TOOK A sharp intake of breath in the cold morning air. There had been no more snow after their trip home from Mr Maynard’s farm last night, and the top layer had frozen to a crisp. The cardboard box was from a biscuit manufacturer, and the top had all four corners folded into each other, with some air holes punched through by something like a ballpoint pen.
Lula almost couldn’t believe her eyes.
This sort of thing didn’t happen twice in a lifetime …
Kneeling down, she peeled back the corners and looked inside to see a newly born baby, swaddled in tight blankets and towels.
‘Oh, my God!’
Lula scooped up the baby and stood up, holding it to her, undoing her coat buttons and scooting the baby inside her greatcoat. Beneath the baby there was a blue hot water bottle, and it was still quite warm, so Lula could only hope that the baby hadn’t been left outside in the cold for too long. With her free hand she picked up the cardboard box and brought it inside, kicking the door closed, then she went back over to the fire to add more logs and get it really going again.
When that was done she picked up her phone and dialled the police. There was no police station in Atlee Wold itself, but there was one in the next village over—South Wold. She could only assume they’d send someone from there.
She wanted to examine the baby, but the need to keep it warm and monitor its breathing overrode all other instincts. Next she called the surgery, assuming one of the receptionists would answer, but Olly did.
‘Atlee Surgery.’
His voice was solid and reassuring to hear.
‘Oliver?’
‘Lula? What’s up?’
‘You need to come over.’
‘I’m about to start morning surgery.’
‘Can your father do it? I need you here. Now.’
He paused for a moment, but he must have been swayed by the quiet desperation in her voice because he said, ‘I’ll be right over.’
Lula paced the floor—back and forth, back and forth—humming tunes, gently jigging the baby up and down, trying to keep it monitored, checking on its breathing. She had no idea if it was a boy or a girl, or even if it had all its bits and pieces—there’d been no time to check. When Olly got there maybe they could check the baby together.
Suddenly she remembered she ought to have asked him to bring his call-out bag, and hoped he’d have heard from her tone that it might be needed.
Why didn’t I tell him it was needed? So stupid!
Because the shock of finding the baby had been so great. It wasn’t what you expected to find when you went out through the front door in the morning. At the most you might expect a present from the cat, if you kept one, or perhaps a friendly offering from a night-time fox on your doorstep. But a baby …?
No.
She knew what would happen. The police would arrive, and they’d take everything. The baby, the blankets, the hot water bottle, the box. They’d try and trace its mother, but it would be difficult. There were never enough clues in this sort of situation, even if the mother left a note …
She rummaged in the box.
No note.
Where’s the mother?
More importantly, who was the mother? She had to have been desperate to do this. To leave her baby in a cardboard box, in the middle of winter, on the doorstep of a stranger. She couldn’t have known that the baby would be found early. Could she? What if Lula had been on a late shift? The baby would have frozen to death. It didn’t bear thinking about.
It might be a teenage girl—someone afraid to tell her parents that she’d been pregnant. But how would you hide something like that? The baby looked a decent size—about seven pounds. It was obviously full term, so the pregnancy must have shown.
Perhaps it was an older woman who’d had an affair, and then her husband had come back from Afghanistan, or somewhere, and she’d had to get rid of it?
No, Lula, too far-fetched.
Or was it?
Finding a baby on her doorstep would probably have sounded too far-fetched yesterday.
There was a hammering on her front door and she rushed over to open it, letting Olly in. He stopped and stared at the baby and she saw the puzzlement on his face.
‘It’s not mine!’
‘Where did it come from?’ He closed the door behind him, pulling off his jacket.
She explained what had happened and they laid the baby on the rug in front of the roaring fire to examine it.
She was newborn. Barely hours old. The umbilical cord was tied off with navy blue string and still fresh. Vernix—the grease that covered a baby in the womb, to stop its skin getting waterlogged—was in the armpits and creases of the baby, indicating that maybe she was a little before term.
She was a little cold, but otherwise well.
She was extremely lucky.
‘She can’t have been outside long,’ Olly said.
‘Perhaps she’d only just been left by someone?’
‘Did you see anyone when you went outside? When you opened the door?’
Lula tried to think. But the shock of finding an abandoned baby had overridden everything. She couldn’t recall looking around the cottage or past the garden. She’d noticed the box, heard the crying and snuffling, and when she’d seen it was a baby had hurried back inside.
‘I didn’t look.’
‘Lula …’
‘I didn’t think! I was in shock! I … you don’t expect this, do you?’ She wrapped the baby up again and scooped her up, holding her tight against her body.
Olly watched her pace back and forth. ‘There must be a mother somewhere. She could be at risk if she doesn’t get proper medical attention.’
She nodded. ‘I know. I figure it has to be a teenager. Who do you know in the village that fits the bill?’
Olly sank onto the couch. ‘There are a few teenagers in the village—about twenty or so, I think. Most of them catch the school bus to go to the comprehensive in South Wold. I don’t see them very much—they don’t tend to come and see the doctor.’
‘Have any come to you about going on the pill? Any who you think could be sexually active?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I honestly haven’t seen any for a while. I think the last teenager I saw was the Blakes’s daughter, and that was for an ear infection.’
He racked his brains, but
