The Distant Home (10 page)

It was ten minutes later that Dr Chambers, smiling like a large pink carnivore, approached Maria and Jim in the lobby. With him were agents Forbes and Poulos.

‘My colleagues,’ he said, indicating the black-suited man and woman behind him, ‘and I would like to do some further tests on you.’

‘Not till we see Sally.’ Maria recognized the runaround when she saw it, and she knew that what they had been getting from the moment they had stepped into the hospital was the runaround with a capital R.

‘She’s sleeping,’ Chambers purred. ‘Reaction. It’s natural. By the time we’ve done the tests on you, your husband and your son, she’ll probably be awake again.’

‘What you’re saying is we can see her if we do these tests,’ said Jim, who had a good acquaintance with the runaround himself.

‘It’s in everyone’s best interests. Particularly Sally’s,’ was all that Chambers would say to that.

‘Okay, we’ll do the tests,’ Maria snapped. ‘But by that time my sister’ll be back with a court order and we’ll see her whether you like it or not.’

‘And your son?’ said Chambers, looking around for Bobby.

Jim smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, but he felt entitled. ‘He tends to go missing,’ he said, ‘but so far he’s always turned up again.’

‘You’ll just have to settle for us,’ said Maria, wearing a not particularly pleasant smile of her own.

Even if Dr Chambers had been miraculously transported to the part of the hospital where Bobby was, he would not have seen him. All he would have seen was a laundry trolley creeping up on the nursing sister who had admitted Sally earlier in the day.

The nursing sister was talking to a friend who was about to take over her shift, and what she was saying would have horrified Dr Chambers. As for Forbes and Soulos, it probably would have made them go for their guns. Because what she was saying, and what Bobby in the slowly moving laundry trolley was about to overhear, was not strictly on a need-to-know basis.

‘She’s an alien,’ the sister was saying. ‘I wouldn’t do what you’re doing for all the tea in China. Do the night shift with that kid from outer space?’ She knew she should not be talking about it, she knew that if Chambers found out, it would cost her her job, but she had to get it off her chest to someone.

‘You’re joking,’ said the night sister.

‘Green blood. Two hearts. Looks normal on the outside but that kid Sally Harrison is not of this Earth.’

Bobby, in his laundry trolley, narrowed his eyes. They were talking about Sally! How could they believe that stuff?

The night sister did not believe it. ‘Pathology department have just messed up the results again. Remember when they said that man had a giraffe disease?’

‘Suit yourself,’ said the nursing sister, and headed away to go off duty. She had to get ready for a date that night with her boyfriend. Maybe he would believe her. And then again, she thought, maybe he would not believe her. If she had not seen the X-rays and taken the blood sample herself,
she
wouldn’t believe it.

As the sister going off duty was thinking all this, a laundry trolley followed the night sister toward her station.

The night sister had an instinct about being followed, an instinct which had got her out of trouble on several previous occasions. She now had that feeling between the shoulder blades which sometimes meant that she was being watched, or that someone was coming up behind her. She stopped suddenly, and spun around.

All she could see was a laundry trolley standing in the corridor. As she watched, a nursing aide came out of a ward with an armful of bed linen and dumped the linen into the trolley. The night sister, satisfied that she was not being followed, turned and walked on.

Bobby crouched under the dirty bed linen, choking. He was trying not imagine what patients had been in these sheets, and certainly trying not to imagine what it was they had wrong with them. He was particularly trying not to think of the words ‘Black Plague’. On top of all this he was trying not to breathe.

He put one foot out of the laundry trolley and kicked the floor, pushing the trolley along to the room next to 312.

The night nurse almost looked back again, but this time thought she was just getting what she called the heeby-jeebies. After all that her friend had told her about the mysterious patient in room 312, it was no wonder. Tales like that would give anyone the heeby-jeebies. So she did not look back and was therefore spared the sight of a disembodied hand reaching out of the laundry trolley and opening the door of room 311.

The further sight of a laundry trolley with no one to push it scudding through the door into the ward probably would have produced hysterics.

As the trolley disappeared, the nursing aide came out of the ward she was cleaning up, carrying another bundle of laundry. She was furious when she found that the trolley which had so fortunately materialized in the corridor outside had now dematerialized again, taking her dirty linen with it.

As Bobby reached out of the trolley and locked the door of room 311 from the inside, the wardrobe opened and Sally stepped out. She looked around, but saw only a laundry trolley. ‘Bobby?’ she said, puzzled.

‘Sally?’ said the laundry trolley in a muffled voice, and then dirty bed linen began cascading out of the trolley and Bobby’s head appeared. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he said. ‘I’ve probably got Black Plague.’

‘There hasn’t been any Black Plague in this country for ninety years,’ said Sally.

Since this was the sort of thing Sally always knew, Bobby accepted her statement as fact, felt enormously relieved and climbed out of the trolley. ‘I’ve got just what we need!’ he said, as he clumped to the window.

Sally looked at his feet and decided that, yes, he probably did. She joined him at the window, and they settled down to wait for Auntie Kate to get back and trigger the chaos they needed to cover their escape.

There were things that Bobby wanted to know. ‘Sally,’ he said, as they crouched there, ‘all that stuff about your insides being weird …’

‘I think they want to put me in a glass case or something,’ she said. ‘Museum specimen.’

‘You love museums.’

‘Not to live in, stupid!’

Bobby grinned and then turned serious again. ‘I heard two of the nurses talking—’ he began, but Sally interrupted.

‘I was going to save this for later,’ she said, ‘but there were spies. Or secret service people or Feds or something. They had guns. They had me on a lie detector, they were asking me about UFO’s, whether I believe in people from outer space.’

‘That’s where the nurses think you come from.’

Sally laughed out loud. ‘That’s ridiculous! What about my baby photos? If I come from outer space where did the real Sally go?’ She paused when she saw how serious Bobby’s face was. ‘They were really saying that?’

Bobby twitched his lips into a grin that he did not feel inside. ‘Hey. Sall. You know grown-ups. They’ll believe anything.’

She looked at him. Maybe he believed it too.

Jim and Maria had been willing enough to accompany Dr Chambers and the black-suited Soulos and Forbes to a conference room attached to Dr Chambers’s office. Jim had even gone along with the suggestion that he take a further test, sitting in a chair with sensors monitoring his pulse, blood pressure and his skin electrical resistance.

It was when Forbes spun a chair and sat on it facing him, and Soulos began monitoring the readouts, that there came back to him in a rush a memory of a police movie he had seen once. He gaped at Forbes as the penny dropped. ‘This isn’t a medical test, this is a lie detector!’ he said to her.

Soulos looked up from his equipment. ‘A person with nothing to hide doesn’t mind taking a polygraph test.’

‘Would you take one?’ Jim was feeling indignant.

‘My job involves having things to hide,’ Soulos said smugly, and smirked.

‘Tell me your name,’ Forbes said.

‘James Robert Harrison.’

‘And where do you live?’

‘One two seven Middle Street.’

Soulos spoke without looking up from his telltales. ‘He’s telling the same story the girl told,’ he said.

‘It’s not a story,’ said Jim. ‘It happens to be the truth. You can check the phone book, the electoral records—’

‘Puh-leeze, Mr Harrison, if that’s really your name,’ said Forbes. ‘Written documents are the easiest things of all to forge.’ She paused. ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’

‘Are you crazy?’ Jim looked at Maria. ‘These are crazy people!’ He looked back at Forbes. ‘What institution have you people escaped from?’

‘I ask the questions,’ said Forbes. ‘Do you believe in UFOs, yes or no?’

‘No! Why would any sane person believe in UFOs?’ He looked at Maria. ‘They believe in UFOs!’

Maria lifted her hands and looked at the ceiling. ‘I give up,’ she said.

Soulos was looking at the readouts. He seemed disappointed. ‘Polygraph says he doesn’t believe in them.’

‘You know my opinions about polygraph tests,’ said Forbes, and then went on. ‘Do you believe the person known as Sally Harrison is your daughter?’

Jim stared at her. He hesitated long enough to get control of his anger but when he spoke he was deadly serious. ‘I don’t know who you people are or what you think you’re doing, but you’re going to regret the day you ever pulled this stunt on my family.’

‘Answer the question,’ said Forbes. ‘She’s your daughter, yes or no?’

‘Sally’s our daughter and anyone trying to say different’s going to find themselves in court!’ Jim yelled, standing up and starting to strip off the pressure bandages and electrodes.

‘Believes she’s his daughter,’ murmured Soulos.

‘Come on,’ Jim said to Maria. ‘We’ll wait in the lobby for Kate.’ He turned to Chambers, Forbes and Soulos. ‘You three clowns are in deep trouble!’ Then he took Maria’s hand and they walked out of there.

Forbes turned to Chambers. ‘We have to move her.’

‘Not from this hospital,’ Chambers pleaded. ‘You don’t know important this is. You must’ve heard of the Nobel Prize?’

‘It’s controlled by a foreign power, I understand,’ said Soulos in tones of deepest suspicion.

‘The whole principle of foreign powers giving prizes to our nationals is deeply suspect,’ said Forbes. ‘Now take us to the creature known as Sally Harrison.’

Chambers led the way.

As this was happening, Kate Giovanelli’s red hatchback was driving into the hospital parking area. It pulled up. Kate got out, briefcase in hand, walked away a few yards, turned and used her zapper to lock the car and set the alarm. She loved doing that. It made her feel like a lady gunslinger.

Now she walked toward the main entrance, looking up to where she knew Sally’s window to be. She was not entirely surprised not to see anyone there.

At the next window, Sally and Bobby were crouching down so she could not see them. Sally reasoned that if Auntie Kate knew they were loose, it might complicate her legal arguments. ‘Our escape’s on a strictly need-to-know basis,’ she had told Bobby.

‘Spy talk’s catching,’ he had answered.

They now watched as Kate entered the hospital building. ‘We give her one minute to get started,’ Sally muttered.

Kate was approaching the front inquiry desk. She was smiling. Pray no one ever smiles at you in the way Kate Giovanelli was smiling at the desk clerk. And as she smiled, she said a few words. ‘I have a court order,’ she said. ‘I want Dr Chambers and I want him
now.’

As this was happening, Chambers, Forbes and Soulos were marching along a corridor on the hospital’s third level.

The door of room 311 opened and Bobby and Sally looked out, Sally’s head above Bobby’s. They saw Chambers and the two agents approaching and pulled back into the room, closing the door just enough so they could not be seen but could peer out and hear anything that was said.

‘Sister!’ Chambers yelled to the night sister at her station. ‘We need to move patient Harrison!’

The night sister got up and moved toward Chambers and the two agents from where she was sitting at the other end of the corridor. She and the party of three were each about ten metres from room 311 when Bobby, wearing his rollerblades and piggybacking Sally, glided out of the empty room and sped for the elevators!

Chambers and Agents Forbes and Soulos stared, jaws dropping in astonishment as Bobby sped toward them with Sally on his back like a jockey. Recovering, they made a grab for the twins but it was too late! Before they could get them, Bobby and Sally had ploughed through their ranks, and were speeding away!

At the other end of the corridor an elevator door was opening and the twins were speeding toward it with Chambers, the night sister and the two agents running after them.

Bobby skidded through the elevator doors as they started to close, and he turned, and Sally reached down and hit the button for the ground level, and the doors snapped shut in the faces of their pursuers just in time!

Four adult fingers try to hit the Down button all at once, but the elevator was already moving, and they turned, each sucking a painful index finger, and ran for the stairs!

Inside the elevator, Bobby and Sally jiggled in impatience, waiting to reach the ground level and continue their run for freedom.

Ground. The elevator doors opened. People were waiting to get in, but they stepped back as Bobby rollerbladed forward and people in the foyer blinked as Bobby, with Sally riding piggy-back, came through at what felt like a zillion k toward the entrance.

By this time Jim and Maria had joined Kate in the lobby, and they were waiting for the desk clerk to locate Dr Chambers so that the court order could be served.

‘Excelleeeeeeeent!’ yelled Bobby as they sped out the doors, leaving several of their family gasping at their escape.

Jim and Maria ran after Bobby and Sally but by the time they got outside, the twins had disappeared. They returned to Kate. ‘Can you still serve the court order?’ asked Maria.

‘Why not?’ said Kate.

‘Well if the kids have got away, can we still demand that the hospital produce them?’

‘Have the twins got away?’ asked Kate, with a grim smile. ‘I’m not sure I saw anything. I must’ve blinked.’

Jim and Maria were smiling.

‘I want to see this Chambers stew,’ said Kate.

At that moment, Dr Chambers panted down the fire stairs into the lobby, followed by Agents Forbes and Soulos. Looking desperately in all directions, they spotted Jim and Maria standing with Kate, and ran over to them.

‘You seen them?’ said Chambers to Maria and Jim.

‘Seen who?’ said Jim.

‘Your children! The specimen and her brother!’ Chambers was on the edge of hysteria.

‘Parents are supposed to look after their children!’ said Soulos.

‘Some people don’t deserve to have them!’ added Forbes.

They were so busy scolding Maria and Jim that they had not noticed Kate. Suddenly she made her move, stepped in between the Harrisons and Chambers and slapped the court order into his hand. ‘That’s a court order,’ she snapped. ‘Produce Sally. Now.’

Chambers looked at her. ‘And who might you be?’

‘Kate Giovanelli, the Harrison family attorney.’ Kate looked at her watch, pressed a button and it beeped as the stopwatch function started running. ‘The clock’s ticking. There’s a judge in chambers just itching to send someone to gaol for contempt of court. Produce Sally Harrison or you’re going to meet him.’

‘I can’t!’ said Chambers. ‘She’s escaped.’

‘Excuse me?’ said Kate, ‘These words you’re using? A moment ago you called my clients’ daughter a “specimen”. Now you’re saying she’s escaped. Is this a laboratory you’re running here, Doctor? A prison? A zoo? Is this a juvenile facility? In what way do your “specimens escape”? Doctor? An answer? The clock is ticking.’

Chambers turned to Agents Forbes and Soulos. ‘Can’t you people do something about this?’ he hissed.

‘Regrettably civilian courts still have certain powers,’ said Forbes.

‘It’s something I’ve always thought should be adjusted in the interests of law and order,’ said Soulos.

‘But for the moment,’ said Forbes, with infinite regret, ‘it looks like you’re in the poo. Over your head.’

‘“We”,’ said Chambers. ‘We’re in the poo.’

‘No,’ said Soulos. ‘You are.’

But Forbes was looking at Kate. ‘Ms Giovanelli, you seem like a reasonable person. For a lawyer. Mr Soulos here and I work for … a government department. We’re going to take you into our confidence.’

‘I.D.,’ said Kate.

‘You got it,’ said Forbes, and produced a plastic laminated security pass with her photo on it.

Kate examined it then handed it back. ‘That could be forged,’ she said.

‘You have a very suspicious mind,’ said Soulos, then added, ‘I like that in a woman.’

There was a moment’s silence, and then Kate nodded. ‘I have to speak to my clients.’ She moved off a little way with Maria and Jim and whispered. ‘The kids are out of here and probably on their way home. Why don’t we play these creeps along a bit and find out what they’re up to?’

Jim and Maria exchanged a look, and then nodded their agreement.

Kate turned to Chambers and the agents. ‘Okay, without prejudice, we’ll hear you out.’

‘What’s “without prejudice” mean?’ said Jim.

‘It means we’re giving away nothing,’ said Kate, and not for the first time that day, she looked like a gunslinger about to take on the bad guys.