John Matthews - Past Imperfect

The extradural cortex was exposed. There was no sign of haematoma, and Trichot began to worry. He would have to go deeper. 'We must go into the subdural.'

Partly gelateneous, Trichot sliced through the dura easily with the scalpel, pulled back with a hook and prompted his assistant to shine a penlight into the aperture.

Grey and white tissue and vessels reflected brightly under the light; the dark matter of the blood clot only showed up as Trichot widened the arc of the penlight. It was in the upper portion of the temporal. He wouldn't be able to judge its size or remove all of it without a larger incision.

A nod, a dab. Trichot passed back the penlight. 'I'll have to go higher.'

The attending anaesthetist announced, 'Pulse rate sixty to sixty-five,' as the sound of the drill cut in again.

From seventy, seventy-five just a few minutes ago, thought Trichot. He looked across briefly at the blood pressure gauge. It had dropped 20 points to 116 over 67 in the same period. The burr hole made, he started sawing across, joining the two. The bleep rate dropped still further.

‘Fifty-four, fifty-one.' Now with a note of urgency.

Trichot was sweating profusely. Another dab. It was going to be a race against time. Another ten seconds of sawing, fifteen or twenty seconds to cut through the dura and widen the aperture. Then the time needed to suck away the clot itself would depend on how large it was. How much more would the pulse have dropped by then?

Trichot finished sawing, and pulled back with the hook. All but a small portion of the clot was now visible. The air pressure sucker was passed across.

'Forty-five….three... dropping fast! Forty!'

Trichot felt a twinge of panic. Once the pulse rate fell to thirty, thirty-two, it was effectively all over. He'd fought too hard for the boy to let him go now.

The air sucker ate into the congealed dark red mass of the clot. Within twenty seconds, Trichot had removed almost a third of it.

'…. Thirty-eight… seven.'

The rate of pulse drop had slowed, but part of the clot was still out of sight. Trichot glanced at the blood pressure gauge: 104 over 61. It was going to be a close call. If the rupture was behind the last portion of the clot; if it was difficult to reach to cauterize; if the pulse rate dropped more rapidly; if there was more than one rupture. Any one factor meant that he wouldn't make it in time. Beads of sweat massed on his forehead, and his own pulse drummed a double beat to the bleep from the monitor. Trichot moved his way upward with the sucker, praying that the ruptured vessel would soon come into view.

'Thirty-six… thirty-five! '

Outside, the alarm bell suddenly stopped ringing. Only the sound of the bleep remained, slowly counting down the seconds Trichot had left to save his patient's life.

Chapeau found a bar three blocks from the hospital and sat over a Pernod while he pondered what to do. How long would the boy be in the operating theatre: two hours, three? Probably he would be returned to the same intensive care room, but then what? He couldn't use the same fire distraction again, he would have to think of something else.

Nothing came to mind quickly, and Chapeau sharply knocked back another slug of Pernod. He should have made the hit the night before rather than wait till the morning. His best shot had probably now gone; he was going to be hard pushed to come up with an alternative plan that would be so effective and carry such low risk. Worse still, if the boy died on the operating table, there would be no more chances. He finished his drink, paid, and headed out. He needed a walk to clear his mind.

Early morning, nine-forty, the streets of Aix were coming to life. But Chapeau was in his own world, oblivious to passers-by: planning, scheming, weighing options. He'd walked for almost twenty minutes, blindly window shopping between his thoughts, when a smile slowly crossed his face. It was cheeky and audacious, but why not? He'd always liked a gamble, and the prospect of shafting that little paedophile prick, Alain, somehow appealed to him. He thought it through once more for possible pitfalls, but it was perfect: the timing matched almost exactly.

But he would have to wait over two hours to deliver the news: two pre-arranged phone kiosks and times. One in Le Luc for the midday call, one in Brignoles for the ten o’clock call. Chapeau decided to drive back to Marseille to make the call. At one point on the drive, the audacity of what he was about to do tickled him again, and he burst out laughing.

By the time he made the call, he'd managed to control his mirth. It rang only twice before Alain answered. 'It's done,' said Chapeau.

'When was this?'

'Just this morning. I created a diversion, pumped the boy with a syringe, and last thing I knew they were in the operating theatre trying to save him.'

'Are you sure he's finished?'

'Don't worry, he won't make it. Also, they won't suspect anything: it will look like he died from complications arising from his coma and the initial injuries.'

They made arrangements to meet and settle payment at six o’clock the next day at Parc du Pharo. Chapeau was sure Alain would probably phone the hospital that afternoon to check, but it was a reasonable set of odds. If the boy made it, he would just have to come up with another plan. If not, for once he'd get paid without having any blood on his hands.

Third Session.

'…And when you fell back asleep, did the dream return?'

'Yes. But the wheat field had changed, it was different…'

A large reel tape whirred silently in the background. Eyran's eyelids pulsed gently as the memories drifted across. The second session had been disappointing, details of the dreams scant, so Lambourne had decided on hypnosis. The practice had become increasingly outmoded in his profession, he used hypnosis on less than four percent of his patients: only in the case of deeply repressed thoughts or where normal transference was poor or non-existent. And hardly ever on children.

But with the main clues buried in Eyran's dreams and so much either faded or selectively erased — he'd seen little other choice. He hadn't expected anything significant from the dreams until Jojo appeared after the coma — then suddenly sat up sharply as Eyran started describing a dream just before the accident: his mother folding out a map and Eyran staring at the back of her hair, willing himself back into a previous dream.

'In which way was it different when you went back?' Lambourne pressed.

'It was flat, not on a slope how I remembered. And suddenly it got dark, I couldn't find my way back. Everything was too flat — I couldn't pick out anything to tell me which way was home.'

'Was it important that you reached home?'

'Yes. I had the feeling that if I didn't make it back, something terrible would happen. I might die. Finding my way out of the darkness and home was my way of staying alive.'

Lambourne clenched one hand tight. If there was a significant gap between the two dreams, the accident could have already taken place by the second dream! Its later corruption after the coma and the introduction of Jojo could speak volumes. 'When did you first start dreaming about the wheat field?'

'I don't remember exactly. Quite a few years back.'

'Was it when you first went to California and started missing your friends?'

'No, I'd dreamt of it before. When we first moved into the house in East Grinstead and I walked into the field, it felt familiar. I had the feeling I'd been there before.'

'And did the dreams always feature the wheat fields?'

'No, sometimes it was the copse and the pond they led to, sometimes the woods at the back of the old house that led to the field.'