Friendly Favour

Laura Hobson is asked for a very unexpected favour.

She's talking to George Denton when her mobile rings. "Really, George... fish and chips and champagne? Why not a snifter of Armagnac and some Jammie Dodgers while you were at it?" She recognises the ringtone. "Sorry—I've got to take this one." George, as quiet and cooperative as all of her patients, stays motionless on the table while Laura strips off her gloves and grabs her phone. "Hobson."

"Laura? I need a favour." The tone of voice tells her that it's Chief Superintendent Innocent on the phone rather than her friend Jean. And there's a note of worry that she does not like. At all.

"What's wrong?"

A soft sigh confirms her suspicions. "He'll be okay... but James Hathaway has been shot."

Laura listens in appalled silence to the account of a murder suspect shooting James before killing himself. "Jean, I don't understand. Since James, thank God, doesn't need my professional services, what's the favour?"

"I need someone I can trust in the operating theatre to deal with the bullet, while maintaining a clear chain of evidence."

Now she's truly confused. Jean has a flock of SOCOs to call upon, not to mention a vast herd of police officers. Even the greenest DC could be given a scrub suit and a sterile container and be made to stand in a corner of the operating theatre until needed. And how much does chain of evidence really matter when there won't even be a trial? "Jean, what aren't you telling me?"

There's a long silence, then the sound of a slow, deep breath. "James... has wings."

Wings. Dear God. She doesn't know much more about that subject than the average layman. One of her lecturers had devoted part of a unit on medical genetics to congenital disorders. Odd to think of something as beautiful as wings as a disorder, but that's how it's officially classified. There'd been slides of famous winged people, from P.T. Barnum's Tahatan (The Sioux Hawk Boy) to the 1920s silent film actress Angela "Angel" Morgan to the anonymous 'Patient W' who'd let himself be studied by a research team at Barts for seven years, then left his body to science.

The genetic markers for alation—wingedness—are highly distinctive. Is Jean aware that the bullet will have to be cleaned of all traces of James's blood if she wants to protect his privacy? That, and a million other questions spin through her mind, but the one that makes it out of her mouth is, "Does Robbie know?"

Another, briefer pause. "Not yet."

"Are you sure? Those two are as close as bread and jam."

"True enough," Jean replies, "and I daresay that James has told his governor things that no one else knows. But this particular secret—you didn't see how nervous he was when he had to tell me. He hid it very well behind that polite public-school mask of his, but he was terrified. He looked like an early Christian martyr facing the lions."

"Pious? Defiant?"

"Quietly resigned to his fate. Look, Laura, I've got to go. Robbie will be here any moment, and I have to intercept him and explain the situation."

She doesn't envy Jean that conversation. "I can be there in thirty minutes. That all right?"

"That's fine. The surgeon is flying down from Edinburgh. Sir Andrew Morrison."

It takes a few seconds for the name to register. "Morrison? Brilliant. James will be in the best possible hands." They exchange a few more details, then Laura clicks 'end'. She walks back to the autopsy table. "Sorry, George. We'll have to finish up tomorrow. There's a friend who needs my assistance." She envisions James, face pale and eyes heavy-lidded, probably dopey on pain medications. And then she envisions another, nearby face, lined with worry, and aching as though the bullet had torn his own flesh. "Two friends."

Note: This takes place during Chapter 1 of If I Speed Away.