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uneasy silence fell on the room. It seemed to go on for ever until Lucy asked slowly and coldly, ‘How I felt about my baby, Inspector? How d’you think I felt about her? How does any mother fell about her baby when she’s carrying it? She was the most precious thing in the world; I loved her completely, as I do now.’
    Davies held up his palms in a gesture of appeasement and apologised. ‘Of course, I’m sorry, I probably put it badly. ‘It’s just that sometimes pregnancy brings about changes in a woman. Unaccountable psychological changes.’
    The Palmers looked puzzled.
    ‘Feelings of resentment are not unknown, even … hatred in some cases,’ said Davies. His eyes never left the Palmers.
    ‘There has never been a moment when I hated my daughter, Inspector,’ said Lucy flatly.
    ‘I see,’ said Davies, quietly. ‘So Ann-Marie was born three months ago on December the fourteenth at Caernarfon General?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But very badly deformed.’
    John Palmer winced and rubbed nervously at his forehead at Davies’s summation. Lucy looked down at the floor, unwilling to have her emotions scrutinised. The words hung in the air like a dark challenge.
    ‘Our baby is disabled , Chief Inspector. She was left without legs after surgical measures necessary to save her life. Now, where is all this leading, may I ask?’ said John Palmer when he’d recovered his composure. The tone of his voice suggested he was struggling to remain civil.
    ‘No legs,’ said Davies with a slow shake of the head. ‘Poor mite didn’t have much of a future to look forward to.’
    ‘Nonsense! And what on Earth has our daughter’s future got to do with you investigating her kidnap?’ demanded Palmer.
    Davies ignored the question and pressed on. ‘Her deformation was such that you, Mrs Palmer, completely rejected her when she was born, I understand.’
    Lucy buried her face in her hands and started sobbing. John put his arm round her and said through gritted teeth, ‘We were both very upset at the time: it came as a complete shock. We had absolutely no warning that anything was amiss with Anne-Marie.’
    ‘I thought medical science could predict just about everything these days,’ said Davies sourly.
    ‘Foetal monitoring failed to pick up the problem with her leg bones.’
    ‘I see, sir.’
    ‘You can appreciate, I’m sure, that it took us a little time to come to terms with Ann-Marie’s condition, but that’s all we needed … just a little time. I think that would be the case for most people in similar circumstances, don’t you?’
    ‘All the same, I was given to understand that you refused to have anything to do with your daughter after she was born, Mrs Palmer?’ said Davies. ‘Is that correct? You were quite adamant that you were not going to look after her? In fact, you insisted that the nursing staff take her away. “Get her out of my sight,” were the words you used.’
    ‘For God’s sake man, why are you doing this to us at a time like this?’ exclaimed John Palmer angrily. ‘I’ve already told you we were both very upset. It was a tremendous shock to both of us. We needed time to come to terms with it.’
    ‘“It”, Sir’
    ‘The situation,’ retorted Palmer angrily. ‘How many times must I say it? We were upset. We needed help and we got it.’
    ‘Go on, sir.’
    Palmer took a deep breath as if reluctant to say any more but in the end he continued, ‘The people at the clinic were very understanding and the nurses were kindness itself. Lucy underwent a course of counselling, which did her the world of good, and Professor Thomas put us in touch with a support organisation, which was - and is run by wonderful people. They’re the kind of people who restore your faith in human nature and make you feel quite inadequate by comparison. Professor Thomas also arranged for us to contact parents in the same situation as ourselves so we didn’t feel so alone. We came to terms with our daughter’s