There was a distant sound of children’s delighted laughter.
Finn fixed his eyes on the prisoner who was sitting on the bare bed along the wall of their jail cell. He paced back and forth, gesticulating with his hands and expressing dismay with his facial expressions. ‘So, I take off like I always do. Way out in front of the mobile home who’s barely over the starting line and I think, why the rush? Why not take it a little easy? You know, smell the roses? Well, let me tell you, those roses stink!’
More muted laughter. The criminal opposite him shook his head in shared contempt. Finn carried on with the monologue and delivered his last lines standing still, talking directly to his cellmate. ‘You smell the roses, you lose the race, and they get you for match fixing. What a day! Anyway, that’s my story. What’re you in for?’ He paused to hear the answer.
A ripple of laughter filled the silence.
‘You’re the guy who ate the grandma?! Oh, I heard about you. And I thought I had it rough!’ Finn chuckled and then abruptly changed his expression from mirth to terror. ‘Waddya mean you’re still hungry?’ He backed away in fear and rose a wagging finger. ‘Don’t even think about it. I could run around this cell all day!’ He took off on a comical run, three quick circles around the cell with the wolf in hot pursuit in his mind only.
Then the wolf and the jail cell disappeared and Finn was back in the drama hall. The kids on the floor were cheering and clapping wildly. Miss Poulson was staring at Finn with a stunned smile. Toula’s jaw was just about on the floor.
Finn looked for Kelly. She was still at the back of the room, grinning at him. He grinned back.When you’re acting, you’re not yourself anymore.
Finn had just found his escape.
Chapter Thirty
Monday 17 April
Kelly had been sitting in the car park for half an hour, unable to open the door. Instead, she watched the medical staff filing into the hospital. Waiting for one of them, at any moment, to turn and identify her. To call her out. To ruin her plan and her career.
But nobody did. They didn’t even look her way. Kelly’s car was just another vehicle in the staff car park at South East Children’s, where Eli worked. And she was just another young Registrar who had come to do clinical exams on patients in order to study for her exam. Nothing unusual about that. Except that she was wearing a wig, scrub hat and fake glasses.
When Kelly hadn’t turned up to study group on Wednesday night, Eli had appeared at her apartment and she told him everything. She had spent the day after the hearing alternating between burning rage and catatonic depression. Finn was gone, her career was in ruins and she couldn’t see any way out. Until Eli came up with a plan.
Though daring and unethical, it actually made good sense. They had gone shopping yesterday for everything they would need to conceal her identity. The wig was cheap and obvious but underneath the scrub hat, which was unusual to wear outside surgery but not unheard of, only the dark ends were visible. The fake glasses had a slight tint and she wore an N95 mask, which was so large it covered most of her face.
All she had to do was keep her wits about her, stay out of trouble and act like she belonged there. To that end, Eli made her a fake hospital pass with alarming competence. ‘Misspent youth,’ was his only explanation.
And though it may have been unethical, it wasn’t actuallywrong. In fact, it was for the good of the patients. The more Kelly studied for her clinical exam, the better chance she would have of passing and becoming an Advanced Trainee, one more step on the path to becoming a fully qualified paediatrician. And a bloody good one at that.
Okay, so technically, she needed the hospital’s permission to examine patients, but she couldn’t possibly obtain that without some serious questions being asked. And the answers would just get her banned from this hospital as well, so better not to stir up unnecessary trouble.
Kelly stepped out of the car, looked at her shoes and shuffled towards the hospital entrance. She wore her identification badge pinned to her shapeless, unremarkable scrubs. A quick flick of her eyes revealed that the security guard didn’t even look at her. Fair enough. What reason would he have to suspect that somebody was impersonating a staff member to get into the hospital?
Once inside, Kelly quickly gathered her bearings. She had timed her arrival for after the morning rounds of consultants, registrars and students, which would significantly reduce her chances of being caught, and had studied the hospital map with Eli, so she knew which corridor to take to get to the wards.
Nobody challenged her on the way through the corridors – they were all too busy to bother with a junior doctor – so she arrived at a patient’s bedside without any trouble. The little girl was about six years old and her mother and father sat on either side of the bed. The girl was sitting up, watching an iPad. Her parents were in the motionless daze of those who have gone a night where sleep was replaced by intense worry. Kelly knew the key was to be as unobtrusive as possible. For the most part, parents were happy to have as many doctors as possible examine their children. She could tell that these two would fall easily into that category.
‘Hello,’ she said with a demure nod of her head, avoiding direct eye contact. ‘My name is Dr Lloyd and I’m studying to be a paediatrician. I have my clinical exam coming up and I was hoping you’d give me permission to examine your daughter to help me prepare. It will only take a few minutes.’
The mother looked up at Kelly, confused but without any resistance in her eyes. ‘But the doctor has already seen her this morning.’
‘Yes, this is purely to help me study. Not as part of her treatment.’
The mother looked at the father, who shrugged. ‘Can’t hurt, I guess,’ he said. ‘As long as it doesn’t cause her any pain.’
‘I promise it won’t,’ Kelly said, trying to keep her tone subdued, despite her heart racing with elation. Was this crazy plan actually working?
The little girl followed Kelly’s instructions without objections. She lay down obediently, her condition having dulled the spark of youth in her eyes. Kelly undertook her exam, feeling, listening, observing. She wasn’t allowed to ask the patient or the parents any questions. She had to work out what was wrong purely from her own experience. It was a gruelling test, with any number of possibilities, but the girl’s shortness of breath suggested ventricular septal defect.
Kelly returned the little girl to her previous upright position in front of the iPad. She took the clipboard from the pouch at the end of the bed and read the notes, suppressing her triumph at seeing that the girl had been admitted last night and had an echocardiogram scheduled to confirm diagnosis of the defect Kelly had identified.
She placed the clipboard back into the pouch and nodded at the parents, who had watched Kelly without a word, still stunned into silence by the fate that had suddenly befallen their daughter. ‘Thank you so much and best wishes for your daughter’s treatment.’
She scurried away before they had a chance to respond, skidding into the corridor with a beaming smile hidden beneath her mask.
Chapter Thirty-one
