The patient pulls his gaze away from the overcast sky and seems unfazed as the two uniformed officers fill the small room.
“I’ve brought some nice people to talk to you.” Rhoda’s tone is soothing. “Nothing too stressful, I promise. This is Beth,” she says, indicating Officer Graceford, “and Chris. They’d like to ask you a few questions. They are the police officers who found you this morning. You feeling up to that now?”
The man in the bed regards them placidly. He gives Rhoda the smallest of nods, then shifts himself carefully up onto his elbows, resting back against the pillows.
The officers pull up chairs and take a seat. When Graceford speaks her tone is kind. “How are you feeling now? You’re looking much better.” It’s true he’s almost unrecognizable from earlier that morning. There’s color in his cheeks, an air of self-possession about him. Graceford wonders if they’ve given him something, a sedative perhaps. She’ll need to ask about that later.
The man gives a restrained smile in answer, eyes shifting back to Rhoda. Graceford throws a quick glance to Poole. “They mentioned to us you weren’t speaking,” she says. “Is there any particular reason for that, sir? Can you understand what I’m saying?”
The patient’s brows knit slightly but otherwise his expression remains serene. He stays silent.
Either this man genuinely doesn’t understand what she’s saying or he’s a bloody good actor, she thinks. Poole and Graceford get lied to every day and people aren’t usually this good at it.
“Do you understand any of what I’m saying to you, sir?” Graceford asks, louder now. The man looks back to Rhoda again, who nods him on encouragingly. He holds her gaze and shakes his head slowly; he doesn’t want to do this anymore.
Poole tries now. “Sir, can you tell us what your name is?”
The man moves his head to look at Poole. Poole points a finger at his own chest. “Officer Poole,” he says in a labored and heavily accented voice. Graceford has to look down into her lap to stop herself from exploding with laughter. Poole is now pointing toward the patient, who watches him with intelligent eyes. “You?” Poole asks.
The patient nods. He understands. He’s been asked his name. He looks away from the police and the nurse and out at the murky sky. When he turns back he shakes his head, but this shake is different.
He can’t answer their question because he doesn’t know the answer.
16
DR. EMMA LEWIS
DAY 8—TEAMWORK
When I enter the empty conference room, Nick Dunning, the chief executive officer of the Princess Margaret Hospital and until recently its chief of strategic management, is dumping packets of sugar into a steaming coffee, spilling most of it on the table as he, distracted, taps away at his phone. According to Peter, it’s Nick I’ll be liaising with at the hospital. But at the moment he’s mid-email, head bobbed down over his phone. He looks up briefly as I round the conference table and take a seat, and flashes me a friendly harassed smile before plunging back into whatever crisis is playing out in the palm of his hand.
I pull my laptop and notes from my bag. And busy myself with them, fishing out my proposed action plan of tests and diagnostic methods. I study his face as he scrolls.
He’s a lot younger than I thought he’d be, dressed casually, a brushed-cotton collar peeking out from under a chic gray sweater. Stubble, fashionable horn-rimmed glasses that perfectly match the golden brown of his eyes. He’s very attractive.
After a moment he looks up again. “Sorry. Sorry, Emma. Nick.” He stretches his hand across the table and shakes mine warmly. “Rushed off my feet. It’s been a bit crazy around here the last couple of days.” He tips his phone by way of explanation. “I’ve been putting out a lot of fires, as you can imagine.”
“I can.” I smile back blithely. Rushed off his feet is an understatement if ever I heard one. The amount of patient complaints and follow-ups over what happened on the ward last week alone would be work enough. Never mind having to field the level of intense public interest in one particular patient. “It’s no problem at all, take all the time you need, Nick, if you want to finish up.” But he puts his phone away briskly and picks up his coffee cup. I put my notes down and give him my full attention.
“Right,” he says.
“Right!” I say.
We share a moment.
“God,” he adds.
“Yep,” I say with a little nod. “Can I just say straight up front,” I gush, “that the last thing I want is for you to feel like you are crisis-managing this alone, Nick. Or that I am in any way here to take over. I want to work with you, I need to. I don’t know the hospital and I don’t know the case yet. I’m just hoping that we can get this situation sorted out together, quickly, as a team?”
“Yes, exactly.” He tastes a gulp of coffee and grimaces. “That’s exactly what we want here too. I can’t say how relieved I was when they sent over your details. I liked the tone of that misdiagnosis paper. The previous cases you reexamined. It’s reassuring.” He flashes a relieved smile.
He’s definitely not what I was expecting and I bet I’m not what he expected either. I suppose I was expecting the CEO of an NHS Foundation Trust hospital to be, well, older, a bit soft around the center, a middle-aged man in a cheap suit. Not my age and…well, attractive.
But I suppose the next generation of healthcare needs the next generation of management.
He taps a pen gently on the table in front of him. “Are there any questions you’ve got straight off the bat, Emma?”
“Well, I’ve looked through the notes and at this stage it’s looking like a psychiatric condition. I’m thinking post-psychological trauma, but I’m going to need more information, which means more tests. An EEG to check for seizure disorders. I need to be sure we haven’t missed anything physical that could be causing this. But I think our key diagnostic tool is going to be an fMRI. I’ll need to do that as soon as I can.”
