‘I’ve only just arrived myself,’ Mia said. ‘Chester?’
Chester turned one of the vinyl chairs from Mia’s desk to face them and flopped down on it, crossing one leg over the other before speaking. ‘Her signs are good and her recovery has been quite speedy considering what she has been through. Preliminary tests indicate she took ecstasy and alcohol. She’s no shrinking violet. It’s difficult to imagine her being the victim of anything, let alone sexual assault. She impresses as someone quite able to stand up for herself. She’s currently whining for a shower and refuses to take no for an answer,’ he said, his thin lips disappearing as they compressed tightly.
‘Have you spoken with the police?’ Mia asked Maggie. She resisted the temptation to launch into a diatribe, expletive-laden, about her impressions of the detective she had had the unfortunate experience of speaking to over the phone earlier that morning.
‘Yes. I spoke with Noah Tamblyn about an hour ago. He’ll get involved once we’ve interviewed Rachel and collected any evidence. Cerise will do the medical immediately after I interview Rachel.’
Cerise was one of Mia’s favourite medicos from the Child Protection Unit. A young gun with an unflinching focus on what is best for children, rather than for the adults, it meant that between Maggie and Cerise, Rachel was bound to receive the thorough investigation and treatment she deserved. Mia felt her body physically lighten with relief.
‘I’ll fetch Rachel. Shall I take her to the fifth floor?’ Chester said, jumping to his feet.
Ignoring Chester’s question, Maggie turned to Mia. ‘Will you be Rachel’s advocate during the interview, Mia? It’s a legal requirement and you know more about her circumstances than anyone.’
Mia nodded obligingly, stealing a sly glance at Chester, but choosing to ignore his jutting chin, his not-so-subtle protest over who should be considered the better qualified as Rachel’s advocate.
‘Good. Thanks, Mia,’ Maggie said. ‘In that case we’ll chat with her here first … it will help her get to know us before we get into the formal parts of the assessment on the fifth floor.’
‘Good. I’ll go get her,’ Chester said striding from the room as though he was thoroughly fed up with the entire matter.
‘So, I gather you think Noah Tamblyn is a good detective,’ Mia said to Maggie while they waited.
Maggie shrugged and made a face. ‘He’s as good as any of the others. I’ve only worked with him on one case so far.’ She frowned and glanced at Mia. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘He seemed complacent when I spoke with him … sort of dismissive and uncaring. I got the distinct impression he’s seriously jaded,’ Mia replied.
‘I hadn’t noticed any of that,’ Maggie said. ‘Perhaps you caught him at a bad time.’
‘Are you for real? Where the hell are you taking me?’ a young voice grumbled from along the corridor. Moments later, Chester rapped on the open door and entered, pushing a wheelchair from which Rachel glared at Mia and Maggie with a tight frown. Chester deftly maneuvered the chair in a 90-degree turn to bring the three of them face to face.
‘Rachel, this is Mia. And this is Maggie. Maggie and Mia, this is Rachel,’ he said before issuing a forced smile and loping from the office.
The sticky streaks clinging to Rachel’s long dark hair, the dry skin still crusted in patches with detritus from her hideous night, and the defiant glare from molten brown eyes that masked an obviously vulnerable and terrified child, brought an overwhelming swell of regret to Mia. She hoped this additional undermining of Rachel’s dignity could be justified in the long run.
‘Why am I here?’ Rachel spat at Mia.
‘Because we are worried about you Rachel,’ Mia replied.
‘Are you doctors or what?’
‘I’m a doctor. Maggie is a psychologist.’ Mia waited for an outburst from the teen, given Annie Hooper’s emphatic disapproval of psychologists.
But Rachel simply held Mia’s gaze. ‘Why did you become a doctor?’ she said, lifting her chin.
It seemed a strange question, but then again, no question is abnormal when it comes from a traumatised 15 year old. ‘I’m a paediatrician mainly because I value and respect children. That’s the short answer,’ Mia said, aware Maggie was now staring at her. She knew she was pontificating, but, hell, it was the precise reason why she was so energised by her work. She believed with a passion that the way people looked after kids is what makes a society great.
‘Are you married?’ Rachel said, frowning.
‘Yes,’ Mia answered, aware that Maggie had stiffened ever so slightly at her side.
‘What about kids? Have you got kids?’ Rachel persisted.
‘Okay. We’re here to talk about you, Rachel,’ Maggie interjected. ‘Let’s …’
‘I want to know. Okay? I’m sure you’re going to ask me much harder questions than these,’ Rachel said, glaring ice-shards at Maggie. She turned back to Mia.
‘I have a son. His name is Adam. He’s studying to be a vet in Brisbane,’ Mia told her. ‘I don’t mind answering your questions, Rachel. But I’m a bit curious about why you’re asking them,’ Mia said with a wry smile.
‘I just want to know, that’s all.’ Rachel shrugged and dropped her gaze to her lap where she picked at her cuticles — split and bleeding around diabolically chewed fingernails.
Maggie cleared her throat and spoke barely above a whisper. ‘Rachel, do you remember anything about last night?’
‘No, I remember nothing. Now can I please have a shower?’ Rachel said, grimacing with a theatrical scratch of her head.
‘We think someone hurt you last night. You can’t have a shower until we have done some tests.’ Maggie’s eyes bored unflinchingly into Rachel’s. Mia wondered if such vehemence was really necessary on Maggie’s part. Rachel was obviously frightened. Locking horns with her seemed futile and unwarranted. Mia cleared her throat as much to appease the overwhelming urge to take over the interview as to placate a sense of disquiet over the way Maggie was handling it.
‘Are you mental? First the psycho nurses won’t let me near water. Now you’re giving me a hard time. Look — no one has hurt me. Okay? I got drunk at a party. I took drugs. It was stupid and I won’t do it again … end of story.’
‘You have bruising to your genitals,’ Maggie said softly.
Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, my god. Is that what this is about? Look … my parents can’t afford a new saddle so mine is a million years old. You know — with a really high pommel. Sometimes the saddle bruises me a bit when Monnie and I jump hurdles.’
A mixture of relief and remorse grabbed Mia and dug into her like talons. She had harboured doubt all along. Now she felt relief in knowing that no one had sexually assaulted Rachel, but she also felt remorseful for triggering so much unnecessary fuss. She turned to Maggie. But Maggie and Rachel were staring each other down. For the life of her, Mia could not fathom Maggie’s harsh and belligerent cynicism.
Eventually, Maggie broke eye contact with Rachel, looked to the ceiling as though for inspiration and said, ‘Rachel, regardless of how you were injured, you need medical attention. We have a great doctor in our unit called Cerise. She’s brilliant at helping kids with similar injuries to yours …’
Rachel’s wordlessly defiant glare persisted until, without warning, her expression collapsed into one of grave concern. A film crept over her brown eyes, which were immediately incapable of little more than a vacant stare. Slowly her gaze sank to meet an invisible focal point near her left knee. Instantly confronted, Mia was gripped by nausea. She looked to Maggie for reassurance that this was normal behaviour, but the psychologist seemed engrossed in what was happening and entirely unfazed by Rachel’s bizarre transformation. Mia’s respect for Maggie soared. She was glad to let go of this situation after all. Matters had suddenly deteriorated into something far too baffling.
‘Rachel?’ Maggie prompted gently, her hands clasped together as though deliberately avoiding the temptation to touch th
e teen, to lay a reassuring hand on hers. ‘Rachel?’
Sickened with panic, Mia glanced at Maggie, then at Rachel, who had stiffened in silent immobility. Maggie persisted, empathically yet softly repeating Rachel’s name. But the teen remained still for several moments — until she eventually turned her filmy gaze to Maggie with the unmistakable air of one who is looking but not seeing.
‘Rachel?’ Maggie repeated.
‘Yes,’ Rachel said.
‘What did I just say?’ Maggie asked calmly.
‘You said I can’t have a shower which is insane bullshit,’ Rachel spat. ‘Showering is a basic human right. I don’t get why you are stopping me.’
‘We think someone has been hurting you,’ Maggie said.
Leave it, Maggie, for Pete’s sake, Mia inwardly implored. Common sense dictated that Rachel could relapse into another fugue state if pushed.
‘No one has been hurting me. Please let me go home,’ Rachel murmured.
Maggie spoke softly, but firmly. Looked directly into Rachel’s eyes. ‘Rachel. Please let us look after you. You can’t do this on your own.’
Rachel’s lips clenched into a tight line as she swiped her face with the back of her hand. She took the clean tissue Maggie produced from her sleeve and mutely dabbed at her eyes.
Maggie stood then and turned the wheelchair towards the door. ‘Enough said for now. Let’s get you back to bed. Have you had breakfast yet? I’ll be back in a moment,’ she mouthed over her shoulder to Mia.
‘I don’t want breakfast. I just want to go home,’ Rachel’s plaintive voice echoed along the corridor.
‘Jeezus, Maggie … what on earth happened there?’ Mia said, when Maggie returned moments later.
‘She lapsed into a frozen state. It’s like escaping a situation she’s finding far too intolerable. I’ve seen it before in other kids … it is yet another sign of chronic trauma. I’m going to ring and get the parents’ permission for a medical. Do you have their number, please?’ Maggie held out her hand for the file, all the while shaking her head and sighing. She bent to retrieve her handbag from the floor and fished inside for her phone. ‘We have to be very careful not to cause her more problems by stressing her out. That may mean giving her a sedative for the medical. I’ll have to talk to Cerise about options.’ She looked from the file to her phone, keyed in the number, and locked it onto speaker.
‘Hello, Mrs Hooper,’ she said when Annie eventually answered. ‘This is Maggie Malloy. I am a psychologist at the Children’s Hospital. I’m phoning with news about Rachel.’
‘How is she?’ Annie Hooper said. Mia thought Annie’s voice sounded childlike over the phone. She also wondered if Annie had realised that she was actually speaking to a psychologist. Then she wondered if she had possibly imagined their previous discussion about the harm psychologists do. In fact, she pondered the likelihood that everything she had heard and seen over the past 12 hours had been the result of her own overtired fugue-like state.
Maggie’s response to Annie broke through her thoughts. ‘She is conscious now and seems to be quite well, except …’
‘Oh, that is such good news. When can we see her? Can we bring her home this afternoon?’ Annie gasped.
‘Do you have anyone there with you, Mrs Hooper?’
‘Yes. My sons. Tim and Ben. Why? What’s wrong?’ Panic crept into her voice.
‘Mrs Hooper, Rachel has injuries that indicate she may have been sexually abused.’
‘Sexually abused. That’s ridiculous. Did you ask Rachel?’
‘Rachel said her injuries were caused by horse riding. But I believe your daughter is also showing signs of emotional disturbance … she is blocking all memory.’
‘That’s ludicrous. Rachel is a sensible girl. If she says it is horse riding, then it’s horse riding. If she needed help she would ask for help. It’s the way she is.’
‘We should really conduct a medical examination. Then we can be sure, but we need to do it soon.’
‘No. No medical. In fact I would like to know why a psychologist is involved at all. No offence, but I think you people do more harm than good. The way you just spoke to me is a perfect example.’
‘It will be a medical examination, Mrs Hooper, conducted by a medical doctor in the Child Protection Unit. May we proceed? Time is running out.’
‘No. I would like to talk to my daughter first. We will be there later to collect her.’
‘That’s it, then,’ Maggie said dropping her phone into her bag. ‘I’ll contact Noah Tamblyn with the bad news. It’s useless. Even if her parents consent later this afternoon, it will be too late. Any evidence will be well and truly spoiled.’
Mia made her way to her desk and dropped down on the chair in front of her computer. ‘Rachel may allow me to treat her wounds,’ she said picking up a stray paperclip and staring while her fingers deftly straightened it. ‘That way I could have a closer look at her injuries … get a better idea of what we are dealing with. It wouldn’t meet forensic requirements, but at least Rachel will get the proper medical attention I’d assumed she would automatically be receiving.’
‘Don’t for a moment doubt what you saw this morning, Mia. Rachel’s injuries were not caused by horse riding.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Mia said, a little alarmed at the possibility that Maggie might be building mountains from molehills.
Maggie tapped the side of her nose with her index finger. ‘Years of experience,’ she said, retrieving her leather bag from the couch and slipping the handles over her narrow shoulder. ‘If only we could get her to talk,’ she said, her brow creasing. She began pacing the carpet. ‘Judging by the dissociative state she slipped into, it’s likely she’s been battling for longer than we thought — certainly beyond any attack she may or may not have been subjected to last night.’ She made her way to the doorway and stopped. Folded her arms in front of her and turned to Mia. I’ll phone the child welfare department and lodge a report. And I’ll pop down and see Rachel again later this morning. Who knows? She may change her mind about talking to us.’
The sound of Maggie’s heels tapping along the tiled corridor only exacerbated Mia’s frustration. Even the swishing of her own red runners as she made her way to the Emergency treatment room minutes later unsettled her.
The sight of the pretty young RN behind the computer at the nurses’ station prompted Mia to glance at her watch. ‘Is Chester around?’ she asked as she approached the desk and began searching through a stack of files.
‘His shift just finished. Can I help?’ the young nurse said, her brown eyes and her wide smile disproportionate with her diminutive face.
Mia glanced at the RN’s nametag as she pulled Rachel’s file from the heap. ‘Um. Yes thanks, Ellen.’ Reluctantly, and with an acute sense of having failed her patient, Mia signed the file and handed it to Ellen. ‘Rachel Hooper can be admitted to Ward 5 for further cardiac testing and psych follow-up. The Child Protection Unit will maintain contact with her from now on. I’m discharging her from this section,’ she said, turning to the files of her other patients. She felt empty inside — torn at having to admit that for the sake of pragmatics there was little more anyone could do, unless Rachel gave them something more to work with.
‘Thank you, Dr Sandhurst,’ the nurse said, taking the file and laying it on the desk beside her. ‘I’ll arrange the transfer once Rachel’s visitors have left.’
‘What visitors?’ Mia said, stretching her neck to survey the ward.
‘I’m not entirely sure. She seemed glad to see them, so I know it’s okay. They are in Bay 15,’ Ellen said, her attention sliding back to the computer screen.
For the entire time it took Mia to attend to the eight-year-old curly-haired girl in respiratory distress and the chubby one year old with badly burned hands, as well as the distressed teen battling an acute attack of asthma, her attention would occasionally stray to Bay 15. She had been bitterly disappointed when she had discovered that Rachel’s visitors
were not, in fact, her parents, having prepared herself to have one last emphatic and direct confrontation with them about how derelict they were being in their obligations towards Rachel.
But as Jack Carmichael, and the woman Mia assumed was his wife, said their farewells to Rachel and emerged into the noisy treatment area from Bay 15, weaving their way through gurneys and noisy bustling medical staff, something told her this was an unexpected opportunity not to be missed. She shoved her teenage asthma sufferer’s chart into the receptor at the end of his bed and signalled for the RN to monitor his medication, before striding quickly away. She reached Jack, who wore jeans and a navy parka, and Sharon, in an animal print scarf over a knee-length fine knit, jeans and boots, as they were about to exit the double sliding doors to the drizzling grey outside. Residue from a recent dousing of rain dripped from the glossy frangipanis lining the outer edge of the ambulance driveway.
‘Jack,’ she called, as the glass doors slid open and an ambulance glided into the bay.
Jack and Sharon stopped and turned. Jack’s face, shining from a recent shave, broke into a wide smile. ‘Rachel’s looking really good,’ he said as Mia approached.
‘Thanks to you,’ she said, aware of the scent of his aftershave. She turned to the woman with mischievous blue eyes and a dark blonde bob. ‘Hi, I’m Mia Sandhurst,’ she said smiling.
The woman extended her hand. ‘Hello, Mia. I’m Sharon. Your name has come up a lot during our discussions about Rachel.’ Her smile faded and she placed her open palm across her chest. ‘I’m so relieved now I’ve seen her. I must admit I’ve been beside myself with worry.’
Sharon’s wide-eyed concern rang alarm bells for Mia. ‘Do you both have a moment. There are a couple of questions I’d like to ask.’
Jack and Sharon exchanged curious looks. ‘Sure,’ they murmured in unison.
Mia wordlessly led them along a narrow corridor edged with doorways, many of which were open or were glass-fronted to reveal shelves crammed with cleaning, medical or pharmaceutical equipment. They walked past the knot of people queuing at the information counter and along the outer perimeter of a grid of vinyl kitchen chairs forming the visitor and patient waiting area, which was currently seething and buzzing like a flyblown carcass. They finally reached a small interview room, which Mia was relieved to find unoccupied. Although appearing calm and composed, her mind lurched and scrambled for the right questions to ask that, when answered, would tell her more about Rachel’s mysterious injuries and her catastrophic encounter with alcohol and drugs. The challenge was to avoid telling Jack and Sharon anything that could breach confidentiality.
What Matters Most Page 4