Expectant, page 20
‘No, it’s not like you can say, just hang on there a few minutes, I’ve got to go see someone else for a bit, back in half an hour.’
‘Babies don’t have a tendency to wait for a convenient time, preferably in daylight hours?’
‘Alas, no.’ She laughed. ‘With the unpredictability of childbirth we always have a back-up midwife or two in case we need to call on them, and hope they aren’t engaged too. I was going to talk with you about this at our next appointment, actually. So for you, the first back-up is a woman called Miriam Hardcastle. She’s great, very experienced, and you’d be in safe hands. You’d like her a lot. My second usual back-up is Jackie Evans. She’s quite young and a relatively new midwife, but very capable and I have every confidence in her. She’s lovely, and all the times I’ve had to call on her, the women have been really pleased with how it all went.’
‘Great, that’s a relief to know there’s a plan in place. Makes me feel a lot happier about it.’
‘Of course, ideally it will be me helping you deliver your little girl, but you never know.’
‘So does that work the other way too? If one of the other midwives ends up having two babies arriving at once, you step in and help them out?’
‘Yes, we’re back-up for each other.’
‘Do all of the midwives in the city operate like that?’
‘Yeah. We’re a pretty small community really. There are not that many of us – not enough to meet demand, to be honest – so there is a certain amount of juggling that goes on to make sure any woman can get the services she needs. But don’t get me started on some of the systemic issues around why there aren’t enough midwives – our pay and working conditions – we’d be here all day.’
I knew well enough about the shortage and the challenges. The topic came up as a feature on the local news with monotonous regularity. Unfortunately the publicity wasn’t doing anything to get the relevant powers to address the root causes of the problem – such as massive underfunding.
‘Some of the midwives form, like, a business partnership, collective type of thing. Others, like us, do it more informally. It really depends on everyone’s personal circumstances.’
‘So you all know each other quite well then?’
‘Pretty well. Like I said, it’s a small community so we have to support each other.’
Good to know they were a sisterhood. Hopefully she wouldn’t see my next questions as betraying that sisterhood.
‘There was something else I was wanting to ask you involving the case I’m working on, so it is a little sensitive.’
‘Okay, sure, if I can help.’
‘It relates to what we were talking about. The woman that was recently murdered. Her midwife was Miriam Hardcastle.’
‘Yes, I was aware of that.’
‘When I was going through the victim’s telephone records, I noticed that you had called her around six weeks ago. You knew the victim? You hadn’t mentioned that to me previously. What were the circumstances around the call?’
Too many questions at once. I should have spaced them better. There was a slight pause before she continued.
‘Yes, I had worked with the victim, and I didn’t mention it to you – couldn’t mention it to you – because of patient confidentiality. So sorry I couldn’t offer the information before, but now you have specifically asked me, I guess I can talk about it to some extent. It was one of those instances where Miriam had asked me to step in and see the patient for her. Just give me a moment to check my records.’
I could hear her mouse clicking and some computer keyboard noise.
‘Here we go. Yes, I saw Aleisha Newman around six weeks ago for her thirty-four-week check-up. We did that down in my clinic space.’
‘And everything seemed normal. Aleisha didn’t mention any issues to you?’
‘No, perfectly normal pregnancy, everything was looking beautifully on track.’
‘Did Miriam have another woman go into labour? Was that why you had to fill in for her?’
‘No, not this time. She had to take time off at short notice for her daughter. She often has to take time off for Maisie.’
‘Oh, is she unwell?’
‘Yes. Poor little girl has a rare disease that means she’s in and out of hospital, so it’s a real juggle and a huge concern for the family.’
‘And she’s being treated for that?’
‘As much as she can be. What she really needs is a stem-cell transplant. It has to be quite specific, apparently, so they’re waiting on a donor match to come up.’
‘That must be an awful situation to be in. I can’t imagine it.’
‘I know,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s incredibly tough on them and a huge worry.’
‘How long do they have to wait?’
‘Well, there’s no way of telling. It all comes down to doctors finding the right match. That could be weeks, months, years, or never, or it could be too late, which doesn’t bear thinking about.’
Who could live with that kind of a death sentence hanging over their loved one’s head? And if it was you, what would you do to prevent it?
Did Miriam Hardcastle do the unthinkable to try and save her child?
CHAPTER 53
My thoughts that this case all came down to the characteristics of the child itself were starting to coalesce into something a lot more solid. My mind played over what Naomi had shared.
Miriam Hardcastle was in a desperate position with her unwell child. If indeed the only chance of a life for her daughter was a stem-cell transplant, then did she take matters into her own hands? The taking of the baby had been brutal, and the woman certainly had some passion. The way she had stormed into the room and come to Lena Cameron’s rescue in front of a gobsmacked DI Johns and Smithy demonstrated a ferocity that was both impressive and slightly scary. Had that kind of a temper been unleashed upon Aleisha? She had the medical knowledge to know what to do in a caesarean section, even if she hadn’t performed one herself.
She was also in a position to legitimately access patient records, see the test results of Aleisha’s amniocentesis, and see if they were a tissue match with her own daughter, or close enough that the treatment had more hope of being successful. In fact, if she had been trying to find a match for whatever her daughter needed, she was in a position to order any blood tests for her patients, and persuade them that they needed an amniocentesis or more detailed investigations. She could have been screening women for years.
The type of stem-cell transplant needed would be dependent on the disease. It would require a warrant to access her daughter’s records, I guessed. The only way we could get them without a warrant would be if a life was at immediate risk – the daughter’s declining health wouldn’t count. I made a note to make sure I talked to a specialist in the field. Hopefully Dr Harris would come through with that recommendation from Starship Hospital, as promised. My head was spinning with the science, and I wasn’t even sure if I was getting it right. Was I overthinking this? Possibly, but I felt I needed a lot more detail than the sites I’d seen on the internet could provide.
But Alistair’s words rang in my head. He was in there a bit too often. He’d said that if you needed cord blood and a tissue sample, then why wouldn’t you just ask? During our chat at the beach Helen Freeman had said someone had asked, but Aleisha had described them as some random person. I would have thought the kind of intimate relationship you built with your midwife would elevate them above that description. I would also have thought that if she had asked, then Aleisha would have at least considered it – and talked with her husband about it – especially if it was to help save the life of the child of someone she knew.
If her daughter had been ill for a while, then had Miriam been checking for matches for some time? Who else had she been midwife for? Another, slightly more sinister, thought went through my head. She would be regularly in the maternity centre at the hospital. As a midwife working in the hospital she would have access to many babies – could potentially have taken samples from them, unbeknown to their parents. I shuddered at that. I was getting a bit ahead of myself there. Did I start looking for those complaints or reports of interference? Where would I even start?
All of this was supposition. There was absolutely no hard evidence of her involvement. I had to think of a plan that would make her give herself away. A way to draw her out. An outrageous idea edged its way into my mind, and the more I thought about it the more plausible it seemed. Could I run it past the team – run it past The Boss? I had to try, because if she hadn’t been successful in getting the sample collected from Aleisha, then she could still be searching for that miracle donor. We needed to give her that donor – lure her out.
There was only one way I could think of doing that, and no one was going to like it.
CHAPTER 54
‘Sorry, can you run that by me again?’ The Boss was looking at me like I was stupid, Smithy was looking at me like I might have a point, and Paul was looking at me like I was totally bat-shit crazy.
‘What I’m suggesting is that we plant test results into my medical records – amniocentesis results, any tests that could help identify a potential tissue match for a donor.’
‘On your medical records?’ The Boss asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Sam,’ Paul said, his voice very tight. ‘What you are suggesting is basically using you as bait.’
That was a very dramatic way of putting it.
‘Well, I suppose, yes.’
That took a few seconds to drop.
‘No fucking way.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘It might work.’
Paul, The Boss and Smithy, exclaimed in synch.
The Boss raised his hand in a ‘stop right there’ motion to Paul, then directed his attention to me.
‘Although it is an interesting idea, and there is some logic behind it, there is no way that any authority would allow a pregnant officer to take that kind of personal risk.’
‘But I wouldn’t be at risk. All we have to do is get her to access the records. She is not my lead maternity carer and I have never had a consultation with her, so there is absolutely no reason why she should log into them, unless she was actively searching for potential donors. Our tech people could monitor the logins. The mere act of doing that would be probable cause, enough justification to get her in for questioning and a search warrant for her work and home. We just have to dangle the carrot.’
‘It is an idea with merit.’ Again he gave the ‘don’t speak’ signal to Paul, who was starting to look like he might pop a vein. ‘But if we did this and were going to use anyone as bait, it would definitely not be you.’ I had never seen Paul agree with anything The Boss had said so quickly in my life. I felt a pang of guilt that I hadn’t discussed this idea with him first before bringing it to the group, but I knew damn well he wouldn’t have even let me finish the sentence before shutting it down and reacting exactly like he was right now. ‘We could modify Detective Constable Richardson’s records, make her appear to be pregnant.’
‘That could work,’ Smithy said. ‘And it would solve the risk problem.’
For me, not Sonia. This was something I was prepared to do because I felt so invested in finding out who had done this to Aleisha Newman and her family. I’d made a promise. I wouldn’t expect it of anyone else.
‘I’ll do it,’ Sonia piped up. The Boss had been talking like she wasn’t present, as usual. ‘It would be a lot safer than using Sam, and if what you said about amniocentesis normally being performed earlier in the pregnancy is right, then it makes sense. It would seem a lot more legitimate if we had me as a newly registered patient now and the results were added to my record at a stage where it would be normal to, rather than adding something in retrospect.’
‘That’s a good point. But one glaring deficit in this idea is how do we get her – or anyone – to take the bait? How would she even know to go look?’
‘Well, I’ve thought about that,’ I said. ‘The midwives act as a bit of a collective, filling in as back-up for each other if they have multiple women in labour. My midwife has an arrangement with Miriam and another practitioner where they step in as needed. We could get her to somehow drop a hint.’
‘But that would involve disclosing our suspicions and involve a civilian,’ The Boss said. It clearly did not sit well with him, but I knew from his expression when I first disclosed my suspicions about Miriam Hardcastle that he wouldn’t be sorry if it was her. She’d humiliated him, and his ego did not take that lightly. The man knew how to hold a grudge. The fact that he was having a level and considered conversation with me about my suspicions and my plan, and was not bawling me out for being ridiculous, spoke volumes.
‘Do you trust her?’
‘Yes, I do. To date she has been helpful answering my endless stream of questions, and she is discrete. She takes confidentiality very seriously.’
‘Paul? What are your impressions?’
Now he was finally allowed to speak he made the most of the opportunity. He leaned forward, counting each point on his fingers as he made them.
‘Naomi, our midwife, is good. I haven’t had as much to do with her as Sam has, so my impressions are limited, but I’d be comfortable with that.
‘As to the harebrained idea of using Sam as bait, for obvious reasons I am dead against that. And you should have mentioned this to me beforehand, Sam.’ The look I got from him was a glare of disapproval that would have made my mother proud.
‘But, I would support using DC Richardson for that role. We could present her as a woman moving to Dunedin from out of town so that her records were transferred, but with a few added extras, like being pregnant, and with those test results.’
‘That would solve a few problems nicely,’ Sonia said.
‘But that won’t work,’ I said, reaching out literally and figuratively. ‘It’s the immediacy of it that’s going to make Miriam Hardcastle take the bait, if it is her. Her daughter is very sick right now. Could be dying.’ I threw that in for impact. ‘Time is not on her side, She doesn’t have the luxury of waiting several months to be able to get access to what she needs. We can’t plant that information for Sonia and have it play out as a long game. We need someone who is demonstrably pregnant, someone that if she checked in with my midwife would be told, yes, she is due to pop any moment now. It’s the only way it can work. We can’t pretend Sonia is at full term – it would be hard enough to pretend that she was at half term. Dunedin is like a small town in that regard, everyone knows someone who knows someone, and it would be picked up as a sham pretty quickly.’ I worked my way around the room, looking at each of them.
‘If it’s going to work, it has to be me.’
CHAPTER 55
‘Sam, you remember that pinky promise we made?’
My mind jumped back to that afternoon in Kiki Beware with Paul – the laughter, the embarrassment, but also the agreement that because of our personal circumstances and the nature of this case, we’d speak up if we felt uncomfortable about anything, if we were distressed.
‘Yeah, I remember.’
He gripped my hand tighter. ‘Well I’m telling you right now: firstly, I am so monumentally pissed off with you right now for this whole warped idea, and the fact that you didn’t talk with me about it.’
He had every right to be.
‘Secondly, no matter how safe you think this harebrained scheme is, it affects more than just you.’
He placed our hands on top of our child. ‘This proposal has me fucking terrified.’
CHAPTER 56
‘Well there’s a voice I haven’t heard for a while.’
Pinged in the first sentence. But pinged with sarcasm, which I suppose was an upgrade from being pinged with criticism. Despite that, it was good to hear her.
‘Mum, it’s been five days.’
‘Six, actually.’
She’d been counting? I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a good or a bad thing. Either way, a dusting of guilt settled on my mind. But then again, there had been nothing to stop her from picking up the phone and calling me. I mentally swept a little of the grit away.
They always said a strong offence was the best defence. But ‘they’ hadn’t encountered my mother. I went for deflection instead.
‘How’s everything going down there. How are the kids?’ That was usually a guarantee of at least five minutes of Gran-gushing.
‘It’s school holidays, so they’re enjoying the break.’ I could hear an immediate lift in the tone of her voice. ‘Josh has been with Steve on the farm, helping out. They got him his own mini quad bike, which is a bit dangerous, if you ask me. And I do worry that Sophie is spending too much time inside watching television.’ The tone dropped. ‘It’s not good for her, and she’s always on her phone too. She’s only ten. She shouldn’t even have a phone at that age.’
Considering she thought the sun shone out of Steve and Saint Sheryl’s arse, it felt odd to hear Mum finding fault with their parenting. I mean she was the queen of criticism, but it was usually directed at me, not them. Something must be up.
‘Everything alright?’ I asked. Despite trying to disguise it, even I could hear the tentativeness in my question.
There was quiet from the other end of the phone. Had she heard me?
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
She had.
Egg-shell territory.
‘You just sounded a bit…’ gawd, how did I put this? ‘…strained. Is it working out okay for you, staying there?’
Tactic change.
I heard the intake of breath and braced myself. But then she then let it out very slowly.
‘It’s not ideal, but it is what it is.’
It had been a hell of a big adjustment for her, having to move in with Steve and Sheryl after Dad died, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t ideal for them either. But those were the conditions and everyone had to make do. A day didn’t go by when I didn’t miss Dad. We all did. I had to remind myself she’d lost the love of her life in pretty tough circumstances. Again, I felt a stab of guilt when the thought came to mind – rather them than me.
