The Victim

I am a doctor with my own medical practice and on that particular day, I had been busy right from the moment I entered my clinic. Some days are like that, with the entire session booked.

He was the tenth or twelfth patient of the morning, actually the last one before I closed for lunch – which was probably why he ended up spending so much time in my clinic.

One of the things about having a cabin that is air-conditioned is that you don’t get winded down so easily, and I was able to give him a welcoming smile when he entered, even though I had never seen him before. No doubt he was here without an appointment, one of those last minute patients who show up without calling beforehand. The policy for such walk-in patients is that they are kept for last, after the regular appointments are completed.

I noticed the bandage on his left arm but refrained from making any immediate reference to it, knowing that he would come to it in due course. I gestured to one of the two chairs placed in front of my desk.

The man was young, maybe in his mid-thirties, tall, good-looking, with rugged features. But he looked vaguely unsettled, his face not quite set in a frown, yet not with any overwhelming emotion. If I had to describe his overall state in one word, I would have said he looked lost.

He sat without a word, not looking at me, and I cleared my throat. I leaned forward and peered at his arm. “How did you get that injury?”

My words seemed to register, and he looked down at his bandage. It was makeshift, definitely not a professional job, and it was blood-stained. “I got bitten.”

I frowned, not expecting this. “By a dog?”

His mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile. “Not a dog.”

I looked for a wedding ring, saw none. So it was probably a girlfriend then. “Maybe you need to consider a new group of friends.” I said lightly.

He shook his head. “Oh, she won’t be troubling me again. I made sure of that.” Something about the way he said that made a tendril of fear run down my spine. It wasn’t sinister or anything, it was just his voice was so flat, his tone so sure. Before I could process the meaning in that single statement, he went on: “She’s dead.” And he shook his head, and I saw then that there was remorse on his face.

“I work for a company abroad. I get paid well. I’ve bought myself a nice bungalow. I think I could be considered a decent catch, and when she came on to me at this party a few weeks back, I thought nothing of it. How the hell was I supposed to know she was married, that she had a kid! She spent half the night romancing me, and I was half-drunk and flattered and one thing led to another and she spent the night at my place. She kept coming back each afternoon for more, said she had a night-job that made evenings impossible.” He laughed roughly. “Yeah, night-job – a husband and kid…”

“She was young, she was beautiful, and she was paying me more attention than anyone ever had before. I believed everything she said. She spoke about marriage and having a big family, and then one day out of the blue she asked me for some money. She said it was for her sick mother. I refused, suddenly wary. That was when, for the first time, she got angry: I don’t think she had been expecting that.

“The next day she turned up on my porch and took off her clothes and stood there. I hauled her inside and called the police.” He shook his head. “Obvious to me now, but that was exactly what she expected. She told them right off that I was blackmailing her.” His voice faltered. “Earlier, during our- sessions, she had made me take some compromising pictures of her on my digital camera. She told me it would spice things up. And she knew exactly where my camera was. She led the police straight to where I kept the camera and told them to check out the pictures I had taken of her. They were blackmail photos, she claimed. She said that they were the ones that forced her to come back every afternoon so I could have my way with her. It didn’t help my defence that the neighbours had seen her come to my house each day.” He shrugged helplessly. “Then she dropped her bombshell; she was married with a kid, and her husband was an invalid, sentenced to life in a wheelchair. That made the cops really angry – that I was taking advantage of a poor woman trying to manage the rough situation life had thrust on her.”

I heard some noise outside: it was the sound of my receptionist lowering the shutter of the clinic in anticipation of lunch. That told me that that there were no other patients after him waiting my services.

“I had to pay a huge amount to stay out of jail and my name is now crap in the neighbourhood. I’ve been told straight to my face to leave the community. My car has been damaged, my house walls disfigured, my whole life had been pulled to pieces. And all for what? Because she wanted money. But her plan failed because I called the cops instead of paying her off.” He shook his head. “But maybe that would have been better: paying her on the quiet. At least I would have had my name, and my life. Now I have nothing…”

My mobile buzzed. I looked down at it briefly, puzzled at this unwelcome intrusion. It was an unknown number, and so i did something I never do as a doctor: I killed the incoming call, and then pushed the instrument aside.

“I thought – I figured the only way I could get back my life was to go to her and beg her to tell the truth to the police.” Tears ran down his eyes. “All I wanted to do was talk, I swear! I never intended to– to kill her…”

To my ears, every word from his mouth seemed to ring true. There was an element of sincerity about him, reflected by the expression on his face as he related the hard words of his story. If he was spinning a fairy-tale then I have truly never before seen such an accomplished actor. “Why have you come to me?” I asked him, and my voice was dry.

He looked me in the eyes for the first time. “I want tablets. I have nothing left to live for, and now I have done the unthinkable – taken away a human life. Give me something so I can kill myself.”

My shoulders went taut in shock. I had not expected this.

“I’m not brave enough to kill myself any other way. Tablets are the only way. I know you’re a doctor but I told you my story so you could hate me enough to not hesitate. All I want is the name of a tablet.”

I shook my head slowly, eyes never leaving his. “No….”

“Please. Do you think that a creature like me is worth keeping alive? Look at what I’ve done! How can you not hate me for that?”

“It’s not up to me to decide your fate.” I said firmly. “I’m not condoning what you’ve done, but I can’t be your judge here either. And sure as hell I’m not going against my pledge and give you medication to kill yourself.” I shook my head vehemently. “That’s not going to happen.”

He sank back into his chair. “So what do I do know? I can’t give myself up. After what I’ve done, I’ll be lucky to reach prison alive.”

“Run.”

He looked up at me in surprise.

“Killing yourself isn’t an option. And you say you can’t expect justice by giving yourself up.” I shrugged. “Perhaps that might be the case, I do not know. Then maybe you can go into hiding until things cool down a bit. Then come out and try to explain things.” I was bewildered to hear myself saying this, but somehow his words had stirred something in me: pity of the highest order. This poor man had been manipulated and maneuvered into a situation not of his doing or choosing, and now his whole life had come crashing down around him. That I believed him was not in question. I don’t know how, but I just did.

He looked at me with new eyes, and there was something there that hadn’t been there before. Hope? Then he frowned. “Why are you doing this? I can understand you don’t want to help me die – but to help me after what I’ve done? That’s not – normal…”

I shrugged but inside I was struggling to find an answer to that question myself. “Every day for the last forty years my whole life has been about helping to make sick people better. Today I’ve being offered a chance to help save someone. To literally save a life. I have to ask myself: what can be nobler than that?”

He stared at me one last time then left the clinic without a word.

The police came that evening. I learned later they were targeting all doctors in the area, suspecting he would seek medical treatment for the bite wound.

I said nothing when they showed me his photograph. At the doorway, my receptionist was looking at me with big eyes. If it hadn’t been obvious to the cops before, they definitely knew know.

The Inspector sat down.

I sighed. “That woman took advantage of him. Would you have reacted any differently?”

“He could have waited – and trusted us to do our job.” His eyes were flint-like. “We had received a report that the same woman had pulled a similar stunt before – in another State. That report took time to reach us.”

I sat up. “So you believe his story! And – thank God! He didn’t kill himself!”

“He should have: it would have made someone’s job easier.”

My voice was harsh. “I know he killed her, Inspector, but now that you say you understand the circumstances, can’t his punishment be less severe?”

He nodded and took out some papers. “Look at these photos of the corpse.”

“Inspector, I’m a doctor. I’ve seen my share and more of dead bodies. Looking at a thirty-something year old corpse isn’t going to shake me, I assure you.”

He looked at me strangely then, and his hand tightened into a fist, hard, very hard. “Thirty year old?” Then he looked away. “It wasn’t the woman he killed – it was her four year old daughter.”

__END__