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 balance 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.”