There was talk of her being discharged and she’d asked that when a date had been decided upon she would be told before anyone else. In her apartment was a half-papered nursery that she was going to have to face, and she didn’t want any onlookers on that occasion.
Then there was her place at the practice, which from all accounts was being admirably filled by Andrew’s friend. Did she want to go back?
What did it matter? she thought exhaustedly. What did anything matter? With the thought, the tears that she’d held back came, torrents of them, turning her pillow and the front of her nightdress into limp dampness.
For the rest of the day Blair put the sad little funeral to the back of his mind. He knew he had to or he would go insane. Never, ever for the rest of his life did he want to have to go through something like that again.
He’d decided that if there were going to be any new beginnings for Imogen and himself, the bedroom at her apartment would have to be stripped of its nursery paper. He couldn’t let his beautiful girl come home to that. And so on his way home from the practice he stopped off and got to work.
It didn’t take long. Once the walls were bare again he stashed away the paint pots, the remaining wallpaper and the rest of the things that Imogen had used so that the room looked as it had before. Then home for a quick bite and back to the hospital.
Imogen’s red-rimmed eyes told him that the tears had been shed and wiped away, and relief swept over him. Bottling up grief did no one any good.
She smiled when she saw him and his heartbeat quickened. It was a grimace compared to her usual beam but it was something to hold onto.
‘And so how does the world look tonight?’ he asked gently.
He realised he’d been presuming too much when she said flatly, ‘Just as grey and empty as before.’
‘Even though, according to the night staff, you’re having the casts taken off tomorrow? You’ll soon be going home, Imogen. As soon as they say you’re going to be discharged, ring me and I’ll come and pick you up.’
‘Yes, all right,’ she agreed without any show of enthusiasm.
‘Why don’t I take you to my place for the first few weeks?’ he suggested.
He wanted her with him more than anything else on earth, and it was one way of finding out how things stood between them.
The gargoyle smile was back. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said, and he had to be content with that.
When he’d gone she lay back against the pillows and thought it would serve her right if he did hitch up with Briony because she was treating him abominably.
Only a few weeks ago she would have jumped at the invitation to stay at his place, but now she had no intention of doing any such thing.
Everything had changed between them. She was free now. No longer the pregnant woman. Life would be so simple if she could go to him and tell him she still loved him, but she couldn’t. It would be as if the cost of happiness was losing her child.
She hadn’t told him but she already knew when she was being discharged and had made arrangements accordingly. Her father and Celia knew what she was going to do and approved of her plans up to a point, but when she’d sworn them to secrecy neither of them had been happy about what she was doing to Blair.
And she was sure that if her father had still been the man he’d been before her accident and before he’d discovered that he needed a heart bypass, he would have had a lot to say about her behaviour. But as it was, he’d briefly expressed his disapproval and had then let the matter drop.
All loose ends were now tied up. Her tiny daughter had been laid to rest. The relationship with her father, though still leaving a lot to be desired, was better than it had ever been, and once Blair found that she’d gone he would give up on her. Further than that she couldn’t think.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN Blair arrived at the hospital the following night he stopped in his tracks in the doorway of the small side ward where Imogen had been ever since the accident.
There was a new patient in the bed, eyeing him curiously from beneath the covers, and alarm gripped him, but only for a second. They would have contacted him if anything had happened to her, he reasoned. Which left an explanation for her disappearance. She’d been discharged.
With an apologetic smile for the woman in the bed he turned quickly and went to seek out the sister.
‘Yes, Dr Rossiter has been discharged,’ she told him in answer to his tight-lipped enquiry. ‘I’m sorry that you weren’t informed, but that was how she wanted it.’
‘I see,’ he said sombrely. ‘And would you know where she’s gone?’
‘I have no specific details,’ she said evenly. ‘All I know is that she has moved into convalescent care. A private ambulance took her there this morning and any further treatment she requires, such as physiotherapy, will be carried out there.’
‘Thank you, Sister,’ he said with flat politeness.
‘We did think it strange that she left in that way,’ she went on, ‘especially after the devotion you’ve shown her, but I suppose she had her reasons.’
‘Yes, no doubt she had,’ he remarked as he turned to go, and told himself silently that the staff probably thought he was some sort of pest, a stalking type that Imogen was glad to get away from.
Blair felt sick inside. Not a word of goodbye, not a hint of what she’d been planning. Yet he couldn’t blame her. Nothing was making sense to her at the present time. She was suffering and was making it clear that she wanted it to be in private.
Did the Rossiters know about this? he wondered. He would soon find out. Pulling up at the side of the road, he rang her father’s house.
Celia answered the phone and she sounded uncomfortable.
‘Yes, we did know what Imogen was planning,’ she said, ‘and, Blair, neither Brian nor I think it is fair, what she’s done to you. We told her so in no uncertain terms and, when she swore us to secrecy regarding her whereabouts, we were reluctant to agree. But the poor girl has been in such a dark mood ever since she lost the baby and we couldn’t distress her further by refusing to do as she asked.’
‘I don’t want you to break your promise,’ he told her. ‘I have to respect Imogen’s wishes. I was in love with her, still am, but I realise now that I’ve gone about it all the wrong way. When I found out that she was pregnant I backed off because it didn’t seem right somehow. I was prepared to wait until the baby was born before telling her how I feel, even though I was aware that she wasn’t prepared to deny her feelings until that time. And now I’ve blown it. Left it too late.
‘She seems to think that my concern is merely because I’m sorry for her and she wants none of it. Lots of women suffer from depression when they’ve had a safe delivery and given birth to a healthy child, so what it must be like for Imogen none of us can possibly imagine. But taking all that into account, I do feel that she might at least have said goodbye.’
The room was delightful. Large, airy and tastefully furnished, it looked out onto luxuriant gardens and beyond them was the sea and the beach where she and Blair had picnicked in the summer darkness an eternity ago.
When she’d been checking through lists of convalescent homes, the details for this one had sprung up at her from the page and her father had said immediately, ‘If that’s where you want to go, I’ll meet the cost. I’ll do anything to get you back to health and strength again.’
As she’d hugged him gratefully, Imogen had thought that it was ironic that losing her baby had brought them together and separated her and Blair.
But her father had been offering her the chance to be alone, the opportunity to sort out her thoughts away from those she loved. Maybe one day the original Imogen Rossiter would appear, sadder, wiser but ready to start living again. If by that time Blair had found himself someone else then she would have to accept it.
When Blair explained to George that Imogen wouldn’t be coming back, the elderly GP said, ‘It suits me to stay on if you want me to, but I wo
n’t mind if you want to bring in a younger person.’
‘I’m going to leave it for the time being,’ Blair told him. ‘I will have to take on a new partner in the near future, but for the moment I’m glad to have you here.’
He’d told the staff at the practice that he and Imogen had split up and that she’d left the district. There’d been no questions asked, but he knew they must have heard what had happened from Lauren who would have heard it from Simon.
He didn’t care whether they knew or not, he’d thought grimly. He was going to have to get on with his life the best he could and file away the time spent with Imogen as a beautiful blip.
But it wasn’t that easy. Every time he saw George in Imogen’s consulting room he ached for him to be her. When he drove past her empty apartment he wanted to get out of the car, ring the doorbell and imagine that she was going to open the door.
When he was called to the police station the memories were there, too, and he sometimes wished that he could pull up sticks like she had.
As October stepped back to let in a mild November, the sun and sea air were fulfilling their promise. Imogen was beginning to feel well again, awakening each morning with a little more purpose in her than the day before.
She was booked into the convalescent home for a month and when that time was up she was going to have to decide where next. Her father and Celia had a villa in Spain and they’d suggested that she go there, but she wasn’t sure.
It suited her to be in this place where she’d been with Blair. Her mind often went back to when she’d pleaded with him not to look when she’d stood before him in pregnant nakedness and instead he’d made her feel beautiful.
She wouldn’t want him to look now either, she thought one day as she strolled along the deserted beach with the scars of the most disastrous day of her life still vivid across her midriff.
Yet her smile was tender. He’d loved her for what she was. Had made her feel precious and wanted. Why couldn’t she have told him how much she was hurting instead of shutting him out?
Imogen had been at the convalescent home three weeks and physically she was feeling so much better she couldn’t believe it, but her state of mind was another matter.
Where before she hadn’t wanted to see Blair, now she was missing him. She was ready to take up the threads of normal life again, but was he going to feel the same? She doubted it.
Celia had told her how hurt he’d been when she’d disappeared without even a goodbye, and she didn’t blame him. He’d been incredibly patient and caring after she’d lost the baby, and what had she done? Pushed him out of her life.
She could imagine what he would say if she turned up now and told him she was ready to take up where they’d left off, that she still loved him desperately. Yet the first move, if any, was up to her. Blair had done what he could to keep them together, and she’d been too desolate to respond.
The fact that she wasn’t making any plans to continue hiding away from him was proof enough of what was in her heart, but had she got enough of her zest back to go to him?
A solution presented itself with a visit from her father and Celia. Brian had two things to tell his daughter. The first was that he was to have the heart bypass the following week. The second was that the trial of the man who’d killed the teenagers in the park was also due to take place at the same time.
‘The prosecution will be calling Blair and you as witnesses,’ he told her. ‘In your case because the fellow confessed to you that he’d killed the couple in the park, and also because he attacked you soon afterwards, which will bring an extra charge of attempted murder.
‘Blair will need to be there because he was called out by the police when the first body was found, and he’ll have to testify that he found the fellow trying to strangle you. If you’re not up to it, I’ll try to get them to postpone the trial,’ he told her, but she shook her head.
‘No, I’m fine. I really do feel so much better…and I want to see that man punished for what he did to those poor young people.’
‘And you’re ready to talk to Blair?’ Celia probed gently.
‘Yes, if he’ll talk to me.’
‘You must come and stay with us while the trial is on,’ her father suggested, but Imogen shook her head.
‘No. I’ll go back to the apartment. I need to get used to living there again.’
She hadn’t been back there since she’d lost the baby as Celia had packed a case for her when she’d decided to go to the convalescent home, and sooner or later she was going to have to face the empty, half-papered nursery.
When Blair heard that he would be required as a witness at the trial, the first thing he thought of was that so would Imogen. She would have to leave her hiding place, he thought sombrely. It would be the first time they’d seen each other in weeks, but she need have no fear.
He wasn’t going to put any pressure on her in any shape or form. If she indicated that she wanted it to be a case of hello and goodbye, he would go along with it.
In any other circumstances he would have acted very differently, ready to fight for happiness for them both. But what Imogen had gone through made him feel that his hands were tied. It wasn’t just a lovers’ quarrel that was keeping them apart.
That was the sad thing. It wasn’t a quarrel at all. It was a drifting-apart situation, like walking through fog. For the first time in his life he couldn’t see the way ahead clearly. All he knew was that every day without her was an empty void.
The law courts were set back amongst neat gardens on one of the main streets of the city, and Imogen had gone straight there from her coastal hideaway.
She’d travelled by train as her car was still garaged at the apartment, and intended staying the night there before driving back to the coast the next day to say goodbye to the staff at the home and collect her things.
As it had sped along the tracks she’d been bracing herself for what was to come, and it hadn’t been the trauma of the trial that had been uppermost in her mind.
It had been horrendous at the time, the finding of the two bodies and her own subsequent ordeal at the hands of the crazed killer, but since then she’d been through a worse ordeal, which had left her scarred physically and mentally.
Today when she saw Blair she would know just how much her wounds had healed, and every time she thought about this meeting that the fates and the justice system were about to bring about her mouth went dry.
She was early and as an watery sun slanted onto the gardens she sat down on a nearby seat for a moment of respite before joining those bustling in and out of the building.
When she looked up, Blair was walking towards her, dark-suited, immaculate, as he’d been on the day of her baby’s funeral. In sudden panic she thought today would be another funeral. The funeral of her hopes. She wanted him. Needed him. Couldn’t believe how she’d ever thought she could exist without him.
He looked older, had lost the calm relaxed look that had been so much a part of him before, but he was still the most wantable man she’d ever met.
She got to her feet and when he drew level he said evenly, ‘Imogen. Hello. You’re honouring us with a flying visit, I see.’
Lost for words, she nodded mutely.
‘You’re looking well,’ he commented in the same level tone. ‘Have all the medical problems sorted themselves out?’
She noticed he had no comment to make about her state of mind past and present and, having no wish to get involved in a heart-to-heart in such surroundings, she said distantly, ‘Yes, thank you.’
‘So you’re up to giving evidence.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she affirmed in the same tone.
‘Right. So shall we go in, then?’ he suggested, and stepped back to allow her to precede him.
She was wearing the navy blazer and bright red skirt that she’d worn on the night they’d met, and he thought that the constraint between them on that occasion had been as nothing compared to what was happening now.
Imogen did look well. Her face had regained its smooth perfection, her dark mop its lustre. Her lithe slenderness was back, but where was her spirit? Gone forever?
The time spent in the courtroom was harrowing and brought back dreadful memories, but Blair had been involved in similar cases before in his role as police surgeon and so had Imogen, though obviously her involvement had been to a much lesser degree.
There was little doubt what the verdicts would be in view of the man’s confession to her and his attack upon her, and when Imogen went into the witness box she was a different person to the polite stranger that Blair had met in the gardens outside.
Her confidence was back. Her ability to make a point and stick to it was evident. It was only where he was concerned that she didn’t seem to know her own mind, he thought soberly.
At the end of the day they were told that they wouldn’t be needed again, and still with the huge barrier of constraint between them they prepared to go their separate ways.
‘Where are you off to next?’ he asked casually as they hesitated outside the law courts.
‘Spain,’ she said on the spur of the moment. ‘My dad has a villa there.’
‘Sounds good,’ he said, still in the tone of someone asking out of politeness, then adding with a glance at the clock on the tower above the law courts, ‘I might just be in time to call in at the practice to see how the day has gone.’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You remember that place, do you?’
Imogen swallowed hard.
‘Yes. I remember. I’ve been remembering a lot of things lately that I thought I wanted to forget and realising…’
Her voice had trailed away and he said gravely, ‘Yes. I’m sure you have. It’s all part of the recovery process.’
He was willing Imogen to take that first step, because it had to come from her otherwise he would never know if she really did want him back in her life.
But when she made no move, just stood in front of him silently, he turned to go.
The Pregnant Police Surgeon Page 15