* * *

—

SHE DOESN’T ADMIT IT. But she does allow herself to be taken to the café, where we find an empty table among all the young mummies with their buggies and lattes.

“I contacted Tania,” I tell her. “At first I thought it must have been her who sent it. So this morning I messaged her. She told me she’d had nothing to do with it. I’d already had my suspicions, but that’s when everything fell into place.”

“But why would it be me?” Lucy’s hand has gone to her collar to tug out her pearls. “Of course I wouldn’t do a thing like that. That day was horrible for me, absolutely horrible. Miles said I was lucky not to be charged with contempt of court.”

“But that was a risk you were prepared to take, wasn’t it?” I reach across the table for her free hand, but she flinches away at the movement. “As for why you did it, that’s simple. You did it to protect Theo. You did it because you wanted to lose.”

* * *

—

THERE’S A LONG SILENCE. Lucy sits absolutely still, her eyes wide. “You can’t prove that,” she whispers.

“I don’t need to,” I say gently. “Don’t you see—I’m not accusing you of anything except loving your son. And wanting him to grow up in the best place possible. With the best father.” I indicate Pete, sitting quietly beside us. “Not Miles. Everyone at this table knows what Miles is, Lucy. You wanted Theo brought up by Pete and me. So he’d be safe.”

   Her silence tells me I’m right.

“After all,” I add, “it’s not the first time, is it? You’ve done it before. You did it two years ago, when you swapped them in the hospital.”

109

   MADDIE

   SHE CRIES THEN. BUT it seems to me they’re tears of relief, at least partly. Relief she has someone to share the secret with at last.

“You must think I’m so stupid,” she says, drying her eyes on a paper napkin from the jam jar on the table. “Not to have realized before I married him that he has a…that he can be quite demanding. But it was all so quick, you see, and I was head-over-heels in love.”

She describes those early days to us, and it’s almost exactly what Annette predicted. The love-bombing that swept her off her feet—showering her with attention, with compliments, with charm. The proposal of marriage that came within weeks; the wedding that took place within months; the pregnancy that started soon after. The private maternity hospital, because nothing was too good for their child. And then the shock of premature birth—going into labor at twenty-nine weeks, as she did Pilates one morning.

   “The obstetrician diagnosed something called cervical incompetence. It was rather unfortunate it was called that, actually. Because it made it clear that even the doctors thought it was my fault. I mean, not deliberately, nobody accused me of that. But it was my body that had been so useless. And there was absolutely nothing that could be done—the baby was on its way, and it couldn’t go back in. And Miles…” She hesitates, then says quietly, “I’ll never forget that moment. He took my hand and bent down so he could whisper in my ear. I expect the nurses thought he was saying something encouraging, to help with the contractions. But his voice—well, he just went still. That’s what I call them—Miles’s stillnesses. I’m used to them now, of course, as much as anyone can be, but that was the first time. He said…” She blinks back tears and swallows hard. “He said, ‘If you’ve killed my son, I swear I’ll kill you.’ ”

She lets me put my hand over hers now. I squeeze reassuringly, but say nothing.

“I suppose I’d started to realize by then anyway. I mean, he’d been so distant all through the pregnancy. Like he didn’t need to bother with me anymore. As if everything before had been a massive effort, and now the job was done he could stop pretending. I mean, I’m sure he’d tried to love me, but when I didn’t measure up, he started to ignore me instead.”

She falls silent, remembering.

“And the baby was sent to the NICU,” I say.

“Yes.” She glances at Pete. “Where almost the first thing I saw was Pete, crying for his baby. I thought—well, that’s normal, isn’t it? That’s what a real father would do. I suppose I envied my child the life that baby was going to have. And then a few minutes later this grumpy nurse—Paula—marched up to the mobile incubators and said, ‘Which one’s David Lambert? This one?’ And I—I nodded, even though she was pointing to the wrong cot. So she wheeled it away, across the ward, and I followed her. It was a moment of madness. I didn’t even think it would last, not to begin with—I thought any second the mix-up would be discovered, and my little fantasy would be over. But then, when Paula was off getting something, I looked down and saw a paper tag in the cot as well, lying loose. So I pocketed it.”

   “And David became Theo,” I say softly. “Safely stowed inside another family.”

She nods. “How did you guess that’s what happened?”

I hold her gaze. It’s important she understands this, that she doesn’t feel entirely alone. “Because I felt the exact same thing. Not back then, in the NICU. It was when Miles first made his move on Theo and David, and I decided we had to fight for David, too. It was crazy on so many levels, but it wasn’t something I thought through rationally. I just knew.”

I’m so rarely maternal, I hadn’t recognized it at first—not until Judge Wakefield was making it clear that, having won Theo, there was little point in pursuing our claim for David. I’d looked across at Lucy, wiping away tears of relief, and thought, At least he’s loved. And I’d realized that my desire to fight for David had been, at root, pure instinct—the overwhelming, urgent need to protect my son from Miles.

It was only last night, talking to Pete in the darkness, that I’d finally made the connection. If I’d felt that way, what were the chances Theo’s mother had, too?

Lucy’s saying, “Of course, I didn’t know the one I’d taken was brain-damaged, not at first. It was several days before the doctors found that out. When they told us—well, I accepted it as my due. I was pleased for you, actually. I thought, I might have done an unforgivable thing, but at least they got a baby that’s healthy. And I could love David, I knew I could. Perhaps even more than you might have. Because I had no one else, you see. Miles had absolutely no interest in either of us. The child was a failure and I was a failure and that was all there was to it. I mean, he put on a good show of being a caring father when it suited him, but when we were alone…” She pauses. “He can be quite cutting,” she finishes with vague understatement.