AHMM, December 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Yes, I am.” He protested his innocence as vehemently as he could, but the effect was spoiled when he went on, “It's just that I'm a bit scared. It's a big step. And there's a lot going on at work ... I'm under a lot of stress at the moment."

  Kate pounced. “Oh, that again.” In a caricature of his voice she said, “I'm tired, Kate. I've had a stressful day."

  "That's not fair."

  She grabbed hold of the duvet, clenched it as if she could squeeze from it life, life that could be poured into a child. “I want a baby, Phil. I need one."

  He reached across to her, held her. “And we'll have one, Kate. We just need to be patient."

  She remained stiff in his arms. “We've been patient for two years now."

  "Well ... sometimes it takes that long."

  His words had no effect. “I'm running out of time, Phil."

  "Nonsense. You're only thirty-five."

  But she was implacable—or rather, the idea that had been growing inside of her was implacable.

  "I want to see someone."

  "What?” Despite asking the question, he knew exactly what she meant. He drew back from her.

  "I want to see someone. See if there's a problem."

  "Of course there isn't a problem."

  "How do we know that?"

  "I told you, it's just a question of time and patience."

  "But it won't be long before we run out of time.” She changed subtly from an accuser to a supplicant. “We have to make sure that everything's all right now."

  "Oh, Kate."

  "Please?"

  Every instinct told him that this was a mistake, that he was heading for consequences that he would regret.

  But he loved her. Loved her more and more as the anguish within her grew.

  After a long while, he said, “Okay, okay. You win. We'll see someone ... make sure everything's all right."

  * * * *

  "So we went to a specialist. Professor Carter. Nice chap. Bumbling and hearty. Should have been an oncologist—no one would have minded the bad news hearing it from him. I certainly didn't."

  Hannah asked, “What was the bad news?"

  "Kate's ovaries were misfiring badly. She wasn't producing many eggs, and even if by some chance she managed to throw one down her fallopian tubes, it was extremely unlikely it would do any good. You see, I'm not up to scratch. I can stand to attention when required, but my little chaps, my storm troopers, are not of the best. A sick and weedy bunch, not at all the kind of recruits who held the British Empire together for so long. I am, to use Professor Carter's oh-so-charming expression, subfertile."

  "So?"

  "So we couldn't have children, not without help."

  Sam asked tentatively, “But I thought—"

  "That we had a child?” Reed's question was sour enough to scald.

  "Yes."

  "We live in a modern society, Sergeant. There are always ways and means, if you have enough money."

  "IVF."

  Reed nodded just once. “In vitro fertilization.” He laughed, this time shaking his head. “Do you know what that entails, Hannah?"

  "Tell me."

  "Pots and pots of money, for a start. And pain—mustn't forget the pain. Injections, examinations, operations. Then there's the humiliation. Oh, there's a great big, excruciating, toe-curling dollop of that; it doesn't stop, either. You think you're over the worst, and then they find some other way to make you feel like a laboratory rat, like the useless excuse for a man that you really are."

  "But you were successful,” she pointed out.

  Reed, though, wasn't listening. “And even that's not really the worst."

  "What was the worst?” she asked, although she might just as well have not bothered.

  "Five times we went through it. For two long years we counted out our lives with injections and blood samples and disappointments, soaring to the summit of expectation, then plunging into the deepest and darkest of despairs. That was the worst. The continual disappointments."

  "Eventually it worked, though."

  "Yes.” He paused, then sighed. “Eventually we had a child."

  * * * *

  Reed only remembered to ring at the last moment. He had his overcoat on as he waited for her to answer.

  "Kate? Listen..."

  But Kate had news of her own. “No, Phil. Listen to me. I've got—"

  "Kate? I'm sorry. I haven't got much time. I'm afraid I won't be home until late tonight. They've found a body in Nettleton Woods. A teenage boy, and he's naked."

  Reed's growing reputation as a forensic pathologist meant that occasions like this were becoming increasingly common. He was aware that it was impinging on Kate, hoped that she understood.

  "But—"

  "I'm on my way there now, and the police want the autopsy done tonight, so I'll be lucky if I'm home much before two tomorrow morning."

  He was sure that she understood. The income was not inconsiderable, after all.

  "Oh, but—"

  "I know, I know. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. I really am going to have to go now. Bye, love."

  "But I've got some news, Phil—"

  Reed, though, was already out of the office, the line already dead. Slowly, Kate pulled the phone away from her ear, then looked at it. In a low voice she said sadly, “Wonderful news ... I'm pregnant."

  * * * *

  "We rowed the next day. No, we battled. Nuclear warfare broke out. I was tired—knackered—and Kate, not surprisingly, was crushed. She had planned a big celebration, which I had ruined. Yet how was I to know that she had bought champagne, that for her she had achieved the ultimate, that her sole ambition had been realized? I tried to explain, and then I tried to apologize, but I couldn't get the tone in my voice right; no matter how hard I tried, it always sounded petulant, defensive, even to my ears. Eventually, of course, my reserves of compassion ran out, and I entered combat. I said that she was being pathetic, that it didn't matter which day we celebrated. And, in turn, she questioned my commitment to parenthood, said that I had never really wanted a child.

  "We sank deeper and deeper into the fray, rummaging into the far corners of our arsenals for older and older weapons to use, ancient slights and mistakes real and imagined resurrected.” He paused for a moment, then as if he had been drinking in a well of memory, he went on, “It lasted all day, and I think that that was the point at which our marriage started to perish, a fruit that had lost its bloom, that had gone beyond the point of maximum sweetness, had slipped into sourness ... And you know the worst of it?"

  "Tell me."

  "She was right. The news that she was pregnant made me realize that I didn't want a child. I had enough responsibility in my life, without the worry that a newborn would bring. It had always been Kate's desire, not mine, and I had deceived myself into thinking that it was a wish that we shared because I loved her, because I wanted to please her."

  "That's only natural."

  "Maybe, but it's not enough. I appreciated consciously then for the first time that a baby would only widen the crack that had been gradually appearing between us. I think it was at that moment that I realized how bleak our future was together."

  Sam asked, “So you killed her?"

  Reed was tired of Sam's hostility. “Is one of us being stupid? I told you—she had an incurable brain tumor. That's why I helped her to die."

  With unmistakable sarcasm, Sam said, “Oh yes. I forgot."

  Hannah asked, “Did you ever come to blows?"

  "Never."

  "But the marriage broke down."

  He gave this deep consideration. “No, not really. It just changed. The reality hit me. If I wanted Kate, I would have to accept a baby as well. Without a baby, there would be no Kate."

  "Did that upset you?” This from Sam.

  "You keep trying to suggest that Kate and I lived in some sort of conflict, but we didn't. I had no hatred for Kate, never did have.” He turned to Sam's superior. “I love
d her, Hannah. Surely you understand that?"

  Sam pointed out, “Most people who love someone don't help them to die."

  "There is no greater love. I gave away that which I prized above all else."

  "Which is a jolly useful excuse for a killer."

  Reed made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat, refusing to respond. It was Hannah who asked, “What happened when you realized that things had changed?"

  "For the next six months a kind of truce prevailed; no written terms, but in the back of our minds, I think, was the fear that another such skirmish and we might go too far for redemption. For my part, at least I knew that I still loved Kate with just as much conviction as before, and after last night, I know that she still felt the same about me. It was just that we had different needs, wanted different things from our relationship.

  "Then her water broke just before Christmas. She was only twenty-five weeks. Until then we had dared to hope that everything was going to be all right, that we would at least be spared a difficult pregnancy."

  "But you weren't,” guessed Hannah.

  "Fat chance.” He took a long breath. “She had to be induced, for fear of infection. What came out was a girl, not obviously deformed..."

  "But?"

  "Alice was a weak and pathetic thing, which made it worse. The intensity of Kate's love for her was difficult to witness..."

  "Why difficult?” Sam's question interrupted his intense reverie.

  "Have you ever been in love, Sergeant?"

  "Well..."

  "Of course you have, and you should appreciate this terrible thing called jealousy. Jealousy, not envy, although perhaps there was some of that as well."

  "What's the difference?"

  "Envy is the desire to possess. Jealousy is the fear of losing something precious. When I looked at Kate, at how she became completely encased by her relationship with Alice, I saw no room for me, saw that I had lost her. In turn, I envied the love that Alice received, wanted a share, thought that I was entitled to one."

  "Yet you've stayed with Kate, even after Alice died."

  "Oh yes. You see, jealousy is born of love; the stronger the love, the greater the jealousy. When Alice died, only the jealousy was gone.” He paused to reconsider. “But not, I see now, the guilt."

  "Guilt?"

  But Reed did not hear. “It soon turned out that Alice had terrible internal abnormalities. Her lungs failed to develop as they should, and she was functionally blind, probably also deaf although they could never be sure. She had cardiac abnormalities too. She could breathe, but only on near-pure oxygen. She had one kidney, and most probably malformation of her genital tract ... In the six weeks that she lived, she had five bouts of pneumonia."

  "Is that what killed her?"

  Once more, Reed failed to hear, or at least react. “I knew the neonatologist in charge of her care—have done since medical school. I could see that when he took me to one side, sat me down in his office, he was having a hard time. His voice trembled slightly as he told me that he doubted Alice would live much more than another four weeks, that even if God granted us a miracle, Alice's quality of life would be intolerable...” Reed seemed to become lost in the past. Certainly he seemed to be disoriented because his next remark was disjointed. “It was the swirling patterns, I remember best..."

  Sam breathed. “Swirling patterns again."

  Hannah silenced him angrily, but it didn't matter because Reed wasn't listening. “I know the reason for them. It's because you're mixing two liquids of different densities and one flows through the other for a short while before they become totally and perfectly mixed. But it's the beauty of the patterns that I can't get over. Benoit Mandelbrot described it mathematically, talked about partial dimensions, fractals, making it sound like science fiction, as if there were creatures from another place doing something to make them."

  "What about the swirls, Phil?"

  But Reed was a long way back in his past.

  * * * *

  The music of critical care, symphonic variations on life and death, on dying and surviving, on fading into and coming out of a coma. He'd never felt comfortable in an intensive therapy unit, even one decked out with tinsel and with a Christmas tree in the corner. As a pathologist he was of the opinion that what the medical staff did was too far removed from normal medical and nursing practice. Here, it wasn't patients that were treated, but measurements; they worried about the central venous pressure, the blood gas levels, blood biochemistry. The patients were often deliberately sedated, the victims of multiple puncture wounds where tubes entered wounds in the neck and the feet and even in the groins. The patients became not human, but manufactured entities, biomedical organisms, human fused with machine. In a neonatal intensive care unit, however, the victims fought back. Despite being almost overwhelmed by the enormity of the medical intervention to which they were subjected, their humanity was, if anything, magnified. They evoked even greater compassion because they were so small, so apparently incapable of overcoming this adversity.

  Alice was intubated again because of the pneumonia, her breathing dictated by a machine. She was still so small, still so sickly, so raw. The nurse and doctors were at a hand-over session, their attention as usual on readouts and test results.

  Reed stopped in front of the incubator, a small bag of saline dripped slowly into a tube extending from his dying daughter's right ankle. It was nearly nine o'clock at night, and as far as Kate was concerned, Reed was working late, another bloody postmortem.

  He looked around. No one was paying attention to him—they were used to one of them (usually Kate) hanging around, getting in the way, unwanted but unassailable, given their part in the drama—and it was all over in ten seconds.

  * * * *

  "What was over?” Hannah could sense something terrible and needed to break through Reed's cage of recollection.

  "I was planning to turn, walk out at once ... certainly not hang around..."

  "What was over?"

  "They caught my eye. They were so beautiful, I had to stop and watch them..."

  "What was over, Phil?"

  "It's obvious when you know. Two liquids of different densities..."

  "What did you do?” She remained patient, though God knew that it was difficult.

  "So beautiful, yet so deadly.” His voice had taken on a singsong quality.

  "Was it the bag of saline? Did you do something to that bag of saline?"

  He came to, saw her again. “She was going to die, Hannah, and her death would not have been good. She had nothing to look forward to, no memories to comfort her. She was in limbo..."

  "What did you put in the bag?"

  But Mandelbrot's patterns had caught him again. “The patterns were translucent, like liquid crystals, precious jewels that were slowly dissolving as they moved, dissipating, becoming another small part of the whole."

  "I know why, Phil. I need to know how."

  "And having done it, I walked away. I went to the desk, told them how grateful I was, told them to ring if anything happened, then walked out, past Alice's incubator, past the bag of saline, now looking as clean and pure as it had before ... I hated myself for that, for the hypocrisy and the lies that I had to tell those doctors and nurses, for pretending not to know what I knew.” He paused for breath, then, “The phone call came an hour later, and all hell broke out..."

  Hannah would have kept asking the question until doomsday. “What was it? What did you put in the bag of saline?"

  He looked at her, challenged her almost. “Potassium chloride. Just a 20 ml ampoule, but quite enough...” He frowned. “We need potassium, but not too much. A dangerous thing to play with. Too much and the heart stops. No PM will find it, not given those clinical circumstances, and there was no puncture mark, at least none that the medical staff hadn't made."

  She asked her next question with studied calm. “You know what you're saying, Phil? You're admitting to the murder of your baby."

&n
bsp; "I admit that I gave peace to Alice, Hannah, but I didn't murder her. To murder, you have to take life and Alice never had any. No power on Earth was ever going give her that."

  Sam said sarcastically, “Another doctor playing God."

  "Another father having to do something terrible for the greater good."

  "Who's good? Yours?"

  "No,” contradicted Reed. “Kate's."

  "You're kidding! You did it for yourself. You've admitted to being jealous of your own child."

  "You don't understand, Sergeant, and perhaps you never will. Just pray tonight that you're never in a similar position."

  "I know that I won't commit murder, and I know that I won't destroy my wife's life."

  "Do you think that I enjoyed what I did? That I took some sort of pleasure in seeing Kate's distress? Yet all the while I knew also that what I had done hadn't caused it; what I had done had only brought it forward, and at the same time I had ended Alice's awful life."

  "You needn't have told us, you know."

  "All these years I have wanted to confess to Kate, but never dared. What would have been the point? As she lay there and died, I nearly said something maybe half a dozen times, but held back. I wanted her last hours on Earth to be as happy as possible.” He suddenly straightened up in his chair, assumed some dignity. “And I think that I would have continued the silence had I not seen the blood drop into the water, had I not seen it swirl down into nothingness. Dr. Mandelbrot has a lot to answer for, you know."

  Hannah sounded almost depressed as she said, “We'll almost certainly have to charge you with murder."

  "You think I care about that? You think I care about anything anymore?"

  She shook her head. Sam just stared at Reed, who in turn had his head bowed. She said in a formal tone, “Interview terminated at ten thirty-six."

  Then she stood up, Sam following her lead. “I'll pray for you, Phil, but they'll roast you alive. They'll chew you up, spit you out, and then smear you into the pavement."

  And all Reed said was, “Do me a favor, Hannah."