Doctor and Protector

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Moral insensitivity,’ Cassie murmured, rubbing her hand back and forth across his knee.

  ‘Exactly,’ McCall told her. ‘In the end she left him. His condition—and it was a condition, though he’d never admit it or seek treatment for it—worsened. He started taking drugs, doing reckless, stupid things then phoning her to tell her what he’d done. Then one day, when she presumably hadn’t responded properly, he took a gun and went to where she was living—it was my flat, she’d come to my place—and shot and killed her and the two boys. He killed a policeman and a neighbour who came to help, before he was finally shot by the police.’

  ‘Oh, Henry,’ Cassie murmured, rising to her feet and putting her arms around him, holding his head close to her full breasts, but in such a comforting, asexual kind of way he was ashamed at his reaction to their softness.

  He eased away, knowing he wanted to finish the story now. He rested his hands on her shoulders and looked at her as he continued.

  ‘The worst part was that Helen didn’t die immediately. She was brought to the hospital where I was working—to my A and E department. I couldn’t save her, Cassie, and that just blew my mind. I had to get out of medicine right then, and finding out what made people like her husband behave the way they did seemed the least I could do for Helen.’

  ‘So you’re not just a bodyguard doing a research project?’ Cassie smiled as she spoke, teasing him gently, perhaps realising he needed a lift right now.

  He answered her with a smile and a shake of his head.

  ‘I’m a criminologist specialising in forensic psychology. Studied psychology for three years, spent some time in the US learning what they’ve come up with about the working of the sociopathic mind. I gave a seminar on what I knew at a course in Brisbane last year. Dave was at it—we had a few beers together after my lecture and kept in touch. When this blew up, he asked if I could help.’

  ‘Whoa—back up a bit!’ Cassie demanded. ‘You’re a criminologist specialising in forensic psychology—then why the set-up? The bodyguard stuff you and Dave pulled?’

  She glared at him, forgetting the empathy she’d felt for him only moments earlier, when she’d tried to tease him out of his harsh memories.

  ‘Why not tell me the truth?’

  ‘Dave felt it might worry you. Might make too big an issue of it. He also thought the fewer people who knew about my profession, the less risk of the killer knowing we were after him.’

  She stared at him, unable to believe this conversation.

  ‘Someone’s planning my death and you’re worried I’ll make “too big an issue of it”? Just how big an issue should potential murder be?’

  McCall shrugged, drawing Cassie’s attention to his broad shoulders, diverting her mind in a most inappropriate manner.

  ‘It was a good idea at the time,’ he said, though he sounded as if he knew how pathetic the excuse was.

  ‘Lying is never a good idea,’ Cassie told him, while her heart squeezed with an anguish she shouldn’t have been feeling. So what if McCall lied easily? What was it to her?

  Only that she hated liars. Em’s husband had broken her heart with his lies. And in Cassie’s own life, she realised belatedly, Ross had lied to her—telling her he loved her, promising they’d be together for ever…

  ‘I know it’s not,’ McCall said, ‘but for whatever reason, Dave asked for my help and I’m here.’

  ‘Why?’

  McCall didn’t answer immediately, not certain how to explain.

  ‘I felt this was different. A lot of psychopaths—sociopaths, call them what you will—fall down on the planning. This person seemed more like Helen’s husband than anyone I’ve ever read or heard about. Not at the end, when he killed Helen and the children—he was off his head then—but earlier in his life and in their life together. He functioned well enough to fool some very clever people, and my guess is, if he hadn’t got into drugs—or maybe if Helen hadn’t left him—he might have continued to con his way through life. Not all psychopaths are killers. In fact, the majority of them aren’t.’

  Cassie stared at him, a frown deepening between her eyebrows, though this time, McCall decided, he wasn’t the cause of her fierce expression.

  ‘So this person could be functioning successfully? He could be doing well at his job, although you said earlier most of them won’t do well in their careers on a long-term basis?’

  ‘It would be rare—but, yes, I think he could be. His planning has been meticulous. The hit-and-run accident told us that. He’s somehow got hold of a car no one knew existed—no number plates, no rego, no serial number on the engine, no report of a similar car being stolen—and driven it right over that woman. Admittedly, at two in the morning not many people are around, but a number of people thought they might have heard something. If just one of them had got up to investigate, they might have seen him walking away.’

  ‘That was planning, too,’ Cassie said, subsiding back down into the chair as if her legs no longer wanted to hold her up. ‘Three of the houses in that street are empty, and there’s a vacant block opposite where she was hit.’ She looked up at him again. ‘I suppose the fact that someone might have seen him just added to the level of risk and so to his own excitement. But what you’re saying is, if he can plan like this, he could well be successful in his ordinary life.’

  She saw the doubt on McCall’s face.

  ‘There can be exceptions to your rules, surely?’ she persisted.

  ‘There can—there always will be,’ he agreed. ‘But I would think if he is successful in his work, then there’s likely to be a precipitating incident involved that caused him to change. He’s been sailing along, mildly psychopathic but getting his thrills out of smaller exploitative or manipulative behaviour, then, as was the case with Helen’s husband, something happened that triggered an insane desire to make someone pay for what he sees as an injury to himself. In that case, Helen was responsible for everything that had made him unhappy so she, and the children she adored, had to pay.’

  ‘And in this person’s case, it’s anyone he fancies he can kill. It’s the ultimate power trip—random choice of victim!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘I DON’T want to think about this any more!’ Cassie declared. ‘The men you have on the list are people I went to school with—they’re people I see socially. Even Dave’s there.’

  ‘It’s his list, he had to put himself on it, but I think we can cross Dave off. He might not have had alibis for some of the other events but we do know he was out at Four Seasons this morning when that shot was fired.’

  ‘So, what happens next? Can Dave ask all the men left on the list where they were this morning? I really don’t like that idea. We’re treating all of them as potential suspects and that’s wrong. Can police do that? Question people for no reason except they were connected with the victims?’

  ‘Being connected to even one victim is enough reason to ask questions,’ McCall said, but his words were all but drowned out by the loud wail of an ambulance siren coming closer to the hospital.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ Cassie said, standing up and looking around for where she’d left her white coat.

  McCall walked around the desk and unhooked it from the back of her chair, handing it to her, their fingers tangling as possession changed.

  ‘OK,’ he said, and she glanced up at him.

  ‘You really don’t need to come. I’ll be quite safe in A and E.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but I could be useful.’ He touched her cheek. ‘Where you go, I go, Cassie, so don’t argue about it.’

  He walked behind her down the corridor, watching the way her body swayed as she moved, thinking about swaying bodies, dancing with her—what a fantasy!—as they walked towards the now-familiar room.

  Dave was following the trolley-pushing ambulance attendants into A and E. Noticing McCall, he nodded grimly, but McCall’s attention was on the conversation going on between the attendants and Cassie, scraps of w
hich made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end.

  ‘Gunshot wound…Good thing Dave was out there…Still might be too late…We’ve got fluid pumping into him, staunched the wound, but who knows what internal damage has been done.’

  McCall looked back at Dave, who nodded once again.

  ‘Our man or an unwanted witness?’ McCall asked his friend, the two of them moving out of the way as the trolley was wheeled into the trauma room.

  ‘I think we’re meant to think we’ve got our man,’ Dave said, ‘and without forensic chaps looking at angles and trajectories, I probably can’t say for certain, but, frankly I don’t believe Joe Kerr—’

  Before Dave could finish his reasoning, a nurse McCall hadn’t met poked her head out of the trauma room.

  ‘Cassie said she needs some help,’ she said.

  McCall strode towards the door, then thought of something.

  ‘Can you get Cassie’s family out of town? I think he’s panicking, and they’re vulnerable, especially with those two little boys living there. He could get to her through any of them.’

  Dave nodded and McCall continued on his way.

  A nurse was pushing an overhead X-ray machine out of the way, and Cassie turned towards him.

  ‘The films will be back in a minute but we can see the bullet’s gone into his chest quite high, and, from the exit wound and the presumed trajectory, I’m assuming there’s lung damage but his blood pressure is dropping too fast. I think it’s nicked the aorta, maybe at the arch, not badly enough for a full tear but he’s losing blood through a partial tear. We can’t stabilise him sufficiently to get him airlifted out, and though the flying surgeon’s on his way, he’ll be at least forty minutes.’

  She was telling him facts, but he sensed at the same time she was asking for advice.

  ‘I’d open him up. In the city we’d do it right there and then in an A and E trauma room, but here you can whiz him through to Theatre.’

  She nodded, but her eyes remained fixed on his as she asked, ‘You’ve done it?’

  McCall was forced to nod in turn.

  ‘But not for years,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Better than me,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen thoracic surgery done but never had to do it myself—well, not since my intern year and then the specialist all but held my hand.’

  She was securing fluid lines to the trolley as she spoke, and now made sure everyone knew what they had to do to move this man, with all the life-support and monitoring gear attached to him, into the OR.

  ‘Mike’s coming to do the anaesthetic and the flying surgeon is on his way. If we can just stop the bleeding, he should be here in time to do the fiddly stuff.’

  McCall nodded, then left the room, finding his own way to the operating theatre locker room, finally changing out of his damp, muddy clothes into loose theatre pyjamas, paper bootees on his feet. He then walked into the theatre where the sister who’d assisted Cassie yesterday—Paula?—was setting up a tray of instruments.

  ‘Anything special you want?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just opened the chest bundle. We don’t have much state-of-the-art equipment because major surgical cases go to Brisbane, but we’ve electric bone saws, and chest clamps to hold the ribs apart.’

  Great! Electric bone saws! McCall thought, but years of experience in a city hospital A and E department had taught him that emergency surgery was just like anything else. You did it step by careful step, and more often than not you won the battle against death. Hadn’t he read somewhere that sixty per cent of cases where the heart was damaged by a bullet recovered, if treated properly. Sixty? Maybe it was thirty—not that statistics were going to help him now.

  Anyway, the aorta was a different story. This huge vessel, if severely torn, could empty the body’s entire blood supply into a patient’s chest within minutes.

  These thoughts raced through his mind as he looked at the instruments, then, hearing the sound of rolling wheels and hurrying feet outside, he nodded to the sister and went back to the locker room where he found a cap for his head. The theatre scrub nurse would provide gown, mask and gloves once he was scrubbed.

  By the time he emerged from the scrub alcove, Mike Carlton and the theatre staff were all in place.

  ‘Cassie’s changing now,’ Mike told him. ‘Joe’s not so hot.’

  He wouldn’t be, McCall thought to himself, but Cassie had said Mike was a good anaesthetist, so all he, McCall, could do, was pray she was right. He might be operating, but the patient’s life was in Mike’s hands right now.

  Cassie appeared as McCall sloshed antiseptic solution over the patient’s chest. The bullet wound, taped over, was lower than McCall had expected, but it was the least of the patient’s worries at this moment.

  ‘Be ready with the suction tube as soon as I cut into the chest cavity,’ he warned Cassie. ‘Expect a lot of blood.’

  And there was, blood spilling up as he made the incision, blocking his view of organs and blood vessels. Cassie and Paula worked together, using both suction and absorbent pads, the assisting theatre nurse working behind them, counting soiled swabs as they were dropped into the bin.

  Then the arch where the big vessel came out of the heart was revealed, the nick in the top of it clearly visible. Theoretically, he should clamp a bleeding vessel on the heart side, but clamping was impossible with this thick curving tube, so, with a silent prayer to the fates that protected surgeons, McCall began.

  The silence was what he noticed most. Usually there was chatter, banter, a bit of yelling, but this team worked in silence except for the noise of the suction machine, the faint huffing of the oxygen being fed into the patient’s lungs and the clatter of instruments being lifted off the tray or dropped into the bin for sterilisation later. McCall shifted his shoulders as the tension in the air stiffened his muscles, but with tiny stitches and a steady hand he was finally satisfied he’d closed the lesion.

  Without the blood, he could see the path of the bullet more clearly now. It had passed closely enough to the wall of the trachea for McCall to suspect damage there as well. And if that was damaged, what about the oesophagus?

  Mike reported the patient’s blood pressure stabilising, and McCall was trying to remember procedures for closing holes in the trachea—a very specialised job, he was sure—when someone poked their head into the door of the theatre and made a loud trumpeting noise.

  ‘Cavalry in the locker room!’ a voice said, and Cassie looked across the operating table at him and smiled.

  ‘I’d say the flying surgeon’s here, but it was you who saved the day, McCall.’

  New people came in, Cassie introducing the surgeon and his anaesthetist, then explaining what they’d done so far.

  ‘I think there could be damage to the trachea and almost certainly the oesophagus,’ McCall told the surgeon. ‘I just did the easy part.’

  He moved away, suddenly exhausted, as if all his energy had been spent by his brain and fingers as they’d worked together to keep the patient alive.

  Back in the locker room, he showered, then, reluctant to get back into his muddy clothes, found a clean pair of theatre pants. Wearing just them, he made his way back to A and E where, as he’d suspected, the laundry basket of ‘emergency’ clothing was still sitting on the floor.

  Searching through it, he found shorts he thought would fit, and a shirt that must once have belonged to a giant as it would probably fit two of him. But it would do. No underwear, but his own were now dry so he could keep them on. He was heading back to the locker room when Dave caught up with him.

  ‘How’s Joe?’

  ‘I think he’ll make it,’ McCall told him, then remembered what they’d been discussing when Cassie had called for his help. ‘But you don’t think he’s our man?’

  ‘I don’t know. For a start, he’s way older than you thought our man would be. Then there’s the set-up. I suppose a clever planner might have thought to bring his boat and all his fishing gear down to the dam so if anyone saw
him there about the time the car went into the water, he could say he was going fishing. But would he bring live bait? Dig some worms and bring them? Wouldn’t that be taking the scenario a little far? And if he was fishing at the dam—using that as an excuse for being there—wouldn’t he then be expected to see the accident and make a rescue attempt? It doesn’t fit.’

  McCall looked doubtful, then Dave added, ‘And knowing Joe, even if it was him, once he had the boat at the dam, and his gear, and the bait, even if he was riddled with guilt, he’d go fishing before he killed himself, not the other way around.’

  ‘Frankly,’ McCall said, continuing towards the locker room, knowing Dave would accompany him, ‘I can’t see our man ever being riddled with guilt. To me, it’s more likely poor unlucky Joe chose to go fishing at the wrong time. Picture it—our man shoots the car tyre, sees the car go into the dam. He’d probably have preferred it to go the other way, but hopefully Cassie can’t get out and she’ll die. Then, before he’s even through congratulating himself, an identical car appears and there’s Cassie with me, and the pair of us are doing rescue stuff. He probably assumes we’ve phoned for help so he can’t leave the picnic area in case he’s seen and the people arriving wonder why he didn’t stay to help. Finally, everyone drives away and he’s about to depart when down comes the fisherman. Chances are Joe either saw our man, or our man’s vehicle, and became a danger.’

  McCall changed into the shorts, frowned at the pale legs poking out from them, then pulled on the shirt and shook his head at the image he must present.

  ‘But why did you think suicide in the first place?’

  ‘The gun—a rifle—was left beside him. Not in his hands, which would be the amateur’s way of suggesting suicide, but close enough to have dropped from his hand after he fired it.’

  ‘Powder burns?’

  ‘Not that I could see, but Joe was wearing a T-shirt, then flannel shirt, then one of those fishing vests, and over the lot a windproof jacket. The ambulance guys who arrived in response to my call ripped the lot off, or cut them open, to get at his chest. There could be remnants but who knows?’