BRONAGH LOOKS ACROSS THE café. “There’s Paula.” She sounds relieved. “I’d best be getting back upstairs.”
I look in the direction of her gaze. Paula, the nurse who’d been so stressy about David that day, is coming toward us. “Do you know Paula well?” I ask.
“Sure, she’s a grand girl. Why?”
“There’s no chance she could have swapped David and Theo, is there?”
Even as I say it, I know how desperate it sounds. Bronagh looks at me askance. “And why in God’s name would she do that?”
I can’t answer. My suspicions, which had sounded so logical when I was listing them to Pete, now just seem silly and melodramatic. “I don’t know,” I say helplessly. “Because she could?”
“Look,” Bronagh says patiently. “First, she’s not a nutter, any more than I am. Second, if a NICU nurse was going to go crazy and start playing God, they wouldn’t do it by swapping babies around. A simple DNA test, and it would all come out. No—what happened to Theo and David was a tragic mistake in a busy, understaffed ward.” She lowers her voice. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, given that you’re suing the place. But there were five admissions that day—that’s almost double the norm. Every one an emergency. And we were down two nurses, what with the winter vomiting bug that was going around. Everyone knows that’s the kind of environment where mistakes get made. And if that isn’t mentioned in the case report—well, someone’s trying to buff something, because it should be.”
Paula’s reached our table now. “Coming up?” she asks Bronagh. “Or are you busy?”
“Remember Theo Riley’s mum?” Bronagh says, indicating me. “We were just chatting.”
Paula looks no more pleased to see me than she did two years ago. “Oh, right. Well, it’s almost handover, so…”
“Sure.” Bronagh stands up.
“Wait,” I say quickly. “I’ve got a question for you, Paula. That first day, when David and Theo got swapped, were either of the Lamberts around?”
Wariness flashes across Paula’s face. “I’ve already told the hospital investigators everything I remember.”
“I’m sure. But it might help if you could tell me, too.”
Paula shrugs. “Mrs. Lambert got here a couple of hours after the babies were admitted. I’d been given David to look after—I was just setting things up for him when she arrived. That’s when I realized no one had thought to put a tag on him.” Paula glances at Bronagh. “It didn’t occur to me to check with Bron, to see if hers had no tag, too. Why would I? I just typed his details into our software.” Her voice catches, and for a moment I think she might be going to cry. “I’m so sorry. It must have caused you so much heartbreak. But I really think it was just a freak accident.”
I feel my shoulders sag. If the Lamberts had arrived too late to be responsible for the swap, and it was neither of the nurses, I can see why the finger of suspicion keeps coming back to Pete.
“Besides, I won’t forget them in a hurry,” Paula says. “The Lamberts, I mean.”
My ears prick up. “Why’s that?”
“He was a cold fish. Both of them were. You get used to the way people react when they first come onto the NICU—the shock, I mean, and the worry. You could tell she was anxious, but with him it was like he was being given a guided tour—as if it was interesting, but nothing personal.” She stops. “I remember looking over and seeing your partner, Pete, by Bronagh’s station. He was sobbing his eyes out. And why not? A lot of men do that, particularly when they think no one’s looking. You’ve just become a father, maybe a whole couple of months before you thought you would, and suddenly you’re on a ward like ours, being told your baby might not live. I remember turning back to my incubator and seeing Mr. Lambert. He was watching your partner, too. Studying him, is the only way I can describe it. Like he was fascinated, but also a bit puzzled. And then he looked at his wife and said, ‘Well, I’d better get back to my desk.’ As if he’d just popped out to get a sandwich. And she only nodded, as if that was totally normal, too.”
80
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 43. Texts from Bronagh Walsh to Peter Riley. Peter Riley’s iPhone was in police custody at the time.