Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Sushi? Who ate raw fish that was off? Surely it would be too easy to smell it? While the doctor set things up, I headed to the kitchen to see if there were any remnants of the takeaway. I pulled open the fridge door and found a half-eaten sushi platter. I took it out, slid it on the side, and popped off the lid.
I took a step back. It stank. But not of fish. It smelled more of . . . chemicals. Not the kind of chemicals you get from a plastic box, but of stuff you would find under the sink. That couldn’t be good. I took out my phone and texted a contact I knew who worked in a lab. They owed me a favor. I’m sending some sushi over to your lab. I think it’s been tampered with. Please test it. What was I asking her to test for? Poison, I guessed. There was every chance run-of-the-mill food poisoning was the culprit here, but with the weird payments and suspected break-in, I couldn’t shake my suspicions that something more sinister was going on. Was I an idiot for not getting the police involved sooner? Did they need to be involved now?
I found a food bag, slid the leftover sushi inside it, and called a courier. The sooner it got to the lab, the sooner we’d know.
It took about thirty minutes for the IV to finish. After the doctor had packed everything up, he followed me out into the hallway. “I think she’ll be fine now she’s had some fluids, but if she gets worse, or she doesn’t get better by this evening, take her to A&E.”
“Say it’s not food poisoning. What if she accidentally ingested a hazardous substance. Would the symptoms be the same?”
He scowled. “Most probably. But it’s like to be food poisoning. Unless she’s got some kind of weird connection to Russia.”
“I know. But you’re saying this is how she’d be feeling if it was something more nefarious than food poisoning. Is that right?”
“It would depend on the poison, but so long as it was meant to kill her, then yes, it’s likely that the symptoms would be similar.”
“Thanks, doctor.”
“If you hear hooves, don’t assume zebras.”
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant but I nodded anyway.
“Like I said,” he continued, “if she starts to vomit blood, you see blood in her stools, she loses consciousness or if she’s still being sick in eight to twelve hours, take her to accident and emergency. But with the drip and the antibiotics, she should start feeling better in an hour or so.”
“Understood,” I said. Hopefully by then I’d have the results back from the lab and Parker would be feeling a lot better.
I let him out and then closed and locked the door before going back into Parker’s bedroom. “Can I get you anything?” She looked a little brighter and she was sat up, not a groan or a mention of my lips in sight.
“Some brain bleach?”
I frowned. Whatever she was describing didn’t sound healthy. “Brain bleach?”
“Yes, so I can use it on you to erase the ramblings of this crazy person and the images of my clinging to a toilet bowl.”
I chuckled. Parker was back. “Aha, I have a button for memory wiping. I just pressed it and I have no memory of anything before the doctor arrived.”
“Thank God,” she said. “I was worried I might be so embarrassed that I’d never be able to look at you again.”
Why would she be embarrassed? She’d been sick. I smiled. “Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head. “I’m just so tired.”
I pulled up the duvet and swept the hair from her eyes. “You should sleep.” How did she manage to still look pretty when she was so poorly?
“You’re a kind man, Tristan. Thank you.”
“Don’t forget my great lips.”
Her eyes widened and then she closed them again, as if being so shocked had simply taken up too much energy. “You promised me no memories of anything before the doctor arrived.”
I stroked her forehead. “Oh that button has a loophole. If I don’t want to forget something, it malfunctions.”
She sighed but didn’t reply, already asleep. While Parker slept off the effects of the sushi, I was going to poke around and see if there was anything that seemed out of place. If it turned out the sushi had been poisoned, I wanted to be as prepared as I could be. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I’d know if I found it.
I started in the kitchen. Parker’s entire one-bedroomed flat looked like it had the contents of a three-bedroom house squashed into it. There was just so much stuff everywhere. Cookery books lined the back of the work surfaces. Overspill crockery was piled up in front of the cookery books, leaving little room for actual food preparation. Even floor space had been commandeered by freestanding storage for more stuff. Even every electrical socket had something plugged into it—three phone chargers, the kettle, the toaster and an abandoned hand whisk. No wonder she liked my kitchen so much. I couldn’t think in here, let alone cook. Maybe because everything was so cramped, Parker had put her sushi on the counter and had inadvertently contaminated the food herself. The place wasn’t dirty but everything was so close that it was possible she used the draining board to unpack the takeaway and had knocked into something.