by Janene Wood
“You're not so bad yourself, chicky babe. For an Aussie,” he grinned.
After a time, she leaned her head back so she could look him in the eye. “So I'll see you at 5.30 as usual?”
He smiled down at her. “I'll be the one with bells on.”
Kate was feeling pretty pleased with herself by the time her next appointment rolled around, having sated her hunger and taken a deliciously hot shower. There was nothing she could do about the problems hanging over her, so there was no point worrying about them. Marc would eventually go back to wherever he came from, paving the way for a reconciliation with Jules, who was too kind-hearted not to forgive her, and Ryan would get in touch when he was feeling better, explaining why he was spending so much time with the slutty barmaid from Jasper's pub. Kate was sure it was all perfectly innocent, at least as far as Ryan was concerned, though she wouldn't rest easy until she heard the words come out of his mouth.
And Douglas Pritchard could take a flying leap. He had no power to hurt her; she had done nothing wrong.
Kevin Menhinick was a 19-year-old plumber who, six weeks previously, drove his motorcycle over an embankment and into the river below, fracturing his skull and almost drowning. If Kate hadn’t been at the hospital, consulting with the neurologist on call, it was unlikely he would have survived the night. She managed to stabilise him immediately, preventing further bleeding and swelling of the brain, and less than a week later, he was well enough to be discharged. Now, after several follow-up consultations, he was close to full recovery. It had been an emotional time for Kevin and his family, and a particularly traumatic case for Kate too, reminding her of the similar battle she fought 11 years ago to save her own brother.
In no way did her success with Kevin make up for her failure to save her darling Sam, but at least that experience had spurred her on to being better prepared the next time around. Even armed with a supposedly miraculous gift, she had learned it was a mistake to mess around inside the human brain without an extensive knowledge of its complex structures and processes. And even then, it still came down to luck sometimes. At the time of Sam's accident, she had been dangerously ignorant of how much she didn’t know.
“How do you feel?” Kate asked cautiously as Kevin opened his eyes at last and raised himself upright.
He frowned and she felt a twinge of apprehension. Then he grinned and said simply, “I feel normal.”
Kate returned his grin, all her residual fears and doubts vanishing at the sound of those three words.
“You're amazing, Kate! All the fuzziness is gone. I feel clear-headed and completely lucid for the first time since the accident. Maybe since before the accident,” he joked.
Smiling indulgently, she told him, “That's exactly what I was hoping to hear. It's been a long road back, Kevin, but you made it! All that's left for me to do is wish you good luck.”
Kevin pulled her to her feet and swept her into a tight hug. “I'm so lucky you were there that night, Kate,” he told her. “I'll never be able to thank you enough. I owe you my life.”
“Keep in touch,” said Kate warmly as they pulled apart. “And don't hesitate to call me if you have any problems...although I think you'll be fine.”
Kevin departed and she sank back down onto the couch, shaking with nervous energy. With excitement. Finally, she felt confident she knew what she was doing. For the first time, she dared ask herself the question: Am I finally ready?
A Visitor
Kate was in the middle of her first consultation after lunch when her office door flew open unexpectedly. Standing in the doorway was the tall, lanky man who followed her from the high street earlier that morning, and whom she indirectly assisted by distracting the two bully-boys who waylaid him. Sweaty and disheveled, his chest was heaving like he had just run a marathon. He sagged when he saw Kate, as if the sight of her was the answer to a prayer.
Fearing he was about to fall, Kate leaped to her feet and led him to the closest chair.
“Mistress,” he mumbled.
“It's Will, isn't it?” The driver of the car that almost knocked her over on the high-street crossing had yelled his name and for some reason it stuck. “Are you all right, Will? Can I help you with something?”
She frowned at his unkempt state. His shirt was untucked, his hair was mussed and his shoes were covered in mud. The ripe odour of sweat forced her to breathe through her mouth. Something was very clearly wrong with the poor man.
“Will,” said Kate a little louder. “I want to help you, but you have to tell me what's wrong.”
He said nothing, just stared at her with a look of supplication, a look too heart-rending to ignore. Taking the initiative, she reached for his hand, murmuring, “It's all right, Will, I'm not going to hurt you.” Sending a whisper of awareness through the union of their joined hands, she gently probed his mind.
The sound of raised voices filtered down the hallway from the waiting room but Kate ignored them, delving deeper into the tangled web of Will's mind, trying to discern the reason for his strange behaviour. The voices were getting louder, eventually breaking through her focus. Jason's voice, calling to her from the doorway, was the last straw and she had no choice but to withdraw.
“Are you all right, Kate?” said Jason, eyeing Will suspiciously. “Is this fellow bothering you? He stormed into my office a minute ago – just barged in while I was with a patient!”
“He was looking for me,” she told him, though she wasn’t sure how, in his current state, he could have known she was what he needed.
Jason looked ready to throttle the poor man, so she quickly assured him, “It's okay, Jase, I'm fine. He’s harmless.”
“Okay,” he said doubtfully. “If you're sure...”
“What's going on out there?” she asked. “It sounds like we've been raided by the cops.”
“Good question. I'll go and find out,” he offered, stepping back into the hallway and disappearing. A moment later, Kate heard the door to the waiting room open and close. If anything, the sound of arguing got even louder.
Will continued to beseech Kate with his eyes, but her first responsibility was to her current patient, whose treatment had been interrupted. “Will, I know you need my help, but I'm afraid you’ll have to wait your turn. I'm going to take you back to the waiting room now, but I'll get to you as soon as I can, I promise. Try to be patient.” She helped him to his feet and ushered him into the hall.
Smiling reassuringly, she began guiding him toward the waiting room, but the sound of raised voices seemed to upset him. He threw off her hand and ran in the opposite direction, toward the back door. A moment later, it slammed shut and he was gone.
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. Kate's remaining appointments were all patients she had seen before, so there were no surprises and therefore no real challenges. Which was absolutely fine since she'd had enough excitement for one day. Still, she was busy enough that she didn't spare Will another thought, or wonder about the the earlier ruckus in the waiting room.
It was almost 5.30pm when she closed her office door and stepped across the hall to Jason's consulting room. The door was open, so she didn't bother knocking. “So, Jase, are you ready for your weekly flogging?” she asked conversationally.
Jason looked up from the patient file he was notating. “You think you can beat me, little girl? I'll have you know I'm king of the squash court, baby, and you can kiss my royal arse.”
“Oh, is that right?” said Kate with a deceptively sweet smile. “If I remember correctly I flogged your royal arse last time we played.”
“That may be so, but this is the dawning of a new age of male domination.”
Kate gave him a condescending look.
“I'm just sayin',” he said, all easy nonchalance. He closed the file and placed it on a stack of others. Standing, he grabbed his coat and allowed her to precede him out of the office. They called a cheery good night to the other partners as they headed toward the back door.
> Outside, it was early evening and well on the way to full dark. The last thing they expected was to be blinded suddenly by a bright light, switched on without warning in front of them. Kate raised her arm to shield her eyes. “What the hell!” exclaimed Jason.
A man approached, his features in shadow from the light of the TV camera, carried on the shoulder of a second shadowy person. “Ms McDermott,” said the first man, speaking into a hand-held microphone. “I'm Douglas Pritchard from Behind the News. We spoke earlier. Would you like to comment on recent claims that your treatment of patients suffering from supposedly inoperable ailments is nothing short of miraculous?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” replied Kate, side-stepping the pair. Jason maneuvered himself so he was between Kate and the camera. Kate kept walking.
“But how are you able to cure these patients when the mainstream medical establishment cannot?” asked Pritchard.
Kate's face was stony; her eyes looked neither right nor left. Pritchard and the cameraman were scrambling to keep ahead of her. The questions kept coming.
“What do you say to those detractors who claim you have no business treating such seriously ill patients when you're not licensed to practice as a physician in the UK?”
Ignoring him, Kate pursed her lips and maintained her silence.
Pritchard decided to try another tack. “Ms McDermott, do you use black magic to cure your patients? I have sources who claim you're a witch. How do you respond to such allegations?”
“Sod off, you cretin,” snarled Kate, finally rising to the bait. “You have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Then why don't you enlighten me?” said Pritchard eagerly.
“Why don't you piss off and leave her alone,” said Jason, putting his arm around Kate's shoulder and guiding her toward her car. “She has nothing to say to you vultures. Now get lost or I'm calling the cops.”
Kate unlocked her door with trembling fingers and slid into the driver's seat. Jason leaned in and tried to reassure her. “Forget about this guy, Kate. He's just fishing. He doesn't know anything.”
Kate nodded, grateful she hadn't had to deal with the situation on her own. “I'll meet you at the club, yeah?”
Jason slammed the door and Kate reversed out of her slot, fighting back the urge to run the journalist over. Even now, the camera was still rolling. Why couldn't he just mind his own damn business? She tried not to let him get to her, but she really could have done without the aggravation.
Braking gently before turning into the laneway behind the clinic, she noticed a tall man standing in the shadow of the adjoining building. He watched her avidly, his haunted eyes never leaving her face. It was Will, the strange, silent man from earlier in the afternoon, whose mind had been a tangled web of broken memories and half-formed thoughts. Feeling bad for having forgotten him until now, she belatedly wished she could rectify the situation, but with Pritchard and his film crew parked outside her door, that wasn’t practical. Hopefully, he would come back tomorrow and give her a second chance.
Slipping unobtrusively into Pax's office, Marc sank into the chair opposite his old friend and let out a weary sigh. It had been a long day, spent for the most part bogged down in paperwork. Unending reams of paperwork. But someone had to oversee the preparation of the dozens of writs demanding access to bank documents, property registers and utility records which would hopefully result in the task-force running their quarry to ground. It was unlikely Wulverov owned or leased property in London in his own name, but whoever was harbouring him undoubtedly did. It was boring, time consuming work, the opposite of exciting, but according to Pax, it was how cases were closed. On the bright side, it distracted him from his personal problems.
Kate was definitely his primary concern, but not his only one. His unsettling visit that morning to Holloway Prison to see his mother had given him one more thing to worry about.
At first, Elizabeth had seemed much improved, wearing the brave face she had begun her ordeal with seven years ago, before the reality of prison life ate away all her natural optimism. Physically, she was fine. There were no new lines on her face and her hair was the same vibrant auburn he remembered, even if it was lank and lustreless. Her eyes didn't sparkle the way they used to, but that was understandable. At least the smile she gave him was genuine. She was happy to see him; that much was abundantly clear.
But once she finished going through the motions, satisfying herself of his and Jules' well-being, she became silent, refusing to meet his eye and giving only perfunctory responses to his queries. Distracted and subdued. Something was off. He was used to the undercurrent of anger running beneath the thin veneer of civility she wore for him, undiluted even after seven years of incarceration, but today there was something more and it worried him. She seemed nervous, as if she was waiting something to happen. As if she was afraid. Her eyes kept darting around the visitors’ room and she jumped at the slightest sound or movement.
Marc knew his mother suffered. How could she not, confined as she was behind thick walls; locked in a tiny cell with only the dregs of society for company? And that was without getting into the politics, rivalry, monotony and violence of everyday life, where it was every woman for herself and you trusted your neighbour at your own peril. So of course she had changed; of course she had become sullen, bitter and hard. But Marc knew that whatever adaptations she’d been forced to make to survive this hell were temporary; he knew that the armour around her heart would eventually break down, once she was clear of this place. He knew all this instinctively; his mother was a strong woman and she would bounce back. At least he had thought so until today.
Marc believed Elizabeth was innocent of his stepfather's murder. As far as he was concerned, her unrelieved horror at the sight of Russell's dead body was genuine. Marc was first on the scene that day and was convinced his mother's reaction was real. If Jules had been there, he was certain she would also believe in Elizabeth’s innocence, but by the time his sister had a chance to talk to her, their mother had walled off her emotions, utterly resigning herself to her fate.
Elizabeth and Russell had arrived in London several days before that fateful day, staying at the same Chelsea hotel they always used when they came to town. The day of the murder, they had just returned from lunch with John Shepherd, an old friend of the family. Marc had been on weekend leave and wasn’t due to report back till the next day. He was staying at Pax’s townhouse, literally around the corner from the hotel, and was meeting his parents later for dinner. But being at a loose end, he decided to stop by for a pre-dinner drink.
The moment he stepped out of the lift and heard Elizabeth’s chilling scream, he knew something life-shattering had happened. The door to their suite was wide open and his mother was kneeling over Russell’s body, sobbing...keening, and clutching the bloody knife that killed him.
The fact that Elizabeth had no memory of the hour before her husband’s body was discovered did her no favours at trial. The prosecution claimed her amnesia was her mind’s way of dealing with the enormity of her crime and therefore evidence of her guilt. Either that, or she was lying.
The defense presented evidence and expert medical testimony to support Elizabeth's claim, proving she had been struck forcibly on the head some time between her return to the hotel and the time the body was discovered, a blow which almost certainly rendered her unconscious for several minutes. Her barrister theorised that an unknown assailant attacked her and then killed her husband. That she was a scapegoat.
It made no difference; she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
It looked bad; even Marc was willing to concede that, but if his mother said she didn't do it, then he believed her. Yet despite his certainty, he had always suspected she knew more than she let on. Whenever he raised his suspicions, she vehemently denied them, yet there was a haunted look in her eyes that he couldn't explain away.
Whether the reason for that look was responsible for her present state of mind, he had
no way of knowing.
“Are you all right, Mum?” he had asked, voicing his concerns. “I hope you'd tell me if something was wrong.”
“I'm fine, Marco,” she insisted, giving him a tentative smile. “Just... just remember I love you and your sister more than life itself. And that I can look after myself.”
Of that, Marc had no doubt, now that he knew what she really was. Her being here made even less sense now than it did before the chief told him the truth about both his parents. He searched her face for some tell-tale sign, some reason for her sudden avowal of devotion, but the long years of hiding her worries from her children stood her in good stead now.
Three years on, Marc still hadn't told her he had joined the Brotherhood. On the one hand, he didn't want to worry her or remind her of his father's death – after all, if David Sant’Angelo hadn't been a Guardian and hadn't died when he did, it was unlikely she would be sitting in prison now – but he also felt she had a right to know what was going on in his life. They had always been close; they had always been open and up front with each other.
Or so he had believed, until the fateful chat with Makamu which changed his life.
Telling his mother about becoming a Guardian would involve revealing his knowledge of all the things she had kept from him. Like the fact that his father died protecting her. Protecting his Alete.
He wanted to tell her, and no doubt would eventually, but he didn't want to spoil this visit, the first in half a year, with an argument. It might be old news, but deep down he was still angry over her lies of omission. He couldn't understand how she could have kept such important facts from him! How could his own mother not tell him something so intrinsic to herself? Although it did explain those infrequent periods during his childhood when she disappeared for days on end, leaving Marc and Jules with their grandparents and no real explanation. All she ever said was that they were too young to understand. And then she bundled them off to boarding school.