Page 48 of All Our Missing Pieces

After an agonising twenty-minute wait – during which Beatrice veered between thinking that Parker was getting better and she’d been overdramatic and thinking that she was getting worse and was going to die – the ambulance arrived.

‘It’s croup,’ a smiling paramedic confirmed after she’d checked the little girl over. ‘Normally gets better on its own, but we’d better take her in. They’ll want to give her steroids to ease her breathing. She might need to stay in hospital overnight.’

‘I can’t get hold of her parents.’ Beatrice felt as if she could barely breathe herself, her chest tight with panic. ‘And I can’t leave her brother. We’ll have to come and wait while she’s seen.’

The paramedic agreed and soon Beatrice found herself in a taxi with Slate, creeping with agonising slowness through the traffic that the siren and flashing lights of the ambulance had been able to part with ease.

‘Is she going to die?’ Slate kept asking, and Beatrice had to keep answering that of course she wasn’t, she was going to be fine, the doctors would make her better – over and over on repeat, praying that what she was saying was true.

As they were pulling up outside the hospital, her phone rang at last. But it wasn’t Frances or Peter – it was Neil.

‘Hey,’ he said when she answered, his voice sounding so improbably calm and cheerful it might as well have come from another planet. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I can’t talk.’ Beatrice bundled Slate out of the taxi, thrusting a twenty-pound note at the driver. ‘I’m at the hospital. Parker’s sick and I’m waiting for a call from her parents.’

There was silence for a moment, then Neil said, ‘Mile End Hospital?’

‘Yes.’ Slate’s hand in hers, Beatrice hurried through the revolving door and approached the reception desk.

‘Want me to come and wait with you?’

Relief washed over her. Though it wasn’t his responsibility to look after the children, the thought of having someone to look after her felt like a life buoy in a storm.

It took Neil just fifteen minutes to get there, and Frances arrived half an hour later. Although she’d received Beatrice’s updates – Parker had been seen, she’d been medicated, she was going to be okay – she was still frantic with worry, more distressed than Beatrice had ever seen her. After pressing her son into a hug, she hurried straight through to the children’s ward and left Beatrice playing tic-tac-toe with Slate on a notebook Neil had produced from his bag.

Peter arrived shortly after and, after checking in on his wife and daughter and thanking Beatrice profusely, said, ‘Come on then, big guy, time for bed,’ and set off home with Slate.

All at once, everything was calm. Beatrice found herself shaking all over, her teeth chattering even though the hospital was tropically warm.

‘Hey,’ Neil said. ‘You’ve had a shock. I can’t believe how well you held it together. Everything’s going to be okay.’

Beatrice nodded, her hands clasped together in her lap.

‘Can I get you a cup of tea? Or would you like a drink?’

‘I don’t think so. I should head home and get some rest. Thanks for coming – it means a lot.’

But she spoke automatically, barely conscious of Neil’s words of reassurance as he walked with her through the warm night to the bus stop.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’ he said. ‘Sleep well.’

‘You too. Thanks again.’

She waited until he was out of sight, and then started walking. She didn’t want to be on a bus with other people – she wanted to be alone. Throughout the evening, she’d remained calm, doing her job to the best of her ability. Now she was overwhelmed with emotions she didn’t understand and, as she walked, she made an effort to process them.

Her feet found the sidewalk without feeling it. The balmy air dried the sweat on her palms without her noticing. A black cab blared its horn as she crossed a street without looking left or right.

It was only as she approached the house on Damask Square, its elegant white facade gleaming in the glow of a street lamp, that she was able to put a name to what she was feeling.

She hadn’t just been worried about Parker because she was doing her job and responsible for the child’s welfare.

She loved her.

In those terrifying moments when she’d thought Parker might die, she’d felt as if her own heart would stop. The fierceness of her love was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, and with it came another emotion, almost as strong.

It was anger: a vast, overwhelming rage.

How could anyone abandon a child? How could Beatrice’s mother have given her away?