David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good by Andrew Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

you.”
            “Thank you,” I said.
“And I’m sorry about your guy, Jones. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I wouldn’t
have, if I’d known who he was. How’s he doing, anyway? Will he be OK?”
            “Don’t worry. He’ll be
fine in a little while. He’ll recover, and he’ll have learned a useful lesson.”
            “And I’m sorry for
throwing a spanner into whatever you’re working on.”
            “Thanks. I’m trying to
keep the lid on a powder keg here, and flying spanners are the last things I
need. Plus I’ve been stuck with mentoring Tim. That’s another reason I was a
little crabby last night. I hate baby-sitting. Specially when the baby ends up
in Intensive Care.”
            There was a sharp knock
at the door before I could reply.
            “Come in,” I said,
reluctantly. I was enjoying the conversation, and I wanted to find out more
about what she was doing at the hospital. Hints about powder kegs with loose
lids can have that effect.
            The agent broke eye
contact as the door swung open and a nurse I’d not seen before stepped into the
room.
            “It’s me, Suzanne,” the
nurse said. “And you have a visitor, I see.”
            “Don’t mind me,” the
agent said. “I can’t hang around, anyway. Just one more
question for you, though, David, before I go. Your
boots. If you got them back, would you hang around?”
            “Are you joking?” I
said. “You wouldn’t see me for dust.”

 
 
 
    Chapter Six

 
    The new nurse held the door for the agent until she’d negotiated her
way back into the corridor, then strode over to the bed and started her routine
mauling. She was alarmingly enthusiastic.
            “Your temperature’s OK,”
she said, making a note on my chart. “Blood pressure’s a little low, but
nothing to worry about. Same for heart rate. Now let’s
talk about what really matters. Your head. How is it?
Have you had any pain?”
            “I had a pretty bad
headache last night,” I said, thinking back to the conversation I’d had with my
control once Nurse Smith had left me alone. They appreciated the heads-up, I
suppose, but that didn’t outweigh their irritation at having to mend fences
with MI5. “It’s a little better now, but it hasn’t quite gone away completely.”
            “That’s understandable.
And what about nausea? Have you been feeling sick at all?”
            “I had one pretty bad
episode,” I said, picturing myself surrounded by Jackson’s display of
management-speak posters.
            “And did you actually
throw up?”
            “Not quite. I managed to
restrain myself.”
            “You shouldn’t do that,
you know. If you feel like vomiting, your body’s telling you something. You
shouldn’t hold back. If there’s something bad in there, it needs to come out.”
            “I’ll remember that,
next time,” I said, suppressing a smile as I pictured how that would go down
with Jackson’s prim secretary.
            “Any memory loss, while
you’ve been here?”
            “Not that I’m aware of.”
            “That’s a difficult
question to answer, isn’t it? How do you know you’ve forgotten something, until
you’ve remembered it again? Or someone reminds you? But still, it’s important,
so anything like that, we need to know. Now, concentration. How are you finding that?”
            “Sorry, what was the
question?”
            “Concentration. Have you
- oh. I see. Never mind. So, what’s next? Your sight. Any problems with focussing , field of vision,
anything like that?”
            “I feel like I’ve maybe
had a bit of tunnel vision since I’ve been here,” I said, thinking about my
missing boots. Then the MI5 agent’s intense, worried face floated into my mind.
“Although, that might be easing a little,