Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,40

man hefted a camera which began clicking and whirring at soon as Tom put his head out.

‘Dr Thomas Carlyle?’ the woman said. ‘Leah Foster, Pember Valley News. I was wondering if you might be prepared to answer some questions.’

Tom glared at the cameraman who was snapping away as she spoke. The Pember Valley News was Pemberham’s other weekly paper. Tom hadn’t looked at it, but he knew it was a downmarket rag, built on appealing to the townspeople’s baser and more prurient appetites.

‘Questions about what?’

‘May we come in?’ asked the woman, taking a step forwards. Tom retreated and began to close the door. What was this – some sort of profile of local public figures? But why without appointment, and at seven in the morning?

‘I haven’t time for this now,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ve got to get to work and my daughter to nursery.’

He’d almost closed the door completely when the woman’s voice came through: ‘It’s concerning the allegations made against you.’

Tom stopped, pushed the door open once more.

‘Allegations?’

‘May we come in?’ she asked again.

‘No. Not until you tell me what this is about.’

Holding the microphone closer towards him, she said, ‘Dr Carlyle, do you deny the allegations?’

‘For heaven’s sake, what allegations?’ Tom regarded himself as an even-tempered man, but he was close to losing it. ‘And you can switch off that thing.’ He jabbed a finger in the direction of the camera.

The woman glanced round at the cameraman who lowered his equipment, nodding and smirking. ‘Got some good ones already, anyway,’ he muttered.

‘Allegations,’ Leah Foster recited, ‘that you behaved in an inappropriate manner with one of your female patients.’

‘What?’ Tom was appalled. What was the woman talking about?

‘Do you claim, then, that you haven’t even heard of these allegations?’ The reporter looked triumphant, as if she’d just landed a major scoop.’

‘No! I mean, yes, that’s exactly what I’m claiming.’ Tom was aware that he was starting to sound as if he were blustering, caught off guard. Which of course he was.

From behind him he heard a small voice: ‘Daddy, what’s going on?’

‘Kelly? Go back in the living room, darling. Daddy’s just having a word with these people.’

She lingered, looking suddenly smaller than usual, and scared. He forced a grin on to his face and gave an encouraging nod, and Kelly disappeared again. Tom turned back to the duo on the doorstep, glaring at the cameraman to make sure he hadn’t taken any pictures of Kelly.

He stepped outside again in his stockinged feet, let the door swing shut behind him. The reporter and the cameraman were forced to take a step back.

‘Look,’ Tom said. ‘I have nothing to deny, or confirm, or whatever, because I’ve never heard of any such allegations before now. I don’t know where you’ve got your information from, but it’s clearly an unreliable source, so I suggest you spend a little more time checking your facts beforehand and a little less time hounding innocent people on their doorsteps first thing in the morning. Now kindly remove yourselves from my property.’

‘Dr Carlyle –’ the woman began. Tom folded his arms.

‘Go. Now.’

‘Just a few questions –’

‘I have nothing to say, and I’ll be lodging a formal complaint about your conduct with your office. Now leave.’

They stayed put, staring at him, defiant. He shrugged.

‘Then I’ll have the police remove you.’

He went back inside and closed the door. By the time he’d reached the living room, ruffled Kelly’s hair reassuringly and picked up the phone, he saw the reporter and the cameraman through the front window, making their way back to a van parked up on the kerb outside. Only when they’d pulled away and the van was out of sight did he put down the phone and let out a long breath.

And it wasn’t until he’d glanced at the clock, shooed Kelly into the hallway to put on her shoes and grabbed his own loafers, jacket and briefcase that it hit him, the physical aftershock of an unexpected and distressing encounter that left his legs slightly weak and his hands shaking.

Had it been some sort of prank? But who’d do such a thing, involving the local press? And what sort of allegation had the Pember Valley News heard that was robust enough that they saw fit to pursue it, to the point of doorstepping people at seven in the morning?

In a way, Tom was thankful he was running late, because it gave him less time to muse on what had happened. But even as he wrestled with the rush-hour