Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,24

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