Dagger Magic

Adam shrugged. Ximena had told him that her father was comfortable enough, if rarely lucid, because of the painkillers they gave him, but it was only a matter of time. In fact, Ximena and her father between them had already accepted that his chances for recovery were virtually nonexistent. Her mother and brothers, however, were still determined to cling to hope, however faint and misplaced. It was as much for their sake as for anyone else's that Ximena was committed to remaining at her father's bedside.

"I could certainly wish the prognosis were better," Adam agreed. "Unfortunately, the situation is out of both our hands."

Sykes gave a sympathetic shake of his head. "Well, the next time you talk to her, you tell her from me that she ought to come back here soon, okay? Things haven't been the same since she left."

"I can attest to that," Adam said with a faint smile. "And I'll certainly pass the word along."

"Thank you, Doc," Sykes said, with another of his fleeting grins. "There aren't many like Dr. X. around. Come to think of it," he added, cocking an eye at Adam, "you haven't said what brings you here this morning. You sure didn't come all the way cross town just to see if we've had the walls repainted since your last visit."

"True enough. Actually, I'm looking for a patient by the name of Malcolm Grant. He would have been brought in several hours ago - car crash."

"Another statistic for Carnage Corridor," Skyes said with a grimace. "We get most of 'em. He's up in surgery. Don't know if it's going to help him much, though - not the state he was in when he arrived. I helped get him over to X-ray, and I don't know when I last saw anybody that bad who could still breathe at all. They brought his buddy in dead."

"Yes, I'd heard there was at least one fatality."

Sykes gave a darkling shake of his head. "I tell you, Dr. Sinclair, it's spooky business. You may not believe it, but this must be the fifth or sixth big crash we've had along that stretch of road since New Year's, all with fatalities. If I had any reason to drive to Lanark just now, man, I'd damn sure go round about by way of Livingston, just to be on the safe side."

He paused for an exaggerated shiver, then directed a curious look in Adam's direction. "But, what's your interest in this case, sir, if you don't mind my asking? Last I heard, psychiatrists don't normally do casualty work."

"You just said it yourself," Adam replied. "That bit of road has claimed far more than its share of casualties, and all in a very short time. The police are doing their best to see if they can come up with a pattern, even to the extent of calling in a psychiatrist - me - to see if anything in the victims' psychiatric profiles might point to an underlying cause. To that end, I'm supposed to be meeting one of their special investigators, a Detective Chief Inspector McLeod. Do you know him?"

Sykes pursed his lips. "Is this Inspector McLeod a big fellow with grizzled hair and glasses and a military-looking moustache?''

"That sounds like him."

"Then you'll probably find him up in the lounge next to the operating theatres. If he isn't there, I don't expect he's gone far."

"If he has, I can always have him paged," Adam said. "Thank you, Mr. Sykes, you've been a great help. The next time I talk to Dr. Lockhart, I'll be sure to let her know you were asking about her."

He lost no time getting up to the surgical wing. Here he learned that Malcolm Grant was out of surgery and had been transferred to Recovery, just down the hall. He found McLeod propping up the wall to the left of the nurses' station, moodily sipping tea from a hospital-issue mug. Through the round porthole windows in the double doors opposite, Adam could catch just a glimpse of bustling medical activity as he approached.

"Is he still with us?" Adam asked, as the inspector pulled himself erect and shelved the mug on the desk with an air of mingled relief and misgivings.

"Aye, but I don't know how long that will continue to be the case. Thanks for coming. Sorry about dragging you out earlier than we'd planned, but I hadn't reckoned on this. And it may be wasted effort. But if he does regain consciousness, I didn't want to miss it - and you might pick up something I'd overlook."

"You don't sound optimistic."

"I don't think there's much cause to be optimistic. Have a look. He's pretty smashed up."

As he spoke, McLeod moved to one of the portholes, and Adam joined him at the other. Four of the six bays in Recovery were occupied, the respective patients linked up to an assortment of monitors and life support units. A man and a woman togged out in green surgical scrubs were standing at the foot of the bed nearest the door, where lay a supine figure cocooned in bandages and surrounded by the metal frames of traction apparatus. The woman was scribbling orders on the patient's chart as the man looked on.