Free Little Face by Sophie Hannah

because
you think that baby David's holding is her, don't you?'
    `I'm making no assumptions.'
    `No, but if there was no baby in the house, if David and I were both
saying our daughter was missing, it'd be a different story, wouldn't it?
The search for Florence would already be under way.'
    Waterhouse blushes. He doesn't deny it.
    `Why would I lie? What could I possibly have to gain by making this
up?' I try very hard to keep my voice level.
    `Why would your husband? Or are you suggesting he genuinely
believes it's his daughter when it isn't?'
    `No.' I consider carefully what I will say next. It goes against years
of love and habit to malign David, but I can't hold back anything that
might help to influence the policeman. `He fell asleep when he was in
charge of Florence. The front door was open. If he admits that baby's
not Florence, that means admitting he allowed her to be taken. Not
that I would ever blame him for what's happened,' I add quickly. `I
mean, who could predict something like this? But I think that's it, I
think David isn't allowing himself to see the truth, because he's scared
of the guilt he'd feel. But eventually he'll have to admit it, when he
realises that his pretence is getting in the way of you looking for Florence!' I feel as desperate as I sound. I must speak more slowly.
    Detective Constable Waterhouse is starting to look jittery, flustered, as if all this might be too much for him. `Why would anyone
swap one baby for another?' he asks me.

    It strikes me as a slightly cruel question, though I know he doesn't
mean it to be. Cruel is a bit strong, perhaps. Insensitive. `You can't ask
a mother to try to get inside the mind of the person who's stolen her
child,' I say sharply. `I honestly can't think of a single reason why anyone would do it. But so what? Where does that get us?'
    `What is the difference between the baby I've just seen and your
daughter? Anything you can tell me about any difference of appearance
will help.'
    I groan, frustrated. David asked me the same thing. It is a male
thing, this desire to tick off items on a list. `There is no significant difference that I can point to, apart from the absolutely crucial one that
they're different people! Different babies. My daughter has a different
face, a different cry. How the hell am I supposed to describe the difference between two babies' cries?'
    `All right, Mrs Fancourt, calm down. Don't get upset.' Detective
Constable Waterhouse looks as if he is slightly afraid of me.
    I adopt a more soothing tone. `Look, I know you come into contact
with a lot of unreliable people. My job's the same. I'm a homeopath.
Do you know what that means?' I prepare to launch into my usual
introductory speech about conventional medicine being allopathic
whereas homeopathy is based on the idea of curing like with like. His
eyes widen briefly. Then he nods and blushes again.
    I once had a patient who was a policeman. He was younger than me
but already married with three children and suffering from severe
depression because he hated his job. He wanted to be a landscape gardener. I told him he ought to follow his heart. That was how I felt at
the time, having recently left a tedious administrative job at the Inland
Revenue to become a homeopath. When I met David, when he and
Vivienne rescued me from my miserable isolation, I was so grateful that
all I wanted to do was help people. Now I wonder if I helped or hindered that poor man with my idealistic, impulsive advice. What if he
resigned from the police force and was plunged into poverty as a
result? What if his wife left him?

    `A lot of my patients have their own unique perception of reality,'
I say. `In layman's terms, a lot of them are nutters. But I'm not, okay?
I am a sane, intelligent woman, and I'm telling you, that baby upstairs
is not my daughter Florence!' I open my shirt pocket, pull out the camera film and put it down on the table in front of him. `Here. Hard