Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 3 (39 page)

‘I’d better get back outside,’ Chief Constable D’Ancey declared, ‘see what’s happening.’ His eyes met Tom’s. ‘Any orders—instructions—advice?’

‘How about praying it stops raining?’ Tom replied as another deluge began to bounce off the school roof, and the policeman smiled wryly.

‘I doubt if I have a direct line to the Big Man upstairs, but I’ll do my best.’

He didn’t linger, and when he had gone, Hazel turned to Eve apologetically.

‘Could you have a word with Lizzie Chamberlain? I’ve told her time and time again that Harbour View is probably the safest place in Penhally for her mother to be at the moment, but she’s stressing like crazy.’

Eve glanced across at Tom enquiringly, and he nodded.

‘Take a break—you deserve one,’ he said, and Hazel rolled her eyes as she led the way out of the office.

‘I don’t think anyone could call this a break,’ she muttered. ‘Lizzie is a wonderful woman, and I admire her no end for all the work she does with abandoned animals but if her BP isn’t through the roof mine certainly is after listening to her for the last half-hour.’

Eve chuckled, but it didn’t take her long to discover that the practice manager wasn’t exaggerating. Lizzie had worked herself into a complete panic attack, and eventually Eve had to concede defeat and call Oliver over to give her a sedative.

‘I very much doubt she’ll be the only one who cracks tonight,’ Oliver declared, his face tight, strained. ‘Look around
you, Eve, see how crowded the place is, and yet there’s scarcely a sound.’

The young doctor was right. Everywhere Eve looked she could see people sitting either in silent huddles, white-faced with shock, holding onto their families, or sitting alone, and those who were sitting alone watched the school-hall door constantly, clearly desperately hoping the next person who came in would be one of their loved ones.

‘Eve…’

She knew what Oliver was going to say, just as she also knew she had no words of comfort to give him, but she was saved from saying anything when a familiar figure appeared beside her.

‘Amanda, I’m so pleased to see you,’ she said, turning towards Tassie’s mother with relief. ‘I was hoping you and your family would come here. Is there anything you need—anything I can get you?’

‘We’re fine, Eve,’ Mrs Lovelace replied. ‘A nice policeman told us to bring some food with us so we’re not going to starve, but…’ She glanced in the direction of her family. ‘Do you think we’ll have to stay long? My boys are getting a bit restless.’

They would, Eve thought as she stared at Amanda’s children. The woman’s three sons were looking as truculent and surly as ever, while Kelly, Amanda’s eldest daughter, appeared to be painting her fingernails with an air of unutterable boredom.

‘Where’s Tassie?’ she asked.

‘Tassie?’ Amanda repeated. ‘But, I thought…I mean, isn’t she with you?’

‘No, she’s not with me,’ Eve said, seeing a flash of fear cross the woman’s face, and knowing her own face had just mirrored it. ‘Wasn’t she at school today?’

‘She said she didn’t feel well—’

‘Skiving, more like,’ Tassie’s twin brother Terry muttered sullenly, but his mother ignored him.

‘She said she felt a bit better after lunch, and when she asked
if she could go for a walk I thought she meant she was coming down to see you.’

‘No, she didn’t come to see me,’ Eve said, fighting to stay calm, but knowing she was losing the battle. ‘Have you talked to any of her friends—asked if they’ve seen her?’

‘Nobody’s seen her, Eve,’ Amanda protested, panic plain now in her voice. ‘You don’t think—? You know how she liked to borrow books from Miss Stanbury—you don’t think she could have gone to…to Gull Close?’

Please, God, no, Eve thought, as she stared wordlessly at Tassie’s mother. Please, God, don’t let Tassie be there, not there, and blindly she turned and hurried towards the office, her heart hammering.

‘Tom—’

He held up his hand to silence her as she rushed in.

‘OK, Mitch,’ he said. ‘Can you give me an update when you’re closer to Stephanie Richards’s house?’

‘Will do,’ the pilot replied. ‘OAO.’

‘Tom, Amanda doesn’t know where Tassie is,’ Eve said before he’d even hit the cut button on his handset. ‘She wasn’t at school today—she didn’t feel well—but she went for a walk after lunch, and no one’s seen her since.’

‘And?’ he said, getting stiffly to his feet.

‘You have to find her,’ she declared, wondering why he was suddenly being so unnecessarily dense. ‘She must be out there somewhere so you have to find her.’

‘The chopper pilots are picking up everyone who looks as though they’re in trouble so hopefully they’ll see her.’

‘And that’s
it
?’ she protested, her voice rising despite her best efforts to prevent it. ‘That’s all you’re going to do—
hope
Tassie is seen by somebody? Tom, she’s just a little girl, just ten years old, and if she’s trapped somewhere she’s going to be terrified out of her mind.’

‘As will be a lot of people at the moment,’ he murmured, and
she grabbed hold of the front of his sweater, knowing she undoubtedly looked wild-eyed and deranged but she didn’t care.

‘Please, Tom, you have to do something. Get your friend—Mad Mitch—back on the radio, tell him what Tassie looks like—’

‘For God’s sake, Eve, the only lights out there are the helicopter search lights,’ Tom flared. ‘The pilots will scour all the rooftops, but I can’t—and won’t—order them to look for one specific child. While they’re doing that, other men, women and children could drown.’

‘I don’t care!
’Eve cried, then took an unsteady breath when Tom stared at her in shocked astonishment. ‘I’m sorry—I don’t mean that—not really, but this is Tassie, Tom.
Tassie
.’

‘Eve—’

‘Tom—if you’re there, mate, we have a problem.’

Tom eased Eve’s fingers from his sweater and picked up the handset.

‘What’s wrong, Mitch?’

‘I’m over Bridge Street, and can see the white pillowcase you mentioned for the woman who’s giving birth, but, Tom, I can’t take a woman in labour out of that small window. When the baby’s arrived, we can do a scoop and run, but a woman in labour, over that water, I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

‘I understand,’ Tom said. ‘Mitch—’

‘I have to go, mate. I can see a couple of kids—one about two, the other about three—sitting with a woman astride one of the roofs in Bridge Street, and there’s a blonde-haired girl of about nine hanging out of an attic window in Gull Close.’

‘
Tassie
,’ Eve breathed. ‘Tom, that’ll be Tassie. Tell him to pick her up first—please tell him to pick her up first.’

Tom gazed at her for a long moment, then hit the ‘talk’ button on his handset.

‘Pick up the youngsters on the roof and their mother first, Mitch.’

‘No!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘Tom—’

‘The child hanging out of a window in Gull Close is safe for the moment, Eve,’ he replied, ‘but those kids on the roof have no shelter, no protection. If one of them slips—’

‘But—’

‘It’s a question of priorities, Eve.’

‘You keep saying that,’ she said, feeling tears begin to trickle down her cheeks, and she rubbed them away roughly with the back of her hand. ‘Like…like it’s some sort of justification.’

He caught her by the shoulders, his face dark, and forced her to look up at him.

‘It’s the only justification I have, Eve. Can’t you see that?’

‘Then I’ll go and help her,’ she said blindly. ‘If you can’t—won’t—I have to. I’m not going to let her down. I’m not going to abandon her the way I—’ She bit off the rest of what she’d been about to say. ‘She’s a little girl, Tom, just a little girl, out there in the dark, and she must be terrified.’

‘Eve, you are not leaving this hall.’

‘I have to—don’t you see that?’ she cried. ‘I can’t live with another twenty years of regret, spend another twenty years wishing I’d done things differently.’

‘Eve, you’re talking nonsense,’ Tom declared, giving her shoulders a little shake. ‘You have never let anybody down in your life.’

‘But I have, I have,’ she insisted, knowing she was crying in earnest now, that her words were coming out choked with sobs. ‘And I won’t do that again. I
can’t,
Tom.’

‘Eve, you’re not making any sense. Who did you let down?’

She could see the complete bewilderment in his face, and she didn’t want to tell him. She’d always sworn she never would, but if she told him maybe he’d understand, maybe he would send people to help Tassie, and she took a ragged breath.

‘Our baby, Tom. I let our baby down.’

He stared at her blankly.

‘Eve, we don’t have a baby. Look, shock can play strange tricks, affect people differently. I’ll get Oliver—’

‘Listen to me, Tom,’ she interrupted, clutching hold of him, ‘you have to listen to me. I didn’t realise I was pregnant until a month after you left for America. I hadn’t been feeling well, and I thought it was simply something I’d eaten until I was talking to one of the midwives at the practice I was working at in Newquay, and the penny dropped.’

‘But…’ He shook his head. ‘You can’t have been pregnant. You were on the Pill. You told me so.’

‘Maybe it took longer to begin working on me—maybe it just didn’t work properly—I don’t know,’ she protested. ‘But I took one of the pregnancy kits from the surgery I was working in, and when it came up positive I thought it was a mistake—was so sure it must be a mistake—that I went up to Truro and bought another one, and…’

‘It came up positive, too?’

She nodded. ‘I was pregnant, Tom.’

‘And you had a miscarriage,’ Tom said, grasping both of her hands tightly in his. ‘Oh, hell, Eve, if I’d only known, had been there with you.’

‘I didn’t have a miscarriage, Tom.’

‘You mean…’ His eyes searched hers, and she saw amazement followed by dawning delight appear in them. ‘You mean, I have a son or a daughter? Eve, that is—’

‘You don’t have a son or a daughter, Tom,’ she interrupted, her voice uneven. ‘I…I had an abortion.’

H
E DIDN’T
believe her. She could see the disbelief and denial in his face, knew he was expecting her to suddenly smile and say, ‘I didn’t mean that,’ but as she continued to stare silently back at him, she saw his incredulous expression gradually turn into one of shocked horror.

‘You had an abortion?’ he said hoarsely. ‘You aborted our child?’

‘I didn’t want to do it, Tom,’ she said, returning the pressure of his fingers, willing him to believe her. ‘If there had been any other way—if I could somehow have kept the baby—but I couldn’t, and believe me there hasn’t been a day since then when I haven’t regretted what I did.’

‘You had an abortion,’ he repeated as though by saying it he could somehow make it untrue.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, and he let go of her hands, and stepped back from her, revulsion flooding his face.

‘How
could
you have done that?’ he demanded. ‘How
could
you have taken the life of an innocent child and just thrown it away?’

His words and his expression cut her to the bone but, as she stared back at him, saw the disgust in his eyes, it wasn’t pain she felt, it was anger. A blind, furious anger that he could judge her so easily, and so instantly.

‘You think,’ she said, her voice shaking so much she could hardly get the words out, ‘you think I just did the test, and thought, Oh, good heavens, I’m pregnant, now that’s really inconvenient, but never mind, I’ll
get rid of it
?’

‘I don’t know what you thought,’ he threw back at her. ‘How can I when I don’t feel like I know you at all? All these years and you said nothing. All these years when I could have had a son or a daughter, but you chose to go ahead…to…without telling me…It was my child, too, Eve.’

‘A child you wouldn’t have wanted—not then,’ she cried, her heart thumping so hard she was sure he must hear it. ‘Time and time again, that summer, you told me you didn’t want to be tied down, didn’t want a wife, or a family, wanted to be free, to make something of your life.’

‘You didn’t give me the chance to say whether I wanted our baby or not,’ he declared, his face twisted with fury and anguish. ‘You just decided, without a word, a call…’

‘
How
could I have contacted you, Tom?’ she protested. ‘ “I’m off to the States,” you said, and then I got a postcard from New York, and another one from California saying you were applying for a job with Deltaron, but you never even bothered to tell me whether you’d got the job. All I knew—guessed—was you were somewhere in America. Well, America is a pretty big place, Tom.’

‘You…you could have phoned the offices of Deltaron,’ he said defensively. ‘They would have told you where I was.’

‘And if I’d done that—turned up on your doorstep—and said, “I’m pregnant, Tom,” how would you have felt?’ she demanded. ‘What would you have done?’

‘I would…I could have offered to help,’ he said, beginning to pace backwards and forwards across the small office, his face a tight mask of anger, his green eyes blazing. ‘OK, so maybe I wasn’t making very much money then, but I could have sent you something every month to help you take care of the baby.’

‘And resented me and the child for the rest of our lives for putting you in that position.’

He whirled round at her, his face so contorted that she involuntarily took a step back.

‘How
dare
you say that?’ he exclaimed. ‘I would
never
have resented my child. You know how I feel about children.’

‘I know how you feel now,’ she countered, bunching her hands into tight fists at her sides, ‘but that wasn’t how you felt when we were young.’

‘Eve—’

‘You wanted freedom. “No emotional baggage”, that’s what you said you wanted, and if I’d told you about the baby…Do you think I wanted you to hate him or her as much as your father hated and resented you?’

‘So, it’s my fault, now, is it?’ he flared.

‘Tom—’

‘Eve—Oliver—is anyone there?’

Dragan’s voice crackled over the radio, insistent, concerned, and when Tom made no move to answer it Eve shakily lifted the handset, and hit the reply button.

‘I…I hear you, Dragan,’ she said with difficulty. ‘Where are you?’

‘The Smugglers’ Inn, as per instructions. I gather things are pretty bad in Penhally?’

Eve glanced across at Tom’s rigid back.

‘You could say that,’ she replied.

‘Well, I’m sorry to add to your troubles, but I need a helicopter asap,’ Dragan continued. ‘Tony, at the Smugglers’, has apparently been experiencing chest pains for the past month, but he’s been ignoring them, thinking they were due to indigestion, but the pain’s so bad even he can’t ignore it. Chloe says—’

‘Chloe’s there?’ Eve interrupted quickly.

‘She was visiting Rachel Kenner at the manse when the word to evacuate went out, so she and Rachel came here. Why?’

‘She hasn’t had her mobile switched on, and Oliver’s been a bit worried about her,’ she said.
Which had to be the biggest understatement of the year
. ‘You think Tony’s having a heart attack?’

‘His BP’s 130 over 90, his skin’s sweaty, and the pain’s radiating from his chest down his left arm and up into his jaw, so I think we can safely say he’s having a heart attack,’ Dragan replied. ‘I’ve given him nitro to relieve the pain, and Chloe’s started an IV line of morphine, but he needs hospital, Eve, and fast.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Eve could see Tom holding out his hand for the handset, and she gave it to him.

‘I’ll get one of the Navy guys to Smugglers’ Inn right away, Dragan,’ he declared. ‘Could somebody put out a light, or a flare, to show the chopper where you are?’

There was a distant murmur of conversation from Dragan’s side of the connection, and then Dragan’s voice rang out.

‘We’re on it, Tom, but can you be quick? Tony’s not in good shape.’

Tom handed the handset back to Eve, then picked up their spare.

‘Keep him on the radio,’ he said abruptly. ‘I can page the Navy with this, and then give him an ETA.’

Eve nodded.

‘Is Melinda all right, Dragan?’ she said, turning back to the radio.

‘Would you believe she’s actually watching what’s happening in Penhally on television?’ the Croatian doctor replied. ‘She said she couldn’t believe it when part of The Anchor collapsed.’

‘Someone’s been filming this?’ Eve gasped, and heard the Croatian doctor give a wry chuckle.

‘Eve, people would film a car crash if they thought they could make a quick buck out of it.’

‘Tell him the ETA for the helicopter is five minutes,’ Tom declared.

‘No need to tell me,’ Dragan said. ‘I heard it myself. Thanks, Tom, and now I’d better go,’ he added. ‘There’s quite a crowd gathering here, and some of them are panicking pretty badly.’

‘Tell Melinda to stay where she is when you next talk to her,’ Eve said. ‘And tell her not to do anything stupid, like going out to check her animals.’

‘I’ve already told her that,’ Dragan replied. ‘Got an earful back for my pains, of course, but when I first heard about what was happening in Penhally, all I could think was, Please, God, don’t let her be there. Just the thought of losing her, and the baby…’

‘I know,’ Eve said softly, and heard Tom draw in a ragged breath behind her, but she didn’t turn round, couldn’t. ‘Call us if there’s anything else you need, OK?’

She heard Dragan’s muttered assent but, after she’d switched off the reply button, she stared at the radio equipment for a long moment before she hesitantly turned towards Tom.

‘That’s good news,’ she said. ‘About Chloe, I mean.’

He nodded, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

‘Tom…’ She moistened her lips. ‘Tom…’

‘I’ll tell Mitch to pick Tassie up next.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, wishing he would look at her, wishing she could touch him, but not daring to. ‘Tom—’

‘You’d better tell Oliver about his fiancée.’

His face was cold and forbidding, but she couldn’t leave it like this—simply couldn’t—and hesitantly she took a step towards him.

‘Tom, about our baby,’ she said, her voice choked, and he made a convulsive movement with his arm, clearly warning her not to say anything else, but she couldn’t remain silent. ‘Tom, you cannot possibly regret what I did more than I do.’

‘You
think
?’ he exclaimed, his green eyes dark, pain-filled.

‘Tom…
Please
.’

The raw pain in her face tore at his heart, and part of him wanted to go to her, to hold her and comfort her, but the other part—the part inside him that hurt so much—never wanted to see her ever again.

‘Just go, Eve,’ he said. ‘Just…
go
.’

She did. She walked stiffly out of the office, but, when she’d closed the door quietly behind her, he let his breath out in a long, shuddering gasp of pain.

How could she have done that? he wondered. She’d said she’d had no choice, but other women were single mothers, other women had brought up—were bringing up—children on their own, and for her to have…

A son. He might have had a son he could have taught how to play football, taken to matches, joked with, laughed with, advised so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes he had. Or a daughter. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn’t stop him seeing her in his mind’s eye, a smaller version of Eve with big brown eyes, and a cloud of dark hair.

How could she just have gone ahead and had an abortion? He’d thought he’d known her. He’d thought in the mêlée of death and destruction that his life had become, she was the one constant, the one calm haven, and to discover she’d…

‘Eve…Oh, sorry,’ Hazel declared as she stuck her head round the office door. ‘Where’s Eve?’

‘She…’ Tom stared at the radio equipment, deliberately avoiding the practice manager’s eye. ‘She’s with Oliver.’

‘Oh. Right,’ Hazel said. ‘It’s just Amanda Lovelace—she’s very worried about her daughter, and she seems to be under the impression Eve knows something, or can do something.’

‘Tell Mrs Lovelace we think we know where Tassie is.’

‘You mean she’s safe—she’s been picked up?’ Hazel said.

‘No, she hasn’t been picked up, not yet,’ he replied.

‘But—’

‘Hazel, I’m not God,’ he snapped, then held up his hands
apologetically when the practice manager blinked. ‘Sorry—I…I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ Hazel said, her face softening with understanding. ‘I’ll be as encouraging as I can to Amanda, without being too specific.’

He nodded but, when the practice manager had disappeared, he bit down hard on his lip to quell the sob he could feel welling in his throat.

To think he’d told Eve just a few short hours ago that one of the reasons he’d come back to Penhally had been to see if he could still feel anything. Well, by God, he knew he could. He was caring so much right now he felt as though he would die of it, and, desperately, he glanced around the silent office, searching for some way to release the anger and despair he felt, but there was no way, and he knew there wasn’t. Nothing could ease what he felt inside. Nothing could remove the knowledge that he could have had a son, or a daughter, and that Eve had taken that from him. Taken it without asking him, or even telling him what she’d done.

How could she have told you? a small voice whispered at the back of his mind, but he didn’t listen to it, didn’t want to. All he wanted was the pain to go away, for him never to have known, because the knowledge was tearing him apart.

‘Eve, are you there?’

Tom swore as Nick’s voice rang out on the radio. The senior partner was the last person he wanted to talk to right now, but he couldn’t ignore the voice.

‘It’s me, Nick,’ he said, flicking on the handset.

‘Oh. Right.’

Nick’s clipped tone said it all, and a horrible suspicion suddenly crept into Tom’s mind. Could Eve had gone to Nick, all those years ago, asked him to authorise her request for a termination, and that was why Nick always looked at him as though he was something unmentionable stuck to the bottom
of his shoe? It would have made more sense for her to have gone outside the area, to a doctor she didn’t know, but, then, he didn’t know anything with any certainty any more.

‘St Piran’s?’

Tom stared blankly at the radio equipment. Nick had clearly asked him something, but he hadn’t been listening.

‘Sorry, Nick, interference on the line,’ Tom lied. ‘Can you say that again?’

‘I said,’ Nick declared with clear impatience, ‘that Stephanie’s just given birth to a boy, and she really needs to be in hospital so we’d appreciate the appearance of a helicopter as quickly as possible.’

Despite everything, Tom could not prevent a wry smile from curving his lips at the senior partner’s peremptory tone. When Nick said, ‘Jump’, he clearly expected people to obey irrespective of the circumstances.

‘You’re a priority two, Nick, if that’s any consolation,’ he said, then hit the talk button so he could speak to Mitch.

‘Did you hear that?’ Nick said, turning to Kate as he put down his handset. ‘We’re a priority two.’

‘Good to know we’re somewhere on the list,’ Kate said with a wobbly smile, ‘especially as our torches aren’t going to last much longer.’

Nick nodded, then frowned.

‘I feel so damned useless, stuck in here,’ he protested. ‘All my patients are out there, and I’m trapped in here and about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.’

‘Stephanie Richards didn’t think you were useless,’ Kate pointed out. ‘A breech birth isn’t easy to pull off even with every surgical piece of equipment known to mankind, but you did it with just what was in your bag.’

Nick shook his head. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

‘Not flattery,’ she said. ‘You’re a good doctor, Nick, you
always were, and…’ She came to a halt as the building swayed slightly. ‘I wish it wouldn’t do that.’

‘Stop fretting,’ Nick replied. ‘This building’s made of good Cornish stone. It can withstand worse than this.’

‘Right,’ Kate said without conviction, then flushed when Nick shook his head at her again. ‘Sorry. I’m not doing positive and upbeat very well, am I? Trouble is, I’m a coward when it comes to water.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘Bad memories.’