by D. S. Butler
“Depression is a very serious condition.”
“Sure. But most of them lot out there are only pretending they’ve got it so they don’t have to work for a living.”
Wendy shook her head. There was no use arguing with him like this. It was true that many of her patients visited to discuss mental health issues more often than they ever had in the past, but Wendy thought that was a positive step forward.
“Look, I know this is hard, but if you could talk to somebody about your anxiety—” Wendy began.
He interrupted. “My anxiety? I’m not anxious.”
“Your anxiety relating to your medical conditions. The brain can be a funny thing. It can convince you something’s wrong when in reality you’re perfectly healthy.”
He gave a roar of outrage and thumped his fist on the desk.
Wendy pushed herself back in her wheeled chair as far as she could go. Then stood up, pulling the chair in front of her as a makeshift shield. “Calm down!”
“How am I supposed to keep calm when you won’t even listen to me?”
“Losing your temper won’t help. You need to talk to someone.”
“Forget about it,” he growled and stalked out of the room.
Wendy leaned heavily on the back of the chair and took a few deep breaths. For a moment, she’d thought he might hit her. They didn’t prepare you for that sort of thing when you went to medical school.
After a few more calming breaths, she walked back to her desk, wheeling the chair behind her. She picked up her pen and scrawled on her notepad: delusional parasitosis?
Then she picked up her phone and dialled the direct number for Dr Farquhar.
Chapter Three
He stormed through the waiting room. He had to get out of there before he really lost his temper. Things escalated quickly when he lost his rag, and there was too much at stake right now to risk that.
He stepped over a child playing with a red car on the floor. His mother was too busy looking at her phone to notice the little boy was now sucking on the toy. Very hygienic.
He yanked open the door, only to find an elderly woman blocking his way. He held his breath, manners dictating he hold the door open for her. But she took forever, shuffling and leaning heavily on her walking frame.
I don’t have all day, he thought impatiently, but then regretted it. Her slowness wasn’t her fault. She’d been let down by the medical profession just as he had. He’d seen her at the surgery before. She’d been with her daughter then, and they’d been discussing the length of time she’d been on the waiting list for a hip replacement.
So he hid his frustration as well as he could and gripped the door as she’d managed to shuffle through the doorway, muttering apologies. Of course, the sulky looking teenager, sitting in the seat nearest the door, didn’t bother to get up and offer his chair to the elderly lady. That was just typical of society today. Nobody cared about anyone else. Doctors included.
He should have known he’d be in trouble when he got put on Dr Willson’s list. That woman had never liked him. He’d have had more luck with Dr Farquhar. Perhaps he should have insisted on seeing the male doctor. At least he didn’t cower in fear when presented with facts.
But that didn’t solve his immediate problem. He needed the antibiotics. Perhaps he should have known the rash wouldn’t be enough. They were all cracking down on the amount of antibiotics prescribed these days. He’d heard a radio programme about it just last week. Of course they didn’t mention the fact that over eighty percent of the world’s antibiotics were actually used on farm animals. He doubted the industry would be interested in reducing those. It would eat into profits, and that would never do.
Finally when the old woman got out of the way, he pushed his way out of the waiting room and stepped outside into the germ-free, fresh air. He took a couple of calming breaths. His anger had made him feel dizzy. He pressed his fingers to the edge of his wrist to check his pulse rate. Just as he thought. Ninety bpm. That was all the doctor’s fault.
The public was so trusting. They hardly ever questioned the way doctors like to pump them full of drugs these days – even though for many of the drugs there was very little evidence they actually worked.
They were the ones either prescribing or gobbling up the drugs, but everyone saw him as the crazy one. When really he was the only one who was actually looking at things logically.
The most frustrating thing was, no one would help him. He tried talking about it to friends, people he’d met on the forums or in the meet-up groups, but they shut down or changed the subject. Their smiles would grow guarded and their eyes shifty as they tried to come up with a way to extricate themselves from the conversation. Still, what did he care? He didn’t need them. All the great discoveries of science had been ridiculed at first. Scientists had been thrown in jail for daring to go against the grain. No one believed them at first, but history would view him as a genius. The person who finally put the human race on the right track.
But his lack of antibiotics was a serious setback. He could try to buy them online and get them shipped in from somewhere like India, but there was a chance they’d get held up at customs, and the shipping would take far too long. By the time the antibiotics arrived, it would be too late.
He shuddered as he thought of what might happen. They’d blame him. It didn’t matter that his intentions were good, that he never wanted to hurt anyone. All they would care about was the outcome.
Suddenly feeling weak, he staggered a few steps to the bus stop and sat down. Across the street, a group of teenagers were screeching and calling to one another, pushing and shoving each other while far too close to the road. Idiots.
At the other end of the bus stop, a bald man lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag. The light smoke spread around him, mingling with the smell of fried bacon from the cafe just along the street.
The smell of a bacon buttie carried by a youngish man, wearing a leather jacket and a backpack, made him feel hungry. He’d left home without eating breakfast. It was hard to eat when a life was on the line.
He rubbed his face in his hands and tried to think. He could try a natural remedy—tea tree oil was good for treating infections. It couldn’t hurt anyway. Maybe he could use that as a last resort.
As he wafted the smoke away from his face, he considered something he’d read recently, an article about online doctors. That could be worth a try.
Feeling a glimmer of hope, he pulled out his mobile phone and searched the Internet for an online doctor. As he scrolled down the screen, his eyes widened in surprise. There were loads of them.
He picked one at random and went through the instructions, which told him to install an app and then select an appointment. Each appointment was ten minutes long, and as a first time user, he had a fifty percent discount. The idea behind the NHS was wonderful, but this could be the way of the future, he thought as he tapped on the screen. Who wanted to wait weeks for an appointment when this app told him the next available appointment was in five minutes?
He filled in the required medical form asking for his medical history and family history and then ticked the box confirming he had no known allergies to any medications. The form was accepted almost immediately, and he was asked to select an appointment.
There was an opening available in one minute. Perfect. He selected that appointment and then waited, staring at the virtual waiting room screen. Now, this was something exciting. A real innovation. Healthcare when you needed it! He didn’t see how the doctor would be able to examine him over the Internet, not that he minded on this occasion. Actually, he was glad. It would play straight into his hands.
The screen changed suddenly, and a moment later, he was looking at the online doctor, an Asian man with thinning hair who looked about forty.
“How can I help?”
A little embarrassed about talking to the doctor in public, he held the phone closer to his mouth. “I need some… er… antibiotics for an ear infection.”
“I see. And what are your symptoms?”
He licked his lips. “Pain and my ear feels hot to touch. I get ear infections a lot, so I know how it feels. I went swimming a couple of days ago and think I must have got some water in my ears.”
The doctor on the screen was nodding. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
“Any discharge?”
He hesitated. What should he say? Did you get a discharge with an ear infection?
The doctor looked directly at the screen and raised his eyebrows.
“Um, it feels a bit wet, but no discharge.”
“Okay, good. Do you have a temperature?”
Suppressing a smile, he nodded. He knew the answer to this question. You usually had a temperature if you had a bacterial infection. “Yes, it is a bit high. It was thirty-eight this morning.”
“Have you ever had any reactions to medications?”
“No.”
“All right, it sounds to me like you do have an ear infection. I’m going to prescribe a seven-day course of amoxicillin. I’m going to disconnect now, but if you stay in the app, you’ll receive your prescription, and you can go to one of our registered chemists to pick it up. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s all. Thank you very much.”
The doctor disconnected, and he saw that his appointment had only taken four minutes. Well, that was efficient.
It took a few moments for the prescription to arrive in the app, and then he scrolled through the settings trying to find out where the registered chemists were located.
He should have guessed there would be a downside. Even the nearest chemist would take a convoluted journey and would mean at least three bus changes to get there. By his calculations, the trip would take nearly forty minutes minimum. Ridiculous.
But, it had to be done. He didn’t have a choice. If only people knew what he put himself through for the greater good.
Maybe he should write a journal and fill it with all his trials and struggles. Then the history books would remember him accurately.
He checked the time on his phone just as a bright red bus hissed to a stop in front of him. Typically, it wasn’t the bus he needed. He suppressed a sigh and checked the timetable for the next number seven.
Three minutes. Not too bad. He just hoped he’d be back home before things turned really bad.
Chapter Four
DS Jack Mackinnon ignored the sweat stinging his eyes and steadily made his way up the staircase. It was mid-July, and London was gripped by a heatwave.
He loosened his tie and took a shallow breath. The smell of stale cooking filled the claustrophobic stairwell. Rectangular windows allowed light to flood in on every level, but they were all sealed shut. It was like an oven and seemed to get hotter as they climbed higher.
Buddleia Tower, part of the Towers Estate in the City of London, was much the same as all the other blocks of flats, filled to capacity and in need of repair. Both lifts were out of order, displaying “sorry for the inconvenience” signs. The signs had been defaced with graffiti, presumably by an angry resident.
Two uniformed officers climbed the stairs in front of Mackinnon, and six more followed behind. Less than twenty minutes ago, the team received a tip-off that the young girl they’d been looking for over the past eight days was located in a flat on the eighth floor of this tower block. He and DC Brown had been working this case relentlessly, and now finally they were close to a breakthrough.
The missing girl was eight-year-old Aleena Khan. She’d been snatched from her front garden in broad daylight. But no one had seen a thing, or at least no one was willing to tell the police what they’d seen. Aleena’s mother had left her daughter playing for just a few minutes as she prepared the child some pasta for her tea.
Over and over again, Maria Kahn had told them Aleena was only out of her sight for seconds at a time because she had a good view of the garden from her kitchen window. One minute Aleena was happily playing with a skipping rope, and the next, the garden was empty.
Rather than waste time checking with the neighbours and walking around the local estate, Maria Kahn had called the police straight away. She knew her daughter had been taken. And she knew that because she knew who had taken her.
As with any potential child abduction, the police were swift to react, but in this case, the investigation was unusual because Maria was confident she knew who had taken her daughter.
Two years ago, Maria had divorced Aleena’s father, Asad. It hadn’t been an amicable split. The court awarded Maria full custody of Aleena, and Asad was only permitted visitation rights once a fortnight. He hadn’t taken that well at all. For the first year, those visits had been supervised, but that requirement had been relaxed six months ago.
After looking through the paperwork, Mackinnon thought Asad Khan was lucky to be granted any visitation rights at all. He’d seen reports from social workers as well as the domestic violence reports. There’d been no proven abuse against Aleena, but several unexplained bruises had been recorded by social workers before the couple had separated.
How a full-grown man could hurt any child, let alone his own daughter, beggared belief.
Once they reached the seventh-floor landing, Mackinnon paused and looked around, taking in the determined faces of the officers in the team. DC Charlotte Brown met his gaze with a nod. Sergeant Brian McDougall, the officer in charge of the uniformed tactical unit, stood to one side and checked his radio. Then he said, “Cleared. Let’s move quickly.”
They continued to climb the final set of stairs.
For eight days, Aleena had been missing, and for every one of those days her mother had been put through the worst kind of torment. They’d been keeping a close watch on the ports to make sure Aleena hadn’t been smuggled out of the country, but there had been no sign of her or her father.
Aleena’s mother had been panicked and breathless as she told them she was convinced her husband was going to try to take Aleena to Pakistan, to his family. If they left the UK, there was every chance she would never see her daughter again.
Mackinnon really hoped it didn’t come to that.
“His whole family will be in on it. That’s just what they’re like. They’ll take her from me. I know they will,” Aleena’s mother had sobbed.
Asad hadn’t been seen since his daughter disappeared, despite an intensive police search.
Just when it seemed he’d disappeared from the face of the earth, they’d had a tip-off. Asad had been spotted entering Buddleia Court twenty minutes ago.
It made sense, because his brother, Badar, lived at number 81 Buddleia Court.
Badar was a slippery customer. He insisted he had no idea where his brother and his niece were, assuring the police he was desperately worried about them. He was appropriately sorrowful, even mustering up a few tears as he spoke about his “dear, sweet niece.” He’d offered cups of tea when they’d visited and was quick to tell them how much he appreciated the effort the police had put in to search for Aleena.
If Mackinnon had learned anything from his time with the City of London Police, it was an understanding of how manipulative some individuals could be. Some people lied without shame or remorse.
He wasn’t convinced Badar was telling them the truth, and his gut instinct told him to trust Aleena’s mother over the girl’s uncle.
The officer in front of Mackinnon jerked to an abrupt halt. Looking around the officer’s bulky uniform, Mackinnon saw a young boy of five or six. He had dark skin and closely cropped black hair.
The youngster’s brown eyes were wide as he stared up at the police officers. “What’s happening?”
Mackinnon quickly assessed the situation. The boy was alone. Not a good idea at any time, but especially not now when a young girl had recently been snatched from the area. They were working under the assumption that Aleena had been taken by her father, but that didn’t mean it was safe for any child to wander aroun
d alone.
“Where do you live?” Mackinnon asked.
“Upstairs,” the boy said, pointing upwards with his index finger.
“And where are you going?”
“Downstairs to play. My mum said I’ve watched too much TV.”
Mackinnon guessed the boy often played downstairs on the grassy area outside the flats. But it wasn’t sensible for a five-year-old to be out there unsupervised.
They had no intelligence to suggest Aleena’s father would be armed, but there were no guarantees. Cases like this had a habit of surprising you.
He told the boy to go back upstairs to his mother and stay inside. No doubt the mother would be out demanding to know what was happening within the next few minutes, so they needed to act swiftly.
Mackinnon nodded to the uniformed officer in front of him. “Let’s go.”
The officer wore gloves and carried the Enforcer battering ram known as the big red key. They had brought it just in case Badar decided he didn’t want to answer the door, but Mackinnon hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. He was glad he hadn’t had to carry the battering ram up the stairs though. It wasn’t a light piece of kit, and unsurprisingly, the officer was sweating heavily.
Quietly, they gathered on the landing outside number eighty-one, and Charlotte asked, “Everything all right?”
Mackinnon nodded. “Yes. Are you ready?”
Charlotte gave a short, confident nod.
Sergeant Brian McDougall knocked on the door as Mackinnon pulled the warrant out of his pocket.
Aleena’s uncle, Badar, opened the door. He had a narrow, thin face, and his upper teeth protruded, giving him a rabbit-like appearance. He stared up at Mackinnon and blinked. Then his gaze darted between the other officers gathered at his front door.
Badar cleared his throat nervously. “What is all this?”
“We have a warrant to search your premises,” Mackinnon replied, holding up the paperwork.
