‘Same here,’ she said, without much sympathy. ‘It’s the price we pay for a well-paid, stable, enjoyable and interesting job.’
‘Hmm,’ was his huffy response.
‘Charles,’ she said, concerned, recalling Simon’s comments on suicide and depression, ‘are you all right?’
And with a flick of phrase and a split-second pause he reverted to Charles the letch. ‘I could do with a holiday,’ he grumbled. ‘Somewhere nice and hot where the women wear bits of string instead of clothes, where the beer is cold and with piles of dirty paperbacks when I stretch out my hand. Say, Claire, I bet you look hot in a bikini.’
And because now she was angry that he appeared to be just playing about his troubles, she didn’t rise to the bait. After a brief pause, possibly but unlikely realizing he’d said anything wrong, he added, ‘You do wear bikinis, don’t you?’
She didn’t even bother to respond to that, instead reverting to the original subject. ‘If you want a holiday, Charles, why don’t you go on one? Now would seem like a really good time. Get away from it all.’
‘I know. I ought to but I feel I have to watch my back, Claire. I may need to be here to defend my name.’
At least he hadn’t said the word honour.
‘Against …?’
‘Well, Rhoda’s poisonous, and with Heather’s little contribution, I probably need to stick around. Besides … going on holiday on your own isn’t a great deal of fun. Sure you won’t …’ She could almost see him frowning at the thought that maybe he was missing out on some fun.
‘No.’ It came out a little more vehemently than she’d meant.
‘Hmph. I suppose you’re still shacked up with …’ He sounded grumpy now. Lotharios dislike competition.
She tried to laugh it off and failed miserably. ‘Not any more. We broke up. He had family problems and they sort of impinged on our relationship.’
There – packaged up neatly. Nicely put.
Not quite.
‘Sorry about that. Had you down for the settling down sort, two point four kids.’ There was a pause while she guessed he was considering his next move. ‘Maybe we’ll meet up professionally again?’ And in spite of herself, she couldn’t prevent a smile. He didn’t give up, did he? But he couldn’t know she would rather have met up with a king cobra looking for his next dinner than Charles Tissot on the razzle. She kept that one to herself.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘what did you ring about? Anything special?’
‘Just to keep you up to date really. I’ve admitted Heather for the remainder of her pregnancy and probably for at least part of her puerperium to protect both her and the …’ How to put this? ‘I’m a bit concerned she may harm her baby.’
‘And I care?’ He’d let it slip out.
‘No. No, of course not.’
He would have the last say. ‘Fucking woman’s near as destroyed my career. If it hadn’t been for …’ He changed his phrase. ‘If you hadn’t stepped forward, come to my rescue, believed my story … backed me up …’
Hang on a minute, she thought. I haven’t done any of this yet. He couldn’t know that every ounce of gratitude was another nail in her hand attaching her to the cross.
Another pause, then, before he snapped. ‘If you’re really worried about the brat, make the child a ward of court.’
She responded coolly. ‘I could do, but there is a husband. Presumably the father of the baby.’ Which brought her round to a thought: where was Geoff in all this? Fathers bring up children. Protect them. But he hadn’t saved the other two. They had still died.
Of natural causes. The post-mortems had proved it. There is no known way to prevent cot death. Minimize the risk, maybe. But you can’t stop it happening. And pathologists don’t miss out on obvious causes of death.
Suddenly she wanted Charles’s take on it as a fellow professional, so she began with a small baiting. ‘You must have formed your own opinion.’
‘Sorry?’ His tone was stiffly formal, as though he believed she might be recording the conversation.
‘What do you think happened to the two babies, Eliza and Freddie?’
‘I don’t understand why you’re focusing on them.’
She ignored the comment and continued. ‘I’ve never heard her talk in any meaningful way about them, which could be seen as both a symptom and a cause of her current mental state. And in cases like these of puerperal psychosis, you must know as well as I do that with each pregnancy the condition worsens. Intensifies.’
‘I take it she’s still alleging that I’m the father of this child?’ Now he was sounding injured.
She smiled and couldn’t resist a subtle jab below the belt. ‘She’s waiting for you to visit her, Charles.’ She smiled. ‘Looking out of the window every few minutes for your …’ she couldn’t resist it, ‘… flashy red Jaguar.’ When he didn’t respond, she added, ‘Yes, Charles, she’s waiting for you. She hasn’t changed her story. But I don’t think, with her past history, anyone is going to be taking her allegations too seriously.’
‘They don’t have to. Mud sticks.’ His response now was gloomy and defeatist again. Had it not been Charles on the end of the line but a girlfriend, she would have suggested going out for a drink or a curry. Or both. Cheer them up. But with Charles she knew it would be a wrong move. So she chose a middle road. ‘There are singles holidays.’
‘Yeah. Somehow doesn’t appeal, but maybe when all this has blown over I can hustle a few of my old buddies together and we can go golfing or something.’
She might have known he would be into golf. Anything that would further his private practice. ‘OK, well, keep your …’ she rejected the word pecker and substituted with, ‘… spirits up.’
‘OK. Thanks. And if you reconsider my holiday offer …’
She put the phone down.
12.30 p.m.
Unfortunately for her, it was Rhoda who turned up as community midwife. Crisp and smart in a maroon dress, she turned up bang on time. Claire had to acknowledge that she was a beautiful woman with a good complexion, although her features were hard and her voice similarly so. She would be a good midwife. Efficient, clever, decisive. Able to control a woman in labour as well as her nursing and medical colleagues. But, Claire soon decided, if she was in labour she would have preferred someone a bit softer, someone with some sympathy, someone who would comfort her, hold her hand. Rhoda Tissot’s response, she felt, would be of the pull-yourself-together school. For Charles, she must have made an uncomfortable and slightly unpredictable trophy wife. As concisely as she could, she brought her up to date.
Rhoda was quick. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better for her to have been admitted to a maternity unit and you come and see her rather than admit her …’ she couldn’t prevent a shudder, ‘… here?’
Claire managed a smile, trusting she too looked serene, confident and in control. ‘It seemed better this way. Heather suffers from delusions. She is, on occasions, psychotic. And, two previous cot deaths added to the fact that she is sometimes antagonistic towards this child, we wish to observe her developing relationship with the new baby. Here seemed the best place.’
She accompanied Rhoda into Heather’s room. She was alone, sitting, as usual, staring out of the window. There was no sign of Ruth, who must have either gone to work or gone home. Heather turned as they entered but, as usual, her shoulders drooped when she saw who it was.
Claire almost felt sorry for her as she began with the introductions and Heather’s complete lack of interest registered. ‘Heather, this is Rhoda. She’s the midwife who will monitor your progress while you are here in Greatbach, right up until you are ready to be admitted to the labour ward.’
A sharp, rebuking look from Mrs Tissot, who must have wondered at the informality. No surname?
Claire hurried on to cover up the omission. ‘She or a member of her team will keep an eye on you until you and the baby are ready to be transferred back here.’
Heather lifted her face
towards Claire and Claire was struck with a sudden realization. For a moment then Heather had looked beautiful, almost transfixed. She nodded her thanks to her and turned her attention to the midwife as Rhoda stepped forward. ‘Now then, dear,’ she began. Claire excused herself. It felt voyeuristic to be standing there with no role to play apart from bystander.
She left and waited for Rhoda Tissot at the staff desk, checking up on Riley Finch, who had tried to slide past her unnoticed.
‘Riley. I came to see you earlier. You weren’t in your room.’
‘No.’ The girl’s response was casual and confident. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Must have been in the shower.’
Bad luck that that was the moment Rhoda emerged. ‘Well,’ she said brightly. ‘Won’t be long now. Her cervix is already dilating. I would say she’ll go into labour in the next day or two.’
Behind her, Riley Finch melted away as though she hadn’t even been there in the first place.
Rhoda continued in her crisp voice, ‘I’ll come in daily and, when we think she’s about ready, we’ll transfer her. Now then, you say she has a history of normal deliveries but two cot deaths. Oh dear.’
Claire was fully aware that although she couldn’t see her, Riley was not far away, listening. For privacy and on instinct, she ushered Rhoda Tissot into the staff room and closed the door behind them.
Rhoda took the initiative. ‘Just remind me of her psychiatric issues.’ She was taking copious notes, writing quickly, jerkily, on a reporter’s notebook. ‘She believes that her husband is not the father of her child. And she’s gravida three?’ She looked up. Arched eyebrows framed the question.
‘Yes.’
‘So?’ Her question was straight to the point, pen poised.
She answered slowly and very carefully. ‘She’s alleging that this child is the result of a casual liaison at a party.’
Rhoda’s smile was mocking.
Claire continued, ‘This has happened twice before with her two previous children – allegations of a relationship with men who deny it and a claim that the child she bears is the result of this “liaison”. We don’t know for sure with the first pregnancy as no paternity test was taken. She was six months pregnant when she married her current husband. He denies that the child was his and says he doesn’t know who the father was.’ She was reflective. ‘No one seems to know. The second child proved to be her husband’s son.’
‘And both were unfortunately cot deaths?’ Rhoda’s response was like an arrow, flying straight to the centre. And suddenly Claire was surprised that this brittle and apparently callous woman looked distressed. ‘Oh, my word. That’s awful.’
‘Yes.’ Claire looked hard at her. Was there some history here?
‘I don’t have children,’ Charles’s ex said abstractedly. ‘I’d have loved at least one. But Charles was never ready for it. Permanent child himself.’ Then her eyes looked straight into Claire’s. ‘Of course,’ she said with a brittle smile, ‘you know him, don’t you?’
‘Only at medical school.’
Rhoda picked up her bag, interest lost. ‘Yes. Well. Let’s hope this child is a candidate for a better future.’
‘Indeed.’
Claire let out a huge sigh of relief. This initial tricky interview was over.
THIRTY
Friday, 24 July, 4 p.m.
38/40
Claire had not exactly been looking forward to interviewing Heather’s parents. She anticipated a stiff and uncomfortable experience. But she wanted answers which they could possibly provide.
And time was running short. The baby would soon be born, so she’d asked Rita to arrange an interview as soon as possible. Heather’s mental state was deteriorating. She slept in a chair now, refusing to go to bed, worried she’d miss his visit. She spent the entire night watching, waiting for Charles to arrive. She looked exhausted. Her distress was palpable and no amount of talking, explaining or counselling was helping, even with Edward Reakin’s contribution. Another worrying feature was that she was paranoiac against the nurses, accusing them of stopping her ‘lover’ from visiting. Once or twice she had been violent towards members of staff. Added to that, her punishment of the unborn infant was gradually becoming increasingly unpredictable. One minute she would be furious with it, the next stroking and crying, apologizing. Geoff Krimble turned up faithfully every day, sometimes with a box of chocolates which his wife never ate, believing them to be poisoned, intended to kill both her and what she now called the cuckoo baby. At other times the poor, confused man arrived dangling a bunch of petrol-shop flowers upside down by his side. He looked both bemused and resigned at his wife’s protestations, sitting by her side, holding her hand and saying little to nothing. The situation was beyond him. He would stay for about an hour. On his way out he usually commented that she’d be better when she’d had the baby.
‘She’s always like this, late on.’ The staff would nod and smile.
Claire had gleaned nothing of use from him during two further interviews. Ruth was too loyal to breathe a word against her sister. Robin was absent and so she had turned to Heather’s parents and now waited in her clinic room for Mr and Mrs Acton who had finally, under stiff protest, agreed to attend.
‘They took an awful lot of persuading,’ Rita had said. ‘They didn’t want to come at all.’
But Claire felt it was important enough to insist. They were a Little and Large couple, Bailey tall, burly and strong looking, his wife diminutive at his side. He had very dark hair and a powerful physique while she was pale, ghost-like with sandy eyelashes. Claire ushered them into her clinic room.
Bailey Acton sat rigid, his back ramrod straight, staring ahead, keeping his eyes – and his fury – directed not at her but at the wall behind her. Win, by his side, sat silent and shrunken, listening to her husband explaining their three children’s upbringing. Mr Acton did all of the talking, Win simply nodding periodically.
‘We’re religious people. Follow the Bible’s teaching of spare the rod and spoil the child. We have high standards and we expect the same from our children. If not, we’d punish them.’
Claire listened before asking if they had any idea whose child Eliza had been.
They looked at each other. ‘Her husband’s.’ Win’s voice was squeaky. Bailey nodded his agreement.
She swallowed the fact that Geoff denied they had had sex before their marriage. Substituting with, ‘So not Mr Cartwright’s, then?’
Win looked anxiously at her husband for a cue. Then both shook their heads.
Bailey Acton scowled. ‘The Devil must have got in her brain somehow,’ he said angrily. ‘She imagined that. It’s all a load of nonsense.’ The fury brought veins standing out to the side of his forehead, though Claire wasn’t sure whether the anger was directed at her, his daughter, Geoff, who appeared to be the victim, or the Devil himself.
‘Some people might say we were too strict as parents,’ he conceded, thick eyebrows beetling together in rank rejection of this opinion. He folded his arms and stared at her, uncompromising. Challenging her to disagree. ‘But we have our morals, Doctor. That is certain. We brought our three children up to respect standards.’ The word was produced with emphasis and a proud flourish as showy as a bullfighter’s capa.
‘Standards,’ he barked again, puffing out his chest like a bullfinch. ‘Heather was soon married. Who else’s could the babies have been but Geoff’s? The test proved it in respect of Freddie.’
Bailey had dressed to impress. He wore his shiny Sunday suit, trousers a little too short, jacket a little too long, gaping over a bulging stomach. His shirt, though, was purest white, perfectly ironed with not a wrinkle, though the effect was spoilt by plump chins spilling over a tight collar. But his tie was tasteful, a modest, muted burgundy and grey stripe. A scent of mothballs clung to the air around him. The suit was little used. But overall he made a rigid, unbending figure. A biblical patriarch – a description Claire thought he would have been pleased
with. She glanced at his wife but Win didn’t even raise her eyes. She remained silent now, haunted, hooded eyes muddy green, studying the carpet. But though she said nothing, her mind must have been forming thoughts. Her mouth worked incessantly, perhaps shaping the very words she would not or could not speak. Or maybe she was quoting the Bible. Claire read painful suppression in the woman’s expression. Once or twice, when her husband raised his voice, her mouth twisted in pain and she flinched. But she was not going to share her fears or her grief. Was she the only one to grieve the two dead babies or was there someone else?
Families, Claire thought.
Even without her husband’s physical presence, she guessed Bailey’s influence would reach far enough keep his wife’s mouth shut. She would have been no match for him either, physically or mentally. Claire breathed in and caught the woman’s personal scent. Slightly musty, mothballed fear and lavender, though she was tidily dressed in a plaid skirt which reached halfway down her calf and a cream blouse with a fussy bow at the neck, low-heeled brogues and thick stockings. A little like her daughter, Ruth, Win Acton spent most of the interview studying the floor, shoulders bowed in acceptance of the situation. Claire read something of both her daughters in her demeanour and immobile facial expression: tight control over any emotion combined with an acceptance of the status quo and a failure to challenge it. She might have been pretty once but, like a rose that has sat in the sun too long, she was dried out, the colour bleached out of her, leaving her pale. Skin, hair, eyes, teeth, lips all faded to a uniform shade of white sand. Had she ever been vivacious? Noisy? Colourful?
Probably not. And it had probably been her acquiescence that had attracted Bailey Acton to her in the first place. Bullies are skilled at recognizing potential victims.
But Claire did pick up on one thing. Win Acton had respect for her husband. When her eyes left the floor to fasten on him she sat as though he was some guru, some oracle, someone wise, someone to be revered. The prophet. And she, worshipping at his feet.
The Deceiver Page 24
