The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,52
to the hospital. Today she trailed him right inside. He went to the floor where they give radiation treatments.”
“I see.”
“Ava, what are we going to do?”
“Well, let’s start by not jumping to conclusions,” she said with as much force as she could. She moved to the side of the bed, sitting up so she could look out the window at the tops of trees in the garden. Somehow they didn’t seem real. “Can you have your woman follow him again?”
“I don’t want to push our luck. He’s still who he is, and she shared an elevator with him this morning. I’m sure he’d recognize her if we tried it again.”
“Can we find out who his doctor is?”
“Which one?”
“What does it matter?” she snapped, impatient more with the situation than with Sonny.
“I don’t understand.”
She drew a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. Berating Sonny wasn’t going to help. “Talk to Lourdes and see if she knows who his family doctor is. If she doesn’t, ask around, talk to some of the other uncles . . . No, no, forget that last bit. For sure they’ll tell him. Just talk to Lourdes; she should know. Whatever is going on, his family doctor will have been his first point of contact.”
“What if we can’t get a name?”
“Then we’ll get a list of all the doctors at Queen Elizabeth who do radiation treatment and I’ll contact them one by one until I find the one he’s seeing.”
“He’s still at the hospital. I’m going to see Lourdes right away.”
“Sonny, don’t alarm her.”
“She’s scared already.”
“Don’t make it worse. Just tell her you’re feeling a bit under the weather and want to see a doctor, and then ask her if Uncle’s is nearby.”
“She won’t believe that.”
“Tell her anyway. It’s amazing what people are prepared to believe to avoid coping with an uglier reality.”
“Okay,” he said, without any conviction.
Ava weighed her options. “Sonny, do you want me to come back to Hong Kong today?”
“No, there’s no point to that, is there. I mean, we don’t know anything for sure, and besides, he’s so damn happy that you’re back here and you’re working a job together. We don’t want to ruin that. It’s the first time in weeks that I’ve seen him cheery.”
“All right, but if you need me, all you have to do is call. Uncle is more important than any job.”
“He’s more important than anything,” said Sonny.
“I know.”
“Than anything,” Sonny repeated.
“Yes, Sonny, than anything. Now get over to the apartment and talk to Lourdes before he gets back.”
“Okay, boss.”
I wish he hadn’t called me that, she thought as she ended the call.
She sat on the edge of the bed for another five minutes, her mind spinning. She had known something was wrong, and maybe she had even suspected it was something like cancer. Still, to have it confirmed was different. Except it isn’t confirmed, she told herself. And then there was the matter of flying back to Hong Kong. It was an emotional reaction, she knew. Get on a plane, go see Uncle, find out what’s going on. And then what? What if it wasn’t a crisis? How silly would she look then? And she couldn’t discount Sonny’s logic either. Uncle was happy right now, so why alarm him? Tears welled in her eyes. She wiped them away, but it wasn’t so easy to get rid of the knots in her stomach.
Ava slid off the bed and was walking over to her computer to search for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital when the room phone rang.
“Ava Lee,” she said dully.
“Good morning, Ava, it’s John Masterson.”
“Hi, John.”
“I just spoke with Andy Cameron and he said he would be happy to meet with you.”
“That’s good.”
“The thing is, though, today his schedule is crammed, and then Saturday and Sunday he has his golf club’s annual two-day member/guest tournament. How would dinner tonight work?”
Ava hesitated.
“Actually, Ava, that was my idea. Fay, my wife, and I were going to invite you to join us tonight anyway, and I thought why not throw Andy into the mix. We’ll be a foursome, but you can at least have a chance to get acquainted with him, talk a little shop.”
That might actually make things easier, Ava thought. He might be a little more free-wheeling, and with a couple of drinks in him, maybe I can manoeuvre some questions by him. “Yes, why not,” she said.
“Great, I’ll let Andy know. We were thinking about Chinese, if that’s okay with you. There’s a restaurant called X.O