’
‘Sister —?’
‘On Matty. A good soul if a bit on the old-fashioned side.’ She shook her head. ‘If I’m right, there has to be someone on that ward who’s part of it. I can’t see it as being her. She’s … It just doesn’t gel. You talk to her and you’ll see what I mean.’
‘On what grounds do I talk to her? This is all surmise, George, my love. Just surmise.’
‘I need more evidence, don’t I?’ She grimaced in frustrated anger at herself. ‘When I autopsied that baby I didn’t see anything to make me suspect he wasn’t what I was told he was. A newborn baby with the umbilical cord still in place — though now I think of it …’ She wrinkled her forehead. ‘I suppose it’s possible that the stump was a little more dessicated than it might have been at just twenty-four hours of age.’ She shook her head. ‘But that’s such a variable feature. I’d defy anyone to handle a baby in the first week of life and say for sure how old it was … The thing that really makes me spit is that I so often take photographs of the bodies when I do the PM. I still have vague plans for a book. But I didn’t do one of the Popodopoulos baby — if that’s who it was — because I was just back from sick leave, and anyway it was just a cot death and I have lots of other photos to fit in that section of the book when I write it. And of course the locum had no call to take photographs. So the only evidence we have is my memory.’
‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘Won’t there be other people who saw this baby alive? Who delivered it?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to check, in Matty, I suppose. Or it may be in the notes. But what point would there be in talking to whoever that might be? It’s people who’ve seen both the live baby and the dead one we need.’
‘That’s my point,’ he said patiently. ‘Maybe whoever delivered the child also saw the body before it was sent down to the mortuary and may have noticed differences. Though, let’s face it’ — he looked at the photograph again with a considering stare — ‘one baby looks very like another, doesn’t it? It beats me how anyone can tell ‘em apart, even their mothers, going by the ones I’ve seen.’
‘Which clearly isn’t many,’ she said tartly. ‘They vary hugely. I’ve seen babies with flaming red hair and with fair hair and like this one with a great mop of black hair, and I’ve seen them bald and wrinkled and smooth and —’
‘OK, OK!’ He shook his head. ‘Is the fact that this baby has a lot of dark hair significant, do you suppose?’
‘Hmm?’
‘I mean, were all the babies who died — who were supposed to have died — dark haired? Is that why they were swapped? Because they looked like the babies brought from Romania? It could be, I suppose — if you’re right.’
‘Of course!’ She was most struck by that. ‘Of course, that has to be the reason! It’s all hanging together more and more, isn’t it?’
He shook his head. ‘I know how it feels to get such a huge piece of the jigsaw in, but there are still a hell of a lot of holes, George. We don’t know how they did it, if they did it, though we’ve got a suspicion about why. Well, that we have to prove first. Then we can think about the method they used. If people are bringing babies here from Romania we have to know what routes they use and why the babies die. If that’s what’s happening. They could be coming from other places — Brazil maybe? I’ve heard they have a baby export black market.’
‘I’m sure of it,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘No. Not sure,’ he said. ‘I have to have proof, you know that. But it’s a very nice bit of theory, ducks. I’ll grant you that. Look, tomorrow I talk to the maternity people —’
‘Hold on,’ sh
e said. ‘Won’t that start a hare?’
‘Eh?’
‘If you start sniffing around up there then whoever did whatever they did’ll get very nervous and back off. Then you’ll never find out anything.’
‘I suppose so.’ He looked at her sideways and grinned. ‘You’re volunteering, aren’t you?’
‘Well, why not? They’re sort of used to me. I can think of some logical reason for snooping around that should keep them happy. Though I’ll have to be careful. I mean, someone up there has to be involved, don’t they? It’s a matter of access.’
‘That’s what you have to find out. Maybe other people can get at those babies.’
‘It’s not likely, but as you say, I’ll have to find out.’
‘Have you any ideas about who it might be?’
‘Hardly —’ she said and then hesitated. He pounced on that immediately.
‘Spit it out,’ he said. ‘You’ve got someone in your sights. And you promised no more secrets.’
She made a face. ‘It’s Didier. He’s a nice guy, friendly and all that, but there’s something — I mean he’s always there, you know. Whenever I’m talking to people or checking things he sort of bobs up.’ She brooded for a moment and then said unwillingly, ‘Though that’s kinda crazy. I mean, the man’s the Obstetric Registrar. Where else would he spend his time except on Matty? I’ve really a lot of checking to do, you see. And then there’s Sister Lichfield and her staff … It could be any one of a dozen or more of them. The place is seething with midwives and so forth.’
‘Now you’ll find out just what detective work’s really about,’ he said, grinning wickedly. ‘You’ve just done the fun bits thus far — codes and so forth — any further forrader with your efforts there, by the way? My fellas are getting precisely nowhere.’
She told him what had happened with Cherry. ‘So I suppose it’s a bit “further forrader”, as you put it,’ she finished. ‘If she’s seen the same sort of pages somewhere, then that should give us a lead — if she remembers where the somewhere is, of course. I wouldn’t be too hopeful though. She’s a clever girl but not exactly … Well, I’ll try her again.’
‘Do,’ he said heartily, then tipped his chair back. ‘Let’s do something else now.’
‘Something else?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Like talk about the Oberlander baby and Harry and —’
‘What I had in mind was nothin’ to do with the enquiry at all. Neither enquiry. I’ve got my fellas all beaverin’ away on various things like cars that could have done Harry and checkin’ records of birth for the Oberlander child, not that I expect to get much from either piece of work, but it has to be done and until it is there’s not a lot else we can do. Not tonight.’ He leered happily. ‘But I can think of a lovely way to spend the evenin’ while we wait for reports. Come and see my lovely Docklands flat.’
She stared at him and then laughed. ‘Like hell I will. I’ve got other things to do, if you haven’t.’
‘Like what?’
‘Going home to Ma and Bridget. I have house guests, remember? I have to entertain them.’
‘OK,’ he said sunnily. ‘No problem. I’ll come and help. They love me, those two.’ He sounded very pleased with himself; downright smug, in fact. ‘If I walk in with you they’ll be over the moon, right? And then we’ll encourage ‘em to go to bed early on account of they’re nice tired old ladies and we can settle to some serious snoggin’. God, but I have good ideas! Come on — on your way!’
24
She walked to work the next morning, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her heavy coat and her chin tucked into her collar, for it was a filthy morning, bitterly cold and dark at the same time. Her breath made a fog in front of her whenever she let her nostrils emerge from the woollen cloth of her coat and her hair was spangled with water drops from the mist as around her people scurried, heads down, for buses and cars. Yet she wouldn’t have missed the walk for the world. She was happy in a way she hadn’t been for a long time and she chuckled softly at her memories of last night; to think that spending an evening ‘snogging’ as Gus put it, should have so beneficial an effect!
But it had. He had insisted on taking her home (and she couldn’t pretend she’d argued all that hard) and the old ladies had of course been entranced to see him and fussed over him most agreeably, sharing a bibulous supper with them and, as he had foretold, going to bed just after nine-thirty, leaving them to the sofa and the firelight.
She began to whistle as she remembered, making a soft hissing sound through her teeth and then was amused again, for it was the sort of breathy whistling Vanny used to make when she was particularly contented, pottering among jam pots in the fall when baskets of fruit were all over the kitchen waiting to be preserved, or busy with the house plants which she so loved.
Her joy slid away a little as she thought of Vanny; she’d shown no signs at all of any memory problems since just before Christmas, and George had become more and more optimistic; maybe Bridget had been fussing, after all. Vanny was much as she had always been, if a touch more fragile. But this morning she had come wandering into the living room, waking George just before her alarm clock went off, looking waif-like and frightened in her white nightdress.
She had stared at George fixedly in the light of the lamp George had switched on almost in a panic when she’d realized someone was in the room with her, and continued to stare for fully half a minute, which had seemed endless to George in her half-awake state, and then plumped herself down beside her on the sofa-bed and taken a deep tremulous breath.
‘It’s you, George, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Ma, of course it’s me. Who else should it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ Vanny had said with an air of great candour. ‘I was lying in bed looking at whoever it is in there and I couldn’t think what had happened. Not who that was or who I was or why or anything. But if you’re here it’s OK, I guess.’
‘Ma!’ George had sat up sharply and peered at her mother closely. ‘What do you mean, whoever it is in there? That’s Bridget.’
Vanny’s face had cleared at once, the lines fading from her forehead and her mouth turning up so that it seemed a light had passed over her. ‘Bridget? Oh, George, of course it was! Dear old Bridget. And this is London, isn’t it? Well, of course it is. I’m here visiting with my daughter with my good friend Bridget to keep me nice company, and I’m a silly old woman and I’m going back to bed. It’s a very nice bed. Sleep well, George darling. Good night.’ And she had gone padding back to the bedroom, leaving George staring after her and feeling slightly sick.
As she’d washed and dressed though, she’d begun to feel a little better. It had been a perfectly natural event, she told herself. Morning disorientation — who hasn’t woken up in unfamiliar surroundings and found it difficult to remember in a half-asleep state where they are? Why, George herself had been through such moments and no one had ever suggested she might have Alzheimer’s disease …
But when it’s happened to me it’s been momentary, she’d told her reflection in the mirror. With Ma it lasted a long time. I had to tell her who Bridget was; that’s not the way it should be.
But she’d stopped worrying when, later, as she grabbed some juice and coffee and a slice of toast in the kitchen, both Bridget and Vanny, neatly dressing-gowned, had come in, looking a touch woebegone.
‘Oh, George,’ Bridget had said in a failing voice. ‘It was such fun last night with Gus and all, but don’t you ever let me take quite so much wine again so near bedtime. I just don’t have the capacity any more. Do you realize there are three empty bottles there on the drainer? And just the four of us emptied them. I can’t imagine how you look so bright eyed and bushy tailed when your Ma and I are so droopy we’re ashamed.’
‘Well, I didn’t have all that much. Left it to you two and Gus,’ George had said heartily. ‘I must go. Have a good day, you two. What are you planning to do?’
‘Ar
t galleries,’ Bridget had said mournfully. ‘If we’re up to it. Never you fret about us, honey. We’ll be just fine after a vat or so of black coffee. You go to your hospital now, and I’ll make it.’
‘Bye, Ma,’ George had bent to kiss her mother’s soft cheek, as wrinkled and fragrant as a winter apple. ‘You all OK now? Not worried any more?’
‘Hmm?’ Vanny had said, blinking up at her. ‘What was that, honey?’
‘Not worried any more the way you were this morning when you woke up?’ George said.
Vanny looked up bemused. ‘Woke up? Well, of course I did! I’m here now, amn’t I? Yes, I woke up. Goodbye dear. Have a nice day.’ And again she put up her face to be kissed and then trotted over to Bridget’s side to help her squeeze oranges in George’s special juicer.
No, she told herself now as she hurried over Tower Bridge, feeling the sharp bite of the wind coming up river from the Estuary on her right cheek. I’m fretting over nothing. She just had a dream and went wandering — and had too much wine last night. Didn’t she? That was all it was. It wasn’t anything to do with being ill.
But she didn’t believe herself. Not really.
Any lingering thoughts she might have had about Vanny were banished as she hurried up Garland Street to reach the main entrance of Old East. Often she went up along the High Road to get to the back entrance of her path. lab; today, however, she wanted to pick up some paperwork which had been kept for her at the Medical School Porter’s Lodge. But she stopped short as she came within a hundred yards or so of the gates.
For all it was still only a quarter to nine, the street was jammed with people and there was a great honking of horns as vehicles, held back by the crowd, tried to push their way through to the High Road. No one would budge for them, though, and many people were just shouting and jeering back, even at ambulances. The noise really hit George hard now, because she had been so absorbed in her own thoughts she’d paid no attention to it hitherto. There were always noises around this part of London; traffic and street stallholders and kids bawling; now she realized that this noise was of a different order and a rather ugly one.
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