by A J Waines
I wasn’t convinced. The effects were too extreme.
Leo had consultations and surgery most of the day, but I managed to catch him in the canteen during a short lunch break.
‘Can we go outside?’ I said. I didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on our conversation.
He hastily dropped a sandwich and an apple onto his tray and followed me.
We sat on a bench overlooking a flowerbed in the courtyard. Turmoil had brought us together, forcing us to spend our entire time problem-solving, but I was aware of another dynamic brewing for me in the background – a cocktail of profound respect and the tiniest trace of suppressed desire. I wondered if he felt it too. In that instant, sitting there with Leo, I felt the yawning gap between Con and me splitting even wider.
‘I was going to ring you,’ he said. ‘The drug should be here tomorrow, first thing.’ He scrunched up his sandwich wrapper.
‘At last!’ I snatched a fresh breath and blew it out sharply. ‘What time shall I bring Con in?’
‘Get him to my unit by eight-thirty. We’ll make an early start before my usual appointments. It should take about forty-five minutes.’
‘I’ll get Danny to persuade him,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to do this.’ Forty-five minutes to bring Con back. I couldn’t wait for that glorious moment.
‘What about me?’
‘Let’s see how it goes with Con, first. I’m loath to risk it on you when I’m not the least bit convinced you have the same condition.’
I let it go for now. Once Con was safe, then maybe I’d be able to think straight again.
He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go. Skin graft on an ankle to sort out.’
I watched him stride back inside. I couldn’t imagine what pressure he must be under. Struggling with the loss of his wife, strained relations with his daughters, performing meticulous operations right through the day and spending hours of his own time planning how to save Con. He was a rare find indeed.
Debbie insisted I stay and catch up with emails that afternoon.
‘You have every right to be here,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’
I squeezed her arm in appreciation and she slipped a small packet of Twiglets into my bag. ‘You’re not eating, are you?’
I gave her a weak smile and thanked her.
When I closed my office door, an unnerving thought crossed my mind. If I hadn’t been caught under the spell of Leo’s notes in a kind of proxy transference, and my nightmares were down to secondary PTSD, it still wasn’t good news. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this kind of work. Perhaps hearing people recounting their traumas was too much for me. I’d only been in this role a few months. I felt pathetic.
I shut the blinds and sat at my desk, staring at the carpet. Not for the first time, I thought of Miranda…Mimi – whoever she wanted to be – and wondered if I had the same fault-lines inside my brain. Were my nightmares early symptoms of mental illness? Was I heading in the same direction? Was it a matter of days before I, too, starting stripping off in the supermarket and flinging bags of frozen peas at innocent shoppers?
Whichever way I turned, things didn’t look good. I made a decision. I was going to book in to see my own therapist again. If now wasn’t the right time, when was?
Chapter 33
By 7pm, outpatients had long gone at the hospital and the empty spaces echoed with the rumble of the odd trolley. Being here after hours was like being left alone in the London Underground. Endless lines of dim, yellow corridors unfolded in every direction, on and on, like they were caught in infinity mirrors.
Whilst I still had every right to be at St Luke’s, nevertheless there were plenty of places inside where I didn’t have authorised access. There were so many departments; a warren of hiding places – and one place in particular I’d been planning to snoop around in, for days.
I climbed two flights of stairs and waited until the corridor was clear before slipping through the double doors into the cardiology unit. A strip-light was flickering in the waiting room, but most of the others were turned off.
Professor Schneider’s office was dark, but a thin band of light seeped under the door of his secretary’s office. Damn. I’d met Pauline a couple of times in the canteen and didn’t have her down as the conscientious type.
Pauline’s blinds were drawn so I had no way of knowing whether she was inside or not. Perhaps she’d just forgotten to switch off the light. I had to think fast.
I found a phone inside an empty office nearby and called the hospital operator.
‘Er…can I speak to Pauline Lessinger, Professor Schneider’s secretary, please?’
‘Putting you through…’
Seconds later, the phone behind Pauline’s closed door burst into life and after two rings, someone picked up.
‘Pauline Lessinger…’ came the response.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, willing this spur-of-the-moment plan to work.
‘Pauline, hi. It’s Suzanne from the car park. What make of car do you have?’
‘A Ford Focus, why?’
‘Dark green?’
I hadn’t remembered the make, but I did recall the colour from one time she’d driven past me when I was on my bike.
‘Yes – why – what’s happened?’
‘The driver’s window has been smashed. Did you have any valuables inside?’
‘Oh, bloody hell. Hold on. I’m coming down…’
Seconds later the door flew open and Pauline dashed out. Once her footsteps had receded, there were no other sounds, although the cleaners would be here any minute.
My hand trembled as I tried the professor’s door. It didn’t budge. That didn’t surprise me; he was a fastidious man. My original plan was to cajole a cleaner into letting me in, but now I had another option.
I slipped inside Pauline’s office and approached her desk. It was covered in typewritten sheets, including one headed ‘Pauline Lessinger – CV’.
That explained it. Applying for another job are we, Pauline? Don’t worry, I won’t tell.
I patted the pages, feeling for a key, but found nothing except an opened packet of chewing gum. I hoped in the rush to get to her car that Pauline hadn’t bothered to lock her desk. Sure enough, the drawer beside her chair slid open. I scrabbled around and found a stapler, a hole punch, a pile of paper clips and, tucked at the side, a bunch of keys.
I went back to Professor Schneider’s door and fumbled with one key after another trying to find the right one. At last, I made it inside and pressed the door almost shut, listening intently for footsteps. My own breathing was so loud I couldn’t be sure if Pauline was on her way back or not, but I didn’t have time to waste.
I shut the door, checked the blinds were closed and flipped on the desk lamp. I turned full circle. Filing cabinets, desk drawers, book shelves – too many possibilities.
I began with the shelves. There were books on every imaginable field of cardiology: coronary artery disease, pacemakers, diseases of the aorta. Everything you’d expect.
I returned to the desk and used the keys to get into the drawer. It was deep, with two ring-binders and several manila folders inside. I pulled them all out. There were pages of figures and photographs; close-ups of the heart, valves, operations – none of it what I was looking for.
I tried the filing cabinet and lifted out a batch of around ten journals from the bottom drawer and piled them on the desk, trying not to make any noise. Leo’s investigations pointed to some radical new advances in memory research, so it was likely there’d be published papers on it. If the professor was involved in some way, he may have kept the details.
I flicked through the first few magazines, but they were all about cardiology. By now my fingers were leaving little smudges of sweat on every page as I flipped them over. I didn’t dare check how long I’d been here, but it felt like ages.
Then my luck changed. At the bottom of the pile were two journals on neurology. I ran down the list of c
ontents in the first, spotting an article on personality disorders and memory, but on reading the abstract, I could see it wasn’t relevant.
Why would the professor keep these journals at the bottom of his filing cabinet? It was common knowledge that he was only spending half his time in cardiology and he certainly appeared to have more than a passing acquaintance with the new neurologist, Dr Graham, given the heated argument I’d overheard. Was he dabbling in the workings of the brain? Did this explain the EEG machine?
I’d got halfway down the list of articles in the next periodical when I heard the abrupt swing of a nearby door and footsteps. I lunged forward and quickly switched off the desk lamp, just as the steps came to a halt. I stood still, not daring to breathe, peering under the door waiting for shifting shadows, but everything was still.
Pauline would be in a foul mood after the prank call about her car and if she burst in on me I would have no defence. I’d be suspended right there and then, if not fired for good, but I couldn’t give up now.
I stood at the blind and carefully tweaked two slats apart. The corridor was empty, so I put the lamp back on and went back to the list, skipping over the next few titles: Molecules and Short-term Memory, Amnesia and the Stages of Forgetting. Then there it was: New Strides in Memory Implantation. Someone had marked it with a highlighter pen. It was dated February of this year and described how seventy-three percent of students taking part in a particular experiment had been led to believe that a parrot had entered their bedroom during the night. Certain key words leapt out at me:
optogenetics…brain cells…neurons in the hippocampus…false memories…
My mouth fell open. This was exactly what I’d been looking for. I went back to the top for the important part – the name of the person who had carried out the research – and let out a sigh. It was blank. I scanned the text before noticing a statement in small print at the end:
Author’s name withheld by Editor*
I frantically flicked through the pages to find an explanation for the asterisk and eventually found it in the appendix:
*Research paper submitted for the annual UK Jeffersen Prize. Author’s name withheld in accordance with panel’s selection process.
I had to stop myself from letting out an exasperated howl. Somewhere in the UK there was an expert in implanting false memories – that part was clear – but I was barely any closer than I had been before. The article was in Professor Schneider’s office, but there was no proof it was written by him. I glanced up at the framed certificate for The Jeffersen Prize – also right here in his office. Was it him? Had he entered again with this research, this year?
I put the journal in my bag and bundled the others back into the filing cabinet, then switched off the lamp. I eased open the door a fraction and waited. All was quiet. Then I heard the slam of a drawer from Pauline’s room.
I locked Schneider’s office, cringing when the bolt made a loud clunk as it settled into the slot. I swallowed with a gulp and tapped on her door, the keys behind my back.
‘Who is it?’ she snapped.
‘Hi,’ I said, going in, trying to keep my tone breezy. ‘Someone said you were still here. You should be getting off home.’
‘Oh, yeah, still at it.’ She went back to her typing. ‘Sam, isn’t it?’
‘Yep. Mental Health,’ I said casually, strolling towards her desk, deliberately not looking at any of her papers. She glanced at me over the rim of her glasses, looking edgy.
‘Anyway, you’re busy,’ I said. ‘Sorry. I’ll leave you to it.’ I was doing my utmost to sound casual, but I could barely get my mouth to work; my jaw felt like it was tied up with wire.
As I backed up, I looked down and made a noise as if I’d trodden on something.
‘What’s this?’ I said, reaching down and coming up holding a bunch of keys.
‘Strewth!’ she said. ‘The professor would kill me. They should be in my drawer.’ She took them.
‘Is he really that bad?’ I asked, loitering.
‘Absolutely. He’s a stickler, I can tell you.’
There was a pile of forms and letters beside her computer. This was my chance. ‘Is he keeping you late with his typing?’ I asked innocently.
She glanced at the screen, then away again. ‘Oh, you know – it never stops.’
‘I bet you even have to type his research papers.’
‘I shouldn’t – but I do.’
‘Did you type his latest one, about the parrot…in the students’ bedrooms…?
She looked confused. ‘Parrot?’
Either she was a very good actress or she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.
‘I must have got it wrong.’ I said, retreating to the doorway. ‘You don’t know of anyone else here, do you, who’s prepared to type up research papers?’
‘You need a typist?’ She pulled a face. ‘Don’t you have any in mental health?’
I went along with her. ‘I’m looking for someone reliable – who’s been recommended.’
‘Not me!’ she scoffed. ‘Too busy. Ask around.’ She held up the keys. ‘Look, I need to check everything’s locked up.’
‘Sure. I’ll leave you to it.’
I wanted this tortuous performance over with and turned too abruptly, catching my knee on the corner of a stack of cardboard boxes. The stack tottered, then a loose ring-binder and a couple of paperbacks slipped off the top, narrowly missing me.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered as I bent down to retrieve them. Pauline sighed with impatience, but tried to pretend she was just clearing her throat.
My stomach jolted as I saw the cover of one of the books. I straightened up slowly, holding it up, my eyes latching onto her face ready to catch any signs of alarm.
‘Terror Underground by Dexter Beaumont,’ I read aloud, my hands shaking. ‘Any good?’
There was no lowering of her eyes, no muscles kicking into a twitch near her mouth. She shrugged. ‘I haven’t read it.’
I glanced inside the front cover, half-heartedly, so she wouldn’t know I was looking for a scribbled name. The front sheets were blank.
‘It looks like it’s been read, though,’ I said, ‘the spine is creased.’
‘Someone lent it to me.’ She put out her hand waiting for me to give it back.
‘So there are f-fans of crime fiction here…?’ I said, cringing inwardly. I was so startled at seeing the book, I could barely string two sensible words together.
‘Looks like it.’ She was keen for me to leave now, jangling her keys at me like they were a talisman she was using to ward me off. But, I couldn’t leave it there. I needed to know who had given her the novel – the poisonous script behind the suicides.
‘I quite like this genre, actually,’ I said. ‘Who gave it to you?’
‘Oh – er…’ She sounded side-tracked now. My hands squeezed up into fists. Don’t say you can’t remember.
‘Er – Dr Graham,’ she said offhandedly, holding the door open for me and shuffling me out.
I muttered some sort of hybrid between an apology and a thank you – and left.
Imogen wasn’t answering her phone. She was probably fed up with my interruptions. It was a long shot anyway. Was Imogen really likely to know who might have written an anonymous article?
And now there was another copy of the book; the sinister source of the terrible flashbacks on the Underground. Was Pauline lying? Had she read it? Was she involved?
If Dr Graham had any connection with the mind-controlling text, why would he openly pass it on to someone else in the hospital? Wasn’t that a bit risky? If you’d used the text to achieve such terrible outcomes, wouldn’t you drop it in a wheelie bin miles away, or burn it?
There was another explanation, of course. People read books every day. It could be an innocent coincidence.
If I could find out if anyone had been using the specific neurology equipment Leo had told me about, it might throw more light on the situation. Problem was, everything was l
ocked up now: the labs, most admin offices. Nevertheless, as I wandered towards the exit, I felt a strong sense of conviction. I was getting closer. Whoever had been messing with people’s minds, I was going to bring them out into the open any day now. It was only a matter of time.
Chapter 34
From the moment I chucked half my supper in the bin, I was dreading bedtime. I phoned Danny and at least Con was safe. He agreed to make sure Con was at the hospital early the next morning for his off-the-record appointment with Leo.
But it wasn’t only Con’s procedure I was worried about; I was terrified that once I got to sleep I’d start having the nightmares again. The sleeping tablets didn’t seem to be working their magic any more. I normally looked forward to sinking my head into my pillow, but not tonight. I kept thinking ahead to what I might face, which demons were lining up ready to burst out at me.
I stayed up as late as I could, hoping I’d be so tired that sleep would claim me and carry me straight off to a tranquil place. At half-past midnight, I crept into bed a jittering wreck, feeling like I was about five years old. The weather didn’t help. The scene was ripe for nightmares; heavy rain was battering my bedroom windows. Roars of wind came in fierce waves, wrapping around the aerials and satellite dishes as if trying to wrench them off. I couldn’t believe June had turned so wet.
I switched off the light and there was an immediate flash of lightning, splitting the room down the middle. A loud crackle of thunder was close on its heels, chasing it across the sky. I pulled the duvet up to my chin and realised I was shivering, even though it was a muggy night. I wished Con was there. Or Miranda. Anybody.
I will never know if any nightmares were brewing, because I was in the middle of a curious dream about Peter Pan, when a loud bell cut across my consciousness. At first it sounded like sleigh bells, then a 1950’s ambulance. Then it made sense. The phone. In my bleary state, I wondered what Miranda had done now.