Heart Stopper (12 page)

Priya was shocked to see Reyna balancing two large pizza boxes and a satchel that was overflowing with papers on one arm while raising the other to ring the doorbell again. Reyna dropped her arm and looked sheepish when Priya opened the door.

“It’s really not healthy to work on an empty stomach. You haven’t eaten all day. I thought you might like a pizza.” Reyna held out the pizza boxes.

“Two pizzas?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d want to eat on your own.”

“For a visitor to this town, you seem to know your way around.”

“I had the misfortune to have to wait in the ER of your hospital once and I popped across to that Supermacs place. So, can I come in?”

“I see you’ve brought your work along too. A bit presumptuous of you, isn’t it?”

“Priya, I get the feeling you’re not normally mean to people, so it’s just me. I know I deserve it after last night. Just give me a chance to explain, please.”

Priya glared at her. “This should be good,” she muttered, as she turned sideways to let Reyna in to the house.

∞

They ate the pizzas out on the deck. The sun warmed the Atlantic Ocean and it responded with white-capped smiles and waves. The seagulls were holding a loud conversation as they swooped and waddled on the beach, their screeches punctuating the silence between the two women. Priya was conscious of her attire, the T-shirt she was wearing, its original cerise now faded to a dull pink. And the cut-off denim shorts were a relic of the 70s that she had bought in a clothing store run by a local animal charity more with the aim of supporting the charity than for the fashion.

Reyna looked as cool as usual. She still had her suit trousers on, but she had taken off the jacket and her pale blue top se
t off
the gold in her eyes. The woman had an effortless style even when she dressed down and Priya had that feeling of inadequacy she always got around beautiful women, especially when she felt such a strong attraction. She had to concentrate to keep from spilling pizza sauce down her front,
now
that would really complete the image!

Reyna had brought her a vegetarian pizza with so much on it that Priya groaned after the second slice. “I
was
hungry after all. I see you got me everything that could possibly fit on a pizza.”

“Had to cover all bases.” Reyna curled that smile at her and Priya looked away.

Reyna put down her plate. “Priya, I am really sorry about yesterday. I was completely in the wrong. I started something and I shouldn’t have. I know you’re going through a difficult time. And, right now, things are pretty weird for me. So, I shouldn’t have dragged you into anything.”

“Am I going to get anything more than ‘pretty weird’ or is that the standard excuse you use for all the women you make the mistake of kissing?”

“I guess you deserve a better explanation. And no, it is not an excuse, standard or otherwise. I have not looked at a woman in that way, not to talk of kissing any, for the last 3 years.” Reyna was staring at the grain in the wood of the deck and her voice was angry. She looked up at Priya and her tone softened. “The last few weeks have been strange and confusing. I thought you were with Daniel, I thought you were straight. But I was so attracted to you and mad at myself.”

Reyna stopped and closed her eyes. Her voice was quiet and she said,

“Priya, I’m still married.”

Priya sat back in the chair, her back smacking against the fabric. She stared down at the pizza, its gaudy dressings clashing with the red and yellow. She put down the slice in her hand and closed the box.
Still
married. She hadn’t even known Reyna was married at all. And now Priya was what, the other woman? She was finding it hard to think. She’d vowed never to hurt anyone again like she’d hurt Kathy, she’d promised herself she’d never have been able to do what Valerie did, insert herself between two people, be the other woman. And now she had, without even being given the choice.

“Priya…?”

Priya looked at Reyna. She said, “You didn’t think that mentioning you were married might be a good idea? At any stage? Perhaps when I was kissing you in the pub, or wait, maybe even before that. Or when we were in your car for an hour, talking. Or before you kissed me?”

“Priya, it’s not as bad as it sounds. We’ve been separated for two years and honestly, we might as well have been separated for the year before that. It’s just that the papers for the dissolution haven’t been signed.”

“So you are still married.”

“I know how it sounds. But it is not as simple as that. In fact, it is pretty complicated.”

“Catherine said you were in a bad place at the moment.”

“That would be one way of putting it.” Reyna took in a deep breath. “I have a lot of stuff to sort out. On a personal level. I wasn’t really dealing with it as I should have and I ran to New York and buried myself in work and getting to know my grandfather, and Daniel I guess. And then when I was needed here by Daniel, when he died, and I knew something was wrong, I just haven’t been thinking clearly…” Reyna stopped. Her shoulders were bowed and there was a look of defeat in her eyes. “I would really have liked to have seen where things could have gone with us. As I said I haven’t even thought about the possibility for years.”

“Well, don’t worry about it. I wasn’t looking for anything. I’m sorry I came on to you in the pub. It’s no big deal.” Priya picked up her pizza box and gestured towards the box lying on the deck beside Reyna. “Have you finished?” She didn’t meet Reyna’s eyes, but she saw them widen. She took the boxes into the kitchen and placed them on the table. She told herself she was used to disappointment, that the feeling would pass. She found it strange that the sense of loss was so crushing.

She got two glasses of wine and sauntered out onto the deck. She handed a glass to Reyna who was sitting in the same spot, staring out at the sea.

“The quicker we can go through the material and you see that there’s nothing to be suspicious about, the quicker you can get back to your life.” Priya retrieved her papers and pushed the satchel towards Reyna who looked like she was going to say something, but just nodded and took the satchel and started examining the papers in it.

∞

An hour passed as they concentrated on their individual study and thoughts. Priya stretched and rubbed her eyes. She had now looked through all the papers on the trials of the pacemaker and the data on the communications between the pacemaker and the controller.

She said, “Do you want me to catch you up?”

Reyna nodded. She put down what she was working on.

“From what I’ve seen so far, the Mark I pacemaker passed the clinical trials over a two year period and was launched with no problems.”

“Is that the usual scenario?”

“Sometimes it happens that defects occur and are discovered after the device has been in use for a while. Things can go wrong not only with the pulse generators, but also with the pacing leads that can corrode or break. The companies actually say in their literature that nobody is perfect and because large teams of people design these devices, that sometimes things go wrong. The manufacturers say that failures have happened in the past with all types of devices and that they’ll happen again because these devices are too complex and changes in the technology happens so fast that they can’t guarantee against failure. They complain that if they had to go through the many more years of testing then patient care would suffer and maybe hundreds of thousands of patients would die by the time the devices were available.”

“So, they don’t test the devices properly? Devices that are put into people and keep their hearts beating?”

“No, they do. They test them as well as they can in the shorter period of time. And they track the implanted devices and send out advisories if a serious technical problem is discovered. But what I’m trying to say is that there are problems that might occur over a longer period of time than perhaps the two year testing period. Like, there was a device advisory issued because there was a possibility of a sudden device failure and another because there was a higher than normal risk of the leads fracturing. See, these are possible future problems or the potential for a danger to the patient. But to the patient sitting there with the device and the leads already in them and working, there has then got to be a discussion with them and their doctor to see what the risks are with replacing the devices and everything that goes with that.”

“There’s a lot of money involved in this business.”

“Yes. The devices are life-saving. I mean, think about how you would feel if something went wrong with your heart. We don’t even think about how our heart beats. It is just something that happens. But if you were to think about it, it is almost like you just hope that the next heart beat arrives. We can’t control it. And then out of the blue you faint and the doctors can’t find anything wrong with you. But it happens again. And you’re never sure when it is going to happen next, you could be driving, or in the supermarket, or as one of my patients, you could be singing in the choir. Another one of my patients fainted in the bathroom and fell against the radiator. She damaged her eye so badly that they had to put in a glass eye. Sometimes the fear is more about the next time you’re going to faint rather than the implantation surgery which is actually quite minor. So when they’re living normal healthy lives after the surgery it is not about the big money industry. For them, it is about their lives which they have been given back. But yes, it is huge money. And professional prestige. Every money-making industry has its conflicts. There’s a big study being released that recommends more vigorous testing and that study is already being attacked by a big business group before it has even been released.”

“From what I am reading here, the amounts of money involved are staggering.”

“We don’t really see that side of it. I guess they would be.”

“One of the biggest companies reported that its revenue in the last quarter was actually lower than the previous years because of a recall of one of their product ranges. And looking at the figures for 2011 the two biggest companies in the industry that have plants in Galway reported export sales of over 4 billion euro for the year. Now obviously that is not all for pacemakers and controllers, but it is a huge market.”

Reyna sorted through the papers and pulled out a presentation folder.

“There’s stuff here on the proposal for the setting up of the research company and also on the clinic. Galway seems to have a number of the largest medical device manufacturers located here.”

“UCG, that’s University College Galway or at least that’s what they called it in my time, anyway, they concentrated on biomedical research and really made it a priority. I remember the fuss about the biomedical research area that was being developed. I was finishing my M.Sc. at the time and there was a drive by the college to bring our Faculty and Medicine and Engineering to collaborate on research. By that time, I’d gotten interested in IT and I was actually looking towards working more in the IT field so I wasn’t paying as much attention as my father thinks I should have. There was a lot of funding and because there were huge medical device manufacturers based in Galway, a lot of the research was in the cardiovascular area.”

“So Daniel was encouraged to set up the clinic.”

“He did his cardiology fellowship here and met Gerry Lynch in the program… and Valerie Helion. And Daniel and Gerry studied further in the U.S. after that. The three of them started the research company. Well, the other two contributed time and some money I think. Daniel brought the patent technology from your grandfather and most of the money I’d say. That’s why it is called the Fairer Research Company.”

“Valerie Helion..? Valerie, Lynch? Gerry’s wife, right?”

“Yes. I don’t know why I keep referring to her as Valerie Helion. They got married at least five or six years ago, but most people seem to refer to her by her maiden name. Gerry is a lovely guy. I worked with him for the second year of my PhD. He’s extremely intelligent, but very humble about it. He’s Aidan’s brother, you know.”

“Did you work with Valerie?” Reyna’s tone was casual.

Priya gave Reyna a look then sighed. “Is there a reason you’re asking me about her?”

“I guess… I get the feeling there’s something you’re leaving out. And, she came with Gerry to see my grandfather in New York at the end of June. She was…very friendly.”

Priya felt a sharp sting of jealousy. “Friendly… to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s a ‘friendly’ sort of woman.” Priya was shuffling the papers.

“So, what happened?”

“It was a long time ago. And it has nothing to do with what’s going on now. Would you like me to continue with the pacemaker explanation?”

“It is not just out of curiosity that I’m asking. I’m going to hazard a guess after what you told us yesterday about the night of your birthday and after meeting Valerie, I would say that the woman you were trying to stop Daniel going with that night was Valerie.”

Priya’s closed her eyes, squeezed them shut.

Reyna said in a gentle voice, “I think you had an affair with Valerie at some point. She struck me as a woman who has a lot of power and knows how to use it. I think she plays games. Perhaps you were caught up in one of her games?”

“What has this got to do with anything now?”

“I know you would rather not be reminded of all this. But think about it for a minute. We have been avoiding the main question. I may not think Daniel’s death was an accident. But the doctor signed the death certificate stating heart failure as the cause of death. No one except family members knows that there was an autopsy arranged in New York. And the results showed no abnormality anywhere else and also concluded Daniel died of a heart attack.
 
A diagnosis of sudden cardiac death.”

Priya was puzzled. “So why are you still searching?”

“I want to know what happened to him before that, what was worrying him. I think it has something to do with the work of the research company. So I want to find out what I can about Valerie and Gerry. Especially before they come and meet me tomorrow. We’ll be going over the research work that has been done in the partnership between the clinic and them. So, I think a heads-up might be in order?”

“Why would stuff that happened over two years ago be relevant?”

“And last year if I’m right about the night of your birthday. And possibly was still going on when Daniel died. We’re studying the pacemaker stuff because that’s what Daniel was looking at, but as I said, follow the money, and I’d add to that, follow the emotion. People do things for money mostly, but sometimes when there are all these hidden connections, you might find a reason by uncovering them.”

“Do you still think
I
had something to do with this?”

“I think that there was something strange about the relationship between Valerie and Daniel. I think when he said he was with a researcher and I assumed it was you that he actually meant Valerie.”

Priya tried to absorb this thought. She said, “As far as I know, Daniel met them in the late 90s. They set up the research company in 2000, but he was mostly in New York at the clinic there. Valerie and Gerry got married in… 2005, I think, because when I worked with them in 2008 they had been married about three years. From the way Valerie talked about Daniel, I think she was with him before she got together with Gerry. It was weird. She married Gerry, but I would have put Valerie and Daniel together, they were more suited than Valerie and Gerry. Gerry was too nice for her.”

“So, what happened between you and Valerie?”

Priya was silent for a few minutes. Then she sighed and said, “I met her in 2008 when I went to do my second year research project. I was in a relationship at the time. Seven years. I was such a black and white person, you know, no grays existed in my innocent little world. In a committed relationship, never cheated, never thought of cheating. I was such an arrogant little shit. I was so sure of myself, of my relationship, and my honesty. Well, I guess Kathy and I were both so secure, took it for granted. And then Valerie happened. And I’d never met someone like that in my life. She had a way of looking at you, like you were the most important thing in the world, of listening to you, saying just the right things, stroking your ego. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I fell for her and slept with her. A few times. But I felt so guilty that I told Kathy almost immediately. It was the worst conversation of my life. And she reacted badly, of course. Went a bit crazy for a while after that. She would have taken me back, but I knew it was over and, I just couldn’t continue, not with the way I felt about Valerie and with what I’d done. We split up. Valerie of course, had just been playing around and didn’t want to know me after I’d come clean with Kathy. She never told Gerry. I felt really bad about that too; he had never been anything but nice to me.”