The Watchful Eye (14 page)

‘Well,’ she said archly, ‘aren’t you going to buy me a drink?’

He gaped at her.

She crossed her legs, deliberately revealing a shapely thigh.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m here now. We may as well make the most of it. No point just going home.’

There was something desperately brittle in her voice and manner. Daniel’s embarrassment was replaced by sympathy.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘What can I get you?’

‘Red wine,’ she said, ‘please.’

He was glad to escape to the bar and make his plans. What the hell was he going to do now? He didn’t want to go out with the practice nurse. It could only lead to further difficulties. And yet. He turned to smile at her from the bar. There was nothing wrong with her. She was in her early thirties, more than passingly attractive.

The truth hit him like a thunderbolt. He simply didn’t fancy her. Why not? Because he fancied Claudine. And as he had decided when he had parked himself facing the pub door, physical attraction is all.

Therefore the evening would be a waste of time, as would any subsequent dates with anyone except…

The barman was waiting.

‘Pint of Titanic and a red wine.’

‘Large or small?’

‘Small,’ he said then felt instantly guilty. ‘No, make it a large.’ The barman grinned at him.

Daniel fished out some money and reflected. It would just about finish his reputation: divorced, wrong diagnosis, allegations of sexual harassment in the surgery, failing to find out what was wrong with the Struel child, having an affair with the practice nurse and the fixation in Brian Anderton’s mind that he was trying to bonk his wife. It was hard to believe that a few short weeks ago he had felt practically unassailable.

‘Six pound thirty, please.’

He handed over the money and weaved through the tables back to his seat.

‘Thanks,’ Marie said and flashed another smile at him.

He didn’t know where to start. Chat up and small talk never had been his strong point.

Luckily she was not tongue-tied. ‘I know you’re divorced, Dan,’ she said.

‘And you?’

‘I’m not
actually
divorced. Separated. In fact Mark and I have been apart for years but we’ve never quite got around to severing the knot.’

‘Children?’ he managed.

‘No. We started falling apart within months of being married. It would have been folly to have started a family. I was only twenty-nine when we split up. Lots of women aren’t even married by then – let alone have children. I sort of hoped that I could make a fresh start but…’ She took a long draught of the wine, ‘the years start slipping by.’

‘Have you had many relationships?’

She sighed. ‘A few. But it’s quite startling how… Oh I don’t
know. It’s hard finding someone who’s the right age, lives within ninety miles, has the same sort of aspirations, interests, intelligence even. I went out with the man of my dreams for about eight months but he turned out to be married, busily cheating on his wife. I dropped
him
like a hot coal.’ She laughed. ‘He’s still got the nerve to ring me from time to time. To see if I’m all right.’ She made a face.

‘And are you – all right, I mean?’

‘Yeah,’ she said casually. ‘I miss having a partner and I wouldn’t like to think I’ll never have children, but all things considered it’s better than being unhappily married. What about you?’

‘Nothing really since Elaine blew out of my life.’

‘No dates?’ she asked incredulously.

He was thinking about Claudine as he shook his head.

The evening passed strangely. He felt unreal every time he looked at her face and remembered who she was.

She offered to buy him a drink and it would have seemed churlish to refuse. He had a half pint, thinking about the drive home. A drink-driving offence on top of everything else would finish him. She said she lived within walking distance and returned with his half and another large red wine.

As soon as he could he stood up, wondering if he could get out of driving her home and refusing a coffee.

In the end he decided not to offer her a lift. He had no wish to prolong the evening. The feeling of relief when he finally reached his car made him practically euphoric. He didn’t relish facing her at work tomorrow.

Daniel spent the rest of the week studiously avoiding any of the public areas in the surgery: the kitchen, the coffee room, even the reception area. Instead he stuck to his consulting room like glue, hoping he wouldn’t bump into Marie. He was relatively successful at it and trusted that they could continue to work together without embarrassment. He heard nothing about either of the coroner’s cases or from Chelsea Emmanuel. And so he was in a limbo which might last a long time. The wheels of coroner’s courts grind as slowly as police investigations and are equally as thorough. Though all was quiet there would be a frenzy of police activity. This then was the calm before the storm. He knew he would face criticism over Maud Allen’s death. The suggestion of the wrong diagnosis and his resultant prescribing had led to her suicide. What he didn’t know at that time was that there was another factor.

And as for the fiasco over Anna-Louise’s death he couldn’t even begin to guess what his contribution might have been. It seemed that there had been no pathology – no hidden sinister illness. But there might have been pathology working around her which he had failed to act on.

The Medical Defence Union also kept ominously quiet about Chelsea Emmanuel’s clumsy allegation. He just knew
their lawyers would spend some time chewing over the salacious details before any action was taken.

On the Friday evening he was delighted to receive a friendly phone call from Claudine. ‘Daniel,’ she said. ‘I am so sorry I haven’t been in touch. We have all been very busy. How is Holly?’

‘She’s fine,’ he said, enjoying listening to her voice with its slight accent so unmistakably French.

‘I felt I must speak to you,’ she continued, ‘to tell you that I don’t believe for a moment any of the things they are saying about you in the town, that you missed finding something wrong with little Anna-Louise. The Struel family are malicious. I am sure there is an explanation and that you are not to blame for the child’s sad death.’ Without realising that she was, in a way, talking about the same subject, she moved on. ‘And I was so sad when I heard about Mrs Allen. I can’t understand why she did it. She was such a – survivor. Like my grandmother, she was a brave woman and I am sad that she died like that. Oh, Daniel,’ she said, ‘and that horrible girl spreading rumours about you. It is awful. Such a small, nice town and so much happens here. I just can’t understand it that you of all people are having such a bad time. This is when you need your friends most.’

He couldn’t but agree.

‘I don’t know what has happened to this town,’ she said sadly. ‘When I came here I was so happy to be away from Paris, here in England in such a pretty place, but it has changed. It was not like this when we first came here. Now…’

‘You haven’t had any more…’ he didn’t quite know how to put it, ‘trouble, have you?’

‘No, but Brian is so suspicious. He imagines the person who
stole my lingerie from the washing line is now getting into our house and stealing things from my drawers. Not just lingerie but jewellery. Some earrings that I must have lost.’ There was a note of sadness in her voice.

Daniel was appalled. ‘And what do you think?’

‘Oh, Daniel, I don’t know.’ She sounded weary. ‘I don’t know what to think any more. Brian is…I don’t know, different. Changed. Something is wrong with him, in his mind, I think. He is very strange sometimes. He imagines things. Even…’ She hesitated, ‘about you. You know? He has changed the locks and is fitting extra bolts to the doors. He has told me to keep the doors bolted when I am inside. He’s very angry, Daniel, and very suspicious of everyone.’

‘You’re not in any…’

They both knew what he meant.

‘No. No – of course not. He wouldn’t hurt
me
.’ Her emphasis on the last word was subtle but unmistakable. And they both knew what she meant by it.

Privately Daniel wanted to tell her to be careful, to come to him if she felt threatened but he could say none of it. He fell silent and waited for her to suggest an outing with Holly and Bethan over the weekend but she didn’t. He took the hint and after a few more pleasantries she said goodbye.

He hung up.

So now he had no one. ‘M’ had turned out to be his practice nurse and he wasn’t starting a relationship with
her
, and the friendship with Claudine which had promised so much had come to an abrupt halt because her bloody policeman husband was suspicious of his motives.

Daniel’s face twisted. Maybe Brian wasn’t so deluded – merely perceptive.

He and Holly spent most of Saturday cycling along the disused railway which ran between Stafford and Newport. It had been made into a gravelled flat track, popular with joggers, dog walkers and cyclists with a pub halfway along. They stopped and drank a J2O, from the bottle, with a straw, in the garden, sitting at one of the wooden tables underneath a Racing Green umbrella. As usual he had had to pay the penalty of kitting Holly out with the right clothes, in this case padded cycling shorts, but as they pedalled along the track he forgot about his multiple problems and simply enjoyed the warm sunshine and Holly’s chatter.

They cooked Sunday lunch together and Holly grew quiet towards the end of the afternoon. When four o’clock came she suddenly put her arms around him and burst into tears. ‘I don’t want to go back to Birmingham,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to stay here with you. Please let me. I want to live here and see Bethan and have a pony and stay in my bedroom. Why can’t I?’

He felt the familiar pain in his heart. This was so hard. He could almost have joined in her tears. Instead he sat her on his lap. ‘Now listen, pigeon,’ he said. ‘Life here isn’t always such a bowl of roses as you think. We wouldn’t have fun every day, having little adventures and doing things together. I wouldn’t be buying you clothes every time I saw you. I have to go to work, like Mummy does.’

‘I know that,’ she said, almost angrily, ‘but even doing boring things with you like tidying out my bedroom and cooking, seems like fun.’ The tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘I want to stay with you, Daddy. Please let me. Don’t send me away.’

He stroked her hair, staring at the kitchen wall.
Should he have tried harder with Elaine?

Right on cue he heard the 4x4 roar up the quiet street.

This was to be the day of the calm before the storm, the false promise of peace, of settlement and serenity.

Sammy Schultz met him in the car park. ‘I’ve some news for you,’ he said. He glanced around at the trickle of patients parking and entering the surgery. ‘Let’s go into my office,’ he suggested. ‘We can’t talk out here, there’s no privacy.’

Daniel knew that it would be something about Chelsea Emmanuel and followed his partner again feeling like a boy trailing the headmaster to his office after a misdemeanour. Sammy closed the door behind them then turned to face him. ‘Sit down, Daniel,’ he said. His face was grave.

‘I’ve spoken to Chelsea Emmanuel,’ he began.

Daniel waited with baited breath. He noticed that Sammy was not meeting his eyes.

He waited.

‘I explained to her what the usual procedure was in cases like this,’ he said, ‘what the repercussions would be, that she’d be questioned, that your career was on the line.’

The silence was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

‘I don’t think she’d thought,’ Sammy continued, ‘beyond the letter. ‘When she did she withdrew the allegation.’

Daniel’s first emotion was one of relief. Quickly followed by anger. Pure, furious, white hot anger.

‘They were lies anyway,’ he managed.

Sammy wafted a piece of paper in front of him.

‘The result is that Chelsea Emmanuel has written another letter to say that she was mistaken, that she supposes it was your job to examine her and that she’s sorry if she’s caused any trouble.’

Daniel gritted his teeth. Cause trouble? How dare she, the little tart, make those allegations, put him through hell for a week, endanger his reputation. How bloody dare she? He wanted to run round to her grotty little couple of rooms and shake her until her eyeballs fell out.

Sammy was watching him anxiously. ‘Dan,’ he said.

‘The little b—,’ Daniel burst out, his anger patently obvious to his concerned friend. ‘How dare she.’

‘If you want my advice,’ Sammy said cautiously, ‘you’ll put the whole thing behind you. Forget about it, Dan. No harm’s done.’

‘No harm,’ Daniel said. ‘No harm?’

Sammy put his hand on Dan’s shoulder. ‘Drop it,’ he said. ‘No good will come if you pursue this matter. More people will get to hear about it. The gossip’ll continue. People have short memories.’

Daniel said nothing for a minute or two then he faced his partner. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘in the States, if this situation happened, what would the doctor do?’

Sammy looked uncomfortable. ‘Hard to say,’ he said.

‘Stop bullshitting, Sam. What would they be likely to do?’

‘They might talk to a lawyer,’ he said reluctantly, ‘try and get some recompense for the allegations. False allegations,’ he substituted quickly.

‘Yeah. I thought so,’ Daniel said.

‘But listen. A word of the most friendly advice,’ Sammy said. ‘This isn’t New York or Chicago or some other huge American city. This is a real small town in Middle England. It’s a place where gossip spreads like a forest fire in Australia. Hot and quick. Please, Dan,’ he pleaded, ‘don’t make the biggest mistake of your life.’

‘I’ll tell you what I will do,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll sleep on it. Have a think. As soon as I’ve decided I’ll let you know. That’s as good as I can give you.’

He was conscious, as he left the room, that he was leaving behind one very apprehensive man.

General practice, he reflected, as he walked along the corridor towards his own consulting room, was supposed to be undramatic. The calm end of medicine. No crash calls or open-heart surgery. No dramas, collapses, heart attacks or such like. He stomped along angrily. It didn’t help meeting Marie in the corridor with a come-to-bed-smile. ‘Morning, Doctor,’ she said.

His reply was, he reflected later, an impolite, uncivilised grunt.

Shit, he thought, as he slammed the door behind him.

He was losing it.

Brian was peering out of the kitchen window. ‘OK, you bastard,’ he muttered, ‘come here. Just come here. I’m ready for you.’ He clicked the cigarette lighter once, twice, three times, held the flame up to the window. ‘See here,’ he shouted. ‘Have you got the guts?’ He scanned the line of trees. ‘No. I thought not. You haven’t got the balls. So leave my wife…’

‘Brian. What on earth are you doing?’

He whipped around. ‘Protecting you,’ he snarled.

She touched his shoulder timidly. ‘But I don’t need protecting.’

‘You do, Claudine, you do.’ His hug was too tight. She wriggled away from him.

He eyed her suspiciously. ‘By the way, Claudine…’ She knew that tone and was on her guard. ‘Who were you speaking to on the phone on Friday night when I got back?’

‘Daniel,’ she said. It was useless to lie. ‘I wanted him to know that we are behind him, that we believe in him. Terrible rumours are circulating.’

‘And why?’ he demanded. ‘He’s been touching up a fourteen-year-old.’

‘That is a lie.’

‘Is it? Well – the rumour that’s circulating the town is that he’ll be suspended.’

‘No.’ She couldn’t hide her upset. ‘Surely you can see that the girl is lying. Look at her. She’s a little slut.’

‘Why are you so bothered? What’s he to you?’

She felt her face flush.

Lucy Satchel was thawing. She brought him a coffee when she’d finished surgery and gave him one of her wide, open smiles. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I was that the girl’s withdrawn her allegations. They were malicious,’ she said firmly, ‘but they could have caused untold harm.’

Daniel was glad of the olive branch. ‘Well – thanks,’ he said.

But it was difficult to have any extended conversation in the surgery. There was a knock on the door and Christine popped her head round. ‘There’s an extra asking to see you. 
Cora Moseby. Never makes an appointment,’ she grumbled.

‘OK, I’ll see her,’ she said.

Lucy waited until the door had closed behind the receptionist. ‘Now there’s a woman with a problem,’ she said.

Daniel recalled the woman who had turned up before, again without an appointment. ‘Oh?’

‘She’s had a trauma in the past. Won’t go into details but she’s still very disturbed by it. She’s had some psychotherapy but still suffers from nightmares. I’m trying to keep her off medication but…’ She held her hands up in a gesture of defeat. ‘One of these days I’m going to give in to her and prescribe something. She has trouble sleeping. I don’t know much more about her other than that she’s divorced with a couple of kids. I don’t think she ever sees them. From what she says they think she’s a nut and her ex-husband doesn’t seem very supportive. I feel sorry for her. She’s another born victim. Oh well.’ She gave another of her rare smiles. ‘Off I go.’

It was around lunchtime, two days later, as Daniel was grilling some cheese on toast a favourite midday standby of his – that his telephone rang. He picked it up, returning to the grill, hoping and praying that it wouldn’t be his mother. He wanted a peaceful lunchtime and she was capable of spoiling it only too easily.

His wish was answered. It wasn’t his mother but an unfamiliar, haughty voice. ‘Doctor Gregory?’

‘Ye-es?’ He was casting around his memory for a clue. A hospital colleague, patient?

‘My name is Richard Snape,’ the voice said. ‘I’m a solicitor acting for the late Mrs Allen. I wonder, could I trouble you to call in to our offices on the High Street at some point?’

Daniel was bemused. What on earth would Mrs Allen’s solicitor want with him?

‘Yes. Yes – of course.’

‘When would suit?’ the polite voice asked.

‘I have a half-day tomorrow.’

‘Would two-thirty be all right then?’