She awoke to the sound of drums tapping out a light, persistent rhythm. The earlier metallic sunshine had been replaced by grey cloud and rain lashing against the window. Carla glanced at the clock on her locker. Three hours since Isobel’s last feed. Her breasts felt tender, heavy. Milk had seeped through her nursing bra and the front of her nightdress was wet. When she pulled down the flap and stared at the blue veins, she could see how engorged her breasts had become. Surprising, then, that Isobel had remained silent.
She pulled herself upright. The counterpane on Isobel’s cot was bunched awkwardly over the mattress. Impossible to see her from that angle. Carla swung her legs to the floor. Four stitches. She grimaced as they tightened and forced her to walk gingerly towards the cot. She grabbed the counterpane and stared at the empty space where her daughter, swaddled in a white sheet, had been lying. The undersheet had a slight stain, as if Isobel had marked her territory. A ‘wet burp’ Amanda had called it when she demonstrated how Carla should wind her after feeding.
She reached for the emergency bell beside her bed and pressed it. Unable to wait for a nurse to arrive, she ran into the corridor. A long empty corridor that silenced her footsteps when she turned to the right, then the left, and tried to locate the nurses’ station. She stopped, suddenly dizzy, and leaned against the wall. There had to be a rational explanation. Amanda had taken Isobel to the nursery so that Carla could sleep undisturbed. Her terror gave way to anger. How dare anyone make such a decision without asking her permission?
‘My goodness!’ Amanda’s smile became uncertain as Carla approached the nurses’ station. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
‘You took Isobel to the nursery without asking me?’
‘What?’ Amanda’s head drew back, her eyes widening as she stared back at Carla.
‘Didn’t you?’ Carla shouted. ‘You should have told me.’
The nurse’s expression changed, her face smoothing out into a professional mask, inscrutable.
‘Tell me she’s in the nursery.’ Air whistled from Carla’s throat. ‘Tell me.’ Her legs buckled. She was vaguely aware that Amanda had rushed from behind the station and was holding her upright, that she was moving, guided by the nurse, back to her ward. As they entered, she experienced an instant of hope. Her imagination had run riot. Crazy baby blues and hallucinations.
The cot was still empty. Carla held the edge of it and screamed Isobel’s name until Amanda forced her to sit down into the soft leather armchair.
‘Please remain calm, Carla. There’s been a misunderstanding!’ Her voice penetrated Carla’s hysteria. ‘If one of the nurses has done what you’ve suggested, we’ll deal with her immediately.’
‘What do you mean if? Of course they did. Where else can she be?’
‘We’ll find out, don’t worry.’ Amanda whipped the bedclothes from the bed. ‘But you must remain calm. Sometimes mothers fall asleep when they’re feeding…’
Now, a new terror had to be considered. The fist clenching Carla’s heart squeezed tighter but this thought barely had time to register before the bed was stripped. Nothing there, only the warm imprint of her body. Amanda checked the chart hanging from the bed rail then lifted the phone and asked for the matron. Despite her calm manner, Carla suspected a coded emergency message was being relayed. As the nurse spoke, her experienced glance constantly roved around the room, checking out places where a crazy mother, burdened with baby blues, could have hidden her child. The wardrobe, a drawer in the bedside locker, under the cushions on the armchair.
Carla leapt to her feet and pulled the cushions to the floor, rushed to the wardrobe and opened her suitcase, spilled her clothes across the bed. ‘She’s not here…can’t you see…she’s not here…’
Amanda tried to prevent her opening the drawer of her bedside locker but Carla pushed her aside. The matron entered as they struggled. Carla had met her shortly after Isobel was born. Small and sturdy with plump chins and authoritative eyes, she had been smiling then, as everybody had been, and Robert was holding Isobel in his arms, a dazed grin on his face.
‘Mrs Gardner, tell me exactly what has happened here.’ Her tone was formal, first-name terms abandoned.
‘One of your nurses took my child from her cot without asking my permission. How dare she…? I have to phone my husband.’
‘But first, you need to answer my questions.’ The matron’s voice was firm. Isobel’s disappearance was no longer a misunderstanding. It had, according to Matron, become a serious breach of procedure. ‘It’s in all our interests to find Baby Isobel as swiftly as possible so please co-operate with us, Mrs Gardner.’
The hospital was sealed off and the entire premises would be thoroughly searched. Amanda draped a bed jacket over Carla’s nightdress to cover the milk stains. The police were on their way. Carla had not believed her terror could reach a higher pitch but it clawed more sharply against her chest with every word the matron uttered. Amanda stayed with her until the police arrived. Their bulky shoulders filled the doorway. Uniforms, notebooks, too many people in the ward. They sucked up all the air. She could not breathe if she did not have air but no one was listening. A policewoman sat beside her and probed her with gentle but repetitive questions. How long had she been sleeping? Could she give the exact time she closed her eyes? Did she awaken at any point, disturbed by a sound, alerted by another presence in the room? The most important clues could be hidden in the most basic information. She was an older woman and her motherly tone never wavered when she told Carla to call her by her first name.
‘Orla…’ The name seemed to slide from the side of Carla’s mouth. She tried to speak again but everything was shifting, the floor and walls, her words meaningless as she pitched forward into blackness.
She was lying on the bed, Robert’s face above her when she recovered. Isobel was somewhere in the hospital, he assured her. She wanted to believe him. He was trained in the art of detection but she saw the truth in his eyes, their bleak fear mirroring her own. The search had now been extended beyond the clinic where all the other babies, tiny labels on their arms, were present and correct.
Carla returned to the armchair by the window and gazed down on the police as they combed the grounds of the clinic. The administration offices, kitchens, bathrooms, each small private ward and the half-finished buildings outside the clinic were being thoroughly checked. The entire staff were being questioned, along with the builders, and all those who visited the clinic during the day.
Her daughter, tiny and helpless, was lost in the rain. Carla moaned and covered her eyes. Amanda and Orla remained with her, each offering reassurances in their own way. There was, Orla insisted, an established pattern to such behaviour. The woman who took Isobel had always longed for children, had, probably, recently lost a child. She would protect Isobel, keep her warm and safe. Orla spoke as if she had a direct line to this unknown woman, whom Carla could only imagine as a monstrous, faceless creature. Amanda displayed the same impassive confidence as she helped Carla pump milk from her aching breasts. It would be kept fresh in the fridge until Isobel was returned to them.
Robert, ashen-faced, rain dripping from his hair and eyelashes, kept entering the ward and holding her, then leaving again, as if he could not cope with her fears. She sensed his desperation to be at the heart of the official search, but he was not allowed to participate. Official procedure, Orla told her. He was emotionally involved.
Raine and Gillian arrived, followed by Carla’s parents. Staring at the empty cot, they strove for words of comfort. Janet’s hands fluttered. Helpless tears rolled down her cheeks. Happiness, she believed, was contained in nothing more substantial than a fragile bubble, and now her greatest fear had been realised. Unable to endure her distress, Carla begged her father to bring her home. Gillian left with them, her pallor more pronounced than usual.
The day darkened. Spotlights illuminated the courtyard and the raindrops