Trick of the Mind by Cassandra Chan

early-winter evening had already begun. A quick call to the hospital reassured him that Gibbons was not going to peg out just yet, so he set about his usual morning routine, walking Cerberus to the newsagent’s for the paper while the coffee brewed. Back at the flat, he arranged himself comfortably at the kitchen table, black coffee and newspaper before him, lit a cigarette, took a sip of the hot brew, and opened the paper to look for any report on Gibbons’s shooting.
    Some two hours later, he had showered, changed, and presented himself and his dog at the door of Gibbons’s hospital room, having passed Cerberus off as Gibbons’s pet. The policemen guarding the door were two different men from the night before, and there was some little delay before he was admitted while they verified his identity.
    Once inside, he was greeted with a scowl by his friend, who was lying in what looked like a terribly uncomfortable position.
    “Oh, it’s you,” he said dully.

    “How are you feeling?” asked Bethancourt, thinking his friend sounded hoarse and looked very weak. He settled himself in the armchair while Cerberus sniffed curiously at Gibbons’s side.
    “Cross,” replied Gibbons, reaching out automatically to pet the dog. He eyed his friend who looked, to his mind, abominably comfortable and well rested. “My parents,” he added sarcastically, “are very impressed with the accommodations Scotland Yard has provided for them. Apparently a grateful nation has stumped up for a suite at The Montague. One overlooking the garden.”
    “How nice,” said Bethancourt, refusing to be baited. “Where are your parents, by the way? I rather thought I’d find them here.”
    “They’ve gone off to have dinner,” answered Gibbons.
    “Oh, yes, it is dinnertime, isn’t it?” said Bethancourt, glancing at his watch. “I’m all discombobulated today. So have the doctors said anything more?”
    “Not very much,” said Gibbons. “They seem reasonably pleased with me and are being cautiously optimistic.” He yawned.
    “Are you sleepy?” asked Bethancourt. “Because if you’d rather I leave and come back later, just say so.”
    “No,” said Gibbons. “It’s just the damn painkillers. They make me drowsy—I’ve been napping half the day and hardly had a coherent thought.”
    “Better that than a lot of pain,” said Bethancourt. “I don’t imagine your tummy is feeling very good just now.”
    “Oh, there’s still plenty of pain,” Gibbons assured him. “But they claim it’s less excruciating with the drugs than without. It’s bad enough being laid up like this—it’s hell not to be able to think clearly on top of it.”
    Bethancourt, a clear-thinking man himself, sympathized. “Er,” he said guardedly, “is that really the most comfortable position for you?”
    “No,” said Gibbons crossly, “it is not. It is, however, the only position in which my abdomen doesn’t hurt. The rest of me is cramped and uncomfortable. Eventually, the cramping will bother me enough that I’ll decide the abdomen pain wasn’t really so bad and I’ll shift position and stay that way until the pain in my stomach gets to be too much.”

    Bethancourt considered this in silence for a moment. He was a person who abhorred any kind of discomfort and who had a knack of settling himself in quite cozily wherever he happened to be.
    “It sounds dreadful,” he offered.
    Gibbons glared at him, and Bethancourt reflected that what his friend really needed was distraction.
    “So what’s the news?” he asked, ignoring the glare. “Have they found out who shot you yet?”
    Gibbons’s glare turned into a sigh of frustration. “Not that I know of,” he replied. “But I haven’t heard from Carmichael today.”
    “I’m sure he’s hard at work,” said Bethancourt. “I mean, think how you would feel if he was the one who was shot.”
    “I know, I know.” Gibbons tentatively straightened one leg.
    “It must be driving you