“It sounds peaceful.”
“Yeah, it is. Sometimes all you can hear is the wind in the trees and the birds singing. Or maybe a tractor. It’s a farming area, so there’s loads of cows. Maybe it sounds boring, but it’s a nice change from London.”
“How’s your French?”
“Hm, not great. Do you speak any languages?”
“No, I’m hopeless. We did French and Spanish at school, but by the time I was your age I knew what I wanted to do so I was heavily into the sciences.”
“You’re lucky. I still don’t really know what I want to do.”
“Not everyone’s like me.” I sat up and flexed my shoulders. “Shall we move on?”
We made our way back and parted at Jasper’s gate. “Thanks; that was good,” he said. “Can I come again some time?”
“Sure. Bye for now, Jasper.”
***
I have been known to forget my birthday. Filling in a form I sometimes hesitate and frown, or if someone asks me when it is I look blank for a moment. Remembering other people’s birthdays is even less likely. But there’s one date I will never forget: 28 May 2012.
The day started unremarkably. I had no particular commitments in the morning, but I went in to the hospital at ten thirty to check on a patient in ICU. I had replaced this man’s diseased aortic valve the previous Friday; the surgery had gone well and I had no reason to expect any complications, but I liked to make sure there was nothing I needed to know about the patient’s recovery over the weekend. As it happened he was doing “as well as could be expected in the circumstances” – such a useful catch-all bland bit of medical speak, designed to give away nothing and yet provide encouragement for the patient’s family.
Leaving ICU I went up to Peter’s office and booted up his computer. He was not there: he was in theatre that morning and I was free to use the room. There were a few things I needed to look up. An hour later I looked at my watch; it was almost noon, I had been up for many hours, and my stomach was rumbling. If I went to the hospital restaurant early there’d be few people there. I bought a sandwich and a bowl of salad and took them outside to a seat that overlooked a grassy area in front of the building. The afternoon was taken up with clinics and a session with a PhD student, and at four o’clock I was free.
For some reason I felt restless, unwilling to go home just yet. I decided to make a cup of coffee in the little-used room that Peter Axton had shown me some weeks previously. I’d used it on a couple of occasions and found it tranquil, conducive to uninterrupted thought. I was due to operate the following day, and I needed to think about the research I’d just done, in case of unforeseen complications. I strolled along the corridors and through the sets of doors slowly, deep in thought. I saw no one.
In the room I made a cup of coffee and stood by the long open window, looking out but seeing little. I suppose there were people walking up and down, some ambling, some purposeful, because there always were people there; but I couldn’t remember afterwards. As I stood there, cup in hand, my phone bleeped and I dug in my pocket and pulled it out. It was another photo of baby Amelia, now almost six weeks old, posted by her adoring father. I smiled to myself as I thumbed an appropriate message before putting it back in my pocket.
I registered a tiny sound, and then was aware of the door clicking shut. I felt a spurt of annoyance: other people used this room very occasionally, but I had come to regard it – quite unjustifiably – as my own quiet hideaway. I turned, a false smile plastered onto my face.
And then, in a flash of horrible recognition, I felt every moment of the past few months at Brant come hurtling towards me like a gale-force wind, so that I staggered and swayed. In the face of what I saw before me everything fell away, as if it had been sheer illusion. She stood there by the door – tall, thin, bent slightly forward, her eyes wide and fixed, the birthmark furious red against her pallor. Then she uttered a strangled cry and came flying towards me down the long space beside the table, her arms raised high and wide. In her right hand I saw the flash of a blade as it caught the light from the window. In the paralysis of my shock I had no time to react. She was on me, shrieking wordlessly. The coffee cup was jerked out of my hand and I registered hot scalding liquid as it fell. Instinctively I raised my arms in front of my face and chest but I was too late: I felt a stinging slash down from my temple, skirting my eyebrow and slicing across my cheek. I heard a kind of moan, but I had no idea if it was mine or hers. I backed away towards the window, but she came on, unstoppable, and I felt sudden and agonizing pain in my hands, first the left, then the right, as I raised them in useless defence. I think it was then that I screamed, because my heel had found the shallow sill of the long window that stood open, and I felt myself fall backwards, arms flailing, half blind from the blood masking my face. The last thing my blood-free eye registered was her: Eve Rawlins, standing above me, eyes bulging, looking barely human. I think I saw her throw the knife down. But then there were sharp needles in my thinly clad back and a thump that robbed me of breath, and I blacked out.
This is what I told Michael Wells as he sat silently beside my bed. I faltered and stumbled and finally dried up, but he waited patiently until I had finished. Then he took the beaker of water and held it to my mouth, and I drank.
“All right, Rachel,” he said softly. “What’s behind this attack? It’s not random, is it? She followed you. She must have been tracking your movements.”
I nodded. “I’ll tell you, if you like.” My voice sounded rough. “But shouldn’t you be at home? What about Jasper?”
“Jasper isn’t a baby. He can cope.”
“Did you tell him what happened?”
‘Yes, I had to. I was preparing to go home when they paged me. When I heard it was you I scrubbed up again while they prepared the theatre.”
“Thank you.” I felt tears well up and leak down my face. “Sorry.”
He made an impatient sound. “Tell me the story, Rachel. Think of it as a rehearsal. That policeman I told you about, Brightwell I think his name is, will be back. He’ll want to hear it all.”
I swallowed as a cold thought struck me. “What about her? Eve Rawlins?”
“Your attacker? Oh, they caught her. She didn’t need much catching: they found her wandering about in the corridor, covered in blood – yours, of course.”
I shuddered, remembering. “She came at me like some kind of demon.”
He shook his head. “Well, that had all gone when they found her. She was like a crumpled rag, apparently. Forget her for a moment, if you can. Tell me what’s been going on.”
Slowly I told him about Craig, the operation that went like clockwork but ended so badly; Eve’s reaction, the funeral, my car daubed with blood, the pig’s heart, the painted door, and finally the intruder. “That was what drove me here,” I said. “I couldn’t stay after that. I went to the police, but they said they couldn’t do anything with the lack of evidence against her. She’s very clever.”
He frowned. “Are you saying she sent you a pig’s heart, painted your front door, broke into your flat – and there was no evidence?”
“No, I don’t think she did it all herself. She probably bought the heart and parcelled it up, but I don’t think she did the other things. There was a boy in a grey hoody. I don’t know who he was, but I think she was behind it.”
“And you came here to be safe. My goodness.”
“I thought it was over,” I said. My voice shook. “But nobody knew how deranged she was – is. She must have been nursing that hatred all these weeks. But now what?” I gulped back a sob. “What about these injuries?”
Michael reached over to the bedside table, pulled a tissue from a box, and gently wiped my tear-streaked face and dribbling nose. “Believe it or not,” he said as he threw the tissue into a paper bag that served as a bin, “you have been lucky. The facial laceration was superficial. You should only have a thin scar.”
“Huh! I’m not worried about how I look.”
<
br /> He shook his head. “It’s not about that. The knife missed some vital structures – not only your eye but facial nerves. If they’d been cut my work would have been much more difficult. You might have been left with permanent damage.”
“But –”
He interrupted. “You’re worried about your hands? I understand, Rachel, believe me. I’d be worried if it was me. Your hands are your work. You sustained flexor tendon injuries in both hands as you tried to defend yourself. I have repaired them, but I can’t tell you yet what the end result will be. I’m not going to lie to you, Rachel: recovery won’t come easily or quickly. It will be in large part up to you. You’ll need weeks of physiotherapy. Endless exercises. I’ll keep track of how things are going. We’ll know more later.”
I lowered my head; my neck seemed stiff. I looked at my hands, bandaged and plastered, lying on the sheet palm up, my fingers exposed, bent like claws; and I felt hollow. “I guess I was lucky you were there,” I whispered. “Word is you’re one of the best.”
He smiled faintly. “People say all sorts of nonsense. I did what I would do for any patient in your position, and it was a tidy job. I hope my best was good enough. Don’t think I wasn’t aware of what was at stake.”
There came a quiet tap on the door, and the nurse put her head round. “Mr Wells, Inspector Brightwell is back.”
Michael turned to me. “Are you strong enough for this?”
I sighed heavily. “I suppose so. Might as well get it over with.”
“All right. I’ll ask the nurse to come back and sit with you while he asks his questions. I’ll go home now, Rachel. See what that boy of mine’s up to. I’ll come by again tomorrow.”
He pushed his chair back and stood up.
“Why you?” I said dully. “Why are you taking all this trouble?”
He shrugged. “Because I am the plastic surgeon who stitched you up. Because we know one another. Because you’re a colleague.” He smiled slightly. “Because you seemed unwilling to talk to anyone else.”
“Oh. I don’t remember that. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. People who’ve suffered a trauma need gentle handling. Let’s hope Inspector Brightwell knows that.” He smiled down at me, his serious dark eyes warm and sympathetic. “See you tomorrow, Rachel.”
I did my best with Inspector Brightwell, but I knew that there were still gaping holes in my memory. My account of what had happened before I came to Brant was jumbled and out of sequence, and there were moments when he sighed and crossed out the notes he’d taken. When I told him about my visit to the police station he made a harrumphing noise and muttered something which I didn’t quite catch, but assumed to be uncomplimentary to his colleagues at Porton.
“They went round to Eve Rawlins’ house,” I told him. “But of course she denied everything – except her behaviour at her son’s funeral, which people saw. And, of course, that was easily put down to her grief and momentary loss of control. As to the rest, they said they simply didn’t have enough evidence to pursue her any further.”
He closed his notebook with a snap. “Well, we do now,” he said. “Anyway, she confessed. She seems a sad sort of character to me, not like someone who could attempt murder.”
My undamaged eye widened. “Is that what she’ll be charged with? Was she really trying to kill me?”
The inspector shrugged. “She says not. Says she was just trying to hurt you. So you could ‘feel her pain’. Anyway, for the moment she’s out of my hands. Been referred to a psychiatrist.”
I felt this like a physical blow. “What are you saying? That she might get off because she’s insane? Where’s the justice in that?”
He shook his head. “Look, I don’t know. We’ll all just have to wait and see what happens.” He handed me a card. “My number, in case you think of something you haven’t told me.” He stood up. “Thank you, Ms Keyte. I’m sorry you’ve been through this. I hope you heal up all right.”
When he’d gone the nurse – Jenny – said, “Could you use a cup of tea, Rachel? I’ll have to get you one of those old-people beakers with a spout.”
“Lovely,” I said sourly. “I’d rather have coffee, if possible. Black, no sugar.”
She came back a few minutes later with a tray. “Hold on a sec; let me put this down.” She bustled out of the room again and then opened the door and stood in the doorway, in her arms an enormous bouquet of roses: pink, yellow, and white. “Gosh, these must have cost someone a fair bit,” she said. “Just delivered – but I can’t put these in your room; it’s not allowed. Risk of infection. I thought you’d like to see them, though. Seems you have an admirer.” She sounded dubious, as if this was improbable for someone like me.
“Is there a card?” I asked.
She pulled off a small envelope and extracted a card from inside. She put it on the bed, open, where I could see it. “There you go. I’ll just put these in water. Lovely, aren’t they? But why don’t shop roses smell? It seems a waste, roses that don’t smell.”
The writing was scrawled, and my unbandaged eye watered with the effort of deciphering it: “Darling Rachel, I am appalled at what has happened. I’ll come in and see you very soon. Love, hugs and kisses galore. Rob.”
Over the days that followed I endured visitors – some expected, some surprising. Jasper was the first, followed by Peter and Angela. They were all equally horrified and concerned and asked the same questions. Eventually Nurse Jenny noted my pallor and shooed them out. “You can come back another day,” she said firmly, “but now Rachel needs to rest.”
Did I? Or did I just need to hide away? That’s what I thought I wanted, anyway; but word of something so dramatic and scandalous as an attack on a surgeon going about her business in a major hospital was sure to cause a ripple of interest, including, so I was told, in the local papers. Happily there were few details – nothing about what had happened in Porton – and I was thankful for that.
On the Wednesday following the attack I had the first of many visits from the physiotherapist, a small but (as I found out) formidable young woman called Josie, who removed my plaster splints and replaced them with lighter, plastic ones.
“These should be more comfortable,” she said. “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen over the next few weeks, so pin back your ears.”
She talked at length about the need to protect the tendon repair. “Mr Wells will have done a proper job,” she said. “We have to make sure it keeps that way. You’ll need an orthosis, like a sort of tailor-made glove, for each hand. They let your wrist and fingers move within a restricted range but make sure the repair isn’t stressed.”
“Just tell me how long,” I said. I know I sounded surly.
Josie was unperturbed. “Rehabilitation normally takes six to eight weeks after surgery,” she said calmly. “Of course, a lot depends on the wound itself, the skill of the surgeon, and the cooperation of the patient. It could be less, it could be more.”
“I can’t believe… two months?” I whispered, appalled. I think in that moment I couldn’t have loathed Eve Rawlins more.
“The sooner we get started, the better,” Josie said with matron-like briskness. “We have to talk about an exercise regime, swelling management, wound care, minimizing scar tissue formation – among other things. We all want you to get your hands back, don’t we? You’re a surgeon too, I hear. All the more reason to work hard and persevere.”
She made me feel like a mutinous adolescent. But I had to admit she was right.
Michael came to see me every day, even when he was off duty. He made sure I was keeping up with Josie’s orders, and my frowning sulks made his mouth twitch with barely hidden amusement. He, though, was a welcome visitor: unthreatening, calm, empathetic, and he absorbed my grousing without complaint. The day after I met Josie he announced that the next day he would be removing my facial sutures.
I shuddered. “So I’m to prepare myself for a new level of hideousness.”
“Nonsense. T
hat long, thin scar will serve only to make your face more interesting. You can dine out on it.”
“Thanks. But I think my dining-out days are over.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to exercise patience.”
The following morning he appeared – masked, gloved, and white-coated – accompanied by a demure young nurse I didn’t recognize. He looked at me keenly over the edge of the mask. “You don’t seem too well.”
“I had a rough night,” I mumbled. “Too much dreaming, none of it pleasant.”
He shook his head. “Let’s get these stitches out and see what’s happening.” Gently he peeled away the dressing, starting at the top by my temple, easing it over the cheek, and pulling it away from under my jaw. “That looks all right, don’t you think, Gemma?” he said to the nurse.
“Very neat and clean, Mr Wells.”
“Pass me those small scissors, please.”
A moment later it was done. He took a swab and wiped it carefully down the scar line. “Want to look?” he asked me. “I promise there’s no resemblance to Frankenstein.” I heard Gemma giggle.
“Go on, then. Pleased you find my disfigurement so funny.”
“We don’t,” Michael said. “And you aren’t disfigured. Find me a mirror, please, Gemma.”
The nurse produced a mirror and held it in front of my face. Michael stood by, arms folded, silent. The side of my face was a mess of bruising: purple, red, yellow. But I could see it was already fading. The suture line was thin, likely to disappear to almost nothing. There was a notch inside my eyebrow, and another at the corner of my upper lip. It was a mess, but I knew it could have been much worse.
“OK. I’m still a radiant beauty queen,” I said. To my horror I felt an ache in my chest and throat and tears flooding my eyes.
Michael turned to the nurse. “Thanks, Gemma,” he said. “You might as well go now.”
When she had gone he turned back to me. I was flopped back against my pillow, eyes closed, tears dribbling. “I feel so feeble,” I muttered.
The Healing Knife Page 11
