Heart Stopper

by R J Samuel

  Michael was clenching his fists. “It’s been a seven months since your mom. And two years since Kathy. I don’t mind that you’re not talking about it yet. I wouldn’t mind if you were still in a state, God knows you deserve to be. But what scares me is that you’re not. On the outside anyway. You’re acting as if nothing happened, like if you drink and screw around, you’ll come back. And you won’t. At least not the Priya I know,” he relaxed his grip and patted her feet, “and love.”

  He got up and started pacing.

  “Look, Priya, what you went through was not ordinary. You need to accept that those things happened and you need to heal after stuff like that. It wasn't your fault in either case.”

  “Case?! They’re not just some cases like the ones you deal with in court. And, in a way, it was my fault. In both ‘cases’.”

  “You went to her immediately something happened with Valerie. You did the right thing. Hell, you did the honorable thing. You had both agreed to split up, it's not your fault what happened, and that was months later.”

  “I should have listened. I was so caught up with my stuff with Valerie.”

  “Kathy wasn't well, Priya.”

  Priya had her head in her hands. She got up and she could see Michael shake his head as she walked away into the kitchen. That conversation was over as far as she was concerned.

  ∞

  She came back out a few minutes later with two glasses, one of wine and the other, water. She handed him the glass of water and sat down beside him.

  Priya asked, “So, meet anyone nice while I was in New York? You know, cat being away, you being the mouse and all that.”

  He ignored her attempt and changed the conversation anyway.

  “So why would someone go through your things? Especially your books. I mean what were they hoping to find?” he asked.

  “Certainly not the education on the medieval history of every last brick in Galway they would have gotten if they’d gone through your bookcase.”

  “Priya! I’m serious.”

  “Well, okay. They’ve probably gained an even greater understanding of the psychotic mind, the vain pumping of the self-help lobby, as well as the workings of the incredible Pacemaker Controller Mark II if they bothered to read through the boring research papers.”

  “Priya...!”

  “No actually Michael...” Priya sat up, suddenly looking thoughtful. She swung her legs off the deckchair and put the glass down on the deck. “I need to check those papers, I forgot all about them. I shouldn’t have brought them with me, I just wanted to figure out something that’s been bugging me.” She hurried into the house and straight to the pile of papers on the floor beside the bookcase. She’d shoved them in the corner between the bookcase and the wall in her last attempt to vacuum the floor.

  The folder with the research material on the (very secret she groaned) pacemaker Controller II was still there. She thumbed through it; all the sheets seemed to be there. But she couldn’t tell if someone had read them. Espionage was a common worry in the medical devices industry and she normally wouldn’t have brought the files home. If this had happened a week ago, she would have had to face Daniel and own up to her stupidity. As it was, she now had another secret and the secrets were starting to weigh her down. She knew she would have to come clean on this one, whatever the consequences.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Monday, July 18, 2011

  “You took research files home?” James Reddington was staring at her in disbelief. “And you left them there when you went to New York?”

  “Something wasn’t right and I wanted to be sure before I worried Daniel.” She was trying to convince herself, she certainly didn’t appear to be convincing James. It was Monday morning, she was really beginning to hate Mondays.

  “Dr. Joseph.” She cringed at his tone and the use of her title and surname. The clinic staff were used to being very informal with each other, an attitude encouraged by Daniel, but obviously not by James from now on. “This is an extremely serious matter. It is a breach of the security of this clinic, of our research partners, and most of all,” he used a JR monogrammed handkerchief to wipe his brow, “of the strict security standards of TechMed Devices.”

  “It went right out of my head when I f...” she corrected herself quickly, “When Daniel died.” She was discovering she really was no good at this business of secrets; she’d almost said when I found Daniel.

  “I understand we have all been through an incredibly difficult time, in fact, are still going through it. But this happened before he died.”

  “James, sorry, Dr. Reddington, it was the first time I’ve ever done that. I couldn’t explain what I felt was wrong with the figures and - ?”

  “Felt?”

  “Yes, I still can’t really explain it. I didn’t get a chance to go through the papers what with Tara’s birthday and then Daniel...” She added, “And my flu over the weekend.”

  “Felt, Dr. Joseph?”

  “I’ve always had this thing for figures and their order. It helps my coding. I see the numbers as pictures, images, paintings. There’s a flow and an order that is really quite beautiful,” she hurried on when she saw his expression, “well, I was looking at the code from the Program Controller II, and I felt this, this... bump… Like you’ve got a bit of blackberry seed stuck in between your teeth and your tongue seems to go to it no matter what you’re doing...”

  “Priya...!”

  “Sorry, I need to look at the code again before I can say whether there is a concrete reason to worry. You can understand, can’t you, why I couldn’t go to Daniel without looking properly?”

  “I certainly can if you were going to regale him with stories of blackberry misadventures.” James almost smiled as he said it. Priya was relieved to see the slight thaw.

  But he continued almost immediately, “However, we still have a major breach of security.”

  He planted his elbows on the desk and rested his face in his hands. He stared at the folder open in front of him. “Leave the files with me, I need to look through them and see what has been exposed.” He looked up at her and she squirmed at the annoyance in his eyes. “You know I’m also going to have to tell Gerry and Valerie and see what they think should be done.”

  James frowned. “And Daniel’s grandfather. I’m going to have to fill him in. I guess he’s the one who’ll take over Daniel’s role.”

  Priya asked, “Can I have a copy of the file? I could look through it and see if I can find anything.”

  James looked at her for a long moment and then nodded. “Obviously, even I won’t be able to save your job if you take the copy out of this building.”

  Priya said, “I’m really sorry, James, I’ve never done anything like this before and I definitely won’t again.”

  “You may not have the chance to, Dr. Joseph. You may not have the chance.” His voice was tired as he came round the desk to usher her out of his office.

  ∞

  It was 8 pm and Priya was exhausted. Daniel sitting there dead, his unseeing gaze, Reyna’s accusing stare, Catherine’s questions, unknown hands violating her possessions, and now a possibly imploding career. The events of the past week were blurring into a haze of images, all bad. This didn’t help her in her quest to analyze the figures from the study. She hadn’t realized how reliant she was on the use of imagery that she’d described to James. And the numbers were just not cooperating. They seemed strangely reluctant to be painted onto the canvas. She sat twirling her pen, balancing its arc on her thumbnail.

  She was staring at the jumble of numbers on the screen, when Aidan walked in. He hesitated when he saw her.

  “Sorry, I was just looking for Tara,” he said.

  “She was off today. Can I help you?”

  “No, no, it’s okay. I’ll catch her tomorrow.”

  Aidan walked over with just the hint of a swagger. He perched on the corner of her desk. She could smell his aftershave, a vaguely musky odor. He worked in the
sales and marketing side of the clinic, a job he had gotten through his brother, Gerry. She looked up at him with a questioning look.

  “So, did you enjoy Friday night?” His tone was neutral, but his eyes and lips held a little smirk.

  “Friday night?” She was blank for a moment. “Oh yes, Tara’s do. I’d forgotten, what with everything that’s happened since. I guess it was okay.”

  “And your ‘friend’...? Did she enjoy the night?”

  “My friend…?” She felt like a parrot. “Do you mean Tara?”

  “No, Tara’s my friend too.” He was looking at her as if she was being as dim as she felt. “I mean the other one, you know, the one you spent half the night with,” the smirk was now obvious, “the very attractive one.”

  So he had seen her with Reyna.

  “Oh her...” Priya tried to be nonchalant. “She was a tourist. I was just being friendly; telling her what there was to do in Galway and stuff. Civic duty and all that.”

  “Did you show her the city on your ride home in her cool Merc?” He was trying not to laugh.

  Damn, damn, damn. “I don’t remember. I guess she was kind enough to get me to Michael’s place.”

  Aidan looked like he was going to keep tormenting her so she looked at her screen and said, “I really have to get this stuff done, trying to catch up.”

  He got up, still grinning, and brushed down his suit trousers. “Well, have a good evening then.”

  He left her staring at the screen. Her mind was working feverishly. Had he recognized Reyna? He hadn’t been at the funeral; she’d never visited the clinic. There was a good chance he had no idea who the woman was and had just been teasing her. For her own peace of mind, Priya decided it had just been his usual banter.

  She forced her mind back to the readings in front of her.

  So what was she seeing that was setting off her teeth? Priya looked again at the notes she had scribbled down. Parts of the Controller II code looked familiar. She did not have access to the Controller I code so she did not know what had been changed in the upgrade. But something that seemed out of place and she just couldn’t put her finger on it. A section of the figures showed the readings from routine checks done in clinics around the world. The numbers showed the electrical activity recorded by the leads in the heart from the area around the SA Node. Priya wished she had a graphical representation of the figures. There were thousands of readings dating from 2007 when the Controller II had replaced the Controller I. She did not have the readings for the Controller I. Her initial mental translation of the numbers showed a peculiarity. There were dips in the voltages. She needed to figure out whether there was a pattern.

  She looked at her watch. It was 8.15 p.m. She had been staring at these figures for almost eleven hours transcribing them, translating them, playing with them, and reverse engineering the code. She realized with a sense of loss that a few years ago the patterns of numbers would have danced to her command. Funny what stress and the willful destruction of a mind could do. She needed a break and the time to let her mind relax and absorb.

  The clinic was quiet. She normally enjoyed this time when the rest of the staff had left and she could think better. Tonight, though, the silence felt heavy. It was still bright outside her window, the grey brightness of a summer that wasn’t feeling sure of itself. She started to gather her hand-written notes into a pile to take home. Priya put the papers into her bag and tidied up her desk, feeling a strange reluctance to leave her office. She would not be taking home copies of the research figures this time, but she had the important details in her notes. Maybe a look through them while she lay out on the deck would provide answers.

  ∞

  The watery sunlight glowed green through the tinted glass of the clinic walls, the cedar wood frame of the building casting long thin shadows on the wood floors of the hallway as she clicked her way to the reception area. The car park was deserted apart from her sky blue Volkswagen Beetle, a car that she had finally purchased a month ago after weeks of deliberation. Cars in Ireland were so expensive, even secondhand ones, that she’d questioned the luxury, but had impulsively taken on the car, and the loan. The finance company were happy to give her the loan based on her relatively well-paid job, relative to the many people that were now jobless in the dying screams of the Celtic Tiger. Trading in her much-used and much-loved 10-year-old car had been a wrench, but she needed something reliable. She was good at DIY, but not with cars.

  She unlocked the car as she approached it and was reaching for the handle when she felt it. A shiver of dread, a feeling of being watched. She looked around the car park. She couldn’t see anyone. She looked back at the clinic. It squatted in the dusk, no signs of movement within its bowels. The car park was edged by tall leafy trees on one side and the Corrib River on the other. The river flowed through the middle of Galway from its source at Lake Corrib and the campus of the university lined it on its course into Galway. The clinic had been built on private land further along the river from the grounds of the university, near the college’s shiny new research facilities. The new building that had been built to hold the Research Company was on the same site, separated by part of the car park, but it wasn’t visible from the clinic. Daniel had obtained funding from the Irish government to pad out the considerable amount he and his grandfather had privately invested in the research company and the clinic. Both he and the government had been eager to share in the millions of euro that would flow from a successful product in the medical devices field and both had been delighted with the results.

  Priya climbed into her car, the keys slipping through her fingers as she tried to get them into the ignition. She flipped the manual locking for the doors and grabbed a look at the backseat and the space behind her seat. Nothing there. This is crazy. She tried to calm her breathing and searched for the keys at her feet. The car started on the first attempt and she sighed with relief. Pulling out of the car park, she noticed a dark car moving up behind her in her rear view mirror. It must have been parked around the side of the clinic under the shade of the trees.

  She turned right, crossing traffic stopped at the red lights, gestured through by the tired wave of a Galway commuter. The traffic was not as heavy at this time as it would have been a few hours earlier when it was usually backed up on the many roundabouts clotting the arteries supplying Galway. The city council was going to replace these roundabouts, themselves constructed at great expense and disturbance, with pedestrian crossings. Crossings that were going to cost another small fortune and cause even more chaos. Right now, she was grateful for the other cars on the road. She looked in the rear view mirror; the dark car had been let through the same gap and was behind her, but not close enough for her to clearly see the single occupant.

  Priya took the circuitous route home and the dark car was behind her the whole way. She pulled into the narrow entrance to her house, but didn’t get out of her car. She sat there looking in the rear view mirror, heart beating a little faster than normal, her stomach feeling queasy. He had been a hundred yards behind her, where was he? Just as she was about to get out she saw the car. It slowed down almost imperceptibly as the driver saw her car and then sped up to pass her house. Damn, she should have gotten out; she would have had a better look at him.

  She hurried into her house, locking the door behind her, switching on the lights in the hallway, living room and kitchen as she went. She spent the next few hours sitting on the deck looking through her notes, but every half hour she stood for a few minutes beside the small front room window peering out at the empty road. She gave up any pretence of study at eleven, deciding on a shower and bed.

  ∞

  Priya turned the shower off. The bathroom was quiet, breathing in and out in time to the wind seeping through the open window. She tried to listen through the drips, her ears rang with the stubborn residue of a recent sound, a sound that wasn't water flowing, a sound that had cut through the swirl of water around her head. The bedroom through the clos
ed door was silent. She turned the tap back on and the water rushed down over her. She rotated the temperature control, toward H, on and on, till her skin felt white hot.

  She heard it again from under the stream of water, what sounded like the metallic screech of a cat’s wail. This time she turned off the shower and stepped out of the stall, wet prints settling in her wake. Switching off the bathroom light she let her eyes adjust to the darkness outside before sidling to the window to stare out at the deck of the house and the field and sea beyond. She had forgotten to leave on the outdoor lights and the back of the house was drenched in its own shadow. She couldn’t see the dirt track that ran beside the house from the road and down alongside the field.

  The reflection of the moon on the ocean normally calmed her, but tonight the trembling glints of light smiled vacant and aimless. She slowed her breathing listening and the sea strained to listen with her. The sniff of seaweed drifted through the moist air. She saw the flicker of a light in the shadow of the back door, for just a second, and then it disappeared gulped up by the darkness.

  Goosebumps had poked up on her arms and the water on her skin and around her feet was drying. She grabbed a towel from the rail and hugged it to her, keeping her eyes fixed on the spot where the light had appeared. She waited and her eyes and ears adjusted, but there was no further light or movement or sound from the deck.

  She gave up her bathroom vigil after half an hour and crawled to bed. She got up four times during the night to go to the bathroom window and to the guest bedroom at the front to look out of the window there, before returning to bed. The night passed without any further sighting of the dark car and in silence apart from a restless sleep feathered with dreams of cats crying.