First Blood

by Claire Rayner

  ‘I don’t need murders to keep me happy! I just need to know what’s happened to a body. To this body. It’s what I’m here for, goddamn it, to investigate.’

  ‘And very good you’re going to be at it, it’s obvious. But do me a favour, darling, let this bleeder go! You only had to look at him to know the sort of life he led. Probably just snuffed it the way these blokes do, and –’

  ‘He didn’t have a coronary, if that’s what you’re suggesting. He didn’t have any evidence of any disease, can’t you understand that? I thought he’d probably infarcted too, until I looked at his heart and blood vessels, but he had no more atheroma than you’d expect in a guy his age and type. Less in fact. He had a sound heart that just stopped beating. I’d like to know why.’

  He leaned back and sighed deeply. ‘If you were sitting in my seat and getting calls every hour on the bloody hour about this funeral they want to have, you’d be glad enough to let it go,’ he said. ‘I’m the last man to want to cover up anything that’s the remotest bit dicey, but believe me and my years of experience, this one is not dicey. It’s a straight-up death from natural causes.’

  ‘When I’ve done the last tests I’ll let you know if you’re right,’ she said pugnaciously.

  Again he sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re as stubborn as the proverbial, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yankee, that’s me. It’s a label that suits me.’ She stopped and thought for a moment and then it was her turn to lean forward. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think I’m just being stubborn though. I’m not. I won’t lie and pretend I wasn’t furious with you over what happened at the flat that evening. But now it’s different. Healthy hearts don’t usually stop for no reason. I’d be a lousy pathologist if I let it go after just one lot of investigations, can’t you see that? You ought to be encouraging me, not trying to push me off the case.’

  ‘You don’t need encouragement,’ he said gloomily. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d persuaded Royle to stay. You’re going to be a right liability, you are.’

  ‘Well, there it is. You’re stuck with me.’

  ‘I suppose I am. Listen, what sort of tests are you doing this time round? What have you done already?’

  ‘We did the usual blood picture and a drug screen. Opiates, cocaine, paracetamol, all that stuff. There was nothing significant in the stomach contents, so I needn’t check there again. Alcohol, naturally.’

  ‘Was there any?’

  ‘You saw the report. There wasn’t.’

  ‘Hmm. So what now?’

  ‘Various things. Insulin …’

  He looked interested at that. ‘Like the von Bülow case? Didn’t he use insulin?’

  ‘So it seems. Anyway, we’ll look for it. Blood sugar and so forth. Cyanide and its derivatives – not likely. No signs of it and no smell. Digitalis, stuff like that.’

  ‘How likely is it you’ll find anything?’

  ‘How do I know? I’m looking, I’m not into divination. This is science, Mr Hathaway, not crystal-gazing.’

  ‘I wish you’d call me Gus. And you’re George –’

  ‘And don’t ask me why!’ she said quickly. ‘If you don’t ask me why, you can call me anything you like.’

  ‘Then I’ll call you George. And I already know why.’ He smiled. ‘Must have been quite a lady, your ma.’

  ‘She still is,’ George said and scowled. ‘Does hospital gossip reach as far as the goddamn police station?’

  ‘I make it my business to find out. So, you really think there could be evidence here of something?’

  She sighed. He was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. That he was an experienced policeman was undoubted, and if he was so sure there was no reason to suspect other than natural causes probably he was right. Yet, she was uneasy. It was more than her usual hunger for facts, all the facts, that drove her; it was a genuine suspicion now, and she leaned forward again, wanting to be friendly, wanting to avoid any appearance of being combative. ‘Listen, I’m as sorry about this as you are. Now. When it all started I can’t deny I was mad at you and wanted to get even. I didn’t think it’d be all that much of a problem. But the thing is that since I refused to sign the certificate after the first PM I’m obligated. I can’t sign now till I’ve done more work. You must see that. And you’re not the only one being pressured to get the thing finished with.’

  He sharpened. ‘Oh? Who’s pressuring you?’

  She meant to say Toby, but it didn’t come out that way. ‘The wife.’

  ‘Oh.’ He relaxed. ‘Fair enough. I suppose Mrs Oxford’s entitled to be interested in what happened to Mr Oxford.’

  ‘Right now I wish I’d never heard of Richard Oxford,’ she said. ‘But do let me assure you I regret as much as you do that I ever made a fuss over that one in the first place.’

  He beamed at her. ‘Thank heaven for that. We can work together then!’

  ‘I thought we already were.’

  ‘Properly, I mean. Not having battles all the time.’ He reached forward, took her hand and shook it firmly. ‘From now on, darlin’, you and me, we’re on the same side, right? No more pushing things just to get your own back and –’

  ‘Don’t you ever listen?’ she snapped. ‘I wasn’t pushing it! I’m not pushing it now. I admitted that to start with I wanted to make it difficult for you, so I insisted on doing the preliminaries at the flat, but I’d have had to do the same over the PM even if that hadn’t happened. I wish you’d listen! And I do wish you wouldn’t call me darling. It’s patronizing.’

  ‘Oh, shit!’ he said disgustedly. ‘That word again. Social workers’ babble.’

  ‘You’re impossible.’ She got to her feet, furious again. ‘One minute you’re trying to be friendly, and the next you come on like a – like the worst sort of –’

  ‘Go on, say it. Male chauvinist pig.’

  ‘I wouldn’t waste my time,’ she said with dignity and waved at the waitress who had noticed what was happening and had been watching with interest. ‘The bill please. For the other man and me. He can pay for his own coffee.’ She flicked a glare at Hathaway.

  ‘I never pay,’ he said mildly. ‘It’s one of the privileges. I told you I’d –’

  ‘You will not pay for mine and Toby’s,’ she said with teeth clenched. ‘And don’t think that I’d ever –’

  ‘I wasn’t goin’ to offer again. I got more sense than to try such a thing with a woman in a paddy. All I was going to say was I don’t think I’ll ever have to. So you’re leavin’, I take it? Don’t forget your gear.’ He pulled her bag out from beneath the table.

  She grabbed it from him as the waitress arrived with the bill, and she grabbed that too and marched over to the cashier’s desk, leaving him sitting, but he followed her as she made for the door to the street and held it for a moment so that she couldn’t get past.

  ‘Tell you what, let’s make it really interesting,’ he said. ‘Let’s make a bet on it. Ten quid says you don’t find a thing with your second round of tests. Ten quid says you have to give in and sign the certificate and let this geezer get himself properly buried. What do you say?’

  ‘I say go and screw yourself,’ she snapped, and marched out, and off along the street, her bag bumping against her legs as she went.

  She could feel him watching her all the way.

  ‘You told me to check for everything I could think of as well as the list you gave me and the others,’ Jerry said. ‘So I did. It just seemed one I could have a go at. I’m as surprised as you are. I mean, old Oxford! Who’d ha’ thought it? Do you think he might have topped himself in some fancy fashion because of it?’

  She shook her head abstractedly, staring down at the sheaf of papers in her hand. ‘I’ve got to think about all this. Give me some time … Are there any more to come?’

  ‘Only the immuno-assay. I did a fluorescence polarization – that was for the digitalis. I’ll go and see what’s happened to that. It should be ready. Apart from that, you’ve got the lot.
And the only one that’s come up with a surprise, to me at any rate, is that one.’ He flicked the corner of one of the sheets in her hand and then made for the door. ‘I’ll chase Peter on the other. Fun, isn’t it? Looks as though you could have uncovered a surprise at that, doesn’t it?’

  She shook her head and he went, leaving her staring down at the report. The words looked up at her so harmlessly: just a few symbols on a page and yet so loaded with potential meaning she could hardly cope with it.

  ‘HIV positive,’ the sheet read. ‘HIV positive.’

  She riffled through the rest of the results. There was nothing else that indicated anything at all untoward. Blood sugar was normal; no sign of insulin, so that one was out. No sign of anything that could have caused this man’s death when he was apparently healthy. Yet he wasn’t healthy. He was HIV positive.

  Of course that didn’t mean he was ill, she told herself. People can be positive for years and not have AIDS. For all we know some HIV positive people may never get AIDS. There just isn’t the information available yet. But this man was positive. Had he known? Had he been helped to deal with his feelings? Been counselled? And if he had known, why had he been tested? Was he living a risky lifestyle?

  No drug injecting; she’d checked particularly for that at her main examination of the body down in the mortuary. It had been a routine thing to look for, but he’d not been a mainliner, though it had occurred to her when she’d first seen him that he had the sort of pouched and less-than-glowing look some drug-users get. That had been why she’d paid so much attention to the search for cocaine. He’d been just the sort of rich man to use it. But he hadn’t shown any sign. So was he homosexual? The fact that he was a married man made no difference, of course, she knew that, but he did live apart from his wife. Yet never in all the gossip about the man had anyone even hinted that he might be sexually ambiguous. In a place like this, where everyone made sure they knew everyone’s business as thoroughly as they could, where Oxford had been very much part of the scene, if there had been even the remotest possibility, surely it would have been talked about?

  For the rest of the afternoon, as she dealt with the piles of reports she had to make to the wards and the ICU and GP clinics, the questions gnawed at her mind. Was the fact that Oxford had been HIV positive significant? Did it mean he’d had good reason to die prematurely? Did it mean –

  She gave up and buried herself in her work, choosing the most complicated assessments to deal with first, the sort on which she had to concentrate hard to do at all, and that helped. So much that when Jerry suddenly came into her office in a most dramatic manner, holding out a sheet of paper with an air of suppressed excitement, she was startled.

  ‘Well, Dr B.!’ he said. ‘We’ve got a fascinator here!’

  ‘Eh? How do you mean?’

  He came over, very portentous, set the sheet of paper before her and smoothed it out. ‘What do you think of that then?’ he said triumphantly.

  She read it and then leaned back in her chair to look at him. ‘I’ve forgotten,’ she said. ‘I can’t think straight. What’s the safe level?’

  ‘I’d forgotten too, so I looked it up. At the very most it shouldn’t exceed five milligrammes per litre,’ he said. ‘And will you look at that! He must have had – oh, I don’t know, I’d have to do the computations, but I’d guess he couldn’t have had less than – here –’ He reached for her notepad and started to scribble, murmuring amounts beneath his breath and then stood upright, staring down at the pad in his hand. ‘He must have had in excess of thirty twenty-five milligramme tablets, I’d say. Maybe more.’

  She was still stunned. She’d pushed for this, resisted all attempts to deter her, and she’d been right. She had it so clearly in her mind she was just being stubborn and she wouldn’t find anything that now she had it was difficult to take it in.

  But the surprise ebbed and what came in its place was exhilaration. It was shameful to have to admit it but discovering Oxford had died of unnatural causes made her deeply content, and she was unable to keep the smile off her face.

  Jerry was grinning too. ‘You were right, then. Everyone said you were nitpicking, but you were right!’

  Her grin faded a little. ‘Everyone?’

  He had the grace to look a little embarrassed. ‘Well, you know how it is. People talk.’

  ‘My God, they do!’ she said with some feeling. ‘More here than any place I’ve ever been in! Anyway, you can now start some more talk. Tell ’em I was right. That they can put it in their overworked mouths and chew it! All we have to do now is find out how he got so much digitalis in him. He had no heart disease so there was no reason he should be using it, and when I looked round his bathroom I didn’t see any there. Though I can’t pretend I looked all that thoroughly.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be a police matter now,’ Jerry said cheerfully. ‘I’ll be panting to know whether he jumped or was pushed. But I can’t for the life of me see how he got it in him. I mean, nothing in the stomach contents, was there?’

  ‘No,’ she said, checking the reports. ‘No, nothing. However, as you say, it’s a police matter now.’ She smiled beatifically up at him again. ‘Tell you what, Jerry. You could do me a favour. Will you phone Gus Hathaway and tell him he owes me ten quid? No more than that. Just tell him he owes me ten quid.’

  ‘Like that, is it?’ Jerry said and laughed. ‘It’ll be a pleasure!’

  13

  ‘Dammit all to hell and back,’ Kate shouted. ‘How much longer do I have to wait to get that blood picture?’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Sister roared back. ‘We’ve been trying to ring the lab for ages, but the phones are continuously engaged. I just can’t get through!’

  ‘Then send someone down to get it,’ Kate said, calming down a little, but only a little. ‘I have to have it right now because I can’t get this next dialysis sorted out until I do, you know that. Maybe the phone’s out of order or something.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ Sister said wearily as she beckoned her most junior nurse. ‘I got them to check at switchboard. They’re engaged speaking all right. Someone down there has got nothing better to do than talk all day. Nurse, go down to the lab as fast as you can and get me the reports for Daisy Blair, will you? And tell them to clear their damned phones for at least five minutes in every hour and put us all out of our misery.’

  ‘No!’ the voice said in Sheila’s ear with flattering amazement. ‘Not really! Heart, do you say! Poisoned?’

  ‘I’m sure as I’m standing here telling you,’ Sheila said dramatically as she settled down to a long cosy chat. ‘Not that I’m all that surprised. As I was saying to Yvonne, when I told her, I always said there was something odd about the man. I mean, I read somewhere that people don’t get murdered except for a very good reason and they only have themselves to blame, and that has to be obvious, doesn’t it? And you only had to look at him to know.’

  ‘But couldn’t it have been suicide?’ the other objected.

  ‘Oh, no, he wasn’t the type.’ Sheila was very confident. ‘I mean, everything to live for, he had! Couldn’t be suicide. He was too – well, you know. Larger than life. Never suicide. No, it has to be murder.’ She shivered happily. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’

  ‘I’ll bet it was suicide. It’s the most probable. People don’t get murdered that way, do they? Not with secret potions. People get hit over the head or knifed down by the river, or mugged in pubs, that’s the sort of murder we get around here.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a different one now. And it’s someone we know, not just a patient,’ Sheila said, a little annoyed by her listener’s scepticism. ‘And I really can’t waste time talking now, I’ve got a lot to do. I’ll let you know when there’s more to tell you. Let the other people in the choir know, will you? They’ve got a right, after all, seeing they worked with him.’

  By the time she’d hung up and dug out of her address book the next number she wanted to ring, someone had picked up the extensi
on and the line was busy. She muttered irritably and tried George’s line. But that was engaged too. She’d just have to wait – or she could go over to see the secretary in the Dean’s office. There was still that matter of the forms for the pathology lectures to sort out, and she could ask her as well as anyone. Yes, that’d be better than the phone.

  ‘My dear, I’ve just heard. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

  ‘It’s all right, Charles. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘But of course I’m concerned. You’ve had a dreadful time lately, a perfectly dreadful time. I’m most anxious that –’

  ‘You needn’t be.’ She sounded quite brisk. ‘Now I know I feel a little better. The last few days of waiting have been, well, difficult, but now at least I know.’

  ‘You don’t sound unduly surprised.’ His voice was cautious.

  ‘I don’t think I am. After all, there are plenty of people who had ample cause to … Shall we say he wasn’t as popular as he might have been?’

  There was a little silence and then he said quietly, ‘No. I suppose he wasn’t.’

  ‘Not that that means I don’t care.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t, I know that.’

  ‘As long as you do.’

  Again there was a silence and he said carefully, ‘Shall we – Can we – Am I able to be of any help to you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Was he imagining it or was there a hint of laughter in her voice? ‘I don’t think you can be of any help to me at all.’

  ‘Well, in that case …’

  ‘Though perhaps I can be of some help to you.’

  ‘To me? Well, I’m not sure that – I really can’t say – Why should – I imagine that when it comes to the funeral there’ll need to be some –’

  ‘It’s all right, Charles,’ she said. ‘This is me, remember? I’m Oxford the obliging, not Oxford the awkward.’ Now there was laughter there and he felt a frisson of disapproval, almost shock. To be able to display levity in such circumstances offended his sense of what was right and proper.