Hope to Die

Absolutely not – in fact, she asked me several questions that made it sound like she had no idea at all what was involved.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

Do you think that was deliberate?

STEVE McILVANNEY

(shrugs)

Who knows. Based on what I’ve learned about her since, anything is possible. With Camilla Rowan.

Cut to: MONTAGE: sequence of images of Camilla Rowan’s adoption paperwork for this third child, annotated as previously, with ‘False’, ‘Untrue’, ‘Does not exist’, etc.

VOICEOVER – JOHN PENROSE

Camilla went about this second adoption process exactly as she had with her first baby, filling the official paperwork with lie after lie. Once again, she gave her real name, but neither the address nor email address she provided actually existed. Once again, the mobile number she supplied always went straight to voicemail.

But this time, she was dealing with a different adoption services department. And this time, there was someone handling her case who wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

STEVE McILVANNEY

We took the baby into foster care the day after she was born, and Miss Rowan left hospital later that same afternoon. I told her I’d be in touch to follow up and she said that was fine, and she was glad the baby was ‘going to a good home’. It made it sound like it was a puppy or something.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

Didn’t that set off warning signals that something might be wrong?

STEVE McILVANNEY

No, not then – like I said, I was under the impression she’d never done this before. I put it down to nerves.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

She seemed nervous that day?

STEVE McILVANNEY

To be honest no, not really. She was chatty, smiling – certainly not distraught. But thinking about it afterwards, I think she did sense that comment about ‘a good home’ was a bit crass. She made more of an effort after that. I think she was desperate for me to just tick all the boxes and let her go.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

What happened next?

STEVE McILVANNEY

She’d put on her forms that she lived in Brighton, and had only been in Gloucester visiting friends. Just like she had with the first baby, though of course I only found out about that a lot later.

Intercut: sequence of images of Brighton. Seafront, Royal Pavilion, etc.

I also had no idea the address she’d given me didn’t exist – that’d never happened to me in 15 years. With the benefit of hindsight, I think she deliberately chose Brighton because she knew I wouldn’t have either the time or the budget to go all the way down there to see her. Everything was going to have to be done by phone or email and, of course, I got absolutely nowhere with either. Six weeks later, we got to the point where we needed to complete the final paperwork, and I still hadn’t managed to speak to her.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

So what did you do?

STEVE McILVANNEY

It occurred to me she might have given the hospital a different email address – the one she’d given me was one of those Gmail ones with a name followed by a string of numbers, so I thought she could have written it down wrong by mistake. I was kicking myself, actually, that I hadn’t thought of contacting the Maternity Unit before.

Cut to: hospital office, charts on wall, computers, cupboards, files, etc.

TITLE OVER: Staff Nurse Penny Curtis, Maternity Unit, Princess Alice Hospital, Gloucester

PENNY CURTIS

I’d known Steve for a number of years by then – we didn’t get many babies put up for adoption, but when it did happen it was usually Steve who handled the process. He was very good at his job – always very thorough and conscientious. I was surprised when he contacted me about the Rowan baby, though – I thought that had all been sorted out weeks before. But then he explained that he kept leaving her voicemails and she never called him back, so did I have an email address for her he could try. I asked him to hang on a moment while I had a look, and while I was doing that he just happened to mention that she might be difficult to get hold of because she was finding the adoption process harder than she’d thought it would be. After all, she would have had no idea what to expect.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

And what did you say to that?

PENNY CURTIS