Will You Love Me?: The story of my adopted daughter Lucy. Cathy Glass

in twenty-four hours, you must take her to your doctor.’

      ‘I will,’ Bonnie said, taking her purse from her pocket.

      ‘Four pounds twenty,’ the woman said.

      ‘That’s a lot!’ Bonnie exclaimed. ‘Can’t I just buy two sachets?’

      The pharmacist paused from ringing up the item on the till and looked at Bonnie. Bonnie knew she should have kept quiet and paid. Through the dispensing hatch Bonnie could see a man, presumably the woman’s husband, stop what he was doing and look at her. Then the woman came out from behind the counter and leaned over the Moses basket for a closer look at Lucy.

      ‘I can smell sick,’ she said, feeling Lucy’s forehead to see if she had a temperature. Lucy stirred but didn’t wake.

      ‘It might be on the blanket,’ Bonnie said defensively. ‘I didn’t have time to wash that before I left. Her clothes are clean.’

      ‘Have you taken the baby’s temperature?’ the woman now asked.

      ‘Yes,’ Bonnie lied. ‘She doesn’t feel hot, does she?’

      ‘No, but that isn’t necessarily a good test. What was her temperature?’

      ‘Normal,’ Bonnie said, with no idea what that was.

      The woman looked at her and then returned to behind the counter. ‘Babies can become seriously ill very quickly,’ she said. ‘You need to watch her carefully. If you go to your doctor’s, they will give you a prescription for free. Where do you live?’

      ‘Eighty-six Hillside Gardens,’ Bonnie said, giving the address of the launderette she’d just left. It was the only local address she knew by heart.

      ‘Do you want the Dioralyte?’

      ‘Yes,’ Bonnie said, and quickly handed her a five pound note.

      ‘Remember, you see your doctor if she’s no better tomorrow,’ the woman said again, and gave her the change.

      ‘I will,’ Bonnie said, just wanting to get out. Once she’d tucked the change into her purse, she dropped it along with the paper bag containing the Dioralyte into the Moses basket and hurried from the shop.

      However, inside the shop Mrs Patel was concerned. The young woman she had just served looked thin and gaunt and her baby was ill. She’d appeared agitated and the basket she carried her baby in was old and grubby; she hadn’t seen one like it for years. And why was the mother out on the streets with her bags packed in the middle of winter when her baby was ill? It didn’t add up; something wasn’t right. Mrs Patel was aware that in the past chemists had missed warning signs when intervention could have stopped suffering and even saved a life. Half an hour later, having voiced her concerns to her husband, he served in the shop while she went into their office at the back of the shop and phoned the social services.

      ‘This may be nothing,’ she began, as many callers to the duty social worker do. ‘My name is Mrs Patel, I’m the chemist at 137 High Street. I’ve just served a young woman with a sick baby and I’m concerned. Is it possible for someone to check on her? I have an address.’

      And that was the first time Lucy came to the notice of the social services – as a six-month-old baby with an address but no name.

      Chapter Four

       Too Late to Help

      Three days later, in the early afternoon, Miranda parked her car in the first available space on the road, a little way past the launderette, and got out, extending her umbrella as she went. She was a first-year social worker, having qualified the year before, and had been assigned this relatively straightforward case. The duty social worker at the Local Authority had noted Mrs Patel’s concerns and passed the referral to Miranda’s team manager, who’d allotted the case to her. Miranda had duly contacted the health visitor whose patch included 86 Hillside Gardens, but having checked their records she had come back to her and said they had no record of a young mother and baby registered at that address. Now Miranda was visiting the address to investigate Mrs Patel’s concerns.

      It was only as Miranda stood in the street that she realized the address she’d been given wasn’t a house but a launderette – the last shop in a parade of four. With the rain bouncing off her umbrella, she checked the street sign to make sure she was in the correct road, and then looked round the end of the building to the side of the launderette to see if there was a door to Number 86. There wasn’t, so she returned to the front of the launderette, collapsed her umbrella and went in. Thick, dank and unhealthily humid air hit her. Although most of the machines were working, there were only two people in the shop: an elderly man sitting on the bench in front of the machines, presumably waiting for his washing to finish, and a rather large woman in her late thirties ironing at the far end of the shop. The woman looked over as Miranda entered and, seeing her hesitate, asked in a strong Eastern European accent: ‘Can I help you?’

      Miranda walked over to the woman before she spoke. ‘Is this Number 86 Hillside Gardens?’ she asked.

      ‘Yes,’ the woman confirmed, pausing from her ironing.

      ‘Are you the owner?’

      ‘No. I work here. Why?’

      ‘I’m trying to find a young woman with a baby who may live here,’ Miranda said.

      The woman looked at her suspiciously, and Miranda thought that perhaps she hadn’t fully understood her, so she rephrased: ‘I would like to see the woman living here who has a baby.’

      ‘No. I live here. Me – Alicja, with my husband,’ she said, pointing to the ceiling and flat above.

      ‘Do you have a baby?’ Miranda asked. Although Alicja didn’t match the description Mrs Patel had given, she was possibly a relative.

      ‘No baby. My boy eight. He in Poland,’ Alicja said.

      ‘Does anyone else live here with you?’

      ‘Are you the police?’ Alicja asked, her eyes narrowing. ‘We have right to be here. My husband has visa.’

      ‘No, I’m not the police,’ Miranda said with a smile, trying to reassure the woman. ‘I am a social worker.’

      Alicja frowned, puzzled.

      ‘Social worker,’ Miranda repeated, wishing that like some of her colleagues she’d mastered the basics of Polish. ‘Me good lady,’ she said, pointing to herself. ‘I help people. I want to help the woman with the baby.’

      ‘Not police?’ Alicja asked again, seeking confirmation.

      ‘No. Social worker. Do you have a mother and baby living with you?’

      ‘No. No baby. Only me and husband,’ Alicja confirmed.

      ‘Do you know a woman in her early twenties with a six-month-old baby?’ Miranda now asked, for it was possible that the mother she was looking for had stayed with Alicja or just visited.

      ‘No. I show you our room?’ Alicja said again, pointing to the flat above.

      Miranda hadn’t intended to ask to see the living accommodation; she really didn’t have a right, but as Alicja had offered it made sense for her to see the flat so she could rule out the baby being there.

      ‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘That is kind of you.’

      Alicja gave a small nod and, unplugging the iron, led the way to the door in the far corner of the shop. Opening it, she tapped the light switch and Miranda followed her up the dingy, damp-smelling staircase.

      ‘Ivan very angry with the girl with baby,’ Alicja said. ‘Ivan own shop and she steal his money and go.’

      ‘I see,’ Miranda said. ‘So there was a girl with a baby living