The Surgeon's Case

by E. G. Rodford

  I fired off a long text saying all was fine and that a case had dragged on and I’d slept at the office ’cause I hadn’t wanted to wake her.

  I cobbled together some cheese, olives and salad that Aurora didn’t look too impressed with but as we ate our brunch she told me a little more about herself. She was the eldest of four girls and, although she was pleased to be going home, she was worried that they couldn’t cope without the regular money she sent. I didn’t remind her of the fact that, as things stood, it was possible she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  “At least you have the money Mr Bill gave you,” I said.

  “Yes. Will pay for cancer, not for food.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “Will find work.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Domestic, of course. In Gulf.”

  She said this so matter-of-factly that I was taken aback. I’d assumed, naively, that this would be the end of her travails but I was wrong. Like hundreds of thousands of others she travelled abroad to support her family and that requirement hadn’t changed. She looked unhappily around the kitchen then at me, her face set in a question that she couldn’t quite verbalise.

  “What is it, Aurora?”

  “Mr George is married?” Mr George shook his head.

  “Aurora clean the house,” she declared. I remembered Sandra’s battle over this matter. Judging by the almost clinical, pristine state of the Galbraiths’ place, mine must have looked like a pigsty to Aurora. I did actually clean the place but it wasn’t to her standards, that’s for sure.

  “Just the kitchen,” I insisted, thinking it would at least give her something to do until I heard back from Sandra and we could figure out what options she had. Besides, if I had to listen to any more TV soap operas it might send me over the edge.

  I found her some cleaning products and while she got started I checked in on the chess puzzle laid out on the dining-room table but my brain wasn’t up to it. Anyway, it seemed a little odd to be sitting around playing chess by myself while Aurora was cleaning. Instead I got to work darning my ripped jackets. Sewing was something that Kamal had insisted on teaching me after Olivia had left, claiming that men needed to become more self-sufficient in the domestic arena, calling our dependence on women a form of learned helplessness. If only he could see me now, having my kitchen cleaned by a Filipino domestic who’d escaped her abusive employers.

  Aurora laughed at my efforts when I showed her the results of fixing the pocket on my jacket. I couldn’t see why; it looked pretty good to me. The doorbell rang and she froze, the fear never far from the surface. I told her to wait in the kitchen and went to the front door. Linda stood there, her eyes widening when she saw my face.

  “What the fuck, Georgie? What happened to you?” She pushed past me into the house. “I’m on my way to court to cover a trial. Thought I’d stop by and see how you were doing.” She touched the swelling on my face. “Not very well, I see. What the hell happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “Well, I haven’t got that long. Do you want me to kiss it better?” There was a noise from the kitchen. “Someone here?” she asked.

  “Yes… a cleaner,” I said. I’m not sure why I lied, except it was just easier than explaining everything. Anyway, it wasn’t really a lie.

  “About time you got someone in,” she said, pulling me close. “Even if it puts the kibosh on some lunchtime nooky.”

  “I’m not in the best state for it anyway,” I said. “Everything hurts.”

  “Poor baby,” she said, mockingly. I walked her to the front door. “I’ve brought you the early edition of the Argus,” she said, pulling it from her bag. “Yours truly is on the front page again.” It was folded in half and I glanced at it to see a large picture of Jackie Rowling but was then obliged to indulge in some painful snogging with Linda before she departed.

  “Will I see you tonight?” I asked, fearing, for a change, that she would say yes, in case Aurora would still be here.

  “No, sorry. I was here last night, remember, and you fucked off?” she said good-naturedly. She gave me a final kiss and I closed the door after her. I turned the newspaper over to read the headline under the photo: JACKIE’S PARENTS REUNITED WITH DAUGHTER. I was aware of Aurora coming out of the kitchen.

  She was standing at the kitchen door in a red apron, holding a stack of old newspapers. The apron was one of Olivia’s – it had that bloody stupid maxim you see everywhere: Keep Calm and Carry On. Aurora didn’t look very calm, nor did she look like she was going to carry on. White-faced, she just stared at me.

  “Are you OK?” I asked.

  She dropped the newspapers and rushed into the kitchen where I could hear her retching. I wanted to point out that there was a fully working toilet off the hall but it wasn’t the time. I went in and held her freshly washed hair out of the way and ran the tap, washing bits of half-digested cheese and olives down the plughole. Then the front doorbell rang again.

  30

  I OPENED THE DOOR TO DENSLEY, WHICH WAS A BIT OF A surprise because he’d never been to my house before. He was also possibly the first black person to come onto my street in a social capacity, assuming that was the purpose of his visit.

  “Come in. I hope the cheque hasn’t bounced.”

  He smiled. “Nah, I’d have sent round the heavies for that,” he said, stepping into the hall. He looked at my face and grimaced.

  “I’d offer you a cuppa but the kitchen’s out of commission at the moment,” I said.

  “Thanks, but I’m on my way home for lunch and the missus is on an evening shift which starts before I get back from work. We have lunch together, you see, otherwise I’d never see her.”

  I nodded, unsure of what to say, although I found myself slightly envious of his domestic arrangements.

  “I stopped by this morning to tell you this but you’d left,” he said. “You remember we had that break-in?”

  I nodded. “Did your son manage to get anything on the CCTV footage?”

  “Yes, he did. There were two blokes on it and – get this – all they did was go through the paperwork. That’s all they did, and they wrote stuff down.”

  “That’s weird,” I said, although part of me was trying to work out why this would be of interest to me – was he wanting to hire me to find them?

  “So Gary recognised one of the blokes,” Densley was saying. “You remember Gary, the curly-haired guy who drove your car round when you were trying to shake those two men?”

  He wasn’t here to hire me at all. “Don’t tell me. Gary recognised the guy who followed me on foot,” I said.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It’s the only reason you’d be telling me this.”

  “I’m really sorry, George. I feel bad about it. That’s why I came round in person.”

  “I’m the one who should feel bad, Densley. I shouldn’t have got you involved in my business. At the time I didn’t realise how desperate those guys were. I assume they were after my address.”

  “So am I too late?” he asked, pointing at my face.

  “No, that’s from a previous encounter.”

  “Well, if they do turn up and you need a hand, just give us a holler. I’m a bit old for the rough stuff myself, obviously, but I’ve got three guys who’d help out at the drop of a hat and lots of big spanners.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for the heads-up but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that; I’m getting too old for the rough stuff myself.”

  I picked up the phone after closing the door to Densley. I was very careful about not giving out my address to people, especially clients, but I’d never had someone trying to track down where I live before. I didn’t like it. I had to move Aurora out but needed to speak to Sandra first. I rang the office, hoping she was there. She was.

  “Just about to call you, George… OK, so I spoke to the charity and they referred me to a lawyer, but I had trouble getting hold of her which is why I’v
e taken so long getting back to you.”

  “And?”

  “And the lawyer can’t recommend that Aurora leave the country, given her current status, but when I pressed her she said she didn’t think she’d be detained. After all, they’d want to deport her anyway and unless she wanted to go through a lengthy legal process to try to remain in the country then it’s probably the best option.”

  I walked to the kitchen door to check on Aurora as Sandra was saying this; she was sitting at the table, head in hands. She didn’t look up to trying to get through passport control in her current state.

  “Thanks, Sandra.” I checked my watch. “Her flight leaves in two and a half hours and it takes an hour and half to get there with no traffic so if we’re going we’d better get a move on, providing that’s what she wants to do.”

  “Oh, and the lawyer said that if she does leave and they see that she overstayed her visa then she’s not going to be able to come back. She needs to know that.”

  I hung up and went to Aurora. “How are you feeling?”

  As if realising she was sitting down, she stood up.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “You still look faint.” I’d underestimated the toll her situation was taking on her. I sat her down again and filled a glass with water at the sink, which she’d cleaned out, bless her. She drank it in long gulps. I moved the neatly stacked newspapers she’d piled up ready for recycling from the other chair and sat down.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She shrugged off my question and reached for the envelope in the back of her jeans pocket, unfolded it and took out the e-ticket and studied it wistfully, perhaps hoping that if she stared at the destination long enough she would be transported there. “Maybe try and go with old visa?” She looked at me, the desperation apparent on her face. “Please?” Well, at least she’d made the decision already.

  “That was Sandra on the phone. She said they would probably let you leave.” She nodded. “But if you do leave you’ll probably never get another visa if you want to come back to the UK. Do you understand?”

  “I never come back here again,” she said with a fierce determination.

  I blew some air from my cheeks and stood up. “OK then, we should go. For an international flight you usually need to be there a couple of hours beforehand,” I said, as she took off the apron. “But since you have no luggage you might be OK.”

  I went upstairs and found a small case for her to put her few things in, just because I thought it might look better if she didn’t turn up with a plastic bag.

  She was anxious to leave, hovering at the front door. Had she heard my conversation with Densley? “Thank you,” she said. “For helping me.”

  “Thank me when you’re on the plane.”

  * * *

  I’d half expected to find Leonard and Derin waiting on the street when I reversed out of my drive but I couldn’t see them. Perhaps they’d given up on me – after all, they’d broken into Densley’s before last night. Perhaps that was wishful thinking on my part; I’m prone to wishful thinking.

  I drove five miles per hour faster than the law allowed and on the M25 the incessantly flapping plastic in the back window blew out. Luckily it didn’t cause a massive pileup but flew high and off onto the hard shoulder. At least I could see in my rear-view mirror now, the downside being that the noise made it impossible to speak to Aurora, who was wringing her hands and moving her lips silently. Was she praying, or practising what she would say to border control? I’d told her to tell them a version of the truth about her daughter being ill and Galbraith helping her leave and just feigning innocence at the passport. I had Sandra on the phone for some of the way down, the hands-free earpiece in my ear, telling me which terminal I had to be at. I’d held the e-ticket on the steering wheel reading out the details so she could check Aurora in online to allow her to go straight to passport control. We were about twenty minutes away from the airport when Aurora shrieked.

  “The money!”

  Shit shit shit. The money, sitting uselessly in the tin in the drawer in the hall of my house.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get the money to you,” I said. “I can transfer it.” I pulled up at the drop-off point outside the right terminal. There was simply no time to park in the car park and escort her, and now two heavily armed police officers sauntered over to have a look at the battered car, so any thought about leaving it unaccompanied in the drop-off zone was out of the question. This was breaking all my rules about being early.

  “Do you know where to go?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  I wrote my phone number and email address on the printout.

  “Call me if there’s a problem, or if they detain you get them to call me. Email me when you arrive home with bank details of where to transfer the money, OK?”

  I pulled out my wallet and gave her what little there was in it as walking-around cash. She sat there, clutching it, as if wanting to say something. I checked my watch and showed her it. Tears started to roll down her face.

  “Aurora, what is it?”

  She couldn’t look at me. “I email you,” she said. She got out of the car and ran into the building with the case. I sat there, hands on the wheel, engine running, when a black cab pulled in front of me. Out of it stepped Bill Galbraith with a suit carrier over his shoulder. Of course, his flight left soon after Aurora’s. A casually dressed woman in her thirties followed him out, stowing a wallet in a messenger bag worn across her front. Then emerged a middle-aged man dressed half his age in jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket, pulling various aluminium cases from the back of the cab, the sort used to carry delicate equipment. I assumed they were his film crew. Galbraith didn’t have his precious attaché case – so much for wanting to take it with him.

  Without thinking I got out of the car. Galbraith, talking and laughing with the woman, her back to me, caught sight of me. He looked surprised but quickly recovered. I sat on the bonnet of my car, arms crossed, and waited, staring at him. His face had solidified into something unreadable and he told his companions he’d see them at the check-in desk. They trundled off without even noticing me.

  He stepped forward, a question in his eyes.

  “She’s gone,” I said. “If she hasn’t been detained.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yes, isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yes, yes of course, I just… What do you mean, hasn’t been detained?”

  “Her visa had expired,” I said.

  “Do you think it will be a problem?”

  “I’m told not, and you’ll be pleased to know she won’t be allowed back into the country.”

  He nodded and walked into the terminal building.

  I took a moment, enjoying the sun on my face, until some guy in a hi-vis jacket approached and told me in an officious tone that I had to leave once I’d dropped off my passengers. I saluted him and got in my car.

  31

  I KEPT CHECKING MY WATCH ON THE DRIVE BACK FROM Heathrow, hoping that Aurora’s departure would pass with no phone calls. I had no way of knowing whether she’d got on the plane. Initially I worried that Galbraith would try to intercept her but my reasoning was that he’d be relieved that she’d left the country, unable to return. My anxiety eased once the departure time had passed and by the time I reached the outskirts of Cambridge I was all but humming a tune.

  * * *

  If Densley was the first black person to visit my street, then Badem’s car was the first Bentley to be parked on it, that’s for sure. Even the middle-class kids who lived here had congregated around it as they cycled home from school. I should have known that Galbraith would ring Badem after he’d seen me, but I wasn’t sure why he would.

  As I parked on my drive Iskender Badem got out of his car with some help from Derin. Leonard was nowhere to be seen. They came onto the drive and Derin joined me at the front door as Iskender waddled – there’s no other word for it – towards us.

  “Are you going
to invite us in?” asked Badem, smiling. I opened the door. There was the Taser in the drawer in the telephone table but Derin was close behind me and I felt a sharp prodding in my back. A knife this time, not a Taser. A knife was much worse than a Taser. A Taser was temporary pain, a knife was permanent injury or worse: bleeding to death alone in your own house.

  Derin and I went through to the living room. Badem disappeared into the kitchen and returned breathlessly dragging a chair on the floorboards which he placed facing the sofa. Derin put a firm hand on my shoulder and I was pushed onto it, the knife now at the side of my neck. He produced a cargo tie-down strap from somewhere and slipped it over my head and arms and the back of the chair, securing it until it was unbearably tight round my middle, pressing against my bladder.

  By this time Badem, taking his time, had settled deep, very deep, into the old sofa. It complained noisily. He picked up yesterday’s Argus from the coffee table and looked at the front page with Jackie’s photo.

  “Terrible business, this. I have a daughter the same age at a private school here in Cambridge. She’s doing very well.”

  “You must be proud,” I said.

  Derin clouted me round my right ear so hard I nearly toppled over with the chair. He giggled and I imagined smashing his stupid face in.

  Badem just sat there reading the newspaper as if nothing had happened.

  “What do you want?” I asked, my ear ringing.

  “Mr Galbraith wants to know how discreet you are going to be.”

  “About what?” I wasn’t sure what Badem knew but I wasn’t going to give him anything.

  “I know Bill wanted the girl gone for his own reasons, but she is worth more here than back in the Philippines.”

  “To who?”

  “To whom. To her family of course,” he said.

  “That’s thoughtful of you. Doing what exactly?”

  “Doing domestic service, my good man, much as she does now. What did you think?”

  “It’s in the nature of my job to think the worst. Plus you hear stories.”

  “I’m affronted, Mr Kocharyan, I really am. That you would think I would stoop to such sordidness. The fact is, since she’s already in the country there are many people here who would like a live-in domestic without the hassle of bringing one in for just six months then having to get a new one.” I wasn’t sure where all this was headed but if it stopped me getting whacked round the head I thought it best to humour him.