to finally face that she was gone. That's when the de
pression came and the gambling started. Now I under
stand he's got himself in one hell of a mess '
'Yes,’ she whispered, tears stinging her eyes.
'He just can't cope with it, Jess,' Dr Guthrie sighed.
‘He took some sleeping tablets this afternoon '
Jessica gasped at him in horror. 'He did what?'
‘Not enough to kill him but then, he didn't have enough. His housekeeper found him lying in the hall and thought he'd had a heart attack...'
Jessica collapsed down on the sofa behind her, sick to her stomach, and bowed her head.
'She rang me. I saw the tablets and contacted his own doctor, worked out how many he must have taken and between us -.. well, we decided the nursing home would be a better choice than the local hospital.'
Tracks of moisture ran unchecked down her cheeks. She wanted to thank the older man for exercising that discretion but she couldn't find her voice.
'Now when he came to, he swore he hadn't been trying to harm himself. He said he was just desperate to stop his mind going round and round and get some sleep and when the first pills didn't do the trick, he took a few more...'
‘Do you b-believe him?'
'I'lll know better what to think in a few days when
we've talked some more,' he confessed wryly.
'Well...now I'm here to ask you how to get in touch
with this character, Saracini '
'Carlo?' she gasped.
'Do you think he'd see me? I want to tell him that Gerald seeds criminal charges right now like he needs a hole in the head!' he delivered grimly.
Jessica was barely thinking straight. But one awareness dominated the morass of emotions tearing her apart. Tonight she might have lost her father. And even if it hadn't been a suicide attempt, in his current condition, who was to say he mightn't make such an attempt this week or next week or the week after? If he wasn't coping now, how could she expect him to cope when the police were involved and the news of his disgrace leaked out? How could he handle all the horrors still to come?
She cleared her throat. 'There aren't going to be any
criminal charges. I... I saw Carlo tonight and he was
very understanding '
'He wasn't very understanding when he had Gerald
tossed out of the building!'
&n
bsp; ‘I explained how much strain Dad had been under. There won't be any court case,' she repeated unsteadily, her slender hands twisting together as she made her
decision. 'But what about the money? I gather that Gerald has
no hope of paying all of it back.. ,’
'Carlo is prepared to write it off '