This turns out to be a big fat lie, but I do make progress. The tongue is a magnificent thing. I think about it a lot, now that all my hopes and dreams depend upon it, and less than a week after my wofe betrayed me to a possible killer, Jean and Tracy prop me up in bed and spoon orange juice down my throat.
Elixir of the gods. I know everything is relative, but it tastes so good to me that I actually start to cry.
‘Ahhh, look how happy!’ says Jean.
‘Ahhh,’ parrots Tracy Evans, but I can see she’s not interested. She barely looks at me and keeps clattering the teaspoon against my teeth. She’s looking for the man she’s trying to… well, seduce is too elegant a word. She thinks we don’t see. I suppose she thinks we’re all vegetables, but I see; I know what she’s up to. I knew girls like her at Hot Stuff in Merthyr. All the lads knew them – sometimes twice a night.
She puts the juice in too fast and I feel the strange and horrible sensation of it going down the wrong way.
‘Ah!’
Jean notices – bless her. She jumps up and rushes to get a machine I’ve seen them use on other patients. It’s like a vacuum cleaner and she feeds it down my throat and sucks stuff out of my airway with a nasty rattling sound, while Tracy stands there with her arms crossed, as if I’m making a fuss about nothing and had better not blame her. But in Jean’s eyes I can see how serious this could be.
She puts the horrible tube into me twice more, and collects watery orange mucus in a kidney bowl while my eyes stream with something similar, and I fight to keep breathing.
Finally she stops and takes Tracy away. For a bollocking, I hope.
I lie there panting, feel as if I’ve been punched on the inside, all my fresh hope scrunched into a stupid ball and tossed away.
Even if they’re not trying to kill me, they might yet succeed.
And all I can do is lie here and wait for it.
‘Patrick Fort!’ said Professor Madoc, as if he were a long-lost friend. ‘Have a seat.’
Patrick sat down and looked around. Professor Madoc fiddled with a Rubik’s cube behind the vast wooden desk that held two silver-framed photographs – one of a smiling young woman, and the other of a boat. There was another photo of the same boat on the wall behind him, with the professor himself looking tanned and rich, waving from the puffy red depths of a life-jacket. Patrick could read the name painted on the prow: Sharp End.
‘Damn thing,’ said Professor Madoc at the cube. ‘You ever done one of these?’
‘Yes,’ said Patrick.
The professor put it down and cleared his throat. ‘I hear you’ve had a few run-ins, Patrick. A few problems.’
‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘No problems.’
‘That’s not what people have told me.’
‘OK.’
Professor Madoc looked at a piece of paper in front of him.
‘Inappropriate attitude to staff, a near-physical altercation with a fellow student over a cadaver, ignoring procedure during dissection, and unauthorized access to confidential donation details.’
‘I wanted to know the cause of death; that’s not confidential.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Professor Madoc. His hand strayed towards the cube but he caught it in time and drummed his fingers on the desktop instead. ‘You broke into a locked filing cabinet.’
‘I used the key.’
‘It was locked for a good reason.’
‘What reason?’
‘For reasons of confidentiality.’
‘But the cause of death isn’t confidential.’ How many times did he have to say it?
‘But the identity of the donor is.’
‘But I don’t care about the identity of the donor. I only wanted to know the cause of death.’
‘Listen,’ said Professor Madoc more sharply. ‘This is a medical school, not a kindergarten. We won’t tolerate this kind of disruption from our students, even ones with issues.’
‘What issues?’ said Patrick.
Professor Madoc took a moment to adjust to frankness. ‘We understand about your Asperger’s, Patrick, and we certainly have made allowances for it, but I have formally to advise you that we cannot make endless allowances. If I have further reports of incidents of this nature, I will be forced to suspend your studies here at Cardiff. Do you understand?’
Patrick pursed his lips.
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m trying to decide whether I care.’
Professor Madoc raised his eyebrows the way Mick had. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I might not care. I might have finished here. I don’t know if there’s any point in going on.’
‘No point in going on? What does that mean?’ The professor’s hand twitched again towards the cube.
Patrick thought that Professor Madoc might have a touch of Asperger’s himself, because he didn’t seem to comprehend anything he was saying.
‘I think the cause of death on the sheet is wrong. What’s the point of going on if I’m basing judgements on bad information?’
‘Cause of death is certified by a doctor.’
‘Doctors get it wrong all the time. You see it on TV.’
Professor Madoc’s hand flinched, and this time he followed through with a pick-up and started to twist the cube’s little coloured blocks – frowning at them disapprovingly as he went on.
‘The DR technician told me you asked him about a… doorway in the brain? Does that have anything to do with all of this?’
‘Yes,’ said Patrick, and stared at the cube turning in the man’s long, elegant fingers. ‘I want to know what happens.’
The professor sighed deeply and put down the cube. ‘You know, Patrick, all we see in the dissecting room is the physical aftermath of a life. A medical student starts his journey with the dead and works backwards.’
Patrick pursed his lips. ‘But I want to start with the dead and work forwards.’
Professor Madoc gave a small laugh. ‘The dead can’t speak to us, Patrick, although our lives would be immeasurably simpler if they could. While doctors might discover the mechanics of how someone died, they are privy to neither why they died nor to what happens to them after they die. To solve those puzzles I think you’d need to consult a detective… and a priest.’
He smiled, but Patrick didn’t.
‘And how do they solve those puzzles?’ said Patrick, leaning forward.
Professor Madoc looked a little taken aback by the sudden interest in a throwaway remark. He spread his hands in new uncertainty. ‘Well, I imagine a priest doesn’t actually know. That’s a matter of faith.’
‘Superstition,’ Patrick corrected him. ‘How does the detective know?’
The professor gave it serious thought. ‘Well,’ he finally said, ‘I suppose that to find out why somebody died, a detective would have to consult the living.’
‘What kind of living?’
‘Friends and family. Witnesses. Attending medical professionals. People like that, I suppose.’
Patrick sat back in his chair and Professor Madoc blew out his cheeks in relief. He wasn’t sure how this conversation had turned from him issuing a formal warning to a student firing awkward philosophical questions at him. He needed to get back on track.
‘You know, Patrick, Dr Spicer tells me that despite these difficulties, you’re a real talent in the dissection room. He says you’re a leading candidate for the Goldman Prize. It would be a shame to give up now, wouldn’t it?’