Chapter One
The alarm went off for the 3rd time now so I really had to get up this time and followed by shouts from my lovely wife,
“Jim!”
I was up like a shot. I had a presentation that morning so I should have had an early night but colleagues of mine would be half asleep in the conference by the time I got to work anyway so I wasn’t too worried. I had been thinking about getting a job locally in Surrey as the pay was just as good but it would mean practically retiring at the age of 39 in the medical profession and I hadn’t slaved away all those years at a London teaching hospital to give up on my career ambitions this early on. The drive into Central London was killing me though and I had to realize I didn’t have the stamina I used to when it came to late night drinks.
I walked into the conference fashionably late, winked at my team and quickly caught up on the usual case study discussions and finger pointing that went on at these meetings. I had my presentation on a USB stick as usual, well prepared and confident that my sugar coating of our teams’ significant patient case studies would put off most contenders from any criticism of myself or any of my team. There were the usual characters that wanted elaboration on certain points but nothing that diminished our excellent work that month.
The show was over and our consultant gave the usual satisfactory grunt to the team ready for his weekly ward round with the other 10 or so younger medics that joined us to see each patient on the ward. The nurses were around of course but I didn’t want to look at Sian directly in case anyone twigged that there was something going on between us and they did like to gossip on the ward. Sian was a young nurse staying at the hospital residence that I had been seeing for a few months. I wasn’t proud of myself but we had a great time together and the way she looked up to me melted my heart a bit. She understood it was just an affair and that I would never leave my family but I took a great risk not just with my family but with my career as well in seeing her late at night on hospital grounds. I was there the previous night which is why I was late that morning.
I got a bleep after lunch that a young male had been taken into A&E in a critical condition and they needed me down there right away so of course I put down my coffee and rushed to emergency. Right away it didn’t look kosher and I couldn’t pick up on what was going on with this guy, there were no signs of physical injury or any other red flags that might explain his critical condition. I put him on the Intensive Care Unit for monitoring and carried out further tests.
I had a pretty full day and had managed to avoid Sian for most of it, it was late and I was definitely going straight home tonight but I wanted to check on the emergency case I had admitted to intensive care. I checked with the nurses on his condition and it was stable but he had no ID on him and when they asked him his name all they got was ‘Simon’. He was middle eastern looking so ‘Simon’ didn’t make much sense but I checked his vital signs and he leaned towards me and said something, thinking it was a request I leant closer and he whispered,
’defense zulu’
I didn’t know what to make of it but I asked the overnight nurse to keep an eye on him and went home. I was late again and this time Susie was fuming, my wife was a psychologist but when it came to reading the closest person to her, which was hopefully me she was useless. I tried to explain it was a crazy day and that I had to stay late working and she responded with,
“Right up some nurses’ skirt!”
She had arranged a dinner with my sister and her husband and I had completely forgotten about it but she could have reminded me and she knows how much I hated them both anyway.
“Listen sweet, I had a weird critical case today and it did my head in a bit The last thing I want is to listen to my lawyer sister and her prick of a husband go on about their day, so I think we dodged a bullet there because I might have lost it with them this time, so silver lining! Next time text me anyway to remind me so I can avoid them deliberately, haha”.
“Ok Jim but don’t let me hear about any shenanigans with nurses, your getting too old to be flirting with girls half your age”.
“I only have eyes for you petal. I’ll get passed these next set of exams and you’ll be married to a consultant, the old guy is on the verge of passing on the mantle, I promise”.
I arrived at work the next day much more refreshed after a good nights’ sleep with Susie and maybe I would get the chance to tell Sian today that we couldn’t see each other anymore but straight away I noticed that the critical admission was not on the list for this morning.
“Hi Sarah, where is the critical patient I admitted yesterday, nurses had him down as just Simon?”
“He’s gone”
“He passed away?”
“No, apparently he just walked out”
“Who was on call?”
“a sub team”
which means a locum or temp “Did you even see the patient?”
“Nope”
Well, I knew our intensive care unit was not fort knox but they also can’t be bothered to pass on proper information between each other when a patient leaves. I had no clue who this patient was under my care that needed looking after for at least a week. I knew it was only 12 to 15 hours max he was here but I had to keep all paperwork just in case. I chased lab up for blood results and they came back inconclusive but with strange results. I explained to lab that the patient just vanished in the middle of the night so keep everything on file, under Simon X as we don’t know his full name.
My mind started racing that I might have let a possible terrorist go contaminating London with god knows what. Biological blood tests came back negative though but his body was reacting badly to something so it must have been some sort of chemical that we weren’t testing for. He was middle eastern looking but to me that could be Mexican, I really didn’t know but central London is a hot target for terrorists. I decided to keep it to myself for the time being as I had a responsibility to protect my staff from my over imagination or paranoia. I often had a quiet drink at the medical school bar with my colleague Dave at the end of the day when the students weren’t having another party to celebrate god knows what. He was level headed so I decided to share this strange case with him.
“This patient vanished over night, I haven’t told anyone except you now. Tell me I’m being paranoid Dave, ’defense zulu?’, sounds like he’s getting his movies mixed up, right?”
“Did anything come up from the lab?”
“Nothing biological but white cells were off the charts, so must be chemical, but the guy had no ID and kept repeating Simon when nurses asked his name”
“It’s a weird one mate, I should forget it if I was you, a lot less have ended careers round here”
“I want to tell the police but to say what? That I had suspicions last night but never reported it?
“How critical was he?”
“BP was down and out so I had him on the usual treatment but he managed to walk out of here a few hours later”
“Are you still seeing that nurse, what’s her name?”
“Sian, yeah I was with her drinking the night before in her room on hospital grounds. I have to stop doing that, the wife is definitely sniffing me out on that one”
“Look, get your life in order, keep it in your pants, and stop keeping terrorists alive on the streets of London while you’re at it”
“You bastard, I bet he was quoting his favorite movies, sod it, haha”.
Showing up at home drunk again was not good for my marriage but this time my younger sister was there, a university dropout that lived with our father who had dementia, she was his full time carer since our mother passed away and usually wanted money but I was pleased to see her anyway.
“Mary, I’m having a really shitty week and probably more pissed than you tonight, but out of interest what are you doing here?”
“You’re wife let me in”
“It’s good to see you but I think we’re both on the couch tonight, we’ll flip for the 3 seater, loser shares with the cat”
“Fine, you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
“In the morning Mary, sleep well”.
