The Doctor Page 2

  ‘Is ELECT financially stable?’ a middle-aged man asked. ‘What you are doing here is obviously very long term. How can we be sure you will still be here in fifty or a hundred years’ time?’

  ‘We have insurance to cover bankruptcy but our organization is sound. You can view our accounts online.’

  ‘Can loved ones visit the deceased here?’

  ‘Yes, but we encourage them to visit their memorial stone instead. It’s a more pleasant experience. All you can see here is a metal tank.’

  ‘The film we’ve just watched said you also store body parts,’ someone else asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘So that when we wake the patient we can replace any damaged or diseased organs.’

  ‘I am right in saying that no one has ever been woken yet?’ a man asked sceptically.

  ‘That’s correct,’ Owen said, unfazed. ‘No human at least. But we know the process works. Embryos have been frozen successfully for years using this method.’

  Amit slowly raised his hand.

  ‘Yes, sir, your question.’

  ‘Do you always need the consent of the person to be preserved or do you accept the consent of their next of kin?’

  ‘We always need the consent of the person,’ Owen replied. ‘The decision to be preserved is made in life, unlike organ donation that can be made by the next of kin after death.’

  ‘And there is no way round it?’ Amit asked. ‘I mean, supposing the person is too ill to make the decision or not of sound mind?’

  ‘Then it would be a matter for the court to decide.’

  Amit was about to follow this up with another question when Owen’s phone bleeped. ‘Excuse me,’ he said and read the message, then addressed the audience. ‘That was to let me know a new patient is on their way. A fifteen-year-old boy from England. We have time for a quick tour, then the operating theatre will need to be prepared for his arrival. I’ll answer any further questions as we go.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Not again!’ Amit shouted as he read the delivery card Alisha had left on the hall table. ‘I told you a parcel was coming for me today! Couldn’t you have answered the fucking door?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, anxiously watching him from the far end of the hall. ‘I was upstairs and couldn’t get down in time. They only ring once and then rush off and leave it with the neighbour.’

  ‘That’s the third time in two weeks, you silly cow, and that woman next door is fucking nosy.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alisha said again. ‘I’ll serve your dinner so it’s ready when you get back.’

  Amit threw open the front door and went down their garden path, seething at her incompetence. He didn’t ask much of his wife but got even less! Couldn’t she do anything he asked?

  Latching their garden gate behind him, he paused and breathed in the fresh air. He couldn’t turn up next door in a rage. Others weren’t as forgiving as Alisha.

  At seven o’clock it was still light, but the air had an edge to it, a reminder that autumn wasn’t far away. Amit liked the seasons, the changes, the cycle of nature, that spring came after winter with the promise of new life. It was a metaphor for his plans, he thought as he began along the pavement. Alisha had refused to sign up to ELECT, but that wasn’t the end of it, oh no, not by a long way. He could – and would – succeed. Maybe not the first time; it would take trial and error, but he would practice until he got it right. Thanks to the internet, he could buy virtually everything he needed online, but it was worrying that his parcels kept being delivered next door.

  He continued up the neighbours’ drive. They didn’t have a gate; their front garden and drive were open plan. Ben Johnston and Emily King; they weren’t married. He seemed OK and was content with ‘good morning’ and a few words, but she wanted to talk and kept inviting Alisha in for a coffee. He’d warned Alisha to stay away and he knew she wouldn’t disobey him. He’d seen Emily King looking at their house, scrutinizing it as she walked by or drove past in her car. He doubted she suspected, he was too careful, and had given her no cause for suspicion. She’d do well to concentrate on her baby and housework. The elderly couple on the other side weren’t a problem, but he couldn’t ask them to take his packages, they were frail and took longer to answer their door than Alisha did.

  Pressing the doorbell, he took a step back and waited. Their cat appeared from around the corner and meowed loudly, wanting to be let in. Amit detested cats or any domestic animal. As far as he was concerned, they served no useful purpose and just cost the owner money.

  The door opened, the cat shot in, and even before he’d had a chance to say good evening, she was inviting him in.

  ‘Come in while I fetch your parcel,’ Emily said, smiling.

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll wait here.’

  ‘You always say that,’ she laughed and disappeared down the hall, leaving the door open. Why didn’t she have his parcels ready in the hall? There was always this palaver and she knew he collected them on the day they were delivered.

  Ben appeared. ‘Hi, how are you?’

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  ‘Em won’t be a minute. She puts your parcels upstairs for safekeeping. Robbie is crawling now and into everything.’

  Amit assumed Robbie was their child and managed a polite smile.

  ‘Here we go,’ Emily said, reappearing and handing him the shoebox-sized package.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been troubled again.’

  ‘No problem. How is Alisha?’ she asked.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ he said tightly.

  ‘Please tell her I’d love to see her for coffee. If she isn’t up to coming here, I could pop in with Robbie.’

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ he said, with no intention of doing so. Saying goodbye, he returned down their drive and the front door closed behind him.

  The irritation he felt at Emily’s bouncy cheerful personality was quickly replaced by excitement. He knew what the package contained: another vital piece of equipment. As soon as he’d had dinner, he’d go to his workshop and continue.

  Half an hour later, leaving Alisha at the sink washing the dishes, Amit let himself out the back door, briefcase in hand and the package under his arm, and went down their garden path. The sun was setting now, elongating the shadows of the house and trees across the lawn. He preferred this time to the harsh light of day, which seemed to highlight flaws and imperfections. At the end of the path, he unlocked the padlock on his workshop, switched on the light and, going in, bolted the door behind him. No one could see him now. Blackout blinds were permanently down at all the windows, and he’d covered the glass in opaque film. It was pure luck the house had come with this substantial outbuilding, built by the previous owner as a recording studio. Already soundproofed, well insulated and with electricity running from the house, it hadn’t taken much for him to adapt it for its present purpose.

  With a growing sense of pride and a little apprehension, Amit carefully took the bottle of anaesthetic from his briefcase. Opening one of the metal cabinets that stood against the wall, he placed the bottle on the top shelf with the other bottles of solutions. Drugs such as these were the only items he needed that couldn’t be bought legitimately from the internet as they required a special licence. Doubtless he could have bought them illegally, but there would be no guarantee they were pure and hadn’t been watered down or mixed with something to give the supplier more profit. The wrong or inferior drugs would be disastrous, and besides, no one at the hospital would notice the drugs were missing. As the anaesthetist, he was responsible for signing the drugs in and out of the operating room, and he took them one at a time.

  Returning to the workbench, he slit open the package and took out the bag valve mask. It was in a sealed sterile package and was used for manually pumping air into a patient’s lungs. It would be crucial that Alisha’s brain received oxygen while he lowered her body temperature. He’d already bought a portable heart-machine. He’d use the m
anual pump as he transported her body from the house down the garden to his lab and then hook her up to the machine.

  Retrieving a pen from the bench, he flicked through his list of essential items and ticked off the bag valve mask. He placed it in the cabinet on the second shelf. The shelves were nearly full now: bottles, tubing, scissors, forceps, scalpels, speculums, retractors, wound dressings, and so on. Items he would need to operate. Not a standard operation of course. He’d do what ELECT were doing: drain the blood from the body and replace it with preservation fluid. Then he’d store Alisha in liquid nitrogen at minus 190°C until a cure for her condition could be found. He’d be at the forefront of medical science, making a name for himself, and finally his parents would be proud of him.

  Taking his laptop from his briefcase, Amit set it on his bench and perched on the stool. He brought up the bookmarked web page and ordered an aluminium tank large enough to hold a body. He’d been surprised at just how easy it had been to find what he needed online, partly due to the trend in cryotherapy – a treatment where otherwise healthy people paid to stand in a tank at minus 90°C for two minutes. It was being used to treat minor conditions, including sports injuries and skin conditions, as well as supposedly generating a feeling of youthfulness and well-being.

  Having entered his card details to pay for the tank, he arranged a delivery date, then went to another website and ordered half a dozen white mice. He’d only get one chance with Alisha, so he’d practice the procedure on small animals first, until he was confident he had everything right, just as any reputable scientist would.

  His mobile phone rang, making him start. He took it from his pocket and saw the call was from the house. It would be Alisha. Reliant on him, she phoned if she needed him urgently. Irritated at being interrupted, he pressed to accept the call.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘I need your help quickly.

  He sighed. He had to go. ‘I’m coming.’

  Leaving everything as it was – he’d return later – he let himself out of his workshop.

  The sun had set now and the lights were on in his and his neighbours’ houses, including Ben and Emily’s bedroom window. Emily was standing at the window looking out, watching him, as he’d seen her do before. His anger flared. Didn’t the nosy cow have anything better to do! Standing there brazenly. She must know he could see her. Drawing his head in, he hurried down the path to the back door. She needed to be careful, if she knew what was good for her.

  Chapter Five

  While the surgeon, Mr Barry Lowe, worked on his patient’s abdomen, Amit sat by her head and monitored her vital signs on the screen. Heart rate and rhythm, breathing, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen level and body fluid balance were all normal. It was a relatively minor and straightforward procedure – an appendectomy – on an otherwise healthy thirty-year-old, so he didn’t envisage any problems. In operations like this, once the patient was under there was little for him to do but monitor the green and blue lines that ran across the screen.

  Being an anaesthetist was a thankless job, he thought now as he often had before. Anaesthetists were at the bottom end of medicine. A branch you went into when you didn’t really want to be a doctor or didn’t make the grade. He’d been forced into medicine by his pushy parents who saw it as the gold-standard career. That or being a lawyer, which had appealed even less. Having a doctor or lawyer in the family gave his parents respect in their community, and he hadn’t had the guts to stand up to them. So with no calling to medicine or the law, and achieving poor grades at med school, he’d become an anaesthetist. Thankfully it involved very little contact with patients and required no bedside manner as they were unconscious, which suited him fine.

  He watched Barry Lowe snip the infected appendix clear of the intestine and, with a sigh of satisfaction for a job well done, drop it into the stainless-steel bowl. He began closing the wound.

  ‘How’s your wife?’ he asked Amit, glancing at him over his surgical glasses.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ Amit replied stiffly. ‘Thank you for asking.’ Those he worked with were vaguely aware Alisha had a life-limiting illness, but he’d never told them the details. He kept himself to himself and used Alisha’s illness as an excuse for not socializing with colleagues or attending hospital functions.

  ‘Did you ever get in any agency help?’ Barry Lowe asked, stitching the wound.

  ‘It’s not necessary,’ Amit replied. ‘She’s still able to look after herself. I can manage.’

  ‘Well, don’t get burnt out, we need you here,’ he said and put in the last stitch.

  With the wound closed, Amit switched off the drugs that had kept the patient asleep and began the process of bringing her out of the anaesthetic. He turned down the nitrous oxide and turned up the oxygen. As expected, the patient’s facial muscles began to twitch as she started to regain consciousness. Then she gagged and he removed the endotracheal tube from her throat.

  The operation over, the team began to dissemble. Barry Lowe removed his surgical gloves, dropped them in the bin and called goodbye as he left. The theatre nurses were clearing up, but, as usual, Amit stayed by the patient, monitoring her vital signs until she was responsive enough to speak.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he asked her. ‘Your operation is over.’

  ‘Thank you,’ came her groggy reply.

  Satisfied, Amit flexed his shoulders. They were always stiff, even after a short operation. His patient was ready for the recovery room and one of the theatre nurses would take her through soon. They were occupied at present, facing away from him as they cleared up and swabbed down after the operation. Quietly and quickly, in a smooth, well-practised movement, he slid the unused bottle of anaesthetic from the cart and tucked it into the pocket of his scrubs.

  ‘Thank you for your assistance,’ he said politely, moving away from the operating table. He always remembered to thank the theatre staff even if the surgeon forgot.

  ‘Goodbye, Dr Burman,’ the nurses returned.

  The locker room was empty, good. Changing out of his scrubs, he transferred the bottle into his briefcase and headed for home where his true work awaited him.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Well? What do you think?’ Emily asked Ben as soon as he came home from work. ‘Have I been busy or what?’ She led him to the patio doors.

  ‘You have been busy,’ Ben agreed. ‘You’ve done a good job, Em. It must have taken you ages.’

  ‘Most of the day. But it’s saved us having to pay a gardener. I enjoyed it. Robbie was with me, playing in the leaves. Now he’s toddling it’s so much easier to do stuff as he can amuse himself.’

  ‘Where is the little fellow?’ Ben asked, looking around.

  ‘In bed. He was exhausted. So am I. My arms are already aching from using the pruning shears. I’ve got muscles I didn’t know I had.’ She laughed. ‘Obviously I couldn’t trim the trees, they’re too high, but the hedge looks neater.’

  ‘It does. I hope Amit approves.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with him?’ Emily asked. ‘It’s our hedge and on our side of the fence.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Ben said, raising his hands in defence. ‘I just thought perhaps we should have mentioned it to him first. You really don’t like that bloke do you?’

  ‘Even less so now,’ she admitted. ‘While I was up the ladder trimming the top of the hedge, I could see over and into the living room. Alisha was standing at their living room window watching me. I waved and signalled for her to come out, but she shook her head. She looked like a scared rabbit, Ben. I’m not kidding. I’m sure it wasn’t that she didn’t want to come out but more that she daren’t. I think he could be abusing her.’

  ‘Oh come on, Em, just because you don’t like the guy doesn’t mean he’s a wife beater.’

  ‘Maybe not, but there was something in the way she stood there – like a trapped animal. I might have another go at asking her in. Anyway, glad you approve of my gardening. Let’s ea
t. The spag bol is ready. Can you dish up while I try to get Tibs in? She hasn’t been back all day.’

  ‘Will do,’ Ben said and kissed her cheek.

  As Ben served dinner, Emily took the bag of cat treats from the cupboard. Opening the patio door, she called, ‘Tibs! Tibs!’ whilst shaking the bag. Usually by this time of day Tibs was home and wanting her dinner, but if not, then hearing the bag of treats brought her running from whichever garden she was in. ‘Tibs, Tibby,’ Emily called again, rattling the bag of treats, but there was no sign of her. ‘I’ll try again later,’ she said at last. Closing the patio door, she took her place at the dining table. ‘It’s not like her. I wonder if she’s got shut in somewhere. If she’s not back by tomorrow, I’ll knock on some of our neighbours’ doors and ask them to check their sheds and garages.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ Ben said. ‘It’s a dry evening. She’ll be off hunting.’

  ‘Tibs! Tibby!’ Emily called repeatedly at 9.30 p.m. She was outside now, standing on the patio and shaking the bag of treats. ‘Tibs!’ She paused and listened for any sound suggesting Tibs had heard and was starting her journey home. Sometimes when she strayed a long way she could hear her in the distance. The foliage stirring, her claws scraping as she clambered over wooden fences, going from garden to garden. Then, when she entered her own garden and saw Emily, she meowed loudly. But now the air remained still and eerily quiet, a clear November night, with a waxing moon rising in a cloudless sky.

  Emily tried once more before she went to bed at 11 p.m. This time she put on her coat and went right down to the bottom of the garden, calling ‘Tibs, Tibby!’ The light in the outbuilding next door was on and with the hedge lower now she could see the top of the windows. As usual, the door was closed and the blinds were down, but even if they hadn’t been it would have been impossible to see in for the film covering the glass. She had watched Amit stick it on about six months ago when he’d started using the building every evening and most weekends. What he did in there, she’d no idea, but if Tibs wasn’t back in the morning, she’d ask him or his wife to check it and their garage for Tibs, although she doubted she was in there. Amit didn’t hide the fact he hated cats. She’d heard him throwing stones at Tibs when she’d strayed into his garden – one of the reasons she didn’t like the man. She’d read somewhere that people who were cruel to animals were invariably cruel to people too.