Questions Of Trust: A Medical Romance (9 page)

When he’d finished he held his breath, expecting a refusal, perhaps an indignant one. After all, he and Chloe weren’t exactly close friends, and she’d be working as well and wasn’t there just to drop everything and play babysitter. But when she spoke her voice was full of concern.

‘Of course, Tom. I’ll be there right away.’

Relief flooded through Tom. ‘You’ll – ah, that’s great, Chloe. Thanks so much. I’ll let the nursery know you’re coming.’

He rang off and closed his eyes. Then he dialled the nursery’s number once more.

Megan snatched up the phone, and Tom explained that he was sending someone to fetch Kelly. He was thinking of a way to describe Chloe – he couldn’t very well say
beautiful
– but when he mentioned her name, Megan cut in.

‘
The
Chloe Edwards? The one who writes the column in the
Gazette
?’

‘That’s the one,’ Tom said, thankful at having been spared.

‘Yes, of course I know who she is. I’ll be on the lookout.’ The nursery manager sounded excited, intrigued and even flattered at the same time.

Tom went back to work, trying his best to give his patients his full attention and not to let his thoughts wander into dark speculation in which Chloe got there too late and Rebecca had already spirited Kelly away. He’d been at it for a solid ninety minutes without pause, moving from patient to computer to the next patient, switching mindsets from paediatrics to respiratory medicine to gynaecology in quick succession, when a tap came at his door while he was making a few notes on the database. Ben Okoro, his partner at the practice, put his head in.

‘Tom. I owe you.’

He quickly brought Ben up to date with one or two of his older colleague’s patients whom Tom had seen and treated but didn’t know quite as well. Ben was in his early fifties, a veteran of general practice, and he absorbed and assimilated what Tom was telling him with a few rapid nods of the head. At the end he glanced at his watch.

‘It’s gone one o’clock, Tom. Get out of here.’

‘I’ll just finish off with the last patients –’

‘There aren’t any.’ Ben grinned. ‘See for yourself.’

And sure enough, when Tom went out into the waiting room he found he’d cleared the morning bookings without realising it.

He grabbed his briefcase, said to Tracey the receptionist, ‘Great work,’ as he passed the desk, and was out the door at a trot.

***

Chloe hadn’t had much experience with four-year-olds, so she wasn’t sure what to expect. But Kelly had been a delight, a cheerful, amusing little girl with an affectionate, even pastoral manner towards Jake.

They played together on the living room carpet of the cottage while Chloe half-read over the article she was composing. Kelly had greeted her like an old friend when she’d arrived at the nursery, Jake on her hip. Before Chloe could introduce herself the nursery manager pumped her hand and said, ‘Ms Edwards? It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Her manner was somewhere between shy and awed, and when she said, ‘I love your column,’ Chloe realised in bemusement that the woman was star struck.

Quickly Chloe realised that the manager, Megan, was just as much in the dark as she herself was about why Tom had asked for Kelly to be picked up early. She wasn’t ill – Chloe could see that clearly for herself – and nobody else had come round trying to remove her from the nursery. But Dr Carlyle was the one paying the fees, so the nursery were happy to comply with his request.

Kelly had evidently been briefed at the nursery because when Chloe started to explain to her in the car that her father would be round to fetch her from Chloe’s a little later, the little girl said she already knew that. She chatted on the way back to the cottage about nursery, about her friends in town, as though she regularly spent time with Chloe and Jake. At the cottage Chloe made them all lunch, wondering briefly if there was anything Tom would rather she didn’t feed his daughter, before admonishing herself that he was hardly likely to make a fuss about such things given the unusual circumstances. So she plied Kelly with tuna sandwiches followed by cheese and Marmite ones, and was gratified to see the child wolf them down.

At a little after one p.m. her phone rang. It was Tom, sounding out of breath.

‘Chloe? Everything all right?’

‘Yes, we’re all here, safe and sound.’ She let a conspiratorial note creep in to her tone. ‘Why? Are we in some sort of danger?’

‘Oh, no, no. I wouldn’t let that – Look, I’m on my way. I’ll explain everything when I get there.’

‘All right. No rush.’ She confirmed her address, then rang off and sat watching the two children and thinking.

Was Tom planning some sort of surprise for his daughter? But if so, why go to all these lengths, why involve a virtual stranger like herself like this? No, it was something more than that. Might he have been meeting Rebecca, Chloe’s mother, for a lovers’
tete a tete
and needed someone else to pick up his daughter for him? But Chloe didn’t think he’d do something so underhand and irresponsible. Besides, he’d sounded genuinely distressed when he’d phoned asking for Chloe’s help. Nonetheless, Chloe felt that old emotion, jealousy, flicker into life once more.

The sound of a car pulling up outside the cottage sent Kelly to the window. She yelled,
‘Daddy!’
and began to leap up and down in unfeigned joy. Jake didn’t understand but caught the excitement, and began gambolling about himself.

Chloe opened the door to a flustered-looking Tom, his hair dishevelled, his eyes apologetic and profoundly thankful at the same time. Something about his look set off a warmth deep within Chloe, in her belly, and she almost forgot herself and took him in her arms.

Almost
, but not quite.

The children appeared around her legs and Tom seized Kelly and flung her into the air, catching her in mid-shriek. ‘Been good?’ he asked, addressing his daughter but looking at Chloe as he did so.

‘They’ve been quiet as lambs,’ said Chloe, rolling her eyes, smiling. ‘Come in, Cup of tea?’

She saw Tom hesitate, as if he didn’t want to impose for a moment longer. Then he nodded. ‘Yes. I owe you an explanation.’

She led the way in. As she busied herself in the kitchen, she heard Tom fuss around the children, asking them about their morning. Not just Kelly, but Jake too, which she thought was a nice touch. Chloe brought the tray through and, after a few more minutes’ banter with the children, the adults watched them resume their games on the carpet and sat themselves at the dining table.

‘Chloe,’ said Tom, ‘I can’t begin to express how grateful I am. And at such short notice.’

She flapped a hand. ‘What are patients for?’

He laughed distractedly. She watched him fiddle with his milk and spoon and realised he was finding it awkward to choose the words he wanted. So she let him take his time, watching the children rather than gazing at him and adding to his discomfort.

At last he murmured, ‘It’s Kelly’s mother. My ex-wife.’

Despite herself Chloe felt a tightening within her. Suddenly she didn’t want to hear his explanation.
She and I have decided to make another go of it, I needed time to talk to her.
Was that what Tom was about to tell her?

‘I may have overreacted – probably did, actually – but I think she might have been planning to abduct Kelly from nursery.’

It wrongfooted Chloe completely, taking her utterly by surprise so that she paused with her mouth open and her teacup halfway towards her lips before she realised how absurd she looked. Quickly she took a gulp of tea, set down the cup and stared at Tom.

‘What? That’s… awful. Tom, I don’t know what to say.’

He sighed, running a hand through his already rumpled hair. ‘As I say, im probably blowing this up out of all proportion. But… well, Rebecca – she’s my ex – rang the surgery this morning to ask if I was at work. We’ve been arguing a lot lately, and I just thought she might be checking I was out of the way before she… ah, you know.’ He shook his head, looking embarrassed. ‘When I tell it out loud like that, it sounds even more ridiculous and paranoid than I thought.’

‘But why would she want to abduct Kelly, just because you’ve been arguing?’

He looked levelly at Chloe. ‘Because the arguments have been about custody.’ 

And he told her about the recent phone calls, then the visit in person, all aimed at persuading him to relinquish custody of his little girl to her mother. Chloe listened with sympathy and a growing sadness. She’d lost Mark, and she missed him terribly, the ache there constantly and every so often flaring up into a pain that was far more acute. But she wondered if she’d rather have lost him to death, as she had, than have gone through the bitterness of separation, of protracted fighting over little Jake.

At the end, she said softly, ‘You know your ex better than I do, obviously. I’ve never met her. But you said she hadn’t taken out legal proceedings yet. Surely she’d do that first, before resorting to something like abduction?’

He raised his eyebrows ruefully. ‘You’re right. The more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to see that I jumped the gun. She probably just wanted to talk to me this morning, nothing more.’

‘So what now?’

Tom rocked a palm. ‘Now? I don’t want to let Kelly out of my sight, ever, and at the same time I know that’s crazy, that I can’t keep her wrapped up in cotton wool. I can’t ask her to run screaming every time she sees her mother, because I’ve vowed not to poison her against Rebecca. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.’ He arched his back, working out a crick in his neck. ‘I’ll just have to carry on as before, but be a bit more vigilant, that’s all.’

***

After Tom and Kelly had gone, yet another round of his profuse thanks echoing in her ears, Chloe found she couldn’t concentrate on her work and took Jake for a walk in his pushchair, hoping he’d doze off, as he was always better for an afternoon nap. She strolled the lanes between the cottages in this part of Pemberham, relishing the tranquillity of the early summer afternoon, the surrounding fields in humming bloom.

Her thoughts returned to what Tom had told her. She was relieved that his fears had likely been exaggerated, something he himself realised. Kelly probably wasn’t in any danger. But Chloe recognised that her relief was for another reason. The ex-wife, Rebecca, the glamorous figure who seemed to have stepped out of the pages of a glossy fashion magazine, hadn’t been visiting Tom the other afternoon for the purposes of a romantic tryst. She’d been there to issue demands. From what Tom had said, there seemed to be little danger that he and Rebecca might be getting back together. And Chloe acknowledged she was glad about this.

He was a decent man, she’d come to understand. A genuinely kind person who was fiercely devoted to his daughter. Yes, he was attractive too, in a sexual sense. And yes, if Chloe had met him ten years earlier, he would have been her type. But she couldn’t ignore the recent past; couldn’t blot out the fact that she had no time to consider the indulgence of a romantic relationship when she had to concentrate on building a life for her son. Couldn’t get past the knowledge that she was a widow, and that her beloved husband had died because a doctor, a member of the same clique as Dr Tom Carlyle, had failed him through negligence and arrogance.

So: Chloe couldn’t possibly become involved with Tom in a romantic sense. But what was there to stop them being friends? He was somebody who apparently didn’t have a huge number of friends, or at least not close ones. Wasn’t that why he’d rung her to ask for her help in picking Kelly up in an emergency? Tom was, after all, a relative newcomer in town, even though he’d grown up there, had been back now for six months and, from what she could see, was widely liked and respected by the community. Perhaps Tom too was in need of a friend rather than a romantic partner.

And he clearly needed support now, at this difficult time, when he faced the potential trauma of the loss of his daughter. Chloe hadn’t asked more about Rebecca, or why it was that Tom had custody of Kelly in the first place when the mother almost always was the one to do so after a separation. Was Tom’s ex-wife a criminal? A drinker? Had she been abusive towards their daughter? But if any of these possibilities were true, why was Tom worried now that he might lose a custody battle? Surely anything that had counted against Rebecca in the past would still be considered relevant today?

They were questions Chloe had felt it wasn’t her place to ask, and until she got to know Tom better and learned how much he wanted to share, it still wasn’t. But as a journalist, Chloe had a curious nature. She liked to think it stopped short of nosiness – she certainly wasn’t a Mrs McFarland – but when a subject intrigued her, Chloe found it difficult to let go without finding out the whole truth.

She was interrupted in her thoughts by a shout and a wave. Cycling past on the other side of the lane was a man she recognised vaguely from the town. He called, ‘Hi, Chloe!’ and she waved back, embarrassed that she couldn’t remember his name. this was happening with increasing frequency, slightly familiar people or complete strangers greeting her, and she realised she was becoming known around Pemberham, and accepted into its community. She was both gratified and mildly alarmed by this, as she was a city girl by upbringing and had never been part of the fabric of a close-knit community before. She didn’t find it unpleasant; quite the opposite, in fact. But she worried that her city ways might make it more difficult for her to integrate, to adjust to expectations and responsibilities to which she wasn’t accustomed.