Wicked Leaks

by Matt Bendoris

  Before Kelly could open her mouth, Doctor Davies said, ‘Can I have a word, please?’ He led Kelly gently by the arm to the hallway. ‘I’m afraid Malky has brain mets, so he’s going to be saying a lot of crazy stuff before he passes away. Remember he won’t think he’s ill in the head. But he’s a very sick bunny.’

  Sick bunny. Kelly had never heard a doctor use such terms.

  • • •

  ‘Who were they?’ Kelly asked Monahan, after the doctor and nurse left the flat.

  He seemed strangely subdued. ‘From my old job, as they said,’ he replied, dead-eyed.

  ‘Did they give you anything? You seem a bit zonked.’

  ‘Yeah, a shot of something. Don’t know what. Has made me very sleepy.’

  ‘Were you in pain?’

  ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘Hmm. I’ve got to make a phone call.’

  Kelly had called out Doctor Shabazi on many occasions during the night. He eventually had given her his mobile number so she didn’t need to go through the GEMS central control if she just had a quick query.

  He answered at the second ring. ‘Nurse Carter. How are you tonight?’

  Kelly loved the doctor’s impeccable manners. ‘I’m fine, Doctor. I just have a quick question for you.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Remember my patient, Monahan?’

  ‘Monahan? Yes. Our Special Forces friend.’

  ‘Yes, exactly. Did you call his previous doctor for assistance?’

  ‘What previous doctor?’

  ‘You know. From the military or wherever?’

  ‘I wouldn’t even know how to get in touch with that lot.’

  ‘Oh, that’s weird,’ Kelly said, feeling a chill course through her body.

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘Because some military doctor type and a nurse were here when I arrived. Said you had sent for them. Gave him a shot of something they haven’t written up on his chart. Warned me not to believe a word he says because he has brain mets. And then they left.’

  ‘Now you listen to me, Nurse Carter. Danger surrounds that man. Grave danger. Do not get involved in any aspect of his life whatsoever. Just do your job and no more. I’m busy at the moment, but I’ll pop over later.’

  Kelly thanked the doctor for his time and hung up. She appreciated his concern but his words of warning had come too late. She was already up to her neck in Monahan’s private life and she knew it.

  22: The casual racist

  It had just gone 9pm when April’s mobile rang. It was Connor. The only reason he’d usually call at this time was for a story, but for once he’d just called to gossip.

  ‘How did it go with the Italian stallion? Set a date for the wedding yet? That’ll be another register for him to sign.’

  ‘I keep telling you he’s not on the Sex Offenders’ Register,’ April sniffed.

  ‘Yet,’ Connor snorted.

  ‘The truth is, it’s kinda all off.’

  ‘Kinda? Or all off?’

  ‘All off.’

  ‘You sure it’s not a lover’s tiff? You know how passionate these Italian perverts are.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘Are you? I bet if you call the old letch right now he’ll welcome you back into his wandering arms.’

  ‘I doubt it. Not after screaming that I’m a “bitch-a, bitch-a,” in front of the entire restaurant.’

  ‘Oops.’

  ‘Oops, indeed. I left him sobbing by our upturned table. It was quite a scene.’

  ‘I bet,’ Connor conceded, before he started laughing.

  ‘Didn’t think I’d get much sympathy. Know what the worst part was? I didn’t even get my dinner.’

  ‘That bastard knows how to hit you where it hurts. I guess it really must be over.’

  ‘Maybe it’s for the best. He wasn’t really my type.’

  ‘You don’t normally go for fat, Italian sex pests?’

  ‘No, I prefer a dusky gentleman.’

  Connor nearly sprayed his mouthful of coffee over his phone. ‘You can’t say “dusky”. What century are you living in?’

  ‘Swarthy, then.’

  ‘That’s possibly worse.’

  ‘I get confused by all this race stuff. Coloured. Black. Yellow.’

  ‘Yellow? Stop. Please stop.’

  ‘Well, how am I supposed to know? I was raised in Glasgow, not the Bronx. Not exactly the model of diversity. I don’t mean any offence but I don’t know what I’m allowed to say and what I’m not. Old dogs, new tricks and all that.’

  ‘Okay, let’s get this dating profile right. You like a gentleman with darker looks who won’t mind your overeating or casual racism?’

  ‘Yup, that pretty much sums me up.’

  ‘April Lavender, I think you might die a lonely old woman who is eaten by your cat. Don’t worry, there’s enough to keep your moggy going for months, even years.’

  ‘And you’ll die a cheeky old bastard.’

  ‘Touché, tubby. Touché.’

  23: The ‘S’ word

  A few hours later Doctor Shabazi arrived at Monahan’s door. Kelly let him in.

  ‘Thought I’d better pop in see how he is,’ the doctor said, lightly touching Kelly’s arm. She liked how gentle he was.

  ‘He’s heavily sedated. Whatever they gave him has knocked him out cold.’

  Doctor Shabazi went into the bedroom and checked Monahan’s pulse and blood saturation levels before listening to his chest with a stethoscope. He lifted open Monahan’s right eyelid and shone his penlight into it and watched as the pupil lazily dilated.

  Suddenly Monahan grabbed the doctor’s wrist, powerfully bending it back to breaking point, his face red with fury. ‘Leave the fucking hard drive alone!’

  ‘I’m a doctor. I’m not after any hard drive,’ Shabazi shouted in protest.

  ‘Malky, leave him. Leave him. Look, you’re safe. You’re at home,’ Kelly said, trying to force his vice-like grip from the doctor’s wrist.

  Monahan turned slowly towards Kelly, barely able to peel his eyes away from the doctor. A flicker of recognition replaced his anger. He looked at her then back at the doctor, now slumped on his knees by his bed, his face contorted in agony. He let go of his wrist.

  ‘Sorry, but at least it’s not broken,’ Monahan said. ‘I didn’t hear a snap. I’m obviously not as strong as I used to be.’ That cocksure smile was returning to his face.

  ‘Still strong enough, I’d say,’ the doctor replied, rubbing his wrist. ‘What did the other doctor give you, do you know?’

  ‘Something to make me sleep, I guess. Listen, sorry about the wrist. I was just having a bad dream and you walked right into it.’

  ‘It’s fine. Seriously.’

  Doctor Shabazi wrote up Monahan’s chart, stopping to try to shake the pain from his wrist every so often, before walking Kelly to the front door. Once they were out of earshot he said, ‘He has not got brain metastasis. Well, not yet. There are sinister forces afoot. Please take care of yourself, Kelly.’ He gently rubbed her arm. ‘You’ve been through a lot lately. You don’t need any more woes.’

  ‘Thanks, Doctor Shabazi.’

  ‘Please, call me Mohammed.’

  Kelly preferred Doctor Shabazi.

  Walking back into Monahan’s room, Kelly found the patient fast asleep again in his hospital bed. She stood by his bay window and gazed at the Glasgow skyline, then glanced down to watch Doctor Shabazi come out of the building into the street below. Even from this height she could see his bald patch glinting in the fading light. His tall, lean frame took purposeful strides towards his Mercedes Benz and, for a brief moment, Kelly wondered what life living with the doctor would be like. In her twenties she wouldn’t have been interested in his type at all. Now approachi
ng her forties, she appreciated someone with his stoical personality and impeccable manners. Heck, she even found him sexy.

  She smiled to herself. She hadn’t thought about the ‘S’ word for as long as she could remember. Kelly couldn’t actually recall the last time she’d had sex. She’d stopped doing it with her ex-husband long before they’d split up, and they’d been divorced for a year. Wow, two years without sex. She looked down at the doctor opening his car door, and smiled naughtily to herself: she imagined him being a caring and compassionate lover.

  The explosion was blinding, rattling Monahan’s windows despite the flat being on the third floor. The apartments below had not been as fortunate, with their ragged curtains and blinds now flapping in the wind, cut to shreds by the flying glass. Several cars were on fire. But the blast-point had come from the car Kelly had been staring at. Doctor Shabazi’s Mercedes Benz had been completely destroyed, and flames rose into the sky out of every shattered window.

  Kelly was frozen with fear, unable to peel her eyes away from the surreal scenes in the street below.

  There was another mini explosion as the Mercedes’ fuel tank ignited. Its force expelled a small, fiery, football-sized object out of the windscreen. It bounced down the road between the carnage of the flaming vehicles before coming to rest in the gutter.

  Kelly stared at it in morbid fascination for a moment and then let out a shrill scream. She would never have another romantic notion of Doctor Shabazi again. Instead, she would be forever haunted by the image of his head rolling down the street as a bright orange fireball.

  24: The rival

  ‘Get your skinny rentboy arse to Pollokshaws Road, Elvis – pronto,’ DCI Crosbie barked down the phone to Connor, who just had the time to hear the chaos of the police call-handling centre in the background in the middle of a major incident before Bing hung up. Connor pulled on his black jeans and Berghaus jacket, and called the photographer, Jack Barr, whilst heading for his car. Most snappers hated to be bothered when off duty, but not Jack, who had once told a young Connor Presley he could ring him for a job any time of the day or night.

  Connor had only reported on one explosion before in his life: the Stockline Plastics factory tragedy on May 11th, 2004. Nine people died in the blast and thirty-three others were seriously injured. It was later discovered that a build-up of leaking gas from corroded underground pipes was to blame for the disaster, which led to a countrywide pipe replacement programme. So at least something positive had come from the misery he had witnessed as one by one the poor families had come to see the rubble where their loved ones had perished. It had had a profound effect on him that those nine people had got up and gone to their work one morning, never to return.

  He arrived at the scene of this blast on Glasgow’s Southside while a protective screen was being erected by the forensic teams. Jack Barr had managed to fire off several frames before the area was closed off by the men in protective suits.

  Connor couldn’t be sure, but this didn’t look anything like Stockline. This was more like a bomb blast. He could still smell the smoke in the air, mixed with the aroma of an overdone barbecue – before he realised that it was probably the smell of burning flesh from the occupant, or occupants, of the vehicle. The cops would take an age to confirm the identity of any victims, preventing journalists from hitting their families’ doorsteps until all their next of kin had been identified, although he knew his one friendly cop, Crosbie, would help if he could. With the pictures of the crime scene in the bag, his next job would be to hoover up any eyewitnesses he could get hold of. The problem was the street was now cordoned off, but he was determined to get hold of someone who had seen, or at least heard, what was going on.

  Then trouble turned up in the shape of Amy Jones. She couldn’t have been any taller than 5ft 1in, but you’d never know it as, no matter the occasion, Amy always wore the tallest heels that gravity allowed and the tightest blouse her breasts permitted. Petite, good-looking and about the most flirtatious person Connor had ever met, Amy used what she had, and more, to get the story. Rumour had it several of her cop contacts were rewarded with sexual favours. Connor had no idea if it was true or not, but while rival reporters were all too willing to spread the malicious gossip out of fear or loathing, he couldn’t help but admire her. If the roles were reversed and he could get a story from a female, high-ranking cop, then he sure as hell wouldn’t think twice about doing the same.

  ‘Hello, Elvis. Did I miss much, honey?’

  Connor thought Amy always sounded like she was talking on a seedy sex chatline. ‘No, not much,’ he replied, keeping his cards close to his chest.

  Amy sniffed the air. ‘Do you know who was barbecued?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Tried speaking to the uniforms?’ she asked, nodding in the direction of the constables manning the police line.

  ‘Nah, they’ll be as much in the dark as us.’

  ‘We’ll see. I always liked a man in uniform.’

  ‘Or out of uniform?’ he ventured.

  ‘Now, where’s the fun in that? Always prefer them to keep it on, Elvis,’ Amy said, casting Connor a look over her shoulder as she headed in the direction of a young PC.

  Connor took a good look at his rival. Technically she was attractive, but she just never did it for him, even though she drove his younger colleagues crazy with desire. It was all the overtly sexual stuff. It was a turn-off and frankly a bit tedious, like a bar bore dishing out nudges and winks in a pub. He could see Amy twirling with her hair teasingly as she chatted to a fresh-faced cop, who was trying his level best to stay the consummate professional and not give in to her many charms. Connor was sure he saw him blush, which probably meant mission accomplished as far as Amy was concerned.

  ‘Cat get the cream?’ Connor asked, teeing Amy up for more sex talk.

  ‘Oh yes. I love getting the cream,’ she replied, licking her lips like a porn star. Connor doubted she got very much from the cop. Maybe the make and model of the car if she was really fortunate, but he and the snapper had the pictures of the burning wreck, and, as the old adage states, a picture is better than a thousand words. But still, with Amy you never could tell.

  ‘Well, I’m going to hit some doors,’ Connor said, as he never liked hanging around with the press pack anyway.

  ‘Hey, maybe we could meet up later. You can even keep your blue suede shoes on.’

  ‘Does that pass as a uniform?’

  ‘Buy me a drink and you’ll find out.’ Amy smiled in her usual seductive style.

  Connor walked away smirking at her blatant offer. There’s no way he would take it up. Or would he?

  He immediately lost interest when he received a text from DCI Bing Crosbie: Vic = Dr Mohammed Shabazi.

  Connor texted back. Terrorism related?

  DCI Crosbie took several moments before he replied, Didn’t have you as a racist, Elvis? Just because he’s foreign. Tut tut. As far as we know he was on a house call – not Jihad.

  Connor knew he already had more information than Amy Jones, and he started filing his copy. A quick search of Facebook later and he was also able to obtain a photo of a Dr Mohammed Shabazi without even knocking on a door. He apparently lived in Glasgow, as the chances of their being two doctors of the same name in the city were extremely slim. Connor wondered if people ever really thought about how much personal information they shared about themselves online. He was glad most didn’t as it made his professional life so much easier.

  In the morning he would suggest his colleague hit the deceased doctor’s front door. If anyone could get the recently widowed wife to talk, it was April Lavender.

  25: Numb

  Kelly sat in her living room with two police officers again. This time they were from CID. She thought how, in her four decades on this planet, she’d never had reason to speak to a policeman. Not for a speeding ticket, nor even when one of he
r patients died in their own homes, because Kelly was qualified to certify death certificates prepared in advance by the doctor.

  She had been asked the same questions several times since the explosion and she’d always answered them almost in a monotone.

  Why had she called Doctor Shabazi?

  Why had the doctor come to Monahan’s flat?

  Did she know the doctor hadn’t told his base he was doing a house call? Why did she think that was?

  Was Kelly in a relationship with the doctor?

  Each time she heard Doctor Shabazi’s name she saw his head, on fire, bouncing along the road.

  Kelly kept her answers succinct as she knew they would be looking to see if her answers deviated. But she could only say what she knew. Although with one important omission: when they asked why she’d called Doctor Shabazi in the first place, Kelly deliberately did not reveal that it was because she had suspicions about the other doctor. Instead she said she had concerns that her patient was ‘very flat’ and she had wanted to know if his medication had been changed but not written up on his notes yet.

  It was yet another lie, but a necessary one, as far as Kelly was concerned. She just wasn’t ready to delve into a tale of sinister doctors, possible international assassins and the death of Diana.

  In her crash course of dealing with the police, Kelly discovered that whenever there was something they didn’t believe, the officers would leave an uncomfortable silence, waiting for you to fill it, perhaps with an admission of guilt. Kelly was guilty of lying to the police, but she hadn’t committed any crime. She was helping with their enquiries, although she didn’t know how helpful she was really being.

  ‘Why do you think that the doctor came to see you in the middle of a busy shift, breaking all known protocol? As far as we’re aware, Doctor Shabazi always played it by the rules.’

  It was a question that genuinely stumped Kelly. Did the doctor actually just want to see her? Or was that just some romantic nonsense in her head? And what about all his warnings about Monahan and Special Forces? The doctor sounded like he was talking from experience.