Double Blind (8 page)

My phone rang while I was eating a sandwich for dinner. It was Alan Bradley.

“You called earlier?”

Typical Alan, always brusque and to the point. I’d always thought of him as the boss from hell, but he’d softened over the last few months. His partner’s arrest had, for a while, driven him into a depression so profound that it had seemed the company was doomed to close. Then he’d had the idea of promoting Josh. Now, with an impressive roster of new clients, Alan was back to his irascible self.

“I was thinking about coming back to work now,” I said. “If you have enough for me to do?”

“Can you start tomorrow?” he asked. “We can go over the project list together. Glad to hear that Josh has talked some sense into you at last.”

“I need a couple of weeks to finish up my work for the gardening magazine,” I said, ignoring his comment about Josh. It wasn’t true that I needed time to finish the projects. I could complete them in a day or so, but I still wanted enough freedom to investigate the auras over Scott and Dr. Reid.

“How about a week from Monday then?” he countered. I said that would be good. If I were to help Reid or Scott, it would have to be soon anyway.

Alan rang off, with no farewells or expressions of joy, but I was excited about going back. And Josh would be thrilled. I’d tell him when he called later in the evening.

I rang Anita to let her know. “Thank God,” she said. “I never understood why you left in the first place. You have talent, Kate. I want to work in a hospital building designed by you one day.”

“How are you?” I asked. “How’s Dr. Reid doing?”

“Good. No issues at all. He seems to be back to his usual self, actually.”

“I’m glad.”

“Can you come over tomorrow?” she asked. “To see if his aura is still there?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in auras?”

“I don’t,” she said. “But you do, and if you can really see one over Dr. Reid, then you can also see if it’s disappeared. If you think he’s going to be okay, then I can relax a bit.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I said, pleased that Anita was finally acknowledging the fact that I could see auras. “I’ll come over at lunchtime again tomorrow if you think Dr. Reid will be available for a viewing at that time?”

She laughed. “I’ll make sure he is. It will be good to see you. What did you do today?”

I hesitated. Telling her about my trip to Cambridge would raise the whole issue of the aura over Simon Scott, and she was in such a good mood that I didn’t want to spoil it. I settled for telling her that I was almost done with my projects. “And you’ve had no more problems with being followed?” I asked.

“No, I was just imagining the whole thing, I’m sure.”

“Ok,” I said, not convinced.

The next day, I arrived at the hospital at noon, and went to the fourth floor to find Anita.

“Dr. Banerjee is finishing up with a patient,” a nurse at the reception desk told me. “If you go to the waiting room, I’ll let her know you’re here—” Her head jerked round at sudden beeping sound and, without a word, she hurried away, leaving me standing at the desk. My phone buzzed with a text from Anita. “Sorry to be late. Already downstairs, so let’s meet in the cafeteria.”

“Coming now,” I texted before heading towards the lift, just as a figure in a white coat turned into the corridor ahead of me. It was Dr. Reid. His aura was very visible, spiraling over his grey corkscrew hair. I watched him go, sad that the aura was still there. Anita would be disappointed when I told her.

When I reached the cafeteria, it was busy, but there was no sign of Anita, so I grabbed a tray and got in line. A minute later, hands clamped over my eyes and a voice whispered, “Guess who?”

I laughed and turned. “Late again, Anita—” I stopped.

Her smile faded. “What? What’s wrong? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Nothing, I’m fine. What are you going to eat?”

Pushed forward by impatient customers behind us, we advanced through the line, picking up salads and bottles of water. Only when we were seated did Anita ask again. “What’s wrong, Kate?”

How could I tell her that she had an aura?

I looked at her salad. “Yours looks far more appetizing. Do you want mine?” It was a futile attempt to distract her.

“No thank you. And we’re not eating until you tell me what’s going on,” she said.

“You have an aura.” There was no point in trying to soften the blow. Anita swore by telling and hearing the truth, however unpalatable.

“I don’t believe in auras, remember?” she said, pouring dressing over her salad greens.

We sat in silence for a couple of minutes while I pushed pieces of lettuce around in the plastic tray. Anita looked up at me. “So how will I die and how long do I have?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how it will happen. Your aura is faint, so maybe a few weeks, a month. But, listen, you won’t die. I won’t let you. We’ve got time to work it out. Remember, my nephew had an aura, and he’s fit and healthy now.”

“Because you got him to the hospital in time,” she said.

“That’s not your problem,” I said, forcing a laugh. “You’re already here.”

She grinned, forking food into her mouth. I doubt I could eat if someone had just told me I was going to die. But then she didn’t believe me.

“I think there has to be a link with Dr. Reid,” I said.

“But I’m hoping his aura has gone. He’s been better again today. We need to go check on him.”

I told her that I’d already seen him upstairs and that his aura was still there. “If anything, it’s moving faster. That’s not good.”

“Damn,” she said.

“So you both have auras. We need to analyze what the connection could be. It’s highly likely that the danger to you both is from the same source.” I pushed my uneaten lunch away. “Can you think of anything?”

“He and I are pediatric doctors and we work together,” Anita said, ticking off the items on her fingers. “And we have offices on the same floor.”

“Yes, but there are other doctors who work on your floor and they don’t have auras. Is there anything that’s specific to just you and Dr. Reid?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m Indian, he’s white. He’s married and I’m not — yet anyway.” She grimaced, no doubt thinking of her father’s plans for an arranged marriage. “He’s old, I’m young. We have the same blood type. That came up in conversation once. Oh, I know. We both love chocolate-covered cherries. A patient gave me a box and Dr. Reid and I fought over it like ravenous wolves.”

She wasn’t taking this seriously. I wanted to shake her, to make her see it was real. “Do this for me,” I said. “Have as many health checks as you can, MRI, blood test, cardiogram. Let’s try to eliminate the obvious risks. And keep thinking about any possible relation between you and Reid. Do you ever go off-site together, for example? In a car, an ambulance?”

“No.”

“Okay, what about your patients? Do you both care for a patient who could in some way be a threat?”

“What? One of the kids is going to jump on us both with a coloring crayon?”

“I’m serious. Maybe a parent who’s unhappy with the care a kid received?”

She shrugged. I knew I wouldn’t get much further with her. She needed time to internalize what I’d told her and I could only hope she wouldn’t take too long.

“There’s something else,” I said. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but Simon Scott has an aura as well. And his colleague, Kevin Lewis.”

She was staring at me, her fork halfway to her mouth.

“Scott?” she said. “Bloody hell, Kate. Your aura-seeing capability knows no bounds. Look around, how many people here have auras?”

I didn’t want to see any more darn auras, so I shook my head. “Probably a few, given that we are in a hospital.”

She finished her salad in silence, and I kept quiet too. There was nothing to be gained by trying to convince her of something she didn’t want to hear. When her pager buzzed, she put her empty salad container on the tray. “That’s Dr. Schwartz. I’m sitting in on a consultation with him in ten minutes. I should go.”

She stood up. “Are you coming to the campaign office tonight?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll see you there.”

She left without our customary hug, striding off in her starched white coat, looking the picture of health and energy.

It seemed obvious to me that her aura and Reid’s were linked in some way. If I could find out more about a potential threat to Reid, perhaps I could pinpoint the danger to Anita too. Checking my watch, I leaned back in the chair and waited for ten minutes. Then I went up to the pediatric floor. Although it was a long shot, I wanted to find Dr. Reid while Anita was out of the way. I wasn’t sure what I could learn from talking to him, but anything was worth a try.

When the lift hissed to a stop, I stepped into the hallway and looked up and down. There was no sign of Anita. Two nurses I didn’t recognize were talking with a man in a suit near the reception desk, the man young and good-looking with dark brown hair and a dimpled chin. The nurses were laughing at something he’d said. Hoping they’d be too preoccupied to notice me, I walked past the desk towards Dr. Reid’s office, which was just a few doors up from Anita’s.

“Can I help you?” one of the nurses called out.

“I have an appointment with Dr. Reid,” I said, turning around. Reluctantly, I made my way back to the reception desk. “At one o clock. The name is…” I hesitated. These nurses didn’t know me. “Sophie Harrison.”

“Let me find you on the schedule,” the younger nurse said, typing on her keyboard. Trying to appear relaxed, I flashed a smile at the man in the suit. He was wearing a name tag on a lanyard. Audley Macintyre, followed by a company name, LB Pharmaceuticals. So he was probably a drug rep like the oleaginous Eric, the one Anita didn’t like.

“Busy day?” I asked.

He nodded, returning my smile with a multi-watt one of his own. “Always, but I love what I do, so time goes quickly.”

“Ms. Harrison, I can’t find your name here. Are you sure your appointment was for today?”

“I’m positive,” I said. “There must have been a mix up? If Dr. Reid is free, could he see me just for a couple of minutes? I’ve traveled quite a long way to get here. It’s about my son.”

I cringed as I rolled out the lies, one after another. Perhaps I should have just waited near the lift and hoped for Dr. Reid to make an appearance.

“Well, he has an appointment in five minutes,” said the nurse. “And I’m busy…” she glanced at Macintyre.

“Don’t worry. No rush,” said Macintyre. “You sort this out. I’ll go grab a cup of coffee if that’s okay.”

“Thank you so much,” I said to him.

After he’d walked off, the nurse escorted me in silence to Dr. Reid’s office. The tempo of her footsteps on the lino floor was a staccato echo of her annoyance. When she opened his door and introduced me, he looked a bit confused, but invited me to sit down. The aura was moving around his head very quickly, the rippling air blurring the picture of a Provence landscape hanging on the wall behind him, rendering the lavender fields and golden sunflowers indistinct and formless.

Seeing Reid close up for the first time, I was struck by his eyes, which were brown and soft. I imagined that they had often comforted the parents of sick children.

“Ms. Harrison? I’m afraid I don’t recall your case?” he said, glancing at his computer screen.

“Dr. Reid, I’m actually a journalist doing a story on surgeons and stress. You’re a leading surgeon here and you work with children and young adults. I imagine you experience stress every day. Would you be willing to talk to me about it?”

“I really don’t have time,” he said with a quick look at his watch. “Which publication did you say you work for?”

“I’m a freelancer. I’m working on the story for the
Messenger
.” It was a huge lie but now I’d come this far, I’d keep going. “I would just need a couple of minutes of your time.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “Go on.”

“Statistics show that doctors suffer, on the whole, a disproportionately high incidence of depression, alcoholism and substance abuse,” I said, recalling the research I’d done when I’d first learned about Reid’s aura. “Surgeons in particular work under intense pressure, which leads to a high burnout rate and suicide.”

I stopped, looking at him, searching for a reaction. To my surprise, he nodded. “I know the numbers,” he said. “And I know some doctors who’ve experienced ‘burnout’ as you call it, which is in fact a clinical syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment — among other things. But most of us, in my experience, love what we do. We are extremely well trained. We think on our feet, we have positive interaction with our peers, and we save lives. I can’t imagine getting burned out, to be honest.”

“So you’re not unduly stressed?”

He smiled. “No. But I will be if I’m late for my next meeting, so if you’ll excuse me?”

“Do surgeons have regular medical check ups?” I blurted out as I stood up.

He laughed. “I know a few hypochondriacs who do. Practicing medicine can do that to you. You get one little symptom and extrapolate from there. Before you know it, that slight cough is TB and a headache is a brain tumor. But no, in general, I’d say we get checked out much like anyone else does.”

I desperately wanted to keep him talking. “So you’re feeling good?” I smiled, trying to make a joke of it. “All healthy? No particular pressures?”

For a microsecond a frown crossed his face. Not a frown so much as a moment of introspection, while he thought about his answer.

“Nothing specific,” he said. His aura was moving fast. Based on what I’d seen in the past, death could arrive at any moment.

“Good. I really appreciate your time. If you have anything else you’d like to contribute to the story, will you contact me?”

He pushed a pen and notepad across the desk towards me. I scribbled down my fake name and my real mobile number.

“Goodbye, Ms. Harrison,” he said, turning back to his keyboard.

I walked out of Dr. Reid’s office just as Anita turned into the corridor. She stopped dead, staring at me. I pulled the door closed behind me.