She had tears on her cheeks, which she flicked away angrily. “Let’s go.”
Outside, we lingered on the pavement, delaying the moment when I’d get in the car and she’d head for the Tube station. “Incredible,” I said, shaking my head. “Incredible. It’s like he’s brainwashed her.”
“I guess if you’re married to Miles Lambert, you have to give him your absolute loyalty,” Maddie said drily.
My phone pinged and I checked the screen. “Who’s that?” she asked.
“Greg, seeing if we can meet up. I’ll tell him no. I want to spend the morning researching CAFCASS.”
“Makes sense. I’ll see you tonight, then. Love you.”
“Love you,” I echoed.
She gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and was gone. I called after her, “Have a good day,” even though I knew that wasn’t possible, not with everything that was going on.
Then I lifted my phone and replied to the text from Bronagh.
52
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 26: deleted texts from Peter Riley’s iPhone, (a) from Bronagh Walsh to Peter Riley, and (b) from Peter Riley to Bronagh Walsh in reply.
Pete, it’s me. You probably don’t want to see me right now but I really need to see you. It’s all gone to s**te at St A’s and I’ve been suspended pending investigation. Can we meet? x
Just dropped Theo off, so I can do this morning. Say the Pret near Great Portland St station? At ten?
53
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Incident Report, submitted by Miles Lambert to CAFCASS as part of Applicants’ Supporting Documents bundle, pp 32–36.
The following day, the respondents brought Theo to our house to use our nanny and facilities as usual. In response to a comment from my wife that we should try to be civil to each other during the legal process, Mr. Riley’s response was to shout that she was “trying to take our son away from us,” and that our choice of school “wasn’t going to happen.” (8:47 A.M., captured on tape.) My wife offered them tea, which they forcefully declined.
54
PETE
“THAT JOB’S EVERYTHING TO me. Everything. Ah, shite. There goes my makeup, for the fifteenth time today.” Bronagh attempted to slide the tears out of her eyes with her knuckle.
“You’re good at it, too. I don’t know how we’d have gotten through those first weeks without you. What the hospital’s doing to you is just plain wrong.”
Bronagh looked at me fondly. “There you go, Pete. Always thinking of someone else. When what you’ve been through is ten times worse.”
I shrugged. “I was made redundant eighteen months ago. So I know what it’s like, thinking your bosses appreciate what you do, then discovering that actually they’ll kick you out without a second thought if it helps save their own skins.”
She nodded ruefully. “It’s like one of my friends always says—Love your job, but don’t expect it to love you back.”
I stirred my cappuccino. “But why have they suspended you? I mean, I get that they have to investigate what happened, but how does the finger of blame end up getting pointed at you? There were two babies, after all, and you were only responsible for one of them.” I was hoping Bronagh’s suspension wasn’t anything to do with me giving Miles her name, but since he seemed to have an almost magical ability to make things happen the way he wanted, perhaps it was. Or was I simply becoming paranoid about him?
“Sure, and they’ve suspended Paula, too.” Bronagh looked weary. “The thing is, they could have gone for any of us if they’d wanted. The first thing they did was run a security audit—comparing the number of tag-off incidents recorded by the system with the number each nurse had reported to Security. Well, surprise surprise, we didn’t always report them, even though every time a tag comes off you’re meant to initiate a lockdown, call Security, and check every single baby on the ward. If we did that, we’d never get any nursing done—a tag comes off almost every day, for Pete’s sake.” She smiled. “Sorry—not Pete’s sake, but you know what I mean. Prem babies are small and the tags are designed for regular-sized infants. Never mind that in this case, it wasn’t even a tag slipping off that was the problem—that would have meant two tags coming off at the exact same time on the exact same day, then somehow getting from one incubator to another, right across the unit, and why would that happen when it was two separate nurses dealing with those cots? This most likely