She began the interview with her usual intro. Climb into the patient’s perspective. ‘Heather, do you understand why Doctor Sylas has referred you to me?’
The women exchanged glances, neither answering. Difficult to read, except for a faint line of worry which appeared simultaneously between their brows. It was Ruth who answered for her sister.
‘Yes, Doctor Roget,’ she said, quite firmly, ‘I believe we do. There has been …’ a necessary hesitation while Ruth floundered for a word, ‘… conflict about the parentage of my sister’s previous babies. Somehow …’ She was twisting her fingers together and frowning down at them while Heather looked on, Madonna-calm now, waiting for her sister to explain. Not a trace of anxiety or concern. ‘Somehow,’ Ruth resumed, ‘things have got a bit confused. Not helped,’ she continued with defiance and an upturn of her chin, ‘by men denying their responsibility.’ Her eyes flickered. Maybe she was recalling the DNA test on Freddie? ‘This time, however, my sister has no such doubts.’ Her eyes were locked on to Claire’s. ‘This time,’ she said, ‘my sister is quite sure. She does not have sex with her husband. This child is the result of a liaison with Mr Tissot.’ She spoke the words with firm and deliberate emphasis, without ambiguity and a cold, challenging stare. Hostile now.
Claire made a note in the margin. If a delusion, shared by sister, Ruth? But she did feel like applauding. It had been a great performance and at least Ruth was getting straight to the heart of it. Without preamble.
Both women were watching her. Her turn now. So, feed them a cue.
‘I know from Doctor Hodgkins’ previous notes that claims were made against two men who subsequently denied any involvement.’ She addressed her question to Heather. ‘So this time you’re saying it’s different?’
There was a moment of wariness in her patient, who visibly tensed up. She knew she was cornered. The alertness was mirrored by tension in her sister’s hands, which clawed the arms of her chair.
Heather finally spoke hesitantly in a soft voice. Less confident, less confrontational than her sister. There was something meek about it. ‘I know I might have got it wrong before,’ she conceded, speaking quite clearly. Then she looked straight at Claire. ‘But anyone can make a mistake.’
Claire drew in a sharp breath. So now she was calling the previous allegations a mistake? Sweeping them under the carpet with a few choice words? Got it wrong. She avoided saying the obvious, pointing out the damage these ‘mistakes’ had caused. But while she would have to delve into Heather’s past history, it was her current allegation with which she was concerned and which she would focus on. ‘As I understand it,’ she said, ‘your husband …’ and why isn’t he here today instead of your sister? ‘… believes that both Eliza and Freddie were his children?’ She waited before continuing. ‘And in the case of Freddie, that was proven by DNA analysis to be the truth.’
Did she accept this?
She certainly didn’t like it. Fists clenched. ‘As I said, anyone can make a mistake.’ Heather was licking her lips now, eyes darting around the room before she came up with, ‘It is possible that someone switched the samples, isn’t it?’
No, actually.
Time to block this particular avenue. ‘Now you know, Heather, there are strict rules about labelling samples, particularly in the case of paternity disputes. There is no record of Eliza’s DNA being tested but, in the case of Freddie, he was your husband’s son.’
Her response was obscure. ‘I can’t help it if men think they can take advantage of me.’
‘Quite,’ she said, knowing the rules. The proffered possibility should appear to be considered. Time now to explore. ‘As Eliza’s DNA was never tested and she and Freddie are now dead, we cannot repeat the tests. But of course, when this little one is born, we will be able to ascertain his or her parentage.’ She smiled to soften her words. ‘Obviously there never is any doubt who the mother is.’
Heather leaned back in her chair and held her hands up as though shielding herself from this denunciation. ‘I know who the father of my baby is,’ she said. ‘A mother instinctively knows.’
Claire’s eyes dropped to the bulge.
Heather’s expression became sentimental. And with her next statement came an air of dignity and confidence. ‘I would not be getting a certain person into trouble just for the fun of it.’ Her hands stroked the bump. ‘Or out of spite.’
Questions were bubbling away in Claire’s brain. Among them: Why would you feel spite towards a man you’d hardly met? Was it something to do with her sister? Her sister’s job?
‘But you were quite happy to …’ she borrowed the quote, ‘… get other men into trouble when you believed they had fathered your previous children.’
‘That,’ Heather said, venom in her voice, ‘was different. This time …’ She stopped. ‘This time, I am sure.’
Claire was wondering if Heather knew that Tissot would be in serious trouble if these allegations were made public. She poised her pen ready to write. ‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Your two babies? Let’s start with them.’
‘Eliza and Freddie.’
‘Eliza was the daughter of …?’
‘She was my daughter.’ Heather had her answer ready.
‘And her father?’ Claire was doing this deliberately. She had to assess how rational Heather Krimble was. And for that, she needed to look back into the past.
‘Eliza’s father was a man I worked for at the time, a Mr Timothy Cartwright.’
‘You worked for him.’
‘Yes. Before I was married.’
‘How did the affair start?’
‘I stayed late one night at the office. He told me he’d always fancied me. One thing led to another.’
Instinctively, Claire felt that Heather was deliberately setting this story. That was unexpected.
‘So why didn’t you marry Mr Cartwright? He was single. You were single.’
‘He didn’t want to leave his mother. I understood that. He’s a very loyal man.’
‘So …’ Claire did a quick calculation. ‘It was very good of Geoff to accept the little girl. He must have married you when you were already pregnant.’
‘I was Eliza’s mother. I knew who Eliza’s father was. And it wasn’t Geoff.’ She was shaking her head in denial. ‘But Geoff …’ She tossed her head in dismissal. Gave out a great big, regretful sigh. ‘Geoff took her and me on when Tim – Mr Cartwright – tried to wriggle out of his responsibility.’
‘Why would he do that, Heather?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Embarrassment, maybe? He was ashamed his mother would learn his sordid little secret.’
It made sense, but not Geoff’s docile contribution.
‘And why did Geoff marry you and take on Eliza?’
Her answer was unexpected. ‘He did what my father told him. Besides …’ A toss of the head. ‘He’d always had a thing about me.’
Ruth’s eyes flickered. Claire sidestepped the issue and searched for a different angle. ‘So when Eliza died … how did you feel about that?’
Heather glanced at her sister. For a cue? Ruth didn’t give her one but continued looking straight ahead, burying her own thoughts and responses.
‘Well,’ Heather responded finally, ‘naturally the death of a baby is sad.’ She looked around the bland room for inspiration. Found none.
And Ruth came to her rescue in a fierce attack on Claire’s question. ‘What do you expect her to say? She was bloody well heartbroken. How do you think she felt?’
Her response told her just how fiercely protective of her older sister Ruth was.
But she had to squeeze Heather. Like a lemon, to remove the pips.
‘What was Eliza like?’
The question appeared to throw Heather. Again, she scrabbled around for an answer. ‘Well, she was just a baby.’
‘What word would you use to describe your relationship with Eliza?’
Both women gawped at her.
Heather looked most taken aback. ‘What word? What word? I was her mother. And she was my baby.’
Claire waited for something more but nothing came. The silence extended and Heather looked again to her sister for a cue. None came. Ruth, it seemed, could not supply it.
‘I was her mother,’ she said again.
It described nothing.
‘Tell me about your husband, Geoff?’
Heather smirked. ‘What do you want to know?’
Claire leaned forward to rest on her elbows. ‘Well, for a start, I don’t really understand his part in all this.’
Ruth took up the baton. ‘Geoff and our father were in the same church,’ she said slowly. ‘Dad, our father, was an elder. He suggested Geoff might want to help Heather out.’
Claire leaned back and thought about this. It both made sense and it didn’t.
Heather shrugged again. ‘Water under the bridge,’ she said carelessly. ‘What does any of it matter now? Eliza is dead anyway. What difference would it make if Geoff or Mr Cartwright was the father? It wouldn’t bring her back from the dead, would it?’
‘Mr Cartwright?’ Claire seized on the name. ‘How did he respond when you told him you were expecting his child?’
‘Huh. Said it wasn’t true. Denied the whole affair.’
‘Ah, yes, the affair.’
This affair that never happened.
‘Had it been going on long?’
Ruth answered for her sister. ‘Long enough,’ she said waspishly.
Claire turned back to Heather. ‘He was your boss, wasn’t he?’
‘Was her boss,’ Ruth supplied, firing again into the action. ‘She left.’
Claire was aware there was a subtext here. Much more likely she was sacked.
Both women waited now politely but warily, both silently preparing to repel her next question. So Claire kept it neutral. She was beginning to get a feel here for Heather’s state of mind. She was a little more puzzled as to why her sister was taking so much on board.
How far could she insert the probe?
‘And then your second baby came along.’
This time it was Ruth who supplied the name, with a smile. ‘Freddie.’
‘Yes, Freddie,’ her sister agreed. Another big smile.
It didn’t happen very often, but every now and then Claire felt she would like to wipe – yes, literally wipe, with a damp flannel or dishcloth – the smile off a patient’s face. What did she have to smile about? Another dead child.
But her imaginary cloths weren’t going to wipe the smile off Heather’s face, stop her stroking her pregnant abdomen or mumbling to it.
‘And you claim that Sam Maddox, your window cleaner, was Freddie’s father. He denied it, said it was impossible, and the DNA test proved that your husband was Freddie’s biological father.’
Ruth met her eyes square on. ‘Men can deny stuff,’ she said, ‘but a woman has the child growing in her belly. She can’t deny it. She can’t walk away from her responsibility.’
Was it then as simple as that? Had Heather not wanted the two pregnancies?
‘My sister and I know the truth, Doctor.’ The statement was uncompromising.
‘How do you know, Ruth?’ You weren’t there.
‘My sister doesn’t lie. That’s how I know.’
EIGHT
Both sisters were sitting upright, alert. Neither showing any doubt or concern. Or compromise.
Ruth was going to be backing up her sister’s story all the way. Because her sister didn’t lie.
Claire focused on the small mound in Heather’s abdomen. ‘So,’ she said, encouraging her with a smile. ‘That brings us up to date and to this little baby.’
Heather sucked in a sharp breath and encompassed her entire abdomen protectively with her arms while Ruth turned towards her, watching. There was almost an electric exchange between the two women before Ruth turned her attention on to Claire, a challenge hurled down silently but its viciousness unmistakable for all that. You think my sister’s nuts. I tell you she is not. So which one of us is right, Doctor?
It is the way of a psychiatrist, when the consultation is entering dangerous ground, to retreat and find refuge in some safer place. Only when the balance has been recovered can you try inching forwards again.
And so, obeying this silent diktat, Claire turned back to her patient and asked about the current pregnancy. ‘Tell me, Heather, about this baby.’ She managed to inject a congratulatory note into the subtext. ‘Your third. Are you keeping well?’
Heather nodded happily. ‘Yes, thank you.’ The question had appeared to pacify her. ‘That’s right, Doctor Roget. It is my third pregnancy. Third baby.’
Fact.
No suspicion that her psychiatrist was edging into something concrete that would either disprove or confirm her stories.
‘So,’ Claire prompted. ‘Tell me about this one’s father?’
‘This one?’ Heather was giving her abdomen a fond look. ‘You mean Charles.’
Her use of his Christian name startled Claire. She had said it so easily. So comfortably. So convincingly.
‘It happened at a party,’ Heather continued. ‘In an instant. We just fell in love.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Just like that.’ She looked sweetly at Claire. ‘Tell me, Doctor,’ she whispered, ‘do you believe in love at first sight?’
This was more difficult for Claire to answer honestly than could be imagined. Yes, as a woman. She had ‘fallen in love’ with Grant at first sight, knowing he would become something precious to her.
But as a psychiatrist, which was what Heather was asking her? ‘I’m not sure.’
Psychiatrists are rarely sure about anything. They sit on a fence, seeing both sides of an argument with equal clarity and sympathy. Psychiatry is not a black-and-white science but all grey, consisting of guesswork, conjecture, ideas and acts of non-committal. They are listeners rather than talkers and they bury their own prejudices and opinions very deep.
They are certainly not judges.
Heather was still in her romantic reverie. ‘I met him in November, at a bonfire party.’ She turned to her sister for confirmation. ‘Didn’t I, Ruth?’
Her sister nodded, then eyed Claire warily. Wondering how much of this she was going to swallow?
Claire moved slightly forward, listening intently. This wasn’t a window cleaner impregnating her through glass or a boss seducing her over the office desk without a single witness but something far more possible and rational. A bonfire party? Heather wouldn’t be the first to err against that particular backdrop.
She glanced at Ruth, who was listening with rapt attention as though to a Mills & Boon. She was certainly not contradicting her sister’s story.
Heather continued, ‘I wasn’t that keen on going but you persuaded me, didn’t you, Ru?’ Her focus was still on her sister, who nodded back affectionately. Sentimentally.
Heather turned back to Claire then and shot her a very direct challenge. ‘And he was there. Watching me. He’s got quite a stare, you know.’
Unfortunately Claire did know. She remembered that other night. Before … before they had drunk quite so much. That was exactly how she would have described the early part of that evening. Charles Tissot had stood, propped up against the wall, not talking to anyone, his eyes glued to her. Every time she’d glanced across, his eyes had not shifted. Not one centimetre. Not one fraction of a centimetre. It was an unnerving stare. He hadn’t even seemed to blink.
Unbalanced, she returned to the present. Pretended to write. Thought furiously. What if Heather was telling the truth? At least as she saw it.
‘Where did this party take place?’
‘The surgeon Ruth works for, Mr Metcalfe, it was at his house. He lives at the Westlands.’
A fact tossed into the fairy tale. And the troubling thing was that this gave the story authenticity. A backdrop.
And was so much more plausible than a boss who lived with his mother and
had never shown interest in her, or a window cleaner who could apparently impregnate through glass. But Charles? This was how he operated. And the story was about to become even more plausible.
‘It was there.’ The smile was permanently pasted on to her face now. Memories had stuck it there. It wasn’t about to slide off.
‘It was a lovely party. Huge bonfire outside and brilliant fireworks. They’ve got a massive garden.’ She sounded naive, child-like.
A quick glance at her sister confirmed the fact that she was nodding in agreement.
‘It was a big house. Lots of rooms. I looked all around it, you know.’ The eagerness in her voice made Claire feel that she almost anticipated a pat on the back for her reconnaissance work. ‘The bathroom …’ Her eyes were wide open as she spoke. ‘Bathrooms,’ she corrected. ‘There were loads of them. Anyway, I was in a bathroom putting some hand cream on my hands.’ Her voice was slow now and pedantic. She was relating facts. As she saw them. ‘The bathroom was off a bedroom. En suite.’ She pronounced the words with a deliberate and self-conscious pride at mastering a foreign phrase. ‘The bedroom was gorgeous. A cream carpet and a silky bedspread. I’d been running my hands over it when he was standing right behind me.’ She did a little shimmy, a little manoeuvre with her eyes, jerked her head halfway around as though he was there.
As acting, it was superb, but it had the unsettling effect of giving her story colour and credence. Claire almost felt she was witnessing it. A reality that surely couldn’t be?
‘I was startled. He was soooo handsome. Soooo tall and … he even smelt nice. Sort of tangy. Spicy. Anyway, he said something about it being stuffy and why didn’t we go outside. And then … And then.’ Her face was beatific, the face of a fallen angel who had once been blessed. She looked as though she was listening to some holy music. Ode to Joy?
She leaned forward, eyes bright. ‘His car is a Jaguar, you know.’
Faking being impressed, no, Claire hadn’t known. But it was an easily verifiable fact. Much easier than this weird tale of seduction. Something in her felt slightly sick at the recall. Not a Vauxhall Astra these days then, but a Jaguar. And that was when she first realized that although on the surface Heather Krimble’s story appeared gross fantasy, whatever the MDU might say and Heather’s GP had already said, whatever her history, Claire didn’t quite, not a hundred per cent, not hand-on-heart completely disbelieve her. At least, not in this instance. It all sounded too possible. Too real.
The Deceiver Page 7
