The Rocket Man (25 page)

The woman from the admissions department had caught her up now. ‘You are not allowed in here,' she said. ‘He's in the operating theatre. Please, wait quietly downstairs, and they'll let you know as soon as it's all over. If you behave like this, you'll have to leave.' Once again Katie was led down the stairs. The woman took a piece of paper from the rack on the wall above them and sat down opposite Katie at the table.

‘Is he your husband?' she asked. Katie nodded; she did not know what else to say, if she told them he was a friend or lover they might send her away. ‘Perhaps you could help us with some details,' the woman said, ‘We have to fill out an admissions form.'

‘Do you have to fill out the form even if he's dead?' asked Katie spitefully, and the woman said stiffly, ‘But he's not dead. There's a good chance he'll be all right. Dr Tobenhaus is a wonderful surgeon.'

Katie was silent. She put up her trembling hand to stroke her tangled hair; it was stiff and matted with blood.

‘Perhaps you could give me his name to begin with,' said the nurse.

‘Dmitry Nikolayevich Gavrilov.'

‘You'll have to say that more slowly. Which is the surname?'

Katie told her. She repeated everything slowly, spelling it out.

‘His date of birth?'

This was terrible. She didn't know it. Hadn't he said his birthday was in December? ‘December the twelfth,' she said, after thinking for a moment.

‘The year?'

‘I can't remember, I'm sorry.'

‘Well, how old is he?'

‘Oh, I don't… he's forty- five… no, forty-six. I can't think,' she said.

The nurse looked at her slightly oddly, wrote something down, and then asked, ‘Address?'

Katie gave it.

‘And you are next of kin?'

Katie nodded.

The nurse smiled, said, ‘I'll be back with you in a moment,' and left the room. After a few minutes another nurse came back. She carried on going through the form; perhaps it was meant as a kindness to her, thought Katie, to give her something to do while she waited for news. She didn't know the answers to most of the questions. ‘I can't bear it,' she said, suddenly getting to her feet, ‘I can't bear not knowing. Would they come and tell me if he was dead?'

‘Yes, of course,' said the nurse. ‘It's been quite a long time. That's a good sign.'

Katie could feel hope awakening in her; this was more painful than her previous certainty that he would die. The door to the room opened; two men came in. They were both imposing, and, from their clothes, their manner and their voices, obviously Russian. The shorter of the two was complaining bitterly.

‘This is the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations. He insists on seeing a doctor. There must be somebody here who has some information. What kind of a hospital is this?'

The nurse went out. A few minutes later she brought in a junior doctor. Before he had a chance to say anything, the Ambassador cut in. ‘I have been kept waiting downstairs; no-one seems to be able to inform me of anything. What exactly is Gavrilov's condition? I must have some definite information now.'

‘He's in the operating theatre,' said the doctor. ‘I'm afraid I can't tell you much. He was in a very critical condition when he got here. He could be as much as five, six hours in surgery.'

The two Russians talked together for a few moments. The Ambassador turned back to the doctor. ‘l want to be informed at once of any news. Please contact me at this number. We will make arrangements for him to be transferred to another hospital as soon as this is possible. I also want to know about security arrangements here.'

The doctor said, ‘The police are downstairs. This is already being seen to. Perhaps if you come with me?'

They left the room. Katie cried, ‘But I can't wait five or six hours.' She was desperate; she got up and began to walk aimlessly around the room. Her hands, her legs, were trembling; this didn't seem real, this couldn't be happening to her.

‘Do you want to ring anyone and let them know?' the nurse was asking. ‘Could anyone come and keep you company? Do you want to let anyone know where you are?'

‘No, no,' said Katie. She looked at her watch. The babysitter would have left; Bob would be home by now and looking after Anna. She couldn't face calling him and trying to explain, or even begin to think about how she was going to deal with all this. She started to shake violently, finally giving way; the nurse put her arm around her and Katie began to cry. After a while she stopped; the nurse suggested she could have a shower to clean herself up but she refused; they gave her some sort of gown to put over her clothes. She sat still, feeling hollow, numb, exhausted. She had no idea how long she sat there. The nurse went to fetch her a drink and she was left alone, watching the admissions staff behind the screen chatting and tapping information into their computers and one or two people coming in to casualty; a woman with a crying child, a man with a battered face.

Eventually the young doctor came in. He said to Katie, ‘I'm sorry, Frau Gavrilov, but the police are here. They are anxious to talk to you, if possible. They tell me you were the first person at the scene of the crime. If you could talk to them it might help locate the killer.'

Katie shot upright; she felt the blood drain from her face; when the doctor said ‘Killer' she thought for an instant he must mean that Dmitry was dead; then she remembered the other man. She nodded. They took her to a room down the corridor. It must have been a doctor's office; there were files in a. tray on the desk, posters on the walls, a filing cabinet. The policeman she took to be senior was a solid-looking man in a plain suit and a rather drab coat. She didn't take in their names or ranks. He said, ‘I'm sorry, I realise you are very distressed. There seems to be some confusion. I was told you were his wife, but the Russian Ambassador has just informed me he is not married.'

‘No,' said Katie, ‘I was afraid they would send me away. My name is Katherine Haynes. He was… he is my lover.' Her voice became suddenly stronger and she looked up at him; she loved the sound of the words in German,
mein Geliebter
.

‘Please tell us what happened.'

Katie told them.

‘We understand that you can only have missed the assassin by a few moments. You didn't see anyone, pass anyone in the corridor?'

‘No…I don't remember. No, there wasn't anybody… I don't think I passed anyone at all… only someone when I got out of the lift.'

‘There was someone by the lifts?'

‘Someone got in when I got out… I don't remember.'

‘What was he wearing?'

‘I don't know… a suit, a grey suit.'

‘Tall?'

‘Not particularly.'

‘Was he white? European?'

‘Yes, European or maybe American… I wasn't paying any attention.'

‘Was he carrying anything?'

‘I don't know.' Katie tried to recall any details. The policemen kept going over it; was there anything she remembered; his shoes; his hands; his face; his hair; any distinguishing marks; was he carrying a briefcase. Katie said no, she couldn't remember, he didn't look like an assassin. But she thought he might have been quite young. That was unusual, at the IAEA. There weren't many men under thirty on the staff.

The policeman tried another avenue of questioning.

‘Why were you going to see Dr Gavrilov?'

‘To talk things over. I was upset, we were…' It was difficult to think of the right word in German. ‘
Wir hatten gestritten
, we'd had a disagreement… I can't talk about all this now.'

‘Are you married?'

Katie saw the policeman looking at her ring; she nodded.

‘Was your husband aware of this relationship?'

‘No… I don't know… please, I can't go through this, not now.'

‘You must understand,' said the policeman, ‘That although it's unlikely in a crime of this sort, we have to rule out sexual jealousy as a motive.'

Katie looked blankly at him. She couldn't make sense of anything; she didn't know what to say. She said, ‘I think I'm going to be sick.' But she wasn't sick; she sat there, trembling. The policeman asked for her address and details of her husband's work, wrote it down in his notebook. ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell us? You can't think of any reason, yourself, why somebody might want to kill him?'

‘No; why should I?

‘There wasn't anything about his behaviour – anything unusual – he didn't speak to you about anything that was bothering him?'

Katie said, her voice breaking, ‘He never told me anything. If there had been something going on, he wouldn't have said, would he? Isn't that the way things are? Why are you asking me these questions? Go and ask the CIA, the KGB. What do I know about these things?'

The two policemen exchanged glances. The second one now spoke to her. He had a quiet, soothing voice. ‘Don't get upset,' he said, ‘Take your time. Perhaps you could explain to us why you said what you did just now?'

But Katie couldn't answer. She was racked with sobs. The policeman found a box of medical wipes on the desk and handed them to her. He got up and left her with the second man. There were voices outside. Katie too stood up and opened the door. A man whom she took to be the surgeon was standing talking to the policeman. He glanced up and saw Katie and instantly looked away again. Katie knew at once this meant bad news. She walked up to him, slowly, her body feeling as heavy as lead. The surgeon turned to face her.

‘Sit down,' he said. ‘My name is Tobenhaus; I have just been carrying out the surgery on your husband… please.' Katie sat, and the surgeon sat down opposite her. He looked exhausted.

‘Well,' he said, taking a deep breath, ‘He is alive. The operation was successful. We stopped the bleeding, we have removed two of the bullets and resected part of the lung. Fortunately the bullets did not hit any other vital structure, but we have had some problems. We will have to see. The next few hours will probably tell us.'

Katie said, sharply, ‘What are you trying to tell me? What is wrong?'

‘It may be nothing. The body has had a severe shock. He was almost dead when he arrived here, no blood pressure, then a brief respiratory arrest. Normally we would expect him to resume normal respiration after the operation and regain consciousness after half an hour or so but this has not happened. There is of course a possibility that there has been some damage…'

Katie said, ‘You mean, brain damage.'

Well, this is only a possibility, I would be more concerned with renal failure… but I would not want to lower your hopes at this stage.'

Katie wouldn't let this go; she pressed him further. ‘But if he's not breathing… are you telling me… you might have been operating all this time on someone who was brain dead?'

The doctor looked increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Look, personally I do not think things are so bleak. It's far too early to say. You should be quite hopeful. We'll let the sedation wear off, see how things go. As I said, the operation has been a complete success,' and he started to list all the things that had gone well, things which, if Dmitry had suffered brain damage, were of no significance.

The police were leaving; it seemed there was nothing for them to stay for. Katie stared at the floor and wondered if she would go mad. A nurse came round the corner. She was hurrying. She said to the surgeon, ‘Please come here,' and he excused himself and left her. Katie lay down on the floor and felt the cold vinyl against her cheek. She tried to count to drive all other thoughts out of her head. She stared at the clock on the wall. It was after midnight. She wondered if they would let her see Dmitry. She wondered if she wanted to. If he was going to die, she would rather see him later, without all the tubes and monitors. But suppose he didn't die, and instead… she couldn't let herself think about it. Until now she had not thought there could be anything worse than death. Her whole body was convulsed with violent fits of shivering.

A nurse walked briskly down the corridor. She sat Katie up, put her arms round her shoulder. She said, ‘It's all right, you know. He's come round. He started fighting the respirator, he's responded to some simple commands. They think he'll be all right.' Shortly afterwards the surgeon returned. He was smiling. He said, ‘We've had a false alarm. They'll clean him up and then in a while you can go and see him.'

Katie sat and waited for what seemed hours. Time had now lost all meaning, but it didn't matter. She would have waited forever if in the end she knew he would be all right. Another doctor came. He said, ‘Just five minutes, please. He is very weak. We are giving him further transfusions. Pain is normally quite severe after a thoracotomy; we have given him morphine, he's pretty dopey. You can see him, reassure him if you like, but please don't ask him any questions.'

Katie was asked to disinfect her hands and put on a white coat and, when she had done so, the doctor led her down the long corridor. The ward had an overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere; it was dark, the walls were painted a deep green, and it was lit only by small lights at each bedhead. There were eight beds in the ward; Dmitry was lying in the nearest one to her in the centre of the room. She was afraid as she approached him. She remembered looking first at his feet, which stuck out from under the green sheet; she thought they must be cold. Then she looked at his face. It was very still, with some faint colour in it; he was not dead. He was breathing on his own; to her surprise nothing obscured his face except the fine plastic tubes which delivered oxygen to his nostrils. She hesitated, then put out her hand to touch his arm; it was warm, but he did not respond. He had intravenous lines in both arms, into which dark red blood and fluid flowed, tubes coming out of the chest to drain the blood and air and a monitor over his heart. There were dressings covering the wound, extending from the middle of his chest all the way round almost to the spinal column.