The man looked up, shrugged and shook his head. ‘It’s happened again. I don’t understand it,’ he said fretfully. ‘I clean it, get it well oiled and then not twenty-four hours later there it is again, all choked up with sludge and all the oil gone. I’ve checked it right through the drains, and cleared the lot. They were thick again. We’ll have to get new filters fixed. I keep telling you that.’
‘We put new filters in a few months ago,’ Connie said. ‘Allen, this is Dr Barnabas. She’s interested in our machine.’
The man nodded, but he was clearly uninterested in her; he wanted to get on with his tinkering. George turned to Connie and said brightly, ‘Why do you have to chop it all up so small? Can’t you send it out the way it is?’ She pointed to the big hopper at the front of the machine, which was filled with jackets and trousers and various other garments, all of them looking very battered.
He shook his head. ‘Indian Government rules,’ he said shortly. ‘I told you. They won’t let it be imported unless it’s chopped as fine as we can get it. If you’ll forgive me, I think we ought to leave Allen to –’
But she had moved around the machine to the other side, carefully not hearing him. ‘And this is where the chopped stuff comes out? Yes, I see.’
There was a platform on the other side which was surrounded by bolted-on sheets of metal and she could see at once how it worked. The hopper at the front fed the garments into the great blades and what came out on the other side was unrecognizable. It was extremely finely chopped; there was no way of telling what the garment had been originally. She looked over her shoulder and said to Connie, her eyes wide with admiration, ‘It’s a very powerful machine, isn’t it?’
‘One of the best in the world,’ he said with a sort of unwilling pride. ‘We can get tons of stuff through that in a day, tons and tons. Very effective.’
‘I guess the clothes have to be carefully picked over, and buttons and zippers and so forth taken off? They’d spoil the blades, wouldn’t they?’
He laughed, almost contemptuously. ‘Zippers? I could put sheet iron through those blades, and it’d come out like wire wool! That set of blades’d chop anything. Anything at all. I save zippers for resale, o’ course – they’re worth good money – but not to protect the machine. Now, I think Maureen’ll be waiting and –’
But again she was absorbed in what she was looking at. ‘And this here? This gully? Is that for – what is that for?’
‘That’s the drain that takes the cooling water,’ he said. ‘Generates a lot of heat, a machine like this. There has to be water going through and it drains there.’
‘Into the river?’ George said brightly, looking at him directly now. He shrugged.
‘I don’t know! I leave that to the men whose job it is. Now, if you’d like to –’
It was the man Allen who helped her then. He had come round the machine to check one of the inspection points on that side and looked up at her question.
‘Nothing goes into the river but water,’ he said firmly. ‘I know what you’re thinking, that we pollute the river. Well, we don’t. That drain is filtered and protected and all is as it should be. Nothing can get to the river except when the guards are taken off and they never are.’
‘So it does go down to the river then? The gully?’ George said, sounding as relaxed as she could. ‘I thought it might, you’re so close here, after all. It makes sense that a cooling system’d use the river. It couldn’t be polluting, obviously. Not just warm water. It’s a lovely design.’
Allen seemed to preen. ‘Isn’t it though? It ought to run sweet as a nut. That’s why I get so mad when it acts up this way. It’s like it gets all bunged up. Must be a lot of oil and dressing in those clothes.’ He looked a little accusingly at Connie. ‘The stuff I clean out all the time would amaze you. Stinks, it does.’
‘I told you to use the disinfectant,’ Connie said. ‘These are soiled garments, for God’s sake. Of course they carry a bit of grease and what have you. That’s what brings the rats. If you use plenty of the strong stuff that’ll get rid of it. And the rats.’
George nodded. She had noticed the reek of carbolic and heavy pine disinfectant when they had arrived at the warehouse, but not commented on it, since Maureen had mentioned it anyway. Now, she thought grimly, I know why it matters so much to Connie. It isn’t rats he’s bothered about. Not the usual sort, anyway.
She began to feel a sort of nausea; not because of the way she knew this machine had been used – and it was knowledge. It wasn’t a guess, of that she was completely certain. She knew – but because of something else. Physical humanity, in any form, she could handle; it was the minds of some people that sickened her. She moved abruptly and made her way back towards the foot of the spiral staircase.
‘Well, thanks a lot for showing me, Allen. It’s been really interesting. I wish my grandpa were still alive so I could tell him about it. Thanks, Connie, for letting me look round. I hope you don’t mind me calling you that? The way everyone else does?’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ Connie said genially, clearly relieved that she was ready to go. ‘Up you go then, and I’ll see you to your car. It’s been a pleasure to have you here, doctor. And thanks for helping Maureen. She does so much for that hospital, and it’s my pet charity too, so any help that’s given her is given me too. I thank you for it.’
‘Only too pleased,’ George murmured. She dusted her hands off as she reached the top of the spiral stair. ‘And I do congratulate you. All very – ecological. Splendid.’ Connie beamed and took her elbow to lead her to her car. He was making sure that nothing would stop her departure this time, George thought. Much good may it do him.
George drove to lunch ignoring Maureen’s busy chatter except for her instructions about the route, and thought furiously all the way. It was a hellish way to kill a man, but an incredibly efficient way to get rid of a body. That wide gully with its removable guard – it had to be removable to let the maintenance people clean it – offered a direct route for getting rid of the evidence of a crime, and it was big enough to let a leg through. And a chunk of canine carcase. She shivered inside at the picture that rose in her mind: someone pushing a body towards the blades on that great machine. But then her questions took over and disposed of the shudders.
Why was a leg left behind? If the machine could chop a human frame into such minute pieces that it could be literally poured out from a bucket into the gully and so delivered to the river to become part of the mess on the river-bed, why wasn’t the whole of it put through?
Because the machine broke down, her mind retorted. It’s doing that all the time. It may be able to take a human body, it may be able to cope with great chunks of tissue, but it gets sludged up after a while. There’s a lot of fat and blood and gloop in a human body. That leg must have been left behind by a breakdown and they couldn’t get rid of it any other way, so they took a chance and dropped it in the river too. Thought it would sink. But it didn’t…
Who were the ‘they’ though? She tried to imagine Connie standing there at the foot of his spiral staircase, pushing a man through the blades of his macerator, and then collecting the resulting – whatever – at the other side. (What in? Buckets? Hardly, too small. One of the great bins on wheels they used at the conveyor belts? Perhaps. Who could know?) Somehow, though, the image wouldn’t stick. She could only see him standing there fastidiously dusting down his trousers, pulling on his shirt-cuffs to neaten them. But he must have known his machine was being used for that purpose. Why else had he been so anxious, indeed so eager to get rid of her? What other reason could he have had for that uneasiness?
‘And here we are!’ Maureen said triumphantly. ‘St Dymphna’s. Isn’t it a nice-looking place, Dr Barnabas?’
George looked out at the building appearing round the curve of the driveway that had led up to it. It was squat, built of turn-of-the-century yellow brick with darker bricks used to pick out patterns over the windows and round the doors. Georg
e thought it hideous. Efforts had been made to improve the building’s appearance with plants; cotoneasters grew up the lower levels of the walls and Virginia creeper over the upper parts, and in front flower-beds were dotted among the gravel patches that made up the drive. It looked, George found herself thinking, as though it would smell inside of boiled cabbage and watery stewed mince.
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘May I park here?’
‘Right here,’ Maureen said. ‘I have a special place.’ As she preened again, George found herself warming even more to this woman. There was a deep pathos about her, but she had courage and a gift for making the most of very little. She leaned over to Maureen as she switched off the engine and said quickly, ‘Thank you so much for letting me come with you today. It’s been a real privilege.’
Maureen flushed, blinked, opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. She smiled and got out of the car and as George joined her said breathlessly, ‘It’s been so nice of you to come out with me like this. The family, they don’t understand the way I feel. Not even Monty. So it’s nice to have someone interested.’
‘It’s been fascinating,’ George said, a little grimly, glad Maureen couldn’t know – could she? – just how interesting it had been. She followed the dumpy figure into the main doorway.
The place did smell, but not of cabbage and mince. Instead it was rich with old-fashioned beeswax polish– the floor was made of ancient deeply shiny parquet – and flowers from the bowls which had been put on every available surface. One wall bore a massive brass plaque with names of benefactors engraved on it, another a large white marble statue of a man in Victorian dress beaming benignly if a shade sternly, while a man in a head porter’s uniform, well buttoned in brass, sat in a small sentry-box arrangement just inside the entrance.
He greeted Maureen effusively, nodded at George when he was introduced, then led the way to the lift, which was hidden behind the big curving staircase that adorned the far wall, and pressed the button for them before going magisterially back to his sentry box.
‘I know it looks old-fashioned and all that,’ Maureen said a little breathlessly, ‘but really it’s very up-to-date in its treatments. Very. The wards are lovely. Would you like to see?’
George opened her mouth to say she didn’t really have the time and heard herself accepting graciously. As the lift arrived to carry them up to the top of the building, she cursed silently. She needed to get back to Gus as soon as possible, to tell him of all she had seen and of her new ideas. She didn’t want to waste time here.
But the tour was interesting. The wards were indeed well appointed and clean, gleaming with colour and comfort. The patients, most of them clearly profoundly mentally handicapped, and several more severely physically disabled too, looked well cared for, and the staff, though all rather on the elderly side, seemed cheerful and friendly enough. But she was irritable with herself as she toiled after Maureen who nattered on and on about the various comforts and embellishments her fund-raising efforts had provided. She was aching to get away, to think more about the new direction her investigations were taking. It was all very well to have found where the bodies were disposed of, and how the leg and the dog had got into the river, but she still didn’t know for sure whose leg it was, who had put it there and above all why. And what was the connection with the fires, if there was one? There had to be something that tied all of the mess together and made sense, but what?
Could the women killed in the fires be a totally separate affair? It was possible, she had to allow, but in all her experience it was very rare – to the point of never happening – to have two separate murderers roaming the same small area at the same time. All her instincts told her that there had to be a connection between the deaths of those women and the findings she had made at Connie’s rag factory this morning. But what? She couldn’t find a loose end in either puzzle that fitted into the other.
And she couldn’t think clearly about it all anyway, as Maureen Ledbetter took her through ward after ward and department after department, chattering about so many things that really didn’t matter except, of course, to Maureen.
George was just about to point out as tactfully as she could that time was getting on and she wouldn’t be able to stay for lunch after all, when they turned into a corridor and Maureen said brightly, ‘This is the part of the hospital that will interest you, doctor, I’m sure. This is our laboratory. It’s a bit overcrowded, they tell me, but it’s very nice.’ She pushed open the door at the far end and held it wide, inviting George to enter.
She did, and found herself in the familiar atmosphere of a biochemistry lab; the smell of the reagents, the sound of the equipment, the faint hiss from the refrigerators, all were deeply comfortable to be with. But she didn’t expect what she saw.
Which was Mickey Harlow, sitting perched on a tall stool that was too small for him, alongside Lewis McCann who was standing leaning against the lab work counter, his hands in his pockets and a faint sneer on his face. And behind them both Reggie Lester was leaning silently against the window.
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‘Oh!’ George said. She could find no other words, looking from one to the other of them, nonplussed.
‘Well, well, look who’s here,’ Mickey Harlow said easily. ‘You do take your work seriously, don’t you, doctor?’
‘Pardon me?’ George said. She couldn’t think of anything else she could say.
‘I know you’re not keen on the idea of our sending Old East’s path. work here, but all the same, coming to check up on it …’ He laughed, a cheerful sound in the big room. ‘And who’s to say you mightn’t get the top job here anyway, as and when it happens? You might be worrying over nothing.’
She realized then why they were there, and managed a bright smile. ‘I’m not just worrying about my own job, Mr Harlow,’ she said. ‘It’s Old East and the patients I’m concerned about. I guess I could get myself a new job anywhere I chose if it came to it. I’m not precisely at the bottom of the employment heap, you know!’
McCann snickered at that and Harlow threw him a sharp glance which he ignored. Lester said nothing, just watched them all. ‘I don’t suppose Harlow here meant to suggest you were,’ he said. ‘For my part I’m very gratified you take the needs of Old East so seriously you’ve made time to come and see for yourself. It can’t be easy to get away from the pressure of your work in your own lab to spend time here.’
The smile George had pinned to her face began to fade as she remembered that she was supposed to be away nursing a sick friend. Was there any chance that either of these two would meet Ellen, and casually mention they’d seen her here? That could really start a fuss.
‘This is coincidental,’ she said quickly, looking over her shoulder. Happily for her, Maureen had moved away and was talking to one of the lab people, and George was able to move a little closer to the two men and drop her voice. No need to let Maureen hear her embark on one of her elaborate tales.
‘I have a sick friend – I’m actually on leave at present taking care of her – and I need some path. work done on her. I don’t want to take it back to Old East – being off duty, you see – so I dropped in here as she lives quite close. I thought they’d help me out.’ She smiled widely, praying deep inside that her luck would hold, and immediately slid off on another tack. ‘I wouldn’t have expected to see you here, either. You’re not on the Board here as well, are you?’
‘No way,’ said Harlow. ‘Got enough to do watching over Old East, take it from me. But we have to keep an eye on everything Old East’s Trust Board does, don’t we? I wouldn’t let them transfer the Path. Department here unless they’d all seen it. So that’s why we’re here. I’m showing my colleagues the set-up.’
‘So,’ George said, looking round. ‘Is it enough of a department to swallow up mine?’ In all her preoccupation with Gus’s predicament she’d stopped thinking about her own professional problems. If there was an opportunity here to resurrect one of them, why not?
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Harlow said, and it was clear he was returning to a line of argument which she had interrupted. ‘I told you, the building wouldn’t be any big deal. I can promise you we’d have no problems with the planners.’ He glanced sideways at George for a moment, a swift appraising look, and then back at McCann. ‘I won’t bore you with details now, Lewis, but take it from me, the building contracts won’t be a problem. The land’s there and –’
‘The land’s there all right,’ McCann said with an odd emphasis. ‘But that doesn’t mean to say it’s available for your building contracts, however easy they might be to organize, does it?’
Lester moved then, straightening up and leaving the window to come forwards. ‘Oh, I doubt there’s any need to worry about that. It’s the quality of the service that matters, and everyone involved –everyone – is, I’m sure, willing and eager to do the best thing.’ His agreeable, carefully controlled voice seemed to make Harlow more tense, rather than less.
‘Well, that’s something we have to talk about more. So, shall we be on our way? Mustn’t get in Dr Barnabas’s way, must we? No. Good afternoon to you, doctor. It’s been a pleasure to see you.’ And he almost hustled McCann away, with Lester following quietly at his own pace, leaving George staring after them, her brows a little creased. Ideas and thoughts were stirring deep in her mind that would need lifting out into bright daylight and inspecting. She let some vague yet possibly relevant memories swirl around: Monty talking to Gus, I won’t work with no lemons, and they know it; Poor little kids … only elevenpence ha’penny to the bob; and Gus, talking on the same occasion: I’ll keep a well-open eye and ear on the contracts inside.
Was this the connection? Maureen spent most of her waking life thinking about St Dymphna’s. It wouldn’t be strange if her husband, the Universal Fixer and Sorter-Out of Other People’s Problems, was involved in it as well. Was there some scheme going on that might benefit St Dymphna’s at Old East’s expense, into which McCann and Harlow had been recruited? And was there any connection with Connie, another warm supporter of St Dymphna’s, via Maureen? And –
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