Black Widow (3 page)

He had been on the witness stand plenty himself, one time ignominiously as the accused. He vividly recalled the feelings of isolation, vulnerability and impotence as he faced the court, and not merely because on that occasion he was guilty as sin.

For all that the process of justice was supposed to be lucid, open and transparent, once a trial got underway it could seem as though your destiny was in the capricious hands of top-level initiates in some arcane secret order. You could walk in thinking that the evidence all but guaranteed a certain outcome. Then the high priests got into it: meanings became plastic, traps were sprung, and all sense of reality melted into something fluid that they could mould into any shape they liked.

It was almost enough to make him feel sorry for the accused. Almost, that was, until he remembered what the woman in the dock had done: how sociopathically callous and brutally calculating her scheme (in particular how she had even manipulated Parlabane as a crucial plank in her strategy); and how chillingly close she and her secret co-conspirator had come to fooling everybody and getting away with it.

This last was what truly tempered any sympathy he might have now that she was being put on display for the public's revulsion: put simply, it wasn't over. For the reasons he had just considered, he endured a nagging worry that this might not be the slam-dunk everyone assumed. Above all, he remained wary that she may yet have one killer trick left to play.

‘Mr Weatherson, can you describe your state of mind on the morning that you first worked with Dr Jager?'

The fiscal asked this in an encouraging, reassuring tone of which Parlabane couldn't help but be suspicious. He had learned the hard way that if a prosecutor asks you what time it is, the question you should be asking internally is: ‘Where are you going with this?'

Weatherson remained nervy, talking too fast, tripping over his sentences.

‘I was apprehensive. I was new to the department. I had been a registrar for six months, but I had only been in this post for a couple of weeks, and when you're working with a new consultant … I mean, when you're working for the first time with a particular consultant, not a new consultant, you start off keen to impress, but then you sort of downshift your goals to simply hoping you don't screw up, which can be surprisingly hard to avoid. Consultants tend to have very individual ideas about how they like things done. You have to tread lightly until you find out everyone's likes and dislikes, not to mention their triggers.'

‘And was the prospect of working with Dr Jager in particular making you apprehensive, or was it merely the general anxiety you just described with regard to any new senior colleague?'

‘It would be fair to say I was anxious about working with her in particular.'

‘And to calibrate what constitutes such anxiety, were you as anxious as you first appeared here on the witness stand?'

Weatherson stole a nervy glance at the object of their discussion. Jager gazed back impassively, as if nothing he could say would make any difference. Bring it on, she seemed to reply silently.

‘As I said, consultants have their idiosyncrasies, and surgeons in particular can sometimes be a little…' He considered it a moment, choosing his description with care. He took another sip of water, giving himself time. ‘Combustible,' he decided.

‘You mean explosive?'

‘Em, sometimes, yes. The hair-dryer treatment. The operating theatre can be a tense environment, which shouldn't be a surprise given what is often at stake, so it's not uncommon for surgeons to vent when things aren't going as smoothly as they'd like.'

Delicately put, Parlabane thought, if not outright apologism.

What Weatherson was alluding to was that if you ever thought ex-Bullingdon Club cabinet ministers were among the most pompously self-important wankers on the face of the Earth, then you had clearly not been around many surgeons. Parlabane's ex-wife was an anaesthetist, and had regularly regaled him with eye-popping accounts of their rampant inner-toddler behaviour, the most shocking aspect of which was how widely it was tolerated.

Sarah had seen surgeons eyeball-to-eyeball with theatre staff, spittle-flying and their throats going rapidly hoarse as they bellowed their lungs out in fury at some perceived failing or transgression. She had described how instruments were thrown violently at walls or to the floor, equipment smashed and staff reduced to tears by the screaming harangues of individuals who had lost their self-control to such an extent that under any other circumstances they might be sedated, arrested or sent to bed without their supper.

The most commonly cited explanation for indulging this misbehaviour had just been illustrated on the witness stand: that the stakes were high and thus fits of rage were inevitable when such brilliant individuals had to cope with the limitations of working with ordinary mortals. Weatherson was only a surgical registrar, but was already becoming inured to the point where he had ceased to question whether these ridiculous tantrums were perhaps a teensy bit unacceptable.

Weatherson proceeded to avail the court of a few examples of the ‘combustible' behaviour he had been at pains to avoid. He demonstrated unquestionably that he had served a few tours before reaching Inverness, and had been inside the blast radius a couple of times already in his new post. Given all of which, you'd have to be asking yourself what made Diana Jager a far scarier prospect than anything the young registrar had faced before.

‘And how did your first encounter with Dr Jager work out?' asked the fiscal.

Weatherson cleared his throat.

‘I suppose it didn't get off to the best possible start. I had gone in early to do some final pre-op checks on the first patient on the list, and to confer with the anaesthetist in case she had any concerns. It was a bariatric case: the patient was in for a sleeve gastrectomy.'

‘What is that?'

‘It's a kind of drastic weight-loss procedure. The very big patients can be tricky for a general anaesthetic. Anyway, that was when I first saw Dr Jager in the flesh. She was heading into the ward as I was about to leave. I felt a degree of relief that I had gotten there first, as it wouldn't have looked good to be coming in behind her.'

The relief was reprised in his current expression. He seemed to relax a little now that he realised he wasn't going to be asked anything he didn't know the answer to.

‘How would you describe her manner?'

‘Fizzing, would have to be my description. It was eight in the morning but she looked like ten people had already annoyed her. I was concerned about what might happen to the eleventh.'

‘And was there an eleventh?'

‘Unfortunately, yes, but to my relief it wasn't me. She had come from surgical HDU – that is, the surgical high-dependency unit – and discovered that they had no beds, despite management having assured her otherwise the day before. It meant the first patient was going to have to be cancelled. At first I thought I was about to get both barrels for not having been the one who went to HDU and found this out first, but equally I reckoned that if I had been the one breaking it to her, she'd have shot the messenger too.'

‘But as you intimated, you weren't the immediate target of Dr Jager's ire.'

‘No. She had actually come to the ward to inform the patient that his procedure was cancelled, which she proceeded to do. Very politely, I should add, though she didn't apologise, as it wasn't her fault.'

‘And how did the patient respond?'

‘He said he wanted a second opinion. She tried to explain that it wasn't a matter of medical opinion, but he was insistent.'

Weatherson took a breath, like an emotion-memory response recalling how he must have winced at the time.

‘He said that what he meant was, he wanted to talk to her boss. He was looking at me.'

Ooft, thought Parlabane.

‘I was mortified and made a flailing effort at correcting his misapprehension, but Dr Jager intervened and made it clear who was in charge. The patient then accepted that his procedure was indeed cancelled, which was clear from the fact that he began to complain about it, bitterly and at length. I could tell Dr Jager was keen to leave but he was on a rant, most of which seemed to be to do with his having fasted for the operation. He considered this a major sacrifice and clearly didn't fancy having to repeat it. At that point Dr Jager suggested he ought to take a more optimistic perspective.'

Again the remembered wince.

‘How so?'

‘She said that he had taken the first step, and if he fasted another two thousand days he wouldn't need the procedure at all.'

Ooft again.

‘Understandably, he didn't take this too well, and later issued a formal complaint. To be fair, I could tell Dr Jager immediately regretted what she had said. She had clearly been at the end of her tether, but she was furious with herself. I still felt awkward about the patient having assumed I was her boss, and I tried to suggest it might have been to do with the beard I had at that time. I don't know why I thought that would make her feel better, but I felt I ought to say something.'

‘And how did Dr Jager respond to your suggestion?'

‘It would be fair to say she disagreed. She said my beard merely made me look like Hipster Jesus, and that the principal physical attribute affecting the patient's misunderstanding was my penis.'

‘And was this the first time you had been party to such a prejudiced assumption on the part of a patient?'

‘Not at all. Patients over a certain age often assume anyone female is a nurse, even if it states their title on their name badge. I've even seen male doctors peg female consultants as juniors because they look young.'

‘So it is a common, if regrettable, occurrence. And yet from your response we can tell you were utterly aghast that Dr Jager in particular should be assumed to be your junior colleague. One might even say disproportionately horrified. Would that be fair?'

‘It would be an understatement.'

‘And yet you had never worked with Dr Jager before. Why then were you so treading on eggshells?'

‘Her reputation preceded my arrival in the post. In fact, I had no idea she worked there before I transferred to Inverness, so when I discovered she was in the same department, I was … apprehensive, yes.'

Parlabane nodded to himself, as the fiscal's intentions began to come into focus. The journey had been like the corporation bus: it had taken a bafflingly circuitous route, but it was finally getting to its destination.

‘Where did you transfer from?'

‘I was in Liverpool. My wife…'

‘Liverpool. So it would be accurate to say that in medical circles there were things widely known about Dr Jager far beyond the environs of Inverness Royal Infirmary?'

‘Yes. Very widely. One thing in particular.'

‘And what was that, Mr Weatherson?'

The young registrar spoke with coy self-consciousness, like a kid in a primary school classroom who has been told by the teacher that in the interests of getting to the truth, it's okay to repeat the rude word he overheard.

‘She was Bladebitch.'

It was an inauspicious day for destiny to come calling, though it is not in the nature of fate to give notice. The occasions that we think of as life-changing are seldom precipitate. Rather they tend to be mere milestones and markers, events long in the planning, diligently worked towards and keenly anticipated: births, christenings, exams, graduations, job interviews, career commencement.

Weddings.

We recognise the truly significant events – the moments when fate genuinely turns – only in retrospect. This is probably just as well. If you were told in advance that you were about to meet the man who would become the love of your life, then the pressure would be so enormous that most of us would undoubtedly blow it. It would be like a variant of the Heisenberg principle, whereby the act of observation alters that which is being observed. The state you are in during a fateful encounter may be crucial to the outcome, though it is not exactly heart-warming to look back and see that my own chances of finding love may have hinged upon being an exhausted, angry and overwrought mess. And yet I now realise that it was only because my guard was down and finding a life partner was the furthest thing from my mind that he slipped through the barricades.

I wouldn't say I'd completely given up on the idea of meeting the right man, but I was moving ever closer to accepting the notion. That's not the same as saying I had made my peace with it, more a matter of managing expectations. I'd had a few relationships, but the longest of them only lasted a few months, and the last one was four years before the time we're talking about. Well, strictly speaking … No. I'm not going to start defining one-night stands as relationships. They were only about sex, about getting someone to make me feel a certain way. I'm talking about the last time there was someone
I
felt something for. So, yes, four years.

The fact that it had been so long actually snuck up on me that morning: one of the many things that conspired to make the circumstances seem so unpromising on the day I would meet the man who changed my life for ever.

I was passing the fish counter when I caught a glimpse of some squat lobsters, which I hadn't seen there in ages. It sparked a memory of buying them the first time I cooked for Dan, a radiologist I started seeing when I first moved to Inverness.

I really thought it was going somewhere, that it would last. Taking up the post at IRI was supposed to be a kind of banishment from the prestigious world of the big teaching hospitals, but it felt like a new beginning after everything that had happened. I'm not sure whether meeting Dan contributed to that feeling, or whether I felt so optimistic about Dan because of how I felt about everything else, but either way, I had high hopes.