The Distant Home (9 page)

In the lobby, an anxious and increasingly angry Maria and Jim were talking to Dr Rosen.

‘We want to see our daughter,’ said Maria in a calm, flat tone of voice which Bobby could have told Rosen was a bad danger signal with his mother. It was the very controlled voice she used just before she started screaming and throwing things.

‘I’m sorry, that’s not possible just yet,’ said Dr Rosen, unaware that she was walking into very dangerous territory.

‘Why not?’ Jim was sounding cold and clipped. This was the voice he used before he started yelling and kicking things.

‘There’s still some tests we need to run,’ Dr Rosen explained. ‘And some people are coming who’ll probably want to talk to you.’

‘What sort of people?’ Jim’s voice was getting colder and more clipped.

‘Consultants. Dr Chambers has called them in …’ Rosen began.

Maria reacted and started in before Rosen could finish. ‘You mean she’s very bad?’

‘Sally’s … fine,’ said Rosen.

‘Then why can’t we see her!’ Jim was starting to lose his cool.

‘Because Dr Chambers, who’s in charge of the case, says no.’

‘Not good enough. Do you think we’re children? Take us to our daughter. Now. Understand?’

‘Dr Chambers knows best,’ said Rosen. ‘He’s a leader in his field.’

Jim looked at Maria. ‘Start screaming.’

‘Gladly,’ said Maria, and took a breath.

‘Don’t you dare,’ said Rosen.

‘This is your husband speaking, Maria. Have hysterics.’

Rosen turned on Maria in a rage. ‘You have hysterics here, I’ll have you sedated!’

Maria started screaming.

Rosen decided that this was probably the worst day of her entire life. She did not have the energy to get Maria sedated, so she just walked away, leaving her to scream on her own. ‘I don’t have to handle everything,’ Rosen said to herself. ‘It is not my responsibility to fix everything that goes wrong in the world.’ The further she got away from the screaming, the more she believed it. She thought she was probably having some kind of breakdown but she didn’t care.

A security guard came running out of a corridor toward the screaming woman. He saw Rosen and stopped her. ‘Dr Rosen, that woman’s screaming.’

‘I hear nothing,’ said Rosen. ‘I have never met that woman before in my life,’ she added, and kept walking.

The guard paused, and then said, ‘Neither have I’, and went to get himself a cup of coffee. ‘It’s happening at the desk,’ he told himself, ‘the desk clerk can fix it.’

The desk clerk became aware of the screaming and looked up at Maria. ‘I’ll be with you in just a moment,’ she said.

Suddenly, Maria stopped screaming. She was looking at the main doorway. Through it were coming two people who would have looked identical except that one was a man and the other was a woman. Each wore a black suit, each carried a briefcase in the left hand, and they walked in step. The only differences lay in hair length and the fact that the woman wore a tailored black skirt instead of trousers.

To Maria they looked dangerous. She nudged Jim, but he was already staring at them. They walked right up to the desk. It was the woman who spoke. ‘Chambers,’ she said.

Maria and Jim heard it. Perhaps these were the people they were supposed to talk to. They hesitated, and were about to move forward when Dr Chambers rushed from a corridor toward the two black-suited strangers. He was trying to look important while cringing.

‘Gentlemen!’ he said, then realized one of them was a woman, ‘And lady!’ he added, then realized that this did not sound right either. ‘Excuse me. Chambers.’

‘Are these the people we’re supposed to speak to, Dr Chambers?’ asked Jim. The woman stranger looked at Jim in the way a snake might look at a chicken, and he suddenly felt nervous.

Chambers barely glanced at him. ‘Later!’ he snapped. He turned to the strangers, ‘This way!’ he said, and led them off toward the corridor from which he had emerged. ‘I’m Dr Chambers,’ he was saying. ‘I was the one who informed. Told the department about the you-know-what from you-know-where.’

They were entering the corridor. ‘One thing at a time,’ said the woman. ‘First, can you prove you’re Dr Chambers?’

‘ID,’ said the man.

‘ID,’ said Chambers, and started fumbling in his pockets, but the woman stopped, pushed him against the wall and examined the photo on the security pass pinned to his white coat.

‘This says he’s Dr Chambers,’ she said.

‘Could be forged,’ said her partner.

‘I swear I’m Dr Chambers,’ said Dr Chambers. ‘Ask anyone. Look, the department said they were sending Agent Forbes and Agent Soulos. Right? So one of you is Forbes and one is Soulos.’

‘That’s on a need-to-know basis,’ said the woman whose name was Forbes.

‘Can you demonstrate a need to know?’ said the man whose name was Soulos.

‘I’m Dr Chambers!’ shrieked Dr Chambers. ‘I sent for you!’

‘Says he’s the snitch,’ said Agent Forbes to Agent Soulos.

‘The informer,’ said Agent Soulos to Agent Forbes.

‘The inform-
ant,’
said Chambers, ‘inform-
ers
are people who tell the authorities about other people. I’m just the one who discovered the you-know-what from you-know-where and told your department about her.’

‘Just like we said,’ said Agent Soulos. ‘You’re the snitch.’

‘Technically you’re the conduit,’ said Forbes, and let Chambers off the wall. ‘Lead the way.’

Chambers led the way. ‘A conduit’s an empty pipe that you hide wires in,’ he said.

‘Correct,’ said Agent Forbes. ‘I’m Forbes, he’s Soulos.’

‘You always do that, Forbes! Reveal our identity! Now we’ll have to kill him!’ said Soulos.

Chambers looked at them in panic, only to find that they were smiling in the way an Easter Island statue would smile if it were ever so slightly alive. ‘That’s a secret service joke we sometimes play on our conduits,’ Forbes said.

‘So you’re not going to k-k-kill me?’ said Chambers.

‘We’d need permission for that,’ explained Soulos. ‘Now show us this … whatever it is.’

Chambers felt he was on firmer ground here. Perhaps he would even be able to reassert his natural superiority. ‘Are either of you medical people?’

Soulos turned his lizard eyes on Chambers. ‘I’d say that was definitely on a need-to-know basis, wouldn’t you Doctor?’

‘Of course,’ said Chambers, feeling his natural superiority draining away like water into hot sand. ‘Of course. You’ll, ah, you’ll be wanting to see the specimen.’

They reached the bank of elevators and Chambers pressed the call button. As they stood waiting, Rosen came running along the corridor. She had been throwing water in her face and now felt capable of dealing with the world.

‘Dr Chambers? The Harrison parents. They’re … they’re getting quite distraught.’

‘Who’s this?’ asked Forbes, looking at Rosen with the calm interest of someone who has just been spoken to by a cockroach.

‘This is our Dr Rosen. She admitted the … creature. From … you know? It’s all right. I’ve sworn her to secrecy.’

Forbes moved in on Rosen and backed her against the wall. ‘There is no creature, Rosen. No specimen, no one named Sally Harrison. For you, there is only amnesia.’

Soulos turned to Dr Chambers. ‘Amnesia. That means loss of memory.’

‘I know what amnesia is!’ snapped Chambers.

Forbes was still talking to Rosen. ‘Take a holiday. Let me never see you again.’

Rosen cast one helpless look at Chambers, who said, ‘Do as you’re told, Rosen. You’re on leave as of now.’

The elevator doors opened, Chambers, Soulos and Forbes stepped in, the elevator doors closed. Inside the elevator, Chambers was pressing the button for the third level. As the ground level indicator lights above the elevator doors flickered through 1 and 2, and then stopped on 3, Dr Rosen watched. Then she turned, and moved sadly toward the lobby. Whoever Sally Harrison really was, Dr Rosen suddenly felt very sorry for her.

As the elevator took Chambers, Soulos and Forbes to the third level, Sally was looking out of the barred window of room 312, and smiling in grim satisfaction. Their plan was beginning to come together.

The source of her satisfaction, and therefore her smile, was the sight of Kate Giovanelli getting out of her red hatchback and being met by Bobby. They looked up as Bobby pointed to Sally’s window, and then they waved. Sally waved back, and then Kate and Bobby headed for the hospital’s main entrance.

Kate was dressed for business in a tailored suit, and carried a briefcase, but wore her hair long and loose. People who took that as a sign that she was not a serious person usually had about ten seconds in which to change their minds before she went for their jugular veins. The wise ones took one look at her eyes, and took Kate seriously in the way a sensible person might, for instance, take a female leopard seriously.

Today, Kate was in the mood to be taken very seriously indeed. The twins were her only niece and nephew and she loved them very dearly. Anyone giving them trouble was about to experience deep pain. Anyone locking her niece Sally up and not allowing her to see her parents was about to experience positive agony.

As they entered the lobby, Bobby was bringing her up to speed on the situation, and then Kate was moving across the lobby to where Maria and Jim were sitting.

They saw her coming and stood, smiling. ‘Kate!’ Maria threw open her arms and embraced her sister.

‘Where have you been?’ Jim was asking Bobby.

‘Is it true what Bobby tells me?’ said Kate, ‘that you’re not being allowed to see Sally?’

‘I was getting Auntie Kate on the job,’ Bobby explained. ‘This IS unlawful imprisonment, they’ve got her held hostage!’

Jim nodded. He should have thought of calling Kate himself.

‘Point me to them,’ said Kate in the clipped voice she used when she was about to do something very positive and often very spectacular. Jim pointed the way and Kate walked briskly over to the desk clerk.

As she did so, Bobby turned to Jim. ‘Can I have the keys to the car, Dad? Something I need.’

Jim handed the keys to him, his eyes on Kate and the desk clerk.

‘My name is Giovanelli,’ said Kate in that same clipped voice. ‘I’m an attorney representing the Harrison family. I have already spoken by phone to a judge in chambers, and if the Harrisons don’t see their daughter in the next ten minutes, I will be back with a court order in half an hour. At that point anyone standing in my way will be in contempt and is going to feel like a bulldozer hit them. Say if you understand me.’

Only half an hour before, Bobby had left the private room where Sally was being kept captive, going out the way he had come in, through the air-conditioning duct. Sally had then replaced the wire grille, and waited.

She had not had to wait long. Soon after Bobby had cleared the room, Dr Chambers had arrived with the nursing sister and a man and a woman Sally had not seen before. ‘Ms Forbes and Mr Soulos want to run a few tests on you, Sally,’ Dr Chambers had explained.

‘Are you doctors?’

Sally had asked the black-suited man named Soulos, but it was his black-suited woman partner who answered. ‘I think that’s on a need-to-know basis, don’t you, Sally?’ the woman had said with a twitch of the lips which on a good day might have done duty as a smile.

‘I guess you’re not doctors then,’ Sally had said, and her eyes had shifted from the bulge just below
the left shoulder of Soulos’s comfortably cut suit jacket to the similar bulge in Ms Forbes’s jacket. ‘Since you’re wearing guns,’ she had added.

Forbes had looked at her blankly and then snapped open her briefcase. Soulos had already opened his and they had begun getting out their equipment.

Now Sally was sitting in a chair, hooked up to a machine which read, among other things, her pulse rate, blood pressure and breathing. She suspected that what she was hooked up to was a polygraph, a lie detector. She had read about them, knew how they worked, but had never experienced one before.

Forbes and Soulos were now testing the machine’s readouts.

‘What’s your name?’ said Forbes, asking a simple question to which they already knew the correct answer.

‘Sally Maria Harrison,’ said Sally. Then asked, ‘Is this a polygraph machine? I’ve never seen one before.’

Soulos did not answer, but simply marked the chart. Then across the room, the phone on the bedside table began to ring. Dr Chambers gestured at the nursing sister, who went to take it. Sally sat there hoping that it was not Bobby on the line, and her anxiety showed up on the polygraph’s readouts.

‘Phone calls make you nervous, Sally?’ asked Soulos.

‘Not in general,’ Sally answered, and that answer seemed to pass the test.

‘Where were you born, Sally?’ The question came from Ms Forbes, who had now moved in close and was gazing into Sally’s eyes.

Forbes’s jacket was slightly open and Sally could see the butt of the handgun. Then she looked up and met Forbes’s blank gaze. ‘Right here in this hospital. Can a polygraph really tell if you’re lying?’

The nursing sister turned to Dr Chambers. ‘They’ve got a lawyer.’ She gestured at Sally. ‘The
family. They want to see her.’

‘Stall,’ said Chambers.

‘Where do you live, Sally?’ Forbes continued.

‘One two seven Middle Street,’ Sally replied. Then asked, ‘What if I could control my breathing and pulse? Could I beat the machine?’ Her eyes went to the sister. She had turned aside and was speaking quietly into the phone.

‘Just answer the questions, Sally,’ Forbes went on. ‘You ever lived anywhere else?’

‘No. Except visiting my grandparents out west.’

The nursing sister’s voice became clearer as she turned back toward them. ‘I’m afraid Dr Chambers doesn’t seem to be here.’ She was looking right at him as she said it.

‘Are there people in outer space, Sally?’ Forbes asked.

Sally frowned. It was a question she had thought about a lot, but was surprised to hear this secret service woman, or whatever she was, asking it. ‘You mean aliens? I don’t know. But if this sun has planets, then other stars must and so statistically there certainly could be.’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ the nursing sister was saying. ‘I don’t know where Dr Chambers is and I certainly don’t know where patient Sally Harrison is.’

Forbes went on, ‘But you don’t know for sure.’

Sally was very patient with her. Sometimes it seemed that adults did not think very logically. ‘Until we’ve seen or communicated with one, nobody knows for sure.’

‘I’ll tell him if I see him,’ the nursing sister said, then hung up.

Forbes had turned to look at Soulos, who was monitoring the readouts. ‘Polygraph says she’s telling the truth,’ he said.

Forbes sneered. ‘I’ve never trusted polygraphs,’ she said.

Sally looked directly at the sister. ‘Why don’t you put her on it?’ she said, ‘She’s the one been telling lies.’

The sister looked at her and hissed, ‘You’re a very rude little girl!’ Sally smiled right back at her, knowing she had drawn blood.

From the speaker system, the desk clerk’s voice began, ‘Dr Chambers, ring the front desk, please. Could Dr Chambers ring the front desk or turn his pager back on, please?’ Dr Chambers ignored the page, and the interrogation proceeded.

At the front desk, the desk clerk turned to Kate Giovanelli with an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid Dr Chambers’s personal pager doesn’t seem to be working, and he must be out of earshot of the general paging system,’ she said.

Kate met the polite smile with a very bleak one of her own. ‘I sense playing for time,’ she said. ‘I sense lack of cooperation. I’ll be back in half an hour with an order from a judge, and then I’ll be sensing contempt of court.’

As she turned and moved off to let Maria and Jim know what she was about to do, the desk clerk again dialled 312. When the nursing sister answered, she said, ‘If you see Dr Chambers tell him the Harrison’s lawyer’s on her way to see a judge for a court order.’ She paused and listened to the sister’s denials, and then said, ‘Yes I know you haven’t seen him, sister, but if by some coincidence you do see him, then you’d better tell him there’s going to be trouble.’

As Kate headed toward the main doors, a nurse approached Jim and Maria. ‘Mr and Mrs Harrison?’ said the nurse.

‘Yes?’ Jim turned, expecting bad news.

The nurse handed him his car keys. ‘Bobby asked me to give you these.’

‘He didn’t happen to mention where he was going, I suppose? asked Maria.

‘He just skated off,’ said the nurse.

Maria and Jim looked at each other blankly. ‘Skated off?’ By the time they decided to ask the nurse exactly what she had meant by that, she had vanished into one of the elevators.