Katie frowned. ‘But I’m his daughter. I want to be with him. I want to know what’s going on.’
The housekeeper’s face seemed to crumple, and she made a helpless, fluttering gesture with her hands, as though this was all getting too much for her, and Katie said quickly, ‘It will be all right, Libby, I promise. We made up our differences a while ago, my father and I… he’ll want me to be there with him. I know he will.’
Libby was still fraught with indecision. ‘I should have rung you earlier, I know I should, but I had to ring for an ambulance and try to contact the others and that took up so much time. It’s been such an awful day, one way and another. And the ambulance still hasn’t arrived.’
Katie frowned. What others? What was Libby talking about? But perhaps she had tried to phone Jack’s friends, the people who knew him best… along with the doctor, of course. Katie might be his daughter, but she had only been in town for a couple of months at most.
Nick took hold of her arm, as though to add a helping hand, and she turned to him in gratitude. ‘Thanks for bringing me here. It looks as though things are much more serious than I thought. Otherwise why would Dr Weissman have wanted an ambulance?’
‘It does sound as though he’s concerned,’ Nick admitted, ‘but let’s wait and hear what he has to say.’
‘I must go to my father,’ she said again. She knew the way to Jack’s room from the first time she had been there, when her father had shown her around, and despite Libby’s distressed expression she made an instant decision and began to head in that direction.
Nick went with her, but as they came to the first floor and walked along the corridor, the door of her father’s room opened and Steve walked out.
He stopped as soon as he saw them and pulled in a deep, calming breath. ‘Katie,’ he greeted her. ‘I don’t think you should go in there just yet. Let me talk to you for a while. Shall we find somewhere to sitdown?’ He glanced at Nick, and an odd look passed between them. Katie didn’t understand it. Hadn’t that same mysterious kind of glance occurred when she and her father had had dinner together and she’d met Nick for the first time?
She allowed Nick to lead her away, following Steve along the corridor and back down the stairs to the sitting room.
‘Please, sit down, Katie.’ Steve indicated a comfortable sofa and then turned to Nick. ‘You, too, Nick,’ he said.
Katie did as he suggested, feeling for the settee with the back of her legs and not once taking her gaze off Steve. Nick sat down beside her, and the nurse took the armchair opposite.
She was more bewildered than ever. Something was going on here and she had no idea what it could be. Right now, though, she wanted more than anything to know what was happening with her father.
‘Katie,’ Steve began quietly, ‘I’m really sorry to be the one to tell you this… but I’m afraid your father passed away a few minutes ago. In the end his heart simply gave out.’
‘No…’ Katie’s mind refused to take it in. ‘That can’t be… I only spoke to him on the phone this morning. How can this be happening?’ For all her training as a doctor, coming face to face with the death of a loved one was turning out to be every bit as difficult for her as it was for her patients. She had no idea it could be so hard to accept.
Nick put his arm around her and held her tight. ‘I’m so sorry, Katie. It’s a shock—in fact, it’s a shock for both of us.’
Steve pressed his lips together in a fleeting moment of sadness. ‘Dr Weissman did everything he could to try to resuscitate him, but in the end it was impossible. There was nothing more he could do.’
Katie was bewildered. ‘I just can’t take it in. I came here thinking he was just having one of those bad days. He always seemed so stoical, so determined to get the best out of life.’
‘And I’m sure he did, Katie.’ Nick leant his cheek against hers. ‘He was over the moon because you had come out here to see him. These last few weeks he was always talking about you, saying how well you’d done for yourself.’
‘Was he?’ Tears began to trickle slowly down her face. ‘It seems such a waste. All these years I’ve waited, wanting to get to know him but always holding back because I was afraid of what I might find. It took me such a long time to forgive him for walking out on my mother and me. It was such a strange sort of life… as if it was somehow off key. And now he’s gone.’
He held her close, letting her weep for what might have been, and all the time he stroked her hair, comforting her just by being there for her when she needed him most.
Libby brought in a tray of tea and quietly set it down on the coffee table. ‘The doctor’s gone into the kitchen to fill in his forms. He’s very sad. They were good friends—your father always spoke highly of him.’
Katie glanced up at Libby. The woman was ashen-faced, struggling to keep her emotions in check.
‘Perhaps you should sit down and give yourself some time,’ Katie suggested softly, still shaken but subdued. ‘You must be as upset as the rest of us. More so, perhaps… my father told me you’d been with him for years.’
Libby put a tissue to her face. ‘I have, yes, that’s true.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I ought to go and.’ She turned distractedly, as though to go out of the door, and then changed her mind and came to sit down on one of the straight-backed chairs by a polished mahogany desk. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said in a broken voice.
‘Don’t do anything. Just sit for a while and I’ll get you some tea.’ Katie moved as though to go and pour a cup, but Nick gently pressured her back into the sofa.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You stay there.’
Steve looked towards the sitting-room door while Nick poured tea and handed it around. ‘I should go and have a word with the doctor,’ he murmured. ‘He’ll need someone to see him out… and I’d better call the paramedics and tell them what’s happened.’
He walked over to the door and opened it, walking out into the hallway. The sound of voices coming from there alerted Katie and made her sit up and take notice. Had the paramedics arrived already?
‘We just want to talk to Libby for a minute or two,’ a male voice said. ‘There will be things to arrange.’
Steve said quietly, ‘Perhaps it can wait for a while. Libby’s in shock, as we all are. Do you want to go and talk to the doctor instead, in the kitchen?’
‘Not just yet.’ The sound of the man’s voice drew nearer, and Katie looked across the room as the door opened. A young man walked in, followed by a slender girl who looked to be slightly older than him, about twenty-three or twenty-four years old. She was pretty, with auburn hair that fell in bright curls about her shoulders, but right now her features were taut, as though she was doing her best to hold herself together.
Katie stood up, dragging her thoughts away from all that had happened and making an effort to behave in the way that Jack would have expected. He would want her to politely greet his guests and make them welcome, even now.
‘Hello,’ she said, going over to them. ‘I don’t think we’ve met before, have we? I’m Katie. For a moment there I thought you were the paramedics.’
The young man shook his head. ‘I think the doctor rang and told them there was no urgency.’
‘Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do.’ Katie studied him briefly. He had black hair and hazel eyes, and she had the impression he was struggling to keep his emotions under control, his face showing signs of stress, with dark shadows under his eyes and a gaunt, hollowed-out appearance to his cheeks.
‘I’m Tom Logan,’ he said, ‘and this is my sister, Natasha.’