Playing Nice
“But why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. But for example, what if he planned to sue the hospital all along? What if it was all some giant moneymaking scheme? After all, he knew he’d be able to use a DNA test to get his own child back whenever he wanted. He just had to make sure he exposed the swap before the children were three years old and we’d acquired parental rights.”
Pete stares at me. “But no one, surely…He would have to be a—a—”
“A psychopath? But I think that’s exactly what Miles Lambert is. I’ve been reading up about it online. A while back, people used to think psychopaths were all chaotic, disorganized murderers, because those were the ones who ended up in prison and got studied. But there’s mounting evidence that many successful CEOs and politicians are actually psychopaths, too; or at least, fall somewhere on the psychopathic spectrum—that is, they score low on tests for remorse, conscience, and moral judgment, and high for fearlessness, quick thinking, and cold-bloodedness. And there are certain psychopathic traits that we know Miles has. Something called shallow affect, for example—having a very limited range of emotions. Getting bored easily. Impulsiveness. Charm. Not really caring about other people’s feelings, except as a tool to manipulate them by. Having very few long-term friends. Seeing life as a contest where, for you to win, others have to lose. And treating your children as trophies, flattering extensions of yourself.”
Pete has been nodding at each point, but now he stops. “The flaw in your theory is that Miles is already stinking rich. Why go to all that trouble, if they don’t need the money?”
“I don’t know. Because he can? Because he enjoys the game? Or maybe they’re not as rich as they look. The mortgage on that house must be millions.” I snap my fingers. “Lucy said something about him not having many friends since he left Hardings and set up on his own. Hardings is an investment bank, isn’t it? Presumably he earned a fortune there. Maybe now he’s losing a fortune instead.”
“That theory depends on him having left Hardings by the time he made the swap,” Pete points out.
“Which he hadn’t,” I say, instantly deflated. “I’m pretty sure Lucy also said something back in the NICU, about him getting fired if he spent too long away from his desk.”
“But that’s interesting in itself, isn’t it?” Pete’s frowning. “If, back then, he was going through some kind of crisis at work—maybe was right on the verge of getting pushed out—swapping the babies might have seemed like a way out of his problems. He couldn’t know he’d end up with a disabled child, of course, and a correspondingly high payout, but he’d know the odds were pretty high.”
“Well, that’s something we can investigate, then,” I say, making a note. “Whether he was in trouble at work.”
Pete nods slowly. “Okay. So Miles is suspect number one. Who else?”
“Lucy. Can you remember when she first turned up in the NICU?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think I noticed her at all. Not until she came over to chat to you that day. It was such a blur before then.”
“She was definitely around before I was—she told me she’d had a natural birth, rather than a C-section like me. So it seems likely she’d have arrived pretty soon after the babies did.”
“But whatever we might think about Miles, Lucy definitely isn’t a psychopath,” Pete says. “And she of all people had no reason to swap a premature but reasonably healthy baby for one with a high likelihood of disability.”
“True. But we can’t altogether rule her out.”
“All right. And next? You said five possibilities in all.”
“Bronagh,” I say slowly. “I think it’s possible that it was Bronagh who swapped them.”
76
MADDIE
“NO.” PETE SHAKES HIS head. “No way. No.”
“Hear me out,” I insist. “It was that article in the Mail that got me thinking—that so-called expert saying this might be a case of hero syndrome? I looked it up. It’s a bullshit phrase—it’s not even officially recognized by psychiatrists. But what is true is that, in the caregiving professions, there are a small but significant number of people who deliberately cause crises, either because they enjoy the feeling of power over life and death it gives them, or because they feed on the admiration they get when they sort the crisis out.”
“That sounds like some terrible late-night documentary,” he scoffs. “Nurses Who Kill.”
“That’s because some nurses do kill. Statistically, they’re the most prolific serial killers there are. There was one in Germany who killed ninety-nine people, for God’s sake. Another in Italy was accused of murdering over eighty. And an unusually high proportion of killer nurses work in pediatrics. There’s even a case going through the courts right now—a neonatal nurse who was regarded as brilliant, dedicated, devoted to her job, and who helped organize the fundraising appeal for a new five-million-pound baby unit. Does that sound familiar?”
Pete stares at me.
“Often, they only come under suspicion because someone spots a pattern of abnormally high death rates,” I add. “St. Alexander’s has been downgraded from a Level Three to a Level Two for exactly that reason, yes?”
“Yes,” he says. He sounds stunned. “But not Bronagh. She saved Theo’s life on a daily basis, Mads. She got his heart going when it stopped—”
“And didn’t we all admire her for it?”
He grimaces. “But why swap them? It’s one thing to say a nurse might do something for attention, but none of the ones you mentioned swapped babies around, did they?”
“True,” I admit. “But maybe Bronagh liked having a certain sort of baby in her care. After all, Theo was relatively easy to look after.” I hesitate. “And Theo had you.”
“That is ridiculous.” He doesn’t meet my eye. “For that matter, it could just as easily have been that other nurse—the grumpy one. What was her name? Paula.”
“Also true. And in fact, there was a strange incident with her, when I pointed out that David’s arterial line was loose. Which is why Paula is number four on my list.”
“And five? Who’s number five?”
“Number five is you, Pete,” I say softly. “You’re my final suspect.”
He sighs despairingly. “Not this—”
“Because I can’t rule you out, can I?” I continue. “I don’t believe you’d want someone else’s baby just because it was healthier than ours. But you knew what I was thinking that day—that our baby was going to die. You knew how badly I was taking it. And you knew I’d had mental health issues in the past. I think you might be capable of doing something like that to protect me.” I hesitate. “And, for that matter, to protect us. Because our lives would have been very different if we’d had David instead of Theo, wouldn’t they? We wouldn’t have had Miles and Lucy’s resources to cushion the blow of his disability. And the brutal truth is, relationships do often break down in circumstances like those. So let’s face facts. However unthinkable it is, however unlike you it may seem, you did have a motive to take Theo that day.”