I Follow You

by Peter James

  They wanted to see her or Bob immediately or else they would call the police. Christ, what had Charlie done? Had he got into a fight? Unlikely, that just wasn’t him. A weapon? What? What the hell had happened? Police?

  ‘My husband’s in England, up in the Lake District at our farm there,’ she said, feeling hollowed out. God. Please let him be OK. ‘Thank you, I’ll be there as quickly as I can.’

  She tried to think clearly. She had to get over to the school. But Georgie was all prepped for the hysterotomy. And now Neil Wakeling was telling her that he felt her cervix seemed normal.

  Wakeling was standing right behind her. She turned to him. ‘Neil, I’m going to have to go – you’re capable of carrying out the procedure yourself.’

  ‘Well, yes, I could.’ He sounded hesitant.

  She was desperate to run down to the car park and get over to the other side of the island to Charlie’s school. But she had to be sure about Georgie, she owed her more than just duty of care. ‘No, wait, actually, I want you to hold off, Neil, until we’ve had another opinion from a consultant, before doing anything. I’m really not happy.’

  Her deputy on-call colleague this week was Maria Dowell and she was solid. Was she in the building? ‘Neil, call Maria and see if she could come into theatre. If she has any doubts at all – absolutely any doubt – you don’t go ahead, and we’ll do more tests on Georgie. Understood?’

  ‘Absolutely, Dr Clow.’

  Then she remembered. ‘Oh – on second thoughts – Marcus Valentine is probably still here. He might be changing – see if you can get him.’

  98

  Tuesday 22 January

  Kath changed hurriedly back into her two-piece, fleetingly checked her face and hair in the mirror, then ran along the corridor, down the stairs and into the hospital’s staff car park. She climbed into her battered Subaru workhorse, anxiety gnawing her insides, drove to the end of the street and waited impatiently for someone to let her out or for the lights to change.

  A Jersey Post van flashed its lights, slowing politely for her, and she turned right, accelerating hard down past the Opera House to the lights at the junction with Victoria Avenue. As soon as they changed, she headed west along the avenue, oblivious to the view of the bay, to her left, that she normally loved.

  Charlie. What’s happened? What on earth has happened? What could have happened?

  He was such a good boy, hardworking and passionate about his sport. What kind of trouble could he possibly be in? Something so serious they were threatening to involve the police. Was it those bullies? Oh God. Had he done something stupid to get at them?

  On top of that she was deeply worried about Georgie. Hopefully, by now, Neil would have found Marcus Valentine and got him into the theatre for his opinion.

  Vehicles were slowing in front of her. There was trouble ahead. The traffic backing up. Blue lights in her mirror. A fire engine raced past, then an ambulance and a police motorbike, all with sirens wailing. Cars and vans were trying to move out of their way, some driving up onto the pavement to create a path as the emergency vehicles somehow squeezed through. Then the gap closed up.

  And everything stopped.

  Gridlock.

  Kath sat, desperate for it to start moving, desperate for any sign it might start moving. She switched on Radio Jersey to see if there was any information about what was happening and heard the voice of Cathy Le Feuvre interviewing what sounded like a gardening expert.

  She looked around for any possible escape, but she already knew that was pointless. She was trapped on a dual carriageway with a hard divide making it impossible to do a U-turn. The first junction was several hundred yards ahead, and at this rate she had no idea when she would reach it. Ten minutes? An hour?

  Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  Pulling her phone from her handbag, she stuck it in the hands-free cradle and tried to call Charlie but got no answer. Next, she called the school to speak to someone there – see if she could get the headmaster. She found the number and dialled.

  After a few rings it was answered by an efficient-sounding female voice. ‘Grève de Lecq School.’

  ‘Oh – yes – hello. This is Dr Clow, I had an urgent phone message about my son, Charlie, who is a pupil with you. Charlie Clow.’

  ‘Dr Clow? Who would you like to speak to?’

  ‘I had a message that there’d been some kind of an incident at the school and I needed to get there right away. I’m on my way but I’m stuck in traffic – I think there’s an accident ahead. I just need to let someone know I’m on my way and I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  The woman sounded puzzled. ‘I’m sorry, did you say an incident?’

  ‘That was the message, yes.’

  ‘I’m not aware of any incident here, Dr Clow. When did you get this message?’

  ‘About ten, fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘Your son is Charlie?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie Clow, in Grade Four.’

  ‘Can you hold the line?’

  ‘Sure, yes.’

  Kath frowned. What did the woman mean, she wasn’t aware of any incident?

  Several minutes passed. Another emergency vehicle was battling through the long line of traffic that had built up behind her. Still nothing moved in front of her. The phone was silent and she was just starting to wonder whether she’d been cut off when the woman came back on.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Dr Clow, this is a mystery. Your son is out in the school grounds playing rugby. I’ve spoken to several people, including just now the headmaster – and no one knows anything about an incident. Everything is fine here. Are you sure you’re not mistaken?’

  Kath stared at the phone, bewildered. ‘I’m not – not mistaken. No. I – there was a message left at the hospital switchboard for me to go to the school urgently. That my son was involved in some incident and you were going to call the police otherwise.’

  ‘I’m afraid this sounds like it might be some kind of wind-up. Everything is fine here, I can assure you.’

  The siren behind her was coming closer. Still nothing moved ahead. ‘I – I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t know who might have left this message?’

  ‘No, I got called out of an operating theatre by a switchboard operator.’

  ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘There – there must be,’ Kath said. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘Do call back if you find out anything – but I can assure you, everything is fine here.’

  Kath thanked her and ended the call. Then sat in silence. What was going on?

  She called up the main hospital number and rang it. When the operator answered, she asked to speak to Madge.

  ‘This is Madge.’

  ‘Hi, Madge, it’s Dr Clow. The call you took earlier from my son’s school, saying there was an incident – would you be able to tell me where that call came from – what number?’

  ‘Yes, with our rather fancy new equipment, I might be able to – so long as it wasn’t from a withheld number. Would you like me to have a look for you?’

  ‘Very urgently.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘No, it’s not, not in any way all right.’

  ‘Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll call you back. I have your number on my screen.’ She read Kath’s mobile number back to her, to be sure.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can!’

  Kath sat. Vehicles in front of her were crawling forward. The car directly in front moved over on the pavement and she followed. An ambulance, siren wailing, squeezed past, almost taking off her wing mirror but she barely noticed.

  Who could have made the call? Why?

  Her phone rang and she answered instantly.

  ‘It’s Madge. Rather odd this – the call was made from the internal phone extension in Mr Valentine’s office.’

  ‘Mr Valentine? Our Mr Valentine? Mr Valentine’s office?’<
br />
  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘Oh yes, absolutely certain.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Kath ended the call. Had Marcus Valentine really made that call? Why on earth?

  Then a lead weight dropped through her.

  She was thinking hard, fast. Remembering Marcus’s strange reaction yesterday when she’d told him that Georgie wanted her, not him, to do the hysterotomy. The flash of anger in his face. What was that about?

  Something else didn’t make sense either, she realized. Why had he been in the hospital today, gowned up, when he’d told her he was going to be in his private Bon Sante consulting rooms all day?

  Fear threaded through her. The sense that something was very wrong. She thought about the uneasy phone call she’d had on Saturday with the pathologist, Nigel Kirkham, who was in England to attend his son’s wedding.

  I’m not questioning your methodology, Nigel. I’m having my patient do an MRI scan today, which will clarify things more. I’m just wondering if there could have been a mistake on the labelling, somehow. Who actually brought the jar containing the tissue sample to you?

  And his answer.

  Marcus Valentine.

  Marcus had carried the tissue samples from her colposcopy examination of Georgie down to the lab, along with a bunch of others, in their little vials. It was pretty unusual for a consultant to run a menial errand like that. So why had he? To tamper with them?

  That must be it.

  Her thoughts became even darker as she went back again in her mind to Saturday morning, when she’d spoken to Marcus on the phone.

  I’ll be at home most of the weekend, but if you need me, I’d be more than happy to come in and go through the result with you, Kath. Just call me any time, as soon as you’ve got it – no problem at all, that’s what I’m here for.

  But Marcus hadn’t been at home. He had been with the young radiologist, Ana Gomes, helping her interpret Georgie’s scan images. Except, she’d not asked Marcus to do that, she’d only asked him if he might be able to help her if needed.

  Why had he gone in?

  She felt a rush of blood to her head.

  Then she thought about poor Robert Resmes. Telling her his concerns that Marcus had missed a tear in Roger Richardson’s bowel.

  And now Resmes was dead.

  She and Valentine had had a drink after work one evening about six months or so ago. More than one drink, in fact. Marcus had got quite smashed. He’d confessed to her then that his marriage was becoming rocky. And he’d surprised her, for a man who’d made his career in obstetrics, with a sudden bitter rant about children. He’d told her how he’d used a line from a writer – she couldn’t remember who – to console a twenty-four-year-old woman whose cancerous womb he’d had to remove.

  That great enemy of promise: the pram in the hallway.

  She’d always been dismissive of any rumours about Marcus’s behaviour because she’d seen just how good a consultant he was. He was godfather to her son. A good and generous friend. This just could not be. But why was Georgie so adamant she didn’t want him performing an operation on her?

  How could it be even remotely possible that Marcus Valentine had an agenda of his own? Had she been blind to it? Why would he have made that phone call about Charlie? There was only one possible reason.

  To get her out of the operating theatre. How dare he use her son – his godson – as a decoy.

  A deeply disturbing thought occurred to her. She’d asked Neil to get Marcus’s opinion.

  Jesus.

  Frantically, she hit the number for the hospital switchboard, which she had dialled earlier. Madge answered.

  ‘It’s Dr Clow again,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, how can I help you?’

  ‘Madge, this is really, really urgent. Operating Theatre Five. Life and death. Get security up there now. Tell them to stop any attempted procedure on the patient in there, Georgina Maclean. This is really urgent. Can you do that?’

  She sounded hesitant. ‘Well – yes – I suppose.’

  ‘Please believe me, Madge, this is a real emergency. I don’t care what they have to do, but they have to stop anything from happening until I get there, they have to stop Georgina Maclean’s abortion from proceeding. Get them to speak to my registrar, Dr Wakeling. OK? Operating Theatre Five. I’m on my way now, but it’s going to take me time. Tell him he has to stop the operation, there’s been a misdiagnosis. You’ve got to help me, please – this is really critical.’

  Grabbing her phone from the cradle, Kath turned off the engine, leaving the keys behind, jumped out of her car, oblivious to the strange look from a man in a Mercedes behind her, and began to run. She weaved through the stationary vehicles, darted across the far side of the carriageway, right across the path of a lorry, and onto the safety of the pavement in front of the Grand Hotel, then up the side street beside it, breaking into a full-on sprint, stopping as one of her court shoes came off.

  Jamming it back on her foot, she sprinted again, dodging around a couple pushing a baby in a buggy. Holding her phone out in front of her, she found the Favourites on her contacts list, then a name, Alberto Pinto, and held the phone to her ear as she ran. The hospital’s in-house geek, who had recently installed her new computer, answered almost immediately.

  ‘Kath, hello, how are you?’ he said in his broken English accent.

  ‘Listen, Alberto, this is an emergency. Could you do something for me urgently?’ she gasped, breathlessly. ‘You have my password?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you log on to my computer – would you be able to tell me if anyone else has been logging into it?’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  ‘I need to know really urgently.’

  ‘I’ve one job to finish, I could do it first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘No!’ She raised her voice. ‘No, tomorrow’s no good, I need you to do it now, this second – it could save someone’s life, Alberto. How quickly could you do it?’ She tripped on a paving stone and stumbled. The phone flew from her hands and tumbled into the road.

  Shit.

  She knelt and grabbed it. To her relief the glass was intact. ‘Sorry, Alberto, I missed what you said.’

  ‘Five minutes. It’ll take me seconds to have a look once I’m there. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  ‘Five’s too long, you’ve got three.’

  Disconnecting, she stabbed out 999.

  99

  Tuesday 22 January

  Marcus Valentine had just changed back into his suit when Neil Wakeling hurried, apologetically, into the changing room. He explained to Valentine that, despite all the affirmative tests, Dr Clow had asked him to carry out a last-minute internal examination on Georgina Maclean, prior to commencing the hysterotomy. He had carried this out and could find no traces of cancer at all. But she had asked him to see if Mr Valentine, with his specialist oncology experience, would mind coming to theatre to give his opinion on whether the lady had cancer of the cervix or not.

  Ten minutes later, gowned, scrubbed and gloved, Valentine strode across the theatre floor and carried out his internal examination of the unconscious Georgina Maclean. He gave a slow, precise commentary as he did so, mostly for the benefit of the registrar but also for the rest of the operating theatre team.

  ‘I’m feeling a number of lumps, almost like, as were present on the scans, baby cauliflowers. No question at all, absolutely none, this lady is presenting advanced cancer of the cervix. Stage-2. I have no hesitation in saying she needs immediate chemo-radiation treatment, which means the hysterotomy must proceed.’ He looked at the registrar. ‘I don’t know how you could have missed this, young man. Do you understand how dangerous to this lady’s life a misdiagnosis could have been? The best chance for survival is always an early diagnosis, you would do well to remember that for your future career.’

  Looking suitably chastised, Neil Wakeling said, ‘Thank you, Mr Valentine
. I am very indebted to you.’

  Valentine shook his head. ‘It’s not you who’s indebted, it is this lady here. Take this as a lesson. With your assessment there could have been a very different outcome. Do you understand?’

  ‘Thank you again.’

  Valentine looked down, lovingly, at Georgie’s face, before he turned to the anaesthetist. ‘OK, since I’m here, I’ll step in and perform the hysterotomy myself.’ He looked at the registrar. ‘No offence.’

  ‘Oh no, sir, not at all, I would be very grateful to observe you – and assist in any way.’

  ‘Good. Right, Neil, I need music – Van Morrison. I never operate without music. Let’s start with “Queen of the Slipstream”.’

  As Wakeling hurried off to comply, and with no other eyes on him, Marcus Valentine looked down at Georgie’s face and stroked it. Even with an oxygen mask across her nose and mouth she looked serene. So incredibly beautiful.

  Not long now, my love. You’ll be free of that pilot appendage to your life and that thing inside you. You may not know it at this moment, but one day soon you will be so grateful to me, the surgeon who saved you from the baby that was going to kill you! Because in the process, thanks to his immense skills, he was able to excise the cancer cells, as well. And now, boom-boom, they’re all gone. No need for horrible weeks of chemo-radiation any more. You’ll have your life back.

  Just how grateful to me will you be?

  He heard music start to play. Van Morrison. Yes! He thought about the words, staring down at her face.

  You’re my queen of the slipstream . . .

  Valentine reached over to the instrument table and picked up a scalpel. He held it with a flourish. And for a brief moment, silently to himself, sang along to the lyrics.

  All attention was now on him. He was the king, the master of his universe. Oh yes!

  He turned to a nurse, asking her to swab Georgie’s belly, watching while she applied a brush with the brown antiseptic liquid across the exposed flesh. One day soon he would be kissing that skin. Kissing her bare tummy all over. Kissing her little scar, so fine, no one would notice it. That was another of his skills, his delicate touch.