The Secret Mother Page 14

  ‘No, Tessa. He did what anyone would do if a stranger suspected of abducting their child showed up at night in their back garden, banging on the door.’

  ‘Fine,’ I snap. ‘You wanted to know what happened, so I told you.’

  ‘Thanks for nothing,’ she murmurs, stuffing her notebook and pencil back in her bag and rising to her feet.

  God, I want to slap her. ‘You’re the one who came round here uninvited, Carly. You’re the one demanding I share my life with you. So don’t go getting all stroppy when I don’t tell you what you want to hear.’

  She rolls her eyes and turns to leave.

  But even as I’m clinging to my anger and indignation, I remember something else. Something I really should share with Carly. ‘Hang on a minute, hang on. There’s something I forgot to tell you.’

  She turns back to face me, her face resigned to the possibility that what I’m about to say will prove equally disappointing.

  ‘I didn’t mention it before,’ I begin, ‘but… well… someone has been following me.’

  Carly’s eyes narrow and she takes out her notebook once more.

  ‘Not a journalist or anything like that,’ I add. ‘A woman. I spotted her a few times watching me in the street while I was out shopping or walking. I didn’t know who she was, and every time I tried to confront her, she gave me the slip. She looked like she was scared of me. Anyway, when I went to see Fisher’s housekeeper this morning, I caught her looking down at me from the window of her flat. And, well, it’s her.’

  ‘Fisher’s housekeeper has been following you?’

  I nod.

  ‘Okay, this is more like it, Tess. Tell me when and where you’ve seen her before.’

  I detail the times and places I’ve seen the woman. ‘She could have been following me on other occasions, too, but those were the only times I actually saw her. Do you have any theories why?’

  ‘No.’ Carly chews the end of her pencil. ‘Maybe we need to ask him – Fisher.’

  ‘Already tried that,’ I say. ‘It didn’t work out too well.’

  She doesn’t reply.

  ‘So what happens next?’ I ask, nervous about what her response might be.

  ‘I’m tied up this weekend, which is bloody annoying,’ she says, ‘but first thing Monday morning, I’m going to confront Flores, see if I can get her to talk. I seriously doubt she will. Sounds like she’s scared of something. If I don’t have any luck there, I’ll head to Cranborne to confront Fisher. My gut is telling me the housekeeper’s scared of him. I’m going to be asking him some serious questions.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky,’ I say. ‘He’s not answering the door to journalists.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll get him to talk to me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll work out the details,’ she says, her mouth set in a determined line.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It’s 10.30 by the time Carly and her brother leave. I offer Vince a cheque for twenty pounds, feeling guilty that his sister has roped him into helping me out. But Carly tells me to keep it. Cynically, I guess that’s because she’s hoping I’ll make her a nice chunk of cash from my car-crash life. I still don’t trust her, but at least she’s signed a document saying she won’t print anything without my permission. Actually, I’m exhausted by the whole thing, and despite being bone-weary, I’m looking forward to going to work tomorrow, back to a bit of normality. Some respite from this crazy alternate universe I’m inhabiting. My day off was hardly the break I was hoping for. Maybe a good night’s sleep will sort me out.

  As I get changed into a pair of fleecy pink pyjamas, I’m cheered by the fact that my room feels so much nicer now. Warmer, and less like the boarded-up student squat of a few hours ago. I crawl under the covers, set my alarm and switch off my bedside lamp. Lying on my side, I close my eyes.

  It’s quiet. Just the beating of my heart in my ears, and my uneven breath. In. Out. In. Out. An occasional hiss and gurgle from the radiator. A distant car engine. I will myself to fall asleep, but my brain is like chewing gum, a sticky mess. Too many thoughts racing around with nowhere to go: the housekeeper, Carly, the police… But the one battling for supremacy in my mind is the question of Dr Fisher and where I recognise him from. Do I know him? Or is it just that I’ve seen his picture so many times in the paper and on the news that I merely think I know him?

  I’m never going to fall asleep, am I? I push the covers away and fumble for the lamp switch, clicking it on and screwing my face up against the sudden brightness. Scrabbling about for my phone, I plump up the pillows behind my head and open up Google. I tap in the name Dr James Fisher and then Cranborne.

  The results begin filling up the screen. All the posts are from this week. And all are regarding his son’s recent disappearance. My name is mentioned in most of the pieces – most of them uncomplimentary. I grit my teeth and keep scrolling through, knowing it isn’t good for me to be reading such awful things: child snatcher… abductor… mental health issues… two dead children. I take a breath and look away from the screen for a moment. These lurid stories aren’t the type of thing I’m looking for, I’m interested in Fisher’s past. Where he used to live and work.

  I delete the word Cranborne and try the search again. Once more I’m forced to scroll down past all the current stories. Eventually I come to a newspaper article from 2012. James Fisher is one of several doctors to be quoted – but is it my James Fisher? There’s no photo. The piece is about the rising cost of insurance for private obstetricians. I skim the article until I reach the bit about him:

  Dr James Fisher, one of the most experienced obstetricians in the country, said the rise in insurance premiums had forced him to almost double his charges to £7,000 over the past three years.

  ‘If the insurance goes up, the charges go up,’ explained Dr Fisher, who sees around 120 private patients a year. ‘In fact, this could very well put a stop to private births in the UK. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about the rising premiums. Instead, I’ll be setting up a new practice away from London to cut down on overhead costs and hopefully pass these savings on to my clients.’

  I read through the rest of the article, but there’s no further mention of Fisher or the name of the hospital where he works.

  I spend the next ten minutes or so scrolling through the other results. There’s nothing that definitively suggests Harry’s father is the same doctor as the one from that first article. One of them brings up a ‘Meet the Team’ page for a maternity clinic in Wimborne, Dorset, along with a photo of the man I met in Cranborne. This must be where he currently works. His photograph – a corporate headshot – sits at the top of the page to the left of a short biography. Qualified in 1992, with over ten years’ experience as a gynaecologist, and now a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Wimborne…

  So now I know that the James Fisher in London and the one in Wimborne are both gynaecologists. That’s too much of a coincidence; surely they are one and the same man? I continue scanning the results. Just as my eyes are beginning to grow heavy, a name jumps out at me from one of the articles – a hospital monthly newsletter: Having previously worked at Parkfield Hospital, consultant James Fisher is now leaving the team here at the Balmoral Clinic to set up his own practice in Dorset.

  There it is! The connection: the Balmoral Clinic. A chill sweeps over my body. That must be why I recognise him. My heart begins to twang painfully, like a string being plucked. James Fisher practised at the clinic where I gave birth to my children.

  After my parents died, I was left a small inheritance. Most of this went on the deposit for our house, but Scott persuaded me to use the rest to have our twins in a private hospital, rather than use the NHS. Apparently, his favourite footballer and his wife were having their child at the Balmoral, a swanky private birth clinic here in London so Scott thought I should do the same. Granted, the midwives were lovely and the place was like a boutique hotel, but I really didn’t see the poi
nt of wasting all that money when I could have had my children for free in a perfectly good hospital. And ultimately, despite the five-star treatment, that posh clinic couldn’t prevent my daughter’s death.

  I had a natural birth, delivering Sam first and then Lily. Sam was fine, but Lily died only half an hour after being born. I didn’t even get to hold her while she was alive. The report said it was due to umbilical cord compression resulting in a lack of oxygen and blood flow. Apparently this type of cord compression is common when carrying twins, but only a small number of babies die because of it.

  I always wondered if we should have questioned the hospital staff further – asked for an autopsy or an inquiry. But at the time, Scott and I were all over the place, not thinking straight. Relieved at Sam’s safe arrival, but devastated by the loss of Lily.

  I remember holding Sam in my arms when they told me Lily hadn’t made it. A boy and a girl, I kept saying to myself over and over like a chant. A boy and a girl. We hadn’t wanted to know the sexes beforehand, we wanted it to be a surprise. Sam had dark hair like Scott, and Lily was fair like me. I can see her in my mind’s eye. Picture her perfect little body with her ten pink fingers and ten pink toes, tiny shell-like ears and almost translucent skin. And her utter, utter stillness.

  I blink, shaking away the image as my mind begins to race, synapses firing, lights flashing on, my body quivering. What does this new information actually mean? Surely it has to mean something. Something big…?

  What if… what if Fisher was the consultant who delivered my babies? Our assigned consultant – Dr Friedland – couldn’t attend the birth as he was ill at the time with gastric flu. I can’t remember the name of the doctor on duty when Sam and Lily were born. He was briefly at the delivery, but disappeared soon after, leaving Scott and me in the care of the midwives. Could it have been Fisher?

  I sigh with frustration. Why can’t I remember? There is one way to find out. I recall Sam’s red book – the health record that detailed his developmental milestones. Surely the name of the medical staff who attended the birth would have been recorded in it?

  I jump out of bed, slip my feet into my ancient, ratty slippers, and head downstairs, still clutching my phone, my mind whirling with all this might mean. Then I pad through the hall and into the dining room, which used to double as my office. I switch on the overhead chandelier – an extravagant purchase from back when I used to care about stuff like interior design. The light in here is dim and shadowy. I look up and notice that only one of the five bulbs still works.

  I stride across the room towards my desk – a dusty white slab of wood – and crouch down to pull open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet tucked beneath it. Sam has his own file, a slim folder containing all his paperwork and achievements. A file I expected to grow fatter over the years, but which instead has remained the same sad width. Lily’s file is even slimmer.

  Walking my fingers across the tops of the alphabetised files, I scan from P to R to S. But to my irritation, Sam’s file isn’t here. Perhaps it’s been put back incorrectly. My knees ache from crouching, so I sit on the draughty wooden floor and cross my legs as I painstakingly search through first the bottom drawer and then the top drawer of the filing cabinet. Still no sign of Sam’s file, or Lily’s. I check again. Nothing. I begin opening desk drawers, checking bookshelves. I heave out the filing cabinet from underneath the desk. There are various dusty papers squashed behind it, but nothing about Sam. No red book.

  Maybe Scott moved it. He wouldn’t have taken it with him, would he? It’s not the sort of thing that would be on his radar. Paperwork has never been his forte. I pull up his number on my phone and call him. After six rings, it goes to voicemail. I call again. Voicemail again. I check the time: it’s 11.40. Late, but not hideously late. Okay, maybe it is. But damn it, this is important. I call again.

  ‘This had better be good, Tessa.’ His voice is croaky, like I just woke him up.

  ‘Sorry, Scott. I know it’s late.’

  No reply, just the weight of his annoyance across the airwaves.

  ‘Do you know where Sam’s red book is?’ I ask.

  ‘His what?’

  ‘You know the one. The red book, his health record.’

  ‘I don’t know. Couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow morning?’

  ‘It should be in the filing cabinet with all his other stuff,’ I say.

  There’s silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘Scott? You still there?’

  ‘Look, Tessa, don’t get mad, but I took Sam and Lily’s files.’

  ‘You did what?’ I shift around onto my knees and sit on my heels. ‘Why did you take them? They’re just as much mine as they are yours.’

  ‘I know that, but I was worried about you. After we lost Sam, you became obsessed with their pictures and records. You used to spend hours going through everything, looking at their charts, talking to yourself.’

  ‘I wasn’t that bad. And anyway, it comforted me to read about them.’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ he says. ‘Your therapist had to help wean you off looking at them.’

  I push away the memory. It was a dark time, I don’t want to remember it.

  ‘Once you were able to put them away,’ he continues, ‘I thought it’d be best to hide them just in case you went back to them. It’s not healthy to dwell on all that stuff. You don’t need those files, Tessa. Forget them.’

  ‘Where are they now? Did you put them in the attic? In the wardrobe?’

  ‘No, I brought them with me when I moved out.’

  ‘You took them!’ The thought of my children’s records not being here in the house throws my pulse into overdrive. I may not spend time poring through them any longer, but I always assumed they were here with me in case I ever needed to look at them. Like an ex-smoker who keeps one cigarette in a drawer for emergencies.

  I take a breath to calm down. Yelling at Scott isn’t going to help my cause. I’ve worked myself up into such a state, I’ve almost forgotten why I wanted the files in the first place. ‘I’m coming round to get them.’

  ‘It’s too late to come over, it’s almost midnight. And anyway, you’re not having them. You don’t need them.’

  ‘I do need them.’

  ‘I’m hanging up now, going back to bed. You should go to bed too.’

  ‘Don’t hang up, Scott. Just listen. If you won’t give them to me, then do me a favour. Go and have a look in Sam’s red book and see if it says the name of the doctor who delivered him.’

  ‘What? What’s all this about? Why do you need to know that? Have you been drinking, Tessa? You sound a bit manic.’

  ‘Just find the name of the doctor for me. Please.’

  ‘Tessa, you need to drop this. I’m going to end the call now, and I think you should make an appointment to go back and see your therapist.’

  ‘Scott! Don’t you dare hang up on me!’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you the files back after you’ve been to see a therapist.’

  ‘No, I don’t need to see anyone.’ I debate whether to tell him about my discovery – that Dr Fisher used to practise in the clinic where the twins were born – but it’s all just coincidence at the moment. Scott would probably think I was delusional, seeing conspiracy theories where there aren’t any, giving him more fuel to add to his argument about me seeing a therapist. Plus, I don’t trust him not to tell the police – or Ellie. And if they thought I was digging into Fisher’s past, they’d call me back into the station. I need more concrete evidence before I tell anyone.

  ‘That’s my deal,’ he says wearily. ‘Take it or leave it. Believe it or not, I still care about you, Tessa. I want you to be happy.’

  ‘Fine,’ I snap. ‘I’ll see a therapist. And then you have to give me back the files.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  I stab the phone screen and end the call. Looks like
I have little choice but to do what he asks. But can I trust him to do as he’s promised? Since Scott got together with Ellie, it’s like he’s a completely different person. It’s like she’s twisted him into someone else.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My alarm wakes me on Saturday morning and last night’s discovery hits me once more. What could it mean? There are so many thoughts swirling through my mind. But I can’t let my imagination run away until I know for sure whether or not Fisher actually was my doctor the night my babies were born. Bloody Scott, taking the twins’ files and trying to make me see a therapist. How dare he hold me to ransom like that!

  I fling the bedclothes back and get out of bed, automatically heading to the window and peering through the curtains to see how many press are out there this morning. It’s dark outside, the street lights still glowing. I can’t see anyone. Perhaps they’re in their cars, getting a last bit of shut-eye before making my life hell again.

  As I shower and dress, I decide that I’m not going to allow Scott to dictate to me. I don’t believe he wants me to see a therapist out of concern for my well-being. If he was really worried about me, he would have phoned when he first saw my name splashed across the headlines. He would have come over when he discovered the press were harassing me. He would have been there for me when I told him someone had lobbed a brick through my window. No, the only thing Scott is concerned about is keeping me away from him and his perfect new family-in-waiting. I pull my jeans on and stomp over to the chest of drawers to get a pair of socks. It’s the last clean pair – I’ll have to do some washing tonight.

  I think the only reason Scott wants me to see a therapist is so he can palm me off onto someone else. He’s trying to get rid of me. I sit heavily on the edge of the bed and pull on my socks. I don’t suppose I can blame him, but it still hurts to be cast aside like an old handbag with a broken strap. Stop it, Tessa. Don’t get maudlin. I know what I’ll do, I’ll call the hospital. They’ll have records of who delivered whose baby. Surely.