“Don’t you want to keep them?” I ask.

“I’ve just seen them. Thank you very much,” he says.

“But these could be helpful,” I say.

“I don’t disagree. They could be helpful, very helpful. I’ll keep them in mind.”

Vesuvius explodes again. “Keep them in mind? You’re going to keep them in mind?” I shout. And I expect that my pale, lightly freckled Irish face is turning red.

“Look. Our team has studied these exact same recordings. Don’t you think part of our process was to view the footage from every security camera in the hospital? They took screenshots of appropriate moments in the tapes. So we’ve been there.”

“I believe you, but what I don’t believe is that any of your team took notice of that woman in the nurse’s uniform wearing stiletto heels. Did they?”

“I really can’t share information about our progress or process with you,” he says, and he is clearly becoming impatient. But certainly no more impatient than myself.

I quickly grab the photos from Blumenthal’s hands. He goes back to his laptop.

Then I say what I’d planned to say when I first walked into the inquiry office: “I am so sick and tired of this bullshit.”

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

I’M OUT OF BLUMENTHAL’S makeshift office, quickly heading back to the Midwifery Division. In the giant complex of Gramatan University Hospital, this is where I feel safest and happiest. I don’t want to sound like my crazy cousin Margaret Mary, with her shaved head and 1960s love beads, but this is a happy place, a place of simple joy. This is where the midwives and the mothers and the babies all come together. I’m all for women who opt for the kind of hospital birth Dr. Sarkar provides, but I believe there is a difference between the two styles. In the world of the midwife, giving birth is a natural process, not a medical procedure.

I have no appointments listed this afternoon, sort of a minor miracle in itself. Because I have no patients, I’m just a little confused when Troy comes in—without knocking, of course—and tells me, “You’ve got one agitated young lady sitting in your examination room, Lucy. That’s all I’m gonna say.” He pauses, then starts talking again. “Well, I will say one other thing. It’s someone you may remember from the not so distant past.”

Curious and, because of the current circumstances in the hospital, a little apprehensive, I walk into the examination room.

Valerina Gomez is seated on the examination table. She is dressed in a torn and dirty gray sweatshirt, cheap-looking jeans, and flip-flops.