The next Monday morning I was back in work, staring at my PC in the practice, trying to finalise the administration of the morning consultations. I’d had a rough time getting through the weekend. The quarrel with Lindsey and the threatening message I’d received had really gotten under my skin. On Sunday my mother had invited us for lunch – an offer I’d solicitously accepted. Even though I felt I shouldn’t be chased out of my own home, I was grateful for the safety and security that my childhood home offered. When my mother had inquired if everything was okay, I’d merely nodded. She’d filled in the blanks by saying the process of grieving for Oliver has its ups and downs and I was relieved that she’d come to her own conclusions and didn’t probe any further.
I turned off my computer, grabbed my jacket and handbag, and glanced at the printed home visit schedule for the day.
I strode through the hallway towards the door, my eyes running over the paper in my hand, when Simone called after me. “Wait Jennifer, what would you like to have for lunch today? We’re ordering from Little Buddha.”
I was a huge fan of Indian food, but the last few days I’d had little appetite. “Er … Make it the tikka masala with rice, please,” I answered.
“Great, I’ll make sure it gets here for when you return.”
As I left the practice, I noticed the wispy clouds of the morning had turned into a heavy rain shower and was glad I’d decided to come to work by car. Holding my doctor’s bag over my head, I dashed towards my car, parked a little further down the road, opened the door and jumped in.
I was about to read the details of the first patient, the drenched sleeves of my coat sticking to my blouse, when I heard a message coming through my phone – it was from Dan.
‘Bad news here. Can I call you during your lunch break?’
I felt a tightness in my chest. My gaze strayed into the distance, thoughts going around in circles in my mind, while the rain kept hammering the windscreen.
After putting the key in the ignition, I opened the window for some fresh air. I just typed ‘Okay’ back to Dan and entered the first address into the navigation – I had to focus on my patients right now. I started the engine, wiped the inside of the windscreen with my sleeve to remove the built up condensation and stepped on the accelerator.
I forgot about Dan during the next hour while I was tending to the patients that were too sick to get to the practice by themselves. After my last patient had been transferred into an ambulance and taken to hospital, I realised it was nearly lunchtime and remembered Dan, who would be calling me any time now.
I arrived back at the practice and after hanging up my coat to dry on the rack since it was still soaked from earlier, I walked into the lunch room where the food had already arrived, judging by the distinct smell. I didn’t see Hans yet – he was presumably still working on his last home consultation – and to dodge any questions or strange looks, I thanked Simone for the food, gave a swift excuse about overdue administration and slipped into my consultation room. Just as I was about to unwrap the aluminium foil from the takeaway box, my phone rang and my heart did a quick two-step.
I answered the call. “Hi, this is Jennifer.”
“Dan here. Listen up, I don’t have much time,” he said in a jittery voice. “The shit hit the fan. This morning when I came to work, I was summoned at once by one of the partners at Mason & McGant and got an earful.”
Beads of sweat formed in my palms and I felt a stinking headache coming on. “Why?” I exclaimed.
“I told you about the new Data Protection Act, right?”
I sank into my chair. “Yes.”
“Turns out they found out I went through those files in our internal system last Friday without authorisation.”
“Shit,” I cried. “So what now?”
“They’ve put me on administration leave for the time being.”
“On leave,” I repeated flatly. I couldn’t believe it. I jumped up and marched to the window, which had been repaired over the weekend, opened the blinds slightly with one hand and peered out onto the streets, checking for anyone skulking around. “Is it general policy for them to be so strict with these things?” I queried, recalling a local hospital that had been the centre of a shocking exposé in the media a while ago after employees had been prying in the medical file of a VIP – in that instance they had come off with a warning.
“I’ve never heard of it before, but this law was only recently implemented. Maybe they want to make an example out of me.” There was a pause. “To be honest, I think they have an inkling that I’m onto something. There was an undercurrent of tension and veiled warnings in the way the partner addressed me. He said something along the lines of, you shouldn’t stick your nose into things that aren’t any of your business.”
The colourful letters started dancing in front of my eyes again, making me feel sick. The second hand of the clock in my consultation room was ticking loudly, the sound ringing in my ears and rattling my nerves.
Dan’s voice sounded from far away. “Jennifer? Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yes, sorry,” I managed to say.
I brought Dan up to speed with regards to the three threats I’d received so far, as well as the man with the cookies Tim had spoken of and the young chap on the scooter who had followed me for a while. I felt foolish for not sharing these things with him before.
“The messages you received are virtually identical to the words the partner spoke to me,” Dan whispered in a shaky voice.
“I know. Are you saying you believe the threatening notes came from Mason & McGant?” I asked.
“Let’s just say there’s a very strong possibility. It’s certainly within the character of the kind of things they might do to try and intimidate someone. But whoever was behind it, there’s no way that these events are simply innocent coincidences,” Dan concluded, pausing for a moment. “Having said that though, I can’t and won’t leave it at this. Something rotten is happening at Mason & McGant and the world needs to know about it.”
I started pacing up and down the room, my brain moving into fifth gear. “Dan, you must be careful. They don’t have any footage of you at hand to blackmail you with. So as soon as they even have the slightest hint that you know more than they care for, you pose a huge risk to them. Who knows what lengths they’ll go to in order to keep you quiet. I don’t have to remind you of what happened to Oliver and Sandra.”
There was sharp knock on the door, startling me.
Hans stuck his head around the door, making a gesture of ‘Are we having lunch’?
“Hospital,” I mouthed, pretending I was consulting a specialist about a patient.
Hans raised his hand and closed the door behind him, and I gave a sigh.
“You’re right,” came Dan’s voice. “I can’t take any risks and I need to think of Bella. I will ask my ex if Bella can stay with her for a while. Given the circumstances, I’ve decided to go into hiding somewhere in a hotel so that I can safely and quietly press on digging through all the evidence,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone as if he was booking a quiet retreat somewhere instead of seeking shelter.
“When were you planning to pay a visit to the DFI?” Dan asked.
It felt like the screws were being tightened by the way he posed the question, as if the matter had already been settled. I thought of Tim and didn’t know if I could and wanted to be as heroic as Dan seemed to be.
“If you do decide to go along with this plan, it should be on your own accord,” Dan added, as if he’d read my mind.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it yet,” I answered evasively. “I have a day off tomorrow, I might be able to make an attempt then.” I remembered what Lindsey had suggested last Saturday. “But wouldn’t it be better to contact the police instead? If we present them with the information we’ve accumulated in the last few days, they might see an opportunity to reopen the case.”
“I very much doubt it. Given that Detective Armstrong was reluctant to take any action on the pieces you handed to him recently, I think we’ll need a damn good story before they restart the investigation. We’re just going to have to piece together a bit more evidence ourselves first.”
Dan had a good point, but there was something that made me feel uneasy about this next bold step, as if I were crossing a treacherous line. “What about those threatening letters, I haven’t told them about those yet.”
“You said you threw away the first one, right? And the police agent that inspected the practice concluded the smashed window was likely an act of an angry patient. All in all, it seems to me that what we have right now is just too flimsy.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I muttered, but I was increasingly feeling that I may have bitten off more than I could chew.
Dan was forging ahead with the next steps of the plan. “Last weekend I had some ideas about the role of the phone company in these four cases. Over the next few hours, I will try to work these out and see if I can persuade any work contacts to help me elbow my way into this place.” He suddenly seemed to be in a hurry. “But listen, we shouldn’t talk for too long, they may be tracing my calls.”
I wondered what was making Dan think his phone might be tapped, but before I could ask, he spoke again. “I’m going to switch off this mobile after we hang up and will try to purchase a burner – I’ll contact you afterwards as soon as possible. Are you going to try to get more info from the DFI in the meantime?”
Coming this far already, there was no other option but perseverance in order to get justice for Oliver and so I agreed to continue our quest. “Alright, I will,” I said in a quivering voice.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got your back,” Dan said, although I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that.
“Promise me you’ll watch out for yourself, okay?”
“Sure,” Dan responded, trying to sound light-hearted, but it felt like an empty promise – we both knew the stakes were incredibly high right now and not in our favour.
After we’d hung up, I stumbled to my desk and plopped down onto the chair, my heart still racing. My life seemed to have become a succession of volatile emotions, rattling exchanges and perilous encounters it was becoming a bit too much to bear. The thoughts in my head were racing at a million miles an hour and I no longer knew who I could trust.
My eyes fell on the forgotten lunch – I reached over and started absent-mindedly unwrapping the aluminium foil and removed the plastic cutlery from the bag. The meal had turned cold with little puddles of grease floating on the orange sauce, and while I usually relished Indian food I barely managed to get anything down. After pecking at the rice for some time, I wrapped the remainder of the meal in the plastic bag, tied it up in a knot and I tossed it into the bin. I opened the window of my consulting room to dispel the thick smell of spicy food in the air and noticed I had a few minutes left on my break.
I grabbed my phone and sent a message to my mother asking if Tim could stay with them for two nights on the grounds of unexpectedly taking over the evening shifts from a colleague. Although I didn’t like the feeling of being at someone else’s mercy, and I refused to abandon my home, I did feel adamant to safeguard my son against any harm.
Then I logged onto my PC, opened the internet browser and found out that the DFI was located in The Hague, directly alongside the A4 highway. I grabbed the key card used for my shifts at the out-of-hours clinic from my handbag and slid the paper from out the plastic cover. I made a search for the Mason & McGant logo on the internet, copied the picture and combined it with a picture of myself. After giving myself a fake name, I printed the homemade identity card on a piece of thick paper and carefully slipped it back into the plastic holder.
I held the card up in the air with a content smile. “Et voila,” I said to myself. It actually looked much more professional than I’d imagined. I now had one foot in the door.