The Baby Snatchers (26 page)

“Cameron, you got a minute?”

Cam looked up and spied one of the junior
detectives. “Sure, Felix. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve finished with the research on that
adoption agency. I’ve printed out a few things. I have them here,
if you want them.”

Cam took the sheaf of papers from the
younger man’s outstretched hand. “Thanks, Felix. Good job.”

The man blushed under Cameron’s praise. “No
problem, Cam. I’m always happy to help out. Let me know if you need
anything else.”

“Will do.”

Cam glanced through the papers. The first
page gave details of the directors and told him the adoption agency
had been established in the early seventies. The next few pages
listed real estate owned by one or both directors. Cam noted
several impressive addresses: Darling Point and Edgecliff were
exclusive eastern suburbs locations; Seaforth boasted multi-million
dollar mansions on the waterfront, north of the harbor; Leura was a
sought-after area situated in the Blue Mountains, a couple of hours
west of Sydney.

Felix had also printed out two pages of
testimonials given by past clients of the agency. Cam scanned them.
Every one of them was phrased in glowing terms and several
mentioned Marjorie Whitely and Rosemary Lawson by name, thanking
them for their kindness, compassion and professionalism. To some of
their clients, the women were the closest thing to a saint.

Though none of the testimonials bore an
exact date, the month and the year were given at the end of each
one. Cam flipped the page over and noticed the last testimonial was
dated three months ago. Several others had been written over the
course of the present year.

He frowned and cast his memory back to his
interview with Rosemary. Even though she’d joked about taking
donations, from the way she’d spoken, he’d assumed the agency had
been used mostly in the past, when single Moms with no one to turn
to had offered their babies for adoption. He’d even assumed his own
mother had fallen into that category.

But the testimonials seemed to paint a
different picture. In fact, all of the testimonials on the pages
Felix had provided had been made in the past two years. It was
obvious the agency was well and truly still in business.

And then another memory struck him like a
blow. His heart beat so hard it felt like it was going to explode
right through his chest. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t made the
connection earlier.

Lawson was the surname of the funeral
director he’d spoken to. Okay, the name wasn’t exactly uncommon,
but it could be the missing link that provided him with the
evidence he needed to prove something was horribly wrong and
Georgie Whitely’s family were right in the middle of it.

With adrenaline pumping through his veins,
he pulled his keyboard toward him and opened the page to a search
engine. He typed in Bernard Lawson’s name and then added the words:
Peaceful Passing Funeral Parlor and Crematorium
.
Almost
immediately, he was rewarded with several hits. Scrolling through
them, his eye snagged on an article from the social pages of one of
the city’s daily papers.

Cam clicked on the article and waited
impatiently for it to open. When it did, he was confronted by a
large photo of Bernard Lawson and his “lovely wife, Rosemary.”
And there it was.
The connection. No wonder Rosemary had
done her best to cast suspicion on Tammie Sinclair. It all clicked
into place.

Rosemary Lawson and her sister were midwives
who also owned an adoption agency. By her own admission, Rosemary
agreed she and Marjorie had assisted young mothers in giving up
their babies for adoption, now, and in the past.

Rosemary had been on duty when twelve of the
fifteen babies had died on Ward Seven. Rosemary’s sister was the
head of the ward and prepared the final report. Coincidentally, the
death certificates had been certified by none other than Marjorie’s
husband.

Even more interesting was the fact Rosemary
Lawson was married to an undertaker. The very same undertaker who
was recommended to grieving patients by none other than Marjorie—at
least, that’s what Rosemary said.

Cam could do nothing but shake his head back
and forth in utter disbelief. The tangled web pulled tighter and
tighter. He was stunned at the extent of the deceit. He had one
more call to make.

With a sense of urgency, he dragged the
phone toward him and punched in the numbers for Deborah Healy. His
impatience eased slightly when the phone was answered on the second
ring and the general manager’s receptionist confirmed her boss was
in. Cam tapped his fingers on the desk while he waited for Deborah
to take the call. A moment later, she came on the line.

“Detective Dawson, what can I do for you? I
take it you received the files.”

Foregoing preliminaries, he got straight to
the point. “What can you tell me about the business cards?” he
rasped.

“Business cards?”

“Yes, the ones belonging to Bernard Lawson,
advertising the Peaceful Passing Funeral Parlor and Crematorium.
They’re handed out by Ward Seven staff to patients in need of the
service. I assumed it was part of a broader hospital policy and
that Lawson’s funeral home was a preferred service provider.”

“Not at all. I don’t know anything about our
staff handing out business cards. We take pains not to favor any of
the funeral homes in the area. It’s not our place to recommend one
over the other.”

She sounded so genuine and confused, Cam
believed her. Perhaps the treachery was limited to the senior
members of the Whitely and Lawson families? At least he could be
grateful it hadn’t infiltrated the highest levels of the hospital’s
hierarchy. That was a headache he definitely didn’t need. It was
bad enough that senior members of the medical and nursing staff
appeared to be guilty of something abhorrent. He couldn’t help but
wonder what Georgie knew about it.

After thanking the general manager for her
time and giving her a somber assurance that she’d be the first to
know any details and if an arrest was imminent, he ended the call.
Pushing away from his desk, he strode into his boss’ office.

Detective Superintendent Holt Denman looked
up from the paperwork spread across his desk. “You look like a man
on a mission, Cam. What can I do for you?”

Cam sank into the vacant chair opposite
Holt’s desk and sighed heavily. Holt’s eyebrows rose.

“That bad, hey?”

Cam nodded grimly. “Worse.”

Holt’s expression turned serious and he sat
forward in his chair. “Does it have anything to do with the premier
because that man’s been driving me nuts wanting to know about the
progress of the investigation.”

Cam compressed his lips into a thin line.
“Kind of. And I can’t help but wonder if my sister’s baby is also
involved.” Cam couldn’t prevent the tiny spark of hope his words
ignited deep down inside him.

Holt’s face grew even more somber. “Talk to
me.”

When Cam finally finished relaying the
events of the past few hours, Holt sat still and silent for a long
moment, his lips pursed in thought.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “Over
the past twelve months, fifteen newborns on Ward Seven at the
Sydney Harbour Hospital have died suddenly and without explanation.
The midwife who found them is the sister of the Nursing Unit
Manager, who wrote the final reports. The death certificates were
signed by the same doctor, who also happens to be related to the
nurses.” He stared at Cameron. “Am I right so far?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But it gets better. The midwife and NUM own
an adoption agency and one of the nurses is married to a funeral
director.” His eyebrow quirked, but there wasn’t a hint of
amusement on his face. “How am I doing?”

The evidence sounded even more damning
coming from someone else. Cam’s lips tightened. “All true.”

Holt stared off into the distance and tapped
a pen against his desk. The sound grated against Cameron’s nerves,
but he waited his boss out. He understood Holt’s quietly unspoken
shock. It was a lot for anyone to take in.

“I take it the premier’s grandson is part of
these fifteen?”

“Yes.”

“He accused the staff of the hospital of
either murdering or stealing the child. Do you think his accusation
has credence?”

“To tell you the truth, at the time I agreed
to look into his claim merely in an effort to placate him, but over
the past week, it’s become obvious something evil is going on. The
only evidence I have is circumstantial, but we need to keep looking
into this.”

“Do you think it’s possible these staff
members are making false statements to the mothers, claiming their
babies have died, when in fact they haven’t? Is that what you’re
implying?”

Cam stared at his boss and his heart
thumped. Though he hadn’t wanted to admit it, the awful suspicion
had been floating along in his subconscious for some time. A long
moment later, he nodded. “Yes.”

“And you think these same staff members are
removing the children in secret and then trafficking them through
the adoption agency.”

Once again, Cam held his boss’ serious gaze.
“Yes.”

“How reliable is your eye witness?”

Cam shrugged. “She’s a midwife who was on
duty when most of the babies died. Although she was nervous, she
came across as rather convincing.”

Holt nodded thoughtfully. “Where does the
undertaker fit in?”

“It’s my theory that he’s been in on it from
the start. He’s fed information from the nurses about the
supposedly deceased baby and meets with the grieving mother. Almost
all of them have no fixed abode and no family and many of them have
significant histories of drug and alcohol abuse. They’re easy prey
for people with evil in their hearts. The funeral director goes
through the motions of preparing the child for burial or cremation,
but in fact, a body never appears.”

Holt nodded again, his expression grim. “By
then, the baby is long gone, presumably on its way to being adopted
to persons unknown who are oblivious to the child’s origins.”

“As an obstetrician, Doctor Rolleston has
the wherewithal to procure new birth certificates containing false
information. It would be a simple matter for the nurses to complete
the paperwork required to register the birth and have it signed off
by him. Or perhaps they even use genuine information, including the
babies’ real details. The biological mother is hardly going to find
out. As far as she’s concerned, the baby died shortly after
birth.”

Holt let out a low whistle and slowly shook
his head. “Fuck.”

Cam stared at him solemnly. “You can say
that again.”

With a heavy sigh, Holt scrubbed his hands
through his closely cropped hair. When he looked up, his eyes were
bleak. “Leave it with me, Cam. I need some time to think. Given the
people involved, we need to tread carefully. When the premier gets
wind of this, he’ll go ballistic. We don’t need him fronting the
media, tainting our jury pool. If what you say is true, these
people need to be put away for a very long time.”

“I’ll need a subpoena to get hold of the
adoption agency records.”

“Agreed. File it with the courthouse as soon
as you can. We need to move on this.”

After completing the necessary paperwork,
Cam headed out the door. With a bit of persuasion, he might even
have copies of the agency’s adoption records on his desk before the
day was over.

Dear Diary,

I’m in a quandary and I hate that I feel
like this. My uncertainty is interrupting my usually peaceful
sleep. The thing is, I’m not so sure we’re still acting in
everyone’s best interests. For years, I was convinced we were on
the right path and God was on our side.

But today, I heard from a man whose sister
fell victim to our plot. She wasn’t alone, as we imagined. It was
obvious her brother cared for her and would have cared for her
child. And then there was the premier’s grandson…

It used to be so easy. Even Marjorie agreed.
The two of us were on the same page. For so many years, we worked
as one with a common goal and all was good and well. So many babies
we saved from lives of misery and hell! But has it been
appreciated? I’m not sure we’ll ever know.

* * *

Cam stared at the writing on the page in
front of him until it blurred and his heart thumped hard in his
chest. Hundreds of files, recording every adoption that had
occurred in the City of Sydney Adoption Agency, graced every
surface of the squad room. He didn’t know what had snagged his
attention about this particular file, but he could only guess it
had something to do with the name GEORGINA WHITELY that had been
written in bold black print across the front of it.

A fresh wave of disbelief, shock and anger
surged inside his veins. Georgie had given a baby up for adoption
when she was seventeen and she’d never mentioned it. Even when
they’d talked about his past.

His anger morphed into fury. It must have
been deliberate. Nobody forgot something like that. She had to know
it was a deal breaker. How could she have betrayed him like that?
Had she cared for him at all? The sweet kisses, the tender smiles.
Had it all been a farce?

Cam wanted to shout out his denial, but the
words died in his mouth. When it came down to it, what did he
really
know about her? His gut told him she was kind, caring
and compassionate, but what if his instincts were wrong?
What if
he’d let his judgement get clouded by his attraction? Could she be
as despicable as his birth mother?
The thought was too much to
bear.

He was supposed to be meeting her for
dinner. They’d spoken about it earlier in the day. It felt like a
lifetime ago. He didn’t know how he was going to look at her and
then, just as quickly, he couldn’t wait to confront her and watch
her wriggle and squirm.