Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,45
himself. that wasn’t Mike’s style.
‘No. The Pember Valley News.’ Tom starting walking towards the front of the surgery and Chloe had to fall into step beside him to keep up. Jake, seeming to sense the tension in the air, clung to her neck, saying nothing.
‘They doorstepped me this morning, asking if I had anything to say about the allegations,’ Tom went on as he walked. ‘I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then, this afternoon I got a phone call from one of the paper’s editors, saying they were going to run the story in tomorrow morning’s edition and did I have any comment. Again I said I had no idea what they were on about. So I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow, along with everybody else.’
‘Tom!’ Chloe said, trying to keep up with his brisk pace, almost pleading. ‘You have to get an injunction or something. Stop them spreading lies in print.’
‘But that’s just the problem, Chloe,’ he said, stopping and turning to face her, an expression of intense weariness written across his face. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to print. All I’ve heard is that a woman – I haven’t been told her name – has made an allegation of sexual harassment against me. I haven’t been formally accused of any wrongdoing, not by any regulatory body or by the police. It’s all, as you say, rumours at present.’
‘Then you need to sue them, Tom. Make them pay for whatever lies they print.’
‘I could do that, yes. But it won’t undo the damage. The seed of doubt will have been planted in everyone’s minds.’ There was a bitterness in his tone Chloe had never heard before, and wouldn’t have thought him capable of.
She felt utterly deflated. ‘What are you going to do?’ she managed.
He paused for a long moment, deliberating. Then he said: ‘I have to leave, Chloe. Leave Pemberham. Start again somewhere else as best I can.’
‘Tom –’ This time Chloe did reach out to him, unable to help herself. Her hand fell short of his arm. ‘Leave? All on the basis of some… rumour?’
‘You don’t understand,’ he said quietly, but not unkindly. ‘I know what this is all about. I know what’s going on. And the only course of action is to leave. For Kelly’s sake.’
He was right. Chloe didn’t understand. She couldn’t remember being more confused before in her life.
‘Tom,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Please understand. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do this.’
His smile was gentle. ‘I know it wasn’t, Chloe. I didn’t think it was, but seeing you now, I’m certain of it. and that’s why I have to leave.’
More bewildered than ever, she stood hugging her son, watching Tom disappear round the corner towards the entrance to the surgery. A faint, good-natured cheer rose up, presumably from the waiting patients, as he went inside.
***
For the second Tuesday night in a row, Chloe couldn’t sleep.
This time what was keeping her awake wasn’t the turmoil of confusing, mixed emotions, churned up from the silt at the bottom of her soul where she’d thought them long dead and fossilised. That was what she’d gone through last week, after the kiss with Tom. Tonight, she was being kept from sleep by a realisation far sharper, purer, better defined, one that she was unable to draw her attention away from.
Chloe had no idea what Tom had meant by his last, cryptic remarks about having to leave Pemberham because he understood what was going on, and because he knew she wasn’t the one who’d made the allegations. But she knew she’d find out; would have to find out. It was a challenge to be overcome, a problem to be solved, nothing more. She knew also that she had her work cut out for her. Because in the morning, her hunt for the truth would begin.
Chloe had come home with Jake, fed and bathed him and put him to bed after the customary story, then set to work. Not on anything to do with Tom, but on the article about the Stratwell estate and the town council’s neglect. She worked with single-minded purpose, allowing nothing to distract her until, after midnight, she’d given the manuscript a final read through, pronounced herself satisfied, and emailed it to Mike Sellers.
Tomorrow she’d be up with the lark and get hold of a copy of that grubby muckraking rag, the Pember Valley News, steel herself, and read with as dispassionate and forensic an eye as she was able the