Chapter 100

MANDY

‘We don’t think it’s the first time Pat’s taken a child that wasn’t hers,’

Lorraine said. ‘Neither Richard’s nor Chloe’s DNA results match each other’s or hers. They’re all unrelated.’

‘Could she have adopted them?’

‘We’ve checked European and American databases, and so far we can’t confirm that. Now we’re looking into cold cases of children reported missing around the time Richard and Chloe were born.’

‘Jesus.’ Mandy shook her head in disbelief and her heart sank at the thought of what could have happened had she not identified the Lake District holiday cottage in Richard’s photographs. She clutched her son a little closer to her chest, wondering how Richard and Chloe’s biological parents must have felt not knowing what had happened to their babies.

‘What’s going to happen to Chloe?’ she asked Lorraine, who sat opposite her. It was the first time they’d met face to face since Mandy’s baby had been rescued a week earlier.

‘She’s been charged with kidnapping a child, but as she has no previous convictions she’s been released on bail pending further inquiries. We predict her defence will plead insanity. But don’t worry, she has restrictions preventing her from going anywhere near you or your home. Pat is being held in a psychiatric unit following her overdose, but it’s going to take some time before we find out the full story.’

Mandy found it difficult to erase the image of the moment she saw her child for the first time. He was wrapped in a towel, held loosely by Pat, who was unconscious and surrounded by empty blister packs of tablets. Everything else slipped into slow motion as Lorraine held Mandy back, her flailing arms reaching to grab her child. He was scooped up instead by a paramedic, whisked to the safety of the

landing and placed upon the floor, his towel removed and his body checked for any signs of injury. It was only when it was confirmed there were none that Mandy was permitted to hold him for the very first time.

She’d fallen to her knees when he was placed into her arms. She smelled his head and ran her fingers across his soft chest, and held him close to her body so that he could feel her heartbeat against his skin.

She didn’t notice the paramedics rush to Pat’s aid or watch as they turned her on to her side and shoved piping down her throat, forcing her to vomit. Every voice that spoke to Mandy was muffled because all she could hear was the delicate sound of her baby breathing.

‘There’s something else I should tell you that I’m not supposed to,’

continued Lorraine, ‘something that was discovered in Pat’s medical records. Apparently she has a history of psychotic episodes that doctors who treated her believe stemmed from multiple miscarriages and at least two stillbirths. At some point these episodes appear to have ceased, which match up to the time Richard and Chloe came into her life.’

Mandy couldn’t help but feel sympathy towards Pat for the torment she must have suffered all those years ago. She knew how awful miscarriages could be and how they can ruin your life. It didn’t exonerate her subsequent behaviour, but it went a little way to explaining it.

Mandy embraced Lorraine before she left the private room in the care home, and she thanked her for all she had done. Then, she picked up her son and made her way to see Richard. She took a moment to compose herself, and then slowly opened the door to where Richard was lying in bed, where he’d been when she’d first greeted him six weeks earlier.

‘Hi Richard,’ she began gently, and took a chair by his side. ‘I’ve brought somebody to see you. This is your son, Thomas. I named him after my dad who died a few years ago, I hope you don’t mind. I know you’ve met him before when your mum brought him but I thought it’d be nice if it was just the three of us together.’

Mandy gazed at father and son in turn, and admitted to herself that Pat was right: there was a palpable resemblance between the two.

They shared the same colouring and even the positioning of dimples in their cheeks.

She thought back to the news headlines regarding the Match Your DNA falsified results scandal, which she’d heard earlier as she drove to the nursing home. If hers and Richard’s had been faked, she’d decided it didn’t really matter. The result was still this beautiful child buckled into the baby seat next to her. Once, she’d worried that she couldn’t love a child that wasn’t born out of a Match as much as one that was. But now she knew that not to be the case.

The strong smell of disinfectant in the room made Mandy’s nose tingle and she sneezed twice, which made Thomas giggle. She rose, placing him on the bed inside the safety railing next to Richard’s forearm, which lay poker straight by his side, and fumbled around in her pocket for a tissue.

But when she turned back to pick up her son, something was different. Richard’s arm was no longer by his side. Instead, his palm was face up and his baby son’s hand was pressed firmly inside it.

Mandy took a sharp intake of breath, not believing what she was witnessing. She watched as Richard’s fingers slowly and purposefully entwined with his son’s.