Unknown (9 page)

'Are you Lisa Stanton?' the woman said, as Lisa stopped abruptly in front of her to avoid a collision.

'Yes, I am,' she said immediately, without thinking. Then the words of Sadie Drummond came to her about never giving out your real name, and she could have kicked herself.

The woman appeared to be in her thirties, although she looked a little older. Her face was tired, thin and heavily made-up, and the word 'raddled' came to Lisa's mind as she looked at her at close quarters, before stepping back. She had long, blonde dyed hair that might have looked appropriate on a teenager, but looked somewhat bizarre on this woman. She was quite attractive, with large, pale eyes.

'Are you married to Marcus Blair?' the woman said.

Surprised, Lisa could only stare for a few moments. Then the recollection of where she had seen the woman before came to her. The woman had been sitting in the waiting room at the time she and Dr Rick Kates had exchanged words. And another thing. . . This woman hadn't registered at the front desk—Lisa was pretty sure of . that. Yet she had been sitting in the waiting room. Perhaps she had accompanied a patient.

'Who are you?' she said slowly, more careful this time. 'Why do you want to know that?'

'Just answer the question,' the woman snarled, an expression of dislike on her face.

'I don't know you,' Lisa said. 'Why are you questioning me?'

'Marcus Blair's in love with me,' the woman said, 'and it's mutual. I come here to be near him while he's working.'

Lisa assessed the woman, who wore a short metal-coloured raincoat, black stockings and high-heeled shoes—an outfit too flimsy for the cool weather. She carried a garishly coloured handbag.

The feeling of disquiet deepened as Lisa's professional instincts told her that something very odd was going on and that she had to be careful. Swallowing an apprehensive lump in her throat, she lifted her head up and stared at the woman full in the face.

'I see,' she said, keeping her voice without inflection.

'No, you don't see, you silly bitch!' the other woman said, her voice rising. 'He's mine! I want to know what the hell you think you're playing at with him.'

'I'm not playing at anything,' Lisa said calmly, her voice belying her inner apprehension. The woman's words were like an unexpected slap in the face. 'Dr Blair and I are colleagues, nothing more. No, I am not married to him. And if, for some strange reason, you are threatening me I'd like you to know that I have a personal alarm right here in my pocket. If
you
don't explain yourself I intend to set it off. This place is swarming with security people. I suggest you explain yourself.'

'I'm just warning you to stay away from him,' the woman said. 'He's mine.. .and he always will be. He loves me.' She came closer to Lisa who stood her ground, trying not to flinch. 'What did that guy mean about a baby? You have a baby?'

'Yes, I do.' Lisa thought she could see what the woman was getting at. 'It is not Marcus Blair's baby.'

'It had better not be.'

'I suggest that we both go into the emergency department and talk to Marcus,' Lisa said decisively, calling the woman's bluff. 'I'm sure he'll be happy to sort this out for you.'

Perhaps this woman needed a psychiatrist, Lisa thought frantically. At the same time, she was curious to find out whether she was actually known to Marcus.

An odd expression came over the woman's face, a cunning knowingness mingled with reluctance. Feeling on safer ground now, Lisa waited.

'You suggest nothing,' the woman said, after a hesitation. 'I'm calling the shots here. Marcus is busy right now, I know that.'

'In that case, I'll go to see him myself, 'Lisa said decisively. 'Perhaps you have a message for him? If you tell me your name I'll give it to him.'

'Wouldn't you just like to know my name?' The woman laughed, her mouth twisted in a derisive grimace. There was a look of hatred in her eyes. 'You think you're so smart because you're a nurse, working with Marcus. So you've got some sort of alarm in your pocket?' Again she laughed. 'Well, I've got a knife in mine, you smarmy bitch, and another one in my bag.'

While the woman had been talking an ambulance had pulled up at the entrance, bringing with it the ambulance attendants. With relief, Lisa saw them unload two patients on stretchers who, judging by their appearance, had been in a road-traffic accident. They both had blood-soaked dressings on head wounds and surgical collars around their necks for support.

'I'm going in to talk to Dr Blair,' Lisa said, taking advantage of the protective presence of the other personnel. 'If I see you in this department again I'll report you immediately to the security staff.'

Turning on her heel, she walked quickly back the way she had come, not looking behind her. She felt physically and emotionally winded by the encounter.

One of the stretchers was in front of her, one behind. With any luck, she could get to speak to Marcus for a few minutes before all hell broke loose in there. In truth, she was more shaken up than she would care to admit—for a number of reasons. Not least of her concerns was why Marcus would be mixed up with such a woman, who looked like a prostitute—if, indeed, he even knew her.

She did not doubt that the woman was mentally ill. What was frightening was that she might have singled her, Lisa, out for future unwanted attention. Whether she had had a knife in her pocket or not, any such threats had to be taken seriously.

As she walked swiftly and purposefully down the corridor leading to the resuscitation area of the department she saw Marcus walking quickly in her direction to meet the first stretcher, together with the surgical resident and the surgical intern. Then she knew that there was no way she could distract his attention now, let alone talk to him in this emergency.

Flattening herself against a wall to let both stretchers pass, she made a decision to call Marcus from home later in the day. For now, she would just take care to avoid that woman again. She would leave the hospital by a different exit and take a taxi home. If she saw the woman at the hospital again she would report it all to the security people, as she had said.

It was a good thing that she knew the hospital so well that she could walk inside the building to get to an exit on a different street, where she knew there were generally one or two taxis waiting.

'Sorry
I'm a bit late, Mum.' She greeted her mother with the usual hug and kiss. 'It's been a really hectic day— what you could call crazy.' If only her mother knew!

'Are you all right?' Mrs Stanton asked anxiously, sensing the irony in her words.

'I'm fine, Mum,' she said, and meant it. 'After Ethiopia and Somalia, there isn't much I can't deal with in the wilds of Gresham.'

By the time Lisa had checked on Emma Kate, made herself a mug of coffee and drunk half of it she had come to several decisions. She went to the telephone and punched in a hospital number.

'Locating.' A brisk voice answered after two rings.

'I'm trying to locate Dr Peter Johanson,' she said, 'the senior psychiatric resident.' As she gave her name and number she felt something of a weight being lifted from her shoulders.

Waiting for him to call back, she put on a warm jacket and went out into the garden which was brown and soggy after the long winter months yet with definite signs of spring.

In the last year life had changed irrevocably, she mused. Nothing would ever be the same for her. No more trips to Africa—in case she came back with a deadly disease, or didn't come back at all. Would she ever marry? Would she get over her residual feelings for Richard and be able to find someone else to love who would love her as much in return? At the moment she felt flat, wrung out, drained.
When the phone rang she ran in to snatch up the receiver.

'Peter Johanson here,' a familiar voice said. 'Hullo, Lisa. How are you?'

In short order, she poured out the story to him. 'I want your professional opinion, Peter. Give me some ideas on how I should deal with this.. .please.'

Peter was known to her because he had been in the same class as Richard at medical school. They had met socially, as well as having had many conversations over lunch in the hospital cafeteria. He was discreet, sensible, reliable.

'Well, first of all, I think you should talk to Marcus Blair. I haven't met him myself so he's an unknown quantity—see if he knows this woman,' he said. 'Then you should definitely go to hospital security and give them a description of her. Never take any chances, Lisa. Think of the worst-case scenario, assume that it could take place and then take precautions before something could happen. If you should encounter her again don't try to reason with her because you won't be able to. These people have their own brand of logic which, believe me, is out of sync with everybody else's.'

'What do you think the problem is?'

'She's probably one of those obsessive women—an "erotomanic", as they're known to the police—who live in a fantasy world and who believe certain men to be in love with them, or that those men have fathered their children when the guys themselves don't even know the woman in many cases,' Peter explained. 'You know, like the groupies who follow rock stars around the country. Maybe this woman was a patient of Dr Blair's at one time.'

'She was very threatening,' Lisa said. 'Could she actually be dangerous?'

'Usually such women are not dangerous, in my experience—not like the guys who stalk women,' Peter Johanson said thoughtfully. 'But there's always the exception to the rule, Lisa. Never take any chances. Something could trigger her, and she could go over the top and get violent. For some reason, she seems to be jealous of you—maybe because she overheard that brief conversation.'

'Yes, I think that must be it.'

'If she gets fixated on that she could flip. If you knew her name we could check our computers here to see if she's been admitted or had treatment in any psychiatric unit in the city,' he offered.

'She wouldn't give it to me.'

'She could be a psychopath,' he added, as though they were discussing the weather, all in a day's work. 'That could be a whole new ball game. Those people are always looking out for number one. To them, other people are objects to be manipulated. Let me know if you spot her again. If you want me to be involved further I can be.'

Later, when Lisa had fed Emma, cuddled her for a while and put her back to sleep, she dialled Marcus Blair's number, thinking that he might be off duty by then. An answering machine came on after six rings, with his voice asking any caller to leave a message. Slowly she hung up, not wanting to leave a message.

After a leisurely, relaxing bath she put on a pair of comfortable black leggings and a large, loose red sweater that came down over her hips. As she used the blow-dryer on her damp hair she planned the remainder of the day. Somehow she would get through the inevitable chores that having a baby entailed, then she might even have time to take Emma Kate for a ride in her padded stroller now that the snow was gone.

The doorbell rang just as she was finishing cooking her supper and Emma was kicking and gurgling on the floor of a small playpen that Lisa had set up in her sitting room.

'Now who could that be?' She spoke aloud, pushing a hand through her dishevelled hair, mindful that she wore no make-up and her face was flushed from the heat of the stove. Only her closest friends came round to the side door of the house that was her personal entrance, and they usually called before they came.

She saw the outline of a man through the frosted glass panel in the door. Could it be Richard? Sick with anticipation, she paused and bit her lip, reluctant to open the door. Uppermost was the swift knowledge that she didn't want to see him. Such a revelation told her something she had been hoping for—that she was getting over him. Could he somehow have found out that she had a baby? Slowly she inched the door open on its safety chain.

'Hullo, Lisa,' a deep, voice greeted her. 'Forgive me for not calling first. I decided to just come personally.'

'Um.. .Marcus.. .Dr Blair,' she found herself stammering. 'Just a moment. ..' Clumsily she eased off the chain, asking herself frantically why he would be there. Perhaps he wanted to see Emma.

'Please come in,' she said, standing back to admit him. He wore a warm overcoat and looked very masculine, almost imposing, at the entrance to her tiny flat. His presence made her feel suddenly very womanly, making her realize how much she had longed for mature male company throughout her pregnancy and beyond.

'Call me Marcus,' he said, aware that she was flustered. 'I came because your number was on the call-display unit on my telephone.'

'Oh.. .'

'I wondered why you hadn't left a message. May I take my coat off?' His dark, observant gaze ran over her quickly.

'Oh, yes.. .please do.' She hovered while he slipped out of his coat. Underneath it he wore casual grey trousers and a grey sweater over an open-necked shirt. Lisa found that she could not take her eyes off him for those first few moments.

'I.. .um.. .didn't leave a message because I had something to discuss with you,' she said, as she draped his coat over the stair rail leading up to the second floor. 'I decided that I didn't want to leave all that on a machine.'

'All that?' he queried.

Lisa paused, wondering how to broach the subject of the crazy woman. That was how she was now thinking of her more than ever, not wanting to exaggerate the implications of it all.

'Yes. I didn't expect you to come here. You must be tired.'

They were standing very close in the hallway and he was looking at her curiously, astutely, his eyebrows slightly raised. There was concern in that glance so that all at once Lisa knew it would be a relief to pour it out to him. Also, it was imperative that she know what connection, if any, he had with that woman...

Just then the chortling of the baby in the next room intruded on their conversation. 'Well, are you going to let me see Emma?' Marcus said softly. 'I've been looking forward to it.' The slight stiffness that she had detected in his manner earlier that day had been replaced, it seemed to her, by a certain polite formality.