drug addiction
No Second Chance
…when I get seriously lost or afraid in the realm of raising a child, I look at the helpless bundle in the crib and she looks up at me and I wonder what I would not do to protect her. I would lay down my life in a second. And truth be told, if push came to shove, I would lay down yours too.
.. I can only be as happy as my saddest child.
The very day I started reading this book – another Harlan Coben thriller, No Second Chance – a new little life came into our family. Infinitely precious. Unutterably fragile. Totally innocent.
Dr Marc Seidman is a specialist in paediatric reconstructive surgery – he takes care of children, mostly from overseas, who suffer from deformities through birth, poverty or conflict. Then one day he wakes up in ICU himself, and discovers he has been shot twice, lost consciousness, and his heart had stopped. He learns he has been hovering between life and death, battling sepsis, for twelve days. His rich but volatile wife Monica is dead – also shot. His beautiful baby daughter Tara is missing. For twelve days already.
The police find fingerprints in the house belonging to Stacy, his drug-addicted sister, whom he hasn’t seen for six months. And then she too is found dead.
The day Marc is released from hospital his father-in-law reveals he has been sent a snippet from Tara’s babygro, pink with black penguins. And little wisps of baby hair. The ransom note demands two million dollars. Marc himself is to deliver it. But he doesn’t follow directions to the letter and the robotic voice on the phone is implacable: No second chance. Marc will live with the consequences for the rest of his life.
But with no grave, no body, a glimmer of hope flickers on, hiding, taunting, never quite leaving Marc. By now he must also contend with some of the police believing he was the mastermind behind the kidnapping.
Then an old flame – Rachel – turns up, a former agent with the FBI. Why had she suddenly retired? Are the rumours true that she shot her husband dead?
A second ransom note is sent eighteen months after the first, again with hair genetically matched to the first sample. But are they from Tara? Is this a trap? A glimpse of a child silhouetted beside the man in the flannel shirt spurs him on; a second look at the face of the child in the man’s car convinces him it is not his daughter.
But if there is the remotest chance she could still be alive, Marc cannot give up. He co-opts Rachel and her skill as a special agent and together they unravel circles of heartbreak and need, deceit and greed, leading them closer and closer to answers to the big questions that have been haunting Marc. Who shot him? Why didn’t he hear the glass breaking? Why was Monica naked? What is the connection between his wife and the girl who lived in his house before he bought it? Is Tara still alive? One by one the pieces of the jigsaw slot into place but … there’s still one vital piece missing.
In his acknowledgements Coben lists seven technical experts who helped him in the creation of this book, adding, ‘Any mistakes are theirs and theirs alone. After all, they’re the experts, right? Why should I take take the heat?’ Goes with his whole confident style, I’d say! Wish I had his courage and assurance.
Murder most foul
Twenty years ago a much loved and respected doctor was arrested. He was found to be the world’s most prolific serial killer of all time (250 victims over 30 years and counting) . His name has become synonymous with evil: Dr Harold Shipman.
Back then the culture in this country was one of respect and trust for doctors, and in the small working-class town of Hyde near Manchester, this particular GP was revered for his dedication and compassion. He would visit vulnerable patients at all hours, stay with them during their last breaths, personally phone their relatives to break the news. When investigators came snooping the locals resisted their suggestions of sinister malpractice fiercely.
Oh yes, they knew lots of elderly people in his practice died – they even jokingly called him Dr Death – but it never entered their heads that this was in any way untoward. They were just grateful that he cared enough to be with these neighbours during their last hours on this earth. He seemed invincible.
And he believed he was. After all, he’d survived a report to the General Medical Council (GMC) relating to his personal drug addiction, he’d successfully forged prescriptions and wills, acquired legacies from patients, as well as conning the good people in his practice. When he was questioned by the police, he displayed breathtaking arrogance and insolence, spinning absurd stories, even at one point sitting with his back to his interrogators.
Photo courtesy of Photolia
Listening to the harrowing testimony of those caught up in this horrific case, it’s not difficult to understand the despair of the policeman who took his sheaf of evidence to the GMC back in 1976, twenty three years before the doctor was finally tried, only to be waved away without a hearing himself: this august medical body deeming Harold Shipman ‘no danger to the public‘, just needing some rehabilitation. If only!
In the end the law enforcement officers investigated a total of 900 deaths spanning decades; they exhumed numerous bodies; they traced his killings back to 1972; they are almost certain that the estimate of 250 deaths by poisoning is a conservative one. But Shipman never admitted his guilt, never expressed remorse; a senior forensic psychiatric said he felt none. Imprisoned for life he waited only till he had assured his wife Primrose the best settlement possible, before, on the eve of his 58th birthday, in 2004, taking the last life: his own.
Twenty years ago, but it is still as vivid as it was then. Some crimes are indelible. I was mesmerised by the documentary shown on independent television last Thursday evening. We all carry burdens from the past, but they can be as nothing compared with those borne by local friends of the ‘good doctor’, nurses who saw but didn’t dare protest, policemen whose hands were tied, relatives who thanked the doctor who had killed their loved ones. If you’ve ever been betrayed by someone you trusted, you’ll know it’s a peculiarly deep hurt.
I’m in the business of medical ethics. This story is way, way outside my scope. Had I written it into fiction no one would have believed it. It would have sunk without trace; Shipman never will.