QUESTIONS OF TRUST

A Medical Romance

Sam Archer

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2013, Sam Archer

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Kindle Edition, Licence Notes

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Chapter One

‘Mrs Edwards? And this must be Jake.’

Chloe glanced up in surprise. She was bent over the receptionist’s desk, filling out the form as neatly as she could in the tiny spaces, resisting the instinct to use shorthand. Her son toddled around her feet, worrying some sort of soft toy he’d found in the corner.

Doctor Carlyle – it could only have been him, as the only other doctor at the practice was Dr Okoro, an older Nigerian man – stood in the open doorway of a consulting room, a grin on his face. He was casually dressed in a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms in deference to the April warmth. The inevitable stethoscope was slung across his shoulders.

Chloe straightened and attempted a smile, aware that her face had been creased in harassment and had probably been that way for the last few hours. They’d arrived in town the previous evening, herself and two-year-old Jake, too late to get much done. This morning, though, she’d been up at dawn, doing most of the unpacking before setting off with Jake in tow to do the essentials: a shop, a visit to the local nursery to put Jake’s name down for two mornings a week, and now a trip to the local GP practice to register them both. She was an organised person and liked to get things done as quickly as possible.

‘Yes.’ She reached out a hand. ‘Chloe Edwards.’

‘Tom Carlyle.’ His grip was warm, firm, but not bone-crushing. Involuntarily, Chloe’s journalist’s eye took in the details: he was a few years older than her, but not many, perhaps thirty-three or -four. Tall, not excessively so; six foot, or a shade under. Dark brown, slightly shaggy hair. Eyes that were blue and amused, their expression matching the wryness of his grin. The faintest trace of fine creases at the corners of the eyes suggested he was a man who smiled, even laughed, a lot.

The receptionist, a cheery, blowsy girl with constantly dancing earrings, said: ‘Your eleven-thirty’s cancelled, doc.’

‘In that case,’ said the doctor to Chloe, ‘why don’t you and Jake step in for a moment? It’ll give me a chance to get to know him, so that if I ever do need to see him for anything we won’t be strangers.’

Chloe opened her mouth to protest, to say that they really needed to be off and that she hadn’t expected an impromptu doctor’s appointment for her son, but she thought, Why not? Hoisting the little boy on to one arm, she nodded as the doctor stepped aside for her and preceded him into his small, brightly sunlit room.

The doctor followed Jake’s rapt stare around the walls. ‘Not bad, is it?’ Two of the walls were decorated with elaborately colourful murals of cartoon characters. Carlyle smiled again and dropped into his swivel chair, tapping at the computer keyboard before him.

‘New to Pemberham?’ he said.

‘Yes. We arrived just yesterday.’

‘Nice town. Though I’ve been here only six months myself.’

He said it casually. It struck Chloe as an odd remark. Was he trying to empathise with her in some way? It didn’t exactly inspire confidence, suggesting as it did that he was a relative newcomer too and perhaps didn’t know the area or the people as well as he might. She said nothing.

He was right in one respect, though. Pemberham did seem a nice town. Chloe had researched the place extensively over the last year. She was looking for somewhere to move to that wasn’t so tiny that it would feel stifling, but at the same time wasn’t another metropolis like London, which was suffocating in a different way. Pemberham, nestled in the Gloucestershire countryside west of the capital, looked like a chocolate-box painting in all the online pictures, and when she’d visited it with Jake for the first time last summer, she’d been delighted to see that the photos hadn’t exaggerated its charm. They had, if anything, understated its appeal. Set between two hills in a dip too gentle to be called a valley, it was an old market town that had done its best to retain the peacefulness of its original atmosphere in the modern world. Further enquiries had informed Chloe that the schools were good, the accommodation affordable, and the rail links to London excellent. It hadn’t taken her long to decide that this was the place she and Jake would in future call home.

The move had been less traumatic than she’d expected. They had relatively little in the way of material possessions, and relatively few ties in the city. Jake was too small to have made many friends yet. The money would last Chloe for a year, plenty of time for her to find another job; and she’d already had an expression of interest from the local paper in Pemberham. All in all, the relocation of her little family unit had been accomplished with a minimum of fuss so far.

Across the desk the doctor glanced at the registration form Chloe had filled out. ‘Immunisations are up to date.’

‘Of course.’ Obscurely, Chloe felt annoyed. She didn’t need to be patronised.

Get a grip, she thought, and drew a deep breath, Speaking less sharply, she hoped, Chloe said: ‘How did you know who we were? There, back in reception?’

He raised his eyebrows. He really did have a nice smile, she had to admit. ‘It’s a small town. Whenever somebody new registers at the practice it’s a bit of an event with the reception staff. They spread the word around as if a film star is coming to town.’

Chloe had telephoned a few days earlier to make sure there was room on the practice list for her and Jake to sign up, so as to avoid a potential wasted trip.

Dr Carlyle scanned the rest of the form and made some sort of entry on his computer. ‘Healthy chap, aren’t you?’ he beamed at Jake. On Chloe’s lap, the two-year-old squirmed shyly and buried his face in her shoulder, but peeped round to see if the doctor was still watching him.

Chloe loosened her grip on her son when his squirming threatened to spill him out of her arms. She watched him anxiously, ready to scoop him up again if he started running riot; but instead, he made his way round the desk and held up Wolf, his beloved and well-chewed soft dog toy, for Dr Carlyle to inspect. The doctor peered at it with great interest.

‘And what’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Woof,’ piped up Jake.

Chloe smiled. ‘Wolf.’ Immediately she wondered: why did I set him right? What does it matter?

‘I’ll bet Wolf likes lollipops.’ Dr Carlyle glanced across at Chloe, his eyes enquiring. For a moment she was tempted to shake her head. Then she thought, oh, why not, and nodded.

With a conjuror’s flourish the doctor produced a lollipop, holding it out of the squealing boy’s reach and trying instead to hand it to the toy. In no time Jake was chuckling in that uninhibited, heartfelt way that always seemed to be the preserve of young children alone.

Chloe watched in silence. Jake was normally a cautious, quiet little boy, wary of strangers. In less than five minutes the doctor had won his friendship, his trust.

His, maybe, she thought. Not mine.

A tap on the door interrupted the merriment. The dangly-earringed receptionist put her head in.

‘Next patient’s here, doc. Mrs Watts.’

He raised a hand in acknowledgement, turned to Chloe. ‘Nice meeting you both. You’re registered to Dr Okoro and Jake is to me. That all right?’

‘Fine. Thanks.’ Chloe stood. Jake, seeing they were about to leave, began to pout, a tell-tale quiver starting in his lower lip. He clutched Wolf to his chest and lowered his head in a frown of defiance.

‘Whoops,’ said Dr Carlyle. ‘You nearly forgot this.’ He held out the lollipop.

Jake seized it with a whoop. Chloe took the opportunity to grasp his other hand.

‘What do you say?’

‘Thank you,’ the little boy announced solemnly. Dr Carlyle grinned, ruffled his hair.

‘Remember to brush, or I’ll get in trouble with the dentist down the road.’

The tantrum aborted, Jake allowed Chloe to steer him to the door.

‘Thank you, doctor,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Tom.’

In the car park outside, as she strapped Jake into his seat in the back of her Astra, Chloe thought: Tom? Isn’t that a bit overfamiliar for a first meeting, especially with a doctor?

He’d been great with Jake, she had to give him that. He was friendly, and she imagined he had a good bedside manner. And, of course, his looks no doubt made him popular with the ladies attending the surgery, who probably made up ailments just so they could consult him.

But he was who he was, and represented what he did, and Chloe couldn’t forget that.

***

‘Oh, no, no, dear. Let me get those.’

The woman had appeared out of nowhere, a short figure with a busy walk and a wild nest of grey hair that looked as if it had resisted all attempts at taming. Deftly she grabbed the bottom of one of the bulging shopping bags Chloe was hauling out of the boot of the Astra an instant before the thin plastic gave way and the contents spilled and smashed on the ground. As it was, only a single can bounced off the pavement.

‘Close shave,’ the woman clucked. Her eyes peered up at Chloe, beady and amused.

‘Thank you.’ Chloe breathed out in relief and got a more secure grip on the remaining bags now that her load was lightened. ‘If you just put it down, I’ll take everything into the house.’

‘Nonsense. You’ve got your wee boy to sort out.’ Her brogue was thick and Scottish.

Chloe had been unloading the shopping from the boot while Jake remained strapped into the kiddie’s seat in the back. She didn’t want him running off into the road while she was otherwise occupied, even though there wasn’t much traffic about. As she released him from the confines of the seat and hefted him, she wondered vaguely how the woman had known she had a small child.

‘I’m Margaret McFarland,’ the small woman said, sticking out her hand. ‘Your neighbour.’

So that was it; she’d seen Chloe and Jake arrive the night before, or perhaps set off on their errands this morning. Chloe shook, introduced herself and Jake. The toddler had reverted to shyness and turned his head away.

Margaret McFarland chuckled. ‘Scary old lady. Never mind. We’ll get on fine, lad.’

Gratefully, Chloe accepted Mrs McFarland’s help in carrying the shopping to the cottage. Despite the less-than-relaxed circumstances she couldn’t help being struck by how picturesque their new home was. Set at the end of a cul de sac lane, it was a perfect little mock-Tudor building with a riot of roses and wisteria around the front door and windows and a border of honeysuckle and daffodils framing the small patch of lawn. The interior was all low beams and country styling, and from the kitchen window the view was one of a pretty patchwork of fields dotted with sheep. It was the kind of idyllic setting that she would once have considered ideal for retiring to. Certainly she wouldn’t have dreamed a few years ago of actually living in such a place yet, and neither would Mark.

But things were different now.

As she loaded the bags on to the kitchen counter she heard Mrs McFarland bustling behind her. She turned and saw the other woman opening cabinet doors until she found what she was looking for: mugs, and a box of teabags.

‘I’ll do that –’ Chloe began, but Mrs McFarland waved her quiet.

‘You’ve had yourself a busy morning. Sit down. Milk, sugar?’

Too tired suddenly to get annoyed at the way the other woman was taking over in her own home, Chloe thanked her and set about putting away some of the perishables she’d bought, then getting a drink and a snack for Jake, who was exploring the still-unfamiliar surroundings of the cottage like an adventurer.

Settling thankfully across the kitchen table from Mrs McFarland, and sipping her tea, Chloe began to get to know the older woman. Margaret – she insisted Chloe call her that, though she reminded Chloe too much of an eccentric old schoolmistress of hers for Chloe to be fully comfortable addressing her by her first name – had lived all her life in Pemberham, and had occupied the cottage next door ever since she’d got married forty years earlier.

‘And after my Reginald passed on twelve years ago, I couldn’t bear the thought of moving,’ she said matter-of-factly. She had a son in Oxford and a daughter in London, a brood of grandchildren – ‘So I’m well trained when it comes to babysitting duties, if you ever need me for your little one,’ she added as an aside – and a horde of cats.

And, it turned out, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the details of the lives of almost every resident of the town, young or old. Mrs McFarland knew who got on with whom, which family was feuding with which. She was a member of the Women’s Institute, the local Neighbourhood Watch, the church committee, the horticultural society. She took in laundry and ironing for a small fee, baked for various fetes, delivered pamphlets door to door for any number of causes, and was a regular letter writer to the local newspaper. Margaret McFarland was, in short, a pillar of the community.

As well as a busybody and a gossip, Chloe thought, hiding a smile behind her mug. She’d taken to this bossy, fussy lady immediately, sensing a deep kindness beneath the bluster.

Chloe was a good listener. It was a quality that came naturally to her, and she’d cultivated it further in her career as a journalist. So for what seemed like half an hour she was content to let Mrs McFarland ramble on about herself, town life, and even the state of the wider world. Eventually even Mrs McFarland seemed to run out of steam, and perhaps become aware that she was truly monopolising the conversation.

‘There I go again, blethering on about me, me, me,’ she said, helping them both to more tea from the pot despite Chloe’s half-hearted protests. ‘Where are my manners? What about you, dear? What’s your story?’

In other circumstances such a blatant question would have rubbed Chloe up the wrong way, but by now she’d got used to the older woman and her manner so she didn’t mind. ‘Jake and I have moved up from north London. We needed a change of scene, and Pemberham looked ideal.’ Before the obvious question could be asked – why did you need a change of scene? – Chloe went on: ‘I’m a journalist by training. I’ve had an expression of interest from the Pemberham Gazette, so I’m hoping that’ll bear fruit.’

‘A fine paper.’ Mrs McFarland nodded her approval. ‘But I didn’t know they were looking for a new reporter. They’ve four already.’

Is there anything that goes on in this town you don’t know? Chloe wondered wryly. ‘I do mostly freelance work, and the Gazette’s editor has read some of the stuff I’ve submitted and liked it. He says he might have a couple of commissions for me.’

‘Splendid.’ For the first time, Mrs McFarland seemed lost for words. Chloe knew she was burning to ask a particular question, and decided that it would be best to bring it out into the open from the start, rather than allow speculation and gossip to take on a life of their own.

Quietly Chloe said, ‘It’s just Jake and I, by the way. I lost my husband a year ago.’

‘Ah.’ Mrs McFarland nodded sadly. ‘He must have been mad.’

Chloe frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘To have left a pretty girl like you. Some men…’

‘Oh.’ Chloe understood, and felt her anger seeping away. ‘No. It’s not like that. He didn’t leave me, not in that sense. Mark died.’

Mrs McFarland put her hand over her mouth and stared at Chloe. Then she covered her eyes and peeped out between splayed fingers.

‘Oh, my… I’m so, so sorry. Forgive me. How could I have…?’

‘It’s all right.’ Chloe managed to smile. But the memory stabbed at her, hard and cold as if the past year hadn’t dulled it, and suddenly she didn’t want to talk about it any more, and hoped the other woman wouldn’t ask her for details because she’d have to ask her to leave.

To Chloe’s relief, Mrs McFarland changed the subject, not abruptly as people often did when embarrassed by another person’s grief, but smoothly and naturally. She began to enumerate practicalities: waste collection days, useful contacts in the town council, local hospital facilities. Chloe reached for a notebook and paper but Mrs McFarland said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll print it all out for you.’

Jake was getting fractious and was clearly in need of a nap. Mrs McFarland took the hint. At the door Chloe said, ‘Goodbye, Margaret. And thank you for the welcome. I really appreciate it.’

‘If there’s anything you need, I mean anything at all, you know where I am.’

Chloe watched the small woman make her way back towards her own cottage.

Anything I need? she thought. I need for the last year not to have happened. I need to have Mark back.

The blackness began to crowd down on her, even in the brightness of the early spring afternoon, and she stepped back inside and closed the door.

***

Normally, Dr Tom Carlyle’s schedule was straightforward on a Tuesday. See his last patient at 4.45 pm, finish up by 5.30 at the latest, then beat the rush-hour traffic across town to get to the nursery a couple of minutes before it closed at six. Over the last year Tom had got used to the rhythm of the day and had all the manoeuvres down like clockwork.

The problem was, today his last patient was Mr Biswas.

Mr Biswas was a seventy-five-year-old man with diabetes. He’d had the illness since his twenties and it wasn’t ever going to go away, but for the last few years it had been reasonably well managed with a carefully fine-tuned regime of insulin injections, oral hypoglycaemic medications, and diet, to which Mr Biswas stuck more or less religiously depending on his frame of mind. More recently, however, the elderly man had begun to succumb to the long-term complications of the disease, and as a result his vision was deteriorating, his kidneys were functioning at a fraction of their optimal capacity, and the nerve fibres in his feet were failing to provide adequate information to his brain about sensations such as pressure and pain.

It was this last complication that was of most concern to Tom. His patient had come in for a routine check, and his cheery manner and ready smile was at first reassuring to Tom, suggesting that all was well. But when he unwrapped the dressing from around Mr Biswas’s left foot towards the end of the consultation, his heart sank. The ulcer on the man’s heel, previously mending well, had now reverted to an ugly crater.

‘Everything all right, doc?’ Mr Biswas asked.

Tom glanced up at him ruefully. ‘Afraid not.’

‘Not the ulcer again?’

‘Yep.’

There was nothing for it. The wound needed immediate swabbing, cleaning, dressing and covering with oral antibiotics, at least until the culture from the swab came back in a few days to reveal the nature of the infection. Tom knew for a fact that the practice’s nurse had left early for the day, and his fellow doctor, Ben Okoro, was busy with other patients.

Tom moved swiftly through the building, gathering the materials he needed, glancing as discreetly as he could at his watch. Five twenty-five. He’d need to finish sorting the wound out in ten minutes, tops, if he was going to make it to the nursery before it closed. Those ten minutes included getting the notoriously talkative Mr Biswas out the door without being rude to the poor man.

As Tom worked briskly, he was struck by his patient’s complete lack of reaction when he prodded and poked the wound. Most people would have hit the roof with the pain, but it was an indication of just how advanced the peripheral neuropathy was in the elderly man’s foot that he seemed not to feel a thing.

‘All done,’ said Tom, as measuredly as he could, dropping the various bits of waste into their particular containers. He scribbled a prescription – like many doctors, he’d started his career with impeccably neat handwriting which had over the years degenerated into a childish and almost illegible scrawl – and surreptitiously checked his watch again.

Five forty. He wasn’t going to make it.

A thought struck him. ‘Who brought you here, Mr Biswas?’

‘My son,’ said the old man. ‘He’s driving round the block. He couldn’t find parking.’

Tom tried not to let his dismay show. He’d have to wait with his patient until the son arrived, because he needed to talk to him about the importance of dressing his father’s wound regularly in a certain way.

Tom helped Mr Biswas with the crutches he’d supplied him – fortunately the man had used them before – and guided him slowly out into the waiting room. A couple of patients looked up from their magazines, smiled and nodded at him. Dr Okoro’s patients, whom under other circumstances Tom might offer to see on his colleague’s behalf. But not today.

At five forty-seven by the clock on the wall, the door to the surgery opened and a young Asian man came in, out of breath as if he’d been running. He stopped when he saw Tom and his father.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late. Had to park down the hill in the end.’

Tom had a quick word with him about the dressings, then hesitated. ‘If you’re parked down the hill... Mr Biswas, I’ll give you both a lift to your car.’

The elderly man shook his head.

‘Doctor, you are in a hurry. You have been very patient with me. Please, go. My son can bring the car up and keep it running while I come out.’

‘Mr Biswas, it’s really no problem –’

‘Thank you, we will be fine.’

Burning with guilt, Tom thanked him, pulled on his coat, said goodbye to Davina the receptionist and hurried out. Had it really been so obvious that he was in a rush? Had he appeared impatient? It wasn’t Mr Biswas’s fault, after all, that Tom was on a tight schedule.

As he dashed to his car, a three-year-old Ford station wagon, he speed-dialled the nursery on his mobile phone. It was answered before the first ring finished.

‘Megan? Tom Carlyle here, Kelly’s dad. Look, I’m really sorry. I’m running a bit late.’

He pictured rather than heard her sigh.

‘Tom... how late?’

‘Just leaving now. I should be ten minutes. Fifteen max.’

‘Since when did it take you ten minutes to get across town in this traffic?’

‘I’ll get there by magic carpet if I have to.’

‘This is, what? The fourth time now?’

‘Hello... hello?’ Tom rubbed his cuff across the mouthpiece to simulate static. ‘You’re breaking up.’

He put the phone away, dropped into the front seat of his car and took off.

In the event, he pulled up outside the nursery at six twenty-two. The place was deserted apart from two figures in the front garden: Megan, the nursery manager, and a little girl of four. As always, Tom felt his heart leap, doubly so as he climbed out and she caught sight of him and yelled, ‘Daddy!’ in a voice of unfeigned delight. She ran to him, a tall child for her age with her fair hair in a plait – one of the staff must have done that during the day, as Tom certainly hadn’t when he’d got her dressed that morning – and collided with him like a missile meeting its target.

As his daughter babbled excitedly in his ear, cramming one anecdote about her day into another so that they made little sense, Tom winced an apology at Megan. The nursery manager looked exasperated rather than angry.

‘The last time,’ Tom said, having to raise his voice to make himself heard. ‘Promise.’

‘You said that before,’ chided Megan, fishing her own car keys out of her pocket.

Embarking on the journey home, with Kelly strapped into her seat in the back but still chattering unstoppably, Tom drew deep breaths, trying to force himself to relax. Megan was right. He’d promised before, and he couldn’t guarantee he’d always be on time in the future. Two days a week he collected Kelly from nursery in the afternoon, and left her with a babysitter later when he went to do his evening surgery. Those days weren’t a problem. It was the three days on which he had to be there before the nursery closed at six that were becoming increasingly difficult to manage. He could, he supposed, ask somebody to pick his daughter up from nursery on those days, but Tom had an aversion to the idea, and felt he couldn’t trust anyone to fetch her and bring her home safely. It was irrational, he knew, but it was there nonetheless.

Single parenthood. He’d heard it was difficult, had sympathised with those of his patients who found themselves in a similar position… but his understanding of it had been merely theoretical before. Now, living the life, he had a new appreciation for those who coped with it for years on end. Did it get easier as one became more accustomed? Well, he supposed he’d find out in time.

Tom found himself thinking about the new patients at the practice today, Chloe Edwards and her son Jake. Mrs Edwards herself was a lone parent, Tom assumed, otherwise her husband or partner would have registered at the same time as the rest of the family. She’d seemed distracted, harassed even. Had she too found herself recently left to raise her family single-handedly? Or was her unsettled air simply the result of the upheaval of moving house and the numerous hassles, minor and major, that inevitably came with such a big life event?

Tom didn’t think he was a particularly self-deluding man, and he recognised immediately that his thoughts had drifted to Chloe Edwards not just because of what they perhaps had in common. He had to admit she was an intensely attractive woman, even with her slightly offhand air. Thirty years old (he felt a twinge of guilt that he didn’t need to guess her age because her date of birth was on the registration form she’d filled out), there’d been an elegance about her despite the casualness of her clothes, a thin black sweater and jeans. Long, straight dark hair, a deep black, framed her pale, unlined face, and her eyelashes appeared naturally thick and highlighted the hazel of her eyes.

‘Now, now, Dr Carlyle,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Behave.’

He pulled in to the short driveway at the front of his house and, freeing Kelly from her seat and helping her down, he started rummaging in his mind for ideas about supper for them both.

Chapter Two

The email was waiting for Chloe when she logged on.

Dear Ms Edwards, it ran. Thanks for your submitted articles, which we enjoyed very much. I particularly liked the one from the Camden Express about the plight of the homeless population in the area – very insightful, and dare I say it, quite moving. You’re clearly a writer of considerable talent.

I’m afraid you might find Pemberham a little parochial for your liking, but I’m intrigued by the proposal that you made for a one-off article, about a journalist from the city who relocates to a country town. It’s the kind of human interest story that would go down well with our readers, and I’ve no doubt your style would be popular. How about a 2,000-word piece on this theme? If you’re still interested, email me back for our terms and conditions of service.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Mike Sellers, Editor-In-Chief, Pemberham Gazette

Chloe felt a small fist of triumph raise itself in her chest. It was a start. A 2,000-word article didn’t give her much breathing space to be creative, but that was the essence of good journalism: brevity with style. She’d been in town for a day and a half, and already she had paying work. That was what mattered.

An early riser, by habit but also by necessity since Jake had learned to walk, Chloe had got up at six, just like on any normal working day, and after breakfasting with Jake she’d sat at the tiny dining room table with a mug of coffee and opened her laptop. Yesterday had been spent unpacking and neatening the cottage up, and although it needed a touch of finesse and a lick of paint here and there, those were details that could wait.

She began to outline her article while Jake played happily on his own on the rug where she could see him. Already she’d decided on a mildly self-deprecating tone, portraying herself as a big city girl haplessly out of her depth. It certainly wouldn’t do to come across as brash or cocksure; that would put readers off from the word go. The trouble was, she hadn’t been in town long enough for any amusing episodes to have occurred that might illustrate the culture clash between city and country at which she was aiming. And she didn’t want to make anything up.

Chloe took a sip of coffee and stared at the floral print wallpaper, thinking vaguely that that would most likely have to go at some point in the future. A thought drifted unbidden into her awareness.

Why not use the encounter at the doctor’s surgery?

As always when an idea occurred to her, she began typing notes before her analytical thought processes had a chance to get to work and possibly ruin the concept. GP surgery – expecting conveyor-belt treatment – instead, personal greeting by name from one of the doctors and invitation to drop into his office.

She looked at what she’d written. No, it wouldn’t do. The readers might get the impression she was suggesting doctors in Pemberham were at best underworked, at worst lazy. Plus, it was a small town, with only two GP practices. Many readers would work out, or guess, who the doctor was that she was referring to. That would be too personal an element for an article like this, and Dr Carlyle himself might hear about it and take offence.

So, over the next couple of hours, with occasional interruptions to attend to Jake when he needed to use the potty or simply wanted a hug, Chloe concocted a wry tale of a rather naïve professional woman rediscovering the simple pleasures of everyday life, of interactions with a community that existed quite successfully and happily outside the hurly burly of city life. She took pains all the while to avoid sounding patronising or sardonic, except when referring to her own mild ineptitude.

She wrote, and rewrote, and polished the article until it gleamed. Then, conscious as all experienced writers learn to become that too much revision could rub the life out of a piece of writing, she pronounced it finished.

Rereading it, this time with a potential reader’s eye rather than an editor’s, she felt a glow of pride. The style, the lively, quirky prose, were undoubtedly her. And the details of the story, while carefully selected and often embellished, were true to life.

But the narrator of the piece, the woman relating the tale, most emphatically wasn’t her.

The woman gave no indication that she was weighed down by a grief like a set of medieval chains. Or that the future, in truth, terrified her, because she was going to have to provide for her infant son, and was going to have to do it alone.

Or that her every emotion, every action, was being acted out on a bedrock of that most corrosive of all human afflictions: a profound bitterness which nobody, not her parents or her closest friends, could possibly guess she harboured.

Chloe shut her eyes for a moment. She was aware she had let herself down. Long ago, she’d vowed that part of her new life with Jake would involve her never brooding, never dwelling on what had happened, and what might have been. Brooding created fertile ground for the weeds of apathy and despair to take root. And she couldn’t allow that to happen. She owed it to Jake, even more than to herself, not to permit it.

She drained the last dregs of her third mug of coffee and fired back an email to the editor of the Pemberham Gazette with her article attached, then opened a blank document and began to jot down ideas for further pieces.

***

Tom stepped out of the surgery door into brilliant sunshine, the kind of fresh golden light you only really saw for a brief period at the beginning of the spring before the haze of summer set in. For a moment he stopped, savouring the prickle of the blossoms in his nostrils, the gentle intermittent breeze on his face.

It was 12.30 in the afternoon. He’d finished his morning surgery on time, and had a leisurely half hour to wend his way across town to pick Kelly up from the nursery. There were a few errands to be done this afternoon, including a visit to the supermarket, but he enjoyed even mundane tasks such as these when he had his daughter as company. Four precious hours with her, and then the sitter would take over and he’d be back at work for the evening shift.

He’d turned the key in the Ford’s ignition when the phone rang on the seat beside him.

Tom glanced down, saw the name that came up on the screen. He hesitated through one ring. Two. The vibrating phone shuddered in a slow circle on the seat.

He could ignore it, let it go to voicemail. Pick Kelly up, have a nice afternoon with her. Then, when it was time for him to go back to work, listen to the message. But he knew it wouldn’t be as straightforward as that, knew there’d be another call, and another, until he relented.

Sighing, he killed the engine and picked up the handset, thumbed the green button.

‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said.

‘Tom.’

The sound of her voice made him close his eyes, a complex mix of emotions flooding through him as always.

‘I’m just on my way to pick Kelly up from nursery,’ he said.

‘I’m fine, Tom, and thank you for asking,’ she said. He closed his eyes again. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to remind you about the twenty-fifth.’

She fell silent. Tom said, ‘The twenty-fifth?’ It was next week Friday. ‘What’s –’

‘You have forgotten. I thought so. Just as well I’m ringing, then, isn’t it?’

‘Hang on. Give me a minute.’ He racked his brains. Down the line he seemed to sense her enjoying his discomfort.

After thirty seconds he gave up. ‘Sorry. Remind me.’

‘Andrew and I are going away to Paris for the weekend, and we’re taking Kelly with us. Remember?’

It hit him like a spotlight being turned on full beam. ‘Oh, God. Is that next week?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you said it was months ahead.’

‘It was. When we discussed it. Before Christmas.’

‘Before Christmas? Surely not.’ But he dimly recalled the conversation, the sleet falling outside as he struggled to get Kelly ready for some outing or other, desperate for his ex-wife to finish her phone call to him so that he could get on. And she was absolutely right. He’d agreed to send Kelly away with Rebecca and the other man. Now, with the prospect looming of being separated from his daughter for a full two and a half days, he felt sick with anguish.

‘Andrew will come and pick her up on Friday afternoon –’

‘No.’ He spoke more forcefully than he’d intended. ‘Where are you flying from?’

‘Stansted, but –’

‘I’ll bring her there. Let me know the time.’ He hadn’t planned for this, so he’d have to find some way of taking next Friday afternoon off. It wouldn’t be easy. But he didn’t want that other man spending any longer with Kelly than was strictly necessary.

‘All right.’ She sighed heavily. Theatrically, Tom thought.

‘One more thing, while you’re on the line,’ said Tom.

She waited.

‘You haven’t given Kelly a toy monkey at all, have you?’

‘She hates monkeys,’ Rebecca said, an unmistakeable edge of scorn in her voice. ‘You should know that. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason. Bye.’

He dropped the phone on the seat once more and set off.

Kelly was as thrilled to see him as ever. Tom knew he should bring up the subject of her trip away with her mother and Andrew next week, but he couldn’t bear to on this glorious spring afternoon. He couldn’t face the excitement she’d display.

On the way home he fumbled in his attaché case which he’d propped in the passenger footwell and held up the soft toy monkey for her to see.

‘Is this yours?’

‘No, Daddy,’ she scoffed. ‘I hate monkeys.’

‘Thought so,’ he said.

‘Whose is it?’

‘I don’t know. I found it in my bag this morning.’

He’d assumed it was Kelly’s, but it must belong to one of his child patients who’d dropped it into his open attaché case in his consulting room by mistake, or as a prank. Well, he’d drop it off with the receptionists later that evening and they could hand it back when its owner came looking for it.

The mild depression that clung to him after every conversation he had with Rebecca these days lifted as he and Kelly made pasta and Bolognese sauce for lunch, inexpertly and messily. By the time their laughter had started to ebb and they’d finished tidying up, it was gone two o’clock. Less than three hours of precious afternoon time left together. And they still had to go shopping.

There was a large supermarket fifteen minutes’ drive out of town, but for convenience Tom preferred the smaller one in Pemberham’s central shopping area. He procured a trolley and hoisted Kelly up into the child seat in the front, resisting the childish urge to race around the aisles at top speed with her. It wouldn’t do for the local doctor to be seen behaving like a buffoon.

Several people smiled, nodded and said hello as he strolled the aisles. Thankfully none started telling him about their medical problems, a hazard most doctors faced outside the work environment. The pile of groceries in the trolley grew into a small mountain, and as luck would have it Tom had picked a trolley with a stiff wheel so that it kept listing to one side. He struggled to steer it round one particularly troublesome corner when he crashed it side-on into a stationary trolley at the end of the aisle.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered to the woman who’d turned sharply at the sound of the impact.

Then: ‘Hi.’

It was the new patient from yesterday, Chloe Edwards. Her little boy, Jake, was like Kelly ensconced in the seat at the front of the trolley. Mrs Edwards’s eyes widened. Then her expression softened in recognition.

‘Dr Carlyle. Hello.’

‘Sorry about the collision. Wonky wheel.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘Hey, Jake. How’s Wolf?’

‘Fine.’ The little boy grinned in recognition. His mother smiled, a little tightly, Tom thought. She was in trousers, a jeans jacket and a white T-shirt. Tom tried not to look at her figure, at the swell of her breasts through the cotton.

‘This is Kelly,’ he said. Never a shy child, Kelly stared openly at the new boy and his mother. Tom nudged his daughter and stage-whispered from the corner of his mouth: ‘Hey, you. Some manners, if you don’t mind.’

There were greetings all round, and Tom thought the ice was cracked a little, if not quite broken. He was smiling his goodbyes when a thought struck him.

‘Jake, did you bring anyone else when you came to see me yesterday? Any other animal as well as Wolf?’

He saw Chloe’s eyes widen again and her glance dart to her son. ‘Jake? What about George?’

Tom squinted at the boy. ‘George wouldn’t happen to be a monkey, now would he? A purple one?’

‘Yes!’ the boy shouted.

Chloe whispered, ‘You’ve found him?’

Tom nodded. ‘In my bag. Must have dropped in there.’

She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘Thank goodness.’ She expelled a long breath, and gave him a smile of such relieved radiance he felt his stomach do a slow flip-flop. ‘We only noticed it was missing this afternoon, before we came out. You wouldn’t believe the tantrum.’

‘Oh, I can believe it. Been there.’ He tipped his head at Kelly. ‘The monkey’s in the car. If you can guard my trolley, and my daughter, I’ll go and fetch it.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Chloe. She seemed embarrassed by her earlier stand-offishness. ‘Finish your shopping and we’ll wait for you in front.’

He was almost done anyway, as it happened. As he joined the short queue at the checkout, Kelly said, ‘Who are they? That lady and that boy?’

‘Mrs Edwards and Jake.’

‘I know that.’ She didn’t quite roll her eyes. ‘But who are they? Are they your friends?’

Kelly hadn’t quite grasped the notion of “patients” yet. Tom said, ‘They’re people from Daddy’s work.’

Chloe was already outside, whirling Jake in the air so that he squealed. Tom raised a hand and ambled over, Kelly at his side. The little group made their way to his Ford and he retrieved the monkey, which Jake pounced on with a yelp.

Chloe put out her hand. ‘Thanks again.’

He smiled. ‘All part of the service.’

Had that come out wrong? She retrieved her hand, her own smile fading a degree or two. With a small wave she turned and made her way with son and laden trolley towards her own car.

Not wanting to stare, Tom began to load daughter and shopping into the Ford. Had he come across as lecherous? He didn’t think he tended to, and nobody had ever accused him of it. Had she read some innuendo in the word “service”? Or was he just being oversensitive, seeing hostility in someone whose approval, if he was honest with himself, he thought he’d rather like?

Shaking his head not for the first time at the mysteries of the human species, he set off for home.

***

After a final check of her email to see if the editor at the Pemberham Gazette had responded to the article she’d submitted – he hadn’t, apart from an nitial acknowledgement of receipt, but then again it had been less than twelve hours since she’d sent it, for goodness’ sake – Chloe closed her laptop and took her cup of tea over to the small sofa. Jake had been in bed for an hour, and wasn’t likely to wake until morning if past experience was anything to go by. She settled herself into the comfort of the sofa and drew her legs up under her. From where she was sitting she could see distant hills, dark against the twilight sky. A red sky at night... She supposed around these parts, there were indeed shepherds who took such sayings to heart.

It was times like these that Chloe found the most difficult. The evening stillness, when there was no Jake to distract her, no work deadline to engross her attention. At these times it was hardest to keep the brooding at bay.

She picked up a copy of the local newspaper, both for its content and from a professional point of view, to familiarise herself with its style; but she’d bought it when they had arrived, two evenings ago, and had already read it from cover to cover. Chloe tried her novel, one she’d been meaning to get round to reading for months now, but found herself going over the same page time and again, the sentences failing to take hold. At last, giving in to the inevitable, she cast the book aside and allowed herself the indulgence of memory. It was the only way she’d get any sleep later on.

It had all happened almost a year earlier, in June. Mark had come home from work one evening – he was a partner in a City legal firm, dealing mainly with tax law – in an uncharacteristically bad temper. After he’d snapped at her and Jake for the third time, she’d frowned her puzzlement and he’d stopped short and apologised.

Once Jake was in bed he said, ‘Sorry about tonight. It’s this headache. Woke up with it and it’s been there all day.’

She asked if he’d tried various anti-inflammatories, and he said he had, without success. Moving behind him, Chloe massaged his neck, but felt none of the usual knots of tension there.

It turned out that the headaches hadn’t started that morning, but had been present for a few weeks now, on and off. Never a complainer, Mark hadn’t mentioned them to Chloe. But while they normally passed after a few minutes, the initial sharp stabbing fading to a dull ache which gradually disappeared, that morning Mark had woken with a lance of agony behind his eyes and very little relief through the day.

‘It’s been getting in the way of work today,’ he admitted. ‘I haven’t been concentrating, I’ve let things slip.’

Chloe picked up the phone handset from a nearby coffee table. ‘I’m calling the doctor.’

‘I’ll make an appointment first thing tomorrow –’

‘You need attending to now.’

‘No.’ He made a grab for the phone.

Mark was a strong-willed man, as solicitors tended to be. Chloe too was stubborn, which was one of the things that made her an effective journalist. When the two of them disagreed over something, it was like two bison bashing their heads together. This time, whether because his resistance was weakened by the pain he was in or whether he conceded deep down that Chloe was right, Mark gave in. Chloe dialled.

After an interminable wait she was put through to an operator, who put her on hold. Mark, Chloe and Jake lived in a townhouse in the north London suburb of Belsize Park. The local doctors’ surgery was a short walk away down the hill, but it was closed now, at nine p.m., and there was an emergency out-of-hours service operating.

At last a voice answered. It wasn’t the doctor but a clerk of some sort who asked Chloe to describe the symptoms her husband was experiencing. Chloe did so, as patiently as she could. Again she was put on hold.

Chloe glanced at Mark. He was sitting with the heel of his hand pressed to his forehead, his eyes closed.

Finally the doctor came on the line. Chloe didn’t recognise his voice and realised he must be a locum, a temporary doctor filling in on night duty. His manner was abrupt from the outset. When Chloe reported her husband’s main complaint as a headache, she could almost see the look of incredulity on the doctor’s face at the other end of the phone.

‘He needs to take paracetamol.’

‘He’s done that,’ she said.

‘Ibuprofen, then.’

‘That hasn’t worked, either. Plus, this isn’t a one-off. He’s had these headaches for weeks now, and this particular one all day.’

Chloe pushed and pushed, as if she were pinning down a politician she was interviewing and who was evading her questions. Eventually, out of resignation, it seemed, the doctor agreed to come out and visit Mark.

He arrived ninety minutes later, a fussy, irritable man in his fifties. After asking Mark a series of brusque questions – did he have high blood pressure, did he smoke or drink, had he been under a lot of emotional pressure lately – he conducted a physical examination that looked cursory even to Chloe’s untrained eye.

Straightening at the end and putting his instruments away in his bag, he said, ‘You have a migraine.’

‘Migraine?’ Chloe spoke up. ‘He’s never had them before.’

The doctor turned to peer at her over his glasses. ‘They can come on at any age.’

Chloe thought she’d read somewhere that it was unusual for a man of Mark’s age, thirty-three, to develop migraines for the first time, but didn’t say so. ‘Isn’t the pain normally pulsating?’ she asked. ‘Mark’s described a sharp stabbing.’

‘My dear lady,’ the doctor said, an edge sharpening his voice, ‘I can assure you I have had years of experience as a general practitioner. I recognise a migraine when I see one. It’s painful, it’s highly unpleasant… but it’s not life threatening.’ He scribbled something on a prescription pad and plucked the sheet off. ‘A codeine-based painkiller. It’ll take the worst of the discomfort away until the headache disappears of its own accord. They’ll come back, most likely. Speak to your regular doctor about possible preventative treatments.’

And with that he left.

Chloe sat beside him on the sofa, her palm smoothing his hair, her brow furrowed with concern. Mark’s face was pale, sweat springing in tiny beads on his forehead.

‘Is it still bad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you be all right to stay here with Jake for a few minutes? While I go to the chemist?’

He nodded.

There was an all-night pharmacy fifteen minutes’ walk from the house. Chloe returned to find Mark’s features contorted in a grimace of agony, an expression he tried to suppress as she walked in.

Mark took the pills, pronounced the pain a little easier after ten minutes, and went to bed.

He never woke up.

As the summer morning light slanted through a crack in the curtains, Chloe, lying beside her husband, stretched an arm across his chest, felt him cold and unresponsive. She sat up in panic, saw his eyes closed, his lips slightly parted.

No rise and fall of his chest.

She called his name, slapped her fingers against his cheeks, shook him increasingly frantically. Then she backed across the bed, groping behind her for the phone on the bedside table, her stare fixed on her motionless husband, her knuckles crammed into her mouth to stifle the scream that was building in her chest.

The coroner’s report was straightforward. The immediate cause of death was a cerebral haemorrhage resulting from a ruptured berry aneurysm. Unbeknown to Mark, he’d had a tiny swelling in one of the vessels in his brain where the wall was weakened. The piercing headaches he’d been getting were caused by minute leaks of blood as the vessel wall was breached, a fraction of a millimetre at a time. The tipping point came on the day the headaches had become constant. At some time in the night, the vessel had burst completely.

Could the damaged vessel have been repaired in time to save his life? Possibly, decided the coroner. But while the misdiagnosis of migraine was unfortunate, it didn’t, in the coroner’s view, represent medical negligence. A regrettable but forgivable error had been made.

Forgivable. Well, not to Chloe. In the white heat of grief and fury she’d lived through for the first few weeks after Mark’s death, she’d explored legal action against the doctor who’d attended Mark. Her lawyer, a friend and colleague of her late husband’s, had in the end persuaded her not to go through with it.

‘He’s a rotten doctor, Chloe. You know it, and I know it. And he probably knows it, too. But I’ve looked into this. The signs and symptoms of migraine are diverse enough that he’ll just about get away with saying he made a not unreasonable error. Plus, there’s the coroner’s ruling. You won’t win this, Chloe. I’d take on the case for free if I thought we had a chance. But we don’t. You’ll just prolong the pain you’re already going through, and be faced with the added burden of disappointment at the end.’

So she’d dropped it, and concentrated her energy on Jake, who despite being only a year old was clearly bewildered by what was going on, and by the sudden absence of his daddy. She’d gone back to work after a reasonable absence, but couldn’t pick up the threads again, couldn’t return in the evenings to the townhouse without a feeling not just of sadness and regret but of profound horror at how utterly wrong a turn their lives had taken. Her decision to move, to start a new life with Jake outside the city, had followed quickly.

Sitting alone in the stillness of the cottage, Chloe became aware her neck was wet, and realised the tears had been coursing down her face, as fresh and as stinging as if they were the first ones. When? she wondered. When does it start to get easier?

On her way to bed, she caught sight of George, the toy monkey, which after all the drama earlier had now been left on the dining room table. Dr Carlyle’s image came into her mind. It had been good of him to return the toy.

He was a likeable man, and clearly great with kids. And he was a charmer, there was no doubt about that. Charming to women.

But underneath it all, he was one of them. One of the arrogant, self-righteous clique who’d allowed her husband, her Mark, the man to whom she’d pledged her life, to die. However unfair it was to him as an individual, while she could tolerate Dr Carlyle, she could never bring herself to trust him.

Chloe drew up the covers and hoped sleep would come soon. Her hopes were in vain.

Chapter Three

Chloe heard it through the open kitchen window, the awful harsh grinding of metal on tarmac. She’d just finished doing the breakfast dishes and was going to spend an hour reading to Jake before catching up with her emails and settling down to work.

It was Saturday morning, five days after she and Jake had arrived in the town and three days since she’d sent her article to the Pemberham Gazette. The editor-in-chief had replied the next day, the tone of his email brimming with enthusiasm. He’d loved the piece, thought she struck just the right balance between self-deprecating wit and shrewd observations of the differences in country versus city outlooks, and wanted to run the article in next Monday’s edition. Best of all, if it was received well by the paper’s readers, he’d give serious consideration to commissioning a regular series of columns from her.

Her own column! Chloe couldn’t help smiling in delight at the thought of it. Granted, it was a small-town weekly, not one of the big national papers. But it would be quite a feather in her cap, considering she’d been in town less than a week. And it would be a stepping stone to greater things. Already she was soaking in the details around her as she and Jake went about their daily lives in their new home, noting with a forensic eye the minutiae of Pemberham’s architecture, its rhythms, even the subtle quirks of its residents’ accents. All were potential raw material for her writing.

The noise grated through her thoughts again. She craned to look out the window but the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere round the front of the cottage.

Chloe swept Jake up from the floor and went to the front door. On the lane outside, a car Chloe recognised as Margaret McFarland’s, a somewhat clapped-out Volkswagen Beetle, was parked half-protruding from her neighbour’s driveway. Mrs McFarland stood beside it, staring down at it and muttering.

Chloe joined her. The Beetle’s front passenger tyre was flat. More than that, the rim had eaten through the rubber and was naked against the tarmac. It explained the noise Chloe had heard.

‘Och,’ growled the older woman. ‘All I need. I was just reversing out to go and do the shopping when it happened. No warning.’

Chloe thought the tyre must have been in a pretty threadbare state to begin with for the wheel to have broken through, but she didn’t say so. She asked, ‘Have you got a spare?’

‘No idea, pet,’ said Mrs McFarland without embarrassment.

Chloe passed Jake to the other woman – he’d got used to her over the last few days, as she’d popped round on a daily basis – and popped the bonnet. She found the spare wheel in its well, and was thankful to note that the tyre was in pristine condition. Chloe located the jack and wrench and hefted everything out on to the road.

‘What are you doing, dear?’ asked Mrs McFarland, bouncing Jake on her arm.

‘Changing your wheel.’

Mrs McFarland looked astonished. ‘Don’t we need to call someone for that?’

‘Why?’ Chloe found a rock to jam behind the rear wheel. ‘I’ve done it before.’

The hardest part, as always, was loosening the wheel nuts, and Chloe had to brace her foot against the wrench and piston her leg to get some movement. It was a warm day for spring, and by the time she was winding the jack she felt her shirt clinging to her back. Beside her Mrs McFarland watched in fascinated silence.

At the end, Chloe stood up, wiping the sweat from her face with the back of her arm, her hands and jeans grimed with grease. ‘All done,’ she said. ‘But you’ll need to get all the tyres replaced soon, I’m afraid. They’re on their last legs by the look of them.’

‘You’re quite the resourceful girl, aren’t you?’ Mrs McFarland was gazing at her in frank admiration.

Chloe hesitated. Mrs McFarland really shouldn’t be driving the car in a condition like that. ‘Come on. I’ll take you shopping.’

‘No, pet. It’s very kind of you to offer. But you’re busy. I don’t want to be a sponger. It’s a nice day, I can easily walk.’

‘Really, it’s no bother –’ But she could see the other woman meant what she said.

‘Come in for a cuppa, though? You look like you could do with one after all your hard work.’

Chloe accepted gratefully. She left Jake in the other woman’s charge while she washed her hands and face in the bathroom of Margaret’s cottage. Afterwards she helped with the tea things and they sat in Mrs McFarland’s kitchen.

‘Settling in?’ asked Mrs McFarland.

‘Yes, I think I am, rather,’ said Chloe. She told her neighbour about the article she’d had accepted by the Gazette, though she refrained from mentioning the possibility of a regular column. Mrs McFarland would probably start a campaign to have every single person in town write to say how much they enjoyed her initial article just so that the editor would be impressed enough to commission the column, and it could all get embarrassing. As it was, the older woman was effusive in her praise.

‘To think! A famous writer, living next door to me!’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ smiled Chloe.

‘Oh, don’t put yourself down, dear,’ said Mrs McFarland. ‘The people who lived here before you were so dull, they were practically fossilised.’

She went on to describe several of her circles of friends and told Chloe how excited they were at the prospect of meeting her. Chloe’s heart sank a little. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope with a whole bevy of ladies like Margaret McFarland.

As the teapot emptied and the plate of biscuits became increasingly depleted, Chloe began to make moves to leave. She sensed that the other woman wanted to ask her something but was holding back. Figuring that if it was really important Mrs McFarland would come out with it at some point, Chloe thanked her for the tea and gathered up Jake.

Mrs McFarland blurted: ‘He’s nice, that Dr Carlyle, isn’t he?’

Chloe tried not to gape at her. Whatever she’d been expecting the older woman to say, it wasn’t that.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘Well... you know.’ For the first time there was an awkwardness about Mrs McFarland that was at odds with her usual chatty obstinacy. ‘He’s a nice man. Charming, friendly. Decent. And very good-looking.’

Sighing heavily, Choe sat down again. ‘Margaret. Just what exactly are you implying?’

‘Implying? Nothing, nothing. Oh, my dear, I didn’t want to cause offence. It’s just...’

Chloe didn’t help her, just sat gazing at her, waiting for her to find her voice. Mrs McFarland drew herself up as though about to take a plunge off a diving board.

‘It’s just that Connie Simkins saw the two of you, Dr Carlyle and yourself, chatting in the supermarket the other day. And you looked like you were getting on well, with your two wee bairns, and Connie thought what a nice-looking pair you made.’ She closed her mouth with a snap as though preventing the words from unsaying themselves.

Chloe broke eye contact with the other woman, shook her head slowly in disbelief. ‘People have actually been saying things like that?’

‘Not people, dear,’ Mrs McFarland said hastily. ‘Just... Connie. And a couple of others of us.’ Chloe knew her feelings must be starting to show in her expression because Mrs McFarland’s eyes widened. ‘Look, it was bound to happen. It’s a small town. Dr Carlyle’s an eligible, unattached young man. You arrive, pretty, also young and... well, and on your own. Naturally people are going to start wondering.’

Chloe pressed her palms together and touched her fingertips to her lips. She hardly knew where to start. At last she looked Mrs McFarland directly in the eye.

‘Margaret,’ she said. ‘I’d really rather you and your friends didn’t talk about me, speculate like this, behind my back.’

‘I didn’t mean any –’

‘I know you didn’t. You’ve been very welcoming, and a good friend to me. But I’m not looking for any relationship. Jake is my life now, and there isn’t room for anybody else. I certainly didn’t move to Pemberham looking for romance, or even a quick fling.’ Chloe felt her anger rising and fought it down. ‘Jake left a toy in Dr Carlyle’s consulting room, and the doctor found and returned it. That’s all we were talking about in the supermarket.’ Why was she justifying herself? What did it matter if a group of gossipy ladies invented stories about the new arrival in town? But Chloe realised it did matter. She was a professional person, hoping to develop a reputation as a journalist in Pemberham, and she didn’t need pigeonholing as the latest love interest of the handsome local doctor.

Mrs McFarland looked appalled. She batted her palms against her forehead. ‘Oh, my word. I’ve been so foolish.’ The look of distress in her eyes made Chloe soften. ‘Please, please forgive me. I’m just an interfering old busybody. I should have kept my mouth shut. “Keep your mouth shut, and your mind open.” Isn’t that what they say? You’re absolutely right. It’s none of my business what you do.’

Chloe sighed again, exasperated. ‘Margaret, no harm done. Don’t beat yourself up.’ She tried a smile on for size, found it easier than she’d thought. Mrs McFarland managed to return it.

They changed the subject, and chatted for a few more minutes before Chloe gathered up Jake and took her leave, only a trace of awkwardness lingering in the air. It was only when she got back to her cottage that she fully realised what Margaret had said. It’s none of my business what you do. Did that mean the older woman still suspected her of being drawn to Dr Carlyle?

Chloe decided against trying to work and settled instead for a vigorous spring clean of the cottage. As she threw herself into the tasks, she reflected that small-town life was going to be more complicated than she’d bargained for.

***

With hindsight, and in the grip of a guilt so intense it felt suffocating, Chloe knew she should have consulted Dr Carlyle sooner.

Nearly three weeks had passed since she and Jake had arrived, and their new life was shaping up nicely. The cottage was starting to feel like home, Jake had made friends with another little boy who lived a few streets away and whose mother Chloe had got to know in the local playground, and Chloe’s own work with the Pemberham Gazette was taking off. Her first article had proved enormously popular with the paper’s readers, and the editor, Mike Sellers, had just that week offered Chloe her own fortnightly column. Thus it was that Off The Beaten Track was born. She had the first draft already bashed out and was in the process of editing it.

Jake had been subdued for the last few days. Listless and off his food, he’d been more clingy than usual, wanting to sit on Chloe’s lap when she was at her computer and proving reluctant to let her leave his room at night. She thought he might be missing some of his old friends from London, rudimentary though friendships were at his age.

When he started digging in one ear she had a look down there as best she could, then at his throat. It looked reddened. She gave him children’s paracetamol and it seemed to perk him up for a few hours, but his fractiousness returned.

On a Friday afternoon Chloe sat working while Jake had a nap in his room. She was jolted out of her musings by his wailing cry, and she raced through to find him sitting up in the dimness, clutching his neck. Drool soaked his arm and, she saw, the pillow on which he’d been resting his head.

‘Jake!’ she gasped, trying not to scare him with the terror that crept into her voice. She sat beside him, put her palm against his forehead. He was burning up. Through his tears he was trying to tell Chloe something but his voice was muffled, as though he had something in his mouth. His breath smelled bad, something she’d noticed earlier that day but had reacted to by brushing his teeth more diligently, and his breathing was laboured.

Hoisting the little boy up onto her arm, and fighting down waves of panic, Chloe dashed through to the living room and snatched up her phone from where it was lying beside her laptop.

The receptionist, whom Chloe recognised as the girl who’d been there the day she’d registered at the surgery, took down a few details, then asked Chloe to hold. Long seconds passed, dragging into a minute, two minutes. Jake slumped against Chloe’s shoulder, his eyes open but dull.

When the receptionist came back on and said, ‘Mrs Edwards?’, Chloe had to swallow back her own tears before replying.

‘Yes.’

‘Dr Carlyle says to bring Jake down to the surgery at once. Is that possible? Do you have a car?’

‘Yes.’ Chloe rang off, already snatching up her handbag and keys.

The trip took her fifteen minutes. She parked on a double-yellow line, not caring about the consequences, and tumbled Jake out of the child seat and through the door of the surgery. The waiting room was packed, as doctors’ rooms tended to be on a Friday afternoon before the weekend, but the receptionist nodded to her immediately and picked up the phone.

‘You can go straight through, Mrs Edwards,’ she said.

Chloe passed another woman coming out of Dr Carlyle’s door but barely acknowledged her. Inside, Tom Carlyle looked as he had that first day, casually professional, his sleeves rolled part of the way up his forearms. But his face this time was knitted in concern.

‘Jake,’ he said. ‘What’s up, buddy?’

He reached out to take the boy. For a moment Chloe clung to him, reluctant to let him go. But she relented, even when her son whimpered and stretched back for her.

Gently but insistently, Dr Carlyle laid Jake on the examination couch, tilting the head at an angle so that the boy was half sitting. The doctor smoothed a hand across Jake’s crimson, wet forehead.

‘Have you given him anything?’ He glanced at Chloe.

She had to try twice before her mouth would come unstuck. ‘Paracetamol, this morning,’ she managed.

Chloe watched, transfixed, as Dr Carlyle’s hands moved across her son’s throat, his face, his soft murmuring voice all the while reassuring the boy. He produced a flat orange stick with a cartoon of some sort on it and coaxed Jake into opening his mouth. Depressing the boy’s tongue and wielding a pencil torch deftly, the doctor peered down the boy’s throat.

‘Okay,’ he nodded, straightening. He patted Jake on the shoulder and winked at him. ‘Up you get.’ He looked Chloe straight in the eye.

‘We need to get him to hospital.’

‘What?’ Chloe was disorientated. This couldn’t be happening. Half an hour earlier they’d been at home together in the peace of the spring afternoon. Now… her boy needed hospitalising?

Dr Carlyle was already reaching for his phone. ‘Jake has something called a quinsy. A peritonsillar abscess, to give it its full name. He needs an ear, nose and throat specialist to have a look at it, but it’ll almost certainly need draining.’

‘Surgery?’ She clutched Jake close.

‘Yes, but it’s straightforward. Very quick. It can be done with local anaesthetic, but as he’s just a little guy they’ll probably put him under for a few minutes.’

‘Will he… is it…’ The room seemed to Chloe to be spinning. Dr Carlyle had punched in numbers and was waiting. He raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s curable. He’ll be fine. Good thing you brought him in when you did, though. We’ve caught it just in time.’

‘Oh God. What would have happened if…’

The doctor gave a slight shake of his head. ‘Don’t think about that now. You did the right thing. The main thing now is to get him to the ENTs. Hello?’ he said into the phone, suddenly, as someone came on the line. ‘Chris, it’s Tom Carlyle here. Got a very brave little boy who needs your help.’

The next hours passed for Chloe in a fog of bewilderment, terror and, gradually, dawning relief. Dr Carlyle administered some more paracetamol to Jake while Chloe stripped him out of his clammy clothes. All at once the ambulance was there and she was bundling him into it and watching Dr Carlyle’s receding figure through the rear windows as the vehicle pulled away. The hospital was several miles out of town, a large district general facility with an elaborate façade. Jake began to cry as he was wheeled through the doors into the clinical-smelling corridor, and Chloe kept pace with the trolley, squeezing his hand.

The ear, nose and throat surgeon was kindness itself and put Jake at his ease quickly. Chloe watched the procedure through the viewing panel in one side of the operating theatre. She felt her own throat choke at how small her son was, draped in green on the table, and winced as she saw the length of the mounted needle the surgeon introduced into his open, unconscious mouth.

And at last it was over, Jake snoring in his bed in the children’s ward with Chloe sitting at his side, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest and the slow drip of the infusion set that snaked to his arm. He’d be on intravenous antibiotics for a few days, they’d said. Chloe had no intention of budging until he was ready to go home.

She kept up her vigil for three days, dozing in the armchair next to his bed, feeding off meals brought round for the young patients themselves. Mrs McFarland came round with clean clothes, sweets, fruit, picture books and balloons, but was careful not to outstay her welcome, Chloe was grateful to note. After initial howls of pain from his sore throat, Jake gradually regained some of his usual cheerfulness, and by the end of the second day he was exploring the rest of the ward and shyly interacting with his fellow patients.

At the end of the third day, Jake was awaiting his final dose of intravenous antibiotics before being discharged home. The doctors had pronounced themselves satisfied with his progress; the abscess had been drained, and it hadn’t recurred. Jake was having a nap, and Chloe, drained by fatigue, leaned back in her now-familiar armchair and closed her own eyes, relishing the peace and quiet of the late afternoon.

After the initial shock and panic, she’d had time to find out about the condition Jake was suffering from. He’d most likely had a low-grade tonsillitis for several days which she’d thought was a simple sore throat. The abscess had developed and grown rapidly, and according to what she’d read and been told, it might have progressed to cause obstruction to Jake’s breathing.

She might have lost her son.

For the first time the realisation of what might have happened hit her, and it was like a physical blow driving her back into her chair.

First Mark, and now Jake. She couldn’t have borne it.

Chloe thought about Dr Carlyle’s words to her in the surgery: you did the right thing. He was right, and yet he was wrong. The right thing would have been to bring Jake in earlier, when he first started feeling ill. Instead, not wanting to be a neurotic mother, especially aware that she was at risk of becoming one after what had happened to her husband, she’d dismissed her son’s symptoms as those of a minor illness.

The ENT surgeon had said something similar to her after the operation. You saved your son’s life, Mrs Edwards. But she hadn’t. In truth, Tom Carlyle was the one who’d saved Jake. He could have refused to see the boy, recommending instead that Chloe continue to dose him with paracetamol and call back if there was no improvement. Or, Dr Carlyle might have misdiagnosed the abscess, labelling it as tonsillitis and prescribing a course of oral antibiotics which wouldn’t have done the trick. Instead, he’d seen Jake’s condition for what it was, and his prompt action had worked.

Tom Carlyle had dropped in earlier that day, after his morning surgery. Chloe was gratified, and perversely not a little jealous, when Jake’s eyes lit up at the sight of the doctor. Dr Carlyle chatted with them both, took a quick glance at the charts at the foot of Jake’s bed, had a word with the ward sister.

As he was making to leave, Chloe half rose from her chair. ‘Dr Carlyle.’

He turned enquiringly.

‘I…’ She faltered, emotion surging within her, the accumulation of sleep deprivation and delayed stress almost pushing her back down into her seat. ‘Just – thank you. For what you did.’

He grinned, eyebrows raised. ‘My job. But it’s a pleasure.’

He gripped her hand, and was gone.

Now, as Chloe relived the memory, she felt the pressure of his hand on hers again, and was surprised at how calloused his palm had felt, not at all how she’d expect a doctor’s hands to feel. Did he perhaps do carpentry or DIY work as a hobby? She knew nothing about him, other than that he had a nice manner, and a nice smile, and had saved her son’s life.

Mentally she shook herself. He was still, when all was said and done, one of them. One of the breed who’d killed her husband. His diagnosis of Jake’s illness hadn’t been in any way miraculous. He had, as he’d acknowledged, been doing his job. Anything less would have been a failing on his part. She couldn’t forget that.

Aware, through the fog of bitterness that had engulfed her once again, that she was being grossly unfair, but unable to care about it, Chloe began to pack up her son’s few items in preparation for his return home.

***

The first Tom was aware of them was when Jake collided with the backs of his legs.

Tom turned, surprised, and saw the little boy clinging to his trousers, his upturned face laughing and impish. Tom reached down and ruffled his hair. Beside him, Kelly rolled her eyes in disdain. She was four and unimpressed by the antics of a two-year-old boy.

Chloe came hurrying over, her eyes and smile flashing an apology. She really did have an attractive smile, Tom thought, though she revealed it less often than she might. He’d seen her around town over the last six weeks, here and there, though she and Jake hadn’t attended the surgery since that day four weeks earlier when he’d presented with the quinsy. Tom had exchanged perhaps ten words with her since then.

He hadn’t seen Chloe and her son in this playground before. It was somewhere he brought Kelly every Sunday before lunch, an activity that had become part of their weekly routine since they’d moved to Pemberham back in the autumn.

Kelly muttered a hello, then raced off towards the climbing frame she loved. Chloe prised Jake off Tom’s legs and hoisted him, but he squirmed so much she had to put him down again. He toddled to a nearby miniature plastic slide and began laboriously to climb it.

Tom stood beside Chloe, watching the two children in their separate locales.

She broke the silence. ‘It’s the first time we’ve been to this playground. I thought we’d try something different.’

‘A bit off the beaten track.’

He saw her smile at the reference to the title of her newspaper column. ‘You’ve read it?’

‘Everybody’s read it.’ And he was only slightly exaggerating. There’d been three columns from her so far, and already her style – a combination of whimsy, self-deprecating wit, and the mildest hint of an appealing loopiness – had won letters of admiration. Tom had always found the Pemberham Gazette rather a dull paper, parochial and bland, but he’d bought the last few editions with Chloe’s column.

She said, ‘I’m surprised the Gazette hasn’t roped you in to write a medical column or something.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not a writer.’

‘No publications in the medical literature?’

He shrugged. ‘A couple of papers in low-impact journals, that’s all. It’s hard to be taken seriously as an author with the name Thomas Carlyle. People think it’s a pseudonym.’

‘I did wonder about that,’ she laughed. ‘Were your parents Calvinist clergy at all?’

Tom pretended to consider. ‘They were probably the most irreligious people on the face of the earth.’

Around them the playground bustled with parents trying to maintain a semblance of control over children running riot in the May sunshine. Tom hoped Kelly or Jake wouldn’t need attention, not for a few minutes more. He was enjoying the closeness to Chloe, the companionability, and wanted to prolong the moment.

He said, ‘Believe it or not, I used to come to this very playground when I was a boy.’

Chloe turned her face to him, giving him an excuse to look at her. He resisted the urge to run his gaze across the contours of her face, the cheekbones, the curved lips. Her eyes held plenty of attraction themselves.

‘I thought you’d only been in Pemberham six months.’

‘I have. Working here, I mean. But I was born here. I’m a local boy. Went off to medical school in London and joined my first practice in the inner city. I decided to move back here once… well, once I became a single dad. I thought it was a better environment to bring Kelly up in.’ Immediately Tom regretted mentioning the “single dad” detail. She might think he was dropping heavy hints. Then again, hadn’t she already worked out that he was bringing Kelly up alone? Whenever Chloe encountered them out and about, it was always just the two of them.

But he’d created an opening into the conversation for her. ‘Whereabouts in London did you train?’ Chloe asked.

‘St Matthew’s. Tough, but a terrific experience.’

She nodded in recognition. Everybody had heard of St Matthew’s, one of the great teaching hospitals on the Thames, along with Guy’s and St Thomas’s.

Tom said, ‘Yourself? Are you a Londoner?’

‘North London, born and bred.’

And that was it. No further details from her. Once again Tom sensed Chloe retreating into herself, as if she’d emerged to taste the day and decided she’d had her fill. She wasn’t cold, wasn’t rude. Just self-contained.

He’d noticed, glancing over her registration form on the day she’d joined the practice, that in the section marked marital status  she had ticked single. Not divorced or widowed. Yet she titled herself Mrs Chloe Edwards. Tom was intrigued.

But you shouldn’t be, he told himself yet again. She’s a patient at the surgery. Nothing more. Don’t be so nosey.

His phone went in his pocket and he grimaced. ‘Sorry.’ He fished it out and glanced at the caller ID.

Damn. Not now.

Tom stepped away a few paces, keeping his eye on Kelly at the climbing frame. At the same time Chloe moved closer to her son who was still engrossed in the toddlers’ slide.

‘Hello, Rebecca,’ said Tom.

‘Tom. Have you got a minute?’

Which meant, he knew, that it was going to take considerably longer than that.

‘I’m in the playground with Kelly,’ he said. ‘Can I ring you back later?’

‘I’ll be out then,’ she said curtly. ‘This won’t take long.’

Tom listened. At first what she was saying didn’t register, and he found himself mesmerised by the pendulum rhythm of a child on a swing, back and forth, back and forth. Then Rebecca asked if he’d understood, and when he didn’t reply, she repeated herself.

This time he did take it in.

Despite the warmth of the spring morning, Tom felt a chill creeping through his limbs, his bones.

Chapter Four

Chloe increased the wipers’ speed a notch, but they were fighting a losing battle against the downpour. The weeks of brilliant early summer weather had broken, finally, and the slate-coloured skies of the last twenty-four hours had opened up.

She steered the Astra carefully, uncertain of the route. It was a part of Pemberham with which she was unfamiliar, the south side, more deprived than the chocolate-box old town. Drab estates squatted miserably, their greyness darkened by the rain.

Despite the dullness and faint menace of the environment, Chloe felt a thrill of excitement. She was on her first assignment as an investigative reporter. Her whimsical column had proved so popular over the last two months that her editor, Mike Sellers, had invited her along to the Pemberham Gazette’s small office suite in the town centre the previous week for a chat.

‘Your column’s great, and I hope you’ll continue to provide it for a long time,’ Mike told her. ‘But you’re too good a writer to be confined to a fortnightly it of amusement. I’d like you to do some real journalism, if you’re interested.’

The story was a relatively minor one, certainly by London standards, but it was significant for a town like Pemberham. Residents of the Stratwell estate on the south side of town were becoming increasingly vocal about the hooliganism plaguing their area. Night after night brought a fresh crop of graffiti on the walls, drunken noise well into the early hours, smashed car and flat windows. The residents had notified the police who’d investigated, but had advised that the town council were ultimately best placed to tackle the problem. The chairman of the residents’ association had written to the council and made numerous telephone calls, with little response. Finally, in desperation, the residents had taken their concerns to the Pemberham Gazette.

Mike Sellers gave the story to Chloe, lock, stock and barrel. She was to interview the residents, then attempt to gain an audience with a senior member of the town council to find out what was being done about the problem on the estate. The Gazette wasn’t party political, but regarded holding the town’s elected representatives to account as part of its civic duty.

Chloe parked in an unmarked bay just inside the estate and glanced around after locking the doors, a little nervous about leaving her car. Jake was with Mrs McFarland for the afternoon. Working from home was all very well, but Chloe knew that if she began to do more field work like this, she’d need to look for a regular paid sitter for her son.

She found the flat with difficulty, peering through the rain at the numbers on the doors before coming across the right one. Inside were six members of the residents’ association, including their chairman, a burly man with a friendly air. They greeted her with enthusiasm, as though she’d arrived as a saviour. Chloe was touched to see the spread they’d laid out for her: tea, sandwiches, home-baked cakes and biscuits.

For a full two hours she perched on the edge of an armchair and took notes, recording statements from time to time, asking the occasional question for clarification but generally just listening. Gradually a heartbreaking picture was built up of a community in terror, at the mercy of a small number of out-of-control youths who themselves sounded as if they had limited options for advancement. The residents admitted they had given up on asking the council for assistance, and had taken to painting over the graffiti each morning themselves, trying to set up with limited success more youth activities on the estate, and generally making do themselves.

‘But there’s a limit, Miz Edwards,’ said one woman. ‘We’re not rich people here. We go out to work ourselves. The council get paid to sort places like this out, so why are they leaving us to do their job for them? It’s not right.’

When she’d gleaned all she could from the residents – and when she realised she’d better be getting back to relieve Mrs McFarland, Chloe stood and thanked them.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said. ‘At the very least, your story will be on the front page of the Gazette.’

She was aware of the atmosphere of hope, even triumph, she left behind her, and she felt the burden of their expectations as she returned to her car. Chloe hoped fervently she wouldn’t let them down.

Her Astra was intact and unmarked, she noted thankfully. She set off for home. The return journey was easier, not least because the rain had eased off. Deciding to take a shortcut and avoid the centre of town, Chloe turned towards the moderately well-to-do streets of the western district.

The main road took her past Dr Carlisle’s house. She knew where it was because she’d once been giving Mrs McFarland a lift and her friend had pointed it out to her. Expecting Mrs McFarland to pass another comment, oblique or otherwise, suggesting that Chloe get closer to the doctor, Chloe hadn’t said anything but had driven on, quickly diverting the conversation in another direction. She’d noticed the house, however: a modest, attractive two-storey structure with a thatched roof and a generous front garden.

She glanced in the direction of the house now as she approached. Tom Carlisle’s car was in the driveway, she noted; it must be one of his split days at work. Another car was parked behind his, a Mercedes, flashier and pricier than his Ford. As Chloe drew abreast, a woman stepped out of the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and, swinging the door shut, began to stride briskly towards the front door.

In the glimpse Chloe got before she passed, she noticed that the woman was beautiful. Around thirty, Chloe’s age, she was elegantly decked out in an expensive-looking green sheath dress that clung to her slender figure. Her long blonde hair was carefully, discreetly highlighted and swung free, and her face had the high-cheekboned features of a makeup model. In her rearview mirror Chloe watched the woman reach up to the doorbell, and a few seconds later she saw the front door open and Tom appear. Then they were lost to view as Chloe turned the Astra off the main road.

His girlfriend, she thought.

And why not? He was a single, highly attractive man, with great looks, a winning personality and a good, well-respected job. A catch if ever there was one. It stood to reason he’d have no difficulty finding somebody, and no disinclination to do so. In any case, why was she even thinking about the subject? She ought to be concentrating on the piece she was going to write about the problems on the estate, shaping the prose in her head.

It was only when she caught her breath that Chloe realised she’d been forgetting to breathe for a few seconds. Gripping the steering wheel, she reproached herself. You’re turning into a nosey parker like Margaret McFarland.

She forced herself to think of her forthcoming article, of the supper she was going to make Jake and herself that evening, of the service her Astra was going to need in a few weeks. By the time she drew up outside her cottage, she was hardly thinking of Tom or the mystery woman at all.

***

‘Cup of tea?’

‘No thanks.’ As she’d done the other few times she’d visited his and Kelly’s home, Rebecca was casting a less-than-discreet eye over the décor, the furnishings. Her expression suggested she found them wanting.

Tom studied Rebecca. His ex-wife was perched primly on the edge of the sofa as though to sit back more comfortably would be to indulge in a friendliness she didn’t feel. She looked good, he had to admit. No, more than that: she looked absolutely stunning. Her clothes, her teeth and hair, were perfect. The tan looked natural, achieved on the beaches of the French Riviera rather than on a sunbed. And her body… it was dynamite, as supple and curvy as it had been when he’d first met her eleven years earlier. He’d been a medical student of twenty-two, she a nineteen-year-old studying fashion design. Little more than a decade ago, yet another era, it seemed.

The day was warm in spite of the earlier rain. Rebecca’s lustrous golden skin, the headiness of her perfume, all contributed to the atmosphere of mellow heat. But Tom felt cold as a man in rags on a winter’s night.

‘Where’s Kelly?’ asked Rebecca.

‘At nursery.’ Although Tom was at home, it wasn’t his usual split day. He’d asked his colleague Ben Okoro to cover him at the surgery for a couple of hours so he could meet Rebecca. Tom glanced pointedly at her handbag.

‘Are they in there?’

She arched a perfect eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The papers.’

‘Which papers are those?’

‘The legal papers. The summons, or whatever it is.’

She sighed, making even that sound elegant, practised. ‘It hasn’t come to that. There are no legal proceedings. I asked to meet you because I wanted to discuss this face to face.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss, Rebecca.’

‘Tom –’

‘Nothing we haven’t spoken about on the phone. You’ve wasted a trip here.’

She rested her pretty chin on her folded hands, looking away from him and blinking as though marshalling her thoughts.

‘I could take it further. Down the legal route.’

‘You could,’ he said. ‘And you’ll have to, frankly, if you want to pursue it.’

‘She’s my daughter.’

‘And mine.’

‘I’m her mother.’

‘In a sense.’ She stared at him as though stung, and he immediately regretted his words. He held his hands up in apology. ‘Sorry. That was a bit harsh. Of course you’re her mother, and she adores you. I’ve never tried to poison Kelly’s love for you, Rebecca. I never would, never will. I’ll never say a bad word about you in front of her. But you agreed to my having sole custody. Agreed even when your lawyer, and mine, both pressed you on whether you were absolutely certain that was what you wanted.’

‘I know,’ she said. She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘But I’ve changed my mind.’

Even though she’d said them before, the words gripped his heart.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve had time to consider. Having Kelly with us in Paris the other weekend was wonderful. It made me realise I need her to grow up with me.’

‘You need her. What about what she needs?’

‘A child needs a mother.’

‘A father too.’

‘She’d have a father –’

‘Don’t you dare.’ Tom fought the urge to rise from his chair and jab a finger in her direction. ‘Don’t you dare suggest he could be her father.’

‘Andrew’s a loving, capable man.’

‘Yes, I know that. He certainly proved capable of loving you away from me, didn’t he?’ Tom let the bitterness soak through. ‘So what about the lifestyle you’d have to sacrifice with a child to weigh you down? No more jetting off to the Caribbean on a whim, no more guarantees of cosy, romantic nights when there are fevers to be attended to, bad dreams to be soothed away. Have you actually thought of any of that?’

He’d raised his voice at the end, unable to help himself. Rebecca didn’t flinch. She smoothed her exquisitely manicured hands down her thighs and said, ‘Andrew and I have considered this at great length. And we’ve come to the conclusion it’s what we want.’

‘Just like one of his business deals, is it? Cost-benefit ratios weighed up, risk analyses carried out…’

‘Now you’re just being childish, Tom.’

He slumped back in his chair, staring at her, at a loss for words. This is how it begins, he thought. The vicious back-and-forth sniping that damages a child for ever. The divorce eighteen months earlier had been terrible, more painful than Tom had ever imagined, but at least they’d avoided the nightmare of a custody battle. Rebecca, dazzled by the glamorous world her new man Andrew was whirling her into, had quite readily conceded that Kelly would live with Tom. Everything had been legally settled, and since then, whenever Rebecca had expressed a wish to have Kelly visit or even come away for a weekend, Tom had quite willingly agreed, thankful for the privilege of having his daughter live with him and more than magnanimous in granting visiting rights to her mother.

Then the phone call had come, several weeks earlier when he’d been in the playground talking to Chloe, and Rebecca had announced that she wanted sole custody, wanted Kelly to live with her and the new guy. Tom had hung up on her. She’d phoned again, and eventually they’d held a conversation of sorts, in which he made his position as clear as he could: over my dead body. Rebecca had texted him a few days ago, asking for a meeting, and he’d agreed, assuming as he’d told her earlier that she was going to bring out the legal papers.

‘You could visit,’ Rebecca said. ‘Often.’

He pictured it. The Sunday trips by car to London, the day of frenetic “fun” activities while his heart broke again and again every time he looked at his daughter. The agony of separation at the end, and the dreary slog back home, alone.

‘Forget it,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

Rebecca drew a long breath. The last time Tom remembered her doing that was just before she announced to him she was having an affair with Andrew.

‘There’s something else,’ she said.

Tom waited.

She looked him full in the face. ‘Andrew and I are moving to France,’ she said. ‘We want Kelly to come with us.’

He was silent. The news might have floored him, but instead Tom felt numbed.

‘Then that’s clinched it,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to discuss this any further.’

‘Tom, you’d –’

‘You had your chance, Rebecca, and you passed it up. I’ve been more than reasonable in letting Kelly visit you over the last year and a half, both when we lived in London and since we moved. You can’t deny that. And I’m happy for that to continue. But for her to come and live with you, for her to move abroad… no.’

‘You’d better listen to what I have to say.’

He stood up. ‘This conversation, and this visit, is over. Please leave.’

Rebecca remained seated. ‘You can’t win this.’

‘Oh, but I can. And I will.’

‘I’ll get the lawyers involved if I have to.’

‘Do your worst.’

‘The courts will always look favourably on the mother in a case like this.’

‘Not if she’s already renounced custody once before.’

This time she did stand. She took a step forward. Almost as tall as he was, around five feet ten in her heels, her gaze was level with his.

‘This could get very, very nasty, Tom.’

‘It already is.’

Her tone became soft, as close to menacing as he’d ever heard her.

‘You have no idea what I’m capable of. No idea.’

‘I’m starting to get an inkling.’ He held out an arm towards the front door. ‘Go, Rebecca. Please.’

He watched her stalk off towards the Mercedes and disappear in a squeal of tyres. She didn’t look back.

Tom closed the front door and leaned heavily against it, his eyes closed. He felt utterly drained, more so than he had after some of the thirty-hour shifts he’d done as a junior hospital doctor.

You have no idea what I’m capable of.

What had she meant by it? He supposed it was bluster, empty threats. Yes, she had a point that the courts tended to favour the mother in custody battles. But he was of excellent character, and had a steady, respectable job. And, as he’d reminded her, she had voluntarily ceded custody of Kelly to him at the time of the divorce.

Feeling light-headed and a little shaky, Tom got ready to return to work.

***

‘No bother at all,’ said Mrs McFarland, studying Jake fondly as he toyed around Chloe’s legs. The two women were seated at Mrs McFarland’s kitchen table having a cup of tea. Chloe had entered the cottage to the sounds of her son’s raucous, uninhibited laughter, and Mrs McFarland said he’d been in high spirits all afternoon.

Margaret wanted of course to know all about Chloe’s “assignment”, as she called it. Chloe said she couldn’t reveal many details, which intrigued the older woman all the more. In the end Chloe let slip that she was going to try to interview a senior member of the town council about something, and this inflamed Mrs McFarland’s curiosity to the point where Chloe, laughing, had to put her hands up and insist that she really couldn’t say any more, and that was that.

A thought seemed to occur to Margaret and she leaned across the table conspiratorially. In a low voice she said, ‘Oh. Bit of gossip. Jill Bryson phoned just before you got here to tell me she’d seen Rebecca Carlyle at the petrol station earlier.’

‘Rebecca Carlyle? Who’s that?’ But Chloe thought she knew.

‘Dr Carlyle’s ex, dear. Nobody’s seen her around town for ages. She came to pick up the little girl once, several months ago, but that was the last time. And there she was, according to Jill, getting into her car after filling up. Done up to the nines, she was, too. Though she always was a stylish girl.’

Chloe felt something gnawing at her, deep in her stomach. ‘What does she look like?’

‘She’s – why?’ Mrs McFarland’s glance was sharp and shrewd.

‘Oh, I just think I might have seen her too.’

‘Tall, very pretty. Long blonde hair. Takes care of herself. Not that you don’t, dear,’ the older woman added hastily, patting Chloe’s hand.

Chloe stared off in silence until Mrs McFarland said, ‘Well?’

‘What?’

‘Is she the one you saw earlier?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so. Visiting Dr Carlyle.’ As she said it, Chloe felt the sensation spreading through her chest. She couldn’t identify it, exactly. She just knew it was making her struggle to breathe.

‘Ah.’ Mrs McFarland drew the syllable out knowingly. ‘Now that’s interesting. You don’t think – no.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t think… they might be getting together again?’

Chloe said nothing. But yes, that was precisely what she’d been thinking.

Mrs McFarland was off, seeming not to notice Chloe’s discomfort. ‘It would be lovely, you know. We were all so sorry to hear of the divorce, even though young Tom wasn’t living here at the time. And it would be so good for little Kelly as well, to have both parents around again. We didn’t know Rebecca well in Pemberham, but Tom brought her up from London a few times while he was courting her, and she seemed like a nice girl.’ She rubbed her hands, clearly delighted at this latest morsel of gossip she was going to be able to share with her circle. ‘So what did it look like to you? Did you see him kiss her?’

‘No, no.’ Chloe waved a hand, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘I was driving past his house and I just saw her go up to the door, that’s all.’

‘Ah.’ Mrs McFarland seemed disappointed. ‘Still, I’m sure we’ll find out more soon enough.’

I bet you will, thought Chloe wryly. But her mind was on other things.

She made small talk for another few minutes, all the while struggling to recognise the tightness in her chest for what it was. Words were Chloe’s stock-in-trade, the way she made her living, and she liked to be able to pin concepts and feelings down and define them in verbal terms. But this experience was proving hard to characterise. There was a strong physical component – a choking sensation, a rapid pulse, a tingling – but the name of the accompanying emotion was eluding her.

So what if Dr Carlyle – Tom, she really should get used to calling him, since everyone else did – was getting back together with his former wife? Wasn’t that usually considered a good thing, especially when there were children involved? Shouldn’t Chloe be happy for him? Or, more accurately, why should she care one way or the other, apart from feeling the natural benevolence a decent person would for an casual acquaintance’s good fortune?

Besides, Chloe herself might benefit if Tom and his ex reconciled. It would put an end to the speculation about her and Tom as two eligible, unattached people of a similar age, speculation which Chloe sensed was still rife in town despite her protest about it to Margaret McFarland. Chloe wouldn’t have to worry that every casual conversation between her and Tom on the playground or in the supermarket would be misinterpreted as evidence of attraction or a growing attachment between them.

Her musings continued after she’d gathered up Jake and returned to their own cottage, and they resumed later once he was tucked up in bed after supper and Chloe was at her laptop, writing up notes from her interview that afternoon with the residents of the estate. In Chloe’s experience, when she couldn’t let go of a topic it was usually because she’d made a mistake somewhere along the line, a mistake in her reasoning. Deciding she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on her work while she was thus preoccupied, Chloe shut her laptop and closed her eyes.

And in a moment she had it. The mistake she’d made was that she’d been dishonest. Not dishonest with anyone else, but with herself.

She knew the name of the emotion she’d been experiencing after hearing about Rebecca Carlyle’s return. Had in fact been experiencing since she’d seen this glamorous woman walking up to Tom’s door.

The emotion was called jealousy.

Chapter Five

Since Tom had started working as a fully fledged general practitioner five years earlier, he’d come to realise that there were three types of working day. There were the busy days. There were the days on which you were so run off your feet you barely had time to draw breath.

And then there were days like today.

He’d arrived at work at eight, after dropping Kelly at nursery, to find his first patient, a young woman in the late stages of her first pregnancy, pale and distressed in the waiting room and complaining of pain in her upper abdomen. With difficulty and with the assistance of her distraught husband he’d manoeuvred her into his consulting room, where he’d conducted a speedy examination. Her blood pressure was sky high at 170 over 120, and there was protein in her urine. These signs, together with the swollen, pitted appearance of her ankles, pointed to one thing. Pre-eclampsia, a condition that potentially threatened the lives of both his patient and her unborn baby.

Calmly but briskly Tom made the arrangements, asking the receptionist to call for an ambulance and phoning the consultant obstetrician at the local hospital himself, all the while keeping his eye on the patient on his examination couch in case she showed incipient signs of a seizure. He’d consoled her and her husband as best he could, staying with them until the paramedics arrived to take her away.

By the time she was off to hospital, Tom had a backlog of six patients in the waiting room. He ran an eye over their notes. Two were entirely new, so he’d need to take time to get to know them. The other four had an assortment of longstanding conditions that wouldn’t be resolvable quickly: rheumatoid arthritis, congestive heart failure, psoriasis and recurrent depression.

And then the call came in from Tom’s colleague, Dr Ben Okoro. He’d been in a minor car accident on the way to work. He was unhurt, but the man who’d hit him had jumped a red light and the police were taking statements. Ben was going be a couple of hours late. Could he, Tom, cover Ben’s patients in the mean time?

His workload suddenly doubled, Tom went into overdrive. It was an experience he’d been through before as a junior doctor, as though some sort of microchip in his head kicked in and took over, enabling him to do what would normally be humanly impossible. He worked like a machine, seeing patient after patient, spending enough time with each one that they left apparently satisfied that they’d been listened to, and not rushed out of his consulting room, yet maintaining a steady rhythm so that he gave the impression of brisk efficiency rather than a harassed doctor who was getting bogged down.

At around eleven o’clock, as Tom was ushering a limping elderly man out with a quip and a smile, he spotted Tracy the receptionist hovering outside the door. He raised his eyebrows enquiringly. She mimed a request – can I come in? – and he stepped aside for her and closed the door.

‘Just thought I’d better let you know that your ex-wife rang,’ said the receptionist.

‘What? Did she want to speak to me?’

‘No, I asked. She just wanted to know if you were at work.’ Tracy looked anxious. ‘I didn’t know who she was at first. A woman phoned and asked if Dr Carlyle was at work, and when I asked who she was, she said “Rebecca Carlyle, his former wife”.’ Tracy bit a false fingernail. ‘I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘No, no, don’t worry, Trace,’ Tom said. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

When she’d gone, Tom picked up the next patient’s notes, his mind running over what the receptionist had just told him. Rebecca had probably wanted to talk to him but realised he was busy. Why then, though, hadn’t she rung him on his mobile and left a message for him to call her, as she normally did? And what she’d asked Tracy… not Is Dr Carlyle available? but Is he at work?

Rebecca’s words from their conversation a few days earlier came back to him.

You have no idea what I’m capable of.

Tom closed his eyes, as a chill ran through him like a spike.

He pulled out his mobile phone and speed-dialled the number of the nursery.

‘Hello, Megan?’ he said when he recognised the manager’s voice. ‘Tom Carlyle here. Is Kelly all right?’

She sounded astonished. ‘Yes, she’s fine. Why do you ask?’

‘Has anyone been there trying to pick her up?’

‘No!’ Now she sounded appalled. ‘What’s going on, Tom?’

‘I need to come and get her. Don’t allow anyone else to take her, will you?’

‘Of course not! Tom, please tell me –’

But he’d already rung off. He ran a hand through his hair, then stepped out into the waiting room. A sea of faces turned towards him. Children were crying, older patients groaning.

He couldn’t leave.

Tom held up a finger as Tracy tried to get his attention – one minute – and went back into his consulting room.

You’re a doctor, he told himself. Doctors come up with solutions.

And the idea occurred to him.

Before he had a chance to start doubting it, to come up with a thousand reasons why it was a bad idea, Tom went over to his computer. A few clicks and typed words brought up Chloe Edwards’s details.

He thumbed the number into his phone and waited.

She answered more quickly than he’d been expecting and he caught his breath.

‘Chloe? It’s Tom Carlyle here.’

‘Hello, Dr Carlyle. Tom.’ She sounded guarded.

‘Look, I’m really, really sorry to do this. I have a huge favour to ask you.’

And he let it all out, in a rush: how he needed someone to pick his daughter up from nursery but was unable to get there himself, how it needed to be someone he trusted and she was the only person he could think of. He didn’t say why Kelly needed fetching, or why the situation was so urgent; nor did he mention anything about Rebecca. All he did was assure Chloe was that Kelly was fine, and that he’d be round to Chloe’s to pick her up as soon as he could get away, which would probably be in the early afternoon.

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.

Peering over the hood of the pushchair, Chloe saw that Jake had dozed off. She decided to continue her walk since the afternoon was so pleasant. She headed up a hill which offered one of her favourite views of the town, and once at the top paused and basked. Pemberham nestled below her, soaked gold in the sunlight, resembling a whimsical portrait from a tourist brochure.

Yes, I can see us calling this place home, she thought. An image of her late husband rose in her mind and she felt the now familiar sting of pain. But although he was with her, always, he didn’t belong here. Their life together had been in London. This was a new life, hers and Jake’s, and she had to make of it something worthwhile and useful in its own right, not live it as a constant tribute to Mark.

She had a home, and a job at which she was already proving a success. The next step was to cultivate some friendships. She had Margaret McFarland. Now she’d see if friendship was what Tom Carlyle wanted.

Chloe set off for home once more, deciding that she’d take the first step and approach Tom, ask him if she could be of any help.

Chapter Six

Rebecca ambushed him the instant after he’d climbed into the driver’s seat of his car.

Tom had asked the child minder, a local teenager, if she could stay half an hour later that evening to look after Kelly as he needed to catch up at work. After collecting Kelly from Chloe’s cottage, Tom had spent the next three hours with her before reluctantly handing her over to the babysitter. He was still uneasy about letting his daughter out of his sight, but decided that if he didn’t break this feeling of paranoia right now it would take hold. So he’d secured the teenager’s agreement to stay a little longer, and had headed back to the surgery.

At half past nine, Ben having already gone home, Tom helped Tracey the receptionist to lock up, then headed across the car park to his Ford. He was behind the wheel, considering whether to cook something at home or get a takeaway en route, when a tapping at the passenger window made him start. Ducking his head to peer out, he saw Rebecca glaring at him through the glass.

Without invitation she opened the door and climbed in beside him.

‘Rebecca,’ he said. ‘How long have you been –’

‘I knew it was your evening surgery so I arrived a few minutes ago,’ she said. ‘I kept out of sight because I didn’t want people coming up and saying hello, or wondering what I was doing here.’

‘And what are you doing here?’

‘Who is she, Tom?’

He turned to stare at Rebecca. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips compressed.

‘Who –’

‘That woman who picked my daughter up from nursery today. Who is she? Your girlfriend?’

‘You –’ There were so many things Tom needed to say and ask that they crowded for space in his throat. ‘You were watching the nursery?’

‘I drove past in the morning to see if I could get a glimpse of my daughter, yes. And what do I see? This strange woman helping her into her car, both of them smiling and chatting as if they’re old friends. If there’d been room I would have pulled over and confronted her, I can tell you.’

‘What are you doing in town anyway?’

‘Tell me who she is. That woman.’

Tom stared at his ex-wife, then took a deep breath, counting slowly to defuse his anger. ‘She’s a friend. Nothing more. Not that it’s any of your business. I asked her to pick Kelly up from nursery.’

‘Why? You were still at work.’

‘Yes, as you’d established by ringing the surgery.’ He rounded on her. ‘What was I supposed to think, Rebecca? I hear that you’ve been phoning to enquire about my whereabouts, but not leaving a message for me to call you back. This comes just a few weeks after you announce you intend to try to pry Kelly away from me. Of course I’m going to speculate, to assume the worst.’

‘Oh my God.’ She gazed through the windscreen, her tone wondering. ‘You thought I was going to kidnap Kelly.’

‘I didn’t know what to think. And can you blame me?’

‘You’re paranoid, Tom, do you know that? Delusional.’

‘And I suppose you’re now going to use that as evidence that I’m not fit to look after Kelly.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Give me a break.’

She said nothing. He watched her for a moment.

‘So why did you ring to ask if I was at work, Rebecca?’

‘Because I was going to ask to talk to you. I changed my mind when I spoke to your receptionist.’

‘Talk to me about what?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m not budging on the custody thing, Rebecca. I mean it. So you can save your breath.’ A thought struck him. ‘But why are you in Pemberham anyway? If you’d wanted to talk, why couldn’t you just phone from London or wherever it is you are this week?’

‘I’m… staying here for a few days.’ She didn’t make eye contact.

‘Why?’

This time she turned her face to him, cool defiance in her eyes. ‘None of your business. It’s a free country. I can stay where I please.’

‘Oh, come on, Rebecca. You mean to tell me you decided on a whim to spend a few days in a little Cotswolds town that just happens to be where your former husband and your daughter are living, soon after you’ve announced you’re going to fight your ex for custody? You expect me to believe that?’

‘I didn’t say… I don’t want us to fight, Tom.’ Her voice trembled and for a moment he wondered if she was going to start crying. But she held her tears in check. ‘I haven’t taken legal steps yet. I just – I guess I was hoping that by meeting you in person again I’d be able to persuade you.’

‘Despite the fact that the last time we met, a few days ago, your parting words to me were, and I quote: “You have no idea what I’m capable of.” Some people, quite a lot of people, in fact, would see just the glimmer of a threat in a statement like that, Rebecca.’

Once more she sat in silence, staring ahead.

Tom felt drained, suddenly. He slumped in his seat. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Just around. Doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ll give you a lift, if you want.’

‘No. My car’s parked nearby.’ She climbed out without looking at him.

For the second time in a few days he watched her walk to her Mercedes and get in.

After she’d pulled away Tom sat behind the wheel of his own car, too bewildered to trust himself to drive. Had he completely misjudged the situation? Had Rebecca’s threat of a few days earlier simply been the petulant, throwaway remark of a young mother who profoundly regretted her decision to renounce custody of her only child? And had she come back to Pemberham for the reason she’d told him, namely to try to negotiate some sort of agreement with him?

If that was the case, then he’d done her an injustice. She’d betrayed him during their marriage with her new lover, Andrew, and she’d been petty and often spiteful during the divorce, but she was still a human being, still capable of feeling guilt and regret, and of changing her ways. Was she more to be pitied now than feared, a desperate young woman who realised she’d made a terrible mistake in voluntarily separating from her child and perhaps even from Tom?

And yet… and yet… There was something about Rebecca’s account that didn’t ring true to Tom. She’d given superficially plausible explanations for each individual piece of the mystery, but the whole thing didn’t hang together convincingly. Clearly she’d been hanging around the nursery, and even if her intention hadn’t been to spirit Kelly away, Tom had been right in his assumption that she’d go there.

Then a thought came to him like a blade of ice to the heart. Rebecca had seen Chloe put Kelly in her car and drive away. Might she have followed her home? Had she noted her address, and decided not to confront her then and there but rather to speak to Tom about the mystery woman first? In which case, was it possible Rebecca was on her way to Chloe’s right at that very moment?

Tom rubbed his knuckles across his forehead in frustration. Get a grip, Carlyle, he thought. He was being paranoid again, spinning an elaborate fantasy out of the flimsiest of threads. Besides, even if Rebecca did pay Chloe a visit, she was hardly likely to do anything more than make a fool of herself. She wasn’t going to slash her tyres or attack her physically or do anything drastic like that.

With a jolt Tom realised he was late for the babysitter and, turning the key in the ignition, he put his foot down.

***

The call came as Chloe was watching the ten o’clock television news. Jake was long in bed, and fast asleep when she’d checked on him an hour ago.

At first she assumed the late phone call at that hour was the long-awaited confirmation from the councillors’ offices that one of the politicians would meet Chloe for an interview, and she jumped up to grab the buzzing handset from the table. But when she glanced at the number on the screen, she recognised it as the one that had come up earlier that day, nearly twelve hours ago.

Tom Carlyle’s.

Chloe put the phone to her ear. ‘Hello? Tom?’

‘Chloe, I’m so sorry to trouble you again, and at this hour. Is everything all right?’

‘Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?’

She could sense his relief down the line. ‘I know this is quite a thing to ask, especially after all you’ve done for me today, so feel free to say no. But would you be able to meet me briefly? Tonight?’

Oh, wait a minute, thought Chloe. What’s this? She said carefully, ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No. Well, not really. I don’t know. Look, I’m not making much sense, I know. And I know Jake must be asleep, and Kelly is too. I could wake her up –’

‘No,’ Chloe said, making her mind up. She’d told herself earlier that day that she would try to help Tom, to be a friend to him, and this was a good place to start. ‘I should be able to get my neighbour to sit in with Jake for an hour. Let me come round to your place.’

Margaret McFarland was only too happy to come over, in spite of the hour. She was of course intrigued as to where Chloe was going at that time of night. Chloe said only that it was a friend of hers who needed some support, and promised she’d be gone an hour and a half at the most. She was amused to note that Mrs McFarland was desperate to ask who this “friend” was, but managed to keep herself from doing so.

Twenty minutes later, Chloe stepped out of her Astra and walked up the driveway to Tom’s front door. The night was warm and she wore only a thin sweater, no jacket. Tom must have heard or seen her pull up because he opened the door as she approached. He grinned, his expression apologetic once more.

As he ushered Chloe into the living room she glanced about, unable to stop herself casting an appraising eye over his home. The house was tastefully but simply furnished in a country style, neither the lounge-lizard bachelor pad it might have been nor the chaotic mess of some of the single men she’d known over the years. One wall was dominated by a huge stone fireplace which must create quite a cosy effect in the winter, she thought.

He offered beverages – she accepted a decaffeinated coffee – and she propped herself on a kitchen stool while he prepared the drinks in two earthenware mugs. A shelf was crammed precariously with well-worn cookbooks, and Chloe noticed an exotically stocked spice rack, strings of onions and garlic, and window trays blooming with herbs of various assortments. A country kitchen, and one that clearly saw a lot of use.

Tom noticed her looking around and said, ‘Never used to be much of a cook, but I’ve learned through necessity.’

‘Do you like it?’

He chuckled. ‘To my surprise, yes, I do. You?’

‘I’ll burn water when making coffee if I’m not careful.’

‘Somehow,’ he said, ‘I doubt that.’

Chloe watched him over the rim of her mug as he sat opposite her across the kitchen table. Despite his cheerful demeanour, tiredness was dragging at him, tautening the skin around his eyes.

After a short silence Tom said, ‘I asked to see you because I wanted to warn you about Rebecca, my ex-wife.’

‘Warn me?’

He sighed. ‘Maybe that’s too strong a word.’

And he told Chloe about his meeting with his ex an hour earlier. Chloe was startled when she heard that Rebecca had seen her pick up Kelly. She tried to remember any signs that she might have been followed home, any suspicious goings on outside the cottage, but couldn’t.

‘I doubt she’d really follow you, or put you in any danger,’ Tom said. ‘She’s not the stalker type. But she can be… unpredictable. She’s like a child sometimes, or an adolescent. She’ll fly off the handle, do things on impulse that she later regrets. And she doesn’t like being thwarted. Never has done.’

‘Do you think she’ll take the custody issue down the legal route?’

Tom rocked his palm. ‘Perhaps, perhaps not. She’s in town at the moment to try to persuade me to give up custody without recourse to that. It suggests she doesn’t want to get the lawyers involved. My hope is that she’ll give up and retreat.’

‘And if she doesn’t?’

‘If she doesn’t, I’m prepared to fight my corner.’ Tom had been gazing into his tea mug but now he raised his eyes to Chloe’s. ‘I don’t pretend to be the perfect father, Chloe. There are a thousand things I could be doing better with Kelly. I never feel I’m spending enough time with her. I worry she’s not eating enough, or not the right things. I have this nagging fear that her mum and I have harmed her by separating as we did. So, I’m no saint. But I think I do a fair job. And I believe Kelly’s better off with me, that she’ll have a more stable, normal life here in Pemberham than she’d have jetsetting off around the world with Rebecca and her man.’

Chloe smiled. ‘I’ve no doubt about it. And those worries you have, about not spending enough time with your daughter? All parents have them. All good ones, anyway.’

He nodded his thanks, sipped his tea.

After a pause he said: ‘Anyhow, the reason I wanted to tell you about Rebecca in person was that I didn’t want to alarm you. A phone call might have sounded like I thought you were in imminent danger or something. I just think it’s best that you be on the lookout, that’s all. Probably just for a few days, while she’s in town. And if you’re worried about her at all, if she approaches you or anything, please let me know immediately, okay?’

Chloe said gently, ‘Thanks, Tom. But I’m sure I can take care of myself.’

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘See, there I go again. Sounding patronising. Of course you can take care of yourself. I didn’t mean to suggest you needed me to come riding to the rescue.’

‘I know what you meant. And thanks again. Advice noted.’

The conversation seemed to come to a natural end there. Chloe finished her coffee and stood.

‘Long day. You for one look like you could do with some rest.’

He rose with her and came round the table. ‘Chloe, I really appreciate what you’ve done today. Both picking Kelly up and… well, and being there to listen.’ He reached out a hand, and Chloe took it.

Whether Tom drew her towards him or whether it was Chloe herself who stepped nearer, she couldn’t for the life of her remember afterwards. But in the next instant she was at him, up close, their torsos not quite touching, her hand gripping his elbow and his on her upper arm. She stared up at his eyes, their blue in contrast to his unruly hair, and was fascinated to see that his pupils were dilated, crowding out the irises. Between them she felt the tingle of near contact.

They said nothing, studying one another’s faces. Her gaze slipped to his mouth, the faintest ghost of a smile settled there in what she’d come to recognise as his resting expression. His cheeks, his neck, were lightly shadowed with stubble. She noticed that his nostrils flared slightly, as if his breathing were quickening.

Once again it was uncertain who moved first, but she found herself pressed against him, the heat of their chests combining into something more intense than the sum of its parts. Her arms twined around Tom’s neck as his slipped about her waist and tightened deliciously, drawing her hips closer so that her loins pushed against his. His mouth descended on hers as she raised her face to meet his and their lips joined, their tongues probing. The heat between them flooded through her, and she felt the pressure of his chest against her breasts tease her nipples into hardness through the fabric of her bra and sweater. And against her lower belly she sensed the nudging of his own arousal through his trousers.

Tom broke free from the kiss and she felt his breath hot against her hair, her ear, before his teeth nipped at her earlobe and his tongue teased it exquisitely. She titled her pelvis so that it pressed even more tightly against his groin and he groaned, low and guttural, in her ear. Chloe became aware that her own breath was coming in little gasps as she buried her mouth against his neck.

And, from a distant part of her that retained a semblance of control, she heard a small voice saying: No. Stop.

‘No,’ she murmured out loud, surprising herself.

Tom drew back, still holding her, looking into her face. He was flushed, his eyelids heavy. ‘Why?’

‘No,’ she said again, more clearly this time.

‘Don’t you want to?’

‘It’s just –’ Her words came thickly, as if she’d lost the power of speech and was having to relearn it.

‘If you’re worried Kelly will walk in, we can go in the –’

‘No, Tom. I can’t.’

‘Can’t, or won’t?’ His tone was soft.

Flustered, Chloe stepped away from him, ran her hands over her face, straightened her clothes. She felt dizzy, disorientated. Her heart was hammering and for a moment she didn’t trust her legs to support her.

Somehow she managed to look Tom in the face. The desire was still there in his eyes, but it was dwindling under the fog of resignation.

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I have to go.’

‘Chloe –’

She held up a vague hand, didn’t look back but walked quickly to the door and let herself out. In the car she paused a moment, sucking in great lungfuls of breath, fighting the urge to hyperventilate which she knew would make her even more lightheaded.

When she felt composed enough to be safe behind the wheel, Chloe started the car and set off for the cottage.

***

She glanced at the green digital display of the clock after what seemed like an hour. It read 2:55. Ten minutes had passed since she’d last checked.

Chloe decided enough was enough. She wasn’t going to get to sleep by lying there waiting to drift off. She rose from bed, pulled on a thin terrycloth dressing gown – the night was still warm despite the hour – and went into the kitchen. There she poured herself a glass of water; caffeine was the last thing she needed.

The shaking had continued all the way home and she’d had to sit in the car outside the cottage and compose herself once more before going in to Mrs McFarland and sending her home. After the older woman had left, having tried unsuccessfully to find out again exactly whom Chloe had been to see, Chloe took a tepid shower, not sure what the stinging needles of water were quite supposed to achieve but hoping they’d somehow settle the turmoil within her.

They didn’t, and Chloe sat up for half an hour more before turning in. Lying in bed, trying in vain to find a comfortable position, she began to realise with a creeping dread that the insomnia which had last plagued her in the months after Mark’s death was planning on paying her a repeat visit tonight.

Standing at the kitchen counter, Chloe took a deep draught of water, then pressed the cool glass against her forehead. She’d had no idea feelings of the power of those she’d experienced that evening were still rousable within her, and the realisation that the capacity to experience sensation so intensely lay dormant within her was breathtaking and more than a little frightening.

She’d been taken completely by surprise by what had happened between her and Tom, yet she knew she ought to have expected it. Part of her even wondered if she was as surprised as she told herself. It had been there between them, nearly from the start, this attraction which neither of them had spoken about or even alluded to, and just because she’d admitted to herself in a careless, throwaway manner that Tom was an attractive man it didn’t mean her true feelings towards him were any less real.

Now, she had to face up to the fact that the situation was different. She couldn’t deny any longer that what she felt for Tom was more than the harmless appreciation any woman might have for a good-looking man. Her feelings for him were intense, as visceral and as powerful as any she’d ever known, and yes, while she was being honest, that included her dear Mark. It wasn’t even just adolescent lust. She understood that Tom appealed to her on multiple levels: he was, yes, physically sexy, but he was also warm, funny, gentle, a kind and honest man and a great father.

Chloe hadn’t been with a man for over a year, since Mark’s death. She hadn’t even looked at a man in that way. But now, for the first time, she recognised that she wanted, needed a man. Not as some sort of saviour, not to protect her or make up for some inadequacy – Chloe was an independent, self-sufficient woman, something she’d proven to herself since being widowed – but as a soulmate, a partner with whom to share her thoughts and her fears, somebody to walk with and comfort and be comforted by in turn. And, yes, someone to writhe entwined with, naked in bed, to indulge in adult pleasures with and then to wake up alongside in the drowsy warmth of a new morning.

But it couldn’t be. Not yet, not with any man. Mark had been gone a little more than a year, and it was far too soon for her to be “moving on”, as the phrase went. And in any case, it couldn’t be with Tom. Not now, not ever. Tom was a doctor, trustworthy as an individual but always carrying the mark of Cain which his profession conferred on him. Doctors weren’t to be trusted. Tom was a doctor. Therefore Tom could never be trusted, however trustworthy he was. It was illogical, it was absurd, Chloe knew. It was also what she believed, as deeply within her bones as some people held religious convictions.

She had a problem, then. She was passionately, ardently drawn to Tom; and she could never, ever, let matters progress any further than they had this evening, or even get as far as they had. Chloe filled her water glass again and, as she drank, considered her options.

There were two, as far as she could tell.

She could discuss the matter openly with Tom, face to face. Acknowledge that there were powerful feelings between them but that there was no possibility of their getting together romantically, and sound him out as to whether or not he wanted to stay platonic friends. Even if he agreed, it would always be a spectre between them, as real as it was before it made itself known; and there’d be times, surely, when they’d let their guard down and succumb as they had done tonight.

Or, she could break off contact with Tom, explaining her reasons as painlessly as she was able. She could register herself and Jake with the other GP practice on the opposite side of Pemberham, and revert to the cordial, nodding acquaintance she’d had with Tom until recently.

The second was the more painful option, at least in the short term. But in the long run it was the more likely to work.

Her mind made up, Chloe went back to bed. This time, after only an hour, sleep came to her.

Chapter Seven

‘Late night, doc?’

The young man was the third patient to ask Tom that, though the others had done it in a more diplomatic day. Tom began to get the message: he really must look tired, the bags under his eyes visible to everyone and not just to him. He’d often reflected that doctors were one of the few groups of workers in whom obvious tiredness was considered somehow an acceptable and even admirable quality; it suggested the heroic medic had been up all night, tending to the sick, which often was the case. In other professions, the bleary-eyed look was usually taken to be a mark of excessive partying the night before, and frowned upon.

Tom had in fact slept very little, but the reason was neither that he’d been partying nor that he’d been caring for patients.

He’d got in to work early, having woken once more at five and decided to get up rather than risk sleeping past the alarm. And he was driving himself harder than ever this morning, keeping up with his caseload and seeing Ben Okoro’s patients when his colleague lagged behind. Working at a breakneck pace meant not having to think about other things, because that was all he’d been doing as he tossed and turned the night before, and it would drive him crazy if he continued with it.

Refusing to think any more about what had happened between him and Chloe the night before was one thing. Shaking off the feelings that had been engendered was quite another. As the night had dragged on, Tom had become aware not only of the obvious physical frustration he’d felt, but also of disappointment, bewilderment – and, most corrosively of all, guilt.

The guilt was on two counts. First, although Chloe technically wasn’t his patient but Ben’s, the distinction was fine enough that Tom felt the ethics of the situation were hazy at best. A clinch with your own patient was clearly unethical, there were no two ways about it. But with a colleague’s patient? Tom didn’t know if the regulatory authorities had ever adjudicated such cases. He supposed they must have.

The second, and more powerful, source of Tom’s guilt came from his knowledge that he and Chloe had fallen into each other’s arms at a time of high stress and emotion for him. He’d relied on her help during the day because of a problem of his own, involving his ex-wife, which wasn’t Chloe’s problem at all. Then, he’d asked her round to warn her to keep a look out for his ex, thereby reinforcing the notion that his problems were being turned into hers as well. And then he’d kissed Chloe. Whether he’d made the first move or whether she had didn’t really matter. He was the needy one in this situation, and it felt as though he’d taken advantage of Chloe’s helpfulness by pressing his further needs on to her.

And yet… guilt wasn’t the strongest of the feelings kindled within Tom by the encounter. Chloe had responded not with shock, or outrage, or a slap in his face, but with eagerness, with passion, however short-lived her reaction had been. She clearly had strong feelings for Tom. And those feelings would still be there within her, however more tightly she wrapped that mantle of reserve and coolness around her that he’d noticed from his first meeting with her onwards.

He needed to speak to her about what had happened, that was certain. But it was too soon this morning. Perhaps they needed even as long as a couple of days to cool off, to get some perspective. One way or another, a decision would have to be made. Would they write off what had happened as a mistake, a product of the long, trying, emotional day they’d had? Or would they – and Tom hardly dared allow his thoughts to wander down this avenue – accept the complexities of their situation, get over the reasons against their getting together, and make a go of it?

After he’d finished seeing the young man, Tom glanced into the waiting room. His next patient was there, but ten minutes early. Otherwise, he was up to date. He decided to reward himself with a cup of coffee. Tracey at reception met his eye, read his thoughts and mimed raising a mug to her lips. He grinned, gave her a grateful thumbs up.

He was typing up some notes one-handed while sipping his coffee when he heard the buzzing from his jacket where it hung behind the door. He hurried over and fished out his phone, looked at the caller ID.

Rebecca.

His heart sinking, he considered ignoring it. He was, after all, at work. But it would prey on his mind all morning and put him off his stride. Reluctantly he thumbed the button.

‘Hello, Rebecca.’

At first he thought there was nobody there, that the indistinct sound he heard was static. Then he realised it was breathing, high and laboured.

‘Tom?’ a woman’s voice whispered. He barely recognised it as his former wife’s.

‘Rebecca? What’s –’

‘Tom, I need your help.’ It came out as a whispered sob. ‘I’ve done something silly.’

He felt coldness claw at his stomach, his throat. ‘Rebecca, where are you?’

‘At –’ Her voice choked off, then resumed. ‘At the Jubilee Inn. Somerset Road.’

Tom knew it, one of the town’s small collection of hotels. ‘What have you done, Rebecca?’

‘I’m… sick. I need help.’

‘I’m calling an ambulance.’

‘No.’ It came out forcefully, despite the weakness of her voice. ‘I don’t need that. But I need you to come round, Tom. Right away.’

‘Tell me what you’ve done, Rebecca.’ He tried to keep the desperation from his voice.

‘Just come, Tom. Please. I need your help.’

She rang off.

Tom stood, gripped by indecision. His instinct was to call an ambulance anyway. But what would he tell the dispatcher? Hello, it’s Dr Tom Carlyle. I need you to send an ambulance to my former wife, who’s in some sort of trouble, though I don’t know what it is. They’d probably send an ambulance anyway, because they knew and trusted Tom. But how humiliating would it be if Rebecca turned out to be unharmed, to have wasted everyone’s time.

On the other hand, she had sounded genuinely distressed. Tom pulled on his jacket and his mind raced through the possibilities. Had she taken an overdose, cut her wrists, or something even worse? She’d always been an emotional, impulsive person, but he’d never known her to harm herself before.

Or – and panic seized him at the thought – had she taken Kelly form the nursery, genuinely done so this time? He fumbled for his phone once more, hitting the wrong button and having to try again. The deputy manager answered this time, not Megan.

‘Yes, Kelly’s fine, Dr Carlyle,’ the girl said chirpily. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘No – no, just being an overanxious parent,’ he breathed. ‘Thanks, Charlene.’

‘Charmaine.’

‘Charmaine. Sorry.’

Tom met Ben at the reception desk and, without giving any details, asked if Ben could cover him for an hour as he had a family emergency. The older doctor nodded, his brow furrowed in concern.

‘Of course. I owe you big time, anyway, for yesterday. What’s up?’

‘Tell you later. Thanks.’ Tom waved to Tracey, indicating that Ben would explain, and walked out as calmly as he could, only starting to run as he got nearer to his car. On the way he thumbed Rebecca’s number in. Six rings, and her voicemail kicked in, her tone cool and brisk, and not at all like the distraught, choking quaver he’d heard a few minutes earlier.

Oh, Rebecca, he thought as he started the engine. What have you done now?

***

Chloe too had spent the morning immersed in work, as much to prevent her weary brain and body from succumbing to sleep as to fend off further brooding thoughts about the encounter between Tom and her the night before.

Her day began with an early call from the town council offices. Yes, the deputy leader of the council was willing to meet her to discuss the problems on the Stratwell estate – could she make Friday, the day after tomorrow? Chloe said she could. After the call ended she sat for a few moments, a small fist of elation clenched in her chest. She’d done it; she’d secured an interview with the notoriously uncommunicative and press-shy council. And with a senior representative, too.

The first thing Chloe did was telephone Mike Sellers, her editor. He erupted with delight, embarrassing but pleasing her.

‘Chloe,’ he said, ‘how up to date are you on libel law?’

‘It’s been a while since I went over it,’ she admitted. This was the first investigative journalism she’d done in a long time, and she needed to refresh her knowledge of what could be committed safely to print and what couldn’t. the residents of the Stratwell estate had told her they were considering legal action against the council for negligence and breach of contract, and every word the Pemberham Gazette published about the case would be subject to the most painstaking scrutiny by both parties. Chloe couldn’t afford to mess it up.

‘In that case,’ said Mike, ‘I’d better set up a meeting for you with our solicitor. Just to brief you on the dos and don’ts.’ He went off the line for a moment, then came back. ‘He’s coming round to the office this morning, as it happens. Is there any chance you could meet him here?’

Mrs McFarland was only too willing to help with looking after Jake, and so, a little under ninety minutes later, Chloe found herself at the Gazette’s offices, in conversation with the paper’s lawyer, an amiable, owlish man wearing a dapper bow tie.

He took her through the finer points of the law, and of current custom, and Chloe made notes, learning a few new things along the way. At the end the solicitor smiled and spread his hands.

‘Anything else I can help you with, Ms Edwards?’

‘No thanks. You’ve been very helpful.’ As he was rising, a thought struck her. ‘Actually, there is something.’

He sat back down again, waited expectantly.

Chloe said, ‘It’s probably not your specialist field, but can you tell me a bit about child custody law?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re right, it’s not my area. But I do know a little about it. What would you like to know?’

Chloe hadn’t prepared a list of questions, something she now regretted. She thought for a moment, and said: ‘How common is it for custody agreements to be changed, or challenged, more than a year after the parents have separated?’

‘Fairly common for a challenge to occur. Time changes people’s perspectives.’

‘And how often are such challenges successful?’

‘That depends on the individual circumstances.’ The solicitor shrugged. ‘For a court to agree to the other parent taking over custody, there has to be substantial evidence that the new environment will be a stable, supportive one. Especially if the current one is considered solid.’

Chloe nodded.

‘Or,’ the solicitor went on, ‘the courts may support a change of custody if new information comes to light that indicates the current custody holder is of unsuitable character in some way. For example, if a previously undiscovered criminal record is made known.’

‘I see.’ Chloe was lost in thought for a moment. The lawyer coughed discreetly, and Chloe stood up, offering her hand.

‘Forgive me. You probably need to get going. Thank you so much.’

‘Ms Edwards,’ he said delicately, ‘is there, ah, something that you need help with? I can recommend a top-notch colleague of mine.’

‘Oh, no. It’s not about me.’ She smiled. ‘A friend, that’s all.’

As she headed back to her own car, Chloe mused on what the solicitor had told her. Substantial evidence that the new environment will be a stable and supportive one… By the sound of it, although Rebecca and her partner were financially well off, their jetsetting lifestyle wasn’t conducive to bringing up a small child. And Chloe didn’t get the impression Rebecca was the most emotionally stable person, though of course Tom might be biased.

On the other hand, the lawyer had said evidence of the current custody holder’s character might count against him. Chloe couldn’t believe Tom had a criminal past, and from what she’d seen he was an excellent, caring father and one in whom it would be difficult if not impossible to find evidence of unfitness to raise a child.

Both of these factors suggested to Chloe that if Rebecca did decide to apply to the courts to gain custody of Kelly, she’d be on shaky ground. Tom probably had nothing to worry about in the end, however painful and unpleasant legal proceedings might be while they were going on.

Only when she was halfway home did it occur to Chloe that she hadn’t considered just why she was thinking about the subject in the first place. Hadn’t she decided last night that the best course of action for both her and Tom was for her to stay out of his life as far as possible? Didn’t that mean not involving herself in his legal battles any more than in his emotional life?

Perhaps it was merely the presence of the lawyer in front of her that had prompted her to ask the questions she had. But Chloe didn’t think so. She knew that part of her, a powerful, unignorable part, still wanted to help Tom, regardless of what her head told her was the sensible thing to do.

Anyway, if he had as cut and dried a legal case as it appeared, he really didn’t need Chloe’s help any more, assuming he ever had needed it in the first place. She wouldn’t mention to him, whenever it was they next spoke, that she’d made enquiries about the legal aspects. He might think it was none of her business, that she’d overstepped the mark. Only if he approached her asking for help would she offer it, and gladly.

Feeling she’d reached some sort of compromise between her feelings and what the logical part of her brain told her was the advisable course of action, Chloe focused her attention on the task before her, which was to prepare for her interview with the deputy leader of the town council the day after tomorrow. After picking up Jake from Margaret McFarland, Chloe returned to work at her computer with a renewed sense of purpose, the events of the night before having faded if not to a distant memory than to background in her mind.

***

Tom’s imagination ran amuck on his way to the hotel, and by the time he got there he half expected to see a scene from one of those forensic crime dramas playing itself out, with ambulances and police technicians crawling all over the hotel in protective plastic suits. But the building sat there peacefully, quaintly built in Cotswold stone to enhance the local tourist experience.

He pulled the Ford into the small parking lot and noticed Rebecca’s red Mercedes in one of the bays. Trying not to hurry too obviously, Tom strode to the front doors and negotiated the lobby, crowded with display stands advertising local tourist attractions.

At the front desk he said to the woman, ‘I’m here to visit Rebecca Carlyle, please.’ He suddenly wondered if she still went by that surname or had reverted to her maiden name. She and her man, Andrew, hadn’t married yet.

The receptionist checked the register, an old-fashioned book rather than a computer file. ‘Yes, I’ll ring up. Who shall I say is asking?’

‘Tom Carlyle. Her husband.’ He realised only afterwards what he’d said. A Freudian slip.

The woman picked up the phone and after a moment said, ‘Room 21. Second floor.’

Tom took the stairs two at a time, his heart hammering. She was alive, that much he knew. Outside her door he paused, listening. Then he chided himself for his behaviour, raised a fist and knocked.

‘Come in, it’s open.’

Her voice was muffled through the door and he couldn’t read its tone. Tom stepped inside, preparing himself for the worst. At the very least he expected to smell booze.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn. Rebecca was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, gazing at him. Her face wasn’t puffy from crying, as he’d anticipated. In fact she looked radiant. As she stood up he noticed her perfectly applied makeup, her artfully groomed blonde tresses of hair.

Tom waited just inside the door. ‘Rebecca, what’s going on?’

‘I wanted to see you in person, Tom.’ Her voice was different from how it had been on the phone. It was low, husky, without the choking quality of earlier. She took a step towards him.

‘You said you’d done something,’ he said. ‘Something… silly.’

‘I didn’t think you’d agree to see me otherwise, Tom. I had to say something to get your attention.’ Her voice was so low it was almost a whisper. Somehow she’d glided until she was an arm’s reach from Tom. She was wreathed in a subtle perfume he didn’t recognise, a musky aroma that seemed to seep from her pores. Tom couldn’t help staring at her. She was wearing a white silk dress, simple yet expensive looking, that clung to her figure, accentuating the curves of her hips and her slender thighs beneath. The neckline was low cut, her cleavage a deep shadow in the scoop. As she stepped close, he could see that her golden tan extended down the smooth slopes of her breasts, suggesting exposure to the sun unimpeded by a bikini top.

As if reading his mind, Rebecca breathed, ‘It’s everywhere, Tom. This tan. All over.’

Her scent, her mesmerising voice, caused the breath to cloy in his throat. He felt a tightening in his groin. She’d always been able to do this to him, to captivate him utterly as though he were a hapless sixteen-year-old in thrall to his hormones. Their lovemaking, before their wedding and in the early years afterwards, had been torrid, leaving Tom simultaneously drained and hungry for more, day after day.

She stood on tiptoes and whispered, her mouth close to his ear: ‘Can you picture me, Tom? On a beach? Stretched out, oiled and bared to the sun?’

The warm tip of her tongue touched his ear. With a cry he wrenched himself away, turning his back on her before he lost control of himself. Immediately Rebecca was up behind him, pressing her body against his, her breasts firm and full against his back, her arms sliding round so that her long-nailed hands splayed across his chest.

‘Please,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, Tom, please. I want you. I need you. On the bed, right now. Just like before. You want it too. I know you do.’

Her hand swept down towards the front of his trousers. He caught her wrist, pushed her arm away.

‘No, Rebecca.’ His voice was guttural.

‘Tom –’

‘No!’ He flung her arm away and broke free, stalking across the room and turning to face her when he got to the wall. She stood staring after him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, her head lowered, her lips full and moist and slightly parted. One of her hands reached up to a breast, her fingertip teasing the nipple which had risen visibly through the thin material. Her other hand roamed down over her belly and lower still.

‘Rebecca.’ Anger and lust mingled in him, and he concentrated on the anger, stoking it, allowing it to get the upper hand because he knew what would happen otherwise. ‘You tricked me.’

‘Like I said, Tom. I had to. Otherwise you’d never have agreed to see me.’

‘What do you want?’

She began to move towards him again. ‘You know what I want. Haven’t I made it clear?’

Tom held up his hand to fend her off but she continued to advance. ‘But why? Why now?’

‘I’ve never fallen out of lust with you, Tom. Perhaps I never fell out of love with you, either.’

‘What –’

‘I can give you what you want, Tom. We can help one another.’

He stared at her, suddenly understanding, and it was as though the curtains had just been drawn back to let the sun flood into the room.

‘You thought you could make me give up custody of Kelly… by seducing me?’

‘It’s not seduction, Tom.’ She’d stopped a few feet short of him this time. ‘We’ve… done it before. It would be picking up where we left off.’

‘Picking up…? Rebecca, will you listen to yourself! We’re divorced. The marriage ended. At your insistence, I might add. And now you think you can get me to give up custody of my daughter by sleeping with me?’

‘I don’t –’

‘What do you think custody means to me? Do you think it’s some sort of bonus, some sort of severance pay you’ve granted me, to be swapped for something I might prefer? Kelly lives with me. I’m her main caregiver. We’ve built up a life together over the last six months and more. I’m not going to relinquish that for anything, least of all for a quick roll in the hay with a woman I once found attractive.’

‘Still find attractive.’ Her expression challenged him to disagree. Tom stared at her in wonder.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘You really don’t get it, do you? Anything I’ve been saying to you. Now or over the last few weeks.’

Rebecca’s brazen demeanour was beginning to crack as her control slipped. She put a faltering hand up to her throat. ‘She’s my daughter. I’m her mother. You’ve no right to keep her.’

‘I’ve every right. You’re still entitled to see her and spend time with her, even have her over at yours or take her on holiday sometimes. But she lives with me, Rebecca. End of discussion.’ He sighed. ‘Why don’t you just go back to London, Rebecca. Stop hanging around here, stop wasting your time. And mine.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go. Don’t you dare pull a stunt like this again.’ He headed for the door.

Behind him she said, ‘Last chance.’

‘What?’

‘This is your last chance, Tom. I’m warning you.’

Tom stopped. Slowly, deliberately, he turned back. Rebecca was standing by the bed, arms by her sides, her fists clenched. The sexy, pouting look had gone from her face and had been replaced by a dark, glowering expression he hadn’t seen before.

‘Yes, Rebecca? You’re warning me? Please tell me what about.’

‘Reconsider, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Do your worst. I’ll be ready.’

‘No, you won’t.’

There was something about the certainty with which Rebecca said it, something about the hint of a smile that played about her lips, that made Tom ask: ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m just saying. I told you before, Tom, that you have no idea what I’m capable of. You’re about to find out.’

He resisted the impulse to take a step towards her. ‘If you do anything, anything, to harm Kelly –’

‘Oh, no, Tom.’ Her eyes were wide in faux innocence. ‘I’d never do anything to hurt her.’

It was only when he was through the doors of the hotel and striding back towards his car that he realised there’d been the ghost of an emphasis on the word her.

Chapter Eight

Even working freelance as she did, Chloe experienced the same feelings on a Monday morning as a nine-to-five officer worker: a sense of being slightly daunted by the week ahead, and an initial lethargy and reluctance to get going.

She’d conducted the interview with the deputy leader of the town council on Friday afternoon. It had been a cordial meeting, the councillor initially laying on the bonhomie with a shovel but retreating into defensiveness when Chloe pressed him on his organisation’s failure to address the estate residents’ concerns. Although she’d typed up the interview as close to word-for-word as she could recall it, Chloe had saved the writing of the actual article until today. It had been tempting to spend the weekend working on it, but she’d been determined to devote Saturday and Sunday to Jake, exclusively, with no room for work. And she’d stuck to it. On Saturday they’d driven to a new out-of-town zoo which turned out to be more out of town than she’d realised, and on Sunday they had travelled all the way to London to see a matinee children’s theatre production in the West End. Exhausted, but happy, Chloe had dropped into bed at ten on Sunday evening, slept for an unbroken nine hours, and awoke refreshed and ready for the day.

But with that Monday morning feeling, nonetheless.

She set up the dining room table methodically, her laptop in the centre, her printed notes to one side, her phone and coffee mug to the other. Jake was in her line of sight, playing happily on the rug. Sooner or later she’d need to set up a proper study, in the spare bedroom, but for now this arrangement suited her.

Her email inbox was full; she hadn’t checked it since Friday afternoon, quite deliberately. Chloe supposed catching up with emails was a forgivable indulgence before setting down to work, and didn’t represent Monday morning displacement activity designed to avoid work.

A few of the twenty or so emails were junk messages which had dodged her spam folder. These she deleted immediately. Three more were from friends and former colleagues in London, catching up. She saved these, to be replied to later on, at her leisure and when she could give them the attention they deserved. She’d been neglecting her old friends, she acknowledged guiltily.

The work emails she spent more time on. There were a couple from Mike Sellers, addressed to her personally and following up on a couple of queries she’d sent him on Friday after the interview, in which she’d asked about the ins and outs of the local council’s workings. Other emails were essentially memos, copied to all staff and freelancers attached to the Pemberham Gazette.

One of them was from a staff reporter at the paper to Mike Sellers. Chloe was one of several people copied in, and when she scanned the content she realised she’d probably been added inadvertently to the CC list, as a result of a copy-and-paste job. The email was about a story involving some fundraising event taking place in the town this summer.

Chloe was about to delete the message when an addendum at the end caught her eye:

PS. Thanks for the tip-off about the Dr Carlyle thing. Will look into ASAP and get back 2U.

Chloe read it and reread it. There was only one Dr Carlyle it could possibly be referring to. What was this all about?

She took a sip of her coffee and thought about it. She had to find out what it meant. But wouldn’t it seem intrusive of her if she simply rang up the reporter who’d sent the message and asked him about it? He’d copied the email to her by mistake, but was still responsible for having done so. Still, the correct thing to do in such cases was to delete the email as soon as you realised it wasn’t meant for you, and say no more about it.

Chloe decided that she was a journalist, after all, someone whose job it was to get to the truth even if it involved an indirect and sometimes cunning approach. She’d speak to Mike, her editor, on some pretext, and find a way to steer the conversation as subtly as possible to the subject of Tom Carlyle. It was easy enough to find reasons to speak to Mike given that she was busy writing a fairly major article for him.

She picked up the phone and rang the Gazette’s office. Mike’s secretary answered. The boss was in a meeting, and wouldn’t be out until lunchtime. Would Chloe like to leave a message? Chloe replied that she was calling about the story – Mike would know which one she meant – and wanted to speak to him non-urgently about it.

After she’d rung off, Chloe stared at the message on the screen. The Dr Carlyle thing... Might it be something to do with Tom’s custody problem? But why then would the Pemberham Gazette be interested? In the months Chloe had been associated with the Gazette she’d come to appreciate that it was a serious paper of record, committed to honest and professional reporting of news which might be of legitimate interest to the community. It wasn’t some muckraking rag, bent on stoking up scandal. It was hardly likely to pry into a citizen’s private business.

Had something happened to Tom? The possibility struck her with cold force. Chloe had been out of town for much of the weekend; might Tom have come to some harm in her absence? Surely not, she thought. For one thing, word would have spread already and Mrs McFarland would have been round like a shot to tell Chloe.

Untamed speculation was like weeds rapidly taking over the garden of the mind. Chloe knew this, and she remembered also how annoyed she’d been that the ladies of the town had been coming up with fanciful ideas about her and Tom. So she forced herself to put the cryptic email out of her thoughts and concentrate on the morning’s work.

By half past twelve in the afternoon, nearly four hours later, she had the first draft of her article finished. And a pretty decent draft it was, too, she thought proudly. It was a little rough around the edges, and she wasn’t convinced she’d quite got the balance right yet between straight reportage and editorialising; but on the whole it was a fine piece of work. She decided to take a break to prepare some lunch for herself and Jake, then have another read through her manuscript with a fresh eye. Perhaps she might even have the final draft ready for Mike by late afternoon, even though he needed it only on Wednesday.

At a little after three o’clock, when Chloe was deeply into a critical rereading of her article, her phone rang. It was Mike Sellers.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

Chloe had already thought up a few questions for him, some points of clarification about the article. He answered them readily, and sounded on the point of saying his goodbyes when Chloe said: ‘Have you got anything else lined up for me? Any story after this one?’

‘Yes, a couple, actually,’ said Mike. ‘Plus, there will probably be follow-ons from this one. Have things changed on the estate, three months on, et cetera.’

‘Anything or anyone for me to investigate?’ she said, in as casual a manner as she could manage.

There was a pause at the other end. Mike said: ‘What are you referring to, Chloe?’

‘Oh, nothing in particular. I just wondered if there were any juicy new stories brewing?’

Another silence. Then he sighed audibly. ‘So you’ve read the email, too.’

‘Email? Which one?’ But her pulse had quickened.

‘The one Simon sent to me, and copied to all and sundry by mistake. The one with the mysterious reference at the end.’

‘Dr Carlyle.’ She felt bold enough to come out and say it. She might be a journalist and therefore nosy by nature, but Mike was an even more seasoned pressman and had detected right away that she’d caught the scent of the story from the tone and nature of her questions.

‘Yes.’ He seemed to be deliberating at the other end, before he said, ‘Chloe, I know you’re a freelancer and not on my paper’s staff, so strictly speaking this isn’t any of your concern. But I’ve come to respect your discretion and your integrity enough to believe you need to be let in on a few details. Especially because you’ll hear about it sooner or later.’

‘Hear about what, Mike?’

‘I don’t want to say anything over the phone. And I certainly don’t want to put anything I writing, either. Look, I’m too busy to meet you today, but could you come in tomorrow morning, say around nine thirty? I’ll explain then.’

‘Is he in some sort of trouble?’

‘I can’t tell you any more, Chloe. Tomorrow at half past nine?’

‘Yes. I’ll be there.’

‘And Chloe?’

‘Yes?’

‘Keep this under your hat, will you?’

Her instinct, after Mike had rung off, was to phone Tom immediately. Even if not to pry into what was going on, she thought she could at least sound him out, gauge his state of mind, offer her support in some undefined way. But Mike was now a source of information, and one of the primary rules of a good journalist was that you protected your sources. So Chloe held off, and tried to turn her attention back to her work.

She knew as she did so that there’d be little more she’d accomplish that day; nor would her sleep be especially peaceful.

***

For Tom, it all began on Tuesday morning.

He was finishing the second of two cups of coffee while Kelly dawdled over her muesli at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. The doorbell rang and he glanced at the clock on the wall, a novelty timepiece based on Salvador Dali’s melting clock. Seven ten.

Nobody rang the doorbell at this hour.

Padding to the front door in his socks, he saw a human silhouette looming through the frosted glass in the small panel set at head height. Cautiously he opened the door and peered out.

A woman of about forty whom he didn’t recognise stood on the top step, dressed in a denim jacket and wielding a microphone the size of a small club. Slightly behind her a man hefted a camera which began clicking and whirring at soon as Tom put his head out.

‘Dr Thomas Carlyle?’ the woman said. ‘Leah Foster, Pember Valley News. I was wondering if you might be prepared to answer some questions.’

Tom glared at the cameraman who was snapping away as she spoke. The Pember Valley News was Pemberham’s other weekly paper. Tom hadn’t looked at it, but he knew it was a downmarket rag, built on appealing to the townspeople’s baser and more prurient appetites.

‘Questions about what?’

‘May we come in?’ asked the woman, taking a step forwards. Tom retreated and began to close the door. What was this – some sort of profile of local public figures? But why without appointment, and at seven in the morning?

‘I haven’t time for this now,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ve got to get to work and my daughter to nursery.’

He’d almost closed the door completely when the woman’s voice came through: ‘It’s concerning the allegations made against you.’

Tom stopped, pushed the door open once more.

‘Allegations?’

‘May we come in?’ she asked again.

‘No. Not until you tell me what this is about.’

Holding the microphone closer towards him, she said, ‘Dr Carlyle, do you deny the allegations?’

‘For heaven’s sake, what allegations?’ Tom regarded himself as an even-tempered man, but he was close to losing it. ‘And you can switch off that thing.’ He jabbed a finger in the direction of the camera.

The woman glanced round at the cameraman who lowered his equipment, nodding and smirking. ‘Got some good ones already, anyway,’ he muttered.

‘Allegations,’ Leah Foster recited, ‘that you behaved in an inappropriate manner with one of your female patients.’

‘What?’ Tom was appalled. What was the woman talking about?

‘Do you claim, then, that you haven’t even heard of these allegations?’ The reporter looked triumphant, as if she’d just landed a major scoop.’

‘No! I mean, yes, that’s exactly what I’m claiming.’ Tom was aware that he was starting to sound as if he were blustering, caught off guard. Which of course he was.

From behind him he heard a small voice: ‘Daddy, what’s going on?’

‘Kelly? Go back in the living room, darling. Daddy’s just having a word with these people.’

She lingered, looking suddenly smaller than usual, and scared. He forced a grin on to his face and gave an encouraging nod, and Kelly disappeared again. Tom turned back to the duo on the doorstep, glaring at the cameraman to make sure he hadn’t taken any pictures of Kelly.

He stepped outside again in his stockinged feet, let the door swing shut behind him. The reporter and the cameraman were forced to take a step back.

‘Look,’ Tom said. ‘I have nothing to deny, or confirm, or whatever, because I’ve never heard of any such allegations before now. I don’t know where you’ve got your information from, but it’s clearly an unreliable source, so I suggest you spend a little more time checking your facts beforehand and a little less time hounding innocent people on their doorsteps first thing in the morning. Now kindly remove yourselves from my property.’

‘Dr Carlyle –’ the woman began. Tom folded his arms.

‘Go. Now.’

‘Just a few questions –’

‘I have nothing to say, and I’ll be lodging a formal complaint about your conduct with your office. Now leave.’

They stayed put, staring at him, defiant. He shrugged.

‘Then I’ll have the police remove you.’

He went back inside and closed the door. By the time he’d reached the living room, ruffled Kelly’s hair reassuringly and picked up the phone, he saw the reporter and the cameraman through the front window, making their way back to a van parked up on the kerb outside. Only when they’d pulled away and the van was out of sight did he put down the phone and let out a long breath.

And it wasn’t until he’d glanced at the clock, shooed Kelly into the hallway to put on her shoes and grabbed his own loafers, jacket and briefcase that it hit him, the physical aftershock of an unexpected and distressing encounter that left his legs slightly weak and his hands shaking.

Had it been some sort of prank? But who’d do such a thing, involving the local press? And what sort of allegation had the Pember Valley News heard that was robust enough that they saw fit to pursue it, to the point of doorstepping people at seven in the morning?

In a way, Tom was thankful he was running late, because it gave him less time to muse on what had happened. But even as he wrestled with the rush-hour traffic on the way to the nursery, he found his thoughts returning again and again to the encounter.

…You behaved in an inappropriate manner with one of your female patients…

The idea hit him as he was turning into the street where the nursery was located, and it caused him almost to run into the back of a car that was stopped round the corner.

Was it Chloe? Did she make a complaint, after what… happened that evening between us?

It was an absurd notion. They’d been outside the work situation and she wasn’t his patient, she was Ben Okoro’s. Plus, he couldn’t imagine Chloe doing such a thing. It was true that they hadn’t spoken since the encounter nearly a week earlier, but he hadn’t sensed that was because of a brooding animosity towards him on her part. Rather, he assumed she felt as awkward about it as Tom himself did, and was leaving a period of time for them both to cool off before they sought contact again and broached the subject.

But still… Tom couldn’t, for the life of him and in all honesty, imagine who could have brought such an allegation otherwise. As a doctor he was well aware of the dangers of inappropriate conduct towards patients, given the imbalance of power between a suffering individual and the professional he or she had placed their trust in to help and heal them. As a single man in his early thirties, he was even more acutely aware of the potential pitfalls that could arise in his dealings with women patients. It was why he never, ever consulted a female patient without a chaperone present, whether the practice nurse or one of the receptionists or even one of the patient’s own family members. Tom could, with his hand on his heart, assert that his behaviour had been professional at all times.

Misperceptions could, and did, occur, of course. A handshake that was thought to linger too long, a friendly remark that was interpreted out of context... the potential for misinterpretation in human communication was inexhaustible. So it was possible that somebody had misconstrued his behaviour and found it offensive. Fair enough; he was quite prepared to discuss this, and to apologise unreservedly if necessary for any offence cause. But surely this wasn’t the way to go about addressing the grievance - to approach the press, first, before raising the matter with Tom himself, or even with the practice manager?

His mind swarming with possibilities, speculations, all tumbling about in a swamp of confusion, Tom dropped Kelly off at the nursery and headed for work, wondering what the next chapter in this bizarre new story was going to reveal.

***

After her meeting with Mike Sellers, Chloe went for a walk through the historic town centre, wandering among its medieval churches and authentic Tudor houses and yet seeing nothing.

She felt dazed, listless. What she’d heard in Mike’s office had left her almost concussed, as if she’d had a physical blow to the head that had shaken her mind loose from one or two of its moorings.

She’d arrived at the Pemberham Gazette’s offices on time, Jake deposited with a fellow mum this time instead of Mrs McFarland, and Mike had ushered into his pivate room and, coffee poured, had got straight to the point.

‘You know Tom Carlyle, I assume.’

‘Yes, he’s my son’s GP. Saved his life once, as a matter of fact.’

Mike nodded, as if it was the kind of story he’d heard many a time about Dr Carlyle. ‘There’s been an allegation against him. One of sexual harrassment.’

Chloe didn’t believe it. ‘By whom?’

‘A woman phoned the Gazette on Friday afternoon. I sat on the story for the rest of the day before mentioning it to Simon that evening in an email, and I suggested he pick it up on Monday. I didn’t count on him inadvertently copying his reply to everybody on the paper’s email list.’

‘What did this woman say? The caller? And who was she?’

‘Some lady in her thirties. She claims she was a patient of Dr Carlyle’s, and that he made advances to her during a house call he made a couple of weeks ago. She’d phoned asking for a doctor because she was too ill to attend the surgery, he went round, allegedly made sexually suggestive remarks to her, then groped her. She says she was too shocked and embarrassed to do anything about it immediately, but as time’s gone on she’s realised other women might be vulnerable too and she feels she has a duty to blow the whistle.’

Chloe sat back in her chair, her cooling coffee cup forgotten in front of her. This was so unlike the Tom Carlyle she recognised, she hardly knew where to begin.

She said, ‘But why did she contact the Gazette? Why not go to the GMC?’ Chloe knew the General Medical Council was Britain’s regulatory body for the country’s medical practitioners, legally authorised to discipline transgressors and in extreme cases revoke permanently their licence to practise.

Mike turned his palms upwards. ‘Who knows? She may yet do that. But she hasn’t gone just to our paper. She’s approached the other side, too. Yesterday evening.’

Chloe closed her eyes briefly. “The other side” was the Pember Valley News, the Gazette’s main rival in town, though their markets were quite different. The tabloid would have a field day with this story.

‘Mike, this is crazy,’ she said. ‘I don’t know Tom Carlyle all that well, but I know him well enough. He’s not the sort to do something like this. He’s too professional. He’s not exploitative.’

‘I’m inclined to agree with you. But we can’t ignore the story. We have to follow up on it. It’s a genuine public-interest matter.’

Chloe watched him for a few seconds, then said: ‘Let me have it. This story. Let me do the digging.’

‘No.’

‘Mike, please.’

‘No. I’m not willing to debate it.’

‘Why?’

‘A couple of reasons.’ He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘First, I’ve given it to Simon. He’s a staff reporter. I can’t very well take it away from him all of a sudden and give to a freelancer, even one as respected and admired as you, Chloe. Second,’ he went on as she opened her mouth to protest, ‘you’ve demonstrated by what you’ve just said that you’d be too biased. There’s no such thing as completely objective journalism, as I think we all recognise. But you sound too convinced that there’s nothing in this story. An attitude like that, however justified it might turn out to be, would jeopardise the investigation. So I’m sorry, Chloe, and no disrespect intended... but no.’

‘Can I help Simon then? For free? I could do the ferreting around, the legwork. He  could write the copy.’

Mike looked at her curiously. ‘Why would you want to do that?’

Because I know these allegations are baseless, Chloe wanted to say. Because I want to clear Tom Carlyle’s name. Because I… because I feel he deserves better. Instead she shrugged. ‘Just seems like the sort of story I could get my teeth into,’ she said. ‘But I realise you’re not here to provide work experience for me.’

There didn’t seem to be much more to talk about, so Chloe got up to go. Mike held the door for her.

‘Needless to say –’

Chloe said, ‘I know.’ She made a zipping motion at her mouth. He grinned and let her out.

Now, as she trudged the streets, the initial shock dissipating slowly and leaving her with a clearer head, Chloe ran through the possibilities. She wasn’t sure if Tom had learned of the allegations himself yet. She supposed he probably had, although if the woman in question had approached the papers alone then perhaps word hadn’t got out yet. If so, he was bound to find out today at the latest. The Pember Valley News in particular would be all over the story by now. The paper had something of a reputation for being proud of its precarious financial position. It was popular, and sold in high volumes, but its profits were forever being offset by the damages it was forced to pay out in successful lawsuits against it by people it had printed blatant lies about. Its policy seemed to be to rush to print first and take the consequences later. So this week’s edition, due out tomorrow, would probably already contain the allegations.

If Tom had heard the allegations already, Chloe felt a responsibility to talk to him about them. In a way, Mike’s refusal to allow her to pick up the story left her in an easier position; she could weigh in quite openly on Tom’s side and give him the support he needed without any conflict of interest coming in, without laying herself open to accusations of bias as a journalist. On the other hand, not having the backing of the Pemberham Gazette meant that her access to information was restricted. She couldn’t seek out and interview the woman who’d made the allegations, not in any official capacity as a reporter.

There was another option, Chloe knew. She could investigate the matter on her own, off her own bat, using the limited resources available to her. One such resource was her reputation. She was becoming known and respected in the local community for her journalism. This might open doors for her which would otherwise remain closed.

First things first, though. She needed to lay the groundwork by gathering as much information as she could about the allegations, and about who had made them. That inevitably meant sounding Tom out, first of all to find out if he’d heard about the charges against him yet.

He’d be at work, so she’d have to contrive a way to get to see him. She couldn’t bring Jake along on the pretence he was ill and needed to see the doctor. That was exactly the type of underhand journalistic trick the Pember Valley News would employ, and which she detested. Wasting professionals’ time in the course of their duties wasn’t her style.

No. She’d be up front, ring him and ask for a meeting, and gauge from his reaction whether or not he knew what it was about. Her journalistic ear was fine-tuned to detect subtle nuances of speech and breathing, and she felt confident she’d be able to tell quickly if he guessed that she’d heard about the allegations.

Chloe strode up a cobbled slope to a higher point in the town centre, where the phone reception was better. She dialled Tom’s number and waited.

Chapter Nine

In the event, meeting Tom wasn’t as straightforward as Chloe had anticipated.

She’d rung him from the town centre that morning and hadn’t been surprised when his phone went to voicemail. He was, after all, in the middle of a morning surgery. She left a brief message.

‘Tom, it’s Chloe. I realise you’re busy, so I’m sorry to hassle you. Could we meet up some time today for ten minutes? I’m happy to come to the surgery. There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

She went back home, leaving Jake with the other mum who’d said she was happy to look after him until after lunch, as she had a little boy herself of Jake’s age and the two got on well together. At the cottage Chloe drove herself to a solid hour-and-a-half’s work on the article, banishing all thoughts of Tom and his predicament ruthlessly from her mind.

One o’clock came, and went. Wasn’t Tuesday one of the days Tom worked a split shift, spending four hours at the practice and then picking Kelly up from nursery to spend the afternoon with her? In which case, he must have finished his first shift and would surely have checked his phone’s voice messages by now. She chided herself almost at once. He was a busy man, and had a lot else on his plate now in addition to his work. It was egotistical of her to expect that he’d give priority to returning her call. She told herself to be patient and get on with her work. There was time for another half hour’s writing before she had to go and pick Jake up.

The afternoon passed, Chloe losing herself to some extent in first a chat over a cup of tea with the woman who’d looked after Jake, and later an extended reading session with Jake. She noticed with delight that his ability to identify letters was growing rapidly. What was more, he was fascinated by books, to the extent that she sometimes struggled to pry him away from them at meal times.

At four o’clock Chloe checked her phone, saw that nobody had called, and decided to give Tom another try. He’d be with Kelly now, and although she was reluctant to intrude on his time with his daughter, she thought there was more chance of his answering than if she waited until later when he’d be back at work for the evening surgery.

It went to voicemail, again. She left a similar message to before, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate, like some sort of stalker. It occurred to her that if Tom was aware of the allegations against him – and he surely must be, by now, she thought – he was probably hardly in the mood to respond to a woman’s invitation for a meeting. Silently Chloe cursed herself for her short-sightedness.

She’d leave it, for today. If Tom didn’t want to meet her, or speak to her, that was his decision. Perhaps she’d try again tomorrow. But badgering him wasn’t going to help him at all, and would just make her look foolish.

And it was with that thought that Chloe’s instincts took over. Fortune favours the bold. She’d promised herself to offer Tom her full support, and that was what she was going to do. Propriety be damned. She scooped up Jake, who was excited when she told him they were going out for a drive, and set off in the Astra.

Chloe parked across the street from the surgery. One or two people were lingering outside, waiting for it to open its doors for the evening session. She checked the dashboard clock. A quarter to five.

She spotted Tom’s Ford turning into the street and pulling into one of the parking spaces reserved for staff at the side of the surgery.

Drawing a deep breath, Chloe climbed out, lifted Jake from his seat in the back and crossed the road. The staff car park was round the corner from where the patients were waiting, so they wouldn’t see her approach Tom.

He saw her as he was stepping out of his car, and Chloe was appalled by the expression that appeared on his face for an instant. He flinched, visibly, fear flaring in his features. A second later the expression was gone, to be replaced by one of wary politeness.

‘Hello, Chloe. Hi, Jake.’ He managed to waggle his eyebrows, something that never failed to send the boy into peals of laughter.

Chloe kept a respectful distance. She plunged right in: ‘Tom, I’m really sorry to ambush you like this. It’ll just take a second. But you haven’t been answering my calls. Not that you’re obliged to, of course, but I have to speak to you.’

He stood watching her carefully, still holding the car door open. Something changed in his features, as if he’d read something in hers that eased his wariness.

‘So you’ve heard, then,’ he said quietly.

‘Oh, Tom.’ She’d prepared a set speech, but for a moment Chloe was at a loss.

‘It isn’t true,’ he said.

‘I know it isn’t.’ She risked a step closer to him. ‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you. Tom, this is terrible. You must feel awful. Who’d do something like this?’

He seemed about to speak, but shut his mouth, still gazing at her.

‘I know it’s a clichéd thing to say, but – if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, please ask.’ She was dispirited at how trite she was sounding, how the bold, no-nonsense approach she’d intended was withering in the face of the utter anguish she could see was holding him in its grip.

The memory of the expression on his face when she’d first accosted him – the fear – caught up with her suddenly, and a shock of understanding came to her. ‘Tom… you didn’t think… I was the one who made the accusation, did you?’

He was silent for only a fraction of a second too long, but it answered her question. Of course; it made sense to Chloe now. His avoidance of her phone calls. His wariness around her now. He thought she’d taken offence after their kiss a week ago and was trying now to destroy his career and his life.

‘I didn’t know what to think, Chloe,’ he murmured.

She wanted to step closer to him, to embrace him (however awkward that would be, not least because she was holding Jake in her arms), to tell him she was sorry; sorry that she’d run away that evening last week and not been back in contact, sorry that she’d been so aloof with him over the last weeks and months, more or less spurning his offers of friendship; sorry that he was in the nightmarish predicament he found himself in. And she wanted to assure him that he wasn’t alone, that she’d help him in whatever way he could to fight this thing, clear his name.

But she didn’t, of course. She just stood and stared at him, helpless.

‘Tom, talk to me,’ she said. ‘Who’s been making these allegations? All I’ve heard so far is rumours, vague hints. I don’t know what’s going on.’

‘I don’t, either,’ he said, closing the car door as if he’d just remembered it. He had his jacket draped over a forearm, his briefcase in his hand. ‘I’ve no idea who’s been making the accusations. None whatsoever. But I’ll be able to read all about it in tomorrow’s paper. As will you, and every other living soul in this town.’

‘Which paper? Not the Gazette?’ Surely they weren’t ready to run a story yet, especially not after letting Tom have a chance to defend himself. that wasn’t Mike’s style.

‘No. The Pember Valley News.’ Tom starting walking towards the front of the surgery and Chloe had to fall into step beside him to keep up. Jake, seeming to sense the tension in the air, clung to her neck, saying nothing.

‘They doorstepped me this morning, asking if I had anything to say about the allegations,’ Tom went on as he walked. ‘I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then, this afternoon I got a phone call from one of the paper’s editors, saying they were going to run the story in tomorrow morning’s edition and did I have any comment. Again I said I had no idea what they were on about. So I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow, along with everybody else.’

‘Tom!’ Chloe said, trying to keep up with his brisk pace, almost pleading. ‘You have to get an injunction or something. Stop them spreading lies in print.’

‘But that’s just the problem, Chloe,’ he said, stopping and turning to face her, an expression of intense weariness written across his face. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to print. All I’ve heard is that a woman – I haven’t been told her name – has made an allegation of sexual harassment against me. I haven’t been formally accused of any wrongdoing, not by any regulatory body or by the police. It’s all, as you say, rumours at present.’

‘Then you need to sue them, Tom. Make them pay for whatever lies they print.’

‘I could do that, yes. But it won’t undo the damage. The seed of doubt will have been planted in everyone’s minds.’ There was a bitterness in his tone Chloe had never heard before, and wouldn’t have thought him capable of.

She felt utterly deflated. ‘What are you going to do?’ she managed.

He paused for a long moment, deliberating. Then he said: ‘I have to leave, Chloe. Leave Pemberham. Start again somewhere else as best I can.’

‘Tom –’ This time Chloe did reach out to him, unable to help herself. Her hand fell short of his arm. ‘Leave? All on the basis of some… rumour?’

‘You don’t understand,’ he said quietly, but not unkindly. ‘I know what this is all about. I know what’s going on. And the only course of action is to leave. For Kelly’s sake.’

He was right. Chloe didn’t understand. She couldn’t remember being more confused before in her life.

‘Tom,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Please understand. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do this.’

His smile was gentle. ‘I know it wasn’t, Chloe. I didn’t think it was, but seeing you now, I’m certain of it. and that’s why I have to leave.’

More bewildered than ever, she stood hugging her son, watching Tom disappear round the corner towards the entrance to the surgery. A faint, good-natured cheer rose up, presumably from the waiting patients, as he went inside.

***

For the second Tuesday night in a row, Chloe couldn’t sleep.

This time what was keeping her awake wasn’t the turmoil of confusing, mixed emotions, churned up from the silt at the bottom of her soul where she’d thought them long dead and fossilised. That was what she’d gone through last week, after the kiss with Tom. Tonight, she was being kept from sleep by a realisation far sharper, purer, better defined, one that she was unable to draw her attention away from.

Chloe had no idea what Tom had meant by his last, cryptic remarks about having to leave Pemberham because he understood what was going on, and because he knew she wasn’t the one who’d made the allegations. But she knew she’d find out; would have to find out. It was a challenge to be overcome, a problem to be solved, nothing more. She knew also that she had her work cut out for her. Because in the morning, her hunt for the truth would begin.

Chloe had come home with Jake, fed and bathed him and put him to bed after the customary story, then set to work. Not on anything to do with Tom, but on the article about the Stratwell estate and the town council’s neglect. She worked with single-minded purpose, allowing nothing to distract her until, after midnight, she’d given the manuscript a final read through, pronounced herself satisfied, and emailed it to Mike Sellers.

Tomorrow she’d be up with the lark and get hold of a copy of that grubby muckraking rag, the Pember Valley News, steel herself, and read with as dispassionate and forensic an eye as she was able the lies the paper had printed about Dr Tom Carlyle. And then she’d get to work investigating every single rumour, every sly distortion of the truth, and she would demolish them all. She’d bring down the paper and its editorial staff if need be.

She was one hundred per cent committed to proving Tom Carlyle’s innocence, because he was a decent man who was being made the target of a malicious smear. Because as far as she could tell, he had nobody else to stand by his side.

And because she loved him.

Yes, she’d admitted it to herself as she was driving back home to the cottage after the encounter with him outside the surgery that afternoon. The words had risen, unbidden, into her mind, and all of a sudden the world had shifted into pure, crystalline focus. For all Chloe’s constantly renewed commitment to self-honesty, she understood that she’d been living in a fog of self-delusion for the last few months, and most especially in the last week since their kiss.

She, Chloe Edwards, loved Tom Carlyle. The realisation, once out of the box, was never to be stuffed back in. And all of a sudden it didn’t matter that she’d been widowed for hardly longer than a year and therefore might be seen to be disloyal to the memory of her late, much-loved husband. It didn’t matter that Tom was a doctor, and that a doctor had allowed her husband to die.

She loved Tom Carlyle. And although she’d lost him, and he was going away, she owed it to him and to her love for him to clear his good name.

Lying in bed, Chloe thought it would be as well to focus on the negative feelings now, to give them free rein, the better to get them out the way so that they didn’t linger and distract her from what she needed to do in the coming days. Regret: that was one of the negative feelings, possible in the long run one of the most corrosive of all. In her case, the regret was for the way she’d allowed love, so potentially joyous and healing, to lie lonely and unrecognised under layers of guardedness and pride. And she had only herself to blame for it. She knew Tom was attracted to her; she didn’t know if he loved her. But if he did, or had, she couldn’t fault him for trying to get close to her in order to allow love to bloom. Chloe had been the stand-offish, cool one, always keeping him at arm’s length. He’d done his best, within the bounds of acceptable behaviour, to break through her reserve, and it was hardly his fault that he hadn’t been successful.

Another negative feeling was frustration, and this time the feeling was directed at Tom. How could he throw in the towel like this, planning to pack up and move away on the basis of a few scurrilous rumours? He’d sounded completely sincere when he said they were baseless, so why didn’t he stand his ground and fight for his name? Why was he giving in like this? Yes, the next few days and weeks were going to be highly unpleasant, and people were going to talk behind his back. His life in Pemberham, and his work, were going to be made exceedingly difficult. But people were decent and reasonable, on the whole, Chloe believed. Given time, and the evidence, the community would come to understand that Tom was the victim of an injustice, and would learn to trust him once more. Running away, as he was intending to do, would just make people more suspicious that he was guilty, that there was no smoke without fire.

The third negative feeling Chloe acknowledged within herself was anger: a slow, simmering fury that she’d last experienced in the months after Mark’s death, when the evidence had become clear to her of the incompetence of the doctor who’d misdiagnosed him. This time round her anger was less focused, directed towards a murky, unknown person who was bringing the allegations against Tom, and towards the Pember Valley News for taking part in this witchhunt. Of the negative emotions, this was probably the most useful. As long as she didn’t let it heat up to a point at which it affected her judgement, Chloe could use it to sustain her when things became difficult, as they no doubt would very quickly.

Her thoughts kept returning to the love she felt for Tom. Like a brilliant, multifaceted diamond it shone and sparkled before her, mesmerising her, lulling her finally into sleep.

***

Tom was a walker. As a child he’d rambled in the hills around Pemberham, and as a moody teenager, feeling rejected and misunderstood by every other human being on  earth, he’d used to wander the streets on his own at all hours, thinking to himself, trying to make sense of a confusing world. Even later, when he’d been at medical school in London, after an especially stressful day’s work or a more-than-usually exhausting on-call shift, his favourite and most effective way to unwind was to stroll alongside the River Thames for miles or head through one of the city’s parks, relishing the simple pleasure of locomotion, and of course benefiting from the exercise in the process.

Since Kelly had been born his opportunities for solitary walking had of course been limited. Kelly was a lively, active child, and was more than happy to go for rambles in the countryside, which he enjoyed. But having to keep a constant eye on a four-year-old who was liable to race off at the slightest provocation meant that Tom couldn’t indulge in the sort of untrammelled, free-form thinking he’d found so comforting and useful before.

He could have done with some solitary walking time now.

Instead, with Kelly tucked up in bed, the dishes washed, and every other possible opportunity for distraction exhausted, he stood in the middle of the living room and gazed around him. He looked at the trappings of country life, some inherited with the house, some added by him, still others contributed by well-meaning visitors anxious to help him fit in to his new life. There was the hand-carved sideboard he’d snapped up for a song at a local auction. Here was a matching set of antimacassars and doilies, terribly twee for his taste but donated by the ladies of the local Women’s Institute and therefore on obligatory permanent display in case any of the good ladies dropped in to visit. All reminders that he, and Kelly, had left one life behind and adopted a very different one here in Pemberham. A simpler, more satisfying one.

And now, a mere eight months after they’d arrived, he was going to have to uproot them once more.

He wandered about the room, picking objects up, studying them as if for the first time. One print on the wall caught his attention: a Turner watercolour, showing an impressionistic ship in the centre of a violent storm at sea. He knew the feeling.

During the day his suspicion had been growing as to what the malicious allegation was all about, but he hadn’t allowed his speculation full rein until after he’d met Chloe in the car park outside the surgery. Up until that point, he’d entertained the notion that she might just possibly be the person who’d phoned the paper. One look at her face, at the horrified way she reacted to his anguish, persuaded him that she had nothing to do with it, and he immediately felt ashamed that he’d ever considered such a thing. From that moment on, he’d realised what was going on.

Rebecca was behind it. She’d made plenty of veiled threats, dropped hints on at least two occasions that her gloves were coming off, that she’d get custody of Kelly back come hell or high water. He’d dismissed all this as histrionic bluff. Well, he was discovering now just how far she was prepared to go, and he knew this was only the beginning of the trouble he faced.

She’d either phoned in the allegations herself, or - much more likely - had put somebody else up to the job. Tom wouldn’t know until more details emerged in the Pember Valley News tomorrow. But he supposed an actual accuser would come forward to be interviewed, and that couldn’t of course be Rebecca. she’d be there in the background, however, pulling the strings.

The allegations would turn out to be baseless, of course. Nobody would be able to prove anything. But, equally, Tom himself wouldn’t be able to prove his innocence. He wasn’t required to according to English law, but people’s minds didn’t always work as tidily as that. An absence of proof of guilt didn’t necessarily mean proof of innocence. Probably Tom would face no disciplinary action, and there’d be no stain on his record. But people would point fingers, and gossip. Every contact of Tom’s with a female patient would be subject to the closest scrutiny. And people had long memories, especially in a small country town. Tom’s reputation would linger, perhaps even after he was dead and gone. He’d be forever known as that doctor who there was all the fuss about.

So Rebecca’s plan was a masterful one. It didn’t matter whether Tom was innocent or guilty. He assumed that she’d file for custody while the scandal was breaking. Now, his previously unblemished record as a parent would count for very little. Now, the court would see a young mother fighting to wrest back custody of her little girl from a doctor accused of sexual misconduct with a patient. Tom wouldn’t stand a chance. And even if he invested every penny of his money, every second of his time, in appeal after appeal, the resulting legal wrangle, played out against the backdrop of the investigation into his professional conduct that would be featured regularly in the local media, would put him but most of all Kelly through unimaginable stress for weeks, possibly months. It would shatter the girl’s innocence, warp her fragile, developing emotional self. And, most devastatingly of all, ruin forever the trust a child was supposed to have in her parents and in the idea that they were kind, loving people in whom she could always rely.

No. Rebecca had clearly thought this through from every angle. She’d won. Tom had to recognise that. Rebecca would have to have custody of the girl. The best Tom could do now was limit the damage the whole affair was going to cause, and to continue to play as big a part in his daughter’s life as he possibly could.

Which meant leaving Pemberham and following Kelly wherever her mother took her. If Rebecca had been serious when she’d talked about moving to France, Tom would have to go there too. He spoke schoolboy French, nothing more. He had little knowledge of the Gallic system of medicine, though he supposed it couldn’t be vastly different from Britain’s. But all of that was immaterial. Wherever Kelly ended up, he, Tom, had to be nearby. For his daughter’s sake; but, Tom had to admit, for his own as well. Because worse than anything he could imagine, worse than losing his job or even his licence to practise medicine, was the idea of being separated from Kelly.

He’d miss the surgery here in Pemberham. He had in his eight months at the practice developed fond attachments to his colleagues, most of all Ben Okoro, his fellow GP. He had a genuine liking for the vast majority of his patients and their families, for the range of personalities that made up his population. He’d miss the often frantic but workable way of life he’d set up for his little family unit.

And he’d miss Chloe. God, how he would. The thought stabbed through him, white hot, searing. Suddenly all the guilt he’d felt after their kiss last week, all the reasons he’d told himself as to why their getting together would be a bad idea, evaporated in the heat of his desire for her. He realised all at once that he’d looked forward to catching a glimpse of her every day over the last month or two, that a smile and a wave from her could delight him unduly and sustain his mood through the day, that a full-on conversation with her was as cherishable as gold dust.

She didn’t share his feelings, that was clear, even if there was a degree of simple animal attraction there. So leaving Pemberham had, in a perverse way, its advantages, at least as far as his love for her was concerned. To remain would be forever to be wounded by her presence, so near and yet so out of reach. And one day Chloe would find a man of her own, perhaps a local fellow. To see her with this hypothetical man, however decent he was - and Tom was sure she’d choose a decent one - would be too much for him to bear.

Tom went into Kelly’s room and sat by her bedside, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she slept, so peaceful, so utterly without guile. His throat constricted so that he thought for a moment he’d have to flee before his choking woke her.

Oh, Kelly, he thought. What are we doing to you?

He knew that he, too needed sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, perhaps one of the longest of his life.

Chapter Ten

Sabrina Jones’s address was easy enough to find. Chloe started by searching a few online directories as well as the local electoral roll, but was unsurprised that the woman wasn’t listed. Nevertheless, the street on which the woman lived had been mentioned, presumably with her consent, in the article the Pember Valley News had published. Chloe drove to the street in question and learned the location of the block of flats in which Ms Jones lived from the occupier of the third house she approached. Once at the block of flats, and not seeing the name Sabrina Jones over any of the buzzers, Chloe pressed the buttons randomly until somebody answered.

‘I’m here to visit Sabrina,’ she said.

‘Wrong flat, love,’ the man said. ‘You want number six.’

So Chloe thumbed the buzzer for flat number six, and waited.

It was Wednesday afternoon. The story had broken that morning in the Pember Valley News and as expected the paper had milked it for all it was worth, making it the lead on the front page under the screaming headline SHOCK OF DOC OCTOPUS. The subheading read: His Hands Were All Over Me, Claims Tearful Local Beauty. And the accompanying photo showed a woman in her thirties with crudely dyed blonde hair, her face red and puffy from crying, gazing pitifully out at the camera.

The article was spread over three pages and relayed Ms Jones’s account in lurid detail. According to her, she’d been a registered patient at the practice for just a month, having recently moved to Pemberham. One evening three weeks ago – tellingly, she claimed she couldn’t remember exactly when – she’d received a visit from Dr Carlyle, who said he was following up on a visit she’d made to the practice a few days earlier with a bad back. She had seen the other doctor, Dr Ben Okoro, at that visit, so she was surprised that Dr Carlisle came round. After assuring him that her back was better, Ms Jones began to feel uneasy about Dr Carlisle, since he showed no signs of intending to leave. He’d sat next to her on the sofa and put his arm round her, and when she’d tried to get away and told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted him to go away at once, he had groped her intimately. Only when she screamed and threatened to call the police did he back off and depart.

Since then, said Ms Jones, her life had been a nightmare of fear, shame and guilt. She couldn’t sleep, was overeating, was sinking into depression and could barely concentrate at work. Too scared at first of the repercussions of accusing a well-known and powerful man like the local doctor, she’d decided now to come forward so that other women wouldn’t have to suffer the same treatment.

Ms Jones had approached the newspapers rather than going to the police, she said, because she didn’t want any legal fuss, didn’t want Dr Carlisle to be prosecuted. All she wanted was for his conduct to be exposed so that he was forced to apologise, which would allow Sabrina to move on and try to pick up the pieces of her life once more.

Chloe read and reread the interview with growing incredulity and disgust. The woman’s story was so blatantly flimsy it beggared belief. No dates or times were provided, not even approximate ones. Sabrina Jones didn’t reveal why she hadn’t complained in confidence to the manager of the GP practice. Predictably, the paper’s interviewer didn’t press her on any of the details she gave. And there was no attempt in the article to suggest that Dr Carlyle might have anything to say on the matter.

Chloe knew she had to work quickly. The Pemberham Gazette was published on a Monday and so there were five days to go, enough time for Simon, the paper’s staff reporter, to take a more measured approach and interview both Ms Jones and Tom about the matter. Ms Jones would be expecting somebody from the Gazette to visit her, and while Chloe wasn’t representing the paper herself and had no intention of lying outright, she had no qualms about Ms Jones jumping to the wrong conclusion and assuming she was there on official Gazette business.

A voice crackled over the intercom: ‘Yes?’

‘Ms Sabrina Jones? My name’s Chloe Edwards. I’m a journalist. You might have read my column in the Pemberham Gazette?’

‘Oh yeah. Right. Come on up.’

As easy as that, Chloe thought with a grim smile. She waited for the door release to sound and then pushed her way in.

Flat number six was one floor up. The door was already open and a woman stood there. In her late thirties, she looked less haggard than she had in her photo in the News. She was in a dressing gown, despite the hour, and wore thick makeup. A cigarette dangled from her lip.

Unsmiling, she ushered Chloe in. The flat was large, untidy, and dominated by an enormous television screen the size of a small tank. Sabrina Jones settled herself in an armchair while Chloe perched on a dining room chair. She brought a notebook along for added authenticity and she flipped it open, hoping the woman wouldn’t ask for official identification.

Sabrina Jones lit up her cigarette and squinted at Chloe. Over the curling smoke, her eyes were appraising, shrewd.

‘The man from the Gazette said on the phone he was coming tomorrow,’ she said.

‘I know,’ said Chloe without a pause. ‘He’s a staff reporter, you see. I’m an occasional freelancer for the paper. I write features.’ It was perfectly true, and perfectly meaningless in the context. But it seemed to satisfy Ms Jones. She nodded.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’

The story she gave was so obviously a virtual word-for-word rehash of the one she’d given the interviewer from the Pember Valley News that Chloe marvelled at the woman’s nerve. She even used the same term for what Tom had allegedly done: he touched me intimately. As she said this, Ms Jones dabbed at her eyes with the corner of a tissue. Her eye shadow and mascara remained intact, though, Chloe couldn’t help but notice.

Throughout the account Chloe said nothing, nodding encouragement from time to time and pretending to take notes. At the end she frowned as if deep in thought, and said, ‘Ms Jones, might I ask a few questions? There are one or two things I need to clarify.’

‘Yeah, of course.’ The woman lit another cigarette. Her eyes were wary and she shifted in the armchair, drawing her arms across herself defensively.

‘Do you work, Ms Jones?’

The question seemed to catch her off guard. ‘What? Yes, I’m in reception at Markham’s, the car repair shop on Wiltshire Road. Been there a month, ever since I moved here. I’m on sick leave now, though, because of all this. Why?’

‘Human interest side of things,’ Chloe said smoothly. Again Ms Jones seemed to appreciate this, and she relaxed visibly. Chloe went on: ‘And where were you living before you moved to Pemberham? Readers like a bit of background detail.’

This time the defensiveness was more pronounced. Ms Jones’s eyes flared and she stiffened in her chair. ‘London,’ she said curtly. ‘Hounslow. Doesn’t really matter, does it? That doctor’s hurt me now. It could have happened to anyone. It’s not important where I’m from.’

Chloe nodded. ‘Of course.’

She asked a few more banal questions to put the woman back at her ease, then stood. ‘Ms Jones, thank you. I’ve learned a lot. May I take a picture?’

She used her phone to photograph Ms Jones’s face. If the woman thought it was odd that a reporter was using a mobile phone to take a picture of an interviewee rather than a proper camera, she didn’t comment on it.

As Ms Jones let her out she said, ‘So when will your interview be in the paper?’

‘Oh, that depends on the editor,’ said Chloe breezily, and left with the sense of the woman’s eyes boring into her back.

Instead of returning to her car, Chloe walked past it down the street to an estate agent’s she’d seen when she’d parked. She made some enquiries of a very helpful young man inside, then left and took a drive to Wiltshire Road. Markham’s Mechanics was open and she went in.

To the woman behind the reception desk Chloe said, ‘I’m looking for a temporary job.’

‘As a mechanic, love?’ The woman barked laughter, but in a good-natured way.

Chloe grinned back. ‘No, as a receptionist. I understand your regular girl’s off sick.’

The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘Where’d you hear that? Doesn’t matter, I suppose. Yes, we’re short. I’m just filling in for the moment. What sort of credentials have you got?’

‘I’ve worked a bit, here and there. I can bring you some references if you like.’

The woman considered. ‘Okay.’

‘What sort of salary would we be talking?’

‘What’re you earning now?’

Chloe named a random figure. The woman cackled again.

‘Not sure we’re what you’re looking for, love. We can offer you half that, at most.’

Chloe thanked her and made her exit. Back in her car, she sat behind the wheel, allowing herself a smile.

It had been a useful hour’s work. She’d discovered three things. The first was that Sabrina Jones rented her flat. The estate agent had confirmed that all the flats in that block were rentals. The second was that the rent was exorbitant, more than Chloe was paying on her own cottage’s mortgage.

The third was that Ms Jones’s salary couldn’t even begin to cover her monthly rent.

All of which suggested she had some other source of income. And Chloe intended to find out what that was.

***

The easiest thing, Tom knew, would have been to take the day off. Call in sick on some pretext, ask Ben to see as many of his patients as possible and cancel the rest of the appointments – it would be inconvenient but not disastrous – and hide indoors to escape the storm.

Except he wouldn’t escape it. It wasn’t going to blow over. It would still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and next week. And if he retreated to a hermit-like existence, it would make people think he had something to hide.

So, after he’d read the article with a hollow, sick feeling in his gut, Tom threw the paper in the bin and went to work.

Everybody had either read or heard the story by the time he got there, Tom thought. From Tracey behind the front desk, to the practice nurse, to his patients, old and young and in between – everyone looked at him with wonder, or pity, or suspicion.

And four patients cancelled their appointments with him that morning, all of them female.

Tom ploughed through the workload as best he could, keeping up a front as if nothing was amiss. He thought he was going to make it to the end of the morning without anything being said when one of his patients, a burly farm hand named Jason, hobbled into the consulting room – he’d injured his foot in a piece of machinery and was attending for a check up – and threw down a copy of the Pember Valley News on to Tom’s desk.

‘Absolute rubbish,’ he growled. ‘The cowardly swine. If I had just half an hour alone with them…’ He left the thought, and the threat, unfinished. Gazing directly at Tom, he said, ‘Doc, you have to understand that nobody believes a word of this.’

‘Thanks, Jason,’ said Tom. ‘I appreciate it.’

But he knew the man’s assertion wasn’t quite accurate.

During a lull in the morning’s activity Ben Okoro put his head round the door. ‘Tom, do you have a moment?’

He came in and perched on the corner of Tom’s desk. Tom felt suddenly weary, and swept his hands across his face.

‘Read the morning paper yet, Ben?’

‘This woman,’ said Ben. ‘This Sabrina Jones. I checked the records. She’s never consulted you. And she only attended the practice once, with her back. That was when I saw her. What’s she up to? What’s this all about?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tom, though he did.

‘We’ll fight this, Tom,’ the older man said. ‘These accusations will be proved groundless, and this will blow over.’

‘Ben,’ said Tom heavily. ‘I was going to tell you this later, at a quieter moment, but I might as well do so now. I’m out. I’m leaving the practice. I’ll give my notice in due course.’

‘What? No! You’re not going anywhere, my boy.’ Ben was on his feet, glaring down at Tom. His older colleague’s manner was normally famously avuncular, but this was the first time Tom had seen him angry. ‘I can’t afford to lose you. You’re going to be the senior partner here in a few years, when I retire. I haven’t got the energy to build somebody else up to take your place.’

‘Ben –’

‘Shut up. Besides,’ he waved an arm at the door, ‘there’s a whole community out there that won’t let you go. That depends on you. So let’s have no more talk of running away.’

He stalked out. Despite himself, Tom couldn’t help feeling amused at how chastised he felt, like a schoolboy who’d just tried to tell his football coach he was quitting the team.

Ben, you don’t know the half of it, my friend, he thought.

The call came around noon. It was a staff reporter, Simon Greenwood, from the Pemberham Gazette. Yes, said Tom, he’d be willing to be interviewed. This evening at eight would be fine.

He’d decided to tell Kelly at the weekend. That they’d no longer be living in Pemberham, and that she’d be living with her mummy in future. He needed to be able to spend time with his daughter, before and after he told her. For her sake, but also for his.

Before that, he needed to speak to Rebecca. His finger had hovered over the key on his phone that would put him through to her on speed-dial, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to press it yet. But he’d have to do it sooner or later.

***

The first call Chloe made after she got home from her visit to Sabrina Jones was to the Pemberham Gazette’s solicitor, the one she’d consulted before her interview with the town councillor and who’d given her advice on custody matters. He was in his office when she phoned, and she could picture him, dapper in his bow tie.

‘Yes, Ms Edwards. What can I do for you?’

‘First, I’m not phoning on behalf of the Gazette in any capacity. I’m doing this off my own bat. So please invoice me for your time, not the paper.’

‘Very well.’ He sounded curious.

‘How might a private individual gain access to somebody else’s bank records?’

‘It can’t be done,’ he said immediately. ‘Only the police can do that. And even then, they have to have good cause. For example, if they were investigating fraud and believed that the bank records might provide legitimate evidence of the crime.’

‘What if the police suspected funds may have been transferred into an account to pay for the commission of a crime.’

‘Those would be grounds too, yes.’

‘And in the case of a civil action? If somebody was suspected to have paid somebody else to perform an act which, while not criminal, harmed a third party? Slander or libel, for instance?’

The lawyer was silent for a moment, considering. Then he said, ‘The plaintiff, the one bringing the libel or slander action, could legitimately ask that the defendant reveal their bank records to the court, if there was a strong suspicion that such a transaction had occurred. It would then be up to the court to decide whether or not the defendant should be compelled to do so.’

Chloe thanked him. ‘You’ve been really helpful. How much do I owe you?’

‘For a brief chat like this… nothing, my dear lady.’

The next call Chloe made was to an old friend and fellow journalist in London. He was delighted to hear from her and wanted to catch up, but Chloe had to cut him short.

‘Dave, I need a big favour. I’m looking for evidence of a criminal record. Are you still cosy with that police detective contact of yours in the Met?’

He was indeed, he said. Chloe sent him a text with the photo she’d taken of Sabrina Jones attached, and included the name and current address.

‘Though she might be using an alias,’ Chloe added.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Dave promised. ‘It’ll cost you, though.’

‘Cost me what?’

‘Dinner some time soon. On you.’

‘Deal.’

Chloe sat back in her chair, feeling the first tugs of the thrill of the chase. She was by now convinced that Sabrina Jones had been paid to invent the story about Tom. Further, she’d been instructed to approach the press but not the police. This suggested that whoever was paying Jones knew the case against Tom was too weak to stand up to a police investigation, and so the purpose of it was primarily to generate adverse publicity, even if the allegations were never proven. The whole affair reeked of a combination of spitefulness and calculation.

Chloe had never met Rebecca, Tom’s ex-wife, but spitefulness and calculation seemed to be two of the characteristics she possessed.

Was that why Tom was planning to move away? Had Rebecca moved permanently to Pemberham to be nearer Kelly, and now Tom felt he had to escape and whisk his daughter away? But that would hardly be a long-term solution. Rebecca could easily up sticks and follow Tom and Kelly wherever they went.

Still… if Chloe could prove Rebecca had paid Sabrina Jones to bring a false accusation against Tom, perhaps that would be enough to drive his ex-wife away, or at least scare her into backing off from this crusade of hers. That would mean Tom and Kelly could stay put.

Beyond that, Chloe didn’t dare to hope.

But proving Rebecca’s involvement was going to be difficult, as opposed to making mere allegations of her own, thought Chloe. And she didn’t have much time left. Tom had sounded as if he was preparing to leave as soon as he possibly could.

She felt the urge, and it was almost overwhelming, to phone Tom again, or even simply to turn up at the surgery and find him; to ask him how he was, and comfort him, and tell him that things were going to work out for him if only he trusted her. And, more than that, Chloe felt a powerful need to tell him she loved him, that she’d been wrong to react the way she had when they’d kissed, and that love could see them through this together. But that was the last thing he would want, or need, at the moment – yet another woman complicating his life.

Never mind, she told herself. Love was giving, not receiving. She loved Tom Carlyle, and she was going to give him all she could in the way of help. She had no right to expect anything in return.

Chloe attacked the emails and paperwork which had built up that afternoon in her absence, and it was only when she felt droplets on her hands on the keyboard that she noticed her cheeks were wet.

Chapter Eleven

The approach came out of nowhere that afternoon, and was all the more frightening for it.

Chloe had done all she could for the day, as regards both her work and her investigation into Tom’s predicament, and she decided to spend some time with Jake. He was clamouring to go outside, so she strapped him into his pushchair and set off on a variation of her usual walk around the lanes near the cottage.

The brilliant late-afternoon light bathed the fields, picking out and enhancing the bright colours of wild flowers. A soft summer breeze ruffled the grass and brought with it the distant lowing of cows. Such peace around us, Chloe thought, and yet such turmoil within our hearts and our lives. It was the story of the human race, she supposed.

There was very little traffic on this particular road, so every vehicle was noteworthy. The one approaching in the distance was travelling slowly enough that Chloe had plenty of time to move over to the side with the pushchair. As the car drew nearer, Chloe saw there was something vaguely familiar about it. It was a red Mercedes, not a common sight around Pemberham.

The car slowed ten yards ahead of her, then stopped. Chloe assumed it was somebody from out of town, wanting to ask directions, until the driver’s door opened and a woman stepped out.

She was tall, with expensively teased and highlighted blonde hair, a poised, slender figure, and dark sunglasses perched on regal cheekbones. Chloe recognised her immediately.

Rebecca.

The woman stood by her car, her head tilted back a fraction, her feet slightly apart and clad in chic if precarious-looking high heels. One hand rested on her hip, the other on the roof of the car. It was an assured pose, arrogant and aggressive in equal measure.

‘Chloe Edwards.’

It was a statement, not a question. Chloe said, ‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘You need to back off.’

Chloe glanced around her. ‘You’re standing in front of me, and you’re saying I need to back off?’

‘You know what I mean.’ The woman’s voice had an edge to it. It was an educated voice, one that was used to being paid attention to and obeyed.

Chloe said, her own voice as steady as she could manage, ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.’

Rebecca crossed one elegant ankle in front of the other. ‘But you know who I am.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘”Of course”.’ Chloe didn’t think she had a particularly distinctive accent but Rebecca succeeded in mimicking it uncannily. ‘I suppose you would know who I was. Conspiring with your boyfriend to keep my daughter away from me.’

‘Tom’s not my “boyfriend”’, Chloe said, unease starting to creep up her back. She glanced down at Jake in the pushchair but he was asleep. ‘He’s a friend, that’s all.’

‘A friend who gropes his female patients, it seems,’ Rebecca said, her voice like a whiplash.

‘Yes, well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?’ Chloe retorted. She immediately regretted saying it. She didn’t want to inflame the situation, just wanted to get away from this woman as quickly as she could.

Rebecca took a step towards her, then another, her heels clicking on the tarmac in the quiet haze of the afternoon. Chloe stood her ground, though her instinct was to turn the pushchair aside and interpose herself between her son and Rebecca. She scanned the surroundings again. There wasn’t another living soul in sight. How unbalanced was the woman, she wondered? Was she likely to attack Chloe, even with her son present? Chloe felt her pulse quicken, her throat constrict, every nerve in her body strain to protect her child.

Very quietly, Rebecca said, ‘This isn’t your concern. It isn’t your battle. So back off.’

‘What makes you think I’m involved?’

Rebecca said nothing, her eyes invisible under the dark glasses.

In spite of herself, Chloe pressed on: ‘Isn’t it a coincidence, that you appear here to confront me, just hours after I’ve been to see Sabrina Jones, or whatever her name is?’ There – Rebecca had recoiled a fraction at the mention of the other woman’s name. ‘Because she told you about my visit, didn’t she? And you knew I wasn’t there on behalf of the newspaper. You knew I was on to you, and that I’m going to find out the truth about what you’re doing to Tom.’

For a long second Chloe was sure Rebecca was going to take a swing at her. The rage was coursing through the woman visibly, making her quiver like a bowstring. Then she raised a finger and waved it, slowly, the action somehow even more menacing than if she’d clenched her fist.

‘Do not push your luck with me, you interfering bitch.’

‘Or else what?’ Chloe said coolly. ‘We’ll all see what you’re capable of? Well, I think you’ve shown us that already, and frankly it’s not all that impressive. It’s quite laughably amateurish, if you want to know. But by all means, have a go.’

Rebecca pursed her lips and breathed out, slowly, as if she couldn’t believe anyone dared to speak to her like that. She stepped back until she was alongside the Mercedes, opened the door and climbed back in, all the while watching Chloe. As she disappeared behind the wheel and pulled the door shut, Chloe thought she saw the faintest of smiles playing about Rebecca’s lips.

The Mercedes took off in a squeal of tyres and dust. Chloe watched it disappear into the distance.

She peered at Jake, and saw thankfully that he was still asleep. Heaving the pushchair to the side of the road, Chloe dropped to sit beside it, her legs suddenly too fragile to support her. The aftershock of the adrenaline surge hit her and she gripped her elbows to try to stop the shaking in her hands.

Chloe had always hated encounters of this kind, confrontations with a simmering undercurrent of violence. They left her shaken and depressed. As she breathed deeply, steadying her nerves, Chloe realised the most disturbing part hadn’t been the isolation of the surroundings, or Rebecca’s blunt warnings. Rather, it had been the small smile on the woman’s face as she’d left.

What was she planning next?

Nonetheless, as Chloe began to recover her composure, she reflected that she’d held her own rather well, if she said so herself. She’d shown herself neither flustered nor intimidated by the other woman, and had made it quite clear to her that she understood the game she was playing and wasn’t going to allow it to succeed. If nothing else, Rebecca would have left the encounter realising that Chloe was no pushover. And if that was unlikely to make her desist entirely from her persecution of Tom, it might at least give her pause, sow the seeds of doubt in her mind as to whether or not it really was worth following the course of action she’d chosen.

But, as she rose and brushed the pollen off her trousers, Chloe still felt unsettled. The fact that Rebecca had driven out here to find Chloe suggested she knew where Chloe lived. Might she be capable of doing something drastic, confronting Chloe in her own home? Harming Jake, even? Chloe couldn’t bear even to consider it. She debated whether or not to contact Tom and tell him about the episode. In the end she decided not to, not just yet. Once she had a bit more on Sabrina Jones, she’d speak to Tom, and she’d mention Rebecca’s visit then, too.

When Chloe arrived back at the cottage with Jake, Margaret McFarland was in her own front garden tending her roses. She gave the pair a cheery smile and wave, but as Chloe approached the older woman’s brow knitted in concern.

‘My dear, what’s happened?’

Chloe stared at her, confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re as white as a sheet. Are you feeling ill?’

Clearly the encounter had shaken Chloe even more than she’d realised. She attempted a smile. ‘A little too much sun, I think. I’ll be fine.’

‘Cup of tea will put you right.’ And before Chloe knew it, she and Jake were being bundled inside.

***

As it happened, Tom was spared the difficulty of choosing a time to speak to Rebecca about the allegations against him, because she came to him first.

It was Wednesday evening at nine, and the interviewer from the Pemberham Gazette had been and gone an hour earlier. A polite young man named Simon, he’d listened to Tom’s categorical denial of the allegations against him and given Tom ample opportunity to add comments of his own. Tom had added that he’d never met or even heard of Sabrina Jones before now, and certainly had never been to her house. The journalist asked a few more pertinent questions, explained that there’d be an article in Monday’s edition of the Gazette which would try its best to incorporate any newer information that might come to light before then, and took his leave.

This time there was no phone call, no ambushing in the car park after work. Kelly was in bed, and Tom was sitting in his favourite armchair in his living room, thinking of everything and nothing in particular, treating himself to a rare glass of whisky – he’d had the kind of day which he considered meant he’d earned a drink – when the hammering on his front door jolted him out of his brooding.

More reporters? he wondered, hurrying to the door before the pounding woke Kelly. Opening it a crack, he saw Rebecca on the doorstep, glowering at him. She was as always sensationally dressed and coiffed, though her composure was clearly ruffled.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she said without preamble.

He opened the door and stood aside for her. ‘Let’s keep it down, though,’ he said. ‘Kelly’s asleep and she’s had a long day.’ As I have, he didn’t feel the need to add.

Rebecca stormed past and into the living room, as if it were her own. He followed her. She didn’t sit, but stood in the middle of the room, her arms folded, his back to him.

‘Do you want a drink?’ he offered.

She turned. ‘I’ve had enough, Tom. I’ve put up with more than I’m willing to.’

‘You have?’ he stared at her, not believing what he was hearing. ‘Rebecca, do you have any idea what I’ve been through today? And it’s not over. Not by a long shot. It’s just beginning.’

‘Well, then perhaps you shouldn’t go feeling up your patients, should you?’

‘Oh, come on, Rebecca.’ Tom disliked theatrics but couldn’t help rolling his eyes. ‘You may not like me, but you certainly know me. Of course I didn’t do anything like that. It’s all trumped up.’

‘Whatever.’ The dismissive wave of her hand indicated to Tom that she didn’t believe he was guilty either. But then, why would she? She was the one who’d set him up, he reminded himself.

‘So what’s your problem now?’ he asked.

‘Her.’ Rebecca jabbed a finger towards the door, her eyes blazing. ‘Your girlfriend.’

‘Who?’

‘You know perfectly well who I mean.’

‘If you mean Chloe Edwards, she’s not my girlfriend, as I’ve told you before. But what’s your problem with her?’

‘She’s interfering in our business. She’s poking her nose in where it isn’t wanted. You need to rein her in, Tom. I’m not joking.’

‘Rebecca, I have absolutely no idea –’

‘She visited that woman who’s accusing you. Pretended she was there for the newspaper, and tried to get her to admit I put her up to this.’

‘What? How do you know –’

‘It doesn’t matter how I know. Answer me this, though, Tom. Have you been telling people I’m behind this?’

‘No.’

‘But?’

‘But, what?’ He was starting to lose the thread of this conversation.

‘But you think I am, don’t you? You think I’m stirring up rumours about you?’

He watched her for a second, then decided he might as well be truthful. ‘Yes, Rebecca. I believe you are.’

Her eyes wide, she stared at him, and for a few moments he had no idea what she was going to do. Explode in fury, break down in tears, or perhaps something else.

She swallowed, as if fighting down a storm of emotion, and said, quietly: ‘I’m going to destroy you.’

‘Rebecca –’

‘I’m going to humiliate you in court. I’m going to make sure you can never work as a doctor again, or even show your face in public again.’

‘Rebecca, listen to me.’ He raised his voice as loudly as he dared, still conscious of Kelly upstairs, hoping fervently that she wouldn’t wander in. ‘There’s no need for us to go to court. I’m willing to concede custody to you. A prolonged court battle would be devastating to Kelly, and her welfare’s more important in all of this than yours or mine. So let’s calm down, and discuss the details like a couple of adults.’

Rebecca stepped closer, almost within the invisible area around Tom that constituted his personal space. In a wintry voice she said, ‘Oh, it’s too late for that, Tom. Too late for an amicable arrangement. You had that opportunity weeks ago. I gave you plenty of chances. Even this morning, I might have been willing to consider it. But now that I’ve learned you’ve set your girlfriend on the trail, sniffing around like a dog, things have moved on. I’m going to make sure you never, ever have the chance to regain custody of Kelly. I’m going to prove, in court, that you’re unfit.’

He watched her, absorbing the bitterness, the meaning of the words. Carefully he said, ‘What else have you got up your sleeve, then, Rebecca? More cooked-up allegations? Because I tell you this. If you ever, ever dare suggest that I’m in some way a risk to Kelly, I will never forgive you.’

Once again her eyes flared, but this time there was more than just fury there. There was triumph, too, as if she’d won a small victory over him. Which he supposed she had. She’d rattled him, almost provoked him into countering with hysterical threats of his own. At the last minute he’d pulled back and ended with the lame-sounding I will never forgive you, hardly something that would give her pause.

Rebecca pushed past him and headed for the door. Instinctively he put out a hand to stop her but she swept it aside. The heaviness of the front door was the only thing that prevented her from slamming it.

When Tom had heard the engine of her car start and recede into the distance, he sank into the armchair, his hands in his hair.

So it was going to be even uglier than he’d expected. He’d give Rebecca and her solicitor anything they wanted, but it seemed she still wanted her day in court, so that she could rake up all sorts of other allegations about him and put him through the equivalent of standing in the stocks on the village green. No doubt there’d be more women coming forward alleging harassment, and even though their stories too would be easily discredited, the sheer number of the charges against him would start to weigh heavily in the public mind.

And Kelly… every day she’d watch and listen in growing bewilderment and misery as her parents fought and people whispered and pointed. Then, at the end, she’d be whisked away to live somewhere else, like a toy being fought over by a pair of self-centred toddlers and finally claimed by the stronger of them.

Tom no longer pitied Rebecca. He was furious at her for the way she’d allow this obsession with getting her own way to take over her mind, to blind her to the damage she was going to do to her daughter. He was furious at himself, too, for having misread the situation as he had, for underestimating his former wife’s capacity for vindictiveness, for not having done more, somehow (though if he was onset, he wasn’t quite sure what he might have done better), to protect Kelly from this unpleasantness.

And, Tom realised suddenly, he was furious at Chloe. Just what exactly had she done? Had she been interrogating Sabrina Jones, as Rebecca claimed, and was she spreading word that Rebecca was behind the allegations? Even though it was true, it wasn’t the sort of thing that was going to help the situation. What was Chloe trying to achieve by meddling like this? Now she’d made things worse, and a merely terrible situation had been turned into a catastrophic one.

Tom got up, took the whisky glass into the kitchen and poured what was left into the sink. He needed a clear head, because he had a lot of thinking to do. As a doctor, Tom was used to finding solutions to problems. In the practice of medicine, this was often more straightforward because the problem could be viewed dispassionately. In matters of personal significance, strong emotion had a tendency to cloud one’s judgement.

Tom paced, then sat, then gazed out the window at the balmy night. But try as he might, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he’d met his match. That here, at last, he’d come face to face with a problem which not only didn’t have a clear solution, but didn’t have a solution at all.

***

Some instinct or other made Chloe rise earlier than usual, at five thirty in the morning. The sun was already bathing the fields outside the window and the day promised to be another brilliant one. Chloe checked on Jake – he was still fast asleep, sucking his thumb, a habit she was going to have to start getting him out of for the sake of his developing teeth, she reflected – and went into the kitchen to set the coffee machine going, before heading to the living room and her laptop.

An email was waiting for her. The time signature was one thirty that morning, when she’d been asleep, and the sender was Dave, her journalist friend from London. Attached was a password-protected file. The message in the email read: Have texted you the password. I pulled some serious strings to get this, so you owe me big time. Dinner at the Ritz, at the very least.

Chloe checked her phone and found the text message. She entered the password and waited as the document downloaded.

It was a scanned document, the resolution a little grainy but without affecting its legibility. Chloe read through it. Then reread it.

She sat back, closing her eyes. A smile crept across her face.

This was it. Just what she’d been hoping for, and more.

Her first impulse was to pick up her phone and call Tom. But she held herself in check. It was five thirty in the morning, for heaven’s sake. He probably wouldn’t have got much sleep that night anyway, considering all that had been happening.

Instead she composed a reply to Dave, thanking him profusely for his help and, without going into specifics, mentioning that the information he’d supplied might very well save somebody else’s career. And yes, she’d come through on that dinner, though it probably wouldn’t be the Ritz.

She closed the laptop, too excited to do any more work for the time being, and bustled about the cottage, planning the day. Tom would be her first port of call, and she’d discuss with him the options they had. After all, it would be largely up to him what they did with the information she’d obtained.

By seven she decided it would be a suitable time to call Tom - neither too early nor just as he was about to start work and might be feeling harassed. Keeping one eye on Jake, who was in the high chair at the kitchen table and doing his level best to feed himself his porridge oats without getting them all over his face and clothes, with limited success, Chloe dialled Tom’s number.

It rang twice, three times. He was probably getting Kelly ready for the run to nursery, she thought. When the voicemail kicked in, she said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice, ‘Tom, it’s me, Chloe. Hope you’re bearing up. Could you give me a ring when you’ve got a moment? I’ve got some very good –’

She was interrupted in mid-sentence by the abrupt intrusion of Tom’s voice: ‘Chloe?’

‘Tom. Hi.’ Momentarily flustered, as you tended to be when the other person picked up while you were in the middle of a voice message, she took a moment to collect herself. ‘Sorry to call so early, and I hope it’s not too inconvenient. I just wanted to –’

‘It is a bit of an awkward time, as it happens.’ There was something in his tone she’d never heard before. A testiness. Well, she didn’t blame him. He must dread the phone ringing, considering all that had been happening.

‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘This won’t take long. Listen, I’ve been doing some digging –’

‘Yes, I know you have.’ Again, there was that edge to his voice. It wasn’t irritability, quite, she realised. Nothing as spontaneous as that. Rather, it was a disturbing coldness.

‘I... don’t know what you mean,’ she said uncertainly.

There was a pause, and although it lasted only two seconds at most, it had the quality of a gorge opening up between them.

‘I know you’ve been digging, Chloe,’ he said, his voice flat now, betraying no emotion. ‘You’ve rather shaken things up with your excavations. And I’m afraid to say it’s caused a fair amount of damage.’

The shock of his words took a moment to sink in. ‘Tom! I really don’t know what you’re referring to. What I’ve done. Please tell me.’

Was there a hint of doubt in his tone as he replied? ‘You went to interview Sabrina Jones, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said immediately. ‘Tom, that’s what I’m phoning about. She’s –’

‘And you know Rebecca’s put her up to this.’ The steeliness was back in his voice. Chloe was utterly disorientated by the sudden changes.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly –’

‘Rebecca came to see me last night,’ he cut in. ‘She knows you spoke to the Jones woman. That you believe she, Rebecca, is behind these allegations. And she’s furious. It’s tipped her over the edge. She’s determined to drag this through the courts now, this custody fight. Even though I’ve offered her full, uncontested custody. She wants to make it as messy as possible. All to humiliate me.’

‘Tom, that’s terrible.’ Chloe was trying to process everything he’d said. ‘But what do you mean, you agreed to give up custody? There’s no need.’

‘She would have backed down,’ Tom continued, as if he hadn’t heard Chloe. ‘She would have let us settle this quietly. But your involvement has provoked her. And Kelly’s going to suffer as a result.’ His voice rose in pitch. ‘Why couldn’t you leave it alone, Chloe? Why did you have to interfere?’

‘Tom, I’m so sorry.’ Chloe felt the tears choking her voice. ‘I only wanted to… I didn’t mean to –’

‘I’m sure your intentions were good,’ he said, his tone softening a degree. ‘But the result is that the situation’s become far worse than it needed to be. So please, Chloe. Back off. Don’t interfere any more.  This is my problem, and I need to deal with it myself. I don’t need any help, especially not if that help is going to end up aggravating things.’

‘Tom –’

‘Goodbye, Chloe.’

And the line went dead.

Chloe stared at the phone before the shaking in her hands made her put it down. The sobs welled in her chest and she fought them down, because Jake was looking at her quizzically and she didn’t want to upset him.

Tom was right, she knew. She’d meddled, without his asking her to. She had promised to be a good friend to him, and her actions had harmed him. That wasn’t the sort of thing a friend did. He’d trusted her, and she’d betrayed his trust.

Chloe thought about her own problems with trusting people. Doctors, in particular. Well, trust worked both ways. She could hardly complain about not being able to trust others when she wasn’t worthy of it herself.

Tom had asked her to back off. The respectful thing to do would be to grant his request and retreat, keeping her nose out of his business. Chloe knew this. And yet… what she’d learned just that morning from the email she’d received changed everything. She couldn’t ignore it. To do so would be far more of a betrayal of Tom than would ignoring his wish for her to stay away.

In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought, and picked up the phone once more, her hand steady again.

The number was easy enough to find through Directory Enquiries. Chloe had in fact wondered if the woman would have a land line, considering how many people used only mobile phones these days, so she was gratified when a number came up for Sabrina Jones. Chloe would probably have been able to track down her mobile number sooner or later, but this saved time.

She suspected Ms Jones would be at home, given how early it was and the fact that she was off sick form work. Sure enough, a voice bleary with sleep answered after four rings.

‘Yeah? Who is it?’

‘Chloe Edwards.’

There came a sharp cough, then almost a shout. ‘I’m not talking to you. You tricked me.’

‘I need to meet you in person again.’

‘What? No way.’

Chloe said, ‘I think you might change your mind when you hear me out, Ms Jones. Or should I say, Christina Hutchinson?’

The silence hung thickly.

Then the woman said, a tremor in her voice: ‘What do you want?’

Chloe told her.

Chapter Twelve

Chloe’s first instinct, when she saw the red Mercedes parked outside Tom’s house, was to turn back and try again later. Rebecca was there, and Rebecca the last person Chloe wanted to see, especially considering what she had to tell Tom.

But then she thought: no, this is actually perfect.

It was a little after two in the afternoon. Chloe knew this was a day Tom worked mornings and evenings, and she was gambling on his having come straight home after picking Kelly up from nursery. She knew her assumption had been correct when she saw his Ford in the driveway, a moment before she spotted Rebecca’s car. Chloe had deposited Jake with the same mum who’d looked after him a few times already. She really did need to organise a regular babysitter, Chloe knew, if she continued to need to deal with business outside the house as she’d been doing lately.

She hadn’t tried ringing Tom again. There’d been no point; he’d see who was calling and ignore it. Plus, he was at work that morning and wouldn’t be able to receive calls anyway. He’d no doubt be furious with her for turning up unannounced and uninvited at his front door, but she was confident that he’d give her an audience if she could just get a word in edgeways at the outset and explain why she was there.

Chloe turned into a side street so that her Astra wouldn’t be visible from Tom’s house. She made her way towards his front door. As she drew nearer she felt apprehension constrict her chest.

Through the closed door she could hear raised voices. Tom’s and Rebecca’s, and they were overlapping as they argued.

Poor Kelly, thought Chloe. For a moment she considered withdrawing. Her presence was only going to inflame an already tense situation. But she was determined to end this nonsense as soon as she could, so she set her jaw and pressed the doorbell.

The voices inside dropped to an angry mutter. In a few seconds Chloe heard footsteps approaching. The door cracked ajar and Tom’s face appeared. He looked haggard, dark shadows weighing heavily beneath his eyes. Nonetheless Chloe felt a surge deep within her chest.

He sighed sharply. In a low voice he said, ‘Chloe, please. It’s not a good time.’

‘I know Rebecca’s here,’ Chloe said quickly. ‘This concerns her, too. I’ve got something you both need to see, right now.’

‘I’ve told you not to interfere. Please, just go away and leave us alone.’ There wasn’t anger in his eyes, but something far more distressing to Chloe: a profound, wrenching despair.

Urgently, insistently, she said, ‘Is Kelly out of the way?’

‘What?’ He seemed fazed by the question. ‘Oh. Yes, she’s at a play date with one of her friends from nursery.’

‘Good.’ Chloe put a confident foot in the door. In her pushiest reporter’s voice she said, ‘I need to come in.’

‘Chloe, no.’ He started to close the door but it caught on Chloe’s boot.

‘Just hear me out for five minutes. Two minutes. Then I’ll go, and I won’t bother you again. I swear to you.’

‘You don’t get it,’ he hissed. ‘If Rebecca sees you –’

‘What’s going on?’ Rebecca’s strident tone came from behind Tom. He glared frantically at Chloe, waving his fingers in a get away gesture, but she stood her ground. Over his shoulder Rebecca’s immaculate face appeared.

‘What? You! My God, you’ve got a nerve –’ she began.

‘Let me in, Tom,’ Chloe urged.

‘Mind your own business,’ snapped Rebecca. ‘Tom, get rid of her.’

Chloe reached into her shoulder bag and took out a folded piece of paper. She opened it up and held it in front of Tom’s face. His incredulous glance flicked from her to the paper and back, then settled on the paper.

Where it lingered.

After a moment he half-turned towards Rebecca, who was standing, arms folded, just behind him.

‘Rebecca,’ he said in an odd voice, ‘I’m going to open the door for Chloe now. You need to have a look at this.’

He stepped aside, opening the door. Chloe went in and walked straight past Rebecca, who stared from her to Tom, open-mouthed. In the living room Chloe waited. Tom came in, followed by Rebecca. On one of the tables Chloe spotted a folder with some sort of legal-looking documents spilling out. She supposed Rebecca had come round to discuss some aspect of the court case she was bringing against Tom.

Chloe held up her unfolded piece of paper. ‘Would you like to know what this is, Rebecca?’

Rebecca put her hands on her hips and titled her head back, glowering at Chloe. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

‘It’s a signed statement from Christina Hutchinson. Do you happen to know who she is, Rebecca?’

The other woman said nothing, but her eyes widened fractionally. Some of the colour faded from her cheekbones.

‘Christina Hutchinson,’ Chloe went on, ‘is a convicted fraudster and conwoman. She’s served a total of seven years in prison on three proven counts of fraud and embezzlement. At present, she’s on two years’ probation following her last offence. Oh,’ Chloe said, as if just remembering, ‘and she currently goes by the name of Sabrina Jones.’

Tom had been listening intently to Chloe, but now he transferred his stare to Rebecca. She’d lowered her head but was still gazing at Chloe. Her features were by now completely pale.

Chloe continued: ‘I obtained Ms Hutchinson’s criminal record from a fellow journalist in London who has contacts in the Metropolitan Police. They had her photograph on file, so it was relatively easy for them to match a name to the photo of “Sabrina Jones” I forwarded. Naturally, when I told Ms Hutchinson I knew about her background, she became very co-operative. If she’s caught committing fraud while on probation, she’ll be back in prison in no time.

‘So I gave her a choice. Either I forward her criminal record to the papers, which would both immediately destroy the credibility of her allegations and make her the subject of a police investigation on the assumption that she’s engaging in deception while on probation. Or, she writes and signs a statement admitting that she was hired to lie about Tom. It was no contest, really. She agreed at once.’

Rebecca’s face was quivering, but she was hanging on to what remained of her composure. The atmosphere in the room was taut as a stretched bowstring.

Chloe tapped the letter in her hand. ‘It’s all here. How you first approached her, the money you offered and then paid her, the details of what you instructed her to make up about Tom. How she went and told you after I’d been to visit her the first time yesterday, and you ordered her not to speak to me any more. Now that she’s written this, she’s off the hook. Well, almost. All Ms Hutchinson has yet to do is contact both the papers she approached, the News and the Gazette, and retract her story entirely, with no explanation. Then leave Pemberham and never come back.’

Rebecca’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides, her entire body quivering. This is it, thought Chloe, still flushed with the importance of what she’d been saying but with a growing, sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. This is where it gets really, really ugly. Where the snarling, spitting violence kicks in.

She braced herself, sensing Tom doing the same.

They remained still for six agonising seconds, three points of a triangle that felt ready to fly apart at any moment.

And Rebecca broke. She sank to the floor, crouching, her hands clasped over her face, her body racked by sobs. A horrible wailing sounded from beneath her fingers. Her poise, her arrogant elegance, were gone.

Chloe didn’t, couldn’t, look at Tom. Instead she took a step or two closer to Rebecca, and when there was a pause in the keening noise the other woman was making, Chloe said, firmly but gently: ‘It doesn’t need to come to light that you were behind this. Obviously, it’s up to Tom what happens now.’ This time she glanced across at him but he was staring at Rebecca, his brow deeply furrowed.

Chloe went on, ‘But I’d imagine that if you backed off, completely, if you gave up forever all notions you might have of taking custody of Kelly away from Tom, of persecuting and hounding him and destroying his life – if you did that, then this could all quietly come to an end. No police involvement, no scandal, no rancorous court battles. Just… peace, once more. As there used to be.’

Rebecca’s wails had diminished to a muffled whimpering. Chloe and Tom stood watching her for a few more seconds. Despite her antipathy towards the woman, despite her revulsion at what she’d done to Tom, Chloe couldn’t help feeling a deep, abiding pity for Rebecca. So proud, and so troubled, and brought so low by her own folly.

Slowly, shakily, Rebecca rose to her feet again, not making eye contact with either of them. She fumbled her way along the wall to the door, and Chloe heard her footsteps tottering in the hallway before the front door slammed. She took a step towards the living room door but Tom held up his hand.

‘Just let her go.’

Chloe turned to him, awkward. He couldn’t quite meet her eye.

‘Chloe,’ he said. ‘I’m so –’

The scream of rubber on tarmac was followed a split-second later by a higher-pitched human shriek and the awful dull sound of metal hitting something soft and living. Tom froze, his mouth open. Then he barged past Chloe, almost knocking her over on his way to the window.

Chloe joined him an instant later and stared out.

‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed.

On the road, alongside Rebecca’s red Mercedes, another car had stopped, the driver halfway out of his door and with his hands in his hair. And in the road in front of the new car, like a cast-off rag, Rebecca’s body sprawled, her hair fanned out on the tarmac.

Even as Chloe gaped, unable to comprehend what she was seeing, she glimpsed from the corner of her eye Tom bolting out through the front door and sprinting up the driveway.

No… no…

Chloe came to her senses and raced to the front door, following Tom. The driver of the other car was stooped over Rebecca, shouting himself but not touching her, as though she were contaminated. By the time Chloe reached them Tom was crouched at his ex-wife’s side. People were starting to emerge from the doors of houses along the street, alerted by the sound of the impact.

Tom looked round at Chloe.

‘Call 999.’

She thumbed the emergency number in and reached a dispatcher immediately. Beside her, the driver of the car that had hit Rebecca was moaning: ‘She just came running out… I didn’t see her… I’m so sorry.’ Chloe frowned at him and held a finger to her lips.

She recited a few details to the operator, then folded her phone away. ‘It’s on its way,’ she said. To the drover she said, ‘Please. Keep back.’ When he didn’t move she took him gently by the arm and drew him on to the pavement, then returned to Tom.

Rebecca was crumpled with one leg at an awkward angle. There was blood on her dress, not a lot of it but enough to stain the expensive silk grotesquely. She was breathing, Chloe noticed, but it wasn’t a normal sort of breathing. Her chest was jerking in gasps, and as Chloe watched, Rebecca’s lips seemed to be turning an ominous blue.

Tom’s hands roved over Rebecca, probing, feeling for injuries, Chloe assumed. His fingers moved to her throat and he felt for her pulse, then laid his middle finger on the centre of her throat where a man’s Adam’s apple would be. Then he pressed his ear to her chest, beneath each breast in turn, raised his head once more and laid a hand on her chest, moving it about and tapping on one of his knuckles with a finger on his other hand. The tapping produced a hollow sound on the left side, but on the right, Chloe thought it sounded like rapping on a solid concrete wall.

Tom muttered something grimly to himself which Chloe didn’t catch. He glanced up at her. ‘Have you got something sharp? Scissors, a nail file?’

She fumbled in her bag, which she still had slung over her shoulder as she hadn’t taken it off inside the house, and brought out a small pair of scissors which she handed to Tom.

‘And I  need a pen’

‘What?’ She wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

‘A ballpoint pen. Quickly.’

There was a cheap plastic pen at the very bottom of the bag. This too Chloe passed it to Tom. He removed the cap and pulled the nib out, then snapped about one third of the length of the plastic off.

Chloe stared in appalled fascination as Tom tore open the front of Rebecca’s dress, then probed with his fingertips below the right cup of her bra near her armpit. He seemed to find the spot he was looking for and, keeping it marked with one finger, he pressed the closed points of the scissors against the bared skin. Chloe cringed as the metal points penetrated the flesh. Rebecca didn’t flinch, but her mouth and cheeks were turning a deeper tint of blue.

Tom worked with his fingers, widening the slit he’d made. Then he grasped the broken casing of the ballpoint pen and pushed the jagged plastic end into the hole. He twisted it slightly, grimacing.

And Chloe heard a hiss of air, as if a balloon were suddenly being deflated. Rebecca began to gasp, but it was much freer breathing now. Rapidly her face started to lose its ghastly blue-grey tinge.

In the distance, a siren was approaching rapidly.

Tom slumped forward, a hand across his mouth, sweat matting his hair to his forehead. Below him Rebecca was groaning, shifting lightly, rolling her head from side to side. But breathing.

The ambulance came screaming up, and events began to move even more quickly after that. All Chloe remembered clearly from that time was Tom’s face. Exhausted, bewildered, it was the face of a man who’d suffered more in the way of conflicting emotion in a short time than anyone deserved to experience.

It was the face of a man who had just, Chloe understood, saved another human being’s life.

And it was the face of the man she loved.

***

The cottage was in darkness except for a dim light coming though the drawn living room curtains. Tom stumbled up to the door and knocked hesitantly.

After a minute he was about to knock again when the door opened. Chloe peered out, fully dressed though her feet were bare, the befuddlement of the newly wakened in her eyes.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,’ he whispered. ‘I knocked because I thought the doorbell might wake the kids up.’

She stood aside for him, her smile full of concern. ‘They’ve both been asleep for hours,’ she said. ‘I think I must’ve nodded off for a few minutes myself.’

In the living room he glanced at the clock on the wall. Three fifteen. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I should have gone back home.’

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘Yes,’ he said, thankfully. ‘That would be wonderful.’ He’d had his fill of hospital coffee in plastic cups from vending machines over the last few hours, but a good home-brewed mug of tea would really hit the spot.

In the kitchen, over their beverages, Tom brought Chloe up to date.

Rebecca was out of danger. She had a mild concussion but had avoided serious head injury, and although her tibia, the shinbone, was broken, it was a clean fracture and should heal completely given enough time. The potentially most serious injury had been the one to her chest. One of her ribs on the right-hand side had been broken and punctured the pleura, the sac encasing the lung. Air had been sucked into the cavity around the lung and had been building up, compressing the lung and forcing her windpipe over to one side. In a few more minutes, perhaps seconds, she would have gone into respiratory arrest, and her heart function might have been compromised.

Tom explained as simply as he could what he’ done. He had used the scissors to gain entry to the pleural cavity, then used the shell of the ballpoint pen to open a makeshift channel so that air couldn’t build up around the lung any longer. The hiss Chloe had heard was the compressed air escaping from around the lung.

‘She’s got a proper drain in her chest now to get rid of any remaining air,’ he said. ‘They’ll take it out in a day or two. But she’ll need surgery on that leg.’

‘How is she?’ said Chloe. Tom glanced across the table at her. She must be as exhausted as he was; she’d been awake about as long, going to pick up Kelly after Tom had departed for the hospital and looking after the girl at the cottage with Jake, feeding and bathing them both and putting them both to bed.

‘I mean… I know you’ve told me how she is,’ chloe said. ‘But – how is she? Otherwise?’

He gave a weary shrug. ‘She’s not great,’ he said. ‘Rebecca’s a troubled woman. As you know only too well, Chloe. She’s going to need to get help after all this. I think she knows it. We had a bit of a heart-to-heart, though she wasn’t really in the best state to talk about things like that.’

‘Do you think she did it deliberately? Jump in front of that car?’

Again he raised a shoulder. ‘Who knows? Only Rebecca. And even she probably isn’t certain.’

‘Is her man coming?’

‘Andrew? Yes, he’s on his way. He’s been abroad in the Middle East on business but he’s flying in. He’s an okay guy, even if he did run off with my wife. He’ll be a good source of support for her.’

Tom realised he must have been lost in thought, because he became aware that Chloe had been watching him for some time. Her elbow was propped on the table top, her chin resting on her hand. The faintest of smiles touched her lips.

‘What?’ he grinned, all at once as self-conscious as an adolescent.

‘I was just thinking,’ she murmured. ‘Marvelling, actually. After everything, after all that’s happened, even right up until this afternoon… you had every reason to hate Rebecca. And yet you’re still concerned about her. You still saved her life.’

‘I couldn’t very well let her die there on the road,’ he said. ‘I am a doctor, after all. I took an oath.’

‘I know. Of course you had to do what you did. I understand that. It’s just…’ She broke off, looked down, almost shyly. ‘You said this Andrew’s an “okay guy”. Well, you’re an okay guy, Tom Carlyle. No, you’re more than an okay guy.’ She lifted her eyes to meet his again. ‘You’re a quite wonderful guy.’

He watched her eyes, absorbed by how even in spite of her exhaustion they sparkled.

Tom opened his mouth, to say he was sorry. Sorry he’d got her involved in all of this in the first place. Sorry he’d been unappreciative of her help. Sorry he’d kept his feelings for her under wraps instead of shouting them from the rooftops. And he wanted to thank her. Thank her for her loyalty, her doggedness, her brilliance. Her kindness, and her compassion, and her grit.

And as he opened his mouth he saw her lips part, because there were things he knew she wanted to say too. That she shouldn’t have interfered, should have respected his wishes to handle his problems on his own… a catalogue of other things. None of which, really, mattered at all now.

They spoke at the same time, but there were no sorrys, or thanks, or anything of that sort.

What they each said, at the same time, was: ‘I love you.’

***

Chloe traced a fingertip down Tom’s profile, across the smooth, almost unlined plain of his forehead, down the slight curve of the bridge of his nose, across his closed lips, over the bump of a chin with its hint of stubble.

She returned her fingertips to his lips, and they parted a fraction, then swelled in a gentle kiss.

She was snuggled against him on the couch in his living room. It was a Saturday evening, and the detritus of a home-cooked meal lingered on the table. It needed clearing away, but not now.

It was a first for them. Their first proper date, for one. And the first occasion on which they had time to spend with one another, just the two of them, without fear of disturbance. Jake and Kelly were back at the cottage, under the care of Mrs McFarland. The older woman had been all too eager to babysit the pair. It was something she’d been offering to do for weeks now, ever since she’d… well, ever since Tom and Chloe had stopped pretending to anyone.

‘Ask Dr Carlyle what young Kelly will have for breakfast,’ Mrs McFarland said that afternoon.

Chloe replied hastily, ‘Oh, no, no, don’t worry. He’ll pick her up later. I’ll be back too. I’m not staying all night.’

‘But why ever not, dear?’ said her friend, innocently enough but with a wicked glint in her eye. Chloe laughed, exasperated.

Now, she nuzzled closer to Tom, relishing the warm aroma of his neck above the collar of his casual shirt, the heavy feel of his arm around her shoulders. He drew her against him and she felt his fingertips beneath her chin. She let him tilt her head back so that her face was lifted to his.

Their lips met, exploring delicately at first, then probing with increasing urgency. Chloe’s teeth pressed against his and she slipped the tip of her tongue between them. His own tongue responded to hers, wrestling it playfully. A slow, fierce heat began to spread from deep in Chloe’s belly in all directions, upwards to her breast and down into her loins, triggering a tingling in the most intimate parts of her.

She drew back, wanting to devour him and yet wanting to gaze at him at the same time. His face, so handsome and affable, had a relaxed purity about it that she’d noticed when she’d first met him, though she’d denied herself awareness of it then. It had disappeared, that look, in the terrible weeks of the early summer; but now, a month after the culmination of the saga, with Rebecca gone to France with her man and Tom back in public esteem, the Pember Valley News having had to publish a humiliating apology once the woman calling herself Sabrina Jones had admitted she’d told a pack of lies about Dr Carlyle… now, that serenity was back in Tom’s features.

If Tom had changed, Chloe thought, she’d been transformed. Not physically, but in so many other ways. In the last three or four months, she’d learned about country ways. She’d learned that nosiness wasn’t confined to fussy ladies of a certain age. She’d learned about the extremes to which obsession and a sense of grievance could drive a human being.

She’d learned that not all doctors were incompetent, or arrogant, or malicious. Probably not the vast majority of them.

She’d learned that trust was something that cut both ways.

She gazed into Tom’s eyes, and as if reading her thoughts he murmured, ‘Enough. Enough waiting.’

His hands slipped to the hem of her shirt and swept it up and over her head. She’d put on a half-cup bra, something she’d never worn once since coming to Pemberham, and now she enjoyed the look of delight in his eyes as he gazed at her breasts, pushed up and half-exposed. In turn she grabbed at his polo shirt and pulled it up and off. His chest was lightly muscled, smooth with the faintest sprinkling of hair, his belly flat and taut.

Chloe rose on to her knees on the sofa, unclasping her jeans and pulling down the zip, then wriggling her hips to peel the denim down. As she leaned forward to kick the jeans off her legs she grasped Tom’s belt buckle and unfastened his own trousers, pulling them down. Beneath his boxer shorts the evidence of his arousal swelled towards her.

Their bodies joined, her arms winding tightly around his neck, his around her waist, and their mouths met hotly once again. His hands swept up her back and scrabbled with the clasp of her bra. He threw the wisp of lace aside and grasped her back with his flat hands, pressing her closer and ducking his head so that his lips and tongue could flick and suck at her risen nipples. Chloe moaned, long and deep in her throat, urging her body at her lover, wrapping her thighs around his waist and thrusting her pelvis against his stomach.

Somehow with one hand he managed to pull his shorts down, and Chloe felt him engorged against her belly. She loosened the grip of her legs on his waist so that he could slip her panties down her thighs. His hands grasped the globes of her bottom and she lowered herself on to him, both of them groaning as they joined. Tom sank so that his back was propped against the back of the sofa and Chloe moved astride him, rocking at first with a controlled rhythm but, unable to help herself, increasing the pace as the pleasure mounted within her until she reached her peak and heard herself cry out, his own climax melding with hers so that they were fused in a moment of extreme, surpassing joy that seemed eternal.

Afterwards, as they lay languidly on the sofa, her hair a curtain over his face, his hand slowly, exquisitely stroking her naked back, Chloe closed her eyes. She had a sudden vision of Mark, his face looking down at her from some undefined point. She’d had a vision like this many a time in the last year, and usually it was accompanied by a small storm of emotions: anger, and regret, and longing, and intense guilt, and the terrible sadness of recognising that happiness was gone forever.

This time, there was none of that. This time, Mark’s appearance brought her a sense of profound peace. Love, too, and the bittersweet ache of loss; but peace, too. And for the first time, she noticed Mark was smiling.

Goodbye, my love, she said silently. I’ll always love you. And now I love another. It is possible, you know.

Presently Chloe began to shake slightly. Tom swept her hair aside with his hand and peered into her face.

‘What’s so funny?’ he grinned, amused but puzzled.

‘I was just thinking,’ she said. ‘How long did it take us to get together? And how long has it been since we… well, we first decided we wanted to be with each other? And now here we are, alone together for the first time, and we still haven’t quite made it to the bedroom.’

He kissed her, long and playfully, on the mouth. ‘There’ll be plenty of opportunity for that later.’

‘Promise?’

Tom smiled.

‘Trust me,’ he said.

THE END

AFTERWORD

Thanks for reading Questions Of Trust – I hope you liked it. Needless to say, all the characters are fictional; but all fiction’s drawn from life, to some extent, and so inevitably aspects of people I know or have met have crept into my characters.

If you’ve enjoyed this book, you might like to try my first romance novel, St Matthew’s Passion, also available for Kindle from Amazon (see next page for details).

And if you’d like to get in touch with me, please do: samgarcher@gmail.com.

Finally, I’d be most grateful if you’d consider leaving a review of Questions Of Trust on Amazon. Reviews get books noticed, and are useful to us authors in their own right. Many thanks!

Sam Archer

ALSO BY SAM ARCHER FOR KINDLE

ST MATTHEW’S PASSION

A Medical Romance

A novel about romance, about passion, and about the choices a man and a woman are forced to make between love and their careers

Melissa Havers is one of the brightest rising young stars in the ultra-competitive world of trauma surgery. When she lands a position at the prestigious St Matthew’s Hospital in London, she’s determined to beat the odds as a woman and become the best in her field.

But Melissa didn’t expect her boss, Daniel Finmore-Gage - Fin, as he’s known, and the most brilliant surgeon in the city - to have quite such an impact on her from the start.

And she certainly didn’t expect to fall in love with him.

Fin, though, has his reasons for not returning Melissa’s feelings. He’s been married before, he’s too professional to abuse the authority he has over her - and he harbours a dark secret which he can’t reveal to Melissa, and which has made him vow he’ll never put anything before his work.

Not even love...

As the powerful forces which bind these two strong, vital personalities threaten to disrupt the very functioning of the service to which they’ve both dedicated their professional careers, a crisis occurs which will test not only the bond between them, but also their commitment to the lives they’ve chosen for themselves.

Breathtaking in its suspense, and heartbreaking in its portrayal of a love affair that appears at once inevitable and doomed to failure, St Matthew’s Passion is a thrilling novel by a practising doctor which blends authentic specialist medical detail with a universal story of the complexities of the human heart.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

AFTERWORD

ALSO BY SAM ARCHER FOR KINDLEST MATTHEW’S PASSIONA Medical Romance