The Practice Baby

by LM Ardor

  Skye was probably ringing about an incident between Charlie and her boyfriend.

  ‘Put her through,’ Dee told Janelle. ‘Hello Skye, can I call you in ten—’ Dee didn’t get far.

  ‘Oh Dee, thank God it’s you. It’s Tom, I don’t know what’s happened, oh please, please, please, … I can’t do this, please, Dee, you have to come, you have to talk to the police, oh Dee—’ Skye broke off into gasping sobs.

  Dee grasped at hope. Police? Maybe Tom had been arrested for hacking and was too embarrassed to call anyone.

  ‘Skye, calm down, take a couple of big breaths for me, that’s it, in … out, in … out. Deep breaths, that’s good … can you talk now? Tell me what’s happened; what is it you’re worried about?’ Dee looked over to her patient. Her eyes were closed.

  ‘He didn’t come over for Charlie’s birthday last night. You know he’d never do that—never; and he’s not answering his phone; it just goes straight to voicemail. I’ve been ringing him all night. I went over to his place at six this morning and no answer. Glen tried to get in—our key’s disappeared—he tried to force the door—but he just hurt his shoulder and … ’ She stopped for several seconds. Dee could hear her swallowed sobs then a big breath in. ‘Dee, there’s something wrong, I know; a mother knows. Dee, I’m so scared—you have to help me …’

  Not turning up for Charlie’s birthday was exceptional. Tom was devoted to his autistic younger brother. All Dee’s fears from yesterday flooded back.

  ‘Have you been to the police?’

  ‘They’re useless, I can’t even file a missing person’s report for three days. “Don’t worry, love, he’ll turn up”—that’s what they actually said to me. They said I was hysterical.’

  They weren’t wrong, Dee thought as she tried to calm down herself. Two hysterics were no help.

  ‘What about his girlfriend?’

  ‘Her? She’s no good for him. I don’t know what he sees in her.’

  Dee interrupted. ‘Does she know where he is?’

  ‘She didn’t see him because he was coming over to our place. I think she knows we don’t like her.’

  That is so you, Skye, it’s always about you—couldn’t you give her a chance? Dee bit her tongue.

  ‘She might have a key; did you check?’

  ‘No, how would I know where to find her? She had her own place. Why would he give her a key …’ Skye’s words were interrupted by shuddered sobs.

  Dee pictured Tom at his last visit. He sat at the end of her desk, left knee jiggling, excited, up to something.

  ‘I’ll be there in an hour. Skye, it’ll be okay—stop crying—we’ll go to the police together.’

  Dee turned back to her patient. The exhausted new mother was sound asleep, legs spread.

  7.

  Dee and Skye were at Glebe Police Station, getting nowhere. The clock behind the counter said 1.45 pm. Thirteen minutes had passed since they had been told to ‘wait over there’ with a wave towards a wooden bench opposite the desk. The desk sergeant was safe behind an arched opening in the thick wall of the old station building.

  Staff came in and out of large swing doors off to their left. The rest of the station, and any possibility of an actual human being with any desire to help, was through those doors. Dee, Skye and Charlie shared the bench with a teenager whose chalky pallor was set off by a blood-soaked T-shirt.

  Charlie screamed again. It was a change from the thump of his head against the wall but the desk sergeant was unmoved. When there was no one else at the counter, Dee walked over and stood steadily against it. The name on the desk said Sergeant Joe Duncan. He finished a call and put down the phone. His hands had swollen knuckles and the fingers were flexed and deformed. Her brain, always alert to spot diagnoses, said he had rheumatoid arthritis—his irritability was probably due to inadequate pain relief. She resolved to try to be nicer to him.

  ‘Sergeant Duncan, I’m sorry but I need to get back to my patients. Do you think we can get some help?’ She spoke gently and smiled. ‘I know this young man and something has to be wrong. He could be unconscious; any delay is dangerous.’

  She’d avoided thinking about why Tom wasn’t contactable. Nothing made sense. There had to be a simple, rational explanation, she told herself, but nausea and a rumbling in her gut said her body wasn’t convinced.

  ‘I understand you’re concerned, Dr Flanary, and we have a full report from Mrs Harris.’ Somehow, he managed to convey disrespect by the sarcastic emphasis he put on Dee’s title.

  Skye approached the counter. Charlie was hitting the side of his head with his palm as the pale youth shuffled to the far end of the bench.

  ‘Before you got here, it was “luv” not Mrs Harris,’ Skye interrupted with a stage whisper into Dee’s ear.

  The sergeant spoke louder. ‘We’ll let you know if anything turns up. Best thing for you is to go home and let us get on with our job. He’ll turn up soon enough. Mrs Harris has completed a missing person’s report and it will be passed to the appropriate team. They’ll contact you if they need any further information. You can go now. Leave this to the professionals.’

  ‘Sergeant, this is serious. We need to get access to his flat.’

  Dee knew that she would look a fool if Tom had simply gone away without telling anyone, but she would happily cope with that if only he were okay.

  ‘Thank you, doctor, I’m sure you understand there are policies and procedures to follow. You wouldn’t want me coming into your surgery and telling you how to treat patients, would you? I’ve added your information to the statement and Mrs Harris looks like she needs to go home and calm down. We can’t have the boy disrupting the waiting room,’ he said as Charlie grunted and pulled at Skye’s skirt then punched her arm.

  Skye pushed Charlie away. ‘I’m not going home without my son,’ she said and sat down. Somehow, she implied that the police were hiding Tom away from her in the bowels of the station. She left Charlie free to roam the area. Dee could see that Joe wasn’t impressed but he’d dug his heels in. Any backdown now would mean a total loss of face.

  It was lunchtime. A rugby scrum of junior constables entered the station with their hands full of takeaway food and coffee in cardboard cups. As the swing doors opened wide to admit them, Dee spied the tiny figure of Marlena Ng. Her elderly mother was a patient of Dee’s and Marlena often came to appointments to translate. Mrs Ng was diabetic and needed lots of care. She preferred to see Dee than the Vietnamese doctor who spoke her language. Dee suspected the mother of eleven enjoyed the extra attention of having a child along as translator.

  She stepped outside and dialled Glebe Police Station.

  ‘Marlena Ng, please.’

  ‘Detective Ng isn’t available. Can I take a message?’ a neutral female voice asked.

  ‘Sorry, this is urgent. It’s her doctor and it’s personal.’ Dee knew playing the doctor card was the only way they’d get anywhere.

  There was a short delay then Dee heard Marlena’s voice.

  A minute later, a neat woman in a maroon stretch blouse and black skirt came through the swing doors.

  ‘Dr Dee, I’m so sorry you’ve been waiting—come through. Thanks, Joe, I’ll handle this one.’ It always took Dee a moment to reconcile the voice of a shearers’ cook from the back of Bourke coming from the lips of a tiny Vietnamese woman.

  As they walked through the magic doors to the police station proper, Joe glared and a sound like steam venting escaped his lips.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Marlena said. ‘He hates anyone younger than him who’s the same rank. I’m Asian and a woman to boot. We don’t usually let “No go Joe” loose on the public. They say he missed his true calling as a goalkeeper.’ Marlena led them to an interview room.

  She listened to Dee and Skye without interruption and immediately organised to have police attend Tom’s flat.

  ‘If we put out a call saying there’s a concern for the welfare of Mr Harris, a patrol car will check it out, even if they have
to break in. Do you want to be there?’

  Dee and Skye nodded.

  ‘Okay, they’ll meet you at the flat.’

  Part 2

  8.

  Dee drove. They dropped Charlie at home on the way for Skye’s boyfriend Glen to look after him. Skye sat grim-faced next to her and, as they completed a three-point turn to get out of the narrow street of 1950s housing commission apartments, a skinny man with a straggly ponytail jumped in front of the car. Dee braked. Skye lowered her window to yell at him.

  ‘Stay with Charlie!’

  ‘Jan came up, she’ll stay. You don’t know what you’ll find.’

  Skye started to cry. The man opened the door and slipped into the back seat. A strong smell of marijuana came with him. Glen, an ex-junkie, had been around for ten years or so. Tom disapproved of the use of drugs, particularly around Charlie, but he had told Dee he thought having someone around, even someone like Glen, helped Skye cope.

  Tom had said Glen occasionally worked as a greyhound walker but Dee suspected he dabbled in minor crime and was sponging off Skye’s pension and subsidised housing. Still, he must care for Skye if he had tolerated life with Charlie for so long.

  ‘Oh Dee,’ Skye said, ‘is it okay if Glen comes with us?’

  ‘Sure,’ Dee muttered. Someone to help with Skye would be useful.

  ‘Hi Dee,’ said Glen.

  ‘That’s Doctor Dee to you,’ Skye said.

  *

  Too soon, they were there. Tom’s flat was only a kilometre from his mother’s. Built in the 1980s rush to redevelop the inner city, the complex of three hundred apartments occupied a whole city block and was a warren of low-ceilinged, skimpy spaces opening off unventilated stairs.

  Glen took the lead as both Skye and Dee held back. The flat was at the rear of the complex. They wound through a series of courtyards sprouting cigarette butts and dusty dead plants. Dee recognised the stairwell. Two of her home-visit patients, Jock and Lil, had the ground floor flat.

  Two uniformed policemen were already at the door to the stairwell. They were both well above six foot, rugby solid and blond with their big shiny belts carrying guns and radios. They introduced themselves—Senior Constable Miller and Constable Nilsson. Nilsson looked like a child dressed up in the uniform of a policeman. He had a black cylinder, about a metre long and thick as his upper arm, slung across his back. The strap was pressing into his shoulder. The solid black object sent a shiver through her. Surely they wouldn’t need to break down Tom’s door?

  Miller had his foot wedged in the stairwell door to stop it locking. He pulled it open for them and they passed through.

  The smell in the stairwell was familiar: Jock’s corned beef and cabbage, she realised, the same meal he’d prepared every week for all the years Dee had been doing home visits to his demented wife. In this mean space, the police were alien giants: Teflon coated; too defined, too clean to be contaminated by the dim and grime. Their perfectly pressed shirts seemed safe, as if no chaos could reach someone whose outer layers were so ordered. The smells of freshly pressed cotton and sports deodorant became a force field around them.

  ‘It’s the top floor,’ said Glen.

  Dee was grateful for the short reprieve.

  Keen as nine-year-olds at a school sports carnival, the constables ran up the stairs two at a time with the battering ram. Glen took Skye’s arm and propelled her upwards. Dee made herself follow.

  Tom’s flat was up four flights. As they ascended the smell became worse; mouldy carpet, cigarettes, stale ghee and garlic. Dee tried not to breathe too deeply.

  Suddenly, on the first landing, Leah was there beside Dee. A wraith in faded jeans and grey and pink T-shirt, materialised from nowhere. She must have been nearby, waiting for them to arrive. Dee and the girl were behind Skye who, with Glen supporting her, was making slow progress up the stairs. That was okay; none of them wanted to get to the top. They all wanted Tom to be there—carried away with a project, absentmindedly too busy to answer his phone. Dee had pushed the case that something serious was wrong to get the police here. Now she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what waited for them upstairs.

  A few steps from the top, Dee heard the police bang on the door.

  ‘Mr Harris, open up. Police. Open the door, please.’

  She held her breath. There was no response.

  Dee turned to Leah and whispered, ‘Have you got a key?’

  The girl half closed her eyes and shook her head.

  They walked up the last few steps.

  Once they were all together on the top landing, the slightly older constable looked toward Dee. This had to be done. She nodded and Nilsson swung the battering ram against the door. On the second hit, it splintered and swung open, leaving the closed lock attached to the jamb.

  The police went in first. Then Dee and Leah. Together, they filled the living room. It was neat and ordered, no cups or papers or other mess. Skye and Glen hovered in the doorway. An array of winking computers and modems covered most of one wall. The open kitchen was the same—no dirty dishes, nothing on the benches except an open pill bottle on the counter. Dee was about to pick it up but stopped. The policemen had pulled on gloves. Was this a crime scene? She had gloves in her doctor’s bag. She sat the bag on the table, put on a pair and picked up the pill bottle. The label read ‘Prednisone 25 mg’ and gave a date two weeks ago, with her name as prescriber. It looked full. Dee wondered how many Tom had taken.

  The police opened the bathroom door. There were towels folded on the rail. Like the rest of the flat, it was perfectly tidy, nothing out of place—no smell—thank god, no smell.

  He wasn’t here. Of course, he’s okay. She began to hope. He must have become excited about some work project and not come home. The police could check his phone records to track his movements. Then she noticed his mobile phone on the computer desk.

  Tom would never go anywhere without his phone.

  Around to the right and up three stairs there was another door. They all held back. Six pairs of eyes staring didn’t make it open. Someone had to look. Dee started towards it but the younger constable moved too. She let him go first.

  ‘In here,’ they heard him say a moment later.

  No one moved. Let Tom be okay, she thought. He’s a child, a baby. He has to be okay.

  Dee stood still; her arms were crossed and kneading her left shoulder inside her shirt. She needed something solid, something real, to cling to. Her flesh was warm and smooth, a supple layer above the firmness of muscle and bone. She breathed out, picked up her doctor’s bag and made herself follow the child with the peach fuzz cheeks who was supposed to be a policeman.

  The blinds were closed: the bedroom hot and still. A large bed almost filled the room. Young Nilsson had to shimmy around the end before Dee could enter.

  Tom was on the bed, flat on his back, fully clothed—unmoving. Perhaps he fell asleep without getting undressed? Her brain foundered for an excuse to deny what her eyes told it.

  ‘Tom, Tom …’ Dee said.

  There was no answer, no movement. From the end of the bed, she could see his eyes were open, directed at the ceiling. There would never be an answer.

  *

  Dee’s authority as doctor demanded a ritual. No expertise was needed to know Tom was dead, but it still needed to be official.

  She got the stethoscope out of her bag and leant over the bed.

  A faint overripe odour reached her nostrils. The bed was low so Dee knelt on the edge. It was softer than she expected and the corpse jiggled. A stronger smell, of meat gone off, wafted her way. She didn’t want that smell to be her last memory of Tom: sweet, obsessional, generous, lanky, excited, lovely Tom. She allowed herself a muttered entreaty. ‘No, God, no. You can’t let this be.’ Mostly she resisted the idea of a supernatural protector but at times like these a plea to someone in charge welled up from deep inside.

  She told herself to concentrate, to get on with it. It was okay. This lump of matter wasn’
t him. She’d smelt worse. She started breathing again. The smell became a taste.

  Tom was dead and it wasn’t any good for anyone if Dee let her feelings interfere with doing her job. There was no doubt that this cold stiff mass—whitish grey wax tinged with purple under the arms and neck—was an object rather than a person; the same as any other corpse she needed to assess.

  She put her tongue between her teeth and bit firmly, physical pain to stop the tears.

  ‘Can you open the curtains, and the window please?’ she asked.

  The sudden light gave everything a hard-edged reality. She could see more than she wanted to. A dry film dulled both Tom’s open eyes. Above the lower lashes on the left, something moved. Dee leaned closer. A fly rubbed its feelers together as it walked across the glazed eyeball.

  The face was sallow, pallid rather than pale, the skin almost transparent to the yellow fat beneath. Dee put two fingers under the angle of the jaw, no pulse, no warmth, just cold and pudgy; slightly greasy too, like meat sweating on a butcher’s slab. On the left side, dry yellowish secretions ran down from mouth to ear lobe.

  She undid the buttons of his shirt to expose the chest; then unzipped his jeans and folded back the flaps. The skin visible through the hairs on his lower right abdomen had a greenish blush—gut bacteria were taking over. Wafts of the sickly smell grew stronger.

  It shouldn’t be happening. Corpses were supposed to be old and in hospital gowns or pyjamas. Again, she reminded herself, this wasn’t Tom.

  Dee switched to automatic. Observe then examine. Tom’s right hand clutched a Ventolin inhaler. Dee tried to take it from him. The hand was cold, the fingers tight around the cylinder. She slipped it free and shook it. Empty. She put it down on the bedside table.

  Why would he be using an empty inhaler? She touched his arm. When she tried to bend it the whole body moved. The arm was cold and completely rigid. Rigor mortis, how soon did that start and stop? On the underside of the neck there was a dark shadow.