‘Can I help you?’ The doctor repeated impatiently. He took hold of Darius’s hand and slid his fingers up to his wrist to take his patient’s pulse as he spoke.
‘I … I’ve come to see my dad.’ Bullet could hardly get the words out.
‘You’ve got the wrong room,’ Darius Marriott said tersely. ‘There’s no one else here. I don’t share this room with anyone.’
‘No … you d-don’t understand …’ Bullet stammered.
‘I’ll just take your blood pressure, Mr Marriott, and then I’ll go,’ said the doctor. He picked up the sphygmomanometer or blood pressure machine on the table beside the patient and placed it on the bed.
‘What don’t I understand?’ Darius Marriott asked Bullet, as the doctor unrolled the blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around his forearm.
‘Mr Marriott, I’m … I’m Toby Barker. You’re my dad.’
‘You’re … you’re not a doctor. Who are you?’ Ricky’s voice held fear and belligerence. ‘Who are you? What are you doing to Bullet’s dad?’
Stunned, Theo turned from Ricky to the doctor. If he hadn’t seen it for himself, he never would’ve believed it. The expression on the so-called doctor’s face changed in the blink of an eye. He let go of Darius’s arm and snatched up the syringe again. Bullet leaped forward as the doctor pulled the plastic cap off the needle and lunged for Darius Marriott. But Bullet was on him in an instant, knocking the syringe out of his hand. It flew across the room and hit the wall.
The bogus doctor lashed out, knocking Bullet off his feet. He snarled out a curse and leaped for the door. Theo ran over to Bullet, who lay collapsed on the floor. Ricky and Angela barred the doctor’s exit. They dodged and darted around him, two terriers yapping at a giant’s heels.
‘Get out of my way,’ the man raged.
Angela and Ricky didn’t answer. Nor did they take their eyes off the man. The man roared his frustration. His eyes sparked so much they could’ve lit matches. His hands lashed out and thrashed about as he tried to grab hold of Angela and Ricky to yank them out of his way. But they always managed just to evade his hands. With a leap, the man grabbed hold of Angela’s arm but she twisted like a striking cobra and was immediately out of his grasp. Suddenly, the man charged headfirst for the door, like some kind of demented bull. Angela and Ricky jumped out of his way – only just in time. The door banged open and the man raced down the corridor in an instant.
‘Stop him. Someone stop him,’ Angela yelled.
But she was too late. As the sister stepped out of her office to find out what all the commotion was about, the exit doors were already swinging shut.
‘Stop him! Call the police.’ Angela was jumping up and down and screaming at the same time.
‘Bullet? Bullet, are you OK?’ Theo asked urgently.
Bullet rubbed his head as he sat up slowly. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. He just took me by surprise, that’s all.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right? You’re not hurt?’
Bullet got to his feet. ‘I’m fine, I promise. But what about my dad?’
Chapter Four
A Mistake
DOCTOR NOLAN, A nurse, a woman wearing a business suit and two police officers – one in plain clothes, the other in uniform – were all crowded into Darius Marriott’s room. Theo, Bullet and the others were wedged against the wall watching what was going on. Darius Marriott looked like death on a bad day. One moment he stared straight ahead profoundly shocked, the next moment he blinked like a stunned owl, the next moment his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed with fury. He didn’t know what to think – or feel.
‘How are you feeling now, Mr Marriott, sir?’ asked the woman. She’d introduced herself as Mrs Tracer, an executive manager at the hospital. Theo wondered why she didn’t wet her lips and kiss Darius Marriott’s feet while she was at it. How grovelly could one woman get?
‘I’m feeling fine – thanks to that boy over there.’ Darius Marriott looked directly at Bullet but there was no trace of a smile on his face. Bullet’s head dropped, he could no longer meet his father’s gaze.
Was that all the man had to say? ‘Thanks to that boy over there’? Theo shook his head. If he was in Darius Marriott’s place, how would he feel? To be confronted with a son he’d never seen, a son he never even knew existed, and a threat to his life in the same five minutes – that would be enough to knock anyone for six. But Theo thought he would have had more to say to Bullet than his dad seemed to.
‘Mr Marriott, we’re going to get the substance in this hypodermic syringe analysed at once,’ said Detective Sergeant Reid, the CID policewoman in plain clothes. ‘And we’ll get to work on circulating your initial statements and your descriptions of the phoney doctor.’
‘Just what was it that made you suspect the so-called doctor in the first place?’ the uniformed officer asked.
They all turned to look at Ricky. Theo had been wondering the same thing himself but in all the confusion and commotion he hadn’t had the chance to ask.
‘Well, first of all he was trying to take Mr Marriott’s pulse on the little finger side of his wrist when everyone knows you take a pulse from the thumb side of your wrist. And then, when he tried to take Mr Marriott’s blood pressure, he put the cuff around Mr Marriott’s forearm instead of his upper arm,’ explained Ricky.
‘It was very observant of you to notice. Well done!’ said DS Reid.
‘This is bizarre. Why would anyone want to harm me?’ Darius Marriott shook his head.
‘People in your position rarely get where they are without making enemies,’ said DS Reid. ‘It could be some crackpot out to make a name for himself by harming you but I’m betting the motive is a tad more personal or mercenary.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well sir, to put it bluntly, who stands to gain by your death?’
Theo wondered at the bewildered look on Darius Marriott’s face. It was as if he had never even considered the question. Moments passed and still Darius stared, too aghast to utter a word. They weren’t DS Reid and Darius Marriott any more – they were Medusa and her victim!
‘That’s enough, officer,’ said Dr Nolan. ‘I won’t have Mr Marriott any more upset than he already is.’
Darius raised a hand. ‘It’s all right, doctor. I want that fake doctor found just as much as the police do, more so in fact. If someone’s trying to kill me I want them found.’
‘So who has a motive to get rid of you?’ asked DS Reid.
‘No one as far as I know. When I die, some of my money will go to various charities and some members of my staff, but the bulk of my fortune goes to the co-directors of DemTech and to my wife, Samantha.’
‘And where is your wife now, sir?’
‘She’s in New York visiting Daryl Matthewson, an old friend of hers,’ Darius answered.
DS Reid made a note of the New York address and phone number in her notebook. ‘Has your wife been informed that you’re in hospital?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Darius frowned. ‘My Personal Assistant Jo Fleming was here last night and again this morning. She said she’s been trying to get in touch with Samantha but she’s had no success.’
‘How long has your wife been in New York, sir?’ asked the sergeant.
That’s just the question I would’ve asked, Theo thought to himself – pleased that he was thinking along the same lines as the CID woman.
‘Almost a week now.’
‘Does she often go abroad by herself?’
‘Sometimes. It isn’t always possible for us to go on holiday together. I have a very busy schedule.’ Darius Marriott shrugged.
He didn’t look terribly bothered by that fact either. Theo couldn’t imagine his mum and dad ever taking separate holidays. The thought would never occur to them. Theo regarded Darius Marriott. He took a long, hard look. And in that moment, Theo decided that he didn’t like Darius Marriott very much. Correction! He didn’t like him at all. There was something about him …
‘Look! I really must insist that everyone leaves at once.’ Dr Nolan put her foot down. ‘Whilst Mr Marriott is in this hospital he’s my responsibility. He may already have had a mild heart attack and I’m not prepared to let my patient take any more chances.’
‘OK, doctor. OK.’ DS Reid turned to the patient. ‘I’ve got your address and your preliminary statement but later on I’ll need to ask you a few more questions,’ she said.
‘You have my card. Just make an appointment with my PA and I’ll make myself available,’ said Darius.
Reluctantly the police, the nurse and the hospital official all left the room. Theo and the others stayed where they were. As far as Theo was concerned, he wasn’t leaving until someone came right out and told him to leave. He wanted to know what was going on, more for Bullet’s sake than his own, but even so! The doctor frowned in Theo’s direction. Theo glanced at Bullet, Angela and Ricky. From the determined looks on their faces, they weren’t about to volunteer to leave either. But just as the doctor opened her mouth to evict them, Darius said a surprising thing.
‘It’s OK, Doctor, I’d like them to stay.’
The doctor looked like she wanted to argue, but in the end she decided against it.
‘Doctor, I thought you’d ruled out the possibility of a heart attack,’ Darius Marriott continued, before the doctor could change her mind.
‘We’re still trying to work out exactly what happened. At first we thought you’d had a heart attack but your ECG readings were normal and your blood test results all came back normal as well. You have no previous history of heart attacks and no heart attack symptoms so we’re at a bit of a loss to explain what happened.’
‘Er … maybe there’s something you should know. I wasn’t going to say anything but maybe it will help you to pin down the reason why I collapsed. And I didn’t like to say in front of the police and the others,’ Darius said. ‘Just before I … I keeled over, something happened with my suit.’
‘What suit?’
‘My Lazarus suit,’ Darius Marriott provided. ‘It’s a Lazarus waistcoat or jacket actually but that doesn’t sound as good! It’s been designed as a first stop medical defence system. It’s meant to be worn by anyone who may need medical assistance in a hurry. It can monitor your blood pressure and pulse rate and, based on your past medical history, it can administer any necessary drugs using a hypodermic needle system. It’s going to make my company a fortune.’
‘Never mind the advertisement! What suit are you talking about? Hold on. Is it that dark grey waistcoat thing you were wearing when you collapsed?’
Darius nodded.
‘What has this suit got to do with your heart attack?’ Dr Nolan frowned.
‘I felt the suit give me an electric shock just before I hit the ground,’ Darius replied.
‘An electric shock? Where?’
‘Over my chest.’
‘But it was the shock that probably stopped your heart,’ the doctor stared. ‘Don’t you realise that defibrillating a healthy heart can stop it?’
‘De-what?’ Theo couldn’t help asking.
‘Defibrillating,’ Ricky provided. ‘If your heart has stopped or it’s not beating properly, they sometimes give you an electric shock over your chest to get your heart to contract then start beating properly again.’
‘Mr Marriott, why would your suit defibrillate your heart in the first place?’ Dr Nolan asked.
‘I don’t know. And that’s what worries me. The Lazarus suit has so many fail-safes built into it that it should never do that unless there is no other choice. The suit would never, ever enter defibrillation mode unless it registered that the wearer’s heart had stopped beating.’
‘Why didn’t you tell one of us this information before now?’
‘Because I can’t afford any adverse publicity for my project. The Lazarus suit is too important to me.’
‘I’d say your Lazarus suit contains a few bugs that need to be sorted out before anyone else wears it.’ Dr Nolan couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice. ‘Do you realize you could’ve been killed? Whose stupid idea was this device of yours?’
‘Mine actually.’ A trace of a smile flickered across Darius’s face.
Dr Nolan didn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed. ‘Well, you’ve done better, Mr Marriott. You’ve done much better.’
‘I’ve been thinking about this and the only thing I can think of is that the suit somehow malfunctioned or was tripped remotely. I was wondering if maybe, with all the gadgetry in the school hall, my invention was somehow given a false signal or a signal that confused it. If that was the case, it might’ve thought my heartbeat had become dangerously irregular, or had stopped altogether,’ Darius said, more to himself than to anyone else.
‘What kind of false signal?’ asked Dr Nolan. ‘I thought this suit of yours had all its components in the one place?’
‘Yes, but it can be set up so that someone with the proper equipment can monitor your vital signs from a remote computer. The range is limited but it still works. That computer then communicates with the Lazarus suit using radio waves. If my suit somehow picked up radio waves from another source, that might’ve triggered the malfunction.’
Every bone in Theo’s body turned to mush. It felt like there were a thousand spotlights all trained on him, burning into his skin, making his blood boil in furious panic. Horrified, he turned to Bullet. He couldn’t help it. Ricky and Angela were doing the same thing and Theo knew that their expressions mirrored his own. Bullet’s lie detector … Was Bullet’s lie detector responsible for almost killing his dad?
Theo took one look at the horror-stricken expression on Bullet’s face and immediately looked away again.
‘What’s the matter?’ Darius Marriott wasn’t slow to pick up on the atmosphere very apparent in the room.
‘I …’ Bullet looked around, then turned back to Darius. ‘I invented a lie detector and I was trying it out in the assembly hall yesterday morning.’
‘A lie detector? So?’
‘So it uses radio waves …’ Bullet’s voice was little more than a murmur, but in the stunned silence of the room it was loud enough.
‘You mean you’re responsible for my suit almost killing me?’ Darius straightened up, his expression thunderous.
‘It was a mistake. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know,’ Bullet pleaded.
‘You tried to kill me.’ Darius Marriott was incredulous. ‘You stupid idiot! I ought to call the police back here to arrest you on the spot.’ Darius looked like he was about to leap out of the bed and throttle Bullet.
‘I’m sorry …’
‘Sorry? Sorry doesn’t cut it. You shouldn’t mess about with things you know absolutely nothing about. And then you have the nerve to tell me that cock-and-bull story about being my son. I should have you arrested for that, as well.’
‘Now wait just one minute,’ Ricky exploded.
‘No, Ricky.’ Bullet shook his head.
‘I’m not going to stand here and let him talk to one of my friends like that.’ Ricky refused to be quiet. ‘You’ve got a short memory, mister. All of us, including Bullet, just saved your life – or have you forgotten that? Someone was in here with a syringe and they were obviously out to get you. It was probably that same person who somehow tried to fiddle about with your Lazarus suit by remote control. You’ve got no right to blame Bullet when you have no proof that he had anything to do with it. What kind of father are you?’
‘I’m not any kind of father,’ Darius snorted derisively. ‘That’s why I wanted all of you to stay behind. I won’t have that boy or any of you going around spreading lies about me. I don’t know what kind of game you four think you’re playing but I want to nip this in the bud before it goes any further.’
‘What’re you talking about?’ Angela scowled.
‘You four have obviously cooked up this little scheme between you to get money from me or something. Let me tell you right now it’s not going to work.’
/>
If Theo’s mouth dropped open any further, cars would soon be driving through it! He couldn’t believe his ears. Did Darius Marriott really think that they were out to extort money from him? One look at the grown-up’s face and Theo had his answer.
‘You must be seriously nuts!’ Ricky fumed. ‘We wouldn’t take a thing from you if we were starving hungry and you were giving away free doughnuts. We’re here ’cos Bullet, I mean, Toby, told us you were his dad and we’re his friends so we wanted to lend him moral support.’
‘If Toby or whatever his name is told you that, then he’s lying.’
‘No, I’m not. My mum is Teresa Barker. She used to be your secretary and you two used to go out together. Mum told me so.’
‘Teresa Barker …’ Now it was Darius’s turn to look dumbfounded. ‘Tessa is your mother?’
Bullet nodded. ‘Only her close friends call her Tessa. Everyone else calls her Teresa.’
‘And she told you that I was your father?’
Bullet nodded again.
Darius shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off Bullet. ‘You’re not my son,’ he said at last. ‘Either your mother or you is mistaken – or lying.’
‘Why would Mum lie about it?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s the one after my money, and she sent you to do her dirty work for her.’
Bullet took a step forward, his fists clenched. ‘You take that back.’
‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,’ Darius said impatiently.
Theo snorted under his breath. Darius had meant it exactly the way it had come out. A tense silence reigned.
‘Bullet, maybe we should wait for you outside?’ Ricky suggested uneasily.
Bullet immediately shook his head. ‘No, you’re my friends. I’d like you to stay.’ He turned back to Darius. ‘Besides, I knew he’d deny it. That’s why my mum left him when she found out she was pregnant with me. She knew he’d do his best to find a way to wriggle out of it. That’s just the type of man he is.’
‘Now wait just a minute. Did your mother tell you that?’