They waited like that for ten minutes, and then the inner door opened and Dr McBannerman stepped in, a plain dark-haired woman in a white coat, a
stethoscope around her neck like a badge of office, and concern in her face.
‘Jodie,’ she said. ‘I’m terribly sorry about Leon.’
It was 99 per cent genuine, but there was a stray edge of worry there, too. She’s worried about a malpractice suit, Reacher thought. The patient’s daughter was a lawyer, and she was right there in her office straight from the funeral ceremony. Jodie caught it too, and she nodded, a reassuring little gesture.
‘I just came to say thank you. You were absolutely wonderful, every step of the way. He couldn’t have had better care.’
McBannerman relaxed. The 1 per cent of worry washed away. She smiled and Jodie glanced up at the big diagram again.
‘So which part finally failed?’ she asked.
McBannerman followed her gaze and shrugged gently.
‘Well, all of it, really, I’m afraid. It’s a big complex muscle, it beats and it beats, thirty million times a year. If it lasts twenty-seven hundred million beats, which is ninety years, we call it old age. If it lasts only eighteen hundred million beats, sixty years, we call it premature heart disease. We call it America’s biggest health problem, but really all we’re saying is sooner or later it just stops going.’
She paused and looked directly at Reacher. For a second he thought she had spotted some symptom he was displaying. Then he realized she was waiting for an introduction.
‘Jack Reacher,’ he said. ‘I was an old friend of Leon’s.’
She nodded slowly, like a puzzle had just been solved.
‘The famous Major Reacher. He spoke about you, often.’
She sat and looked at him, openly interested. She scanned his face, and then her eyes settled on his chest. He wasn’t sure if that was because of her professional speciality, or if she was looking at the scorch mark from the muzzle blast.
‘Did he speak about anything else?’ Jodie asked. ‘I got the impression he was concerned about something.’
McBannerman turned to her, puzzled, like she was thinking well, all of my patients are concerned about something, like life and death.
‘What sort of thing?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Jodie said. ‘Maybe something one of the other patients might have involved him with?’
McBannerman shrugged and looked blank, like she was about to dismiss it, but then they saw her remember.
‘Well, he did mention something. He told me he had a new task.’
‘Did he say what it was?’
McBannerman shook her head.
‘He mentioned no details. Initially, it seemed to bore him. He was reluctant about it, at first. Like somebody had landed him with something tedious. But then he got a lot more interested, later. It got to where it was overstimulating him. His ECGs were way up, and I wasn’t at all happy about it.’
‘Was it connected to another patient?’ Reacher asked her.
She shook her head again.
‘I really don’t know. It’s possible, I guess. They
spend a lot of time together, out there in reception. They talk to each other. They’re old people, often bored and lonely, I’m afraid.’
It sounded like a rebuke. Jodie blushed.
‘When did he first mention it?’ Reacher asked, quickly.
‘March?’ McBannerman said. ‘April? Soon after he became an outpatient, anyway. Not long before he went to Hawaii.’
Jodie stared at her, surprised. ‘He went to Hawaii? I didn’t know that.’
McBannerman nodded. ‘He missed an appointment and I asked him what had happened, and he said he’d been to Hawaii, just a couple of days.’
‘Hawaii? Why would he go to Hawaii without telling me?’
‘I don’t know why he went,’ McBannerman said.
‘Was he well enough to travel?’ Reacher asked her.
She shook her head.
‘No, and I think he knew it was silly. Maybe that’s why he didn’t mention it.’
‘When did he become an outpatient?’ Reacher asked.
‘Beginning of March,’ she said.
‘And when did he go to Hawaii?’
‘Middle of April, I think.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Can you give us a list of your other patients during that period? March and April? People he might have talked to?’