‘Rubbish, you look just fine.’
‘I think I’ll make it – but only just.’
‘Then you’ve obviously done it just right.’
She said all the right things.
Kramer was at Rangitoto Wharf. I said to Nikki, ‘Three to go. Okay, let’s kick ass. And by the way, will you marry me?’
She laughed. ‘You don’t need a wife. You need a chauffeuse.’
I’d planned to scramble up the steep slope of Mount Victoria but in the event I took the roadway. Coming down was even harder. Then it was clockwise round Mount Cambria to touch McDermott’s Lookout, out past the museum and across a couple of domains, and, lo and behold, only one volcano to go.
As I trudged up North Head I honestly believed that if there had been a forty-ninth peak I would not have made it. But it’s all psychological.
And at the top, a wonderful sight. Herr Kramer, in his sea kayak, just about to land on the shore of Browns Island.
But he still had to climb it.
The navy welcomed us at the entrance to the old NZ RN installation atop North Head. I ran past the old abandoned Nissan huts and gave a sprint finish my best shot, no doubt boosted by the presence of a TV NZ crew and a voluble crowd of well-wishers. I didn’t take much of it in. I just remember identifying the summit, reaching it, touching it, and flopping down. It was five minutes to midday.
I thought I heard somebody – I don’t know who – say, ‘He won by a whisker.’
It’s funny how our brains work. You strive away trying to solve a conundrum and get nowhere. Then you deliberately put it out of your head and go for a huge long hike and thrash your body to bits. And, without even thinking about it, problem solved. I knew what had happened to Captain Shaun O’Driscoll.
I promptly fell asleep.
II
‘You’re not going back out there!’ said Nikki through angry tears. ‘Not to that bloody Xanadu place! The guy’s off his head. He’s an utter nutter. You’ll end up the same way that Shaun O’Driscoll ended up. A crisp. Well, don’t expect me to come to your funeral. Don’t expect me to take a cord.’
‘Nikki–’
‘And another thing. What is it about people like you? Why do you take on everybody’s problems? You some sort of Jesus freak? Look what happened to him!’
‘Nikki–’
‘Does Major Forster know you intend to go back over?’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘Didn’t he try to put you off?’
‘No. I think he was amused by the idea. He only gave me one piece of advice.’
‘What was that?’
‘Check six.’
We had held a council of war at the Devonport Esplanade after I’d woken up from my post-volcanic slumber. But first I got a telephone call from Dr Weir in Pathology.
‘You were right about the anion gap. Toxicology’s back.’ She sounded interested.
‘What did you find?’
‘Salicylates.’
S for Salicylates. The last item in the mnemonic ‘MUDPILES’. The metabolic acidosis with the anion gap. The panel of biochemical numbers that had told me that something was missing. Something literally didn’t add up. I asked Dr Weir what she made of it.
‘It’s beginning to look like an act of self-harm. Guy fills himself with aspirin and goes for big hike, dressed to the nines. Talk about hyperpyrexia!’
‘Well,’ I said dubiously. ‘It looks like an act of harm, one way or another.’
Back to the council of war. It was part table-top exercise and part teleconference. Ralph Parkinson was on the phone.
‘This is a really bad line, Ralph. Where are you? Melbourne?’
‘Port Lochroy.’
He was being patched through. He didn’t expect me to know where that was but by a strange quirk I’ve been there. It’s a British scientific station in Antarctica and I visited it once when I was a ship’s surgeon.
‘What on earth are you doing there?’
‘Like I said, researching the past.’ And he told a long and rambling but nonetheless intriguing tale of a trek across seven continents which, despite the crackling static on the line, I got the gist of. It was then that I made up my mind to pay one final call on Phineas Fox.
‘You see,’ I said to the Major, after Parkie had hung up, ‘I’ve worked out what Plod is. You’ve been running me blind, on a “need to know” basis. HMG – to use your quaint expression – is so worried about the prospect of a President Fox that they’re desperate to find he’s committed some gross misdemeanour that’ll keep him out of the White House. Tricky business diplomatically, entering one friendly but foreign country to conspire against a citizen of another friendly but foreign country, and a citizen who might become that country’s next president at that. Sheer Plod is the search for the gaffe that is one gaffe too far.’
‘Sounds like Ralph’s found it.’
‘Yes. But can he prove it?’
‘Mm.’
‘Let me talk to Fox one more time. You owe me. You ought to have told me what Sheer Plod was all about. I’ve just got Fox to pull out of Great Barrier. Let me see if I can persuade him to pull out of the race to the White House.’
Forster didn’t try to dissuade me. He merely put on that amused expression of his and said laconically, ‘Check six!’
‘Nikki, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. But I’m going. I want to talk to Fox. I want to ask him something. It’s a professional thing. I’m just making a house call. Doctor to patient. He knows I’m perfectly harmless, so why should he harm me?’
She put her face in her hands and rested her elbows on the table. She composed herself, then she picked up a napkin and absently wiped her eyes.
‘I can see you’ve made up your mind. All right. I give up. I won’t argue. But one proviso. I’m coming with you.’
‘That’s quite unnecessary.’
‘It’s absolutely essential. If Major Forster says “check six”, who’s going to watch your back? Besides, you said yourself it’s perfectly safe. Didn’t you?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘That’s settled then.’
III
For old times’ sake, Nikki and I took JAZ. From Dairy Flat, in the evening, we crossed over Whangaparaoa and headed directly out over the Gulf, with Little Barrier Island to our north and Cape Colville to our south. The familiar mountainous silhouette loomed ahead. I’d have loved to land at Claris but, reluctantly, turned to the north end of the island.
The place looked deserted. There was the grand folly and, behind it, the diamond shape of dense bush with the arboretum to one side, the Big Push to the other. Here was the 800-metre driveway, looking foreshortened from the air. There was little wind. I established the 172 on long finals from the south, swooped in low over the gatehouse and, at zero feet, closed the throttle. The aircraft sat down immediately. The driveway’s tarmac was about to give way to red gravel. The stones would be churned up by the wash of the prop. I kicked full left rudder and went on to the grass. I parked into wind and let the engine idle, carried out a dead-cut check, and ensured that the landing had not set off the automatic location beacon. Then I switched off all the electrics and pulled the mixture back to lean. As the engine coughed and died I flicked all the switches off. I released my harness and passed it round the control yoke to stop the control surfaces from flapping in the breeze. Then Nikki and I opened the cockpit doors and smelled the sweet smell of cut grass. Dusk fell.
The tall grey shadow slipped out from the grand entrance and moved across the gravelled approach. Cadbury was in tails, a black coat with black and grey striped trousers. He carried a silver salver on which was balanced an unopened bottle of Lagavulin, a pair of ornately carved crystal whisky glasses with thick chunky bases, and a water jug. He reached up and balanced the salver atop the 172’s high port wing-tip, just aft of the leading edge. He took up an easy stance with his hands behind his back.
‘Good evening, Cadbury.’
‘Good evening, sir. Good evening, Captain. Mr Fox is expecting you. He thought you might care for some refreshment after your exertions.’
‘Maybe not this time. It’s just a brief visit. I’ll be flying again.’
‘Mr Fox thinks that is unlikely, sir.’
‘Why not then?’
Cadbury might have been a Presbyterian Church elder dispensing holy communion. He deftly uncorked the Scotch and poured a generous splash into the glass.
‘Spring water?’
‘Thank you, no.’
‘Neat, as our American cousins say. Captain?’
Nikki shook her head sullenly.
Cadbury advanced alongside the port leading edge, balancing the tray on his fingertips. I reached a hand down from the cockpit and took the glass.
‘Slàinte.’
I swallowed a mouthful. ‘Well, what next?’
‘Mr Fox is bathing. He will see you now.’
We crossed to the house entrance. On its flagpole, a single loose lanyard above the doorway was mercilessly flagellating its staff as we passed beneath. The interior was as I remembered it: five-star hotel anonymity. The atmosphere was chilled. Cadbury ignored the lift and moved to the main stairway. Nikki made to follow.
‘This way, captain.’ It was the woman named Duckmanton, dressed wholly in black, standing erect by the balustrade. Nikki and I exchanged glances. She wanted to stay with me to watch my back but I shook my head. The housekeeper had turned and was walking into the interior of the house. Bewildered, Nikki followed.
At the mezzanine floor Cadbury abruptly turned to the left, past the ballroom and conference suite. Here were the gymnasium and the pool.
‘Go straight through, sir.’
Cadbury glided off. I picked my way among the floor apparatus and out under the vault of the piscine. There was an eerie quietude. The pool was as undisturbed as a subterranean lagoon and its reflection of the ornate ceiling above seemed as substantial as its counterpart in reality. There was nobody around. I glanced uneasily about me.
There came a deeply muffled tapping sound from the direction of the sauna. A hand waved at me through the plate glass.
The pine shelving beside the sauna entrance held stacks of heavy white towels. I slipped out of my things, put a towel round my waist, and moved into the hot dry cauldron.
‘Turn that timer over, would you?’
Fox was occupying the upper bench directly opposite the brazier. He wore two towels, one round his waist, and the other draped diagonally across his right shoulder. He looked like Caligula.
I turned the glass upside down, and checked the thermometer and hygrometer.
‘Splendid! Gives us fifteen minutes in which to talk. Quite long enough in this atmosphere. I often hold important discussions in a Turkish bath. It focuses the mind wonderfully. It imposes a highly effective guillotine on the verbose. But I need not worry about you, on that score. Now, something you wish to get off your chest. But first I have a proposition for you.’
‘Really?’
‘Dr Cameron-Strange, you are, as your referees rightly point out, an outstanding professional. You are brilliant, resourceful, and brave. You are also, if I may say so, extremely well set up. You are strong and athletic. I would say that you have, categorically, a full house. With one exception.’
‘What might that be?’
‘The killer instinct.’
‘Doesn’t seem an appropriate attribute for a doctor.’
‘Medicine will not contain your talents. Mark my words. This is where my proposition comes in. I need a lieutenant. Somebody I can trust. Somebody who knows me and understands me. Somebody with the intellectual capacity and the energy to take on a substantial proportion of the burden of my affairs. The job description would be open to interpretation, but I think we would dub you my “personal physician”. Such a style or title would carry with it the onus of confidentiality, and I admit I would find that useful.’
‘Medical confidentiality is not as sacrosanct as you might think. As a matter of fact, the Hippocratic Oath would not have us fail in our duty as citizens. We have a responsibility to speak up on what are called “weighty matters” – such as, for example, murder.’
‘You have no proof.’
‘No. Merely overwhelming circumstantial evidence.’
‘If there is no proof, there is no burden of proof. But I will not beat about the bush. I propose to offer you a salary of one million dollars per annum, plus expenses.’
‘How is it that everybody wants to employ me, except the people I want to work for?’
‘The post is of course superannuated and fully index-linked. The personal physician will have two residences, one in London and one in Manhattan, with a holiday home shall we say in the Mediterranean and, especially for you, a New Zealand bach. A comfortable car at each locale with generous travel allowance is of course de rigueur. What are you flying at present? Personally I’ve been very impressed by the Mooney M20M TLS Bravo.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You would reject an offer that would guarantee you financial independence within one calendar year, and spend the next thirty years in the company of vagrants, drug addicts, and other assorted casualties of life?’
‘At least I’ll be of some use.’
‘I’ll double the salary. Two million.’
‘No.’
‘Every man has his price. Name yours.’
And I stole a line from a man I once, briefly, knew. ‘Mr Fox, you can’t afford me.’
He looked truly disappointed. He glanced over at the timer.
‘The sands of time are running out. What was it you wished to say to me?’
‘I’ve figured out what happened to Captain O’Driscoll.’
‘Didn’t he die on a yomp?’
‘No. It was obvious really. Staring me in the face. He died in this box. He died because he found out something which, had it reached the public domain, would preclude your running for the presidency.’
‘What might that be?’
‘The Wide Game.’
‘How so?’
‘It was Dr Parkinson who figured it out. He’s been studying history. Your history. The Wide Game is played on seven continents. It is played by a very exclusive set of extremely wealthy people. People who have grown bored with mundanity and whose predilections extend well beyond the norm. They come together biennially across seven continents and they play the Wide Game according to special rules. In the Wide Game, the quarry is hunted to the death.’
‘That is a fantastic proposition. I can’t think it would be possible to conceal such an enterprise from the public eye.’
‘On the contrary. Remember that there was recently a doctor working out of a modest single-handed practice in the north of England who turned out to be the most notorious serial killer the country has ever known. He certainly killed fifteen people and he may, over the course of a lifetime, have killed as many as three hundred. And nobody noticed. You at least have taken the precaution of operating across the entire world. Who is going to link a man dying on safari in the Serengeti with a trapper in the Yukon, an unfortunate defenestration in Prague, a man overboard off Deception Island on the Antarctic Peninsula, and a man dying on Great Barrier Island on a yomp?’
‘Did Captain O’Driscoll establish such an outlandish link?’
‘You clearly thought so. Why else would you stuff a man full of aspirin, then lock him in a sauna?
‘If you are right, you are taking quite some risk in stepping into this environment yourself. Why are you taking such a risk?’
‘Because you are dying.’
There was a heavy silence.
‘It was the left hand that gave it away. Spot diagnosis. Alien hand syndrome. That set me wondering what the underlying problem was. I pieced it together the last time we shared this sauna. It’s PML, isn’t it? Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. It’s a manifestation of a viral infection. CJD. Creuzfeldt-Jacob disease. We all carry
the virus, but it only affects us if we’re immune-suppressed. That set me thinking. Why are you immune- suppressed? Are you on medication? What might it be? Steroids, tacrolimus, natalizumab? One of these crazy made-up pharmaceutical words that look as if they’ve been spelt out backwards. Infliximab?
‘Then I wondered, what’s being treated? Not rheumatoid, not psoriasis. Lupus? Hodgkin’s? AIDS? No. I figured it when you took a funny turn in this box. You’re sensitive to heat. It’s called the Uhthoff Symptom. You’ve got MS. And it’s all gotten out of hand. You get treated for a condition and then the treatment gives you an even worse condition, but if you come off the treatment, the original condition comes back with a vengeance. Every move you make comes at a disadvantage. It’s what chess players call zugzwang. There’s something else that can happen. You develop PML secondary to a medication. You come off the medication but the PML remains. It turns out to be irreversible and, usually, under these circumstances, rampant. CJD-PML. How long are the physicians giving you? Six months? A year? Did Shaun O’Driscoll find out? All that money, but you can’t buy your way out of this fix.’
‘If what you say is true, then I am left without recourse.’
‘It’s an article of faith of mine, that it doesn’t matter what fix you’ve got yourself into, you’re always meant to find a way out. It doesn’t matter how desperate your situation, you can always make a choice. You can always invest your situation with meaning.’
‘You obviously don’t support Dignitas.’
‘I believe in palliative care.’
‘And you’ve come to palliate me? How very touching. I’m afraid that is nothing more than the sentimentality of somebody who has never suffered. Never truly suffered. The sands of time have run out. What a pity. And what a waste.’
The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange Page 18