Top-Notch Men!

‘I wouldn’t go as far as using the word “convince”,’ Allegra said. ‘He has a lot of reservations. And this latest drama is not going to help things. Everyone will be as edgy as all get-out around there. But unless Kate or Tommy wake up, we’re never going to know what happened—the truth might never come out. Maybe a murderer will walk free. As I see it, my project is now doubly important.’

‘But what if the truth is she did try to kill her son and herself? How is the little boy going to cope with that?’

Allegra sighed as she reached for her theatre clogs. ‘How does anyone cope with the truth? It hurts for a while but somehow you have to pick yourself up and get on with life. Kids are amazingly resilient and incredibly forgiving.’

‘I can tell you one thing for free—if that woman was my mother, I would never forgive her,’ Margaret said with feeling. ‘That kid is likely to be brain-damaged for the rest of his life. That’s beyond forgiveness, if you ask me.’

‘No one is beyond forgiveness, Margaret. There isn’t a person alive who hasn’t made a mistake some time during their lives. We don’t know the circumstances of Kate Lowe’s life, or at least not firsthand. She might have felt completely different on another day. That’s the hardest part of it to comprehend. What loomed so large in her life might have been dealt with totally differently, given a few hours either way. And as for Tommy, well, at this stage we don’t know the extent of his brain injury,’ Allegra reminded her. ‘For all we know, he could make a complete and full recovery.’

Margaret gave her a sceptical look as she shouldered open the change-room door. ‘You really do believe in miracles, don’t you?’

‘We have to sometimes, Margaret,’ she said. ‘Science can’t fix some things, and it can’t tell us our values. If we haven’t got values, we may as well go downstairs and turn off the ventilator now.’

‘God, I hope it doesn’t ever come to turning off Tommy’s ventilator.’ Margaret grimaced. ‘Especially not so soon after Alice Greeson.’

‘It won’t come to that, Margaret,’ Allegra said with determination. ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure of it.’

Allegra had not long finished Harry’s list, which had run overtime due to a complication with a patient, when she received a call from the CEO, insisting on an immediate meeting with him in his office. ‘But I have to get down to ICTU,’ she said, hoping to put him off.

‘Why?’ Patrick’s tone became resentful. ‘So you can have a little rendezvous with the new director? I heard about your cosy little dinner last night.’

Allegra felt her hackles rising. ‘Look, Patrick, I’m sorry but I’m not interested in a relationship with you. What I do in my spare time is my business. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that’s the way it is.’

There was a tense little silence.

‘It’s all right, I understand, but can’t we just meet as friends?’ Patrick asked, his tone now sounding more than a little emotional. ‘You’ve been wonderful to me lately, that’s why I supported your project so strenuously, apart from the fact that I do think it has merit. I felt I owed it to you for being such a good friend to me when I most needed it. Meet for a drink tonight at the Elgin Street bar at seven-thirty. That’s all I’m asking. Please, Allegra.’

Allegra suppressed a sigh of resignation. Patrick was right. He had gone out on a limb for her and she owed him her friendship at the very least. ‘All right, just one drink. But as friends, nothing else,’ she relented.

‘That’s fine,’ Patrick said. ‘But I still thought I should warn you about getting involved with the new director. You’ll only get hurt.’

She felt her tension increase slightly. There was a hint of something in the CEO’s tone that made her blood feel a little cold in her veins. ‘What are you saying, Patrick?’ she asked.

‘Look, I know he’s a damn good intensivist but I can tell you right now he only asked you out last night to keep you away from the unit. He doesn’t want you messing with the Lowe boy.’

‘Come on, Patrick, that’s an outright lie,’ she said, but the black, long-legged spider of doubt was already crawling insidiously across her mind as she recalled Joel’s totally-out-of-the-blue dinner invitation. They had barely been seated at the table when he’d brought up the topic of her study and the dangers of involving Kate and Tommy Lowe in it.

‘Go and ask him,’ Patrick challenged her. ‘He won’t deny it. He doesn’t want you to interfere with how the unit is being run. The press attention has been damaging enough. They’re making the unit sound as if anyone can walk in on any patient in there. And if they get to hear of you waving crystals or scented candles about, we’ll be a laughing stock.’

‘But you said—’

‘I know what I said and I still stand by it. I do think your project has potential but I’m afraid I’m with Joel Addison on this particular case. There’s just too much at stake. Just keep that in mind if he asks you out again. He could be operating under false pretences.’

‘Don’t worry, I will,’ she said, and after a quick goodbye stuffed the phone back in her pocket.

Joel was returning to his office after the X-ray review meeting in the radiology department when he encountered Allegra stalking up the corridor towards him, her face looking like a brewing storm.

‘Just the person I was hoping to run into,’ he said with a smile. ‘Got time for a quick coffee in my office?’

Allegra gritted her teeth. ‘Why? So you can keep me out of the unit and away from my project for a little longer?’

He frowned at her tone. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Surely you don’t need me to spell out your own despicable motives for you.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.’

She gave him a glowering look. ‘Why did you ask me out for dinner last night?’

He met her glittering green gaze head on. ‘Why does any man ask a beautiful woman out for a meal?’

Allegra had to force herself not to be mollified by his compliment and injected even more venom into her tone. ‘If you were any other man, I would have answered that you wanted to get to know me, but I am well aware of your real reasons for taking me out.’

‘All right,’ he said with a crooked smile. ‘I admit it. I had an ulterior motive.’

There was a three-beat pause.

‘Well,’ she said with a dark frown, ‘aren’t you going to come clean?’

He took her by the hand before she could stop him and pulled her into a storeroom off the corridor and closed the door. She opened her mouth to rail at him but his mouth came swooping down and covered hers with a hot drugging kiss that left her breathless and totally disorientated in the dark, suddenly intimate confines of the small room. His body was pressed so tightly against hers she could feel the small buttons on his shirt through the thin cotton of her top and his belt buckle against her stomach. She had trouble containing her reaction to him. It seemed to come from deep inside, out of reach of her brain, which insisted she remove herself from his embrace.

He lifted his mouth from hers and flicked on the light switch near her left shoulder, his dark eyes smouldering with desire as he held her gaze.

‘You had no right to do that,’ she said, wishing her voice had sounded a little more strident and infuriated, instead of breathless and weak.

‘You asked me to explain my motives. I thought it best to demonstrate them instead.’

‘What you just demonstrated is your incredible gall. You only asked me out last night to lure me away from the unit so don’t bother denying it.’

‘I’m not going to deny it.’

She glared at him furiously. ‘How dare you pretend to be attracted to me? That is so low.’

‘I’m not pretending anything, Allegra.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she tossed back. ‘You’ve been against me from the start. I should have guessed you were up to something when you dropped that dinner invitation into the conversation so unexpectedly.’

‘I admit it was a little spontaneous but—’

‘Spontaneous?’ She felt like stamping her foot in fury. ‘You deliberately lured me away from the unit.’

‘I asked you out to dinner, for God’s sake.’ His voice began to tighten in anger. ‘Is there a law against that these days? What is it with you? I asked you out because I’m attracted to you and I want to get to know you, but if you’re not interested, fine. Maybe I’ll take my chances with that internet dating thing after all.’

‘I hope you end up with a psychopathic crackpot,’ she returned bitterly.

‘Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time,’ he said, and, brushing past her, clicked the door shut behind him.

ICTU was quieter than normal due to the high level of security. Relatives of patients were being asked to limit their visits and to submit to a bag search, and the staff also had to comply with security measures—bag and locker searches, and a permanent security guard in the unit.

Kate had now been moved into one of the isolation rooms and was under police guard. Tommy was still showing no signs of waking, and the nurse on duty for him, Bethany Gladstone, relayed the neurosurgical plan for a repeat brain CT and an EEG.

‘Has the father been in today?’ Allegra asked.

‘He’s been in and out,’ Bethany said. ‘He should be back any time. He was going to have a bite to eat.’

Allegra looked at the unconscious child on the bed and wondered how anyone could think of food when their only child was hovering precariously between life and death.

‘He’s a bit of a detached sort of bloke, don’t you think?’ Bethany said. ‘The father, I mean.’

‘Why do you say that?’

The nurse gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t know … He just doesn’t seem to be all that keen on hanging around here.’

‘It’s tough on parents,’ Allegra said. ‘They don’t always cope with the emotions of it all. It doesn’t get much worse than this—the thought of losing your only child.’

‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Bethany said. ‘What’s your plan with him?’

‘Tommy, you mean?’

Bethany nodded.

Allegra looked at the little boy for a moment. ‘I’d like to speak to the father about Tommy’s history. The things he loves—books, movies, that sort of thing. I want to feel as if I know him in order to find ways to get through to him.’

‘His father doesn’t seem the type who knows his son all that well. Some dads are very hands on, sitting and talking to their kids, holding their hands, stroking them and so on. I don’t think Mr Lowe has touched his son once the whole time I’ve been on duty.’

‘Not all fathers are the same,’ Allegra said. ‘Besides, you know how some people can’t cope with illness and the prospect of death. They come in here and totally freak out when they see all the machines, while others react with calm.’

‘Yeah, well, I think Mr Lowe needs to take lessons on fatherhood from Jonathon Sprent’s father. Ever since that young man has been in here with that spinal injury his dad has hardly left the bedside, neither has his mum. That’s what I call perfect parenting.’

‘How is he doing? I haven’t had much to do with his case.’

‘Anthony Pardle did a spinal decompression and things are looking a little more hopeful—he’s had a tingling sensation in his legs.’

‘That’s good. Even after all this training and time, I still can’t bear the thought of a young man of nineteen confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life,’ Allegra said.

‘I know,’ Bethany sighed. ‘He’s had some time off the ventilator and coped pretty well. There’s talk of moving him to the high-dependency unit in a couple of days.’

‘It’s nice to hear of something positive happening around here,’ she said, looking at Tommy again.

‘So you want me to let you know when Mr Lowe gets back?’ Bethany asked.

‘That would be great, thanks,’ Allegra said, turning around to face her again. ‘I’ll be in the ICTU office, catching up on paperwork.’

A short time later Allegra looked up to see Keith Lowe outside the glassed-in office in ICTU. She got to her feet and with a reassuring smile led him to a private corner so she could speak to him.

‘How are you doing, Mr Lowe?’

‘I’m fine, but I want to know what’s happening with my son,’ he said rather impatiently. ‘I’ve got a business to run and all this waiting about is not helping.’

Allegra had to fight down her instinctive reaction to his callous dismissal of his son’s condition in preference to his career. ‘Tommy is doing as well as can be expected at this stage,’ she said.

‘Look, Dr … er, Tallis,’ he said, peering at her name badge. ‘I want my son out of here, and fast. Don’t get me wrong. My business can wait, but I can’t juggle the two like this for too much longer. Is there anything I can do to help my son regain consciousness?’

‘Yes, there is, actually,’ she said, hope lifting like a suddenly inflated balloon in her chest. ‘I need you to tell me some of Tommy’s favourite things at present, such as music, stories he likes to hear or read, movies or DVDs he likes to watch, activities.’

‘That’s easy,’ Keith said. ‘Tommy has been totally obsessed with the Harry Potter stories. Whenever I get the chance, I read him his favourite passages. I bought him the first DVD and he’s watched it countless times. He can even recite the dialogue practically verbatim.’

‘Brilliant!’ Allegra said. ‘Would you have any objection to me setting up a portable DVD player near him to see if it triggers brain activity?’

He frowned at her. ‘You think playing a DVD will make him regain consciousness?’

‘I’m not making any promises but the human brain is complicated. Sometimes neural activity can stop for functional reasons when there is no physical damage. Tommy’s brain CT looks normal. CTs are not perfect—there could be widespread scattered damage that doesn’t show up on CT and could be enough to be severe brain damage. But the normal CT could alternatively give us hope. It is possible that there are functional blocks to Tommy’s brain activity. It might be feasible to kick-start his conscious processes. The five senses—touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing—if we could find some powerful stimuli through one or two of these that trigger potent memories—that could trigger consciousness. Perhaps listening to his favourite movie will trigger something in Tommy’s subconscious and he will start to wake up. There’s no guarantee, and not a lot of research in this area—but with someone like Tommy it’s worth trialling the technique.’

‘If you think there’s a chance …’ Keith didn’t sound particularly optimistic but Allegra refused to be daunted. She’d already passed the biggest hurdle: parental permission.

‘I’ll organise everything,’ she said. ‘I have a portable DVD player and I even have my own copy of the movie. Is there anything else you can think of that Tommy particularly likes? Songs he always listens to, favourite foods?’

Keith wrinkled his nose in scepticism. ‘What, are you going to wave chicken nuggets and chips under his nose to see if he responds?’

‘Is that his favourite food?’

The set of his shoulders seemed to go down a notch as he let out a deep sigh. ‘So often I’d come home and … Kate would have no dinner prepared.’ He looked at her and continued, ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not really the where’s-my-dinner type, but Tommy’s a little kid—he needs regular meals. My wife wasn’t good at doing that stuff and because of the pressures of my job I’m away a lot. I can’t remember the last time she actually cooked a real meal—one that didn’t come out of a packet with instructions to heat and serve.’

‘It’s not easy, being a mother,’ Allegra felt compelled to put in, given her own shortcomings when it came to preparing gourmet meals. ‘There’s so much to do and so little time to do it, especially with a small child underfoot.’

‘I know …’ He gave her a vestige of a smile but there was no humour in it. ‘Have you got kids?’

‘Er … no …’

‘It all changes once you do, you know,’ he said. ‘You have such ideals, but when reality hits they come crashing down.’

‘This is a hard time for you, Mr Lowe. But I think we can work together to try to get Tommy to wake up, if it’s at all possible. You love him and even though you might not think he is aware of your presence here, it’s definitely possible that in some way he is conscious of it. He’s just not quite able to wake up.’

‘When will he be able to?’

She touched him gently on the arm. ‘I hope he will wake up when we touch on what’s most important to him. It could be the movie. Maybe it could be your voice or your touch. If we can just find the trigger that will get him to respond.’

‘Have you done this sort of thing before?’ he asked. ‘You know … woken someone from a deep coma?’

Allegra pushed Alice Greeson’s broken body from her mind and tried to concentrate on the rare successes she’d had so far. ‘I have had some success, yes.’

‘What about my wife?’ he asked, his tone becoming harsh. ‘Are you going to try and coax her awake as well?’

‘I would like Kate to regain consciousness so we could at the very least establish what actually happened and why,’ she said.

His eyes became like chips of cold blue ice. ‘What happened was she wanted to take Tommy away from me permanently.’

‘So there’s absolutely no doubt in your mind that Kate tried to take her own life and that of Tommy?’

‘Of course there’s no doubt. It’s what the police suspected from the start. She tried to commit suicide and kill Tommy to get back at me for asking for a divorce.’

‘When did you ask her for a divorce?’ Allegra asked, watching him closely.

He gave a shrug, his eyes falling away from hers. ‘I don’t know … a couple of days ago.’

‘What was her immediate reaction to your request?’

‘She wasn’t too happy about it, obviously.’

‘Did she say or do anything then to make you suspect she would take things this far?’

His eyes came back to hers, his expression growing impatient. ‘Look, Dr Tallis, I have no idea what was going on in my wife’s mind. Quite frankly, I haven’t for years. I just wanted to end the marriage as soon as possible. I gave it my best shot but I decided it was time to leave.’

‘Did you discuss custodial arrangements with Kate when you asked for a divorce?’

‘I might have. I don’t really remember. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the office. I have a meeting and I’m already twenty minutes late as it is.’

Allegra watched him walk out briskly, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the building. He didn’t even pause by his son’s bed on the way past.

‘What did I tell you?’ Bethany said, joining her once more. ‘Cold and clinical.’

‘He certainly is,’ Allegra agreed. ‘But at least he’s given me the go-ahead to work with Tommy. I was worried he might dismiss it right out of hand, but he was surprisingly agreeable.’

‘I don’t suppose he wants you to work on his wife,’ Bethany said cynically.

‘No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.’ Allegra looked towards the isolation room where Kate was being monitored, a tiny frown bringing her brows together. ‘Has anyone been in to see her yet?’

‘No one at all. I guess she either doesn’t have any relatives or if she does, they’re all too angry with her to visit—not that you could blame them after what she tried to do.’

‘Surely there must be someone close to her, a friend or sister or cousin, if not her parents. She can’t possibly be all alone in the world. Someone must care about her.’

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Bethany said, ‘Unless the husband has deliberately not told them.’

‘It’s been in the papers though …’

‘Not everyone reads the paper every day,’ Bethany said.

‘True, but news has a habit of travelling anyhow so you’d think someone would have at least called to ask after her by now.’

‘I guess you’re right,’ Bethany said. ‘And when you think about it, Tommy hasn’t had too many visitors either.’

‘Has anyone apart from his father been in?’

‘Mr Lowe’s sister, Tommy’s aunt, has come in a couple of times.’

‘What was she like?’

Bethany screwed up her face. ‘Exactly like her brother, cold and distant. She was dressed to the nines—you know the type, the cloying perfume and the coiffed hair and designer gear and heavy jewellery. She barely sat by Tommy’s bed for more than a minute or two before leaving.’

‘Does Tommy have grandparents?’

‘I heard one of the nurses ask Mr Lowe that earlier,’ Bethany said. ‘He made no mention of Kate’s parents but he said his were travelling somewhere interstate and couldn’t be contacted.’

Allegra’s frown increased. ‘Which probably means he doesn’t want them to be contacted. I wonder why?’

‘Beats me,’ Bethany said. Changing the subject, she asked, ‘What are you going to do with Tommy?’

‘His father said he loves Harry Potter movies. I’d like to set one up playing next to his bed—it might trigger memories, stir some neurological activity. It’s part of the coma recovery protocol, using familiar auditory stimuli as triggers.’

‘What are you going to play it on? This place is pretty cluttered as it is.’

‘I’ve got a portable DVD player and stereo earpieces,’ Allegra said as she reached for a piece of equipment. ‘I’ll set it up on the side shelf out of the way. Also, I want to put on a BIS monitor to record any sort of cerebral activity. This strip sticks on his forehead, and the lead plugs into the monitor. This one’s got an eight-hour recorder. I’ll set it going now, and take a baseline record. In an hour, can you plug in the earpieces and start the DVD? When it’s finished, just take out the earpieces. Leave the BIS going till I come in later tonight, OK?’

‘Sure’ said Bethany. ‘Got that. What time will you be back in?’

‘About eight-thirty tonight, I think. I’ve just got one social engagement, and then I’ll come in and collect the stuff and go home.’

‘I didn’t know you even had a home,’ Bethany said with a wry grin. ‘You seem to spend most of your time here.’

Allegra sent her a rolled eyed look as she left. ‘Don’t remind me.’

CHAPTER NINE

ALLEGRA had not long completed the pre-admission clinic for Harry Upton’s list for the following week when her mobile phone buzzed with an incoming text. She looked down at it and saw it was from Tony Ringer, the night duty intensivist, informing her that Joel was in the high-dependency unit with Harry Upton, assessing the patient who’d had the complication after surgery that morning and that Joel needed anaesthetic information urgently.

Allegra remembered the case well. Gaile Donovan was a forty-eight-year-old woman with ovarian cancer that had invaded the pelvic wall and sigmoid colon. Harry had helped the gynaecologist with the pelvic exploration. The gynaecologist had been keen to get the tumour out but after five litres of blood loss, the normally calm-under-pressure Harry had broken out in a sweat trying to control the bleeding and had insisted they pull the plug before the patient expired on the table. They had packed the pelvis and temporarily closed the abdomen, with the intention of a second-look laparotomy the next day.

When Allegra arrived in HDU, she could hear Harry and Joel discussing the plan of action.

‘The patient’s BP has hit the floor, Harry,’ Joel said. ‘She’s obviously bleeding again—you have no choice but to operate again now.’

‘It was a nightmare the first time around,’ Harry said. ‘I think an angiogram and embolisation would be a better choice for controlling the bleeding.’

‘Listen, Harry,’ Joel said. ‘She’s pouring blood and wouldn’t survive the trip to X-Ray, let alone a couple of hours on the X-ray table, having films done. The blood loss has got to be stopped or at least slowed a hell of a lot first. Maybe embolisation, then.’

‘Damn it! I wish I’d never become involved in this case,’ Harry grumbled. ‘I could see it was trouble as soon as we opened.’

‘Use the theatre here,’ Joel suggested. ‘It’s on site, it’s staffed and it’s got angiography capability. Why don’t you talk to Radiology now so they come in and set up in case you want to do on-table embolisation?’ He turned as he saw Allegra, his expression visibly hardening. ‘I thought Tony called for the anaesthetist on duty.’