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The man in uniform nodded quietly to the doctor and seconds later Penny was being led back to the chair by a man in a white coat.
‘I could give you a sedative, Miss Gold,' the doctor said quietly, 'but first we need all the information you can possibly give us. You understand?'
Penny understood; she understood too much. The doctor was protecting his hospital. She had arrived at five for the last appointment of the day, for James to have his triple vaccination at the splendid new health clinic attached to the hospital on the outskirts of Truro.
Penny and James had been the only two in the waiting room when a nurse had walked in and quite reasonably suggested that she take James next door to be weighed and measured before going in to see the doctor for the vaccination. With hindsight Penny knew that she should have queried the nurse's command, but, after working in the store most of the day then driving over to the clinic, leafing through old magazines and keeping James amused with the toys available while they'd waited to see the doctor, she had not been thinking too clearly and had handed James over, with the nurse's helpful instructions ringing in her ears.
'Collect up your things and go through to the treatment room. It won't take a minute, and we'll join you.'
Penny had sat for what had seemed an awfully long time, getting more and more agitated, with no sign of the nurse or James. Finally she'd jumped up, determined to go and find out what was causing the delay, when Dr Brown had entered with the words 'Sorry for the delay, Miss Gold. Now, where is the little chap?'
The next half-hour had been like a horror movie, with Penny playing the victim's role.
Now she choked back a sob and looked once more at the faces around her—the blond blue-eyed Dr Brown, a chief administrator and three policemen—two in plain clothes. It was a large surgery, very new, very white. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
It was ironic; not so many years ago when her own father had been a GP he'd visited children in their homes to give them a vaccination, and he'd always given them ten pence for being good. The memory brought fresh tears to her eyes. Now, with rationalisation, the small town of Royal Harton, where Amy and Penny had set up their store, Sense and Sensibility, two years ago, no longer had its own GP but shared a medical practice with a half-dozen other villages in Cornwall.
'So we can eliminate the father?' a deep voice asked.
Eliminate him! Exterminate him! She didn't give a fig! 'Yes, yes, yes,' she answered hysterically. She had eliminated Raul from her life years ago when she had left his apartment and never looked back. She had never seen or spoken to him since. James was the only person she cared about; he would be crying, terrified, with a strange woman in strange surroundings. 'Please, just do something. Damn you! Do something.'
There was a commotion outside in the hall, but Penny was not aware of it, too overwhelmed by her own misery and guilt to register clearly what was going on around her. It was only when Amy's comforting arm slid around her slender shoulders and Penny looked up into her friend's compassionate face that she managed to claw back some semblance of self-control.
'Oh, Amy...' she whispered. 'My baby—someone has stolen James and it is all my fault.' And another paroxysm of weeping enveloped her.
'Hush, hush. Don't blame yourself; it wasn't your fault. If you want to blame anyone, blame me. If only I hadn't insisted on taking most of the day off to visit Nick in St Austell you wouldn't have needed to wait till the last appointment and none of this would have happened.'
'No!' Penny could not let her friend take the blame. If it had not been for Amy sharing the running of the shop and the care of James, Penny would never have been able to start a business and keep her baby with her. Thinking 'if only' never helped anyone; life had taught Penny that much. Bravely she straightened her shoulders and, clasping Amy's free hand for comfort, looked straight at the policeman.
'Sorry. Please ask me anything—anything you like.' She swallowed hard to free the lump in her throat. 'Just so long as I get my son back...'
And so began the worst, the most horrific, traumatic twenty-four hours of her life...
If she had thought it hard to get over Raul, it was as nothing to the anguish, the soul destroying despair of having her son stolen from her.
'Please, Penny, take the sleeping tablets the doctor prescribed and go to bed,' Amy begged, her worried gaze following the pacing figure of her friend. 'It's after midnight. I will stay up all night and take any calls. You need your sleep. You need to be fresh and alert when they bring James back.'
It had taken all Amy's considerable powers of persuasion simply to get Penny back to the apartment above the chemist, but she was not prepared to give up yet. It broke her heart to see her friend so distraught. As for James, her much loved godson, she didn't dare think about him; she had to be strong for Penny's sake.
'They will get him back, Penny; believe me, they will. You know me; I've always been a bit psychic; I know these things. So please try to get some rest. James will need you in the morning.'
'Do you think so? Do you really think so?' Penny demanded hoarsely, her throat dry from weeping. She was grasping at straws but she was desperate for even the faintest reassurance.
'Yes, I am certain,' Amy said adamantly.
'Perhaps I will lie down for a few minutes.' And with a bleak, watery attempt at a smile Penny wandered down the hall to her bedroom. But her feet stopped outside a different door, and slowly, fearfully, she pushed it open and walked in. In some far corner of her stunned mind she hoped against hope to see James...
She stared at the Victorian-style cot, saw the outline of a form and willed it to be James. She crossed the room and leaned over the side of the crib, her shaking hand reaching out and clutching the small arm. She felt the soft hair and she could not fool herself for a second longer.
Clasping the teddy bear to her breast, she dropped her head, and the tears rolled silently down her cheeks while her shoulders shook with her anguish. Her legs refused to support her and she fell to her knees on the floor, long, shuddering convulsions racking her slender frame.
'Why? Oh, Lord, why? Why my child?' And she began to pray fervently over and over again, 'Please, please, Lord, give me back my son.'
She didn't hear or see Amy stop at the door, shake her head and walk away again. She heard nothing except the scream of anguish in her soul mingling with the pitiful memory of her baby's cry.
Daylight came, and with it the arrival of the plain-clothes policemen again. The early-morning news carried the story of the missing child and reporters from all the major national and even international newspapers appeared, milling around in the street outside the shop and apartment. The phone didn't stop ringing until Amy simply unplugged it. Finally a camera crew arrived, with a female presenter from the BBC.
Penny, numb with shock and desperate, agreed to everything and anything. All she wanted was her child back. An appeal and interview with the distraught mother on the one o'clock news might just do the tri
