Playing Nice

“But I have to ask the question anyway,” Lyn continues. “What do you think Theo’s wishes are in this situation?”

“Well, he’s two, so we obviously don’t want to frighten him by telling him he might be forcibly taken away from the people he thinks of as Mummy and Daddy and handed over to another family,” I say patiently. “To that extent, he doesn’t even know there is a situation. And we’ve been careful to keep things with the other family as cordial as possible, so as not to upset him.”

“That sounds sensible. Let me just check I have everything…Oh yes. Do either of you have any mental health issues?”

“No,” I say. I take a deep breath. “That is, not recently. I had a brief episode of postpartum psychosis shortly after Theo came home from hospital. But that was two years ago and it resolved with treatment.”

I can hear Lyn’s keyboard clicking as she writes all this down. “It can’t affect this case, can it?” I add.

“Did it involve any harm or neglect to either the child or yourself, Maddie?”

“No. And in any case, it was triggered by my premature baby being in intensive care for five weeks. It’s relatively common after childbirth and there’s absolutely no possibility of it recurring. I’m not even Theo’s primary carer, for Christ’s sake—” I stop, conscious of the importance of not getting worked up. “Sorry. I mean ‘for goodness’ sake.’ I just don’t see how it can possibly be relevant to what’s happening now.”

“I don’t suppose it is. But I still have to write it all down, do you see? And are you still taking any medication for that condition?”

“No,” I say firmly. “I was prescribed antidepressants but I came off them over a year ago. I’m absolutely fine.”

“Would you have any objection to me contacting your GP for a copy of your medical notes? Just to confirm what you’ve told me? I can ask the court to make a formal order for them, but really, it’s so much easier if we’re all working together, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course,” I say. Just for a moment, I feel dizzy. How did an ordinary professional couple come to have so many court cases going on simultaneously? Fighting for Theo, fighting for David, suing the hospitals…It feels like each one is a separate series of plates spinning on sticks, a forest of toppling, precarious crockery that has to be kept from smashing to the ground.

You can do this, I tell myself. After all, it’s no more complex than a major TV production, and I do a dozen of those every year.

Lyn is saying, “And is there anything you’d like to tell me, Maddie, about how you got into this situation, or how it might be resolved?”

I look down at my notes, all the pertinent facts I’d intended to work into the conversation. Suddenly they all seem irrelevant, a catalog of failed attempts at being reasonable in a situation where reason is redundant. “Yes,” I say shortly. “A man turned up on our doorstep one day with the intention of taking our son. How would you react to that? We didn’t want to end up here, but it was probably inevitable. And there’s only one way to resolve it. We need to beat him. He needs a court to tell him he’s lost and that he can’t have Theo, not ever. Otherwise, he’ll never stop trying.”

56

Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 29: statement by Reverend Sheila Lewis, The Vicarage, Willesden Green, NW10 1AQ.

My name is Reverend Sheila Lewis and I am the vicar of All Souls’ Church, Willesden Green. I have been asked by Miles Lambert to write a brief note describing an incident that took place at Theo Riley’s baptism service.

From the start, Theo seemed agitated and was disruptive, hurling books at a side chapel and cheering when he succeeded in hitting the cross. We are accustomed these days to children being noisy during services and to some extent we tolerate it, but this went far beyond what I would have considered normal. I tried pausing in my liturgy and giving a meaningful glance in Theo’s direction, but the parents—that is, Peter Riley and Maddie Wilson—were slow to take the hint. When they did intervene, it became clear why this was: They had almost no control over Theo whatsoever. Theo then burrowed under the pews, a situation from which Mr. Riley seemed powerless to extricate him. When a member of the congregation finally apprehended the child, Mr. Riley was visibly angry and, under the guise of sitting Theo on “the naughty step,” pushed him down forcibly by the thighs. I am told by Mr. Lambert that this produced bruising on Theo’s legs, which is certainly consistent with what I saw. I understand Mr. Lambert has obtained phone footage of this incident from another member of the congregation.

Theo is a charming little boy who does not seem in the least malevolent or ill tempered, merely boisterous. I suspect he would simply benefit from a more consistent parenting style. This is an opinion I have formed over several visits by him to my church, as Mr. Riley and Ms. Wilson have become regular members of my congregation.

I have also been made aware by Mr. Lambert why this may be. The vicar here at All Souls’ is able to make available to long-standing churchgoers a small number of places at the local Church of England primary school, which has been rated Excellent by school inspectors. Mr. Lambert tells me that Mr. Riley used the phrase On your knees to save the fees in this context. While I have no way of knowing if this was indeed what Mr. Riley said, and would in any case encourage people to come and worship with us whatever their true purpose, it saddens me to learn that some members of our community may have a cynical motive for doing so.

57

PETE

“IF YOU COULD JUST tell us in your own words what happened that day,” Grace Matthews said.

Resisting the urge to ask who else’s words I might be tempted to use, I said, “You have to understand, it was all a blur. I’d had to abandon Maddie after an emergency operation. It was clearly touch and go whether our baby would live, and if he did live, whether he’d be brain-damaged. I had no idea what was going on or how I could help.” I looked over at Maddie. “To be honest, I was in a complete panic.”

We were in an interview room at NHS Resolution, a surprisingly striking modern office building in Buckingham Palace Road. Grace Matthews had asked us in for what she described as an evidence-gathering meeting. We wouldn’t be discussing any potential compensation, she emphasized, merely contributing our recollections to the initial investigation.

The lawyer Justin Watts had told us this was normal. “At this stage, they simply want to find out what happened. There’s no arguing with the fact that a swap did take place, but from their perspective, finding out how it occurred is the most urgent priority.”

“Will you be there?” I asked.

“I really shouldn’t need to be. And I’m trying to keep our time costs down as much as possible.”

Now Grace Matthews nodded in response to my explanation. She looked more like the floor manager of a midlevel department store than a high-flying investigator—dumpy, wearing an ill-fitting suit and matching skirt, with boxy glasses that kept slipping down her nose. “But at some point, you presumably became aware of the tag on Theo’s leg. That is, on the leg of the infant you thought was Theo.”

“I suppose so. But there were so many things on him by then—intravenous lines, an oxygen sensor, the cooling suit…The security tag was the least dramatic of them all.”

“Can you say when you did first notice it?”

I shrugged helplessly. “Not really. When we got to St. Alexander’s, I went with the paramedics who were wheeling the portable incubator. We shared the lift with two more paramedics who also had a mobile cot with them—I suppose that was the one with Theo in, although of course I didn’t know that at the time. Then they were both rushed into the NICU, where the doctors were waiting. I got pushed out of the way—”

“Where was Mr. Lambert at this point?” Grace Matthews interjected. “Had he been with you in the lift?”

I shook my head. “I’d have remembered if there was another dad in there. I don’t think I saw him at all that day.”