The Baby Snatchers (23 page)

It was a worthy cause and one that Cam
wholeheartedly approved. No doubt there were thousands of young
girls like Cynthia and not all of them had older brothers in a
position to take them in. His sister was one of the lucky ones and
he was sure she knew it.

Only that morning, as he was heading out the
door, she’d asked him if he’d come with her to spread Josephine’s
ashes. The fact that she was moving forward and dealing with the
past warmed Cam all the way through. He knew Georgie had a lot to
do with it and he was filled with tenderness and gratitude that
left him conflicted because of his suspicions about her father.

He thought of the conversation he’d had with
Georgie the night before about his birth mother and his gut
clenched reflexively. He hadn’t meant to display his anger, but the
very thought of cutting the woman a little slack for giving him up
made him furious.

It was easy for Georgie to play devil’s
advocate and wonder at his birth mother’s possible motives. She
didn’t know what it was like to lie in bed, night after night,
feeling lonely and unloved and wondering why the hell your own
mother didn’t love you enough to keep you. He couldn’t count the
number of nights when he was a kid that he’d cried himself to
sleep…until one night, after yet another bout of endless
questioning and tears, he’d determined to forget about her, cut her
from his life and his heart, just like she’d cut him from hers.

From that night, he’d been better; had
forced himself to come to terms with his sad beginnings and put
them behind him, forever. He focused on the here and now; he
focused on the future. He didn’t believe in looking back. And then
his parents had kicked him out and he was back at the start again:
alone, unloved and unwanted. If it hadn’t been for the kindness and
generosity of his best mate’s parents, he’d have found himself out
on the street…like Cynthia.

He couldn’t help but wonder how that had
come to pass. What had happened that she found herself homeless and
alone at the age of fourteen? He hated to think life for his little
sister under their parents’ roof might have become as intolerable
as it had been for him.

She hadn’t talked about their parents or how
she’d come to be living on the streets. Until recently, her mental
state had seemed so fragile, he hadn’t dared ask. But now that she
appeared to be improving, he probably owed it to both of them to
find out. For all he knew, she might even be missing them.

It was different for Georgie. She’d
obviously grown up in a house where everyone loved each other and
support and loyalty was a given. He could tell by the way she spoke
about her family that she’d had a decent childhood and he was happy
for her, but it didn’t mean he had to reconcile with his own
parents, or, as she seemed to suggest, feel kindly toward the woman
who’d given him life. He couldn’t help but wonder how Georgie would
feel about her father after all this, if his suspicions were
confirmed.

The thought made him frown. Rolleston’s name
kept jumping out at him on the screen. On impulse, he keyed the
name Marjorie Whitely into a new search and another listing caught
his eye:
City of Sydney Adoption Agency
. With his heart
beating faster, he clicked on the link and waited for the page to
load. It opened to the home page.

Scanning the welcome message, Cam clicked on
the tab labeled “About Us” and a moment later, stared in disbelief.
Professional portraits of the company’s founding directors stared
back at him. Though at least one of the pictures had been taken
some time ago and had been airbrushed to maximum effect, there was
no mistaking Marjorie Whitely’s smiling image.

The second photo was of a woman he didn’t
recognize, although there was something about her that looked
familiar. He read through the blurb which described the
establishment of the agency by two sisters: Marjorie Whitely and
Rosemary Lawson.

Cam’s heart pounded against his ribcage and
the blood roared in his ears. Rosemary Lawson had been referenced
in the hospital notes. She was the nurse who’d been on duty at the
time the majority of the infants had died. No wonder she’d appeared
familiar.
She was Marjorie Whitely’s sister.

Georgie’s aunt and mother were the directors
of a corporation that owned and operated an adoption agency.
Fifteen newborns had died at the hospital where both of the
directors worked. The ramifications and possibilities hit him in
the head with the force of a sledgehammer.

It wasn’t about murder, at all. The premier
was right. The babies were being stolen and then adopted out
through the agency, no doubt for a sizeable sum.

The deaths must have been falsified by none
other than Georgie’s father.
But what about the funeral
services?
Cam had attended upon the crematorium himself. He’d
helped Cynthia choose a coffin. They had Josephine’s ashes in an
urn.
Didn’t they?

A piercing headache made itself known in the
space behind his eyes. He groaned from the pain and hunted around
for some paracetamol. Digging a couple of tablets out of the bottle
in the top drawer of his desk he swallowed them dry and continued
to stare at the screen. He rubbed at his eyes.

Was he leaping to ridiculous conclusions,
with little or no proof?
He’d been working too hard. He was
sleep deprived. It had been way past late when he’d stopped tossing
in his bed, thinking about Georgie and her family—and his. Even
now, hours later, his eyes still felt gritty and tired.

Yes, that had to be it.
His fatigue
had made him delusional. Nobody in the twenty-first century went
around stealing babies and falsifying their deaths. It was
something out of the dark ages. Or the sixties and seventies, at
least. A lot of years had passed since then.

Society’s views had changed with regard to
single women and their ability to raise children on their own.
People no longer frowned on them or whispered about them behind
their backs. They lived their lives openly, without fear of being
ostracized or censured. Yes, times had certainly changed from half
a century ago—and for the better.

There could be other explanations for the
high rate of newborn deaths and with that thought, he squashed the
faint flare of hope that his baby niece might still be alive. If he
went down the path of suspecting Georgie’s family, he’d have to
include the funeral directors in the abhorrent scheme and that was
simply way too far-fetched. As if two hospital employees could
convince a third party to pretend he had a body in the coffin. It
was ridiculous, by anyone’s standards, to contemplate the
possibility for even another second.

Still, he could always put his questions to
Georgie’s relatives when he interviewed the hospital staff. He’d
arranged with Deborah Healy to have the relevant people available
to meet with him later that afternoon. He’d ask them about the
adoption agency and gage their reaction. Hopefully he’d get the
answers he needed. Then he’d know once and for all.

Until he could obliterate the bizarre notion
from his mind, he’d never get a moment’s rest and that meant every
minute he spent with Georgie would also be affected. That was
beyond acceptable. He cherished their time together and didn’t want
a second of it tarnished by the ugly cloud of suspicion that now
filled his head. Once and for all, he wanted to satisfy himself
that Georgie’s family wasn’t involved.

Needing to hear her voice, he reached for
his phone and then pulled up short. He wasn’t going to be able to
warn her about the forthcoming interviews and it wouldn’t be fair
to speak with her beforehand and pretend all was well when who knew
what might come out during his meeting with the staff. He was
hoping the interviews would put an end to his ridiculous
speculations, but what if they didn’t?
What if they implicated
her family members rather than exonerated them? He might have to
interview her, too.

Common sense told him it would be best to
stay away from Georgie Whitely, at least until he’d spoken to the
staff. Hopefully, after today, he’d have a better understanding
about what—if anything—had happened to end the lives of fifteen
babies so unexpectedly.

* * *

Deborah Healy stared down at the sheet of
paper in her hands and tried to still her trembling. The words were
bold and succinct. She’d been summoned before the hospital board
for a formal interview with regard to increasing concerns the
members of the board had over her management of the hospital.

When Detective Sergeant Dawson phoned and
requested she make available for interview certain staff members
who worked on Ward Seven, she knew she had to bring it to the
attention of the board before it turned into a major police
investigation. She’d waited too long on the previous two cases and
the results had been disastrous.

The board had summoned her within the hour
after Doctor Alistair Wolfe’s high profile arrest outside the Glebe
Morgue. A stern censuring had followed and an overt threat of
disciplinary proceedings had been made in the event her leadership
skills were found wanting again.

At the time, she’d been grateful to be let
off with a warning and had been determined not to let anything like
what had happened with Doctor Wolfe occur again. But it looked more
and more like she’d failed again and she had no one else to
blame.

The fact that her husband was terminally ill
with a rare form of liver cancer was of no one’s concern. She
should have been strong enough to keep the pressures and fears she
had on the home front well away from her thoughts while she was at
work. But the truth was, she couldn’t.

Hours disappeared every day. She found
herself staring blindly out her office window, thinking about Alan
and wishing with all her heart that there was something she could
do to stop the inevitable greed of the disease that slowly consumed
him.

She could no longer concentrate on the many
issues, large and small, that came before her every day. She fell
behind in her work. Calls often went unanswered. But instead of
taking time or walking away, she’d clung to her job and the sanity
it offered, like a drowning person clings to their rescuer.

When the detective had first contacted her
about his concerns regarding baby deaths on Ward Seven, she hadn’t
given it serious thought. As far as she knew, there was nothing
untoward about their statistics and until the premier had insisted
on meeting with her about his daughter, she hadn’t been aware of
any complaints.

But it quickly became clear something was
wrong. She’d checked the data twice. Regardless of the fact the
infant death rates on that ward were far too high, she should have
been notified and she was almost certain that she hadn’t.

As promised, she’d quietly done her own
investigation into the reasons why she hadn’t been told. She’d
spoken to Marjorie Whitely and was secretly dismayed when the woman
insisted she’d reported the deaths to her superior, who Marjorie
believed in turn had passed them on. Deborah suddenly couldn’t
prevent the awful thought that perhaps she
had
been notified
and she hadn’t paid any attention.

Was it really possible for her to have
received that many reports on infant deaths and not remember them?
It had been a terrible year and she’d had so much on her mind.
Could she have simply overlooked them? It terrified her to know
that she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t.

And now she had to face the board and come
up with answers to their questions—and she had no doubt there would
be plenty of questions. It was obvious there was something
dreadfully wrong on Ward Seven.

She’d wanted to head it off at the pass,
before it became the explosive, media-grabbing issue she’d
experienced in the past. It was why she’d called the detective and
insisted he investigate. It was why she’d informed the board of his
pending interviews.

If she had any hope of holding her job, she
had to convince the board members she was still the one in charge
and the one who still knew exactly what went on in the hospital
she’d served for so long. The board might be dubious about her
claims, but at least if she was upfront about the potential
criminal investigation, they might see their way to being a little
more lenient.

With one hand, she screwed the paper into a
ball and tossed it toward the trash can that stood beside her desk.
She needed a drink, but she was at work and nothing like that would
be forthcoming. She hadn’t yet succumbed to the temptation of
hiding a bottle of scotch in her bottom drawer.

No, she had to stand up and face the board,
cold stone sober, and leave them feeling confident that she had a
steady hand on the wheel. Drawing in a shaky breath, she smoothed
back her hair, straightened her shoulders and headed back to her
desk. It was time to get to work.

Cam glanced across at the woman who sat
across from him in the temporary interview room that had been made
available by the general manager. She’d given her name as Tammie
Sinclair and confirmed that she worked permanent night shifts as a
nurse on Ward Seven.

While her short, spiky hairstyle did nothing
to add to her femininity, the scattering of freckles across her
nose and cheeks softened her face and made her appear younger than
her stated thirty-six years.

He moved the pile of papers on the desk in
front of him and she jumped, as if startled. The interview had
started six minutes earlier and she hadn’t yet brought herself to
look him in the eye. He was curious to discover the reason behind
her nervousness.

He’d already interviewed most of the other
nursing staff, including Marjorie Whitely. None of them had
exhibited signs of agitation. The NUM had remained steely in his
presence, answering questions with the briefest of replies. She’d
been cooperative, but far from helpful. At one point, she’d asked
if she was under arrest. Cam admitted that she wasn’t. A moment
later, she brought the interview to an abrupt end.