9

There comes a time in every person’s life when an opportunity presents itself. The test of character is how one chooses to respond to the challenge…

Downstairs Oakesy was watching the news and Angeline was in bed, the door to her room closed tight. I was in the front bedroom, sitting on the damp, lumpy bed with Oakesy’s laptop open on my knees, tapping at the keys. The curtains were open with the orange streetlight coming through and falling on the computer screen. The police car was still out there–I’d checked, and a man was sitting in the dark watching us. According to Danso, we didn’t really need him: he was just there to make us feel secure.

Today I find myself in just such a position [I wrote]. Today I have been presented with a riddle, an opportunity. And the challenge is–do I attempt to solve the riddle myself, or do I pass it to someone I trust, someone whose professionalism and skill is better suited to deal with it than mine? Someone who will benefit enormously from involvement in this fascinating, high-profile case…

I’d titled the email ‘Unusual Spinal Abnormality. High Media Interest’ and sent it under an anonymously set-up Yahoo account, because I knew if I used my real name that that witch of a secretary would leap on it and rip it out of Christophe’s inbox in a flash. I still blame her for what happened. I mean, who was it who tried to make something sinister out of my relationship with him? Turning it round, telling people I was making a nuisance of myself? That I’d ‘bombarded Mr Radnor with correspondence on the clinic’s intranet’. Which is a wild exaggeration, of course, because I’d sent little more than a few good-luck messages when he was off on one of his overseas trips, once for the tsunami and once to help a little spina bifida boy in the Ukraine. Oh, and a couple of copies of my CV. It was probably those CVs that did it. She knew I was a good contender for her job–she knew she’d need to pull up her socks with me around. And there was that poisonous little comment I overheard her whisper on the day I’d announced my resignation: ‘Jumped before she was pushed.’ It was probably her who dumped all the photos I’d framed. I found them–did I tell you?–in the clinic’s waste along with all the shredded office documents and Pret à Manger sandwich bags.

‘In my opinion,’ I wrote, trying hard to remember the language of the referral letters I’d seen at the clinic, trying to combine it with the article in the journal, ‘this anomaly will almost certainly prove to be associated with spina bifida and therefore of great interest to you. In order to decide what can be done for the patient it will be vital to assess how much “tethering” there is in the spinal cord. To that end I suggest we make an appointment to meet as soon as possible.’

I nibbled my cuticles, wondering if I should say anything about Cuagach, about what had happened out there. But in the end I decided ‘high-profile’ would be enough to pique his interest. I finished the email: ‘I very much look forward to working with you on this, a case that can only cement your reputation as a surgeon of repute and integrity.’ I clicked send and sat back, waiting for the out-of-office acknowledgement to pop up on the screen.

My head was tingling. I was going to be back at the clinic by the end of the year.