poisoning came in a mere forty minutes before he and Jane were due to leave for the airport.
‘We’re really cutting it fine,’ Jane murmured, seeing his eye drift to the treatment-room clock while they waited for the results of the blood count and chemistry tests. ‘Thank goodness we brought a change of clothes into the hospital just in case.’
He nodded, but he’d hoped to have time to shower, to wash the smell of the hospital off him before he met his daughter, but now it looked as though he’d be phoning the airport to tell them to look after her until they could get there. It was a great start. A really great start.
‘Look, why don’t the pair of you just go?’ Charlie Gordon said. ‘It’s not like we need either of you here. Flo and I can look after your patient.’
Elliot shook his head. ‘It’s asking too much—’
‘Elliot, I’d bet money that your blood pressure is higher right now than your patient’s,’ the SHO said with a grin.
‘Probably, but—’
‘Charlie’s right, boss,’ Floella chipped in. ‘We don’t need you here, and it would be awful if your little girl arrived with nobody to meet her.’
She was right, it would. But still he looked across at Jane uncertainly. ‘What do you think?’
‘Who am I to disagree with the others?’ She smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’
They made the airport with five minutes to spare.
‘Relax, Elliot,’ Jane said, seeing him scanning the Arrivals board anxiously for information about the 21.00 plane from Paris. ‘The plane might land at nine o’clock, but she’ll have to collect her luggage first, remember, so try to relax.’
Relax? How could he possibly relax when all his instincts were urging him to run, to leave town, to give no forwarding address? He glanced at his watch, then straightened his tie. ‘Do I look all right? I mean, this suit…?’
‘You look fine.’ Actually, she wished he’d brought a pair of casual trousers and a sweatshirt to change into at the hospital instead of a suit and tie, but now was hardly the time to tell him so.
‘Should I get her some flowers, do you think?’ he continued, seeing a man emerging from the florist opposite with an enormous bouquet. ‘Girls always like flowers, don’t they?’
‘Daffodils would be nice…’
‘Not roses, then?’ he queried. ‘You think roses would be too much?’
For sure they would be too much. Roses were for an adult, not a little girl, and she would have told him that if she hadn’t suddenly caught a glimpse of his face.
He looked tense. Tense, and taut, and grim.
Surely he couldn’t possibly be nervous at the prospect of meeting his daughter? Of course he wasn’t. The very idea was ridiculous. He was resentful, yes. Probably even a little bit angry at his ex-wife for doing this to him, but super-confident Elliot nervous about meeting a child? No way. Never. And yet…
Gently she put her hand on his arm. ‘Elliot, all she needs is to feel loved and wanted.’
‘Loved and wanted.’ He nodded, for all the world as though he were ticking off a mental check list of dos and don’ts.
‘Just be her father,’ she continued, ‘and she’ll adore you.’
Be her father? He couldn’t do it—he knew he couldn’t—but a voice over the loudspeaker had announced the arrival of Flight 303 from Paris, and Jane was pushing her way through the crowded concourse, leaving him with no choice but to follow her.
‘Do you have a photograph so we’ll know what she looks like?’ she asked, breaking into his thoughts.
It had never occurred to him to ask if the solicitor had one! Relax, he told himself, feeling a trickle of sweat run down his back. How many six-year-old kids can be travelling on the plane from Paris? Even if there are dozens she’ll have somebody from Donna’s French solicitors with her.
She didn’t. She was on her own. OK, so one of the air stewardesses was holding her hand, but she was still on her own, and somebody had pinned a label onto her coat for all the world as though she were a parcel to be collected, not a child, not a person.
A surge of quite unexpected anger flooded through him. Anger that was just as quickly replaced by an altogether different emotion as the stewardess led his daughter towards him.
She looked exactly like Donna. The same long auburn hair, the same large dark eyes, the same elfin features. The face that stared uncertainly up at him was the one which had loved and then taunted and mocked him during his marriage, and despite all his best efforts to prevent it he felt himself beginning to withdraw. Knew it was wrong, that she was only a child, but he couldn’t stop himself.
And Nicole sensed his withdrawal. He could see it in the clouding of her eyes, and though he managed to swiftly dredge up his brightest smile he knew the damage had been done.
‘Elliot….’
Jane’s hand was at his back, urging him forward, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.
‘Hello, Nicole. I’m…I’m your father.’ She gazed up at him without expression and a fresh wave of panic assailed him. What if she didn’t speak any English? Donna had been French. She might never have seen any need for her daughter—his daughter, he reminded himself—to learn English.
‘Nicole…I’m…Moi…Je…Je…’ He bit his lip. Oh, God, but he’d never been any good at languages. ‘Nicole…Moi…votre père?’
‘I know.’
The reply had been barely a whisper.
‘And this…’ He caught Jane’s hand in desperation. ‘This is my friend, Jane Halden. We…we’re…’
‘Flatmates,’ Jane said quickly, coming to his rescue. ‘Your father and I are flatmates.’
What now? Elliot wondered as the air stewardess disappeared, the loudspeaker announced the arrival of the 21.15 from Berlin and his daughter stared at the floor. What did he do and say now?
Jane had no such doubts. She simply got down on her knees, gave the little girl a hug and began talking about the flight from Paris.
Which is what he should have done, he realised bleakly as he retrieved Nicole’s luggage. But it was too late to think about that now. Too late for a lot of things.
All he could do was drive them back to his flat and listen to Jane and Nicole chattering away quite happily while he sat in silence, feeling as much use as a lamb chop in a vegetarian restaurant.
Dinner was no better. Nicole ate little, and said less. Jane—bless her—kept up a steady stream of conversation while Nicole valiantly attacked her fish fingers, but it was a relief when his daughter finally pushed her plate away and asked if she could go to bed.
Jane didn’t linger long afterwards. There was plenty she wanted to say. Things like
