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.She swore and tried again.“Give it to me,” he said, when it failed for the third time.“Maybe they’ve changed the code.”He swiped it and the light turned green.“Magic touch,” she said, and they went inside.“Head for my consulting room – you know where it is.”“Yes, Ben, I remember.” Consulting room three – where they met a month ago – maybe five weeks.They blundered into the room in the dark.She felt in the darkness along the wall.“Where’s the switch?”“No don’t,” he said.“Leave it dark.We don’t want to advertise the fact that we’re here.”“Okay,” she breathed.She could picture the room, but it all seemed unfamiliar in the darkness.He staggered towards the desk and tripped over the metal wastepaper bin.The sound set their fears jangling, and made her breathing all jagged and raw.“I do believe you have a touch of real asthma,” he said, with a note of amused irony in his voice.“Shut up.It’s you that needs help today.Jeez, Ben, I can’t do this in the dark.”“There’s a light on my key-ring.”She laughed, “What haven’t you got on there?”“A syringe and some morphine.”“Is that what you need? Morphine?” She flicked the key ring light on.He was sitting on the edge of his desk, wincing in pain.“No.Morphine’s too strong.It’ll put me to sleep.” He tried to shuck off his jacket, but the movement caused him so much pain that he had to stop.She went and tried to shine the light on the injury but his coat was black and it was difficult to see.“This is hopeless.I need more light.”“Then put the blinds down and put the desk lamp on.”She did that, and it was much easier to help him in the light of the angled lamp.She got him out of the coat, easing it down and away from his injured arm.His shirt was stained with blood – stuck to the wound and impossible to get off without hurting him.“Cut it,” he told her.“Scissors are in the top drawer, over there.”Getting the shirt off was difficult and delicate.She cut the shirt – according to his instructions – up the length of the sleeve and across the top of the shoulder.Good side first.Then the bad side.She peeled it away from the wound – while he turned his head and clenched his jaw.The sight of the injury made her tremble, but for his sake she needed to be strong.The bullet had entered his body an inch or two lower than his collar bone, gone in clean and punched straight through.She moved around to see, pulling the shirt away from his back to find a ragged-looking exit wound – a bit bigger and messier than the one on the front.“How is it?” he said.He tried to glance down at the wound, but even turning his head seemed to set off a wave of pain.“I don’t know.I’ve never seen anyone with a bullet hole in them before.”“My own experience is mainly drawn from textbooks,” he admitted.“Perhaps I should have done my training in Chicago.”She smiled a weak smile, but she hated seeing him with that raw red hole in his chest.He got up from where he was sitting on the edge of the desk.He went over to the washbasin beside the desk.There was a mirror above it, along with a standard issue paper towel dispenser and box of latex examination gloves.She went and moved the lamp – turning it to shine on him so he could look at the injury in the mirror and assess it for himself.“The shoulder contains the subclavian artery, which feeds the brachial artery,” he told her.“That’s the main artery in my arm.I would be dead or dying if he’d hit that.But luckily for me, he missed.By an inch.”She shivered.“But that’s where my luck runs out.” He sighed, staring in the mirror.“The brachial plexus, the large nerve bundle that I need to move my arm.I think it’s damaged.”“Oh, God.It’s your right arm too.” She felt consumed with guilt.A doctor, with a dead right arm.He looked in the mirror and then he turned.Looking at the wound as best he could.“It’s okay,” he said calmly.“I can tell you what to do.”To him, it was just an injury.And injuries have to be dealt with.Each one in a certain way.He unlocked the medicine cabinet and chose a vial of pethidine for pain relief.“I want you to inject this into my upper left buttock,” he said.She hesitated.“Your upper left buttock? Are you sure you want it there?”“Yes,” he said.“That’s where it works best.Come on, Layla.Don’t be shy.”She took the vial and the needle, and he taught her how to draw it up.“Good girl,” he said.“You’re a fast learner.”He turned around and with his left hand, he undid the buckle on his belt.He let his trousers slip to half-mast, underwear and all.“Go on, then.”She jabbed him with the needle, and let the medication in.“First time I’ve seen you with your pants down, doctor.”“I thought you’d never ask.”Afterwards they made a plan.Ditch the car.Walk to the high street.Hail a cab.Disappear into a busy part of London.Find a room.Spend the night.“And after that?”“We’ll get out of London somehow.We may need help.” Ben told her about the blank prescription pad and how helpful Glenn Hallam had been.She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.Then she gave a strange kind of laugh.“Maybe it’s not just me that’s a fast learner.” She hesitated.Thinking.They’d done very well so far.But problems surfaced thick and fast.“What about clothes? You can’t hail a cab in the high street with no shirt on, Ben.People will see the hole in your chest.”“Ah, Layla.That small detail is easily solved.” He was slurring his words.The pethidine was doing its work.“Don’t you pass out on me,” she warned.“You do that, and we’re really up the creek.”“Everything shunder control…” he said, staggering slightly.“Thish what we’re going to do.”They crept into the clinic director’s room, and borrowed Jonathan’s raincoat.It was hanging, where he always kept it, on an old fashioned hat-and-coat stand in the corner of the room.It had been there during the meeting that morning.The meeting to talk about Ben’s relationship with Layla.Get a RoomThey got the room.In a cheap hotel near Whitechapel.Dingy little place.They went up to the desk as a couple.Ben lolled over her like he was drunk, partly acting, partly genuine.Hard to tell how much of each.Layla supported him under his good arm and forced herself to act like a tart.She offered the man on the desk the money.In cash.Ben had cash.He’d thought that out on the plane, and drawn most of Morrie’s last five grand out of the bank at the airport.Up in the room they didn’t have to pretend anymore.Ben limped over to the bed.He took off Jonathan’s raincoat and checked the dressing.Still holding okay.He sat down, swung his legs up onto the bed, wincing, and leaned gratefully back against the headboard, finding it easier to cope with the pain in his shoulder if he braced his upper body against something.No sudden movements.He still had another vial of pethidine, but he was saving that for during the night.These things usually got worse before they got better.He refused to think about the severity of the injury in any kind of objective way.He’d get by.They’d go to Scotland tomorrow and maybe he could see someone there.Maybe even Barrymore – the old Scottish doctor owed him a favour for dropping him into all of this.Or maybe he owed Barrymore a favour, for leading him to Layla.She came and sat down near him on the edge of the bed.“Look at you,” she said, and touched his naked chest.“So pale and smooth.”He gave a half-smile, and glanced down at his own bare chest.“Probably paler than I should be
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