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two years and thirty-five days missing
chapter 66
alex
When Lottie tells me she loves me, it’s like a bucket of iced water has been flung over me, sobering me in an instant.
What does it matter if I’m arrested? I’d rather the court returns Lottie to Helen Birch and lose her forever than have anything happen to her. It doesn’t matter if they fling me in jail. Saving my daughter is all that matters.
We’re less than forty minutes from the hospital at Bangor, but it’s the longest forty minutes of my life.
I can’t believe how quickly Lottie deteriorates. She’s been listless and running a temperature for several days, but in just the last hour her fever has rocketed to 41°C. As I buckle her into the car, she vomits a dark, seaweed-green bile that fills me with terror. Her pallid skin has an unhealthy sheen to it, giving her an eerie luminescence, and her cropped blonde hair is plastered to her skull with sweat. She can’t bear the brightness of daylight, so I cocoon her in a blanket and drive as fast as I dare.
What was Ithinking, feeding her out-of-date penicillin and crushed paracetamol? She needs expert care – specialised antibiotics, intravenous fluids, oxygen, steroids – not tepid baths! I should never have left it this long to seek help. Iknowabout meningitis; a child at Lottie’s playgroup nearly died from it.One of the teachers recognised the signs and called an ambulance; her quick thinking saved the little boy’s life, but sepsis ravaged his small body and cost him both his feet. If my delay robs Lottie of her limbs, if anything happens to her, God forbid, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
I’m just minutes away from the hospital when I check on Lottie in the rear-view mirror and see her suddenly go rigid, her body stiffening like a marionette. Then she starts to convulse, thrashing against the confines of the car. I realise she’s having a seizure.
Every second counts now.
I pull out into the oncoming lane, my hand on the horn, my foot to the floor. My urgency must convey itself: cars pull onto the hard shoulder in both directions, letting me through. I drive straight up to the ambulance bay outside A&E, ignoring the yellow cross-hatching telling me not to park there, and leap out, yanking open the door to the back seat.
‘My daughter’s having a seizure!’ I shout, as a paramedic climbs out of a stationary ambulance parked nearby and runs towards me.
I unbuckle Lottie and lift her out. I’m shocked by how light she suddenly seems.
‘I think it’s meningitis,’ I say, panic making me breathless. ‘Her temperature’s forty-one degrees and she’s got this strange purple rash all over her chest.’
The paramedic pulls up the sleeve of her sweatshirt. ‘It’s spread to her arms,’ he says. Even as we look, more dots appear on the insides of her wrists, the rash spreading literally before our eyes.
‘She’s burning up,’ the paramedic says, scooping her out of my arms. ‘You did the right thing bringing her in so quickly.’
He’s already striding into A&E and I jog to keep pace alongside him. Lottie’s limp in his arms, her eyes rolling to the backof her head. There’s a sudden storm of activity as medical personnel in scrubs converge on us from all directions. The paramedic transfers Lottie to a trolley and a doctor is already tapping the inside of her forearm to insert an IV line as she’s whisked away along a corridor and through a pair of sliding doors.
I try to go after her, but the paramedic puts a detaining hand on my shoulder.
‘Can’t go back there, love,’ he says. ‘Try not to worry. She’s in good hands. The best there is. Someone will take you through to her as soon as she’s stable.’
As he returns to the ambulance bay, the doors swoosh open again and a nurse in primrose-yellow scrubs appears, holding a computer tablet. ‘Are you Mum?’
‘Yes. Is she going to be OK?’
‘She’s in excellent hands.’ The nurse pecks at her screen. ‘I just need to take some details. What’s your daughter’s name?’
I hesitate only briefly. ‘Charlotte. Lottie.’
‘Last name?’
There’s a sudden commotion behind us: shouts for help, crying, running feet.
The sound of glass breaking, of chairs being overturned.
A fight has broken out in the waiting room. Two men in their early twenties are aggressively squaring off, both already bleeding from split lips and broken noses. Each is backed by a cluster of two or three friends, some nursing injuries of their own, all yelling abuse and encouragement. A couple of young women wearing identikit gold hoop earrings, high heels and toothpick jeans are ineffectually trying to calm them down.
A deafening alarm suddenly blares, cutting off all conversation. Two burly security guards wade into the fracas, forcibly separating the lads from each other.
‘Sorry about that,’ the nurse shouts, over the din. ‘Security alarm. Happens all the time. Can you tell me your daughter’s last name again?’
I could lie. Use the name and birth date on her false ID, fabricate a home address. In this chaos, maybe it’d go unnoticed. For now. But sooner or later, the hospital will discover the child with the fictional name I’ve given them has no medical records, and that there’s no National Insurance number attached to her date of birth. I’m tired of running. Lottie’smydaughter. The DNA test will prove that. Why should I have to hide it?
