Heart Stopper (3 page)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Priya sat in her car, her heart thumping, and stared at the building in front of her. The green glass walls of the clinic dripped rain. The sign above the sliding doors were in elegant script and read ‘Fairer Cardiology Clinic’. The walk to the front door was short, but she was going to get wet. She never carried an umbrella despite the vagaries of the Irish weather.

She was delaying. She knew she would have to go in soon. Make it look like she was coming in for an ordinary day at work. She had slept badly for the last two nights. Several times, she’d thought of calling the Guards, but she’d made no phone calls, and received none. Telling Michael she wanted to be alone, she’d returned to her house after a few hours crashed out on his couch. She spent the weekend lying in bed, alternating between long periods of sleep and long periods of tears. Loud jagged bouts of crying that surprised her with their intensity. She hadn’t cried like that even at her mother’s funeral. Then, she had held herself together and gone through the necessary movements, holding everything together for her father. Now, seven months later, she was falling apart. And outside, the July storms, heavy and gusting, had alternated with cool bright sunshine that gently baked the house.

The rain was falling harder as a car pulled in sharply beside hers. Aidan Lynch drove a midnight blue BMW that he’d had for a year, but he was still like a little boy with a new toy. He was looking at Priya with curiosity so she made hand gestures to indicate she didn’t want to get wet. He reached back between the cream leather seats of the car and grabbed an umbrella.

“You’ll be late if you sit there waiting for this rain to stop.” He had opened her door. He held the umbrella for her and kept his hand on her elbow ducking his head to keep them both covered as they walked into the clinic.

∞

It was obvious there was something wrong the moment they walked into the plush reception of the clinic. The normally immaculately made up receptionist, Clodagh, was sitting dazed at her desk, her eye makeup smeared, and her nose red. She looked up at them and said, “Dr. Dan’s dead. They’re waiting for ye in the boardroom.”

Priya slumped down on one of the upholstered chairs in the little arrangement laid out in the reception area like a piece of art. She didn’t need to fake a reaction; her legs had felt weak as soon as Clodagh said the words.

Aidan said, “Daniel’s dead? What happened? When?”

“They’re going to tell us in there I think, the others are already here, I was just waiting for ye, we’d better hurry.” Clodagh came around the desk to Priya. “Are you okay, Priya? Do you need anything?” She got a cup of water from the water dispenser and handed it to Priya.

Priya gulped down the drink. “Thanks, yes. Sorry. We’d better go in.” She had to keep calm. There was no way anyone here could have known about her experience on Saturday morning, but she felt like they could read every guilty emotion on her face. Aidan and Clodagh were both looking at her face and she realized they were noticing her eyes that were swollen from the weekend of crying.

“I had a flu, in bed most of the weekend. I hate getting flus, I’m a terrible patient.” She rubbed at her nose that was redder than Clodagh’s.

“You poor thing. Don’t give it to me though, I hate it too,” Clodagh said.

Aidan held out his arm for Priya and she leaned on it grateful for the support. Clodagh grabbed his other arm and led him down the glass-lined corridor to the boardroom, Priya in tow.

∞

The other members of staff were in the boardroom, all except one sitting solemnly around the large table. The clinical staff of two doctors, four nurses, and Priya’s closest colleague, and the other electrophysiology technician, Tara McFadden, were there as well as the two secretaries. One of the two doctors in the room, Dr. James Reddington, was also one of the co-founders of the clinic, Daniel being the other. James was standing at the window of the boardroom when Priya and the others trailed into the room. He looked tense and drawn, his thin face breaking into a frown when he saw them, but he just inclined his head in greeting. The three latecomers hastily grabbed a chair each and nodded greetings around the silent table. James moved to take his seat at the head of the table.

“You have all probably heard the news by now. Daniel is dead. He was found in his apartment by his mother on Sunday afternoon.”

The buzz around the room sounded like bees in Priya’s head. Sean Brady, the other doctor, asked, “What did he die of?”

“Myocardial infarction. Ironic, isn’t it?” James rubbed his eyes. “He’s one of the leading cardiologists in the world, he saves people’s lives on a daily basis, and he dies at 45 of a heart attack.”

Priya felt a queasy sense of relief. The niggling worry at the back of her mind all weekend that she might have had something to do with Daniel’s death now seemed unwarranted.

“Who found him?” Sheila Hughes, a nurse at the clinic since it opened, was a small dynamo of a woman; this morning she seemed drained of her usual excess.

“His mother.” James looked irritated at having to repeat himself. “She was visiting him; as usual it seems, for Sunday lunch. She found him, called the ambulance, who in turn called his GP. The GP signed it off as a heart attack. Daniel seems to have been there for the weekend. I just found out late last night when she called me. I thought it would be better to wait till this morning when you were all in and tell you together.”

Tara blurted out, “That’s why he didn’t turn up for my birthday on Friday night.” She put her hand over her mouth when James looked at her.

“Daniel’s body is going to be flown back to New York in the next few days. The Fairers are arranging to have him buried in the family plot. Anyone who wants to go to the funeral will be accommodated obviously.” James looked around the table. “I’ll be meeting his mother later today and I’ll have more details for you tomorrow, but I think with all the arrangements that have to be made, the funeral will probably be at the end of the week. We have patients who are already booked in for pacemaker implants and programmer checks over this week and I don’t think Daniel would have wanted us to cancel anyone without proper notice.”

James continued through the murmurs of assent from around the table, “However, I think we can arrange it so that the clinic is closed from Thursday. I will be going to New York for the funeral obviously and I will arrange to meet with Daniel’s grandfather a bit later on to discuss the future of the clinic. I don’t think it will be appropriate to disturb him at this difficult time, but I know you will all want some idea of what is going to happen.”

James got up from his chair. “Aidan, will you come to my office. We need to prepare a press release and get it out as soon as possible. The rest of you, it is going to be a very tough day and if you don’t have any patients in you are welcome to leave. Priya, obviously the research work will be stopped completely until further notice; we’ll need to meet the team at Research as soon as possible.” He muttered to himself, “I need to talk to Gerry and Valerie again,” and then sought out his secretary. “Mary, will you come in to me too, we need to draw up a list of people I need to call before the press release goes out.”

The noise level in the room went up immediately the door closed behind James, all the staff expressing their shock in repeated meaningless expressions that seemed to Priya to rub on every exposed nerve in her body. She nodded her head in the right places all the while desperately waiting for the right amount of time to pass before she could escape to the relative isolation of the office she shared with Tara. She knew some of the staff were looking at her curiously, but it seemed inappropriate to mention her flu again. She knew they were wondering whether she had been as close to Daniel as the rumors suggested. The atmosphere was starting to weigh heavily on her and she excused herself and rushed to her office.

∞

Priya sat at her desk feeling the nausea hit her in waves. She could hear the murmur of conversation continuing to roll around the clinic as people wandered back to their offices. She heard footsteps outside the room and Tara walked in shutting the door behind her.

“You don’t look good, girl.” Her short blond hair tousled, her pale pretty face now rubbed clean of make-up Tara didn’t look too good herself, but Priya didn’t feel like pointing that out.

“Are you going to go to New York for the funeral?” Tara asked.

Priya nodded. She had just made up her mind. She needed to see this through. She had a sense that she was missing something.

Tara said, “Did Daniel seem sick to you? It’s strange; he was so into all that healthy living stuff, exercising all the time. And he ate healthy too, do you remember that time at the French restaurant when he would only eat the salad, none of that cream sauce he said. Seems a bit weird to me, having a heart attack at his age, and he never smoked, didn’t drink much. And look at me, drinking all the time, smoking. At least I eat healthy and the Pilates has been great.” She smoothed down her knee-length skirt and patted her stomach. “Priya, you’re really not looking good. Why don’t you go home, do you have any patients in for checks, do you want me to do yours?”

Priya shook her head. “I’ve got Jacintha coming in, I need to be here.”

“Hmm… yeah, you’d better do her check. Wouldn’t want to upset the old biddy again.”

“You know, one day one of the patients is going to hear you calling them names and report you.”

“Nah, my patients love me too much. It’s just your Jacintha that prefers the exotic brown
Doctor
Joseph to do her programmer checks. Funny how she trusts you in a medical capacity, but would probably cross the street otherwise. And she doesn’t realize you’ve got a PhD not a medical degree.”

Priya smiled. “You know she wouldn’t, you’re too hard on her, she’s just old-fashioned. But she loves hearing an Irish accent coming out of an Indian looking woman. Besides I prefer her to the ones that say one thing, but look like they’d rather not have me near them.”

“I probably doesn’t help that her son had a heart attack right there when
I
do her check, I mean, why couldn’t that happen when
you’re
doing it. Now she crosses herself when I pass her.”

Priya stared at Tara, her eyes pensive, and said, “I worked with Daniel on Thursday and he was fine. A bit quiet, but that was more like he was thinking about things, not sick. Though, he’s been quiet like that for a few weeks now. Not his usual self.”

Priya hadn’t told anyone in the clinic about the night of her birthday or the subsequent humiliating experience with the Guards. So she couldn’t tell Tara that the last four or five weeks had been almost as bad as the months following the episode last October. The tense and hostile silence after it had been broken by her mother’s death in December. She had needed leave and Daniel had been surprisingly supportive and, despite their history, she had developed a wary sense of kinship with him when she returned to work in January. They had never spoken of that night again, but the quality of their silence together had been different. Till a month ago.

Tara said, “You’ve been pretty quiet yourself. Was there a problem with the new Controller?”

The Program Controller Home was the third version of the machines they used in the clinic during the regular checks to communicate with implanted pacemakers. This version was being developed for home use. Priya had worked on the Controllers when she was doing the research for her PhD; the pacemaker it controlled, the Mark I pacemaker, had been Daniel’s personal project with his research company that had commenced prior to the opening of the clinic. Priya spent part of her time consulting on the coding, and the other part carrying out the regular checks on the programming of the pacemakers installed by the clinic.

Priya said, “We got the figures back about a month ago. There was no problem with the Controller Home. Daniel took the figures with him; he just gave them to me two weeks ago. I haven’t even had a chance to look at them properly. I’d better look at them after I do Jacintha’s check.”

Priya suddenly felt uneasy, she didn’t want Tara to know she’d taken the papers home. Along with the papers on the Controller II, which Daniel had also given her for some reason. There were strict rules in this very secretive business.

Priya said, “Talking of Jacintha, I’d better go, she’s probably chatting Aidan up as we speak if the poor lad is anywhere near the waiting room. But then, she’s not the only middle-aged woman who’d like a bit of that boy, is she?” Priya had to laugh at Tara’s face.

Tara said, “I am
not
middle-aged, unless you think I’m only going to live till I’m 60! By the way, I wouldn’t start anything if I were you; I haven’t even
mentioned
your Friday night adventures. I like how it’s
my
30
^th
birthday and
you
get the present.” Tara stopped. “Hey, you okay?”

Priya’s stomach had clenched at the mention of Friday night and her face had obviously reflected the sudden rush of adrenaline. She got up and rifled through the filing cabinet searching for Jacintha Whelan’s file. Priya hated being at a disadvantage, at not remembering the night. She hated anyone knowing more about what she had done than she did. She was about to swallow her pride and ask Tara when Clodagh opened the door and popped her head into the office.