Page 69 of The Elements

Since my twelfth summer, I have been consumed by fire, laying waste to everything and everyone around me. Today, when I wake, things feel different. Enough has happened. Too many risks have been taken. It’s time to quench the flames forever and find some form of peace.

I’ve taken a week’s holiday, and it feels strange to return to the hospital and for Louise not to be there.

Her replacement is a nurse around my own age, Michael, who I don’t know terribly well but with whom I’ve never had any issues, so I resolve to stay positive in the hope that we can build a relationship as strong as the one that she and I enjoyed.

He’s waiting for me when I exit the staircase on the sixth floor, today’s files in his hands.

“Good morning, Dr. Petrus,” he says, offering something that resembles a slight bow. There’s no coffee or KitKat, but I can train him on this.

“Good morning, Michael,” I say. “And welcome to your first day in your new role.”

He smiles and acknowledges this, holding the files out for me.

“In future,” I tell him, “you can just give these to Aaron or whatever intern I’m lumbered with at the time. My preference is that they’re laid out on my desk when I arrive every day.”

“Of course,” he says. “And just so I know, how much longer will Dr. Umber be on rotation with you?”

“Two more weeks, I think. After that, I’ll be running solo for a few months before they inflict someone else on me.”

I take the files and head down the corridor toward my office.

Once inside, I place them on my desk and turn on the computer, feeling a sense of calm.

George’s body was discovered in the morgue early last week, and, as expected, no one has been able to figure out how it got there, although his father had reported him missing to the police.

They eventually put two and two together, and he was identified by his mother that same evening.

An investigation has been launched, but everyone is completely baffled as to what took place.

Naturally, I’m steering clear of it all, and I’m certain there’s nothing that can trace him back to me.

I wiped his phone back to factory settings before removing the SIM card, then incinerated both. One last fire.

As for Rufus, well, he’s survived much longer than I expected.

In fact, rather annoyingly, he’s still alive.

However, there’s no brain activity and the hospital wants to turn his life support off, but his mother is fighting this, unable to accept that her son is, in real terms, already dead.

Apparently, she’s hired a lawyer to ensure that the boy’s machine is kept on.

It’s late afternoon and I’m checking on one of my postoperative patients when Aaron appears at the door to the ward.

He’s been absent all morning, which is unlike him, but I’ve grown more tolerant of his presence these days and decide not to reproach him.

Instead, I offer him that very rare thing—a smile—although he doesn’t reciprocate.

“Dr. Petrus,” he says. “I wonder could we talk privately? In your office?”

I’m a little surprised by his tone, which is rather serious, but I nod and tell him of course, that he can go there now if he wants, and I’ll follow in a moment.

I watch as he makes his way down the corridor, and I go to the bottled-water machine for something to drink.

I have a strange premonition that the conversation ahead of us will be an uncomfortable one.

I wait a few minutes before following him and, once inside, I’m surprised to find him standing by the window, staring out, which seems rather audacious instead of sitting opposite my desk.

I have to press past him to get to my own chair, and he’s almost surly as he steps away.

I point to the chair and, almost reluctantly, he sits.

“So,” I say, glancing toward my computer screen and moving the mouse to make it seem like I’m simply too busy to give him my full attention. “You wanted to talk?”

“Yes,” he says. “You know I only have two weeks left, right?”

“I do. I hope your time here has proved interesting and educational?”

“It has.” He pauses for a moment. “You’re a very fine doctor.”

I acknowledge this with a slight nod of my head. “Thank you,” I say.

“I mean it,” he continues. “Probably the best I’ve worked with on any of my rotations.

You’re efficient, quick to diagnose, although you don’t rush to judgment.

You show great compassion toward your patients.

It’s one of the things that I find so contradictory about you, Freya.

You’re quite a complex individual, really, aren’t you? ”

I frown. Am I? Perhaps I am. But I don’t really have any interest in a character analysis from him. I choose not to react to his use of my first name at work.

“We all are, I suppose,” I reply. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about, Aaron? I mean, I appreciate your kind words, but—”

“No, I wanted to talk to you about the Rozelli Programme.”

I sit back in surprise. This is the last thing I expected.

“Oh, right,” I say. “If you’re going to tell me that my talk in your school is what made you interested in becoming a doctor, then you’ve told me that already.”

“No, it’s not that,” he says, shaking his head.

“You want to take part in the program? I can certainly put you in touch with the facilitator. But, to be honest, they usually want people a little more advanced in their careers. Although I don’t particularly see why that has to be the case. I’m sure you could—”

“I don’t want to take part in it,” he says. “I was a student on it, remember?”

“Yes,” I say, growing weary now. “Look, Aaron, what’s all this about?”

“You came to our school. You made medicine sound like a vocation.”

“It is a vocation,” I reply.

“You said that everyday doctors and nurses save lives. That it’s the most important job in the world.”

“I still think that.”

“I was very, very shy back then, but I was so inspired by the things you said that I plucked up all my courage to talk to you afterward. You were kind to me. Encouraging.” He takes a deep breath, as if he’s been holding this in for a long time. “I was only fourteen years old at the time.”

I stare at him. Something stirs inside me, and I feel a slight pain in the pit of my stomach. From the day he arrived, I knew there was something I didn’t like about him, something that made me deeply uncomfortable in his presence, but I could never quite put my finger on what it was.

“Do you remember the night we went for a drink together?” he continues. “At one point, I started laughing. Because of the song that was playing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.

“‘You don’t remember me, do you?’” he sings quietly in a rather tuneful voice.

“I’m glad I was helpful to you,” I say.

“Oh, you were the polar opposite of helpful,” he says.

I look down at my desk. The screen saver on my computer screen has kicked in and, as it always does, a random word from the dictionary, with its definition, is scrolling across the screen.

Element: One of the four basic building blocks of matter.

“ I don’t know why you’re telling me all this, ” I say, and he shakes his head.

“Yes, you do,” he replies. “I can see from the expression on your face that you do. Please don’t play the innocent. It’s sort of pathetic.”

“I don’t know what you think you remember,” I say, and he raises a hand to silence me. For the first time since his arrival in the hospital, I obey him without question.

“I remember everything,” he says. “Every minute of that evening. How you told me that you had some textbooks that were suitable for boys my age who were interested in a career in medicine. You offered to loan them to me. I was so excited. You said they were back in your flat, but you could drive me there and lend them to me.”

“Just stop,” I say.

“It all seemed fine. Exciting, even. You were treating me like an adult. And you were so hot.” He laughs a little. “I mean, you still are.”

“Aaron.”

“But then we got to your flat and there were no textbooks, were there? You gave me a can of Coke. Do you remember that? And when I opened it, it exploded all over me. I was soaked. You made me get undressed. You said you’d wash my T-shirt. The next thing I knew, I was in your bed.”

What does he want from me? Money? That can be arranged.

“Did you object?” I ask coolly. “Or did you enjoy it?”

He pauses and considers this.

“I enjoyed it in the moment,” he tells me.

“But then I was just a child. Only fourteen. It didn’t take long for me to feel that I’d done something wrong.

Something I wasn’t ready for. Within a few months, I’d changed completely.

I felt I’d lost something I wasn’t ready to lose.

And I don’t mean the obvious. I mean something far deeper. My innocence, I suppose. My childhood.”

He takes a long, deep breath, as if he’s been waiting a long time to say this phrase, which, I suppose, he has.

“You raped me, Freya.”

A mixture of fear and horror runs through my body when he uses this word.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” I tell him. “It’s obscene that you would use that word for something in which you were entirely complicit.”

“I don’t know if you care about this or not, but I wasn’t able to have a normal relationship for years.

Even now, with Rebecca, things aren’t quite as they should be.

Sexually, I mean. Because of you. Because of what you did to me.

The funny thing is, I still wanted to be a doctor,” he continues, looking toward the window.

“So I went to university, studied medicine and, in time, tracked you down. I wanted to learn more about you. To see you in action. To understand what kind of person would do something like that to a child. Before I—”

“Before you what?”

“Before I go to the police.”

There’s a lengthy silence. But I’m not ready to concede just yet.

“And you honestly think they’ll believe you?” I ask.