A Fatal Cut

by Priscilla Masters

  The police officer made a face to the uniformed men standing behind him. ‘Get the bloody cuffs on,’ he said. ‘This bloke’s out of his tiny brain.’

  They clipped some handcuffs on him and chivvied him down the stairs. Roughly.

  Mrs Stanton, his landlady, was waiting at the bottom, wearing her slippers and a blue towelling dressing gown. She gave him a distasteful look as he stopped in front of her. She didn’t speak to him, only to the policeman. ‘I always knew there was something funny about him,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, well, ma’am,’ the policeman said politely. ‘We’ll have him out of your way now. I don’t think he’ll be back.’

  Her look changed. ‘Goodbye,’ she said to Malcolm. ‘And good riddance.’

  She kicked him then, right on the leg but no one seemed to care. No one smiled at him or apologized for the kick or told Mrs Stanton off for being so nasty. Maybe they hadn’t noticed. They pushed him towards the door. Some people were standing outside. Watching. Malcolm tried to smile at a couple of them but their faces didn’t change. They simply carried on staring. Someone opened the door of a police car. Someone else pushed his head down so he didn’t bump it. They shoved him inside. The big police officer unlocked one of the handcuffs and clipped it to his own wrist. The policeman muttered something under his breath.

  He risked talking to the policeman. ‘My stuff,’ he managed.

  The policeman gave an incredulous stare. ‘They’ll give you an inventory,’ he said.

  And, by pressing his finger to his mouth, Malcolm managed to say nothing until they reached the police station. But his mind was picturing the men, searching his flat. They would find his box with the blades in it. His beautiful collection that had taken him so long to acquire. Malcolm blinked back the tears.

  It frightened him that they left him alone for a long time after they’d emptied his pockets and taken his fingerprints with some mucky black ink. The room he was in was empty with no windows except a tiny one in the door, which was smothered with bars, and an even tinier one too high up for him to see out. That had bars too. They had locked the door behind him.

  There was a toilet in the corner, without a seat. Malcolm’s bladder was full. Overfull. But he dared not use it. The policeman, or even worse one of the women like the one who had taken his fingerprints, might peep in and see him urinate.

  Malcolm was terrified now. He sat, huddled in the corner.

  Forrest eyed the dishevelled, shrinking creature in front of him. It was always like this when you came face to face with a killer. You wondered whether they really could have done it. This insignificant person surely could not be the one with the ego he had always connected with the ‘surgeon’. He had pictured someone confident, someone strutting around. Conceited. Someone more like Pinky Sutcliffe. Someone with character and a presence. Maybe Forning changed when he became the ‘surgeon’.

  He whisked through the evidence against Forning. The collection of scalpel blades. Mentally he drew a big tick against that. It fitted. He had actually worked at the operating theatre, Theatre Four, though not at the same time as either Rosemary Baring or Colin Wilson.

  He sat down opposite Malcolm at the table and stared at him for a moment before switching on the tape recorder. Shaw sat by his side. A uniformed policeman stood at the door. Forrest looked deep into Malcolm Forning’s pale eyes and hunted for the killer within them. But he just couldn’t see it, or was this manclever enough to conceal that side of him?

  He began.

  ‘Your name is Malcolm Forning?’

  Malcolm nodded.

  ‘You have to speak, Malcolm. The tape recorder doesn’t hear nods of the head.’

  ‘Yes.’ His voice sounded like a frightened little mouse.

  Forrest stared at him. What metamorphosis happened to turn this timid being into a scalpel-wielding killer?

  ‘First of all I have to ask you whether you would like a solicitor present?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We have to advise you that at some point, because of the serious nature of the charges levelled against you, it would be advisable for you to have legal representation, Malcolm.’

  Malcolm nodded and the tall police officer with the bald patch described the action into the tape recording.

  Malcolm risked a swift peep at all three of the officers.

  None of them looked at him. He tried to listen hard to what the policeman was saying.

  ‘You used to work at Queen’s Hospital, as a theatre porter. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Five years ago.’

  ‘You didn’t stay very long.’

  ‘No. My mum was ill. I had to look after her.’

  ‘Did you enjoy the work?’

  Malcolm didn’t know how to answer this one. All he knew was that the detective who had only been nice and polite to him up until now was frowning. Something was wrong.

  He answered politely, as though he’d been offered scones for tea. ‘Yes. I did like it, thank you.’

  The police officer looked a bit more pleased at that.

  ‘So you enjoyed working in the operating theatre.’

  Malcolm shuddered inwardly. Like? No. He had not liked. Fearfully, he glanced at the policeman. He gave him an encouraging nod. ‘Yes,’ he said formally. ‘I thought it was extremely interesting work.’

  The other one spoke then. Not the uniformed officer blocking the doorway but the tall one with the dark hair. ‘Is that why you collected scalpel blades?’

  Malcolm sensed a trap. ‘No.’ He stammered. ‘I d-d-do m-m-marquetry.’

  Immediately he knew he shouldn’t have said that. The white-suited men would search his flat and expose the lie. There was no marquetry. Only the blades.

  The dark-haired detective put his face close and smiled as though he knew everything.

  ‘How well did you know Colin Wilson?’

  ‘I don’t know him at all.’ Malcolm swallowed. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Your first victim.’

  They fiddled with the tape recorder then and had a quick word among themselves. The detective with the bald patch looked kindly at him. ‘The men who are searching inside your flat haven’t found any marquetry, Malcolm. Now, what do you really use the blades for?’

  There was a horrible silence.

  It took him ages to work out what to say. ‘P-p-p-play with them.’

  The pale policeman’s face turned red, as though he was angry with him. Very, very angry.

  • • • •

  Lewisham was ominously quiet when Forrest informed him by telephone that he’d hauled someone in for questioning. He sensed the psychiatrist would have much preferred it if he had been the one to produce Forning, like a rabbit out of a conjuror’s hat.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Lewisham finally responded petulantly, ‘that you’ve gone so far as this when you knew I had an interest in the case. You could have consulted me at any time.’ He paused long enough for Forrest to draw breath. Not long enough for him to reply. ‘I only hope you haven’t made a ghastly mistake. I mean, in the case of a serial killer, the general public are unlikely to be amused at the investigating task force getting sidetracked by questioning a completely innocent man, Inspector Forrest, while the real killer goes free.’

  Forrest swallowed. Certainty was shrinking to a hope and a prayer.

  ‘You’d better give me the main details.’ Lewisham was at last giving him a chance to parade his suspect. Forrest gave him all he’d got, the collection of scalpel blades, the short-lived employment in the hospital, his acquaintance with the latest victim, most of all the strange character of Malcolm Forning.

  But to his chagrin the psychiatrist seemed unimpressed and intent on demolishing his case. ‘All this is flimsy, circumstantial evidence, Inspector.’

  Forrest knew he was being punished.

  ‘Have you found any forensic evidence to link him with even one of the crimes?’

  �
��Not yet, Doctor. We haven’t located the place where he...’

  ‘Performed.’ Lewisham’s voice mocked his squeamishness. ‘Well, I think I’d better come down to the station and join you for the questioning of your suspect.’ And again he repeated the ominous phrase. ‘I only hope you aren’t wasting your time with a completely innocent man, Inspector.’

  Then the line went dead.

  Left to himself Forrest found himself reflecting that he probably did need the psychiatrist’s expertise. Forning was a strange guy. All police officers these days were well trained in the interviewing of suspects but he didn’t know how to get the truth out of him. The brief contact he had had suggested the man was not normal, that was a gross understatement. Forrest could swear that Forning was unaware of the crimes he had committed. According to the arresting officers, he apparently believed that Brenda Watlow was still alive. He’d actually asked for her to be contacted to vouch for his innocence. Surely this was proof that he was insane? When the officers had informed him that Brenda was dead it had appeared to be a shock to him. Both police officers had said that.

  How could it be a shock when he’d killed her?

  Did Forning have a split personality? Two personalities so far apart that one side seemed unaware what the other side had done?

  Lewisham joined him within half an hour, sauntering into the interview room as Forrest was preparing to talk to Forning for a second time. He interrupted the flow, entering just as they were trying to persuade Forning to accept the services of a solicitor. Forrest scowled and spoke into the tape recorder.

  ‘Suspect joined by Doctor Barney Lewisham at twenty-one thirty hours.’ Straightaway Lewisham sat down opposite Forning and took a long, penetrating look at him. Then he smiled and turned to Forrest. ‘So this is your suspect.’

  It was all he said but it needled Forrest. Formally and in a taut voice he confirmed, for the benefit of the tape recorder, that Forning was indeed the suspect for the murders of Colin Wilson, Rosemary Baring and Brenda Watlow. At the same time he wished that Lewisham would switch off that irritating, supercilious smile that made him think the psychiatrist knew something he did not.

  He introduced them formally. ‘This is Malcolm Forning, Doctor,’ he said. ‘And Malcolm, this is Doctor Lewisham.’ He had intended adding a phrase or two explaining Lewisham’s role but Forning immediately protested. ‘I don’t need a doctor. I don’t want a doctor. I’m not ill. Please. Take him away. Why have you brought a doctor here? What are you going to do to me?’

  Forrest was startled. He didn’t like Lewisham himself but this was a bit of an overreaction. People were frequently intimidated by the police, and some, he knew, felt the same about doctors. Yet Forning’s panic at being faced with Lewisham was much greater than his reaction had been to any one of the police officers. It was strange. Or was it? Was it maybe the reaction of a fake doctor being confronted with the real thing? Because he knew a real doctor would soon expose him as a sham when a police officer might be hoodwinked?

  ‘Tell me, Malcolm,’ Forrest said, ‘where were you on the night of the twenty-third of November last year?’ Forning stared back at him blankly.

  ‘It was a Tuesday,’ Forrest added.

  He hated Forning’s pale eyes. They looked as though he was not quite human. His face lacked colour too. Not simply pale with sallow cheeks but a greenish white, as though he never saw the light of day. The colour reminded Forrest of his father’s face that too was never exposed to fresh air but was constantly stifled in a stuffy atmosphere. He was also repelled by Forning’s hair. Lank and dull, falling to his shoulders, untidily and unevenly.

  It took a while but Forning finally stammered out an answer to Forrest’s question. ‘I — I — d — don’t know.’

  Lewisham took over then, leaning right across the table and peering over his glasses.

  ‘Tell me, Malcolm,’ he said, in a falsely friendly tone. ‘Do you have many troublesome dreams?’ Forning shrank from the stare but Lewisham refused to drop his eyes. ‘Do you?’

  Forning nodded.

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  Forrest groaned inwardly. This sort of open-ended question would lead them nowhere — slowly. What he wanted were firm answers, ones he could use in court. Not dreams.

  Forning was still mesmerized by the psychiatrist’s stare. ‘Too many to tell,’ he muttered.

  Barney was unabashed. ‘I expect some of them are about the hospital, aren’t they?’

  Forning’s pale eyes widened as he nodded again. Lewisham gave him an encouraging smile. ‘Did you like working in the hospital, Malcolm?’

  Forning shook his head.

  ‘What didn’t you like about it?’

  ‘The people.’

  Forning was beginning to lose his terror of the psychiatrist. Lewisham was winning him over. Forrest watched the proceedings and couldn’t help being impressed.

  ‘Do you mean the nurses, the doctors?’

  Vigorously Forning shook his head.

  ‘The patients, Malcolm, was it the patients who made you dislike the job?’

  Forning nodded.

  And Forrest could tell the answer surprised Lewisham as much as it surprised him.

  Lewisham had to think about the next question. ‘What didn’t you like about the patients?’

  ‘Their hurt.’

  Forrest shifted his feet round under the desk. It was not the answer he would have wanted. It was the wrong answer.

  He took a surreptitious glance at Lewisham. That confident, superior look was there, painted all over his face. Forrest studied it for a moment and didn’t like what he was reading. Lewisham didn’t believe Malcolm Forning was the killer. Not for a moment. And the psychiatrist was pleased.

  Were he and the doctor working on different sides of the law? Did Lewisham have an interest in a delay in catching the ‘surgeon’? Did he dislike the investigating officers so much he wanted them to fail? It seemed too incredible to be true. And yet—

  Another explanation struck Forrest. The psychiatrist had made no secret of his delight in being consulted over such a bizarre case. Openly he had spoken of writing it up in the medical journals, of the fame and status the resolution of such a case would afford. The more murders there were the more notable the case would become. Did Lewisham then want delay in the capture of the ‘surgeon’ to elevate his status? Forrest shook his head. That was not human.

  Lewisham’s soft voice addressed Malcolm Forning again. ‘Is it that you share their hurt, Malcolm?’

  Again Forning nodded vigorously.

  ‘So you were glad when the time came to leave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The vocal answer was a measure of how Forning was beginning to trust the psychiatrist. His pale eyes looked confidently across the table.

  ‘You looked after your mother.’

  ‘Like a nurse,’ Forning said, smiling. Forrest found himself staring at Forning’s teeth, irregular, yellow-stained. Two at the front eroded with decay, one into a sharp point.

  ‘Like a nurse,’ Forning had said. Only a short step from ‘Like a nurse’ to ‘Like a surgeon.’

  Feeling they were moving towards something, Forrest allowed Lewisham to continue his questioning. Lewisham leant even farther forward to invite confidences, or maybe to exclude the detective from the questioning.

  ‘I expect you knew Colin Wilson?’

  Forning’s gaze didn’t waver. ‘No.’

  ‘He was a theatre porter too. Like you.’

  Forning thought for a moment, his pale eyes scanning the room. Inevitably they returned to Lewisham’s powerful stare. ‘No,’ he repeated abruptly.

  For the first time Lewisham’s eyes slipped away from the suspect and scanned Forrest’s face as though underlining the fact that this again was not the anticipated answer. He should have known Colin Wilson.

  ‘And Rosemary Shearer? Did you know her, Malcolm?’ Forrest knew Lewisham was deliberately using the nurse’s maiden name, th
e name Wilson would be more likely to know.

  Forning thought for a long, long time, making absolutely certain, before he answered. ‘No,’ he said finally. Forrest rapidly did some arithmetic.

  Colin Wilson and Rosemary Baring had worked together in Theatre Four for a couple of months during the summer of 1991. Brenda Watlow had worked there for years, certainly the entire time they were interested in. Malcolm Forning had worked there five years ago, for a short period, in 1995. The dates didn’t tally, he wished they did.

  He listened, without intervening, for a further half hour while Lewisham gently chatted to the suspect about his mother, his friends — it transpired he only really had one friend.

  ‘And you remained friendly with the theatre sister?’

  For the first time Malcolm looked quite happy. He nodded vigorously. ‘Brenda was kind to me,’ he said. ‘She’ll tell you I wouldn’t hurt anyone.’

  Lewisham and Forrest exchanged swift glances. Forning had been told many times that Brenda Watlow was dead, that he was charged with her murder, yet he still spoke about her as though she was alive. What was going on?

  ‘Brenda is my best friend,’ he said, smiling at them all.

  ‘She brings you presents, doesn’t she?’ Lewisham prompted.

  And suddenly Forning’s manner changed completely. No longer open, naive, stupid; he became furtive, cunning, paranoid. He peered around the room as though expecting someone to jump out at him.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No presents.’

  Was it guilt that made him deny Brenda’s gifts?

  To Forrest’s irritation Lewisham stood up. ‘OK, Malcolm,’ he said. ‘I think that’s enough for now.’

  As Forning was led, shuffling, out of the room Lewisham turned to him. ‘The minute they start lying to you,’ he said cheerfully, ‘its time to stop. You see they enjoy the company, having someone to talk to, tell their story to. It’s a withdrawal of privileges to leave them alone again. In the end they’ll say yes to anything — purely to keep you in the room.’

  Forrest nodded.

  ‘Are you still sure you’ve got the right man, Inspector?’