The Touch of Innocents (19 page)

‘You’re not going to tell me that the Coroner is Paul Devereux’s brother-in-law, are you?’

‘Not as far as I know, but somebody is panicking.’

‘You have the evidence?’

‘That’s the point, Izzy. All the evidence is being removed. The baby’s body. They are trying to get rid of you. And they succeeded in getting rid of Katti.’

Izzy froze. Her head lifted, eyes red.

‘Katti did begin making the enquiries she
promised you, but before she was able to find the answers she disappeared. Or rather, was removed. After leaving the Coroner’s I called up the social services.’ He smiled an artful smile. ‘I have inside influence. A young lady. Former close companion. Blonde, no brains, just my type.’ He was goading her.

‘We were discussing Katti.’

‘You told me she promised on Wednesday afternoon to start making enquiries. She did. Coroner’s Office acknowledged as much. And by Monday morning she was out of the country.’

He watched as will-power alone dried the tears and forced the sparkle back into her remarkable emerald eyes. She ran a hand through her hair; it sprang back into order, back on parade. With reluctance, Daniel removed his arm from around her before continuing.

‘They discovered something wrong with her work permit. Technically it made her an illegal immigrant, so they gave her a choice. Leave the country voluntarily for a couple of months while the problem was sorted out, or be deported and never allowed back in again.’

‘But why have they been giving me the runaround? Why hush it up?’

‘Be embarrassing for an official agency to be seen employing illegal immigrants.’

‘The Establishment closing ranks.’

‘Someone’s running scared, Izzy. Someone with a hell of a lot of influence.’

‘Paul Devereux.’ Her voice was soft, no more than a whisper. She picked up Benjy and wrapped him protectively in her arms, ‘Once you start a cover-up, that cover-up in turn has to be covered up, and so on. He covers up for his daughter, then he has to cover up for himself. It never stops, Daniel. And if
the baby who died wasn’t Bella, who was she? And how did she die? Someone out there must be pretty desperate. I’m already in their sights, Benjy too. You’ll be next on the list.’

‘Too late. They fired me this morning.’

‘You’re not serious,’ she blurted.

He was.

‘No worries,’ he smiled. ‘The
Wessex Chronicle
was never going to be more than a minor stepping stone on the way, so now I’ve been able to jump it considerably faster than I thought.’

‘You sure?’

‘Think of it this way. You want me, you got me. Exclusive and full time.’

He wanted her, suddenly she knew it without any doubt. It caused her alarm, confused her, invigorated her. There was no room in her life for complications, her emotions were still too raw to be exposed and, anyway, he was almost ten years younger. And he was exactly what she needed to restore her sense of self.

‘So what’s next in my life, Miss Dean?’

‘Next, Danny Blackheart, is to get you as quickly as possible to Accident & Emergency.’

A&E was modern, well equipped and beplaqued as befitted a facility opened less than a year before by a minor scion of Royalty, and, on this occasion at least, quiet. No more than a split thumb from a nearby building site and a mild concussion from the local school sports field. The duty sister, on being told of Izzy’s history, welcomed them with warmth and a cup of tea, while Benjy quickly became distracted in a wrestling match with a sizeable stuffed panda.

‘Take me through what would have happened to me and my children that night.’

‘You would have been brought here by ambulance, we would have been expecting you. So no waiting around here in the reception area with the grazed knees and sprained wrists, straight through for examination. Either in one of the cubicles or in the emergency room.’

‘Which one in my case?’

‘Depends. If there were no obvious signs of serious physical damage, no heart failure or the like, probably in one of the cubicles here.’ She indicated a row of compartments, separated from the reception area by no more than a curtain.

‘And my children?’

‘Little Benjy was unharmed, you say? Well, probably we would have kept him out of the way, occupied him with toys in the waiting room like he is now. In the case of your baby, she would have been examined immediately, along with you. Look, if it’s important, I think one of my nurses was on nights then, might remember much more than I can tell you. Would you like to talk with her?’

And so Nurse Ali Duffin was introduced, a slender, composed young woman with eyes which cared and were shaped like almonds and a figure which many male patients had expressed themselves happy to die for. And who knew Daniel.

‘Hello, stranger.’ She offered a wary smile. ‘What brings you back into my life?’

Izzy sensed caution – genuine warmth, no hostility, but a guarded, almost professional approach to an old friend. There was a strong atmosphere of past pleasures and pains. Izzy suspected scar tissue.

Daniel offered both his hands, fleetingly accepted, and expressed his delight but offered no kiss. Definite scar tissue. ‘Ali and I were once very good friends,’ he explained to Izzy. ‘Way back. In London.’

‘Three and a half years,’ Ali added. ‘But who’s counting?’

‘I fouled things up.’

‘How are you, Danny? Fully recovered?’ She stepped back to run an approving eye over him, peeling layers of clothing off the body, admiring, reminiscing.

‘I’m fine. My only problem is that I never found a chance to thank you properly. I had no idea you were bumping around in the same town. Why?’

‘Got tired of London. Tired of living in debt and dirt. Watching too many of my friends jump in at the deep end and never come up. You know how it is, Danny.’

He turned to Izzy. ‘Ali helped me during a long illness a few years ago; she’ll always be very special to me.’

‘OK, enough Blackheart charm. I’ve seen it all before, remember?’ But the face had grown relaxed, the smile broader. She ushered them into the sister’s office.

‘I remember that night you came in rather well,’ Ali explained to Izzy. ‘It was hellish busy, there was not only your accident and the normal wear and tear of a Saturday night but also a cardiac arrest and some trouble with several Weekend Willies – drunken fans from a local football derby.’

‘So it was pretty confused?’

‘Very. Mind you, on a Saturday night it always is.’

‘Humour me, Ali,’ Daniel interjected. ‘Perhaps confused enough for the identities of two patients to be switched?’

She first looked startled at the question, then shook her head firmly. ‘No. We put on identity tags as soon as we start looking at patients. No chance of a mistake.’

‘But couldn’t someone deliberately switch the tags?’

‘Not really. The patient would have to be unconscious or delirious—’

‘Or babies,’ Izzy whispered.

‘And no one was going to go round cutting off ID tags and replacing them on that night of all nights. Not with policemen everywhere.’

‘Police?’

‘Place was swarming with them, what with your accident, the football match … There was even a burglar with a broken leg. That’s one of the reasons I remember the night so well, our local constables can be as much trouble as the patients.’

‘In what way?’

‘Always asking you to assist them with their enquiries. And you know the only enquiries men are interested in.’

Both women looked at Daniel, who responded with a passable impression of choirboy innocence. Except Izzy had never met a choirboy with an earring.

‘They’re incorrigible, Miss Dean. One tried to ask me out even while we were both in the car park trying to deal with the fire alarm. Trouble is, I was dumb enough to accept.’

‘The fire alarm?’ Daniel’s voice all but cracked as the words forced their way out.

‘Yes. One of the drunks activated the fire alarm and so we had to empty the department of non-emergency cases, just for a couple of minutes while we checked. It happened just as you arrived, actually.’

‘So much of A&E would have been left unattended?’

‘Not entirely, and the disturbance lasted only for
a couple of minutes. We discovered it was a false alarm even before we’d got all the non-emergencies out.’

Izzy closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the scene, patients wandering, confused, disorganized, the hard-pressed casualty staff doing their best to restore order from the chaos, attention distracted. Perhaps even before they had time to put on ID bracelets. Before Bella had been given an identity.

‘Ali, is it possible in the middle of the fire alarm that a patient could have been left alone, in one of the cubicles, while the nurse or doctor stepped out to discover what the commotion was all about?’

The nurse thought. ‘For seconds, perhaps. Not minutes. The whole thing was over so quickly.’

Both Daniel and Izzy sucked up the information, the possibility that in the confusion there had been a mistake, perhaps even a deliberate mistake. After all, it was far quicker to swap babies than it was ID bracelets. The work of seconds.

‘And do you remember my baby, Ali? What she looked like?’

‘No, I’m sorry, Miss Dean. Babies are the most difficult patients to remember. They all have the same tiny, unformed features which seem to stretch and change every five minutes, and I didn’t deal with your baby personally. As it happens I was dealing with another baby at the time and in all the confusion of that night I’m not sure I can even remember her.’.

The world had stopped.

‘There was another baby here? A baby girl?’ Both Daniel and Izzy seemed to compete to get the question out first.

‘Yes. The mother had dropped her and was terribly
anxious the baby might have suffered some damage, but she was perfectly fit. A quick check-up, then we let her go.’

‘No ID bracelet?’

‘No need. She wasn’t admitted.’

‘But she was here during the fire alarm? At the same time as me?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Ali, this is most important. Can you remember the mother’s name?’

‘No, I can’t. And anyway I’m not supposed to give out information about other patients.’

‘Come on, Ali.’ Daniel’s anguish was transparent. ‘This could be more important than anything I’ve ever asked of you. Anything.’

‘You’re serious.’

‘One hundred per cent.’

The nurse looked warily from one to the other, then back again. ‘Well, I don’t suppose names count strictly as medical records. Wait here a moment.’

She returned clutching a large manila envelope, from which she extracted its single sheet of paper.

‘Smith. The name was Smith. Just a surname for the baby, no mother’s name recorded.’

‘You’re kidding,’ Izzy protested. ‘Surely you can do better than that.’

Ali shrugged. ‘It happens. A lot. People not wanting to give their full names to casualty. Anyway, the baby wasn’t admitted, she received no treatment apart from a check-up. And in all that confusion … I’m sorry.’

Izzy and Daniel visibly shrank with disappointment.

‘All I have here is an address.’

‘An address will do very well, thank you.’ Izzy’s
hand trembled as she wrote down the details. Bilshay Crescent. ‘One last thing. Can you remember what she looked like?’

‘The baby? No.’

‘The mother.’

Ali wrinkled her face in concentration. ‘Young, I guess.’

‘Thin? Blonde?’

‘Mmm, think so. Why, do you know her?’

Izzy’s body felt consumed by fire, comprehension spilling like acid through her veins. Yes, she knew the mother. And she thought she knew how Bella had disappeared, unidentified, in the midst of the confusion.

How she might have been left with the wrong, dead child.

After all, which baby was which came down to no more than a matter of paperwork, of officialdom.

Of Paul Devereux.

Bilshay Crescent, when they found it, backed onto the river. It was part of a long corridor of Victorian houses which snaked along the contours of the river bank. Red brick, ornately tiled roof in the fashion of the previous century, flaking paint and small front garden which had received scant recent attention. A smell of damp. It was locked and dark, with no sign of life. Curtains drawn, impossible to see inside, a broken bell-pull. No one answered their repeated knocking. They found nothing but a small brass plate beside the bell-pull which they read with difficulty by the light of a distant street lamp. It declared they had arrived at the ‘Mission of Mercy’.

‘We’ll come back, in the morning. First thing,’ she said.

The restaurant was modest: tired cotton table cloths, a tang of fried garlic in the air. The sort of place Grubb would take his wife. Scarcely the sort of place he expected ET to choose while they discussed the future of the news operation. Maybe Hagi was trying to make a point about economies.

‘So long as that clown in the White House fails to squeeze any co-operation out of Congress, the economy’s going to keep on sliding south, dragging the dollar with it,’ the money man was explaining. Even by candlelight his face retained its unhealthy, unnatural cast. ‘This Administration’s an Enema Express. You understand the significance of that, Eldred.’