The Watchful Eye (17 page)

The weekend passed well for Daniel. Holly and his mother seemed to be forging a better relationship and Holly only mentioned her newfound friend once, suggesting they asked her to join them and when Daniel said it probably wasn’t a good idea she did not mention her again.

He tried to ring Claudine just before lunch but no one answered so he left a friendly, neutral message and hung up. They must be on a family outing, he decided and was part relieved and part slightly jealous.

The three of them went for a walk in Doxey Marshes to see the swans and then called in for coffee at Costas, finishing up meandering along the aisles at Sainsbury’s to pick up something for supper and tomorrow’s lunch. Holly took her grandmother’s hand happily, selecting vegetables and fruit with all the enthusiasm and commitment of a gourmet and he found himself relaxing for the first time in ages. Something in Holly’s artless chatter seemed to bring out something less selfish, less self-absorbed in his mother, so she listened to her granddaughter, hardly interrupting, her head bent over to one side.

The only slightly bitter note in the entire day was a text message from Marie asking whether he was free over the
weekend. She said she was
dying to meet his daughter,
offered to
pop
over and cook his dinner
and then…
He fingered the reply button, trying to decide whether to respond with a polite,
Sorry, I’m busy, mother here!
followed maybe by a friendly,
See you at work next week
, or simply ignore it. He felt awkward. Perhaps that one, accidental date would embarrass their future working relationship. Something told him she was a persistent woman.

In the end he decided to ignore it. Mobile phones can so easily be out of range, he told himself. There is nothing to tell the texter that their message has been read.

Even so, he felt wrong-footed and rude. She was a nice woman who deserved a nice man. But not him.

A heavy shower finally drove them home through dingy streets underneath a distinctly threatening sky but they returned happy and wet. As he walked along the hall he could see the answerphone flashing a message. While his mother and Holly dealt with the shopping he pressed play to hear Claudine’s voice unrecognisably shrill.

‘Daniel, it’s Claudine. Brian is behaving oddly. It’s best you don’t telephone – please, at least for a while. I think he’s having some sort of a breakdown. I’m worried and he seems to think we are closer friends than we are. Please take care of yourself and of Holly.’

The line went dead, leaving Daniel staring at it stupidly.

Something in him was warning him, a red light flashing inside his head, which distracted him from rational thought. All evening it blinked inside his brain, through the extended game of Monopoly, Holly’s incessant chatter and a late supper of cheese and biscuits. His mother disappeared upstairs at ten
o’clock, muttering something about packing ready for the morning and for the first time in his life he was sorry to see her go. As it was half term she had agreed to drive Holly all the way back to her mother in Birmingham. It would be a huge detour but he had the sneaky feeling that his mother wanted to check up on how Elaine was doing. Infuriatingly she still harboured desires to see them reunited no matter how much they both tried to persuade her that their marriage was, thankfully and irrevocably, ended.

He tucked Holly up, leaving her sleepy, in bed, unable to stop himself from whispering his dream of the cottage, the pony, them being together. He watched her eyes light up. ‘Really, Daddy? Really?’ She put her arms around his neck. ‘
Then
will I be able to come and live with you? I shall call my pony Chocolate. Whatever colour he is.’ She lay back against the pillow, a smile lighting her face. He closed the door behind her, thinking how very much he wanted this life. His daughter, a home, even his mother. Nearby at least.

Yet, he had a little voice nagging him that Holly thought that life with him would be endless Saturdays and shopping trips with no credit limit, that each and every meal would be either Gary Rhodes gourmet, Jamie Oliver or in a restaurant. He walked downstairs slowly. This weekend pact was so
false
. It wasn’t
really
what life was like. As he reached the bottom step he blinked at the vision of hordes of little princesses spoilt by their absent fathers.

But by the time he was back in the lounge his thoughts had turned inexplicably back to his problems at work, to Maud Allen and Anna-Louise. What troubled him about Maud were her last words to him that his life would change. He froze. Surely – surely she would not have sacrificed her life
for his elusive dream of having his daughter with him? As much as he rejected the idea it would not go away but left him uncomfortable. She had been a tough, brave, unselfish woman. But surely this had been a step too far just to give him a paddock? And now he had the niece to deal with who would no doubt be hostile towards him – the doctor whose wrong diagnosis had led even indirectly to her aunt’s death. And he had benefited.

In the wake of these thoughts was the knowledge that the true story of Anna-Louise’s death was as much a mystery to him as it was to the police and the pathologist.

Who had stood to gain by the little tot’s death? No one. So it was not gain. The only person who knew the true story was almost certainly her mother.

But when he sat drinking a final malt whisky before turning in, having seen his mother off to bed, it was back to Claudine that his thoughts returned. He was worried about her. Although – yes – he fancied her very much, he’d never touched her. Nothing physical had ever happened. And whatever his personal desires might be he had never had any hint that she felt anything but friendship towards him, her daughter’s friend’s father. So what was going on in her husband’s mind? Daniel had been careful not to expose himself. Brian couldn’t
know
that he fancied Claudine like mad, fantasised about her like a fourteen-year-old. He
couldn’t
know that. Surely?

He finished his whisky, resisted the temptation to have another and followed his mother and daughter up to bed.

But once there he lay with his hands cupped behind his head, hearing the noises of the night – a boy racer screeching up the High Street, the tinny tone of the millennium clock striking twelve, then one. Something was disturbing him and
he knew it was the note of panic in Claudine’s voice when she was normally so calm. What was PC Anderton up to?

By one-thirty he was groaning. After the allegation made against him by Chelsea Emmanuel the last thing he needed was for the local bobby to be accusing him of making advances on his wife. No female patient would feel safe again.

He tossed and turned, dozed fitfully for a couple of hours, finally gave in to insomnia and padded downstairs to make himself a cup of tea.

He propped himself up and read an article in
Pulse
on the use of statins to prevent myocardial infarctions. That, finally, did send him to sleep.

Vanda Struel had got rid of Arnie for the night so she could have the flat to herself and entertain Guy. There was something fantastic about him these days, tall and gangly as he was. Almost overnight he seemed to have turned into a sexpot and Vanda wasn’t complaining.

Guy was very sure of himself these days.

He leered at her. ‘I’m glad you ain’t got that little tot no more. We couldn’t have had half the fun.’

Even Vanda looked slightly shocked at this. ‘’Ang on a minute,’ she said, ‘that’s my daughter you’re talkin’ about. My little girl.’

Guy looked slightly abashed. ‘Sorry, love. I didn’t mean it like that but…’ he glanced around him, ‘it’s great here.’

She put her hand in his. ‘Didn’t mean to be so touchy,’ she said.

He put one of his large hands at the back of her jeans and pinged the elastic of her thong. ‘I’m feeling randy,’ he said.

Daniel woke late on the Monday morning, the scent of bacon frying somehow entering his dreams so he was waiting in a long queue in an American diner. His mother shouted up the stairs. ‘Daniel, Daniel. Come along. You’ll be late for surgery.’ It reminded him of his long gone schooldays.

He pulled his dressing gown on and went downstairs. Again Holly and his mother were in obvious conspiracy. There was a détente between them that he had never noted before. Holly had set the kitchen table with a blue and white checked cloth and a vase of flowers picked, presumably, from the garden. There was a jug of fresh orange juice, sparkling water glasses and a pot of tea (almost certainly Earl Grey) in the centre surrounded by cups, saucers and a milk jug. He stared, first at the cordiality that marked the relationship between his daughter and his mother, then at the table which looked so inviting compared to his usual bowl of cereal eaten hastily from the bowl, straight off the bare pine. Holly and his mother looked at him with the same mix of indulgence and exasperation that most females express when looking at their men.

‘It looks lovely,’ he said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘Well, eat up then,’ his mother responded severely.

So he did. He enjoyed the fry-up and ate with great gusto, which even extended to the Earl Grey and the orange juice. He vanished up the stairs to have a shower, leaving Holly and his mother to clear up. They both kissed him goodbye as he left for the surgery, practically whistling.

His good mood lasted right up until he walked inside and straight away bumped into Marie Westbrook, looking annoyed. ‘Morning,’ he said, with gusto, instinctively sure that she had been lying in wait for him.

‘I’d have thought you would have had better manners than that,’ she said crossly.

‘Sorry?’ He decided to play dumb. It was the easiest option.

‘Didn’t you get my text message suggesting we meet up over the weekend?’

‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I was busy. My phone was switched off in the bedroom. My mother’s been up and Holly too.’

‘I’d like to meet Holly,’ she said.

He ignored the remark.

Why should she meet his daughter?

Her pale blue eyes held his and he knew she was waiting for his response. The moment extended into embarrassment but he was determined not to make any firm arrangement with her.

Finally he mumbled something about having to get on with his surgery and bolted into the consulting room.

His first patient of that Monday morning was Vanda Struel, accompanied by her mother. As she sat down he realised how much smaller she looked without Anna-Louise in her arms. Only half a person, really. He’d hardly ever seen her without her daughter, either holding her or in a pushchair.

‘How are you?’ He asked the traditional open-ended question as he had been trained.

She stared back at him, mouth and eyes oddly dead. ‘How do you think?’ she asked truculently. Then blurted out, ‘The police think I killed her. They think I killed my own little girl. My baby. Can you believe that?’

Unfortunately, yes.

He held her gaze steadily.

Daniel had little experience of Munchausen by proxy. It isn’t a common condition but, from what he did know, Vanda Struel fitted the bill perfectly: single mum; loads of stress; multiple investigations on the child, most at the instigation of the mother with no pathology ever found; dramatic stories, some of which
had
to be untrue; finally – and this was the clincher – recovery of the child when admitted to hospital, away from the mother. He stared into Vanda’s pale eyes, hoping she could not read his thoughts. The real problem for him was, what did he do about it?

He could have countered her statement about the police suspecting her of being responsible for the child’s death with the obvious,
well, did you?
But no doctor could take that line. What would he do if she admitted it? Break confidentiality and inform the police? He could almost write the complaint it would inevitably lead to.

No. It would be unethical.

Besides, sufferers of the condition rarely do admit it. In fact, it is believed that their minds block out the events so completely that they would not be able to admit it. To them, the acts which led up to their child’s death simply did not happen.

But he wished the powerful vision of Vanda bending over her daughter’s cot, pillow in hand, pressing, harder, harder and harder still, until the child was dead, would leave him. He gaped and looked at her and simply couldn’t find the right words. Not
any
words. All he could see was the child’s tongue furiously licking her lips until they were red and sore. But it was a tongue that could not speak.

Vanda must have sensed his confusion. She fixed her stare at a spot on the floor. ‘I didn’t do it,’ she muttered. ‘I
just didn’t do it. Whatever
they
think I couldn’t have done
anything
to my baby. I
loved
her.’

Two fat tears rolled down her face as she looked across at him. ‘Can’t
you
convince them, Doctor? Can’t you tell them how much I loved my baby, that I was
always
here, fussing about her, caring for her? Tell them, please.’

And that,
he thought,
is
part of the syndrome.
They do love their child. There is no doubt about that. But it is a perverse love. They love the attention that their ‘sick’ child brings them, the sympathy, the admiration. How well they care for a child that is always ailing. It is a terrible condition.

You always hurt the one you love.

He looked across at Vanda and tried to feel sorry for her. He struggled to find the right words to say. He put his hand, briefly, on her thin shoulder. ‘It won’t make any difference, Vanda, whatever I say. The pathologists make the decision. But if it’ll help I have already told them that I never saw you harm Anna-Louise.’

Behind her daughter, Bobby Millin stood, her gaze hardly moving from him. It was as though she was trying to convey something to him. He gave her a polite smile and a nod.