Maggie Kingsley - The Good Father

Maddie shook her head. A foetus of that age doesn’t have sufficient heart and lung development. Maybe some time in the future—when science is more advanced than it is now—somebody will be able to invent an incubator that can exactly replicate a woman’s womb, but until then…’

‘Those babies always die.’

There was pain and heartache in Annie’s voice. A pain that Maddie sensed was due to something more than a simple dislike of neonatal units, but before she could say anything the young doctor had stepped swiftly back from the incubator.

‘I have to go. My department must be wondering where I am, and you must be on your lunch hour.’

She was, but Maddie didn’t care.

‘Are you all right?’ she said, and Annie nodded.

‘Of course I am, so if you’ll excuse me…’

She strode out of the ward, leaving Maddie gazing after her. She could see Nell mouthing, What’s wrong? behind Gabriel’s back, but she shook her head. She didn’t know what was wrong, but something most certainly was.

‘If you’re off to lunch,’ Lynne said as she passed her, ‘the special in the canteen today is lasagne.’

Lasagne sounded good. Getting out of the unit before Gabriel dreamt up yet another errand to send her on sounded even better, and quickly she gave Lynne the Thompson twins’ blood results and slipped away.

The canteen was crowded and noisy and exactly what she needed. So, too, was the lasagne, and she was just wondering how the cook could make such excellent pasta and yet such very lousy coffee when suddenly a grey-haired woman wearing a migraine-inducing sweater sat down at her table, and smiled at her with absolutely no sincerity at all.

‘You’re Madison Bryce, NICU’s new secretary, aren’t you?’ she said, her eyes fixed on her speculatively. ‘I’m Doris Turner, Obs and Gynae’s secretary, although of course I always consider myself to be primarily Mr Caldwell’s personal secretary.’

Maddie wondered if Annie’s husband felt similarly blessed, but she knew it was important to make friends—or to be at the very least on speaking terms—with the staff at the hospital, so she managed a smile.

‘Mr Caldwell’s a lovely man—a really lovely man,’ Doris continued. ‘He was a widower for five years before he met Dr Hart, as she was then. Annie’s a nice girl but…’ Doris lowered her voice. ‘She has a child by another man, you know. A little boy.’

‘Mrs Turner, I really don’t think you should be telling—’

‘Poor Mr Caldwell,’ Doris sighed, as though Maddie hadn’t spoken. ‘As if the tragedy of his first wife’s death with ovarian cancer wasn’t bad enough, he and Dr Hart were only married for four months when she had a miscarriage. Of course, I did think at the time that she shouldn’t have carried on working while she was pregnant, and I know Mr Caldwell felt the same, but Dr Hart knew better, and now—almost a year on—she still hasn’t managed to conceive again.’

So that was why Annie had become so upset in the neonatal unit. It must have brought it all back to her, the baby she had lost, the baby who could never have survived at such an early gestation. Tom Brooke should never have sent her down to the unit but, then, men never did think.

‘I understand Mr Dalgleish is a terrible tartar to work for,’ Doris continued.

‘He certainly likes his department to be run efficiently,’ Maddie said noncommittally, ‘but, then, most neonatologists do.’

‘I’ve heard it’s a lot worse than that,’ Doris said. ‘I’ve heard he rules his department with a rod of iron. Do this, do that, jump when he says jump.’

‘Then you heard wrong,’ Maddie snapped. ‘He’s a very well-liked head of department.’

Doris gazed at her incredulously and Maddie couldn’t blame her. Nobody in NICU liked Gabriel, so why in the world was she lying about him? She scarcely knew the man, and what she knew she didn’t like, but all her instincts told her Doris Turner was trouble. The woman clearly fed on gossip, both from getting it and from passing it on, and she had no intention of providing her with any juicy titbits.

She glanced down at her watch and started with fake amazement. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? I really must be getting back to the department—’

‘We secretaries all have an hour for lunch,’ Doris interrupted. ‘In fact, I was wondering if you’d like to come along to my office. I could make you a proper cup of coffee instead of the disgusting dishwater they serve here, and we could talk more privately.’

‘That’s most kind of you, but—’

‘I think it’s important that we secretaries stick together, don’t you?’

Maddie stared into Doris’s speculative little eyes and knew that the last person in the Belfield she wanted to stick to was Doris. Desperately she looked round the canteen for an escape route, and suddenly saw one. It wasn’t an escape route she would normally have chosen but desperate situations called for desperate measures.

‘I’m so sorry, but I have to go.’

‘Go?’ Doris repeated. ‘But—’

‘My boss seems to want a word with me,’ Maddie said, getting to her feet, ‘so if you’ll excuse me…’

‘But—’

She could still hear Doris protesting as she darted across the canteen to where Gabriel was sitting, but she didn’t care. Escaping from her was all that mattered and if she was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire she’d worry about that later.

‘Mr Dalgleish, do you mind if I join you?’ she said breathlessly when she reached his table.

He looked startled, and she wasn’t surprised. She would have been startled, too, if a panic-stricken woman had suddenly appeared without warning at her side.

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Talk to me,’ she said, sitting down quickly. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say just so long as you look as though whatever you’re saying, and whatever I’m saying, is of earth-shattering importance.’

He gazed at her blankly for a second, then glanced across the canteen, and to her surprise a muscle quivered slightly in his cheek.

‘Ah. The dreaded Doris.’

Maddie nodded with relief. ‘So, if you could just talk to me, and try to look intent on what I’m saying, she won’t try to join us.’

‘Look intent?’

Good grief, did she need to spell it out for him?

‘Just stare at me, OK?’ she said. ‘Just talk to me and stare at me as though I’m giving you the code numbers for a secret Swiss safety-deposit box.’

The muscle in his cheek quivered even more. ‘A secret Swiss safety-deposit box. OK, I think I can do that.’ He moved his empty lunch plate to one side, put his elbow on the table and leant his chin in his hand. ‘How’s this?’ he murmured, staring so deeply into her eyes that she gulped.

Boy, but when he faked intent he really went for it. In fact, in this light, he looked a little like Susie’s latest pin-up. Except, of course, that the actor in question had brown hair and green eyes, and a sort of come-hither twinkle in his eyes, whereas Gabriel Dalgleish had black hair and grey eyes which didn’t twinkle at all, but…

‘I thought this was supposed to be a two-sided conversation,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and she blinked.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m doing my best here in the intent and talking stakes, and you’re sitting there looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car. If you want to convince Doris that our conversation is really important and necessary, you’re going to have to look considerably more animated.’

‘Oh. Right. Animated.’ She flushed slightly. ‘Um…’ Pull yourself together, woman. ‘I’m sorry, but what were you talking about?’