Making Enemies and Influencing People
Dunleavy private hospital, on the west side of Edinburgh
It was still what seemed like an interminably long Saturday when Cooper limped in through the gleaming, modern hospital's front entrance, leaning on a tree branch, a couple of hours before curfew. The cuts and bruises on his hands and face were even more evident since he'd washed the caked mud away. The clothes covering his knees and elbows were in tatters with bruised and bloodied flesh exposed beneath them.
A young security guard jumped up from behind the desk (where he’d been watching TV on his phone) whilst putting his cap on, "Can I help you, sir?" he said, eyeing the branch warily.
Cooper struggled and failed to remember the name of the person he was there to see, and rather than look at it, he just handed over the authorisation letter that allowed him to visit at any time.
The hospital administrator had given it to him reluctantly when Cooper got his name from the company website and used one of his connections in the covert world of intelligence agencies to track him down to his girlfriend's house where he’d quietly threatened to introduce her to the administrator’s wife and children.
After consulting the floor plan on the touchscreen display sitting on his desk, the guard handed the permit back, "Ward twenty-one, second floor” he said, pointing to the corridor on his right, "but you need to leave that with me, it could be used as a weapon,” he nodded at the tree branch.
"Here's the thing, Mr… ‘Blackmore’,” Cooper said, reading the nameplate pinned onto his navy-blue, V-neck sweater with the security company logo stitched on it, "if you confiscate my walking stick and I slip and fall then I'm going to make you famous on social media. After that, thousands of keyboard warriors will be asking your bosses how a hospital, of all places, can possibly be ableist and threaten to boycott somewhere they couldn’t afford to use in the first place. Your employers, in turn, will call you a rogue worker and fire you just to placate the mob. On the other hand, you could just realise that if I tried to hit anybody with this thing I'd just fall over instead, and let me go."
The guard glowered and waved him on, "You're a dick,” he said to Cooper’s back as he sat back down.
"I get that a lot," he said over his shoulder as he limped away.
It seemed to take forever for him to shuffle painfully along to the lifts, then another quarter of a mile to his destination on the second floor, twisting and turning through corridors as he followed the signs.
When he finally got there the nurse, sitting at her desk, had obviously been warned that he was on his way and scowled whilst pointing to a side room, before he even had a chance to ask.
The young woman inside was sitting up in bed, opposite the door, she’d buried her face in a pile of paper hankies held in the palms of her hands, body convulsing with deep, retching sobs that were hard to listen to. A muted, wall-mounted TV was on a news channel, but there was no mention of the killing of three squaddies at the foot of the Braid Hills earlier that day.
“Cassandra Sloane?” he said, after checking the name on the pass. He was struggling to tell if she was the same irritatingly cheerful young woman who’d stood in his room, trying to get his help, not much more than a day before.
“What happened to you?” She said, her sobs fading as she took in his battered appearance with a puzzled expression.
“Turns out that I’m not as universally beloved as I previously thought,” he said, giving a low groan as he sat carefully on the chair beside her bed, every bone in his body aching, “and, anyway, you don’t look so hot yourself.”
“I’m not too bad considering that I was hit by six shotgun shells at close range, the doctor said it’s a miracle I’m still alive.”
“Why all the tears?”
“Didn’t you hear? I don’t remember it, but they said that I murdered three men, trying to make them bring you to me,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.
“Really? Must be the new aftershave I’m using.”
“It’s not a joke, I killed for Morrigan and I promised myself that I’d die before I let that happen,” she said, her face contorted in anguish.
“I don’t know who told you that crap, although if I were a betting man (which, come to think of it, I am) I’d put money on it being that snob of a boss of yours; I’ve already talked to the Sergeant major who was with you, and you’re wrong,” Cooper said.
“Did so,” she said, starting to cry again.
“If somebody steals my car and runs someone over, is that my fault? Of course it isn’t, so unless you can punch a man hard enough to snap his neck and spine, swing a rifle at several hundred miles an hour, or crush a trachea with one hand then it wasn’t your fault either, your body was hijacked by that Cruella de Vil on steroids you told me about.”
“So you believe me now?” She sniffled.
“Well, getting beaten up by a guy with foliage for facial hair has a way of changing your opinion of what’s possible and what’s not. Anyway, I think I always did, I was just lying to myself.”
“Even so, I––wait, what? ‘foliage for facial hair’?” She said, her eyes widening.
“It’s a long story well, more humiliating than long really, but go on.” Cooper said.
“Even if it were Morrigan’s fault,” she said pausing to give him a funny look, “if I’d never talked Captain Abercrombie into sending them to help me they’d still be alive.”
“Listen,” he snapped, gripping her by the shoulders and twisting her around to look at him, making her gasp in pain, as she was just one big bruise, he let go with a quick, “Sorry.”
She looked at him, her eyes red and puffy, tears leaving salty streaks down her cheeks. He took a deep breath before continuing more gently, “You need to understand what took place and why. You already know the first part, because I was told it was taken from one of your reports, but the more people who believe in Morrigan the more, what you called her field of influence, expands, and when you were on the hill it jumped out by half a mile. But, since none of the squaddies were Celts they didn’t feel it,” he paused to pour her a glass of water from the jug beside her bed but she refused it with a shake of her head so he sipped at it instead.
“Imagine,” he continued, “what the thousands of fanatics flooding towards Arthur’s Seat right now (most as strong, or stronger, than you were) would have done when they came across the army checkpoints on all the roads bordering the exclusion zone. Instead, because you went loopy, they fell back to where your unconscious self stopped talking about killing everybody in the truck and set-up the new perimeter around all the seven hills half a mile beyond that. So believe it, or not, you being there actually saved lives.”
“Honestly?” she said, hopefully, “you’re not just saying that to cheer me up?” she took another handful paper hankies from a box beside her bed and wiped her red, tear-stained face.
“You’re not stupid, if you don’t believe me, follow the logic; the facts don’t care about your feelings and neither do I.”
“Why did you come here, why tell me that?”
“You can be as angst-ridden as you like, I really don’t care, I just need you to be a high-functioning depressive to be of any use to me.”
“So, does that mean you’ll help, after all?”
“As long as you understand that, I’ll always look after number one, I’m nobody’s dead hero, but, that being said, I’m not going to let some psycho mess with my city either, that’s my job.”
She sat up and turned slowly, painfully, to the chest of drawers beside her bed. She was wearing a long, flannel nightdress the hospital must have given her, as he could tell it wasn’t her style. He thought some old woman had probably died in it, but decided not to point it out.
Picking up her neatly folded clothes, she headed for the on-suite bathroom.
“What’re you doing?” Cooper said.
“I’m to be released after curfew in the morning anyway, so we might as well go now. I’ll call for transport once I’m dressed.”
An assortment of ouches and moans came from the other side of the door accompanied each item of clothing she put on. It was nearly ten minutes later when she walked out wearing baggy blue jeans and a loose yellow T-shirt with “Myth is the best ology” in blue lettering on the front.
She frowned, when, for the first time, she noticed the six-foot long tree branch he was leaning on, “You need to get that looked at,” she said, pointing to the leg he was keeping his weight off of.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, “I’ve had enough injuries to know what to do myself. All I need is my old cage, er, room back, an ample supply of ice packs and elasticated bandages.”
“We’ll we can at least get you a proper crutch on the way out.”
“I’m keeping this one, thanks.”
“What on Earth for?” Cassie said as they both hobbled painfully towards the nurses’ station.
“I have absolutely no idea.”