was the sound of crying babies and a strong smell of antiseptic. The ceilings seemed very low. Harper got a sense that there was not enough air to breathe comfortably, and the strip lights were giving her a headache. For a fleeting moment, she was cast back to her own brief time in a different maternity ward, back to another life that no longer seemed like her own.
Harper had been nearly fourteen when she’d discovered she was pregnant, and by then it was too late to think about abortion. Her parents were shocked, but they never said an unsupportive word to her. As for the baby, she was kept in the family, adopted by her parents who themselves had tried and failed for years to conceive a second child. Her ‘sister’ Ruby was twenty-six now, and though her biological origins were not a secret, the four of them kept to the script. On the surface they were just like any other family: Mum, Dad, and two kids. It wasn’t talked about, and they rubbed along fairly well. The scars didn’t show. At least, Harper thought they didn’t. She kept a lid on it, good and tight, and it was only in moments like these that it all came flooding back. She remembered the maternity ward, where she’d been given a private room. The pain of the labour, and the kind eyes of the nurses who cared for her. She tried to forget the boy she had loved, who had been lost to her completely from the moment he found out about the pregnancy. His closed, childish face, his total rejection. She remembered her mother’s face when she held the baby for the first time, the gratitude and the love in it. She tried to forget her instinct to snatch the baby back and run away, somewhere that she could be a mother properly, not a child, not a sister.
Harper checked herself. She allowed herself one deep breath and pushed the surfacing feelings back in the box, where they belonged.
When she reached the sweeping semicircle of desk, she flashed her warrant card at the uniformed woman behind it, and noted that the woman’s name badge read: Anthea Mallison, Midwife.
‘Yes?’
It was the same sharp ‘Yes’ that had shot from the static at the door.
‘I’m here about Lauren Tranter,’ said Harper.
‘Bay three, bed C,’ said Anthea. The ‘Yes’ had gone up at the end, a demand for information. ‘Bed C’ went down, with a strong sense of conclusion. Anthea Mallison, Midwife was done here. Her eyes had barely left the screen.
Over at Bay three, a man in a grey shirt was leaving. He fixed his eyes on the ward exit doors and headed straight towards them, radiating busy. Harper stood in his way.
‘Excuse me,’ said the man, meaning get out of my way. He wore an ID on a lanyard. Harper caught the word psychiatrist as he stepped sideways to go around her.
She stepped sideways with him as if in a dance, blocking him, holding up her warrant card. ‘Hello, I’m DS Harper. I won’t keep you. And you are?’
Irritated, by the look of you, thought Harper. And tired. Very, very tired.
‘Dr Gill. I’m the duty psychiatrist. And I’m afraid I’ve just had an emergency call, so I really must leave, I’m sorry.’
There was a time, probably only ten or so years ago, when DS Harper’s delicate stature and artfully messed-up blond ponytail caused people to utter that line about police officers getting younger every day. The comments trailed off as the years passed, and now they didn’t seem to happen anymore, ever. She was thinking about what it might mean for her, that not only had people stopped saying she looked young for her profession but that this doctor – this fully qualified, adult doctor standing in front of her now, looked about twelve.
Dr Gill tried to side-step her once again, but she went with him. He sighed in frustration.
Harper spoke quickly. ‘This won’t take long,’ she assured him, ‘no need to worry. A patient, Mrs Tranter, called 999 this morning. Is there anything you can tell me about that?’
‘Yes,’ said Dr Gill, apparently pleased to be able to provide a speedy answer, ‘it was a medical emergency, not a police matter. I had hoped someone would contact you about it.’
‘They did, but I wasn’t quite clear about the circumstances.’
‘Well, that’s standard, you wouldn’t be. It’s confidential. All I can tell you is that the patient in question, when she called you, was experiencing problems relating to a temporary impairment of her mental health.’
‘So, nothing to do with an intruder?’
A flicker of incredulity crossed the face of Dr Gill, before the curtain of professionalism dropped down. Very tired indeed.
‘In my field, officer, patients often see things that are not there. And a lot of the time they call the police about it, believing what they see to be real. I’m surprised you haven’t come across it before.’
Harper gave the child-doctor a long look. She wondered how old she would have to be for him not to talk down to her. But then, maybe that was it. Maybe she was already so old at thirty-nine that he saw her as a geriatric, losing the plot.
‘Can I talk to her?’
As he shrugged a don’t-see-why-not, something vibrated in Dr Gill’s pocket and he pulled out a small device, checking its screen. ‘Look, I’ve really got to go. You go ahead though, officer. On the left, by the window. She’s a bit sleepy because we gave her a mild tranquilliser to calm her down. But she’ll talk to you. I’m sure you’ll find there’s nothing to worry the police with.’
As Dr Gill strode away, Harper flipped open her notebook and wrote the words: Dr Gill: sceptic. 8.07 a.m. Royal Infirmary Hospital.
In some areas of the police service they had devices with note-taking apps, but nothing could beat a paper notebook. It meant that Harper could burn her notes if she needed to. The fact you could no longer erase things properly from computers or phones meant her job was easier in a way and harder in another, depending on which side of the fence one stood and whether or not one had anything to hide. She herself didn’t usually have things to hide, of course. But it was nice to have the option.
The bay had four cubicles, but only two had beds in them. In cubicle A there was a red-haired woman, her baby’s hair even brighter than her own. Diagonally across, by the window, the woman in cubicle C sat in bed holding two sleeping infants, one in the crook of each arm. Brown hair, very curly, long enough to cloud around her shoulders. Late twenties, light brown skin, silver wedding band. Harper couldn’t tell height and weight with any accuracy while Mrs Tranter was sitting but she seemed average, perhaps a tad taller than average. Her face was slack, motionless. The babies were paler in complexion than their mother, and both had wisps of curly blond hair. One was dressed in a green sleep suit and the other in yellow.
There was a spot of blood seeping through a bandage on Mrs Tranter’s left wrist. She was dressed in a hospital gown. On the floor between the bed and the wall there was an open suitcase spilling its contents – baby clothes, nappies and what were presumably Mrs Tranter’s own clothes. She’d dressed the babies, but not herself.
Something about her face reminded Harper of a photograph she had of her own mother as a young woman; the large brown eyes rimmed with sadness, gazing softly into the distance, unreachable. Harper was gentle when she spoke.
‘Lauren Tranter?’
The woman turned her head towards Harper’s voice. As the seconds slipped by, she gradually came to focus. It seemed a gargantuan effort. Lazily, her eyelids dropped
