isn't getting us anywhere,' Simon sighs. `Let's weigh the baby.'
In my head, I start to write an alternative statement, one that is far
truer than the thing I signed for Simon:
My name is Alice and I love my daughter Florence more than life,
more than all the best things in the world put together. Her full name
is Florence Imogen Fancourt. She has a perfectly round head, hardly
any hair, dark blue eyes and a tiny, perfect mouth like a little pink
flower. Her fingers, toes and eyelashes are all surprisingly long. She
smells clean and fresh, powdery and new. She has my dad's ears.
When I lean her over my hand to burp her, her round shoulders slump
forward and she makes a funny throaty noise, as if she is trying to gargle. She has a way of tucking her hands and feet neatly together, daintily, like a ballet dancer, and she doesn't cry in the random, anarchic
way that some babies do. She cries like an angry grown-up with a serious grievance.
`Nine pounds exactly.'
`So? So? That proves nothing. She's put on weight, that's all.
Babies do.'
On Friday 12th September 2003, she was delivered by emergency
Caesarian section at Culver Valley General Hospital. She weighed 7
pounds and 11 ounces. It was not a nightmare, as my husband says,
but the happiest day of my life. As the doctors and midwives were
wheeling me through from the delivery room to the operating theatre,
I heard one of them shout to David, `Bring some clothes for the
baby'. That was when it hit me that all this was real. I craned my neck
and just managed to catch a glimpse of David ransacking my hospital
bag. He pulled out a white bodysuit and a white babygro with little
Pooh Bears and Tiggers all over it. `Pooh likes his honey, but Tigger
thinks it's funny'. Vivienne bought it. `A baby's first outfit should be
white,' she said. I remember thinking to myself, my daughter is going
to wear those clothes. Soon.
`Have you contacted the hospital?' says Cheryl. `There's an outside
chance they'll still have the placenta and the umbilical cord. You
could test whether they come from this baby. We're supposed to dispose of them after two days, but, between you and me, it doesn't
always happen. You'd better get on to them quick, mind.'
`Oh, for Pete's sake. This is a farce! Are you really going to ...
As they pushed me into the operating theatre, a song by Cher was
playing loudly, the one where her voice goes all wobbly. I instantly
loved it, and knew that from now on it would remind me of my
baby's birth. It would be my song, mine and my child's. The anaesthetist squirted blue gel on to my stomach. `This shouldn't feel cold,'
he said.
`That wouldn't be too costly, I suppose, in terms of manpower and
resources. Could take a while for the result to come through, though.'
`See! He doesn't want to get in trouble with his boss, for wasting
public money on what's obviously sheer lunacy.'
`And the other women on the ward, this Mandy girl Alice mentioned.'
`None of those women so much as gave Florence a second glance!'
`Mr Fancourt, you're not helping. Excuse me a minute, everybody.'
It felt cold.
10
ENTRIES FROM DC SIMON WATERHOUSE'S POCKET BOOK
(Written October 3, 2003, 7 PM)
10/27/03, 11 AM
Area: Spilling Police Station. Received a phone call from Alice Fancourt
(see index). She said she needed to talk to me urgently because she had
some new information pertaining to the matter of her allegation that her
baby has been abducted and swapped for another baby (case no.
NS 1035-03-Q). I suggested that she should accompany her mother-in-law
Mrs Vivienne Fancourt (see index) to the police station later today (Vivienne Fancourt has arranged to come in and give us her statement) and I
said I would talk to her then. Mrs Fancourt started to cry and said she
needed to talk to me alone, in private, away from both her mother-in-law
and her husband David Fancourt (see index). I consulted with my sergeant,
DS 326 Charlotte Zailer, who
In my head, I start to write an alternative statement, one that is far
truer than the thing I signed for Simon:
My name is Alice and I love my daughter Florence more than life,
more than all the best things in the world put together. Her full name
is Florence Imogen Fancourt. She has a perfectly round head, hardly
any hair, dark blue eyes and a tiny, perfect mouth like a little pink
flower. Her fingers, toes and eyelashes are all surprisingly long. She
smells clean and fresh, powdery and new. She has my dad's ears.
When I lean her over my hand to burp her, her round shoulders slump
forward and she makes a funny throaty noise, as if she is trying to gargle. She has a way of tucking her hands and feet neatly together, daintily, like a ballet dancer, and she doesn't cry in the random, anarchic
way that some babies do. She cries like an angry grown-up with a serious grievance.
`Nine pounds exactly.'
`So? So? That proves nothing. She's put on weight, that's all.
Babies do.'
On Friday 12th September 2003, she was delivered by emergency
Caesarian section at Culver Valley General Hospital. She weighed 7
pounds and 11 ounces. It was not a nightmare, as my husband says,
but the happiest day of my life. As the doctors and midwives were
wheeling me through from the delivery room to the operating theatre,
I heard one of them shout to David, `Bring some clothes for the
baby'. That was when it hit me that all this was real. I craned my neck
and just managed to catch a glimpse of David ransacking my hospital
bag. He pulled out a white bodysuit and a white babygro with little
Pooh Bears and Tiggers all over it. `Pooh likes his honey, but Tigger
thinks it's funny'. Vivienne bought it. `A baby's first outfit should be
white,' she said. I remember thinking to myself, my daughter is going
to wear those clothes. Soon.
`Have you contacted the hospital?' says Cheryl. `There's an outside
chance they'll still have the placenta and the umbilical cord. You
could test whether they come from this baby. We're supposed to dispose of them after two days, but, between you and me, it doesn't
always happen. You'd better get on to them quick, mind.'
`Oh, for Pete's sake. This is a farce! Are you really going to ...
As they pushed me into the operating theatre, a song by Cher was
playing loudly, the one where her voice goes all wobbly. I instantly
loved it, and knew that from now on it would remind me of my
baby's birth. It would be my song, mine and my child's. The anaesthetist squirted blue gel on to my stomach. `This shouldn't feel cold,'
he said.
`That wouldn't be too costly, I suppose, in terms of manpower and
resources. Could take a while for the result to come through, though.'
`See! He doesn't want to get in trouble with his boss, for wasting
public money on what's obviously sheer lunacy.'
`And the other women on the ward, this Mandy girl Alice mentioned.'
`None of those women so much as gave Florence a second glance!'
`Mr Fancourt, you're not helping. Excuse me a minute, everybody.'
It felt cold.
10
ENTRIES FROM DC SIMON WATERHOUSE'S POCKET BOOK
(Written October 3, 2003, 7 PM)
10/27/03, 11 AM
Area: Spilling Police Station. Received a phone call from Alice Fancourt
(see index). She said she needed to talk to me urgently because she had
some new information pertaining to the matter of her allegation that her
baby has been abducted and swapped for another baby (case no.
NS 1035-03-Q). I suggested that she should accompany her mother-in-law
Mrs Vivienne Fancourt (see index) to the police station later today (Vivienne Fancourt has arranged to come in and give us her statement) and I
said I would talk to her then. Mrs Fancourt started to cry and said she
needed to talk to me alone, in private, away from both her mother-in-law
and her husband David Fancourt (see index). I consulted with my sergeant,
DS 326 Charlotte Zailer, who
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