The Doctor. Lisa Stone
she went through to the living room to phone her parents to see if they were free to babysit at the weekend, while Ben took Robbie upstairs to get him ready for bed. Her parents’ answerphone was on, as it often was now they’d both retired and were out enjoying themselves. Emily left a message. They’d return her call either this evening or, if they were back late, first thing in the morning. She could rely on them; they loved babysitting Robbie, their only grandchild.
As she replaced the handset, she heard the letter box snap shut. Seven-thirty, too late for regular post. It was probably a circular. Leaving the living room, she crossed the hall from where she could hear Robbie chuckling loudly in the bathroom as Ben changed him. There was a brown envelope lying face down on the mat. She picked it up. It held something – something firm, more than just paper. Turning it over, she read the writing on the front. Ms King, I found this in the road. I think it belongs to you. Signed, Dr Amit Burman.
The formality was weird and why not knock and give it to her in person? Emily assumed it was a small item of Robbie’s. He was always jettisoning his belongings from the pushchair as she wheeled him along the pavement – small toys, socks, mittens and boots in winter. Sometimes she spotted them straightway, other times she found them on their next trip or a neighbour returned them, and sometimes they just disappeared. She supposed it was good of Dr Burman, although it didn’t feel like a sock or toy of Robbie’s. Opening the envelope, she saw straight away what it was. Her stomach churned; she felt sick with fear. Not something of Robbie’s, but Tibs’ red felt collar. Her mouth went dry and her heart raced. No mistake, there was her mobile number engraved on the metal tab and the bell was missing. Tibs had lost the bell a while back and Emily had never got around to replacing the collar.
‘Ben!’ she cried, running upstairs. ‘Ben!’
Hearing the panic in her voice, he came onto the landing with Robbie in his arms half-dressed. ‘What is it?’
‘Look! Burman has just pushed this through the letter box.’ She held out the collar and envelope for him to see, her voice unsteady and her hand shaking. ‘What does it mean and why didn’t he knock?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t want to disturb us. It must have come off Tibs. Cat collars are designed to come off if the cat gets caught so they don’t choke.’
‘I know, but it says he found it in the road. Does that mean …?’
‘I’m sorry, Em, love, but it was decent of him to return it.’
‘But we’d have seen her body. Perhaps she slipped it and is still alive, but why hasn’t she come home? I need to know where and when he found it. I’m going to see him now.’ She tore downstairs.
Ignoring her coat in the hall and wearing her slippers, Emily rushed out the front door and down the drive, still clutching Tibs’ collar and the envelope. A damp November mist had descended, thickening the darkness. The alarm box just below the eaves of the Burmans’ house flashed like a warning beacon. Throwing open their front gate, Emily slowed her pace and walked to their front door. It was very dark here, the light from the street lamp mostly blocked by the large evergreen trees and shrubs at the front.
She pressed the buzzer and waited, the cold and damp seeping into her. The downstairs lights were off and only one shone from an upstairs window, faint behind closed curtains and the opaque film now covering all the glass. She pressed the buzzer again. Someone must be in. Alisha never went out and Amit’s car was on the drive. She glanced up at the CCTV camera trained on the front door and shivered. She should have grabbed her coat.
A light went on in the hall, a door chain rattled and a key turned in the lock. Amit Burman opened the door, the top button on his shirt undone and his tie loosened at the neck. She felt a familiar stab of unease, something in his expression, although she couldn’t say what.
‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ she began, trying to meet his gaze. ‘You pushed this through our letter box just now.’ She held up the envelope and collar.
‘I did. It is yours?’
‘Yes, but where did you find it?’
‘In the road outside my house.’
‘But you didn’t see Tibs, our cat?’
‘Clearly not, or I would have told you.’ His eyes narrowed to a patronizing smile. It was then Emily realized what she found so unsettling in his expression. His eyes were completely different colours. The iris in one eye was brown while the other was green. ‘The correct term is heterochromia,’ he said. ‘My vision is normal.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered, embarrassed and trying not to stare.
‘It’s not a problem. We’re all different, aren’t we? You told my wife your cat was missing, so I thought you’d want its collar back. She’s resting. She’s exhausted from visiting you.’ He held her gaze, his green eye seeming to bore into her. ‘Of course, she would tell me of her visit. We have no secrets. I’m only concerned for her health and well-being.’ The tone in his voice made it feel like a threat. ‘Is that everything?’
‘When did you find Tibs’ collar?’ Emily asked.
‘About an hour ago, when I came home from work. Now, if that’s all, I must go. I have to see to my wife.’
‘Yes of course.’
Emily supposed she should have thanked him, but the door had already closed. She walked back down his path, looking left and right and into the foliage for any sign of Tibs. Then in the gutter. She must be dead. If she’d been alive and had slipped her collar outside the Burmans’ house, then she was close enough to find her way home. The most likely explanation for her collar being in the road was that she’d been run over, perhaps separating from her collar in the accident. If someone in the street had found Tibs’ body there was a chance they may call, as her number was on the leaflets she’d pushed through letter boxes. Otherwise she might never know, for she doubted anyone would bother to take a dead cat to have its microchip read. If there was still no sign of Tibs by the weekend, she’d have to accept she was dead.
‘I disagree,’ Amit said forcefully. ‘The process of cryonics has already been shown to work on animals in laboratories. They have survived three hours using existing medical technology. Even longer periods if the preservation solution is continuously circulated.’
Mr Barry Lowe was staring at him, as was the student doctor.
‘You seem well-informed,’ Lowe said. ‘But three hours isn’t a hundred years. It’s a fantasy playing on peoples’ fears of death. Humans have been searching for immortality since they became intelligent enough to realize that one day they would die. It used to be just religion that offered immortality, but now this pseudoscience has got in on the act.’ He paused to concentrate on what he was doing – a hernia operation. The discussion had begun after he’d asked if anyone had seen the documentary on television the night before on cryonics, and had quickly become heated.
‘You can’t put religion and cryonics in the same category,’ Amit retaliated. ‘And it doesn’t matter if it’s three hours or a thousand years. At minus 190 Celsius there is no cell degeneration.’
‘And you can be sure of that?’ Lowe asked sceptically, glancing up at him. ‘There is no proof whatsoever. Those frozen bodies could be mush when they are thawed.’
‘Also, cell degeneration will have already occurred,’ the student doctor put in. ‘My cousin is a doctor at Saint Claire’s where that fifteen-year-old boy died. It was over an hour before he was put on ice.’
‘That’s appalling!’ Amit cried passionately, unable to hide his feelings any longer. ‘It’s a breach of our code of ethics.’
‘That’s a bit strong,’ Lowe said. ‘The boy was dead.’