Gillian Galbraith - Blood In The Water

The Vixen joined Pearson in the cafeteria. He was attempting to swallow, still with no saliva, a tuna sandwich. His mind was on Christmas, and the best place to get a large tree. They’d need a new barrel for it, as the old one was no longer stable. He’d have to make the time to paint the new one red. He found Miss Fox’s strong perfume headache-inducing rather than seductive. Oblivious to his wish to be alone, she immediately began to talk about their case.

‘The pursuer did herself no favours this morning. All that nonsense about the sensation of spiders clambering up her legs!’

‘Yes,’ he replied wearily, wishing that someone somewhere would beam Miss Fox up or, at least, bleep her. Being no student of body language, she persisted.

‘Should be good this afternoon. I’ve completed the joint minute, by the way, and it’s being typed as we speak, so there’s no need for any tedious wage-loss evidence.’

‘Excellent,’ Pearson said, rising while finishing his coffee in order to extricate himself from her unwelcome company. ‘See you at two o’clock, Rowena.’

The court rose, as usual, at four pm, business then being considered to be completed for the day. Lord Grey, dressed in his silk robes, informed them all that he could not sit until ten-thirty the next morning, as he had criminal matters to deal with before the Proof could resume. All the lawyers present bowed to the judge when he stood up, then he was escorted off the bench to his chambers by his macer. Goode quickly edged along the bar clutching a large pile of disordered papers. ‘Nuisance value offer still on the table?’ he enquired wistfully. Pearson shook his head.

‘No. The insurers want her blood now.’

He lifted his own heavy pile and exited the windowless court room. As the oak double doors swung behind him he was approached by Mr Edwards, one of the representatives of the insurance company. The man wanted to engage in a post mortem of the day’s proceedings and Pearson knew that it would be politic to do so, but he was tired and hungry and had only twenty minutes in which to refuel before his next meeting. Consequently, he gestured silently at his watch and resumed his hurried walk away from Court Four. Having removed his wig and gown he went to the library to collect the next set of folders, his heart heavy in the knowledge that he would have to spend the evening working in the library. He silently ranted about Mrs Wylie. Thanks to her desire for ill-deserved compensation he’d have to forfeit the next three evenings at home, be deprived of doing any leisurely Christmas shopping and miss his youngest grandchild’s first nativity play, in which she was to appear as a king. In the nearby tea-room, the ‘Lower Aisle’, he grabbed an egg roll, ate it quickly and with relish and then downed a hurried cup of tea.

His consultation with Dr McCrone went well. The eminent plastic surgeon had undertaken a bilateral mastectomy with breast reconstruction on a patient suffering from fibrocystic breast disease. He was accused of carrying out the operation without informing her of the possibility of a poor cosmetic outcome and the probability of impaired breast sensation. Fortunately, the aged consultant was able to point to abbreviations in the record of his pre-operative meeting with his patient which, he explained, represented his checklist for risks brought to the patient’s attention. Opposite each abbreviation, including those standing for ‘appearance’ and ‘sensation’ were clear red tick marks.

David Pearson was relieved. The doctor had retired with an unblemished record, and the prospect of his reputation being tarnished at this late stage now seemed fairly remote. Nonetheless, the old fellow looked worried, and there was a patina of sweat on his brow which occasionally he wiped away with his handkerchief. He explained that he could remember the pursuer, Katrina Blackwell, perfectly well. She’d been experiencing, as she’d tearfully confided in him at their meeting, marital problems, and believed that her enhanced appearance might resolve her husband’s sexual difficulties. In consequence of her high expectations he’d been at particular pains to emphasise the risks involved in the procedure itself and the spectrum of cosmetic and sensory outcomes that might follow it. He examined, as he spoke, the black and white photographs of the pursuer’s left breast showing the rigid wrinkles and loose skin folds which disfigured it. His matter-of-fact manner left David Pearson unprepared for the images of bruised and distorted flesh passed to him, and he struggled not to grimace before returning the photos to the surgeon.

‘I wish it had worked out better for the young lady,’ Dr McCrone sighed. ‘I did my best. No one seems to doubt that, luckily, but sometimes capsular contraction occurs and she was one of the unlucky ones. She’s had two further operations you know, with Dr Small, both privately. One was for the removal of the… eh… submuscular implants and the insertion of subcutaneous ones and the other, I think, involved… eh… the removal of the subcutaneous ones, and substitution with anatomical implants. I haven’t seen any photos but I gather she’s quite happy with the… eh… end result.’

‘Very good, doctor. Have we a date for the proof, yet?’ the QC asked his solicitor.

She consulted her file. ‘October, next year. It’s been set down for ten days.’

‘Excellent,’ Pearson replied, gathering his papers to signal the end of the consultation.

‘I am afraid there may be a problem, then,’ Dr McCrone interjected. ‘I have cancer, you know, and I might not be around.’

Without missing a beat, the two lawyers said together, ‘Evidence on commission’, and grinned at each other in recognition of their simultaneous answer to the problem, now solved.

David Pearson climbed the stairs from the lower consulting rooms and headed, without enthusiasm, to the waiting room. He saw Rose Ford, his next instructing agent, standing with her back to the gas fire. Their eyes met and he waved. She was such an attractive woman and highly intelligent with it. He was surer than ever that she fancied him. Hallelujah! No vacancy at present, but sooner or later one would come up, they always did. She crossed the room to greet him and broke her good news. The consultant neurosurgeon that they were due to meet had been unavoidably detained; he would be unable to attend and the consultation would have to be rescheduled for another day. Neither openly expressed their elation at this gift of time returned, but they left the consulting rooms together, each aware of the other’s reaction.

By seven-thirty pm Pearson was the only soul left in the Advocates’ Library. He was meticulously working his way through the copy of Mrs Wylie’s general practice notes again. Her doctor was due to give evidence the next day, and the Silk had noted references to increasingly painful arthritis in the right wrist starting at about the time of the accident for which his clients were blamed. If the GP could be persuaded to speak to the disabling effect of the arthritic wrist, then he might be able to argue that whether or not they’d damaged her back she would, in any event, have been unable to continue to work due to her unrelated wrist condition. The doctor’s writing was impossible and the photocopy was blurred. Abbreviations everywhere. He painstakingly marked, with a pink highlighter pen, all the entries of wrist complaints he could find in the copy records for easy reference in the court the next day. Having done this, he stretched, gathered his papers and dumped the whole lot in his box, to be forgotten about until the morning. If he could just get home quickly enough he might catch the tail-end of his favourite cookery programme, not that he ever cooked or intended to cook. But the cook herself, she was the draw.