First Blood

by Claire Rayner

  The woman fled, pulling the door open and scuttling down the corridor like a slightly demented insect. As they watched her go, Formby said in a tight voice, ‘Bloody woman! She drives me nearly –’

  ‘If she’s that bad at her job, shouldn’t she be, well, given an easier one?’ George asked. He shook his head as he went back to his desk. ‘And you didn’t have to be so hard on her. That was a hell of a wallop.’

  ‘Oh, I know, but I have no choice when she gets hysterical. Believe me, I know her. As for an easier job, I can’t. She’s – it’d all get a lot worse if I did,’ he said. ‘Look, she’ll get over it. I’ll see to it that she … But meanwhile, this business, the microscopes …’ He sat down again and put his hands on his desk in front of him. George could see they were shaking, however hard he tried to prevent it. He was sweating even more now and his face had a pallid oily gleam that was embarrassing to look at. She looked away.

  ‘I can’t see why you’re not calling the police to tell them the microscopes have reappeared,’ she said.

  ‘What’s the point?’ He tried to look casual and failed.

  ‘The point is you’re wasting police time!’ she said tartly. ‘That’s the point. I thought that was an offence.’

  ‘They’re not wasting any time on us!’ He managed a sort of grin but it was ghastly. ‘Do you think they’re looking for the thief? They know perfectly well they can’t find him. They know they always get away with it. So why bother? It’s simpler to say nothing.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘You may think it’s simpler but I think it has to be reported. In a sense I’m an officer of the court anyway. I can’t ignore this.’ He closed his eyes and his face went so pale that she thought he was going to pass out. She added sharply, ‘Are you all right?’

  He shook his head, his eyes still closed, and then took a deep breath. ‘Well, if you must, you must.’ He opened his eyes and now his colour began to come back. ‘I’ll call them.’ But he made no move towards his phone.

  ‘When I came last time to report the loss of these microscopes you phoned your man at the station at once. Why don’t you now? Or shall I? What was his name – Brewer, wasn’t it? I seem to remember that. Tim Brewer.’

  ‘I’ll call him,’ he said quickly. He pulled the phone towards him and pushed at the dial as she stepped closer. After a while he said, ‘Tim Brewer please … Mmm? Oh, Mitchell Formby, Old East.’

  George watched him. Then she leaned forward and took the phone from his hand. He tried to protest but failed, and she put it to her ear. All she could hear was the buzzing of the dialling tone.

  She put the phone back on the cradle and said quietly, ‘It’s no use, you know. You’ll have to tell me. It’ll be better than playing charades.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ He tried to bluster and she shook her head at him, sadly.

  ‘Why you’re in such a sweat over this. You know what’s been going on, don’t you? You’re scared because you were involved with this theft.’

  To her amazement he stared at her and then laughed. His face twisted painfully when he did it, but it was a real laugh. She looked back at him, nonplussed. ‘Me, involved in – Oh, don’t be so daft! If I were I’d do it a bloody sight better than this! It’s nothing to do with me, this theft, or the return of the damned things. But I can’t have the police here again.’

  ‘So the last time you called Brewer when I was here it was a real call? Not like this one?’

  He looked at her for a moment, seeming puzzled. But he nodded. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course it was. They came and saw your people, didn’t they? Of course it was. But I tell you, I can’t have them here again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He stared at her miserably and then apparently made up his mind. ‘It’s her.’ He jerked his head towards the door. ‘It’s all because of her. I can’t.’

  George was bewildered and let it show on her face. ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘She could make so much trouble.’ He almost wrung his hands; certainly they were twisted tightly together on his desk in front of him.

  ‘You’d better explain, hadn’t you?’

  ‘If I do will you promise not to call the police again? I couldn’t handle it. I really couldn’t.’

  ‘I make no promises of anything, Mr Formby,’ George said. ‘You must see I can’t do that.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. He closed his eyes and this time tears appeared under his sandy lashes and began to inch down his cheeks.

  ‘You’ll feel better if you tell me,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘You’ve got this far. There’s no going back, is there?’

  ‘It’s her,’ he blurted out, opening his eyes to stare at George helplessly. ‘She makes my life hell. It was a bit of a joke at first, a woman her age, but then she sort of – Well, I’d had a few drinks and I didn’t really know what I was doing and you know what they say about all cats being grey in the dark.’

  George blinked. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you and …’ She looked over her shoulder at the door as though the secretary were still there. ‘You and May?’

  He nodded and the tears stopped, but he was staring at her miserably. ‘I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my choice, I told you. She brought in whisky for her birthday and after the others had gone offered me a drink. I couldn’t refuse, and anyway I never thought an old bag like that … But she, she …’ He swallowed. ‘I have a problem anyway, I really do. It’s very difficult for me.’

  ‘How difficult?’

  ‘Last time they gave me a suspended sentence.’ He almost whispered it. ‘It was awful but at least no one knew it was me. I could keep it quiet, don’t ask me how, there was a lot of other stuff in the news then and anyway – Well, no one here ever found out and so it was all right. Three years suspended and then she did that and she’s been after me ever since and what can I do? What can I do?’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ George said carefully. ‘What sort of suspended sentence? What for?’

  ‘A – sort of assault, it was.’ He looked at her quickly and then his eyes flicked away. ‘Sort of …’

  George sat back in her chair. ‘I see. Rape.’

  ‘Assault, I swear it. Only assault –’

  ‘Only!’

  ‘There was doubt, that was why the suspended, but if anything happens again – and she says if anyone ever asks her about those microscopes again she’ll tell them it was all me, and not her at all, that I raped her – I swear I didn’t, but can’t you see? She’s got pictures of – of bruises and – She’s shown me, bruises. She’ll show people, she says, if I ever – I have to do what she wants.’

  ‘Bruises?’ George was lost again.

  ‘She likes it! That’s why she gets so hysterical. She likes it when I hit her, likes it when I shout at her. Oh, how can you understand? You never could. Just believe me. She’s got me exactly where she wants me, because she knows about the last case. She says if the police come she’ll tell them what I did to her. She pinches a few bits here and there so she’s scared for herself. Stupid, really; I’ve covered it up for her. The police’d never find it. But she’s sure they will and she says if I let them in here again, she’ll tell and they give people like me a terrible time in prison and anyway there’s my job … I never thought she’d try to hurt me but she says if the police come back she’ll tell them and if I don’t go on with her – Oh, it’s all such shit …’ And now he was weeping again.

  George sat still, trying to think what to do. That the police would have to be told that the microscopes had come back seemed to her to be obvious, the only thing to do. She couldn’t think of them wasting time searching for a thief if –

  ‘Look, I tell you what I’ll do,’ she said. ‘Do shut up and listen. I’ll talk to Brewer, find out how the case is going –’

  ‘No!’ he yelped. ‘No, you can’t do that. If you do, she’ll –’

  ‘If as you say they aren’t investigating, fair enough, I’ll say no more about it.
There’ll be no point. But if they’re using police time to look for a thief …’

  He lifted his head, and real hope seemed to look out of his eyes. ‘Honestly? If they’re doing nothing, you won’t tell them?’

  ‘I must be mad,’ she said. ‘For all I know this is a complete whitewash and you’re just trying to con me, and you’re the thief.’

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I wish I were.’

  And she had to believe him. It was such an impossible story that it had to be true.

  Or did it? She left him there eventually and went and sat on the bench beside the scrubby flowerbed outside the admin building to think. Once she was away from him, it was easier to get some sort of perspective. She stared unseeingly at the dead leaves drifting round the naked stalks of last autumn’s chrysanthemums, working it out in her mind.

  Was there a connection between Oxford’s death and the theft and reappearance of the microscopes? She couldn’t quite see how, but there could be. There had to be a reason for Oxford to have been filled up with digitalis – though how that had happened was still a mystery that had to be sorted out, dammit – and some sort of hospital chicanery could be involved. After all, she reasoned, Oxford had spent a lot of time here, had known many of the people here; his involvement with the Barrie Ward fundraising committee had given him every reason and every chance to be well entrenched at Old East. What he had done to lead to his being poisoned was something she couldn’t yet know, but surely she could find out?

  She drifted into a half-reverie, in which she somehow succeeded in sorting out the whole business of Oxford’s death and the microscope thefts in such a way that she showed Gus Hathaway for good and all just how superior and successful a person she was; and then, as a sharp little wind blew up with the dwindling of the afternoon, shivered and got to her feet. Dreaming of putting one over on Hathaway was silly; but the idea had its charms. She’d try to see if she could find out for herself what truth there was in Formby’s claims, outrageous and ridiculous though they had been – increasingly so as she thought about them – and then see if she could find a link between him and Oxford. By the time she’d found out how the digitalis had got into the man – and surely that would emerge soon; it only took painstaking attention to detailed routine work, after all – maybe she’d have the answer to why it had been done as well as how. And that would perhaps tell her who. It would indeed be very agreeable to present Gus Hathaway with all the answers.

  She walked back to the lab quickly, planning as she went. There were people she could talk to to set her on her way, she told herself, as ideas began to form in her mind. One was the young Scottish Detective Constable Urquhart and another was – and here she narrowed her eyes as she considered the possibilities, and then had a brilliant idea and was pleased with herself – the other was Hattie Clements, Sister on A & E. Both of those could get answers for her if they were asked in the right way. But first, of course, she would have to talk to Gus Hathaway. Very carefully and obliquely, of course.

  She talked to Gus on the phone, as delicate in her words as she had ever been.

  ‘The thefts there’ve been here at Old East,’ she said. ‘You know about them?’

  ‘Mmm? What thefts?’

  ‘Equipment and so forth, ECG machines, microscopes.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Those. Yes, I know about those. One of my fellas is on it, isn’t he?’

  ‘Brewer?’ she said casually. ‘Is he getting anywhere?’

  ‘Why do you want to know? Have you lost something?’

  ‘What the hospital loses I lose too,’ she said. ‘Send not to hear for whom the bell tolls …’

  ‘Mmm. Well, I can tell you that there’s not a lot anyone can do. The security in that place of yours is bloody awful. We’ve told ’em till we’re blue, but they pay no attention. But in all fairness there’s not a lot they can do.’

  ‘People walk in and out all the time.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘So you’re not investigating?’

  He sighed. ‘Are you trying to make a monkey out of me, Dr Barnabas? I got a lot on my plate. I delegate things like that!’

  ‘But you’re the DCI, aren’t you? In charge of everything?’

  ‘Not bloody likely! I’ve got a Super for that.’

  ‘Still and all …’

  ‘Oh, dammit, all right! So we’re not moving much on the hospital thefts, all right? I’m trying to run an incident room for this Oxford death and that comes first.’

  ‘I just wondered,’ she said meekly. ‘It’s not important. Listen, I’ve finished the tablet checks.’

  He was diverted immediately. ‘Have you, then? And what have you got for me?’

  ‘Not a thing. Sorry. Every one of them is what it says it is on the label.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Well, yes. Any news from his Harley Street doctors?’

  ‘Not a great deal. He seemed to have been a reasonably healthy chap. Hadn’t seen any of the ones who had their names on those bottles and stuff for almost a year. The gut chappie said Oxford had a mild go of piles and he treated him for it, gave him some tubes of cream, told him to come back when he felt the need. The others’ – he sighed ‘not a bloody thing. And now you’ve got nothing either.’

  ‘I’m starting again on the samples from the body,’ she said. ‘And there’s still the rest of the things in the bathroom cabinets. There were some bottles, remember, with liquids.’

  ‘I’m not too hopeful.’ He sounded gloomy. ‘Whoever did this was a smartarse who knew what he was about. Covered it up a treat. But we’ll get the bugger, you see if we don’t.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt at all that you will,’ she said sweetly, and then hesitated. ‘Look, I’ve had one idea about all this but it might seem a bit, well, far-fetched.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Did he have anything in his flat that was like an office?’

  ‘An office? He had a fancy room with a desk and a computer and so on, yes. Didn’t look as though it got much use, mind you. Considering he was a writer.’

  ‘Look, will you let me go after an idea I’ve got? Will you help me to –’

  ‘Madam Amateur Sleuth, are we? Very nice. You tell me what you’ve got and leave it to me.’

  ‘It’s not worth talking about at this stage,’ she said, leaning back in her chair and staring at the ceiling. The phone was hot and sticky in her hand and she tried to relax, afraid he might pick up her tension from her voice. ‘If you’ll find out stuff for me, I’ll see what might fit my idea and then I’ll tell you if there’s anything in it.’

  ‘No way.’ He was brusque. ‘This is a police matter now, ducky. No meddling, if you please.’

  ‘It was my meddling that proved it was a police matter in the first place,’ she said and there was a little silence.

  ‘Fair dos,’ he said at length. ‘But I shan’t do any finding out for you, all the same. You do your own if you’re that good at my job.’

  ‘By God, I will,’ she said and slammed down the phone. ‘I will,’ she said to the ceiling. ‘Just you watch me.’

  17

  She started in the A & E department and gave a good deal of thought as to how she would do it.

  There were two possibilities: the direct and the devious. She opted in the end for the former; mainly, she couldn’t deny, because it was the easiest. However hard she tried she couldn’t think of any way in which she could get the information she wanted without coming out directly with her questions; so as soon as the lab was finished for the day she went over in the glimmer of the early evening twilight to the main hospital, following the scratched paint lines across the courtyard to Blue block. It was the time of day she most enjoyed and she stopped for a moment to look up at the big ward buildings with their shimmer of lighted windows and the theatricality of the effect as nurses and sometimes patients passed them, and thought of all that was happening there; of people being born and people being freed of fear and pain; of peop
le being forced to look at their own mortality and of course people dying. Lots of people dying; and she considered the illogicality of fretting so much over the death of one somewhat disliked man in a world in which there were so many people, and from which he’d hardly be missed, and then thought how glad she was that it was a world in which such deaths were cause for concern; and finally shook her head at her time-wasting and hurried on to A & E.

  It was full of its usual over-heated glittering clatter. The waiting area benches were filled with their regular human detritus: meths drinkers from the wasteground over towards Wapping; young tearaways who had battered themselves to interesting bloody messes on motorbikes; children with grazed knees; old women with aching joints trying to bypass their GPs and get their hands on extra painkillers; but nothing, her experienced glance told her, that was particularly urgent. The nursing staff were moving around at a comfortable speed, with none of the barely contained hysteria that characterized A & E on a really hard night; it would be a good time to pin down Hattie Clements for a little while.

  George found her in her cubby hole of an office, writing her notes up for the night staff as she got ready to go home. George put her head round the door and said cheerfully, ‘Would I be a pest if I came visiting?’

  Hattie looked up and smiled widely as she recognized her. ‘Not in the least! I’m nearly done and then I have to wait for my chap anyway. Care for some coffee?’

  ‘I’d kill for some,’ George said.

  Hattie got to her feet and went over to the corner of the room where a small percolator sat bubbling contentedly on an electric ring. ‘This’ll be stewed to death, no doubt, but I’ve got used to it bitter and strong. I suspect I’m hooked on it. Will it be OK for you?’