Page 5 of Offside

I thought about Rochester. That was a different world, a line written carefully enough to be defensible and vaguely enough to let the people above me decide what it meant. It had cost me my job.

What I'd learned from that wasn't how to keep a file harmless. There was no harmless file once money and authority came into play. What I'd learned was that a record should tell the verifiable truth.

I signed the note as Volkov came through the door, one forearm across his ribs. "Pryce. I require immediate care."

"Good morning to you too," I said.

"It won't be a good morning if I die before practice."

Eriksson was already on Zoe's table, working one leg against a resistance band. He didn't even bother to look over.

"He took a stick yesterday," he said. "He's told seven people."

"Six," Volkov said. "You weren't listening the first time."

I pointed him toward the examination table. "Shirt up."

Volkov climbed onto the empty table and lifted his shirt. There was a faint bruise along the lower rib line. His breathing was even. He rotated both directions when I asked and sighed the whole time, as if it cost him an enormous effort.

"That's the spot," he said when I pressed one rib.

"That's a bruise," I told him.

"You haven't completed the examination."

I kept my fingers on the rib. "Breathe in."

He did. No hitch, no guarding.

"Again." I kept my fingers against the same rib.

He filled his lungs until his chest rose under my hand.

"Bruised," I said. "You can skate. Come back if breathing hurts or the pain changes."

"It already hurts."

Eriksson extended his leg against the band. "My grandmother fell off a hay cart and finished loading it before lunch."

Zoe covered a laugh with a cough. Volkov lowered his shirt with dignity.

"I'll skate," he announced. "In silence."

"That'll be the concerning symptom." I suppressed a chuckle.

He left to tell someone else.

By six-thirty the room had filled. The sound of tape tearing, stall doors opening and shutting. A skate blade struck the rubber floor when one of the equipment staff dropped it. I moved between tables, answered a question about a hip, and checked Eriksson's resistance work before Bishop arrived.

He came straight to the corner station.

His practice shirt was folded over his left forearm. The right arm moved, but he kept the elbow close to his body.

"Reyes said no contact," he said.

"She told me. Skating is still cleared."

He looked past me at the tablet. "What did you write?"