Free A Life for a Life by Andrew Puckett Page A

daughter were ensconced in the sitting-room over coffee, Fraser mumbled something noncommittal and slipped out. He went straight to the hospital and Connie’s room.
    ‘I thought you were on leave, Fraser.’
    ‘I am. I came in to tell you that Frances had a breakdown last night.’
    ‘How d’you mean, a breakdown?’
    ‘Our GP diagnosed severe depression. He’s put her on Prozac and a sedative.’
    ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Fraser,’ she said carefully. ‘However, I do think I should have been consulted about it.’
    ‘Why? So that you could have refused her treatment?’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous. So that, as her consultant, I could have assessed her condition and treated her accordingly.’
    ‘The treatment of severe depression is well enough—’
    ‘I might have decided on a different drug, one with sedative properties, perhaps. I might well have thought counselling more appropriate—’
    ‘Counselling!’ The fuzziness returned, twisting the muscles round his forehead. ‘For Christ’s sake, she’s depressed to the extent of being disturbed—’
    ‘Perhaps you could describe her symptoms, preferably without shouting.’
    He swallowed, forced himself to relax, and told her, not holding anything back. Connie regarded him coolly from behind her desk, her face smooth, impassive, unemotional. She said ‘I won’t alter the medication, now it’s been prescribed and she’s taking it, but I do very strongly recommend counselling. For both of you,’ she added.
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘You heard me.’
    ‘You’re suggestin’ that I need—’
    ‘This is a very stressful time for both of you. It’s bound to affect your relationship, which has to be a major factor in the symptoms you describe.’ She stood up. ‘And now—’
    ‘I don’t think you’re in any position to be a judge of anyone’s relationship, Connie, let alone mine.’
    ‘You’d better explain that, Fraser.’ Her voice was still, her face expressionless.
    ‘I don’t have to explain anything to you, Connie, not a damned thing. You are the one’ – he pointed – ‘who’s going to have to explain why you persisted with the use of a drug with dangerous side-effects.’
    She laughed. ‘Put your finger away, Fraser, you look silly like that. And you’ll sound silly, very silly if you try to bring that old chestnut up again.’ She came round from her desk, moving towards the door. ‘You don’t seem to have grasped yet that Alkovin may, if we’re lucky, enable me to save your girlfriend’s life.’ She stopped, about a yard away from him. ‘I don’t expect gratitude, but I would have hoped for more professional respect, even from one of your background.’
    He absorbed this, then said, ‘You asked me to explain myself just now. What I meant was that bein’ a failure at relationships yourself, you are now tryin’ to undermine one that’s success—’
    She caught him a ringing slap on the side of his face that knocked him sideways, then another on the other cheek without giving him the option of turning it first… and there would have been more, but for the fact he seized her wrists and held them.
    ‘Let go of me,’ she hissed into his face.
    He gripped harder. ‘Not until you—’
    She brought her knee up into his groin. He gasped, dropped her wrists as she let out a piercing scream and ran to the door.
    ‘Help! Ian, he’s assaulting me…’
    Fraser painfully straightened himself up as Ian came running in.
    ‘Connie… what in God’s name… Fraser…?’
    ‘He assaulted me, Ian,’ Connie said breathlessly. ‘Get the police.’
    ‘Surely we don’t need—’
    ‘He came in here shouting about Frances, then he grabbed me – look…’ She held up her wrists, which were already beginning to bruise where he’d gripped her.
    ‘If there was any assault, it was she who assaulted me,’ Fraser said, aware as he said it of how feeble it sounded.
    ‘I was trying to defend myself,’ Connie said.