Chapter 49
LENA
The sky is limpid and the sun creates a dreamlike shimmer on the horizon as I drive home from meeting Oliver.
By the sound of it, Simone hasn’t changed.
Oliver and I had spent several hours talking over what her radio silence might mean, and when we left things, he still wasn’t sure whether going to the police might put her in more danger.
He hugged me goodbye as he said he’d let me know what he plans to do and made me promise to leave it to him.
I’m sickened to hear that she’s using Natalie Grant’s name.
That poor girl. Her terrified face will be etched in my memory for ever.
The day she died was the beginning of the end for my midwifery career.
It was when I first suspected what Simone and Hugh Warrington were up to, but even they couldn’t have known that Natalie had an undiagnosed heart condition.
She suffered a cardiac arrest just hours after giving birth.
I wasn’t in the room when it happened, but I was devastated when I heard about it.
Natalie’s mum was left to care for the little boy, and even now, all these years later, and especially since having a child of my own, the thought of it brings me to tears.
Natalie’s death wasn’t enough to put them off, though, and I can just imagine them trying to convince themselves that they weren’t at fault because they hadn’t known about her heart condition.
Yet if they’d paid more attention to Natalie and her vital signs, instead of wondering how they could siphon off the medication, if they’d been watching her more closely, seen her unnatural pallor, her breathlessness and long early labour, the swelling in her hands, they might have been able to save her.
Simone was an experienced midwife and Hugh Warrington a doctor with nearly fifteen years’ experience.
I never forgave them. I read in the newspapers that he was also found guilty of prescription fraud.
My biggest regret is not having informed a senior member of staff when I first spotted it, but I was terrified I wouldn’t be believed over someone as eminent as the godlike Dr Hugh Warrington.
I’d started watching them more closely after Natalie died, but they were clever and secretive, and I noticed that I was rarely put on a shift with them.
I think Simone suspected I knew something because she continued to keep me close, hanging out with me in our spare time whenever she could.
Dan’s comments about her being involved in some hospital scam kept running through my mind.
I was convinced about the drug fraud but I had no proof.
I remember the night I told Oliver my suspicions about Simone.
We were spending the weekend together in Manchester.
By this time, I was detaching myself from Simone.
Every time she tried to arrange a night out I’d say I was busy, and I tried to avoid her at the end of our shift so that I could get the bus back on my own.
It was a Sunday in the middle of February when the grey days and dark nights blended into one another.
I’d been putting off telling Oliver all weekend, but it had weighed so heavily on me that he’d asked me a number of times what was wrong.
We were in his room and I was packing my bag, ready to catch the train home, when I eventually told him.
I’ll never forget the look on his face. Utter disbelief and judgement.
‘Why would you say that about my sister?’ he’d snapped.
‘There’s no way she’d do that! It’s illegal.
You can’t go around accusing her of stealing drugs from the ward and neglecting her patients.
You’ll ruin her career. She could go to prison.
’ I’d never seen him so angry. His eyes were like pools of black ink in his colourless face.
He called me a troublemaker. A liar. He kicked a chair over and thumped his fist on his desk.
One of his housemates knocked on the door to make sure everything was okay.
I’d taken that opportunity to grab my coat and bag and leave.
He’d never tried to call me after that. Not even when, six months later, Simone and Hugh Warrington were charged with various offences relating to theft, possession and intent to supply controlled substances.
I’d been glad to leave London and get away from both of them, despite my heartbreak over Oliver.
I spent a few aimless years in East Sussex working in retail and learning to touch-type, which I hated.
I eventually moved to Bristol after visiting my old housemate Kerrie, who was doing a PhD at the university and falling in love with the city.
I was working in a shop when I met Charlie and was happy to give it all up to follow him and his career.
After all, it wasn’t like I had one of my own.
When I arrive home I notice that Henry’s car isn’t parked in its usual spot.
I’m relieved. I dread bumping into him after the way he talked to me in the street.
As soon as I let myself through the front door Phoenix comes rushing out to greet me, his whole backside wagging, happy to see a friendly face.
I bend down to make a fuss of him, then go upstairs to empty Rufus’s laundry basket.
As I’m tipping the contents onto the floor my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Jo.
Hey, lovely. Is it okay for Paul to come over later to finally install that camera in your garden? He’s been working away from home a lot this week or he’d have been over before. I’ll come too and you can tell me how it went with Oliver today xx
Yes, please. That would be amazing, I reply.
Great. 7 p.m. okay?
Perfect.
My mood instantly lifts at the thought of seeing Jo and Paul and not spending the evening alone, as I’d envisaged. A camera in my back garden will give me peace of mind.
I place the phone next to me on the floor as I continue going through Rufus’s clothes.
I root inside the pockets of his jeans. Mostly the odd tissue and ticket stub from the gigs he’s been to with Charlie.
And then my fingers brush against something crisp, with a jagged edge.
As I pull it out I feel a throb of pain to my finger.
It’s a newspaper cutting, folded up small, the edge slicing the fleshy part of my finger.
I suck it, tasting blood, and then, with the other hand, I peel open the cutting and lay it out flat on Rufus’s carpet.
I read the headline and a wave of nausea washes over me.
BABY FOUND ON HOSPITAL STEPS
This was one of the articles pinned to the Morgans’ wall, although I’d only been able to see part of the headline as it had been hidden by the other newspaper cuttings.
My eyes dart over the next few paragraphs, words popping out at me.
St Calvert’s. Newborn baby found on 22 February 1999.
Abandoned. Cardboard box. Nurse. Simone Harvey.
That was my last week of training before I left my course.
I scan the piece again. My name isn’t mentioned.
I was only talking to Oliver about this earlier.
I remember him telling me about a journalist contacting him.
I check the top of the newspaper and see that it’s dated a few days after the baby was found.
For a moment, sitting there slumped against Rufus’s bed, I experience a strange, disconnected out-of-body feeling. The room swims and I have to blink a few times to anchor myself to the here and now. Why has Rufus got this?
And then something so horrific occurs to me that I’m struck by a sudden wave of nausea.
Was it Rufus I saw breaking into the Morgans’ house the night I was there?
The hooded figure had gone into the room with all the newspaper articles.
Joan’s spare key is missing from my drawer.
Did Rufus take it? Confusion makes me feel dizzy.
But I had the key that night. The person I saw broke in another way.
It can’t have been Rufus. He’s a good boy.
He’d never think of breaking into someone’s home.
And what would be his motive? It makes no sense.
But, then, nothing about any of this makes sense. Nothing at all.