The doctor steepled his hands on his desk, exposing a set of bloodied half moons on his palms. To Elijah, it looked like the doctor quickly hid his hands when he realised Elijah had seen them.
“I have something we can try,” the doctor finally said. “It’s not subsidised-”
“I can’t afford…” Elijah interrupted.
“Please, Mister Cone, let me finish. It is not subsidised because it is not a restricted medicine, it’s a natural remedy I would like you to try first. If your insurance won’t cover the copay charges for the accepted arthritis drugs, then I expect you know there’s not much else I can prescribe other than exceptionally high doses of over the counter pain relief, which at your age is likely to play havoc with your stomach lining. So let’s try this alternative and if when I see you next week you haven’t noticed any change in your condition then we can try something else?”
Elijah almost stopped listening when Doctor Perry had said natural remedy. Pure quackery, the flake was probably going to prescribe medicinal marijuana or deer velvet or rhino horn or whatever the current cool aid flavour was deep in the rolling meadows where the doctor learnt his trade. But then again he didn’t have anything to lose and swallowing whatever placebo it was might keep the staff off his back for another week, leaving him in peace.
“Whatever you say, you’re the doctor.”
Elijah watched on as Doctor Perry scrambled through his notes. He had no idea what the doctor was looking for. He was pretty proficient at reading upside down but couldn’t make any sense at all of the squiggles and lines in the doctor’s notes. He wasn’t surprised Doctor Perry couldn’t fathom them either.
“I, ah, after the commotion I've muddled up my paperwork, very unlike me, bear with me…”
The doctor only had seven folders on his desk so Elijah couldn’t understand the confusion but it was an interesting observation of human nature regardless. Doctor Perry kept checking his watch and tutting to himself, a vein pulsating rhythmically in his forehead, bulging out of his skin. Elijah imagined the vein popping like a balloon… That Doctor Perry was flustered was obvious to Elijah, as the doctor checked his watch again, shuffling through the paperwork and muttering to himself until he finally swivelled around in his chair, grabbed a medicine cup from the bench behind him, and thrust it towards Elijah.
“This is the tonic I was talking about. Precisely measured for you, for your, ah… age, yes. I have your file here so it’s all fine, this is the right amount for you. Yes, yes.”
As the doctor talked, he appeared to be persuading himself, and Elijah, that all was fine whilst rechecking the time and peering at the measurements on the side of the cup before pushing it into Elijah’s hand.
“You must drink it all and you should feel some relief in the next day or two. And I’ll see you again next week, at the same time.”
Elijah had barely finished tipping the viscous liquid down his throat before Doctor Perry grabbed the medicine cup from his hand, oblivious to the pain he caused Elijah by knocking his fingers. Elijah recoiled, but Doctor Perry was too busy gathering up his folders and shoving them deep into his leather bag.
“Yes, I’ll see you again next week. If you have any concerns before then, I’m sure the nursing staff can see to them. I really am running very late now.”
Before Elijah had even finished swallowed the chalky tasting concoction, Doctor Perry swept from the room, not even glancing at Polish Rob’s body which was being attended to by a pair of orderlies. Elijah stood in the doorway of the consulting room, the stench of vomit reminiscent of college football parties where the over imbibing of liquor resulted in the ruination of many a scholarship. On this occasion, booze had been the ruin of a man, and the doctor hadn’t given him the slightest thought.
Elijah ran his tongue over the velvety liquid coating his teeth. Not unpleasant tasting, but not something he’d choose to drink. Whether it worked or not remained to be seen.
20
Jesse and James spent a pleasant hour playing with the rats with their pocket knife — a multipurpose tool which they’d taken turns with trying out the different implements, comparing their effectiveness with their ease of use. An innocent game of doctors, if a little messy, leaving both boys splattered with blood and the ironing board looking like a horror movie prop.
A knock on the door made Jessie jump but James didn’t even blink, instead he wiped his hand through the blood on the board and smeared it under Jesse’s nose and down his chin, then shoved the dismembered carcasses into his pocket. A glance at his brother warning him to stay silent.
The door opened and the woman walked in. The blood on the ironing board looked more like a red scarf or a shawl, but as her eyes traveled to the faces of the twins she screamed, a rasping bleat, like the strangled cry of a fox caught in a trap.
“It’s all right, miss. He had a nosebleed and we tried not to get it on the floor. We were playing with the ironing board and he banged his nose but we couldn’t stop the blood. Our mom is going to kill us, making such a mess, but we didn’t get any on your carpet…” James burbled, his innocent face curiously blank of anything.
Jesse nodded, screwing up his nose as the drying blood tickled his face. He pantomimed holding the bridge of his nose, like how he’d seen his grandfather do it. Grandad had weak blood his mother said; she also said it wouldn’t stay in his body properly which was why it leaked out of his nose and his bum when he coughed. He coughed a lot. All through the night sometimes, keeping them all awake.
The woman’s scream dialled down to a murmur of distress and she fluttered about them like a moth around a church candle. “You boys should have come to get me, you didn’t need to go through this alone. Come through to the bathroom and I’ll get you cleaned up. Leave all that there and I’ll sort it later. At least you found something to entertain yourselves with,” she said, running her hand through the upended buttons on the bed. “Ouch!” she said, jumping back.
Hidden amongst the buttons, a darning needle had speared her hand causing a bead of blood to blossom. The boys watched as she brought her palm to her mouth to lick away the blood, leaving behind a tiny smear.
“Are you all right, miss?” asked Jesse. Of the two, he had the greatest capacity to show empathy. Except he wasn’t empathetic, he was a talented mimic. He would make a great Shakespearean actor if he ever decided to channel his talents in that direction.
“I’m fine, it’s a tiny prick. I should’ve remembered the needles. I’ll be more careful when I clean it away,” and ushered the boys from the room. If she noticed anything strange about the dark stain spreading on Jame’s shorts pocket, she never mentioned it.
As Myra ran the bath, she instructed both boys to strip and to put their clothes in the hamper, explaining that while they were in the bath she’d hunt out something suitable for them to wear. There was a stock of clothes for situations just like this as foster children invariably arrived without any belongings and Myra was expected to dress and care for them using whatever was available in the wardrobe in the far bedroom.
Once the bath was full, and the woman had left the bathroom, James fished the rat carcasses from his pocket, dropping them one at a time into the toilet, their congealing blood turning the water red. He flushed each rat individually, imagining the tiny bodies going on the best waterslide of their life. Down to the sewers to rat heaven. He didn’t know he was sending them back to where they came from, back home. Home was such a foreign concept. Sure he and Jesse had a home, a roof over their heads, but a real home required you had someone to love you, to take an interest in you, and their mother had never been like that, nor their father or grandfather. They all just existed in the house, living side by side but as strangers, treating the boys as mere inconveniences to their own small lives. The boys knew they were better than their mother. Better than their father and grandfather. And better than the woman who’d just run the bath. They could tell by her voice that she viewed them as a chore, as part of her job as a wi
fe. That’s how they knew they were better than her. She clearly didn’t have the intellect to be anything other than a modern house slave. Although unspoken, the boys knew the doctor was different, that he was cleverer than the others. He hadn’t taken any special interest in them so he could be like the others — their teachers, the children at school, their neighbours. So small minded, none of them aiming for greatness, settling instead for mediocrity. Yes, they’d have to be careful of the doctor. And then they hopped into the bath and scrubbed away at the rat blood under their fingernails and staining their faces as if they knew the doctor would be able to tell the difference.
Outside the bathroom Myra listened to the toilet flushing, once, twice, three times. There was no talking but she did hear the hamper lid lift and fall, once, twice, and then the thud of feet on the enamel bath followed by the slashing of water. She leaned against the wall and stroked the bridge of her own nose, broken umpteen times playing field hockey at school. She was as familiar with blood noses as she was with broken fingers. It worried her that they were such little boys but lying little boys grew up to be lying older boys, then men. Evil didn't differentiate when it came to age. Evil was within so when it came to nurture over nature, nature always won. She could only trust that her husband would find a home for them sooner rather than later.
“Come on, Tom,” she said to the cat weaving himself in and out of her legs, “Let’s get you some food.” She sucked on her palm, the site of the needle stick, the taste of iron in her mouth reminding her of her own humanity.
21
“People don’t just disappear. We’re not talking about scary clowns hiding in drains or people being sucked into their televisions, we’re talking about normal people living normal lives. So where are they?” Clive Jeffries moustache bristled as the words shot out of his mouth. Fourteen years he’d been a police officer and in that time his ability to believe in the fantastical had all but petered out. There was always a logical explanation and nine times out of ten it involved a family member. It didn’t even matter what the crime was, it was invariably a family member or friend. Nine times out of ten. It was a bit like the kidnapping they’d dealt with last week; the media sensationalised it — the kidnapping of a baby, but in the end it all boiled down to drug debts and the family being paid a lesson by their supplier. It had never been about the baby, the baby was only a conduit for the message. But here today, he had on his hands two separate files for missing people, adults, elderly adults.
The rest of the people in the briefing room shrugged. They were all just as disillusioned with life as Clive. Theirs wasn’t a small town but they weren’t New York or Los Angeles so you couldn’t hide people for long without a neighbour getting suspicious or a jilted girl friend narking on her ex. They would find them.
“How do we know they’re even missing? Maybe they don’t want to be found,” Emily Jesmond offered, doodling in the margins of her notebook, instead of writing down the names of the missing men.
“We know they’re missing because their families have reported them missing,” Clive snapped back, his words as sharp as the cuffs he wished he could slap over Emily’s mouth. The most annoying member of his team, she never went far enough to be disciplined but flew very close to the wind with her laziness and backchat. If she didn’t want to be on the force, he wished like hell she’d bloody well leave and go write books or chant Buddhist hymns or whatever it was that she enjoyed doing because she clearly didn’t enjoy policing.
“They could have gone on holiday and not told their families,” she offered back.
Clive turned back to the whiteboard, fists at his side. Two deep breaths he thought to himself. In and out. She was an idiot but for the time being he was stuck with her so he had to deal with it. Taking up the marker pen, he started writing names next to tasks. The squeak of the pen on the board as calming as the reciprocal sound of the other people in the room copying the information into their notebooks.
“Right, these are your taskings. Both men have been gone over a month, give or take, but neither family is entirely sure-”
“So you’re saying that their families didn’t bother worrying about where they were until, what, someone else said they were missing or until the money ran out?” Emily interjected.
“As always, following the money is a given. Emily, you can liaise with the banks and credit card companies. Pull their records. I can prepare any warrant applications you need for that data. Gary, you and Tony can visit their houses. Go in under the auspices of a welfare check at both addresses. See what you can find. Check the mailboxes too. Burton, you and Michelle can interview the families. We only have their missing person reports but the men live close to each other, so lets see if they know each other in any way — clubs, memberships, golfing, that sort of thing. You know what needs to be checked. Right then, all of that, on top of everything else. And that fatal this morning, we still need some witness statements tidied up for that.” He smiled, “Emily, you can run by the rest home across the road from the accident site. Some of their residents might have seen something other than vague stuff we got already.”
“Seriously? She tripped over into the road and her head was run over. And her baby, I guess that was pretty unfortunate but we’re not charging the driver with murder, or manslaughter, so why do we need to bother?” Emily said.
Snickering from around the briefing room greeted her statement. Not the sort of snickering done in agreement with her comments but more the sound a group makes when an annoying team member is about to be slaughtered.
Clive ignored her. One day she’d overstep the mark just enough that he’d be able to deal with her, for now it was good enough that the rest of the term were serving up their own form of punishment: exclusion and derision.
“The name of the place is the Rose Haven Retirement Resort. Make that your first port of call today. That’s it everyone, good luck and keep me posted about any developments.” Clive Jeffries dismissed them all, turning back to the board to reread the plan of attack. He waited until he was sure everyone had left the room before slumping into an empty chair and jotted down some quick notes about Emily’s latest insubordination. The list was getting longer every day and he was slowly building an overall picture of her performance. That’s what the HR people had told him to do when he’d gone to them for advice. He should have started earlier because now it was as if she knew she was under scrutiny and had toned back her more usual argumentative backchat. She was a pain in the arse but he couldn’t fault her success rate. If anyone was going to track down their two missing octogenarians, it would be Emily. And that killed Clive more than anything else.
Most families lived with some version of disfunctionality so he hadn’t been surprised to hear that it had been over a month before the two families realised their elderly relatives were missing. Hell, it had been at least two weeks since he’d spoken to his own mother.
Pulling out his phone, he dialled home.
“Hello?”
“Hi Mom, it’s Clive.”
“Hello, Clive dear. Sorry sweetheart, now really isn’t a great time, Judy and I are off to the movies and they’re offering a special today which includes a free coffee. It’s lovely to hear your voice, but can I ring you back tonight, Judy and I don’t want to be late? Okay? Lovely, take care, bye bye.”
Yes, most families lived with some version of disfunction. His mother had a far more active social life than he’d ever had. Even though she was in her mid seventies, he could never rely on her being at home on the few occasions he’d swung past on his way somewhere. Most times he’d resorted to wedging his business card in the fancy trellis of the insect screen over the front door to prove he’d tried to see her. But at least he’d rung and knew she was alive and healthy. Healthy. That gave him pause for thought. Maybe the two men shared a doctor? Clive fired off a couple of texts to the team, asking them to find out the medical practices the missing men belonged to. It was entirely possible the families didn’t kno
w, and in that case the team searching the houses would need to look for any relevant paperwork. But it was another track they could take. Serious crime in their part of Florida was rare which was why he could devote so many people to two missing persons files. He imagined his counterparts in Chicago or Dallas laughing at them even bothering to investigate two missing grandfathers. But that’s what they were paid for, so that’s what they would do. And in between they’d fit in investigating the fatal accident this morning, an assault charge which had come in the night before from one of the bars alongside the river, and a couple of other minor complaints which made up the majority of their workload. He was happy that this was their reality. He had no idea how soon that reality would implode.
22
“Good morning, Mary Louise, how are you today?” Doctor Perry smiled at the woman who’d opened the door.
The woman standing in front of him was a far fitter version of the woman he’d met only a week earlier. She appeared taller, her eyes clearer, the smile on her face stretching from one side to the other, a pale pink gloss highlighting lips fuller and younger than the last time he’d seen her.
“Good morning, Doctor Perry, please come in,” Mary Louise replied.
Doctor Perry followed Mary Louise to the kitchen. “Your range of movement has improved,” he said, watching as she sat in a normal dining chair. The hospital’s invalids chair abandoned in the corner, a pair of crutches leaning against it.
“I feel amazing,” Mary Louise replied. “I thought I could return to work. It’s not that hard managing with the casts now and I feel so much better in myself. I’m going crazy here, there’s only so much daytime television I can handle,” she laughed.
“I’m pleased your recovery is going well but you don’t want to overdo it,” Doctor Perry counselled. “Another week at home and I’ll reassess you. Let’s have a look at you.”
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