Chameleon

by Ken McClure

  'Nice tits shame about the face!' hooted one of the yobs to the loud amusement of the others.

  'Nice little bum as well. Bet she could give you a fair bang.'

  'Think we should give it a try?' asked another and there was a moment's pause in the noise.

  'Yeah… let's.' growled one of the yobs ogling the girl's legs.

  The young girl sprang to her feet and rushed towards the front of the bus demanding to be let off and the police be called. The driver was reluctant to do anything but at the protests of another passenger, an old woman sitting near the front, he lifted his radio handset.

  'Touch that and you're for the fucking hospital!' warned the leader of the yobs moving down the aisle towards the driver.

  The driver smiled apologetically at the girl and replaced the handset. He opened the doors of the bus and said, 'Run along home love. It's for the best.'

  The girl left the bus and the yob returned to his friends to shout filth at the girl from the window. Their comments were reinforced with hand gestures indicating what they wanted to do to her.

  They now turned their attention to the woman in the tight skirt. 'What have we here then?' asked one as he moved into the seat across the aisle from the woman. The others moved up to join him.

  'Just look at this…'

  The woman maintained a dignified silence and ignored the youths to look out of the window.

  'The older ones are always the best,' confided the leader of the yobs. 'They know what it's all about. He turned to the woman and said, 'Don't you Darlin’?'

  The woman continued to ignore them.

  The leader moved into the seat beside the woman and sidled up close to her. 'You know what it's for, don't you darlin'! You've had a few in your time, haven't you? Of course you have. I bet you're a real goer when you get started…'

  One of the yobs leapt into the aisle and started moving his hips back and forwards rapidly to the delight of the others.

  The woman's composure was broken. She turned from the window and hissed angrily, 'Animals!'

  The comment provoked nothing but loud laughter from the yobs who fell about. One passenger, a middle aged man wearing an anorak could stand it no longer. 'Why don't you shut your filthy mouths!' he demanded, red in the face with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. The yobs turned to him and exchanged amused glances before moving towards him.

  'Well, what have we here then?' hissed the leader.

  'Looks like a real dick-head to me,' said one of the others.

  'Bet he works in a bank, "looks like the kind of wanker who works in a bank.' said the leader.

  'Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir,' mimicked one of the others.

  'Well do you then?' demanded the leader putting his face down close to the man.

  'Just shut up and go away,' said the man.

  'Are you going to make us like?' said the leader with quiet menace and a grin that held no humour in it.

  'Don't you have any decency in you?' spluttered the man. 'Don't you have parents or are they like you. Trash!'

  The yob leader let the grin slowly fade from his face before he turned to the others and said, 'He's talkin' about my mum. Did you hear what he said about my mum?'

  'Old bastard!'

  'Give him one!'

  'For God's sake stop it! Leave him alone!' pleaded the woman whose plight had prompted the outburst.

  'Shut up! We're comin' to you darlin'!' said the yob leader without taking his eyes off the man who was his current target. 'Nobody talks like that about my mum, nobody… understand?'

  The man was given no chance to say anything before the yob smashed his forehead down on the bridge of the man's nose and split it wide open. The man's spectacles shattered and blood showered down on to the seat in front of him as he collapsed with a gasp.

  'For God's sake stop it!' screamed a woman at the front and others joined in demands to the driver.

  The feeling that the passengers, who had up until now been an assortment of ineffectual individuals, were beginning to gel into a cohesive opposition began to tell on the yob leader. 'You heard what he said about my mum!' he appealed, obviously feeling that now he had been given a valid reason for behaving in the way he always did anyway. 'You heard him! Old bastard. Deserved all he got, he did.' The other yobs agreed but their support was subdued as they too felt the pressure of public opinion mount against them and looked at the sorry figure of the man holding his face while blood ran down his wrists to disappear into his cuffs.

  The woman in the tight skirt slipped out of her seat and pressed the emergency door release button. The doors hissed back and she stepped out into the night and was quickly on her way.

  The yobs were still uncertain of their position as they looked about them. The driver too was beginning to gain confidence; his fingers were considering a move towards the handset.

  'Oh fuck them!' snarled the leader. 'Bunch of wankers! Let's get the fuck out of here!' The yobs poured out of the open door and ran off into the night. 'Let's get the tart!' was the last comment the bus passengers were to hear.

  'For God's sake drive on!' demanded one of the passengers. 'Before they change their mind and come back!'

  What a piece of luck, thought the man at the back. He had been restored to anonymity by the behaviour of a bunch of human trash, the sweepings of the municipal streets, the lager swilling bottom of the social heap. He got up from his seat and pressed the bell. The driver avoided meeting his eyes in the mirror and the man was pleased at being proved right. The driver would no longer remember anything about him. The incident with the rattling instruments would be forgotten. The driver would only have room in his head for one memory of this night, his run in with the yobs and how they had terrorised his passengers while he had sat there too scared to do anything.

  As the man alighted, people were flocking round the injured passenger and discussing whether it was best to drive straight to the hospital or whether they should stop and wait for the police to arrive. The man heard the hospital option win as he stepped down on to the kerb to wait until the bus had moved off into the night before starting to walk backwards along the road to where the woman and the yobs had alighted.

  It was only three hundred metres to the spot but when the man got there, all was quiet. He stood still for a moment and looked about him like an animal sniffing the night. It was a quiet area. The road was broad. Trees lined both sides and a wide grass verge on one side separated a housing estate from the road. On the other side, the side where he stood, there were railings between him and what he thought might be a park, although he didn't know the area at all. It was difficult to tell because of the dense shrubbery on the other side of the railings. It could be a bowling green, tennis courts or even a boating pond.

  He imagined he heard a distant laugh and trained his ears in the direction he thought it had come from. There it was again. He was sure this time. It had come from the shrubbery another hundred metres or so down the road. The man looked about him and saw that he was still alone in the road. He walked on with deliberate slowness, taking great care not to make a sound. He moved towards the spot where the noise was coming from.

  It was them! And they had the woman! They were enjoying the woman and he could hear them arguing in stage whispers over whose turn it was next.

  'Keep your hand over her mouth!' hissed one.

  'For Christ's sake hold her legs apart!' demanded another.

  'Scared she'll snap it off?' giggled another in the darkness.

  'For Christ's sake get on with it!'

  Scum! thought the man. An ignorant rabble who deserved all they got from the bitch but tonight they would serve their purpose for him. Tomorrow the bus passengers would conveniently remember that the scum got had off behind the woman and that the last words of their leader had been, 'Let's get the tart.'

  Time was getting on. The road would not stay quiet for ever.

  The man moved another thirty metres along the pavement and hoisted hims
elf over the railings. He dropped to his knees and paused for a moment before moving silently into the bushes. He circled around the area where he knew the yobs were located. When he was in the position he wanted to be in he called out sharply, 'Police! Come out of there!'

  The air was suddenly full of curses and the sound of breaking twigs and branches as the yobs scattered through the undergrowth in panic. The man stood perfectly still until the sounds had faded into the distance, then he moved towards the sound of sobbing.

  He found the woman lying on the ground supporting herself weakly on one elbow and weeping. The bottom half of her body was naked and the clothes on her top half were in tatters. 'Thank God,' she whispered weakly. 'Thank God you've come.'

  The man looked down at her, earth in her hair and blood on her face where she had been beaten. He looked at her breasts hanging down on her stomach and the pathetic way she tried to cover her crotch weakly with one hand. The whore was still at work. He felt the hardness begin and was angry with himself.

  'You will not trap me you whore!' he hissed, undoing his trousers and taking out his erect penis.

  Fear filled the woman's eyes as her nightmare soared to new heights. For a moment her mind refused to believe what was happening then she opened her mouth to scream. The man lashed the back of his hand across her face and sent her sprawling before any sound got out. He masturbated furiously over her while staring down at the curves of her body and the smoothness of her thighs. He climaxed over her prostrate body and gasped, 'I don't need you… You bitch. You can't trap me!'

  The woman whimpered and scratched at the earth as terror and shock threatened to deprive her of her reason. She did not see the man open his case and take out the rubber apron. She was oblivious to the glint of the surgical instruments as he laid them out on the plastic sheet.

  The man finished with the woman. He had cut away the evil from another of these creatures. But there was more to do if the yobs were to get the blame. Complete disfigurement was called for. The knife cut and hacked its way down the corpse.

  The man stepped back from the scene and took off the apron. He laid it on the ground and folded it inwards so that the blood was to the inside then he placed it inside a plastic bag and returned it to the briefcase. The instruments were wrapped and placed in another plastic bag. Gloves were placed in yet another and the case was closed.

  Without looking back at the body, the man moved off through the shrubbery but only to freeze at the suggestion of a flashing light somewhere through the trees. He crouched down in the long grass near the railings and waited as the light grew brighter and nearer. It was blue.

  A Police Panda car cruised slowly down the road with its two occupants looking impassively out of its windows. The man knew that they were looking for the yobs. The driver of the bus or the hospital where they had taken the injured passenger would have reported the incident. The police would cruise around the streets, advertising their presence but that would probably be all, until of course, the woman was found. Then all hell would break loose.

  When all was quiet again and the car had turned the corner at the end of the road, the man climbed quickly over the railings and resumed the confident, purposeful gait normally expected of a man who carried a briefcase.

  SIX

  Jamieson returned to his room in the residency at nine. He had gone into the city to eat, feeling that he needed to get away from the hospital for a while. He had found an Italian restaurant with enough atmosphere to divert his attention briefly from the rain outside thanks to canned music and sunny travel posters but now he was back in the cloistered confines of Victorian stone and inadequate heating. He felt the radiator under the window and decided that it was on — although he would have been loath to put money on it. He even considered that his hands might be heating it rather than the other way around. He checked the pipes leading into the radiator and was reassured to find that the inlet was marginally warmer than the outlet.

  Why was it such a big deal in this country, he wondered, to have a heating system that worked? Was this something the British had missed out on while they had been inventing the steam engine and television, anaesthetics and radar? Or was it the result of some innate belief that discomfort was good for the soul? A legacy of the reformation perhaps? Hard work, cold showers, and cross country runs had all played their part in his own formative years at school and he had been brought up to believe that medicine always had to taste nasty before it could do any good. Had this all been part of a planned preparation for life in a country where houses were perpetually cold and damp and hotels always had 'a problem with the hot water'? Or was being on his own in a strange city, looking out at the rain getting to him more than he cared to admit?

  Jamieson had phoned Sue earlier in the evening to say that he loved her and was missing her so he felt that he could not call her again to say exactly the same thing. But what he would do, he decided, was go home at the week-end and tell her how much he missed and loved her.

  The telephone rang and startled him. Half hoping it was Sue he lifted it to hear Carew's voice.

  'They are carrying out the post-mortem on Mrs Jenkins this evening. I thought you might want to attend?'

  Jamieson looked at his watch and saw that it was half past nine. 'This is a bit unusual isn't it?' he asked.

  'We thought it best to make absolutely sure that it was the Pseudomonas that was responsible for her death as quickly as possible.'

  Jamieson said that he wanted to be there.

  'The PM room is attached to the mortuary,' said Carew.

  'Where's that?'

  'Near the East gate. There's a clump of trees to your left as you approach the gate. The mortuary is behind them.'

  The rain had stopped as Jamieson left the residency but an unpleasant wind had arisen to take its place. It blew directly into his face as he walked down the three hundred metres or so to the East gate. He was showered with water as he passed under the clump of trees when a particularly strong gust of wind caught their branches. The trees were there to shield the mortuary from public view.

  As he brushed the water from his shoulders, Jamieson reflected on just how important a role psychology played in the treatment of illness. Trust and confidence were essential ingredients in the formula. If a patient entered hospital feeling that he or she were in the best place for their treatment and that success was almost guaranteed then half the battle had already been fought and won. There could be no more poignant reminder that failure was an ever present possibility in hospitals than the silent, forbidding presence of a mortuary

  Jamieson tried the front door and found it locked. He walked round the outside of the building in a clockwise direction until he found a small, blue door at the back. It was unlocked. He entered to find himself alone in a sparsely furnished room with a row of coat pegs hung with gowns and aprons and an assortment of Wellington boots lined up under a wooden bench below. Assuming that the PM was already under way, he took off his jacket and hung it up on a vacant peg. He found a pair of boots his size and helped himself to gown and apron. He couldn't fasten all the gown ties himself because they were at the back but for this purpose it was not going to matter. He did the best he could then opened the door to the interior to find himself in a hallway.

  There were three doors leading off it but light was coming from under only one. He knocked and entered. It was the post-mortem room. There were three pedestal tables, arranged side by side in the room but only one was in use. Two powerful lamps above it augmented the strip lighting on the ceiling and an instrument trolley serviced the needs of the pathologist who was working alone. He looked up from the table and said, 'You must be Jamieson. They told me you might come along. I'm Vogel.'

  Jamieson estimated that Vogel was in his late fifties, grey haired and bespectacled and with a moustache that drooped at the corners. His gown was tied tightly enough to emphasise the size of his paunch and his sleeves were rolled up far enough to reveal powerful arms with thick wrist
s. His left one carried a large, stainless steel wrist watch.

  Jamieson joined Vogel at the table and saw that the pathologist had already opened up the body of Sally Jenkins. He was removing some of her internal organs. 'Look at that,' said Vogel, holding up a handful of tissue which Jamieson could not recognise out of context. 'What a mess.'

  'Was it a Pseudomonas infection?' asked Jamieson.

  'No doubt about it. You can smell it.'

  Jamieson saw that Vogel was serious and moved closer still until he noticed the same smell of new-mown grass that had come from the culture dish in the lab. 'So you can' he said.

  'Just look at the damage here,' said Vogel. He held up the diseased tissue and invited Jamieson to examine it. Jamieson was reluctant to add to the already overpowering assault on his senses of sight and smell. He had never liked pathology. He nodded and looked down at the marble white face lying on the table as Vogel sluiced some of the mess down the drain channels with the aid of a hand held hose which he removed from a holster at the head of the table. She seemed so young.

  'There are half a dozen infections I can tell by smell,' said Vogel. 'Pseudomonas is one of the easiest.'

  'You've come across it a lot then?' asked Jamieson.

  'Thirty years ago and before I became a pathologist, I worked in a burns unit. Pseudomonas was the scourge of burns cases at the time. Once it got into the wounds there was practically nothing we could do. A lot of people died in a lot of pain because of this damned organism. Nowadays we have the drugs to deal with it. We don't often see something like this.'

  Jamieson looked at Vogel but then looked away sharply for fear of revealing in his eyes what he felt about the pathologist's expression. He was thinking that already in Vogel's mind, Sally Jenkins had become 'something like this'. He cautioned himself not to be too critical of his colleague because in a way, Vogel was right. The figure on the table was just another cadaver, another medical problem to be solved and reported on but for him Sally Jenkins was still a patient and her death at such an age was an absolute tragedy.