‘Hi, Kate, come in,’ said the doctor, stretching out his hand and gesturing towards the chair. ‘Frances said you sounded a little upset on the phone. How are you feeling?’

‘Apart from having my head in the toilet bowl all day you mean?’

‘Have you tried ginger? Lemon? And there are also some –‘

‘It’s actually something else that’s bothering me.’

‘Well, you know you can talk to me about anything.’

The assertion tripped off his tongue too easily, she thought. From the beginning she had interpreted his smooth manner as natural confidence. Now she wasn’t so sure.

‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said, playing for time.

Dr Cruger waited for her to elaborate. Kate studied his guileless blue eyes, his thinning blond hair, the whiteness of his eyelashes and his unlined face. There was something not quite right about him. Something that kept needling her somewhere at the back of her mind, something she couldn’t quite articulate. Was it the fact that, for a man in his mid-forties, he looked too young, too boyish? Yes, but not only that. What worried her more was the feeling she got that he was trying too hard to be trustworthy, almost as if he was playing a part. Why hadn’t she picked up on this before?

‘How much do you trust your staff, Dr Cruger?’

‘Implicitly. Why do you ask?’

Although it had been in the news, she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him the whole truth.

‘I’ve been sent a card congratulating me on my pregnancy.’

‘And?’

‘It arrived before even I knew I was carrying a child.’

The blood seemed to drain from his face.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I. That’s why I hoped you might be able to help me out.’

‘It didn’t cause you any distress, I hope. The card? At least it was a message of congratulations.’

‘Yes, but that’s beside the point,’ she said, trying to remain calm. She had to stick to her story.

‘If the card arrived before you suspected then presumably that was before you came in here for confirmation?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘So what makes you think it’s anything to do with the clinic? Have you been unhappy with the service you received here?’

‘No, not at all,’ she said, smiling, trying to diffuse the tension in the air. ‘As you can imagine it was quite a shock. A nice shock, but a shock all the same.’ She felt slightly nauseous as she remembered what had really been sent to her. ‘But I just wanted to reassure myself that you hadn’t had a problem here. With staff or a security breach. I’ve got a few contacts in the media and I would hate to have to –‘

The veiled threat of exposure was enough to force him to talk.

‘I’m going to be honest, Kate. I wasn’t going to say anything before, but –‘

‘But what?’

‘A few weeks ago we had a break in. Some drugs were stolen from the lab here, bottles of anaesthetic, pain relief, and also a laptop from the reception area. We weren’t too worried as the computer is password protected, and we change the access code every week, usually a randomly-generated string of numbers and letters.’

‘And you didn’t think about reporting it to the police?’

‘As you know we pride ourselves on our discretion. We simply couldn’t afford to let something like this leak out. We need our clientele to feel they can trust us.’

‘And now -?’

‘Now?’

‘When you know that there is a likelihood that the information on your database could have been accessed?’

‘No, no, that’s an improbability. There’s no way the code could have been broken. No way that –‘

‘Dr Cruger, you know as well as I do that there are people capable of hacking into anything.’

‘Yes, but even so, if what you are telling me is true then there would have been nothing on our database to indicate that you were pregnant. As you said, even you didn’t yet know about your condition.’

The two stared at each other in silence.

‘So what are you going to do? Are you going to go to the police?’

‘Kate, I know it’s been a difficult time for you recently,’ said Cruger, looking at her with concern. ‘The last time you came here you told me about your decision to split from your partner. Trust me, I know the pressure the fertility program puts on couples, and I’ve seen it happen time and again. And then, in your case, the added difficulty of breaking up from your partner and the prospect of bringing up the child alone. And then from what I’ve read in the Times about your recent – discovery - I think all of us here would understand if –‘

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Nothing. Just that I don’t think necessarily you should be blaming us. I know you may feel angry about what has happened, but there could be an innocent explanation.’

‘Such as?’

‘That the card could have been sent by a friend, by someone close to you. Have you talked to your partner about this?’

‘So you think Josh could have sent it?‘

‘I’m not saying anything for certain, but it is a possibility.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘What if he sent the card out of spite? Because he was convinced you weren’t pregnant? Maybe he thought that, now that your relationship is over, there’s little chance you would ever get pregnant.’

‘It’s not possible.’

‘To be fair, I think it’s a more realistic proposition than the likelihood of someone breaking in here to steal a computer, which was protected by a security password, which actually didn’t hold the information about your pregnancy. Do you see, what you are suggesting just isn’t logical.’

She had to admit to herself that he had a point.

‘And I really would rather not take this to the police,’ continued Dr Cruger. ‘In fact, from the evidence you’ve presented to me this morning, well, I don’t think it would be enough for them to take seriously.’

‘I see,’ said Kate. ‘And none of your other patients have reported any – any – discrepancies? And breaches? Strange letters, parcels?’

‘No, nothing of the sort. Which makes me certain that the two incidents – the break in and your “card” - aren’t connected. I really do think you should talk to your partner about this.’