Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 6. Whole No. 778, June 2006

by Albert Cornelis Baantjer

  “I don’t have any bullets.”

  Sophie stopped walking and slurped the last drops of the shake. She watched Wilson walk away. The midmorning sun was shining above him.

  “Hey, Wilson?” she shouted after him. “Want to buy a girl a real drink?”

  Bad Blood

  by Keith McCarthy

  Copyright © 2006 Keith McCarthy

  Here’s an author CSI fans will adore. Keith McCarthy is a pathologist who has chosen the same trade for his fictional hero, John Eisenmenger. In Mr. McCarthy’s novels — of which there are four in the series to date: A Feast of Carrion, The Silent Sleep of the Dying, The Final Analysis, and A World Full of Weeping (all Carroll & Graf in the U.S.) — Eisenmenger works alongside DI Beverly Wharton, who appears in this story.

  ❖

  It was raining and it was cold. The man with the tape measure, the camera, and the clipboard was grumpy because his pen wouldn’t work properly and there was water dripping off his hat down the back of his neck.

  “Tell me why I’m here, Kocher.”

  Beverley Wharton looked as if she had fallen amongst lepers.

  Sergeant Kocher grunted and abandoned his attempts to write. Without a word he walked out into the centre of the road, knowing he was safe because police cars blocked both ends. Despite the rain, the incidents of the night had still managed to attract six of the more rubber-necked citizens of the city; the audience was considerably augmented by faces peering from the sitting-room windows of the houses that lined both sides of the street. Beverley followed him to a point in the middle of the road. It was surrounded by plastic police cones joined into an approximate square by yellow tape. The rain had not been heavy enough to obliterate all the blood from the tarmac.

  “The hit-and-run happened at approximately eight fifty-five. The victim was a young female, identified by credit cards and organ donor card in her handbag as Elizabeth Sanderson.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So what’s it to do with me?” This was a uniform matter. Not that anybody ever openly admitted that uniform matters were less important than those of plain clothes, at least not to the poor spacks in uniform.

  Once more Sergeant Kocher didn’t get around to replying directly. He walked up the road, away from the bloodstain, his torch pointed directly down on the surface. As Beverley followed him, a train rumbled past in the distance. The rain seemed to get slightly heavier and far more uncomfortable. He stopped walking about twenty metres away from the coned-off area and looked at her.

  She asked, “Well?”

  It was his show and he knew it. That she should have failed to spot the evidence was a source of pleasure to him, irritation to her. He said, “I’ve been up and down this street. The only skid marks are inside the toilets.”

  At last she understood. “Deliberate, you mean?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Now she was interested. “Witnesses?”

  He shook his head, a sour grin on his face. Indicating their audience both inside and outside, he said, “Believe it or not, none.”

  “Where’s she been taken?”

  “St. Benjamin’s.”

  Having organised house-to-house enquiries in the street, she arranged to meet DC Rich at the hospital.

  “It’s potentially attempted murder, okay?”

  He nodded and said nothing. She liked that about him; when he spoke it was usually worth the effort of listening. If she said that it was attempted murder then, as far as he was concerned, that’s what it was. She asked, “Where is she?”

  “Intensive care.”

  She didn’t voice her feelings as he led her through the starkly lit corridors, past occasional abandoned beds and wheelchairs. They ignored the sign on the door that requested them to ring and wait and walked straight in. The warmth stifled them at once.

  They were ignored at first, allowing Beverley to look around. She counted eight beds, six of which were occupied, all flanked by stacks of equipment. There was a background cacophony of electronic beeping, an amelodic composition that never repeated yet was depressingly familiar. Beverley murmured something under her breath. Rich asked, “Beg pardon, ma’am?”

  Her eyes were bright, her expression one almost of anxiety as she continued to look around the room. “I hate places like this. There’s death here, but no dignity.”

  Besides the patients, there were about ten people in the room, some of them at the desk in the centre of the far wall, others around the occupied beds. All were dressed in blues; all, to Beverley’s eye, were steeped in sanctimonious dedication. It was as if they were priests and priestesses scurrying around the temple.

  At last one of them — a young blond woman — noticed them and frowned at their presumption in invading the sanctum. Rich saw her, too, and smiled. Beverley saw that there was more than politeness in his expression and found a twinge of jealousy.

  “Can I help you?” She was attractive, Beverley had to admit, and she knew that Rich liked blondes, but there was also a ring on her finger.

  Rich said easily, “Police. I’m DC Rich, this is DI Wharton. We’re here about an RTA victim. Elizabeth Sanderson.”

  At once there was a shift; from wary disinterest came forth sorrow. She indicated the bed in the corner to their right. “Liz is over there.”

  Beverley asked, “Liz?”

  The woman — her name badge told them that she was Sister Hamman — said, “Liz Sanderson, yes.”

  “You know her?”

  “She works here. She’s a doctor — a specialist in one of the medical departments.”

  Rich made a note of this; Beverley considered the information, then decided that it was a coincidence of little likely import. She asked, “Can we speak to her?”

  Sister Hamman shook her head regretfully. “She’s intubated and sedated. She’s in a bad way, too.”

  “How bad?”

  “Broken pelvis, flail chest, hairline skull fracture, and broken femur; possible lung lacerations. She’ll be going to theatre later tonight, assuming we can stabilise her.”

  “So when will we be able to talk with her?”

  Sister Hamman sighed and said seriously, “If she makes it at all, not for days.”

  Beverley had hoped for better but was philosophical. “Next of kin?”

  “Parents live in Spain; they’re on their way over.”

  “Husband? Boyfriend?”

  “She’s single. I don’t think she was seeing anyone in particular.”

  “You’ve got a home address for her?”

  She went to the nursing notes and scribbled it down on a Post-it note. As she handed it to Beverley she said, “Until a few months ago she was going out with someone.”

  “Name?”

  “Mark Strauss. He’s a gynecologist here.”

  “And where does he live?”

  She shrugged. “Switchboard would know,” she suggested. Beverley glanced at Rich, who nodded slightly; he would find it out for them. To Hamman she said, “Thanks. We’ll keep in contact.”

  Beverley began to walk out, with Rich following her. A porter came in, went up to the desk, and asked Sister Hamman, “You got something for the Path Lab?”

  She handed him two clear plastic bags in which there were several tubes of blood and request forms; the tubes were capped in a variety of colours. “Took your time, didn’t you?”

  The porter smiled slyly. “Busy night.” He left whistling jauntily.

  Outside, Rich asked, “Where does she live?”

  “Vineyard Street. If she lives alone, we’ll have to wait before we can get in there. Why don’t you ring the switchboard and get Strauss’s address? At least we should be able to get some background, if nothing else.”

  Strauss had taken the news of the hit-and-run badly, and had appeared to be devastated when Beverley suggested that perhaps it had not been an accident. He sat now in his chair, looking pallid and even, Beverley thought, shaking slightly. When
they arrived he had been drinking wine and scribbling notes on a paper pad — “Writing a chapter for a textbook” — and he had by now nearly finished the bottle. He was tall, with a wide mouth and bright blue eyes.

  “What was she like?”

  He hesitated, searching for the words. “Pretty, bright, happy.”

  She ignored the begging of the question at the back of her mind. “I understand that you’re no longer seeing each other.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  The question nonplussed him. “Well...” He shrugged. “We weren’t getting on.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “In what way?”

  “Oh... we were bickering a lot. Anyway we were finding it difficult to get much time together.”

  She smiled at him, noting that his hands were fidgeting; he didn’t like answering these questions. “Bickering? Or arguing?”

  He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  Rich had stopped taking notes and was looking at him. She explained, “I mean, how violently did you argue?”

  Once more he hesitated, but this time because of indignation. “What’s that got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that I did it?”

  If he hoped for mollification, he got only implacability. “Out of interest, what were your movements this evening?”

  “Now, look here...”

  She said tiredly, “Calm down, Mr. Strauss. Nobody’s interested in you if you didn’t do it, but there are questions I need to ask you.”

  He calmed down slightly. Rich asked, “What time did you get home?”

  “Seven, I think.”

  “What then?”

  “I had a sandwich, then started on this. I’ve been doing this all evening.”

  “Nobody saw you?”

  “No.” He looked suitably worried. “Is that a problem?”

  Beverley’s face was neutral as she assured him blandly, “I shouldn’t think so.” Before he could look too relieved, she enquired, “So. Was it arguing, or bickering?”

  “It was disagreement, okay? It was two people who weren’t quite so much in love anymore. We decided that we weren’t destined for each other.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “I didn’t hit her, if that’s what you mean.”

  The interview went on for an hour. They built up a picture of a young woman who had apparently been a hard-working junior doctor; overworked and under stress.

  “Her colleagues all liked her?”

  “Absolutely. No one had a bad word for Liz.”

  Rich’s question was almost flippant. “What about her patients? Were they all completely happy?”

  Strauss took the question with unexpected seriousness. “You mean Mr. Ascherson, I suppose.”

  Did he? Beverley said at once, “That’s right.”

  Strauss sighed. “Look, Liz made a ghastly mistake, that’s all. It could happen to any of us. She was tired, it was late at night, and there were two other sick patients on the ward. To this day she doesn’t know how she mixed the bloods up.”

  Still ignorant of what he was talking about, Beverley said nothing and let him fill the space.

  “Liz went through hell about it. She was suspended by the Trust, there were extensive investigations that were practically a witch hunt; it was awful. And then, to cap it all, the GMC have taken this whole thing out of proportion, charging her with gross negligence.”

  “But Mr. Ascherson was upset...”

  “Wouldn’t you be? His wife had died of a transfusion reaction because of Liz’s mistake.” He laughed sourly. “Yes, he was upset.”

  “Did he threaten her?”

  He shook his head. “No, not with violence, anyway. He’s not the type.”

  They moved on to other matters — her family, her background, her habits — then were on the point of leaving when Strauss said suddenly, “Waterhouse!”

  “Waterhouse?”

  He was animated now. “He’s a porter at the hospital. Weaselly sort of chap. He threatened her.”

  “Why?”

  “His wife was a nursing auxiliary at the hospital. She stole some money from Liz. Liz found out and made a fuss about it. The woman was sacked.”

  “And her husband threatened violence?”

  “He threatened to kill her.”

  A radio message when they got back to the car told them that perhaps he had kept his promise; Elizabeth Sanderson had died from her injuries.

  Philip Waterhouse might have been designed by a protocol to be the killer. Although only twenty-seven, he had four convictions for violence, including seven months’ imprisonment for assault. He had several cautions for joyriding, and had tried his hand at social-security fraud.

  “A charmer,” was Rich’s dry conclusion as they drove to Waterhouse’s flat next morning. It wasn’t a chintz-and-charm neighbourhood; low-rise blocks of concrete flats separated by tatty grass strips and old, rusting cars. Perhaps half of the windows around them were boarded. The atmosphere was one of hard hostility. It was the kind of area that the fire brigade didn’t want to know existed and that taxi drivers avoided after dark.

  “With a grudge, perhaps.”

  Waterhouse had had educational difficulties, leaving school at fifteen without anything to show for it, not even proficient in cycling. He had had a broken home, been fostered at the age of nine and then sexually abused by both of his foster parents, who had subsequently been convicted on seventeen counts.

  Waterhouse answered their knock after a long delay, clearly woken from sleep. It was with some shock that they recognised the porter who had been in Intensive Care the night before. From his expression, he, too, had recognised them.

  Beverley didn’t waste any time. “We’re here about Elizabeth Sanderson.”

  “What about her?”

  The room was cold and untidy and small. Baby’s things cluttered the floor and there was an odour of soiled nappies. Beverley wondered where the wife and child were.

  “She died last night.”

  “So?”

  “We’re treating it as murder, and you are known to have threatened her.”

  His attitude suggested insouciance, but Beverley saw concern in his small eyes as he said, “So I killed her? All I said was that I would get even with her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She got my wife sacked.”

  “Your wife stole some money from her.”

  “So she said, but she’s a liar. Look around — we’re not rich — we needed that money. She’s got a job cleaning but she’s working her guts out and it’s a lot less than she was getting as a nurse.”

  “But if she stole money...”

  He said at once, “Sally’s no thief. Sanderson lost the money, or maybe someone else stole it.”

  “You are a thief, though, aren’t you?”

  His defence of his wife faltered, then he rallied. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “A thief; a violent thief.”

  “I’m not a murderer.”

  Beverley smiled. “So you say.” Then, “The fact remains that you did threaten to kill Elizabeth Sanderson and now she’s dead.”

  “And it wasn’t me.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “At work. You saw me.”

  “What time did you start?”

  “Nine.”

  Beverley smiled. “Plenty of time. Elizabeth Sanderson was run down at about eight. Where were you before you went to work?”

  “Here, babysitting. Sally doesn’t get in from work until eight-thirty.”

  “You were alone?”

  “No. The baby was here.”

  Strangely no one laughed. Beverley asked, “You’ve got a car?”

  “It’s got four wheels but I don’t reckon Michael Schumacher would rate it.”

  “Where is it?”

  A sleepy half-cry came from a room beyond before Waterhouse said, “Outside.”

  “Make? Colour?”

>   There was a moment of quiet, but then the crying began again, this time louder, this time more demanding, this time not ceasing. Waterhouse said sourly, “It’s a white Ford Escort.”

  Beverley and Rich stood up. Over the noise, she said, “We’ll need to take it for forensics.”

  Despite the crying of his baby, Waterhouse stayed seated. “And what am I supposed to do?”

  She held out her hand for the key. “Take the bus. Now, are you going to cooperate, or shall we take you down to the station for questioning on suspicion of murder?”

  In the street, they inspected the car.

  “I can’t see anything,” said Rich. “Can you?”

  It was covered in scratches and was rusting badly around the doors. It had probably been in several collisions, but none of them recently as far as she could tell.

  “No,” she sighed. “Still, he might have got a quick body job done on it. We should get it checked out by the lab.”

  A woman was looking at them from across the street. She was old but still erect and apparently alert. She held her coat closed tightly across her chest. Beverley said, “I can’t believe we’re that interesting, can you?”

  They crossed to her. Rich showed her his warrant card and Beverley asked, “Can we help you?”

  The woman must have been around eighty. She said, “I saw you looking.”

  “And?”

  She nodded at Waterhouse’s flat. “Drives like a maniac, he does. ’Bout time you did something about it. Nearly knocked me down last week.”

  Beverley nodded sympathetically. “What about last night? Did he drive like that when he went out last night?”

  “Oh yes. Woke up half the neighbourhood, he was so loud.”

  “And what time was that?”

  The woman thought. “Just before eight. Coronation Street hadn’t finished.”

  Elizabeth Sanderson’s home proved barren of interest. It was untidy, but no worse than Beverley’s, and Rich thought it positively exemplary. There were no letters from blackmailers, the bank statements were boring, and they found no hint that she was a drug dealer.

  Rich, who had done the majority of the searching while Beverley watched, announced, “There’s nothing here of use to us.”