(2013) Looks Could Kill

by David Ellis

  “You know, Sandra, you’re the second person to ask me that today,” said Emma, “but since you ask, we’re both doing well, although I’m up to here with preparations for the pilot.”

  “Yes, I saw a bit of the press conference on the news. You were really impressive, if you don’t mind me saying; although I’m not sure I understood all the science.”

  “Thanks, Sandra. I’m just hoping that this one here – she patted her stomach – plays ball and doesn’t try to steal the limelight.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. Oh, and my legs, too,” said Sandra.

  They both laughed.

  “Hello, Dr Jones. Would you like to come in now?” called Miss Wang, the obstetrician.

  Emma waddled her way into the small consulting room, aware that other patients were looking at her and wondering whether this was because she’d been addressed as ‘Dr’ or recognised from the TV.

  Emma was surprised to see three medical students squeezed into the room, perched on plastic chairs with copies of Impey and Child’s ‘Obstetrics & Gynaecology’ open on their laps.

  “How are you doing, Emma?” asked Miss Wang as Emma sat down.

  “Fine really, Fiona, just getting easily tired and up to my ears with work,” said Emma. “I see we’ve got some visitors today.” She looked in the direction of the students and smiled.

  “Oops. Sorry, Emma, I should have introduced them. From left to right, they’re James, Mona and Virna, all in their third year.”

  The students said “Hi” and “Hello.”

  Miss Wang spoke to the students: “Dr Jones here is something of a celebrity – you’ve probably seen her on TV – and she’s also interesting from an obstetric point of view as she became pregnant for the first time at the relatively late age of 42. Can anyone tell me what the risks are of pregnancy after 40?”

  “High blood pressure,” said James.

  “Gestational diabetes,” said Virna.

  “Yes, absolutely right,” said Miss Wang, “but mainly so in obese women where the BMI is 30 or more, and as you can see, Dr Jones doesn’t fall in that category. However, even non-obese women over 40 have a higher rate of caesarean section.”

  “Which I’d obviously prefer to avoid,” interjected Emma.

  “So would I,” said Miss Wang. “Dr Jones’s due date is October 8, so we’ll need to start seeing her weekly soon. Today we‘ll check her BP and urine for protein and do an external examination. Emma, would you’d like to get up on the couch?”

  Emma did as requested.

  “Okay, your BP is 130 over 90, which is fine, but we’ll need to keep an eye on it. Here’s a pot for your urine sample. Now, let’s examine your tummy. Do you mind if the students gather around?” asked Miss Wang.

  “No problem,” said Emma.

  The students watched as Miss Wang palpated Emma’s abdomen and felt the baby’s head. Miss Wang helped each of the students in turn to identify the position of the head. She then measured the fundal height and listened to the baby’s heartbeat with a foetal stethoscope. “Okay, everything seems to be looking good, Emma. As one would expect, there’s no engagement yet and the baby seems to be growing normally. I think we can wait two weeks before we see you next. Do you have any questions?”

  “Just the one, Fiona,” said Emma. “Is there a note somewhere in my file about the special precautions that need to be taken during labour?”

  “Oh, you mean the dark glasses?”

  “Yes, I really can’t trust myself when I’m in labour to keep my guard up and everything in control, so I think it’s the wisest option.”

  The students looked puzzled but Miss Wang and Emma decided not to explain what all that meant.

  August 2005, whilst Emma was at the clinic

  Bob made a sketch of the layout of the room. To the left of the door, there was a wall with bookshelves and a leather sofa in front. Next to that there was a leather-topped desk below a window with an iMac and a swivelling, high-backed chair. Opposite the sofa there was an original-looking fireplace with a gilt-framed mirror above it. The wall nearest the door had a large abstract painting on it and a couple of leather armchairs underneath. The overall effect was masculine and elegant, in keeping with its previous occupant.

  Bob started his scan with the wall near the door, moving the 900 MHz scanner methodically from left to right and from ceiling to floor. As he was doing this, he glanced at the row of books and noticed seminal tracts from Freud and Jung juxtaposed with more modern psychotherapeutic titles rubbing up against first editions of various European authors. The scanner stayed silent. He moved to the next wall and the desk. The scanner started bleeping in his earphone when he passed it over the banker’s desk lamp. Without touching anything, he extracted a dentist’s mirror from his pocket and examined the underside of the glass covering. Although it was small and well hidden, he could just make out the one centimetre diameter bug attached to the bulb housing. Like many modern surveillance devices, this had been manufactured in China and was cunningly powered by the heat from the bulb. It was only short range, so there must be a receiver nearby. But given that the room had been unused for months, the bug was probably dead by now.

  Moving to the fireplace and mirror, the scanner started behaving very strangely when he moved it in front of the mirror, suggesting that there were multiple devices hidden behind the mirror. He stepped back from the fireplace and examined the mirror from a distance. Not noticing anything unusual, he then examined the surface closer up. He placed the tip of a finger nail against the surface of the mirror and saw that there was no gap between the nail and the image of the nail, which confirmed his initial impression that the mirror was two-way. This was getting complicated and he was trying to fathom out why the room should both be bugged and under video surveillance. Given that he’d presumably been under surveillance himself ever since he entered the room, he concluded that he might as well finish the counter-surveillance job. He checked around the perimeter of the mirror to see whether there was some sort of hinge; he tried gently pulling at the mirror and found that it was fixed to the wall securely. Brute force was an option but he suspected that there was a more elegant way of finding out what lay behind the mirror. He went to the desk to check whether there was some sort of lock release in the drawer but found nothing in it apart from a few pens and a small handheld mirror. The phrase “Mirror, mirror upon the wall, who is the fairest of all?” suddenly came to mind. Bookshelves were another popular place to hide lock releases. He went over to the book shelves not exactly sure where to start but looking for something that was a bit out of place. Previously, he’d noticed various first editions and he let his eyes wonder along the shelves looking for something that might hint at an ulterior purpose.

  Sandwiched between Freud’s ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ and ‘Totem and Taboo’, Bob noticed Grimm’s ‘Kinder und Hausmärchen’ and thought that a book of fairy tales seemed a rather apt critical comment on a shelf dedicated to psychoanalysis. He then remembered that the tale of ‘Little Snow-White’ and the mirror came from that same book. He tentatively reached for the book and pulled it off the shelf. As he did so, he heard a click come from the far end of the room and the mirror above the fireplace seemed to judder slightly. He put the book down and went across to the fireplace. He inspected the right hand side of the mirror and noticed that there was now a gap between the edge and the wall. He tentatively pulled at the bottom right-hand corner, half expecting an alarm to go off or something to explode in his face. As the mirror swung open, he saw an Aladdin's cave of hi-tech video equipment with a number of cameras pointing directly at him. There were no red lights on to indicate that they were running at present, so he concluded that these were remotely controlled and there for the purpose of recording whatever was happening at the other end of the room.

  Bob noticed a number of video cassettes lined up on a shelf. One was labelled ‘EJ - 15/01/04’ and he put this in the pro-grade VCR and pressed the play bu
tton. The small monitor screen sprang to life and he had no difficulty identifying a distressed Dr Jones in a non-pregnant state who was clearly being seduced by Daniel Armstrong. The blatancy of this surprised him but he’d already gathered that Daniel was a highly effective operative. He pressed the stop button, removed the tape from the VCR and closed the mirror against the wall. His boss would find the contents of the tape most interesting.

  August 2005, a day later

  Finding the right position to sleep was becoming increasingly difficult for Emma and the heat of high summer made the bedroom even more oppressive. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and saw that it had just gone midnight. When she first moved in with Daniel, they thought nothing of staying up until the early hours but everything was so different now. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and eased herself up. As she walked across to the bedroom window, she noticed through gaps in the curtain a flashing light making its way down the street. It seemed to come to a halt in front of her house. Next there were the sounds of doors opening and closing followed by footsteps up stairs. The doorbell rang loudly shattering the silence of the night. She briefly considered paying no attention to the intrusion on her sleep but decided to go down and see who was at the door anyway. She shouted “I’m coming” as she picked her way down the stairs. Her pulse rate increased when she saw the flashing light through the fanlight. She looked through the peephole in the door and saw a couple of men in dark suits wearing sunglasses dramatically outlined by the flashing light.

  “What is it? Who are you?” asked Emma.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Dr Jones, it’s the police. Can you let us in?” said one of the besuited men.

  “I’d like to see some ID first,” said Emma.

  One of the men held up what looked like a warrant card against the peephole.

  “Okay, I’m opening the door,” said Emma. She pulled back the bolts and unlocked the door.

  The two men in dark suits looked too clean-cut and institutional to have come from the local police station. They also had conspicuous earpieces in their left ears. Hovering in the background, and halfway down the steps, there were a couple of overweight police officers presumably there as some sort of back-up. Bizarrely, they were also wearing sunglasses.

  “Dr Jones, we’d like you to come with us,” said one of the men.

  “I’d like to see your ID again,” said Emma.

  Both of the men showed Emma their ID cards and this time she noticed that they weren’t like typical warrant cards and actually had a small MI5 logo in the top left-hand corner.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why you want me or why you’ve disturbed me in the middle of the night,” said Emma, feeling more irritated than apprehensive.

  “I’m afraid we’re not at liberty to answer those questions,” said the other man. “Our instructions are simply to escort you for questioning.”

  “And if I refuse?” asked Emma.

  “Well, we might have to consider using a warrant for your arrest relating to the death of a certain Joanne Carlisle in 1981,” said the man.

  “You can’t be serious!” said Emma. “I was 18-years-old and the police dropped the case because there was no evidence!”

  “Well, forensic science has come on a long way since then and that bottle of insulin has turned out to be rather informative,” he said with an ill-disguised smirk.

  “Christ!” exclaimed Emma. “Well, can I at least put some clothes on?”

  “Very well, one of the police officers will accompany you while you change,” he said.

  Emma went indoors and upstairs with one of the police officers.

  “Do I need to bring anything else with me?” asked Emma. “A change of clothes, toiletries, that sort of thing?”

  “No, just what you’re wearing will be fine,” said the police officer.

  “Can you tell me any more about what’s going to happen?” asked Emma. “Am I really under arrest?”

  “I’m sorry, doctor, but I can’t say anything,” said the police officer.

  Emma walked back downstairs with the police officer and closed the front door behind her, not knowing what she was getting involved in or when she’d be back in the security of her home. The two men in suits walked on either side of her down the steps to the open doors of a black limousine and she found herself sandwiched between them on the back seat. One of them produced a blindfold which he put over her head.

  “What’s that for?” asked Emma in surprise.

  “Our instructions again, Dr Jones; you’re not to know where you’re being taken,” said one of the men.

  Emma sighed, feeling annoyingly helpless, but at the same time realising that this whole business was much more than about being questioned in relation to a suicide that happened twenty-five years ago. She sank back into the leather seat and tried to construct a virtual map from the directions being taken by the car. This turned out to be the equivalent of counting sheep and a few minutes later she was fast asleep.

  The limousine pulled up at the front of a sizeable, early Victorian, country mansion. Emma woke with a start and reached up to remove the blindfold but was intercepted by one of her two escorts.

  “Sorry, Dr Jones, no can do,” he said. “We’ll take you in and then the blindfold can come off.”

  Her dark-suited companions, whom she’d decided must be called Bill and Ben, led her up some steps and into a reverberant entrance hall. She heard one of them mutter “No problems” to someone else and she was then led, with Bill and Ben on either side, down a corridor to the left of the hall. A door was opened and she was directed to sit down. Bill and Ben took their cue and left.

  “My dear Dr Jones, please do take off your blindfold,” said a rich, well-modulated male voice that stirred a few neurons in her cerebello-frontal pathway.

  Emma removed the blindfold and saw that she was in a small conference room with a few chairs along one side of a table and a bank of flat screen TVs on the opposite wall. An image gradually appeared on the middle screen and she saw what appeared to be a book-lined study with a fire burning in the grate. A face came into view and she immediately recognised it as belonging to Professor Cuthbertson, the surgeon she worked for in her first house officer post.

  “Professor Cuthbertson! I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Emma, feeling thoroughly confused.

  “Yes, much water under the bridge since you were my house officer – an excellent one, I should add – but I’ve been watching your career with much interest - and with some concerns from time to time, it has to be said,” Professor Cuthbertson added, with a chuckle.

  “But what am I – what are we – doing here?” asked Emma.

  “All will become clear, my dear,” said the Professor, “but first I’d like to introduce you to a couple of old friends.”

  A second screen came to life and Emma could hear the duet ‘O soave fanciulla’ from Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’ playing in the background. Two faces came into view.

  “Ciao, bella Emma,” said the handsome, middle-aged man.

  “Oh, god, I don’t believe it!” said Emma.

  “Yes, cara mia, it’s us, Jemma and Tim, a bit older and with croakier voices, but we’ve never forgotten you,” said Jemma.

  “Sorry, but this is becoming seriously strange,” said Emma. “I’ve heard of synchronicity but this is way beyond that.”

  “Perhaps I can explain,” said another voice.

  Emma turned around and saw that someone real rather than on a video link had entered the room. She drew a sharp intake of breath when she recognised who it was. His face was older and his hair longer, but there was no mistaking the man whom she’d met in the hospital canteen nine years ago.

  “I don’t believe it, this must be some bizarre sort of dream,” said Emma.

  “No, it really is us,” said Fred, “and we’re here to help explain everything. But note that I’m not wearing shades, so no glares in my direction, please.”

  “Good,
now that we’re all reacquainted with Dr Jones, let’s get down to business,” said Professor Cuthbertson. “Emma, I must apologise for all the cloak and dagger stuff, but the reality is that you are at risk. Take your builder, for instance – someone called Bob, I believe – how did you come about employing him?”

  “Well, I needed some work doing and a card came through the letterbox. He sounded nice on the phone, so I asked him to come over and give a quote,” said Emma.

  “My dear, you always were somewhat naïve and rather too trusting,” said Professor Cuthbertson. “Would it surprise you to know that he’s far from being your average builder and generally more involved in deconstruction, including of people he’s instructed to terminate?

  “But he’s got my spare set of keys!” exclaimed Emma.

  “Exactly, which is why we couldn’t wait and had to send a couple of our MI5 colleagues to rescue you in the middle of the night,” said Professor Cuthbertson. “And it may interest you to know that your ‘Bob’ is also a dab hand in counter-surveillance and discovered some rather interesting items behind the mirror in your late husband’s room, like this for instance.”

  Emma could see Professor Cuthbertson reaching across to put some sort of tape in a piece of equipment. A screen next to him sprung to life and she briefly saw ‘EJ – 15/01/04’ flash on the screen. She watched with a growing sense of foreboding the unfolding scene of Daniel’s seduction of her in his room. Professor Cuthbertson pressed the stop button before it became too embarrassing.

  “Most interesting, wouldn't you agree? Mr Bannister, would you continue?” asked Professor Cuthbertson.

  “I’d be happy to,” said Fred. “Emma, you know by now that you have a most unusual ability, which is generally known by the expression: ‘evil eye’. Numerous cultures have references to this, including in Professor Cuthbertson’s neck of the woods where it’s called the ‘droch-shùil’. Your manifestation of this is the most highly developed we‘ve ever come across. Your potential ability was picked up from the newspaper account of the death of the vicar following your baptism. Because of the implications of your ability, many people – including Professor Cuthbertson, Jemma and Tim, and myself – have been there in the background watching to see how your ability unfolded and ready to intervene should the need become apparent.”