Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,51

a smile.

It had been a useful hour’s work. She’d discovered three things. The first was that Sabrina Jones rented her flat. The estate agent had confirmed that all the flats in that block were rentals. The second was that the rent was exorbitant, more than Chloe was paying on her own cottage’s mortgage.

The third was that Ms Jones’s salary couldn’t even begin to cover her monthly rent.

All of which suggested she had some other source of income. And Chloe intended to find out what that was.

***

The easiest thing, Tom knew, would have been to take the day off. Call in sick on some pretext, ask Ben to see as many of his patients as possible and cancel the rest of the appointments – it would be inconvenient but not disastrous – and hide indoors to escape the storm.

Except he wouldn’t escape it. It wasn’t going to blow over. It would still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and next week. And if he retreated to a hermit-like existence, it would make people think he had something to hide.

So, after he’d read the article with a hollow, sick feeling in his gut, Tom threw the paper in the bin and went to work.

Everybody had either read or heard the story by the time he got there, Tom thought. From Tracey behind the front desk, to the practice nurse, to his patients, old and young and in between – everyone looked at him with wonder, or pity, or suspicion.

And four patients cancelled their appointments with him that morning, all of them female.

Tom ploughed through the workload as best he could, keeping up a front as if nothing was amiss. He thought he was going to make it to the end of the morning without anything being said when one of his patients, a burly farm hand named Jason, hobbled into the consulting room – he’d injured his foot in a piece of machinery and was attending for a check up – and threw down a copy of the Pember Valley News on to Tom’s desk.

‘Absolute rubbish,’ he growled. ‘The cowardly swine. If I had just half an hour alone with them…’ He left the thought, and the threat, unfinished. Gazing directly at Tom, he said, ‘Doc, you have to understand that nobody believes a word of this.’

‘Thanks, Jason,’ said Tom. ‘I appreciate it.’

But he knew the man’s assertion wasn’t quite accurate.

During a lull in the morning’s activity Ben Okoro put his head round the door. ‘Tom, do you have a moment?’

He came in and perched on the corner of Tom’s desk. Tom felt suddenly weary, and swept his hands across his face.

‘Read the morning paper yet, Ben?’

‘This woman,’ said Ben. ‘This Sabrina Jones. I checked the records. She’s never consulted you. And she only attended the practice once, with her back. That was when I saw her. What’s she up to? What’s this all about?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tom, though he did.

‘We’ll fight this, Tom,’ the older man said. ‘These accusations will be proved groundless, and this will blow over.’

‘Ben,’ said Tom heavily. ‘I was going to tell you this later, at a quieter moment, but I might as well do so now. I’m out. I’m leaving the practice. I’ll give my notice in due course.’

‘What? No! You’re not going anywhere, my boy.’ Ben was on his feet, glaring down at Tom. His older colleague’s manner was normally famously avuncular, but this was the first time Tom had seen him angry. ‘I can’t afford to lose you. You’re going to be the senior partner here in a few years, when I retire. I haven’t got the energy to build somebody else up to take your place.’

‘Ben –’

‘Shut up. Besides,’ he waved an arm at the door, ‘there’s a whole community out there that won’t let you go. That depends on you. So let’s have no more talk of running away.’

He stalked out. Despite himself, Tom couldn’t help feeling amused at how chastised he felt, like a schoolboy who’d just tried to tell his football coach he was quitting the team.

Ben, you don’t know the half of it, my friend, he thought.

The call came around noon. It was a staff reporter, Simon Greenwood, from the Pemberham Gazette. Yes, said Tom, he’d be willing to be interviewed. This evening at eight would be fine.

He’d decided to tell Kelly at the weekend. That they’d no longer be living in Pemberham, and that she’d be living with her mummy in future. He needed to be