“If you believe that about Charlie,” Sean said coolly, staring Parker straight in the eye, “then you should never have taken either of us on in the first place.”
Parker shrugged. “What I believe is immaterial,” he said, but he was rattled. “It’s other people’s perceptions that are the problem here.”
“Why?” Sean demanded, letting the word crack out. “If she was a guy, everyone would be queuing up to buy her a beer and listen to the war stories. But because she’s a woman, the fact that she’s good at her job and has proved it in the field is considered somehow indecent.” He tilted his head as though he had the other man on a microscope slide. “I thought you were more enlightened, Parker.”
“Tell that to our clients, Sean,” Parker snapped back. “We lost another contract this morning. They’re leaving like rats off a sinking ship!” He held up a hand when Sean would have countered, pinched at the bridge of his nose for a few long moments, trying to relieve the tension. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“Don’t be,” I said roughly, trying not to make my despair obvious. “You brought us in as an asset not a liability, and I’ve brought this trouble down on you.”
He waved away my latest apology and seemed to make an effort to focus. “What we need—”
There was a sudden knock on the door and Bill Rendelson stuck his head round without waiting for an invitation, his expression sour.
“You got calls stacking up, boss,” he said shortly. His eyes slid to Sean and me and, if anything, his face grew even more thunderous. “And they’re ready for you to go back in.”
“Cards on the table time,” Sean said, and his coolly indifferent tone was a challenge all by itself. “I assume you don’t have a significant drinking problem?” The wording was a nicely irritant touch, implying as it did that the older man did indeed have an issue with alcohol and the only subject under discussion was the severity.
My father didn’t so much glare at Sean as subject him to a withering scrutiny most people would have shriveled under. Probably me included.
“Of course I don’t.”
He and my mother had seated themselves in two of the client chairs, side by side, forming a united front. Parker had taken his customary seat behind the desk and I wondered if he was trying to reassert his authority by such a move. I hovered in between, leaning on a corner of the desk as though ready to play for either side, depending how things were going.
“In view of your somewhat public confession, there’s no ‘of course’ about it,” Sean said with a deadly smile. He sat down in one of the client chairs opposite my parents and crossed his legs, apparently totally at ease, before adding quietly, “So, are you going to tell us what the real story is here? What really happened to this patient of yours who died in Boston?”
For a moment my father didn’t speak, then he gave an audible sigh, as though gathering his inner resources. “Jeremy Lee had severe spinal osteoporosis,” he said at last.
“Osteoporosis?” Parker queried as we exchanged blank looks. “That’s the kind of thing little old ladies get, isn’t it? Makes them fall down and break their hips.”
My father gave a pained nod at this somewhat simplistic view. “In essence, yes,” he allowed. “But it affects in excess of two hundred million people worldwide—twenty percent of whom are men. That’s more than forty million, and the problem is growing.”
“What causes it?” I asked. “And what caused it in this case?”
“It’s a popular misconception that it’s down to calcium deficiency, but that’s not the whole story. We have an aging population, more sedentary lifestyles.” My father shrugged. “But in half the cases of osteoporosis in men, the cause is unknown,” he said. “Although smoking can affect bone cells, and drinking inhibits the body’s absorption of calcium, Jeremy did neither.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Foxcroft,” Parker said, “we have a lot of homegrown medical talent over here. Why were you called in?”
My father favored him with an austere smile. “To begin with, Jeremy was misdiagnosed and had lost a certain amount of faith in his colleagues,” he said. “By the time he contacted me—or rather, his wife did—he was very ill. Miranda was hopeful that there might be a surgical option that would offer him some relief, and I think it’s fair to say I have a recognized level of expertise in that area.”
At this point it seemed to occur to him that the events of the last few days might have sullied that spotless reputation somewhat. A shadow, no more than a flicker, passed across his face. My mother, sitting next to him, snuck her fingers through his and squeezed. For a moment he squeezed back, then disengaged his hand. He never once looked at her directly.
“Miranda called me and asked for my help,” he added simply. “So I went.”
It must be nice, I thought with fierce jealousy, to have the kind of friendship with my father that motivates such an instant response.
“And was there anything you could do?” Sean asked.
My father shook his head. “I did some tests to see if there was the possibility of installing titanium cages to support Jeremy’s vertebrae, but it was too late for that. His bones were like chalk. By the time I got there he was in a wheelchair, his spine had almost totally collapsed and he was in constant pain.” That shadow again, darker this time. “It was … difficult to see him like that.”
I felt the transfer of his anger. “And what was being done for him?”
“Not much beyond palliative care,” he said, dismissive. “They’d tried him on synthetic bone-stimulating hormones in an attempt to increase his bone density, but without success. According to his notes, over the past few months his condition had deteriorated at a rate I would normally have expected to take years. I ruled out anything environmental, went back several generations to eliminate the hereditary angle. It seemed to me that the hospital was making little attempt to find out the root cause of his illness.”
“Surely,” Sean said, frowning, “if he was getting older—”
“Jeremy was in his early forties,” my father cut in. “I met him when he was a young student over in London. Hardly an old man, would you say?”
“So, what happened?”
“I discovered that the hospital was involved in clinical trials for a new treatment for osteoporosis developed by the pharmaceutical giant, Storax. It’s not yet licensed, but they’ve had some remarkable successes so far. I contacted them to see if it might be possible to use it in this case.”
“I didn’t think you were such a risk taker, Richard,” Sean said.
“Sean,” my mother said in quiet censure. “A man’s life was at stake.”
My father acknowledged her intervention with a faint nod. “Miranda voiced her doubts but, by that stage I felt there was very little to lose and I convinced her we should give it a try. I felt we had few options left open to us.”
“And what did Jeremy Lee feel about this?”
“Jeremy had picked up an infection and lapsed into a coma,” he said, no emotion in his voice. “Storax were reluctant to extend their trial at this stage, but in the end I … persuaded them.” He gave another small smile. “They sent two of their people up to Boston to administer the treatment. And that’s when we discovered that Jeremy had already received it.”
“Hold on,” Parker said. “You mean he’d already been given this Storax treatment and was still getting worse?”
“That’s how it appeared. My suspicion was that the hospital had been using him as an unwitting guinea pig.” He took a moment that might have been to calm himself, and his expression afterwards was almost rueful. “I’m afraid I may have made my dissatisfaction with this state of affairs somewhat clear.”