Chapter Eleven

I t wouldn’t have worked. Apart from anything else, Cordelia worked better alone. She wanted to be alone. Ever since Hunter had left she’d positively thrived being alone. Which didn’t exactly stop her feeling guilty when Lydia walked into the surgery the next morning and placed a paper bag on her desk.

“We were out of milk. And bread. So I figured you hadn’t had any breakfast either,” Lydia said. “It’s a bagel from the cafe.” She turned to go to her office, pulling that stupid damn suitcase behind her. “Oh, I ran to the shop and there’s milk, bread and coffee in the kitchen. Just as a thank you for letting me stay last night.”

Then she was gone and Cordelia was gritting her teeth and trying to pretend that she really didn’t want the stupid bagel, when in actuality her stomach was threatening some kind of rebellion if she didn’t eat it.

“The doc stayed with you last night?” Jules, the barmaid at the village pub, had been leafing through a magazine. Now she was looking at Cordelia and waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Well, she was supposed to be staying with Sylv,” said Cordelia.

“Right. Word is that Sylv’s doing well. Mila was in the pub last night, they were all sorting out a rota to keep the shop open. According to her, Sylv should be fit as a fiddle in no time and back on her feet in a couple of weeks. ”

Cordelia felt a release of pressure around her heart. “Good,” she said briskly. Lydia was a good doctor, there was no doubting that. And it was likely that without her intervention, Sylv’s outlook would have been much worse.

“Still, it’s good that the doc’s staying with you,” Jules went on. “Think how long we’d have to wait for someone to come over in an emergency. Doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Right,” said Cordelia. “Actually—”

But before she could finish, Lydia was calling Jules’s name and she was disappearing into the surgery.

Cordelia sighed and clicked on her computer. Having Lydia stay and complain all the time that she should be doing things was not going to happen.

“I heard that the doc’s staying with you,” Mila said when she rushed into the surgery later that morning. “Thanks for that, Cord, it’s a nice thing to do. Is she in? I told Sylv I’d thank her.” She disappeared before Cordelia could say anything.

Next, it was Billie, Jules’s wife, with their young son in tow. “Ben’s ear infection is back,” she said, leaning on the little counter. “And well done getting the doctor to stay in the village. We’re all really grateful. Having her around is a weight off my mind.” Ben squirmed in her arms.

“Yeah,” Cordelia said. “About that…”

But Billie was already hiking Ben up and putting him in the play corner and then she was picking up a magazine and then it just all seemed too late to say anything.

Cordelia frowned at her computer, trying to focus on something that wasn’t the increasing guilt she felt about being continually thanked for letting Lydia stay in her spare room. Like she was Mother Theresa or something. Some kind of saint for giving up a few meters of space.

Lydia did criticize. But Cordelia tried to be fair. If she’d stop using the word ‘should’ she might actually be a nice person. She was a good doctor, kind, caring.

The village needed their doctor.

She gritted her teeth .

For God’s sake.

She wasn’t really contemplating changing her mind, was she?

Perhaps, she thought, there was a compromise here. Okay, so Lydia needed to stay in the village. But what if she stayed with someone else? Like… She racked her brains. Like…

She sat back in her chair.

Like…

Nope, it was no good, no one came to mind. No one with a spare bedroom at any rate.

Maybe they could do a rota, like Mila had done with the shop. Maybe they could just pass her around from house to house, say, for one night a week. She could handle Lydia for one night a week.

She’d been quiet. She was relatively unobtrusive.

She had a nice smile.

Wait.

Where had that come from?

Still, objectively, she did have a nice smile. It was warm and inviting, and her lips crinkled a little around the corners. Actually, now that she thought about it, the doctor was an attractive woman. There was an energy about her, the way she moved, the way she talked with her hands sometimes.

“Christ,” Cordelia mumbled under her breath. “It’s been too long since you’ve been laid.”

Which was probably true since she hadn’t, in fact, touched a soul since Hunter had left. Since before that, actually. And dating prospects in Whitebridge weren’t immense. Not that she had any intention of dating or being anything other than alone.

Bringing her all the way back to the fact that Lydia couldn’t and shouldn’t and wouldn’t be living with her. No matter what the entire village seemed to think about it. There would be another solution.

Probably.

IT WAS HALF past three before she realized .

The surgery had been busy enough for a Thursday, with people in and out. And then at about half past two she’d needed to pop out on her break to get some coffee creamer for the practice kitchen and a package of biscuits too, because why not?

Being in the shop made her think of Sylv, of the calmness on her face once Lydia had started to talk to her, the relief that had been there. And then it made her think of the milk and bread and coffee that were waiting at home, staples that she’d forgotten to pick up for at least three days running.

Maybe a shopping list or some kind of reminder system wasn’t the worst idea.

He must have been there when she came back from the shop, but she didn’t particularly make note of it. There were patients coming and going and there was generally at least a couple of kids in the play corner at this time of day.

The primary school had let out and so either the kids themselves were patients, or mums and dads had no choice but to bring their wee ones along to their own appointments.

It wasn’t until half past three that she realized that Toby Greene had been quietly amusing himself in the play corner for perhaps slightly too long. And that was only because he gave a gurgle of frustration when he dropped a toy.

She just about had time to wonder if Nat was in with Lydia, and if so, how long she planned on staying in there, when the phone rang with someone wanting to make an appointment. The call lasted longer than normal and her computer was acting up, all of which put Toby Greene firmly out of mind.

So firmly, in fact, that she could very well have locked him in the surgery all night, and it was only because he was giving off the smallest of wheezy snores that she remembered him at all.

She was picking up the magazines and making sure the chairs were straight and it took her a second to hear the sound, and another second to figure out what it was and then to track down the source.

Which was when she found Toby Greene lying on his stomach on the play carpet, thumb in his mouth, calmly napping and snoring like a contented cat.

With a note pinned to the back of his jumper.

Cordelia looked around.

There was no one there. Not a soul. And the last three patients had gone in and come out again in a normal fashion. So Nat Greene wasn’t in with Lydia.

She growled to herself.

This wasn’t a day care. She should have been far clearer about that to Nat. Far clearer about that to Lydia as well, since the doctor seemed to be the one encouraging Nat.

She picked the note off Toby’s back, read it and then read it again in absolute disbelief. Just to be sure, she read it one more time, and then swung around, seeing the promised bag sitting by the front door, stuffed full to overflowing with things she assumed the child would need.

Turning her back on the sleeping child, she marched to Lydia’s office and flung the door open.

“Yes?” asked Lydia, intent on her paperwork.

“You have a problem.”

Lydia looked up, eyes tired enough that for a brief second Cordelia felt that surge of guilt again. “I do?”

“Come out here.”

Without a word, Lydia pushed her chair back and followed Cordelia into the waiting room. Cordelia pointed at the sleeping child.

“I… I don’t understand,” Lydia said.

“Do you not?” asked Cordelia, passing the note along to her. “Because it seems that your ‘patiently listen and encourage your patient’ technique has backfired on you.”

“But… but how? Why? What’s going on?” Lydia asked, note still in her hand.

“What’s going on is that we’ve been left holding the baby. Literally holding the baby,” Cordelia said, looking down at Toby. “He’s been left, and I quote, ‘in the care of the practice.’”

“Oh,” said Lydia. “Oh no. Oh dear. Oh… Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Cordelia said, quite firmly. “So what do you suggest that we do about this?”

Lydia blew out a breath, looked at the child, then at Lydia, then back at Toby again. But before she could say anything, before Cordelia could force her into coming up with a solution, Toby stirred, blinked, then began to cry.

“Oh no,” Lydia said again, stooping to pick the child up, bouncing him gently and cooing to him. “Don’t cry.”

She was a natural, was the first thought that came to Cordelia’s mind. She looked so… normal. Lydia cradled Toby against her chest and he quietened. Cordelia sighed. “I’ll call the police,” she said.