Playing Nice
“But not opportunity,” Justin Watts said mildly.
I shook my head. “There were times while the doctors were rushing about when I was alone with both incubators. I wish there hadn’t been, but if that’s all they need to prove…” I’m done for, I wanted to say, but I knew how melodramatic that would sound and swallowed my words. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Well, luckily that isn’t all they have to prove.” Justin Watts picked up the report again. “This is ninety percent insinuation and ten percent balance of probability, which is very different from the standard of proof required in the criminal court. You may be asked to go to a police station to be interviewed under caution, but that’s as far as I’d expect it to go.” He paused. “You’ll want to engage a specialist criminal law solicitor to go with you, but if it does come to an interview, my strong advice would be to answer ‘no comment’ to every question. Currently, they’ve got nothing, and if you give them nothing else to work on, they’ll almost certainly shelve the whole thing.”
“ ‘No comment’? Isn’t that what guilty people say?” Maddie said disbelievingly.
“It’s what people who want to avoid charges say. Believe me, if you can stop this from turning into a criminal trial, you should.”
Criminal trial. Jesus, had it come to this? Was I going to stand in a court, in the dock, accused of deliberately snatching Theo? I couldn’t get my head around it.
And all because Miles Lambert had walked into our lives. If he hadn’t persuaded me to sue the hospital, none of this would have happened.
“Of course,” Justin Watts was saying, “a cynic might be tempted to believe that NHS Resolution would prefer this to be a criminal matter, rather than negligence, because it gets them off the hook financially. But nevertheless, the police will have to investigate the allegation on its merits.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Do you mean that if the NHS succeeds in muddying the waters, they might not have to pay us anything?”
Justin Watts shrugged. “It will certainly put them in a stronger negotiating position. And as they point out in their final paragraph, if either you or the Lamberts were aware of the abduction, it follows that one of you is committing fraud.”
Maddie and I exchanged a startled glance.
“I’m afraid it also calls into question the basis of our relationship,” he added. “You’ll recall that the Conditional Fee Arrangement is tied to us having a reasonable likelihood of winning. If circumstances change, we have to get a second opinion. And there’s no doubt that this allegation does change things substantially.”
“What?” I stared at him. “You might leave us in the lurch?”
“Not at all. But we’d have to start invoicing you for our time. And ask you to pay the costs incurred so far, of course.”
I put my head in my hands. “We’ve already remortgaged our house to pay for the family-law solicitor.”
“Ah.” Justin Watts made a note. Probably reminding himself to get a bill out to us ASAP, I realized, before we ran out of funds.
“What if we pull out?” I said desperately. “What if we just forget about this whole thing?”
“I definitely wouldn’t advise that,” he said. “If you withdraw now, you’ll have to pay all the other side’s costs as well as ours. And it might look like you’ve got something to hide when it comes to the criminal investigation.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Maddie said abruptly. She stood up. “You’re our lawyer, for fuck’s sake. You’re meant to be fighting for us. And instead all you bloody care about is how much money you can make out of us. Well, you won’t get a cent unless you come up with a plan for making this go away.” Her Australian accent, usually quite muted after almost three years in London, was as strident as I’d ever heard it. “Come on, Pete. Let’s leave this gutless limp-dick to it and go home.”
67
PETE
“ ‘GUTLESS LIMP-DICK’?” I whispered. “Where did that come from?”
We were pressed together in a crowded Jubilee Line carriage, either side of an upright bar.
“I dunno. My dad, I guess.”
“This is all shit, isn’t it?”
Maddie nodded. Without warning, she started to cry, silent fat tears that ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her collar. Awkwardly I reached around and hugged her, the bar still between us. Like embracing someone from inside a prison cell, I thought, even though of course it wasn’t. They don’t make prison cells like that anymore, except in movies.
* * *
—
THERE WAS SOMEONE WAITING outside our house—a young man. It was only when he headed rapidly toward us, his phone held out as if he was imploring us to answer it, that I realized who he was. Or rather, what. Journalists don’t use notebooks these days. They have recording apps on their phones instead.
“Kieran Keenan, Daily Mail. Is it true you stole a baby, Mr. Riley?”
“Go away,” I said irritably, pushing past him. At that moment a photographer jumped out from where he’d been hiding between two parked cars. He crouched down to get the classic shot, snap-snap-snap: the guilty party brushing off the journalist who’s asking difficult questions.
“Don’t you want to put your side of the story, Mr. Riley?” Kieran called after me.
I stopped and turned. “I know your editor,” I said disbelievingly. “Well, the travel editor, anyway.”
Snap-snap-snap. The photographer was making the most of this.
“I’ll give him your regards. What made you do it, Mr. Riley?”
Maddie had gotten the front door open and was already inside, waiting to slam it behind me. But something made me stay where I was, facing the reporter. God, he really was young. He must be an intern. “We didn’t do anything. Do your research. We’re not the bad guys in this.”
“So who is?” he pressed, but I realized I’d already said too much. I stepped in and Maddie slammed the door.
* * *
—
“THAT WAS DOWN TO Miles,” Maddie said flatly. “It must have been.”
I flopped into a chair. “Of course. His lawyer would have been sent a copy of that report as well. And Miles’s first thought would have been to ask himself how he could use it to his advantage. If people think we took Theo deliberately, they’ll think we definitely shouldn’t be allowed to keep him.”