As I walk through the entrance of Southwark St Martin’s, a strange sensation creeps over me. Nothing has changed; there’s the same multicoloured seating and soft play area off to my right, the League of Friends’ coffee shop to my left. It’s as though time has stood still since I was last here, walking these corridors, fear and tension eating me up inside. First Ben, and now Finn. He’s not my child, of course; it’s not the same. But there’s a familiar knot in my stomach, regardless, the relic of an emotion that has lain dormant within me, waiting for the next emergency to strike.
I turn the corner to the ICU and press the buzzer. A voice sounds over the intercom.
‘I’m here about Finn Stephens,’ I say.
There’s a palpable silence before the voice asks, ‘Are you a relative?’
‘No,’ I admit. ‘I’m a solicitor. I’d like to talk to someone about him.’
There’s a muffled sound and the intercom goes dead. A moment later the voice says, ‘I’m sorry, but he’s no longer with us.’
My heart stops. ‘What? What do you mean?’
‘I... I can’t tell you anything,’ the voice says. ‘Unless you’re a relative, I’m afraid I really can’t talk to you.’
The knot in my gut tightens as I walk back down the corridor to the main foyer and follow the signs to the hospital administration department. A receptionist tells me that someone will be out to speak to me shortly and asks me to take a seat. I sit in the waiting area for the best part of an hour, turning everything over in my mind. Has the worst happened? Has Finn finally lost his battle for life – has the damage to his little heart and kidneys proved too much, were they no longer able to keep him alive?
A door opens and a plump, green-eyed woman in her late fifties walks over to sit down beside me. ‘I’m Marion Southgate, head of administration,’ she says. Her voice is cool and officious. She’s been told there’s a solicitor waiting to see her and is on the defensive already, I can tell. A solicitor in a hospital; someone’s looking to sue. That’s what she’s thinking, no doubt.
I pull out my identity card and hand it to her. She glances at it briefly, turning it over in her hand.
‘My secretary has explained why you’re here,’ she says. ‘But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to help you. Data protection, you see. We can’t reveal information about minors.’
I look up at her and frown. ‘Not even to tell me if they’re dead or alive?’
‘Unfortunately, no, not unless you’re a relative of the patient.’
I sigh, feeling my shoulders sag.
‘Is there anything else?’ she asks. She shifts in her seat, looking as though she’s about to get up.
‘Yes.’ I nod, quickly. ‘I’m investigating the events that led to Finn being taken back to the ICU on the twenty-fifth of July. I need to talk to any members of staff who were working on Peregrine Ward that night, the night that his dialysis line was tampered with. One of the key witnesses for the prosecution – a nurse named Mary Ngombe – has disappeared. I’m hoping someone might be able to tell me how I can track her down.’
The woman hands my ID card back to me and shakes her head.
‘She’s not a staff member. We wouldn’t keep a record. I’ve already told the police that.’
‘OK. But one of your staff members might know where she is. Your website says that you have at least six to seven nurses plus a number of doctors working each shift. There was a change of shift from “lates” to “nights” at the time it happened, which means that there are potentially some twelve or more witnesses who might have seen something. The police have taken statements from four of them, but that’s all. I need to speak to the rest. I’d like to go onto the ward.’
She shakes her head. ‘I can’t allow you to do that, I’m afraid. We can’t have random strangers walking round our hospital wards.’
I frown and look up at her. ‘I’m not a stranger. I’ve just told you who I am. You’ve seen my ID.’
‘Sorry. It’s against hospital policy.’
‘Then can you get me a list?’ I say. ‘Of all the staff members who were working on Peregrine Ward that night, on the twenty-fifth of July.’
‘Again, data protection,’ she says.
‘What?’ I peer into her face. ‘What data are you protecting?’
‘I can’t give out confidential information about staff.’
‘How is it confidential?’ I say, annoyed. ‘I just want you to tell me who was working that night.’
She stands up. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. It’s against hospital policy. You’ll have to go through the police.’
I jump to my feet. ‘But that’s my point,’ I snap. ‘That’s why I’m here. The police haven’t talked to everyone who was working that night. They haven’t taken all the statements that they could have done.’
She gives me a pointed look. ‘Well then, maybe no one else saw anything, maybe they couldn’t help. And I’m sorry, but neither can I. There’s nothing more that I can do.’
She starts to walk away.
‘Wait. What about the CCTV?’ I call after her. ‘Can you show me that at least? I’m entitled to see it.’
She shakes her head. ‘Like I said already, you’ll have to go through the police.’
‘I’ve tried. But it hasn’t been forthcoming. The police are dragging their heels.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘But there’s nothing else I can do.’
I stare after her for a moment as she walks away, enters her office and shuts the door. I feel like running after her, banging on the door with my fists, demanding to know why she’s being so obstructive. Is it because she takes pleasure in being so ridiculously high-handed? Or is it because someone at the hospital has something to hide?
Instead, I push my hands into my pockets and head back towards the main doors. I’ll speak to Will. We’ll make an application to the judge, I tell myself – force disclosure of the CCTV. It’s not fair on Ellie that we’ve waited this long. It’s only a matter of weeks until the trial and we still haven’t had a chance to view it for ourselves, to see who entered the ward that night, to properly prepare her defence. As I approach the exit and see the sliding doors into the car park up ahead of me, I resolve to put this plan into action first thing tomorrow, as soon as I get into the office. But then, before I’ve realised what I’m doing, I’m walking back down the corridor in the opposite direction, following the signs to the wards, or more specifically, to Peregrine Ward.
I stop outside and look up. There’s a sign across the top of the door that bears the name of the ward with a child-like picture of a falcon. On the upper wall, either side of the sign, is a camera, which is pointing down at the double doors. Like the doors to the ICU, they’re solid, without windows. I scratch my head. It’s unlikely that there would be cameras inside the ward, but it would be useful to know.
I step aside as a nurse approaches the door. She bows her head slightly, tugging at the lanyard round her neck and flashing it at a keypad to the right of the door. The door clicks and buzzes open and the nurse steps inside. I watch for a moment as the door swings shut again, an idea forming in my mind.
I back away down a corridor to my right, looking up at the ceiling for cameras. There are none. I continue to walk, slowly backwards, my eye on the entrance to the ward. After a few minutes I see what I’m looking for: a young couple approaches the doors from the corridor to my left. The woman is carrying a polystyrene coffee cup in each hand, the man carrying a baby’s car seat. Go, I tell myself. Now.
I stride forwards, watching as the man leans down and presses a buzzer. ‘We’re Jake Quinn’s parents,’ I hear him say into the intercom. A second later there’s a click and a buzz. I move quickly, catching up with the couple just as the door opens. The man holds it open for the woman with his elbow as he manoeuvres the car seat through. I grab and hold it for him and we exchange smiles as I tailgate him through and onto the ward.
Inside, it’s brightly lit. A colourful mural of an underwater scene with painted fish, shells and mermaids snakes the curved wall from the doors up to the nurses’ station. A nurse looks up, briefly, from a distance. I smile and nod at her, then move purposefully into the room to my left, trying to appear as though I know where I’m going, as if I’ve been here before.
I glance up briefly as I enter the room. I can’t see any cameras, but the sign above the door tells me that this is Room One. I realise suddenly that this is the room that Finn was in on the twenty-fifth of July; I remember this from the statement of Brooke Allen, the nurse who first found him lying bleeding in his cot and raised the alarm. I recognise the layout of the room from the description in her statement – there’s the washbasin on the wall to my right; there’s a cot next to it and there’s the one that Finn was in, over by the window. My own blood chills as I visualise the scene: the pool of blood on the white vinyl floor beneath the cot, the panic-stricken faces of the nurses, the noise and commotion as the doctors come running in, dressed in scrubs, one of them turning over the bleeding baby, pressing the defibrillator pads to his chest and barking orders, whilst another tries to stem the flow of blood.
I glance around the room for a moment, taking in the size of it, the distance from the cot to the window, the space around the bed. I recall that the nurse described the camp bed as being between the cot and the window; I walk over and measure the distance in my head. It’s only a couple of feet. It would have been a squeeze to get past the camp bed to the baby. The dialysis machine must have been round the other side and whoever removed the tube must have been standing on the opposite side of the cot. I don’t know if any of this information will be of use to me, but I take a mental snapshot. I’ve won more than one trial on the basis of a site visit, on the basis of information that I’ve gleaned from my presence at the scene – information that I wouldn’t have otherwise known.
A woman looks up from the side of the cot next to me, where her baby is sleeping. ‘Are you looking for someone?’ she asks.
I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s OK, I’ve just realised... I’m in the wrong room.’
I turn left outside and walk up past the nurses’ station. The ward is busy with parents pushing children in wheelchairs or walking with them up and down the corridors, holding their hands. Nobody notices me as I walk past the desk and enter the next room to my left, although as I do so, four little heads turn and look my way. I give the children a wave. A nurse walks in and goes over to one of the beds and draws a curtain. She turns as she sees me.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks.
I think quickly. ‘I’m here to visit my nephew,’ I say. ‘He’s...’ I nod my head out towards the door. ‘In the other room.’
‘Who’s your nephew?’ she asks.
I take a deep breath. ‘Jake Quinn,’ I say.
She nods and smiles. ‘He’s going home today, isn’t he?’
I nod. ‘Yes.’ Quick; change the subject. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Have you been working here long? On this ward?’
She looks up at me. ‘A month. Why?’
‘I’m looking for someone – a nurse who used to work here. She was here in July.’
The nurse shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m agency. Have you asked at the desk?’
‘No. I’ll try that. Thank you.’
I walk out of the room and up the corridor, away from the nurses’ station. There’s no way I’m going to just go up to the desk and start asking questions; it would be far too obvious that I’ve sneaked onto the ward. On the other hand, I’m not having too much luck so far. But I only need to find one nurse who’s willing to talk to me, I remind myself; just one. I’d then have a lead – someone who could give me names of other staff members, someone with whom I could leave my phone number and ask them to contact me.
I turn left again into the next room. There are two beds this time, the children both lying down, hooked up to dialysis machines, red lines of blood running out of their arms and into the equipment. The mother of one of the children, sitting beside her, looks up as I enter. I smile, ‘Sorry. Wrong room,’ before backing out again.
The next room I enter has four cots. Three of them are empty and an auxiliary nurse is changing the sheets. In one of the cots, near the window, I can see a young child, lying on his back. The nurse looks up. I smile and she smiles back. She’s young, petite, with long black hair tied back into a ponytail. She has a South-East Asian appearance, Indonesian or Malaysian maybe.
‘You come see Finn?’ she asks, in broken English, still smiling.
I look back at her, my heart rate quickening. ‘Finn?’ I repeat. ‘Did you say Finn?’
‘Yes.’ She nods over to the cot. ‘You come see him?’
I quickly mask my surprise. ‘Finn. Yes, that’s right.’
‘That good,’ she says, moving out of my way. She pulls a sad face. ‘He have no one here today. He too little to be all alone so long.’
I nod and walk over to the cot, glancing at the notes hanging on the end of his bed. I can see his name there, in black and white: Finn Stephens. It’s definitely him.
He’s still alive.
I feel elated. Of course, ‘he’s no longer with us’ didn’t have to mean that he was dead! On the contrary – it was good news. All they’d meant is that he was well enough to be moved out of the ICU.
As I bend over the cot, Finn opens his eyes. He’s sucking a dummy, the top of it tapping against the tube that’s sitting under his nose. I recognise his face from the photo on Ellie’s phone. He’s beautiful. His fair hair is almost white and his eyes are like Ellie’s: huge, a deep blue, framed by long lashes. He’s wearing a blue hospital gown with brown teddy bears dotted all over it, a standard issue white hospital blanket draped loosely over his legs. He turns his head and looks up at me solemnly as I lean over his cot and smile at him.
‘Hello, Finn,’ I say.
He continues to look up at me silently, sucking away at his dummy while his eyes move back and forth, studying my face. I reach over and pick up the blue bunny rabbit that’s near his head, noticing, as I do so, the faded brown mark that’s spread across its blue cotton tail. An uncomfortable image of how it got there springs into my mind: I suddenly see Finn lying there, dying, his mouth gaping open, his dummy falling, the colour draining from his cheeks as a crimson stain creeps its way slowly across the sheet.
I close my eyes tight to rid my mind of the image. I take a deep breath and open them again. Finn is still looking up at me, expectantly. His eyes shift and lock onto the rabbit. I waggle it around, make it dance a little and Finn’s mouth breaks into a smile.
He lifts his hand and takes his dummy out. With his other hand he points. ‘Wabbit,’ he says, the tube that’s sitting underneath his nostrils moving as he speaks. ‘Mine.’
I nod. ‘Your rabbit’s dancing.’
‘So who are you? Auntie?’ The nurse calls across the room as she watches us play.
‘That’s right,’ I lie. I suddenly remember why I’m here and seize my opportunity. ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ I ask her. ‘Have you worked here long?’
‘No. I just start this week.’
I nod, disappointed, and look back down at Finn. He smiles again as I waggle the rabbit about, then raises his arm and reaches for it. I put the bunny into his hand and he pulls it to his chest.
‘I leave you play,’ says the nurse and leaves the room.
I look back down at Finn. He reaches out his arm to me, handing me the rabbit back. ‘Again,’ he commands.
‘Sure. Your rabbit wants to dance again.’ I take the bunny from him. For a few moments I continue to waggle it around, making it play peek-a-boo from behind the blanket and sing ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, while Finn’s mild amusement turns to giggles. A myriad of emotions is rising up inside me. I’m at once overwhelmed with joy that Finn is still alive, but at the same time acutely pained, as always, to hear a child so much smaller than Ben talking, understanding, playing in a meaningful way. I can’t help but watch him, assess him, compare him to Ben. It’s what I do with every child I meet. I can’t help myself. I don’t want to do it, but I do.
A voice interrupts my thoughts. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
I look up and freeze, my hand in mid-air, a rabbit caught in the headlights. Standing in the doorway is the hospital administrator, Marion Southgate, and I can see that she’s not on her own. I cast my mind around, searching for something to tell her, something to legitimise my visit, but then she moves into the room and I can see that the person behind her is Lady Barrington-Brown.
Marion Southgate walks over and takes the rabbit out of my hand. ‘How did you get in here?’ she demands. ‘Who let you in?’
‘No one,’ I admit. My legs are rooted to the ground and I can’t move. I’m scared. I know that I’m in big trouble. I have no excuse for being here. I look at Lady Barrington-Brown, apologetically. ‘I just wanted to... I wanted to talk to some of the staff members who were here the night that Finn nearly died,’ I explain.
‘And I told you that you couldn’t.’ Marion Southgate’s mouth is pinched. ‘I told you that it wasn’t allowed.’ She turns to Lady Barrington-Brown. ‘I’m really very sorry about this. This is highly irregular. It won’t happen again.’
‘I wanted to try and find out what happened, that’s all.’ I turn to Lady Barrington-Brown, pleading with her. ‘I want the same as you. I want to know what happened...’ I wave my hand at the cot. ‘To your beautiful little grandson.’
Marion Southgate folds her arms and makes a huffing noise.
Lady Barrington-Brown looks confused. She says, ‘But we already know what happened, don’t we?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ I reply, watching Marion’s face as I speak. ‘What if it was an accident? What if it was a member of staff, here at the hospital who accidentally—’
‘Right, that’s enough,’ says Marion. ‘I want you out of here.’
‘Where’s Mary Ngombe?’ I ask her.
‘I’ve told you already. I don’t know her. She’s not staff.’
‘Then why won’t you let me see the records, or talk to anyone? What have you got to hide?’
Marion doesn’t answer. She glares at me in silence.
Beside me, Finn says, ‘Wabbit dancing. More dancing.’ He holds out his hand.
I say, ‘Sorry, Finn. No more dancing. I have to go.’
Marion Southgate says, ‘Stay where you are. I’m calling security.’
‘Please. There’s no need.’ I put my hands up. ‘I’ll go. You don’t have to throw me out.’
‘No. I want you escorted off the premises,’ she says.
‘But there’s no need. Please,’ I beg her. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I’m just trying to do my job. That’s all. If you’d helped me, like I asked... you could have come onto the ward with me, escorted me round...’
‘I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Ms Kellerman,’ she replies. ‘It’s not your place to decide whether you like my rules or not. You’ve trespassed onto a hospital children’s ward. This is serious. I want you escorted out of here and then I’m going to have to consider reporting you to your regulatory body.’
She moves towards the door.
Lady Barrington-Brown looks from her to me and back again for a moment, then holds up her hand. ‘Wait,’ she says. ‘There’s really no need for that.’
Marion Southgate turns in the doorway. ‘Thank you, madam, but this hospital has rules. She’s broken them. It’s my duty to—’
‘No.’ Lady Barrington-Brown turns to her. ‘Please. I... Miss Kellerman and I know one another,’ she says, quickly. ‘We’re friends.’
‘What?’ Marion frowns, incredulously. ‘You can’t be.’
‘Oh, but we are,’ Lady Barrington-Brown insists. She smiles and glances from Marion to me and back again. ‘So everything’s all right.’
‘But...’ Marion stares at her. ‘That can’t be right. She’d have said.’
Lady Barrington-Brown turns to her, her face reddening, her neck flushed. ‘It is a little worrying, of course, that someone can gain access to the ward so easily. I mean, we should be grateful, I suppose, that it was Miss Kellerman that alerted us to the problem, and not someone else.’
Marion Southgate looks upset at the implied accusation. Her mouth drops open and she shakes her head. ‘You don’t need to worry, madam,’ she says, energetically. ‘We monitor everyone who comes on and off the ward. There are cameras everywhere. The security and surveillance systems in this hospital are state-of-the-art.’
‘So I understand.’ Lady Barrington-Brown nods. ‘And yet... here we are.’ She looks at me and raises her eyebrows.
I bite my lip as I sneak a glance at Marion Southgate’s face; she’s livid, I can tell. She says, ‘Please let me reassure you, madam. This is an isolated incident, and one that won’t be repeated.’
She closes her mouth tightly and leaves the ward without saying another word.
Lady Barrington-Brown walks over to Finn’s cot and touches his cheek. She beckons to the auxiliary nurse who’s now reappeared and is standing in the doorway. ‘He needs changing. Could you attend to that, please?’ she asks.
‘Yes, madam.’ The auxiliary nurse hurries over to the cot.
I turn to Lady Barrington-Brown. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ I tell her. ‘You really got me out of a hole there.’
She smiles. ‘Come. I’ll walk you to your car. Finn’s turned a corner, but he’s still very fragile. He’s far from well. He mustn’t get excited.’
‘Of course.’ I glance over at Finn, whose eyes are now closed. His dummy is back in his mouth and is moving gently up and down in rhythm with the rising and falling of his chest. She’s right – he’s tired. I feel ashamed, suddenly. He may not need to be in intensive care any longer, but I have no idea what his health is like. I shouldn’t have just assumed that it was OK to walk in and play with him like that. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, as I follow her out into the corridor and walk with her out towards the exit doors to the ward. ‘You must still be very worried about him.’
She nods. ‘We are.’
‘But relieved,’ I add. ‘That he’s out of the woods.’
‘Yes. That’s something. We’ll just have to wait and see.’ She gives me a sideways glance. ‘But you know how it is. You never really relax. When something like this happens, it triggers something inside you. You sleep with one hand on your gun for ever more.’
‘That’s true,’ I agree. ‘That’s exactly how it is.’
As we walk across the foyer and approach the sliding doors into the car park up ahead, Lady Barrington-Brown stops and touches my arm. ‘I’ll leave you here,’ she says.
‘Of course. And thanks again,’ I say. ‘I really appreciate what you did. It was very kind, given the circumstances.’
But Lady Barrington-Brown’s eyes have clouded over. She looks tired, suddenly, absent, as if she can’t hear me. She nods, says goodbye and heads back in the direction of the ward. I know that she’s worrying about Ellie, or whoever hurt Finn, that they could get access to the ward, do the same thing over again. The ward is meant to be secure, but I’ve just proved it, haven’t I? I’ve just proved that anyone could have gained access. Anyone at all.