No doubt a huge solitaire. And an even huger blow to his ego when he’d thought he could get away with it. Just one more time.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said, deliberately avoiding matching his insincerity with an I’m so sorry, at the same time knowing he’d half pick up on the sarcasm but would not be absolutely certain. Charles was not and never had been subtle. As predicted, he narrowed his eyes and looked at her suspiciously before continuing with his sad story.
‘So I was very vulnerable when I took up the post in Stoke …’ She was aware he was waiting for more sympathy. But … He looked nothing like vulnerable. Still cocksure – maybe a tad less so, but it hardly showed – and there was a large slice of self-pity. ‘Rhoda was in charge of the labour suite then. Good legs.’ He thought for a moment before acknowledging, ‘Bloody good legs. What a looker, and tits like …’ He suddenly remembered he was talking to a woman and had the grace to stop right there and look abashed, defending himself with a grumpy, ‘Well … she did.’
Yeah, good decision, Charles. Leave it right there. On the doorstep.
But he couldn’t.
‘She trapped me,’ he continued. ‘Believe me, I did not stand a chance against those legs, that fantastic blonde hair. All wispy round her face. Bleached, of course. But I didn’t find that out until later.’ Truth prevailed. ‘Well, a bit later, anyway. Like I said, I wasn’t in the best of places. Emotionally.’
‘Poor you,’ she managed.
Charles looked at her quizzically, sideways on, until he decided to ignore the irony – if he’d even recognized it as such in the first place. He grinned. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Poor me. Anyway, Rhoda and I were married a couple of years later. No kids, thank goodness. She started imagining all sorts of things. Flirtation, accused me of affairs.’ He still looked aggrieved but the phrase had struck home in a vulnerable place: imagining things.
He was still going. ‘And the cow divorces me for half a million. That’s over two hundred grand a year.’
The old Charles would have then said, though I’m worth it, but the new Charles simply peered ruefully into his beer glass before taking a further noisy slurp. ‘I shall be more careful next time.’
She simply smiled. Unsurprisingly, he was not considering a lifetime of celibacy.
He continued, ‘Bloody women, conniving cows.’ He remembered her sex again and tagged on politely, ‘Present company excluded, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she echoed. ‘Though you’re right. Women can be conniving cows. Some women,’ she finished severely. Which brought her neatly round to Heather Krimble and the conundrum. ‘It’s a shame Laura’s off,’ she began.
Charles looked uneasy. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I heard about it on the grapevine. Hospital jungle drums, you know.’ He made a feeble pretence of beating a tattoo on the table but stopped when it didn’t even raise a smile.
‘Breast cancer, I’m afraid,’ he said, wisely reverting to the serious. ‘She’ll be having treatment, radiotherapy, surgery, chemo. It’ll go on for a while. She’s under one of my colleagues and he spilt the beans – though he shouldn’t have, really.’
It happened.
A jaunty grin obviously meant to ameliorate his indiscretion.
‘But surely there’s a locum covering her work?’ There was an anxiety note in his voice. He’d obviously considered Laura an ally.
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘an Aussie guy. I’ve not met him yet. He sounds OK. But it’s not the same.’ She couldn’t resist throwing him the bait. ‘Is it, Charles?’
He wasn’t sure how to take this and managed a quizzical glance but no other response.
She continued seamlessly, ‘He’s never met Heather. He’ll just be reading out Laura’s notes. I imagine she kept pretty good ones but I would have gained a lot more insight by talking to her.’
‘What about the bitch’s husband? Isn’t he some help?’
‘Geoff. Have you met him?’
‘’Course not.’ He grinned again. ‘Obstetrician? I treat women. Remember?’
She managed a laugh this time. ‘Well, let’s just say he’s not the brightest button in the box. Openly admits he’s not above giving her a slap every now and then.’
‘Well, there you are, Claire,’ Charles said, grin widening and looking pleased. ‘There’s your motive. A rubbish, violent husband so she fabricates substitutes.’
‘Well, yes. I had considered that explanation, Charles,’ she said coldly. ‘Even apart from the “odd slap”, Geoff Krimble is hardly the ideal husband. He has trouble keeping a job, there’s a spurious and almost certainly misguided diagnosis of Tourette’s and I also suspect he has an alcohol problem. He stank of beer at his outpatients’ appointment. And that was at two thirty in the afternoon.’
Charles’s ears visibly pricked up but he couldn’t resist injecting native spite. ‘He sounds just the sort of guy she deserves, if you ask me. Bloody danger to society. Women like that …’ His eyes met hers and he shook his head. ‘Destroyers,’ he said.
She continued, ‘Then there’s the history of previous psychosis during pregnancy. But I could really do with Laura’s take on that.’
The waitress interrupted their chat to take their order before Claire filled him in.
Charles’s grin was ever-widening. He was practically rubbing his hands together. ‘See,’ he said, quite excited now. ‘She’s fucking nuts. No one in their right mind would believe a word of her wild and impossible tales.’
Claire continued without comment. ‘The allegation she’s made against you falls into the same category as the other two.’ She was having to choose her words more carefully now but one question had been nagging at her right from the beginning.
‘The question is, Charles, why on earth did she pick on you? I mean, both her boss and the window cleaner were men she had regular contact with you. So why you?’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘Christ, Claire,’ he said, his face almost frightened, ‘I don’t fucking well know.’
But she persisted. ‘According to you, you only had a very brief encounter at a crowded and noisy party. So why did she pick you out?’
His face twisted. ‘I don’t suppose it could be my incredible good looks?’
But she wasn’t diverted and stuck doggedly to her line of questioning. ‘Did you make a pass at her that night?’
His face froze. ‘No.’ The denial had no weight behind it. ‘No,’ he said again.
She didn’t insult him by adding, Sure? She moved on. ‘Geoff Krimble claims that both Freddie and her current pregnancy are down to him and, of course, we can easily prove or disprove who is this child’s father.’
He could see the hole in this argument. Now came the awkward bit. She delayed the moment with a sip of wine. ‘While the allegations are being …’ she scratched speech marks into the air, ‘… investigated … you can’t really work.’
She was puzzled by his smug look. Only for a moment.
‘Got you there,’ he said. ‘I’ve already discussed it with the GMC. And the MDU. I gave them the full story. They’ll back me up on a few conditions.’
‘A chaperone,’ she guessed.
He nodded. ‘Pretty obvious really. I’m not to see patients at any time alone, even in the clinic when they’re fully dressed. It’ll mean allocating someone to be alongside me day and night but I can accept those conditions. I can’t see her; I’m to hand her care over to one of my colleagues,’ he made a face, ‘and the community midwives. I mean, there are the two previous cot deaths so a paediatrician will be involved in the birth.’
She let this all sink in before meeting his eyes. A mistake. Charles Tissot had lovely eyes. She remembered them now. They were a particularly bright blue and he had almost feminine long lashes but very masculine, heavy black eyebrows. Somehow his eyes melted into you, reassured you, deceived you, told you you’re special just before he hunted down another girl to flirt with. She remembered those eyes a little too well.
‘So …?’ He interrupted her reverie.<
br />
‘I’m not worried about you,’ she said. ‘You’ll make it through. You’re strong, Charles, and intelligent too. You’ll see a way round this.’
His eyebrows expressed a mocking thank you.
‘I’m more worried,’ she said, ‘about the child. Two have died. And there are signs …’
He held his hand up in a top sign. ‘Not my problem, Claire. Not being funny but I don’t want to be any more involved with that woman than I have to be. Hand it over to the paediatricians and Melissa.’
‘Melissa?’
He gave a smug smile. ‘My lovely colleague who will be taking over the bitch’s obstetric care. Along with Bloody Rhoda. And then the child protection team can poke their noses in, in case she tries to hurt the baby.’
‘I think she’s already started,’ she said.
‘Uh?’
‘Harming the unborn child. I’ve already told you, she punishes it when it moves in utero.’
‘Claire …’
She never knew where that sentence had been heading. Their meal arrived and the conversation, between mouthfuls, moved to catch up on their years in med school.
But when they had finished eating and had moved to coffee and the bill had arrived, Charles returned to more serious conversation.
‘Don’t believe everything bloody Rhoda tells you about me.’
She’d hoped to avoid the topic. Safer for her, better for the ex and would possibly avoid muddying the waters further with her patient.
Charles huffed in an injured sigh. ‘She won’t have a single good word to say about me. I can promise you that. The divorce was extremely acrimonious.’ Eyes wide, displaying self-pity. ‘I’m only just getting over it myself.’
She took this in and decided to change the subject completely.
‘How well do you know Doctor Sylas?’
‘Dagmar?’
‘Yes. Heather’s GP. She seemed to know you.’
He was on the alert. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just the PS she put on the end of her referral letter. It sounded personal. Almost impassioned.’
He smirked, and at that moment she realized what a Lothario he was. Nothing had changed. Charles was Charles. To disguise the hostility she could feel rising against him, she picked up her glass and twirled it around.
‘She’s a married woman,’ he said. It was the nod-and-a-wink answer. She got it, all right.
Charles seemed to realize he’d lost her empathy as well as her attention. He drained his pint glass and slammed it down on the table.
‘Get that DNA, Claire,’ he said. ‘Make the diagnosis. Get me off the fucking hook.’ He moved his face closer. ‘Don’t let me down.’
Without waiting for her response, he threw three twenty-pound notes on the table and strode out of the beer garden, no one even looking up, leaving her realizing she’d been played like a fly on the end of his fishing line.
TWENTY
Saturday, 4 July, 9.30 p.m.
The baby was due (a notoriously moveable date) on 7 August. Just a few more weeks to wait for the DNA test to prove or disprove Heather’s conviction that the child was baby Tissot. ‘Charles’ll love it whether it’s a boy or a girl.’ Claire could have requested a cord blood sample but there was no point. And the procedure was not without its risks. So there was a wait ahead. But Claire was impatient to learn the truth about that night way back in November. And one of the best ways to find out more would be to quiz Ruth again. See if she could unravel her story, possibly break it – at least find out what had bonded these two sisters so tightly.
Claire knew she would need every single piece of information to satisfy the GMC, who had a duty ‘to defend their innocent member’. She couldn’t help but smile at the pompous wording. Innocent member? Charles hadn’t even been born with one of those.
And so, as she drove home from The Orange Tree, she was strangely dissatisfied with the evening and Charles’s behaviour. But she had to agree with him on one score.
If his divorce really had been as acrimonious as he claimed and Rhoda got wind of the story Heather was spinning, she would have to be a saint to act as an impartial bystander. It was even possible that she would add to Heather’s delusions, encourage her to see Charles as a predatory male, throw a spanner right into the centre of the works and exact revenge from her dissolute and philandering husband. But Rhoda was head of the community midwifery services. There was no way of bypassing her. And the sooner Rhoda attended her patient, the better. By Monday morning she was already preparing for a tightrope dance.
Monday, 6 July, 8.45 a.m.
35/40
Rhoda’s voice on the answerphone was as crisp as a nurse’s apron starched until it crackled, stiff enough to stand alone and white enough to make summer clouds look grubby.
Claire left a message asking her to contact her about a pregnant patient she was about to admit.
It was later on when she finally rang back.
Claire had never met Charles’s wife but as Rhoda spoke, combined with Charles’s description of her assets, she began to form a picture of a professional woman who probably stood no nonsense either from colleagues or patients. Or her husband.
Claire began with a brief resumé of Heather’s history, about the three pregnancies, physically normal, but accompanied by delusions that crept in during the weeks, allegations that were hotly denied by all three men accused of being her lovers. She explained that this time the allegation was against her obstetrician.
Rhoda cut quickly to her role. ‘But the pregnancies were physically normal?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the labour too?’
‘As I understand it, yes. She wasn’t under me but the community psychiatrist.’
‘This time?’
‘The allegation is potentially more serious and besides, Laura Hodgkins is currently off sick, her work being covered by a locum.’
‘And that is why you’re involved?’
Claire felt a prickling down the back of her neck. This woman was sharp as a box of needles. ‘There is an issue of her trying to harm the foetus,’ she said. ‘It’s a clear case of puerperal psychosis complicated by erotomania.’
‘I see.’
‘Her two previous babies died, one at six months and the other at two months.’
‘Cot deaths?’
Here, Claire was cautious. ‘Apparently so. Nothing was found at post-mortem.’
Rhoda listened without adding comment.
Claire filled the midwife in, waiting for Rhoda to pick up on the significant point, finishing with, ‘I think she needs admitting and I hoped you’d agree to monitor her obstetric needs either at Greatbach or we can bring her to your clinics.’
Rhoda greeted Claire’s history with a brief silence while she digested the facts. Then, ‘I think, doctor, as we midwives are not psychiatric trained you should provide us with a bit more detail. Would my staff be under any threat?’
‘Oh, no. Not at all. Heather is no danger to anyone else.’
‘So what exactly happens in these pregnancies? The alleged fathers … are they real people? Or fantasies?’
‘Oh, they’re real people.’ Claire was waiting for Rhoda to make the connection. But not yet.
‘And the claims she makes against them?’
Claire could feel Rhoda edging closer. ‘Well, the first two men have not been badly affected by her claims. This time, well, obviously, it’s possible it could harm his career.’
Again, Claire held her breath, waiting for Rhoda to make the connection.
But she simply sounded interested. ‘And you’re saying there’s no truth in any of her stories?’
Claire scooped in a long breath to answer. ‘In each case the alleged father has denied there has even been a relationship and the DNA test proved the father of her second child to be her husband.’
‘But only in the case of the second child.’
‘That’s right.’
Rhoda Tissot had pic
ked up the history without a stumble. ‘And I take it,’ she continued crisply, ‘that you’ll do a paternity test in the case of this claim against …’ another pause while Claire pictured the cogs clicking into their grooves, ‘… the obstetrician.’
‘Correct.’
Claire paused, knowing that Rhoda Tissot was almost touching the tender heart of the matter. ‘Obviously the person alleged to be the father is in a difficult position until we can prove otherwise.’
This was greeted with a long silence, as though Rhoda Tissot was working through a few variations on a theme.
Then, ‘How many weeks did you say she is?’
‘Thirty-five. Her EDD is the seventh of August.’
‘But you’re convinced it’s just another … story?’
Skating on thin ice? Claire could feel it crack beneath her feet, almost feel herself fall into icy depths. Caution. Caution. ‘It would seem so.’
‘When were you thinking of admitting her?’
‘As soon as possible.’ Claire was forced to add, ‘As soon as I have a bed.’
‘Ah, the same old problem.’ Now Claire sensed that Rhoda was smiling. Back on familiar territory.
She came to a decision. ‘OK. Well, why don’t you let me know when she’s in Greatbach and, if you like, I’ll come round myself.’ She sounded pleased with herself but Claire was dismayed. She had hoped that Rhoda would keep her distance, send someone else. A minion. The membrane between the two women, patient and midwife, was too porous, too sensitive. Too thin. But Rhoda had patently made up her mind. ‘Thirty-five weeks,’ she said briskly. ‘She could go into labour quite soon. Has she a history of premature labour?’
‘No. She’s always gone to term.’
There was a strange, unexpected silence. Claire could almost feel cogs whirring and clicking into place somewhere inside Rhoda’s mind. Two and two making …
And finally she got it. ‘Which consultant is she under?’ Click.
Claire hesitated, which gave Rhoda a chance to fill in.
‘Ah,’ she said, her quarry sniffed out. ‘She’s a patient of that scumbag of an ex-husband of mine? That’s who the allegations are against.’ She snorted with laughter and echoed Claire’s sentiments. ‘Finally, he gets his comeuppance. Oh – and the real irony. Probably this time, for once in his randy little life, he’s almost certainly innocent. What a hoot.’
The Deceiver Page 16
