Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,60

Rebecca. She’d lowered her head but was still gazing at Chloe. Her features were by now completely pale.

Chloe continued: ‘I obtained Ms Hutchinson’s criminal record from a fellow journalist in London who has contacts in the Metropolitan Police. They had her photograph on file, so it was relatively easy for them to match a name to the photo of “Sabrina Jones” I forwarded. Naturally, when I told Ms Hutchinson I knew about her background, she became very co-operative. If she’s caught committing fraud while on probation, she’ll be back in prison in no time.

‘So I gave her a choice. Either I forward her criminal record to the papers, which would both immediately destroy the credibility of her allegations and make her the subject of a police investigation on the assumption that she’s engaging in deception while on probation. Or, she writes and signs a statement admitting that she was hired to lie about Tom. It was no contest, really. She agreed at once.’

Rebecca’s face was quivering, but she was hanging on to what remained of her composure. The atmosphere in the room was taut as a stretched bowstring.

Chloe tapped the letter in her hand. ‘It’s all here. How you first approached her, the money you offered and then paid her, the details of what you instructed her to make up about Tom. How she went and told you after I’d been to visit her the first time yesterday, and you ordered her not to speak to me any more. Now that she’s written this, she’s off the hook. Well, almost. All Ms Hutchinson has yet to do is contact both the papers she approached, the News and the Gazette, and retract her story entirely, with no explanation. Then leave Pemberham and never come back.’

Rebecca’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides, her entire body quivering. This is it, thought Chloe, still flushed with the importance of what she’d been saying but with a growing, sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. This is where it gets really, really ugly. Where the snarling, spitting violence kicks in.

She braced herself, sensing Tom doing the same.

They remained still for six agonising seconds, three points of a triangle that felt ready to fly apart at any moment.

And Rebecca broke. She sank to the floor, crouching, her hands clasped over her face, her body racked by sobs. A horrible wailing sounded from beneath her fingers. Her poise, her arrogant elegance, were gone.

Chloe didn’t, couldn’t, look at Tom. Instead she took a step or two closer to Rebecca, and when there was a pause in the keening noise the other woman was making, Chloe said, firmly but gently: ‘It doesn’t need to come to light that you were behind this. Obviously, it’s up to Tom what happens now.’ This time she glanced across at him but he was staring at Rebecca, his brow deeply furrowed.

Chloe went on, ‘But I’d imagine that if you backed off, completely, if you gave up forever all notions you might have of taking custody of Kelly away from Tom, of persecuting and hounding him and destroying his life – if you did that, then this could all quietly come to an end. No police involvement, no scandal, no rancorous court battles. Just… peace, once more. As there used to be.’

Rebecca’s wails had diminished to a muffled whimpering. Chloe and Tom stood watching her for a few more seconds. Despite her antipathy towards the woman, despite her revulsion at what she’d done to Tom, Chloe couldn’t help feeling a deep, abiding pity for Rebecca. So proud, and so troubled, and brought so low by her own folly.

Slowly, shakily, Rebecca rose to her feet again, not making eye contact with either of them. She fumbled her way along the wall to the door, and Chloe heard her footsteps tottering in the hallway before the front door slammed. She took a step towards the living room door but Tom held up his hand.

‘Just let her go.’

Chloe turned to him, awkward. He couldn’t quite meet her eye.

‘Chloe,’ he said. ‘I’m so –’

The scream of rubber on tarmac was followed a split-second later by a higher-pitched human shriek and the awful dull sound of metal hitting something soft and living. Tom froze, his mouth open. Then he barged past Chloe, almost knocking her over on his way to the window.

Chloe joined him an instant later and stared out.

‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed.

On the road, alongside Rebecca’s red Mercedes, another car had stopped, the driver