Free If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) by Matthew Frank Page A

lightning certainty of purpose. He remembered feeling absolutely awake in those minutes, utterly conscious, instantly decisive in a way he’d never imagined possible. It was easy to understand how people became addicted to adrenalin, if that was what it was. It was also easy to understand how dangerous it could be, to you and those around you, to let that intuitive purity take over, caution and restraint be damned. How different that day might have been.
    The luminous hands of his watch read 04:10. He swore quietly. So now not only was therapy not suppressing his dreams, it was trawling them up from the foetid depths. He grunted, forcing himself off the bed and away from another round of futile what-if. Save that bollocks for the next show-and-tell with Doc Hazel.
    Later that morning Stark and Dixon were sent back to the council offices to speak to a key officer returned from sick leave. Judy was prematurely middle-aged, heavy-set, both chirpy and slightly defensive in the brittle manner Stark thought stress-induced. She’d seen Alf’s face on TV and come in to work to delve back into her files – she was sure, but she wasn’t, she had found him, but it might not be. She opened a worn, faded file and turned it on the desk to face them. A man, perhaps in his sixties, stared out. ‘Is it him?’ she asked tremulously.
    Dixon looked at Stark, who nodded. There was no mistake.
    ‘Alfred Thomas Ladd,’ he read. ‘Born Deptford, 1932. First appeared on Greenwich social-services homeless radar in August 1996. Previousaddress unknown. No known living relatives.’ There were several pages of assessment forms filled in by varying hands. He’d been admitted to a care home in 1999 but discharged himself. Hospitalized with pneumonia March 2005, admitted to care again and again refused to stay. A competency assessment at the time described him as fully cognizant and physically able. The scrawl also described him as obdurate, irritable, wilfully independent to the point of irrationality and rude bordering on abusive. Stark smiled.
    There was no further record. Judy’s orbit stabilized once hunch became fact. She happily copied the whole file while they waited and waved them off cheerily. They returned to the station well pleased with their morning’s work.
    Their smiles shattered against Fran’s icy reception. She scanned the name beneath the photo. ‘Alfred Ladd. Well, at least we’ll have a name for the death certificate if he doesn’t survive surgery.’
    Alf’s condition had worsened sharply and the doctors feared internal bleeding. He’d been rushed into theatre.
    Stark felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. If Fran noticed she made no sign, unless, perhaps, there was a softening in her tone. ‘Get yourself up there and wait. Call me when he gets out.’
    He almost thanked her, taken off-guard by the strength of his reaction. He rushed off and found Maggie, who dropped the play-acting and found him a car. Twenty minutes later he stood at the operating-theatre department reception desk being told he’d have to wait up on the ward. His response was short and to the point. The nurse yielded.
    He had plenty of time to reflect on the irrational investment he felt in a stranger’s well-being. This was just the kind of thing he should probably discuss with Doc Hazel, dread the thought. It was more than three hours before a grey-haired man in scrubs emerged at speed through the theatre doors. Stark jumped to his feet, startling him. ‘Nurse Adams, why is this person loitering here?’ demanded the doctor.
    Stark held up his warrant card. ‘Are you the surgeon operating on Alfred Ladd?’
    ‘Finally came up with a name, did you?’
    ‘Yes or no?’
    ‘I am the chief of surgery. Mr Ladd, if that’s his name, is alive and not well. He’s being closed as we speak and will likely remain inpost-op recovery for an hour or so before returning to Intensive Care. If you wish to speak with him you’re in for a long