A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(112)

Perhaps the book on the woman’s lap was an account she was keeping of the museum’s construction. And the fact that Mr. Guy had left this message for Paul to find—when he clearly could have given it to anyone else—comprised Mr. Guy’s instructions for the future. And the inheritance Paul had been left by Mr. Guy fit in with the message he had been sent: Ruth Brouard would keep the project going forward, but Paul’s was the money that would build it.

That had to be it. Paul knew it. But more, he could feel it. And Mr. Guy had talked to him more than once about feelings. Trust what’s inside, my boy. There lies the truth.

Paul saw, with a jolt of pleasure, that inside had meant more than just inside one’s heart and soul. It also had meant inside the dolmen. He was to trust what he found inside that dark chamber. Well, he would do so. He hugged Taboo and felt as if a mantle of lead had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d been wandering in the dark since he’d learned of Mr. Guy’s death. Now he had a light. But more than that, really. He had far more. Now he had a good sense of direction.

Ruth didn’t need to hear the oncologist’s verdict. She saw it on his face, especially on his forehead, which looked even more lined than usual. She understood from this that he was fending off the feelings that invariably went with imminent failure. She wondered what it must be like to choose as one’s life work bearing witness to the passing of countless patients. Doctors, after all, were meant to heal and then to celebrate victory in the battle against illness, accident, or disease. But cancer doctors went to war with weapons that were often insufficient against an enemy that knew no restrictions and was governed by no rules. Cancer, Ruth thought, was like a terrorist. No subtle signs, just instant devastation. The word alone was enough to destroy.

“We’ve gone as far as we can with what we’ve been using,” the doctor said. “But there comes a time when a stronger opioid analgesic is called for. I think you know we’ve reached that time, Ruth. Hydromorphone isn’t enough now. We can’t increase the dosage. We have to make the change.”

“I’d like another alternative.” Ruth knew her voice was faint, and she hated what that revealed about her affliction. She was meant to be able to hide from the fire, and if she couldn’t do that, she was meant to be able to hide the fire from the world. She forced a smile. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it simply throbbed. There’d be that respite between the pulsing, if you know what I mean. I’d have the memory of what it was like...i n those brief pauses...what it was like before.”

“Another round of chemo, then.”

Ruth stood firm. “No more of that.”

“Then we must move to morphine. It’s the only answer.” He observed her from the other side of his desk, the veil in his eyes that had been shielding him from her seemed to drop for an instant. The man himself appeared as if naked before her, a creature who felt too many other creatures’

pain. “What are you afraid of, exactly?” His voice was kind. “Is it the chemo itself ? The side effects from it?”

She shook her head.

“The morphine, then? The idea of addiction? Heroin users, opium dens, addicts nodding off in back alleyways?”

Again, she shook her head.

“Then the fact that morphine comes at the end? And what that means?”

“No. Not at all. I know I’m dying. I’m not afraid of that.” To see Ma-man and Papa after such a long time, to see Guy and be able to say I’m so sorry...What, Ruth thought, was there to fear in this? But she wanted to be in control of the means and she knew about morphine: how at the end it robbed you of the very thing you yourself were gallantly attempting to release on a sigh.

“But it’s not necessary to die in such agony, Ruth. The morphine—”

“I want to go knowing I’m going,” Ruth said. “I don’t want to be a breathing corpse in a bed.”

“Ah.” The doctor placed his hands on his desk, folded them neatly so that his signet ring caught the light. “You’ve an image of it, haven’t you?

The patient comatose and the family gathered round the bedside watching her at her most defenceless. She lies immobile and not even conscious, unable to communicate no matter what’s in her mind.”

Ruth felt the call of tears but she didn’t reply to it. Fearful that she might, she simply nodded.

“That’s an image from a long time ago,” the doctor told her. “Of course, we can make it a present-day image if that’s what the patient wants: a carefully orchestrated slide into a coma, with death waiting at the end of the descent. Or we can control the dosage so that the pain gets dulled and the patient remains alert.”

“But if the pain’s too great, the dosage has to be equal to it. And I know what morphine does. You can’t pretend it doesn’t debilitate.”

“If you have trouble with it, if it makes you too sleepy, we’ll balance it with something else. Methylphenidate, a stimulant.”

“More drugs.” The bitterness Ruth heard in her voice was a match for the pain in her bones.

“What’s the alternative, Ruth, beyond what you already have?”

That was the question, with no easy answer that she could accept and embrace. There was death at her own hand, there was welcoming torture like a Christian martyr, or there was the drug. She would have to decide. She thought about this over a cup of coffee, which she sipped at the Admiral de Saumarez Inn. A fire was blazing there, just a few steps off Berthelot Street, and Ruth found a tiny nearby table that was empty. She eased herself down into a chair and ordered her coffee. She drank it slowly, savouring its bitter flavour as she watched the flames lick greedily at the logs.