Devolution

The attack of Chief Inspector Adrian Jacobssen was a major news story not just locally but globally. The recent attack, being the second and equally unsuccessful one, was reported again and many of the more sensationalist type reporters began to write about him as though he were a supercop. Some were going as far as to suggest he was a cyborg.

Adrian emerged slowly from a heavy sleep to the sounds of the webnews on the VDU on the wall of his private room in St. Vincent’s Hospital. At first it was all just noise as were the sights in his room because his vision was blurry. Then he realized he couldn’t see anything out of his right eye but was relieved to find a bandage covering it. Thank God, he thought, I’m not blind.

As his ears tuned in to the webnews he heard words like supercop and invincible and cyborg added to his name like epithets from ardent admirers, and he wondered what the hell they were on about. Memory not yet fully operational, he learned of his circumstances from the reports on the news. Eventually, he was able to recall and replay his own images of what had happened, and apart from all the speculation about the motive behind the attempt on his life and its connection with the previous one in Mumbai, and his alleged invincibility, it was pretty much how he remembered it.

Next he became aware of the acrid taste in his mouth and the soreness of cracked lips. Alone in the room, he searched beside the bed for the call button, found it and pressed it twice.

Five minutes later, the room was illuminated briefly as the door slid open and a nurse entered. The return to dimness after the door closed again was a great relief to Adrian’s unbandaged eye.

‘You’re awake Mr. Jacobssen. Very good,’ said the nurse. ‘How do you feel?’

He caught a faint trace of her perfume as she walked from one side of the bed around to the other. Her uniform white and loose, was half covered by a baggy gray cardigan. Did she call him Mr. Jacobssen? That was unusual.

She looked directly at him when he failed to answer the question.

‘Can you speak, Mr. Jacobssen?’

Adrian opened his mouth and heard a rush of air which frightened him. Bravely he tried again to speak and this time managed to squeeze out a whispered request instead of a reply.

‘Thirsty. Drink please.’

From a clear jug standing on the bedside table, the nurse poured water into a glass and handed it to him.

‘Just a sip now, be careful.’

The sip was painful at first as the cool water ran over the blisters in his throat, but finally satisfying so he took another, followed by a third before handing the glass back to the nurse.

‘Thank you. I know,’ Adrian said slowly, struggling to produce the sounds and form the words which were lined up as sentences in his head. ‘I know what happened to me, but can you…’ There his voice failed so he held out his hand to request another drink of water.

Again he had the initial discomfort followed by the pleasure: a very curious combination. ‘Can you tell me if there is any permanent damage to my…to my lungs, eyes, throat etcetera.’

Through his blurry eye, Adrian saw the nurse smile, her full lips parting to reveal a mouthful of white teeth.

‘The doctor will be in to see you later,’ she said. ‘There are quite a few reporters here who want to talk to you, naturally enough, but they won’t be given access to you until after the doctor has seen you and even then, only with your permission, okay?’

Adrian nodded. He understood his celebrity status while cursing it for automatically boosting his profile here in Sydney. What he really needed to be able to do was to get around without much fuss and do what he had to do. That was no longer possible due to his name and face being plastered all over every VDU screen in the country. Not to mention the fact that whoever tried to kill him would have no trouble finding him if they wanted to have another go.

He needed to talk to the local police and hospital security so he pressed the call button again. This time after a longer wait, the same nurse returned with the same unflustered manner.

‘Yes Mr. Jacobssen, what can I do for you?’

V.I.P treatment or standard? Whatever, it was good. Adrian went on to explain his situation although after he had done so he didn’t know why. There was no point. Then he asked her to contact the police for him.

The nurse smiled widely again, and produced a business card from the pocket of her cardigan.

‘A Detective Hatsis from the local area command, passed a message for you to call him when you felt up to it. The videophone extends up from the side of your bed.’ She moved to the right hand side and pressed a button. ‘That turns it on, and it’s as easy as that.’

Adrian smelled her perfume again, and liked it. He wondered if it was really delicate or only appeared that way to his damaged sense of smell.

‘What’s the name of the perfume you’re wearing?’

‘I’m not wearing any perfume,’ she said. Then she turned and left Adrian bemused.

‘Detective Hatsis please.’

‘Hatsis here, who’s speaking?’

‘This is Chief Inspector Adrian Jacobssen. You left a message saying you wanted to talk to me?’

‘What are you doing in Sydney, Jacobssen? Do you usually say fuck you to protocol and begin an investigation in a foreign country, out of your jurisdiction, without informing the local boys?’

Hatsis’ accent amused Adrian. It was in most regards a typical Australian drawl, the vowels all messed up, different they would say, but it had something else thrown into the mix. With a name like Hatsis, it was likely the angry straight shooting detective had Greek heritage. Adrian concentrated on the right tone for his response.

‘No detective, it is not my habit to disregard protocol in this way. I am actually on holiday though, not on official police business.’

‘Bullshit! This is going to get very fucking boring for me, if you want to play games. I don’t know what sort of half arsed operation you think we run down here, but we noted your arrival before you even left the fucking terminal. We’re on your calls, on your movements, on your arse, all over you like a fucking rash Jacobssen. I even know what brand of aftershave you’re wearing.’

Jacobssen paused to take a breath. ‘I tell you what detective, when you recover your temper and talk to me with a bit of respect we can continue this conversation. Call me back when you are ready to do that, will you please.’

Then he hung up.

Mad at himself for underestimating Australia’s security operations, Adrian was now totally on the back foot. On second thoughts, that was a generous position to be in, he would have loved to have been at least on the back foot, but here he was stuck in bed. Flat on his back.

Hatsis would call again and soon: perhaps more conciliatory, perhaps not. Adrian was stalling, trying to work out exactly how much Hatsis knew and how much more he should tell him.

The nurse re entered the room with her customary smile. ‘Everything all right,’ she asked. ‘You look a little agitated.’

The telephone rang. ‘Excuse me, sorry,’ said Adrian to the nurse as he activated the videophone. He had deliberately used video blocking on the first call but not this time. ‘Detective Hatsis,’ he said warmly and calmly as he stared at the olive skinned and unshaven face of a Greek Australian.

‘If you were hoping for an apology, you can kiss my arse.’

Adrian filled the pause Hatsis left. ‘I’ll pass on that.’

‘Right then. I want to know exactly what you are investigating and all the information you have already gathered.’

The slightly less angry detective stared straight ahead as though talking to a blank wall. Adrian did not answer immediately. He had less time than he needed to determine his response.

‘How about when I get out of hospital, I come and see you and we can talk, you know face to face?’

‘Fuck me Jacobssen! Sounds like you are already talking and as for face to fucking face, this ain’t my arse you’re lookin’ at.’

Jacobssen wanted to laugh despite the predicament in which he now found himself. Most other people would have been offended by Hatsis’ language but Jacobssen thought he was hilarious: a caricature of a tough talking television cop.

‘So I’m coming over to see you now. I don’t need to, but I can’t guarantee the integrity of the hospital’s telecoms security apparatus. We’re all right this end, but like I say. I don’t know about your end so I’ll come on over. See you soon.’

Then he hung up. This was going to be a very interesting relationship between two colleagues.