First Blood

by Claire Rayner

  The next name she wrote in under her headings, she put there with a firm hand: Toby Bellamy. MOTIVE? To protect his Fliss for whom he had more feeling than he had admitted. At the very least, she was a friend. It could be that he had lied and she was a lover. George looked at that and then hurried on. OPPORTUNITY? All there is. Easy access to everything at Old East. Also admits to having been in Oxford’s flat at a dinner party so could have planted the spiked cream. There was no limitation on the timing, after all; it could have been put there months before Oxford used it. And though Gus had said that guests didn’t get into the master bathroom except as part of a guided tour by Oxford, that didn’t mean Toby hadn’t slipped out at some time and tried to do it and succeeded.

  Then she looked at COUNTER-MOTIVE, and under it had to write None, which made Toby a strong suspect. Every means, every reason to do it, and none not to.

  ‘Sod it,’ she muttered and hurried on resolutely to her next name. She thought hard, and then wrote Jerry Swann. It might seem far-fetched, but after all he had admitted to being very angry; so under MOTIVE she wrote Insulted, disappointed, ?enough to cause murder. Probably not, but it might be for some people. Jerry could be more sensitive than he appears. OPPORTUNITY. Here she sighed and wrote Every: to get the stuff and to fill the tube. ?possible to get it into the flat. Well, he might have lied and been a visitor at some time. But to the best of her knowledge that one had to be a false start. He’d never shown the least sign that he had any knowledge of the place. Which was a comfort. Under COUNTER-MOTIVE she wrote There wouldn’t be much profit in murder for this one. Lots of worry and a little revenge, that was all. Taking it all round she thought Jerry came low on the list, but he was definitely there.

  That gave her three suspects, which wasn’t very much. Surely there had to be other people at Old East who belonged on her list?

  She went over the entries again, reading them carefully. None of them seemed to offer her any leads and she started to read yet again; and then suddenly remembered, the thought coming into her mind totally unbidden, like another bubble. Carole. The girl who, according to Kate, had been a model, and according to Gus had been used by Felicity’s agency. And what else was it Gus had said? That Felicity’s girls had jobs on the side …

  The bubbles came thicker and faster, solidified into hard ideas and began to click and slide into place in her mind, like the coloured balls on a double helix model. Matthew Herne was the senior hospital administrator. He was the man to whom Mitchell Formby had answered. He was the man who should have spotted what Formby was when he applied for his job. Because he appointed him, he was the man who should have discovered his depradations on the hospital’s equipment. He was the man who had a wife he adored to the point of obsession. A wife who might have been a prostitute when she had worked with Felicity Oxford. Who might have known about her employee’s extra-curricular activities and mentioned it to her husband, Oxford. Who might have used that as a weapon against Matthew Herne, threatening to tell the world that he was married to a ‘bad’ woman, which would be something the highly upright exsoldier would find very hard to handle, yet he would not be able to let her go, loving her as he did. His only recourse surely would have been to rid himself of Oxford, both to be free of his demands for money as well as the fear of eventual exposure of Carole. Maybe protecting her name was part of keeping her. And maybe he used Formby as his tool for getting the money he had to pay to Oxford and even possibly used him to help with his murder.

  It was a beautiful scenario, and she contemplated it almost in awe at her own perspicacity. To have seen it all so clearly … Oh, it had to be Herne. She was quite sure of it. Who else had had so strong a motive, so easy an opportunity and no counter-motive whatsoever? Herne had everything to gain, nothing to lose by getting rid of Oxford. And what was more he had to get rid of Formby as well once he no longer needed to use him. He was as much a danger to him as Oxford had been; he might one day try a bit of blackmail on his own account. With the sort of history she’d uncovered about Formby it was very likely.

  She almost hugged herself with pride and sheer excitement, but she didn’t. She scribbled all the details as she had worked them out into her list of suspects and then leaned back in delight to study them again. And looked at the list of initials from the Oxford computer printout.

  At last, she had a real lead. She had not only a pair of matching initials to try, but also M.H. for Matthew Herne. If one pair of these initials here could be made to link logically with M.H. she was home and dry. She’d have solved Gus Hathaway’s code for him. All she had to do was start again on the code.

  She pushed back her hair, which had tumbled into her eyes in the heat of the moment and bent her head again over the code. She had to break it somehow. Tonight. And here she’d stay until she did it.

  27

  She woke suddenly, sitting bolt upright and staring around wildly, totally disoriented. Around her the library stretched, quiet and stuffy, and she blinked at the walls of books and tried to rub her face with one hand only to discover it was numb and had started pins and needles that promised to hurt abominably. She shook her hand to bring back life, as memory came back too.

  Dammit all to hell and back, how could she have been so stupid? She peered at her watch and cursed again. Half past two. To have struggled with that code so long that she had fallen asleep over it had been a ridiculous thing to do, especially as she had failed ignominiously to get anywhere with it. Bad as her room in the residence might be, it did at least offer a proper bed, and she’d have been better off in it hours ago. She yawned and, as her numb hand began to settle down to some sort of normality, picked up her papers and made for the door.

  Outside in the corridor the medical school building lay still and dark around her, smelling faintly of formaldehyde and dust and old shoes. She stood hesitantly in the doorway for a while, trying to decide what to do. The door between this building and the doctors’ residence adjoining must have been locked hours ago. It wasn’t even worth going along that way to see if she could get through. It would have to be the whole boring business of going down to the ground floor, along to the door that led out to the main entrance yard, then round the private wing by the main road to the residence beyond. A five-minute walk she didn’t fancy in the least.

  The main yard door was locked, of course, she thought as she went padding along the corridor towards the staircase, but she had a hazy memory of seeing the keys to the building in the small porter’s room that adjoined the door. She should be able to get out all right, though she wouldn’t be able to lock up again. Or maybe, she thought sleepily, I could lock the door and post the key back in through the letter box.

  But to her surprise the door was not only unlocked but open. She pushed on it cautiously, trying to see if there was anything wrong with it. Had someone broken in? There would be no point in anyone doing so – there was little worth stealing apart from the collection of antique medical instruments and books on the fourth floor and perhaps a typewriter or two from the various offices – but it was obvious as soon as she looked that the lock had not been tampered with. It was simply unlocked and, what was more, set on the latch, and she considered for a moment putting the latch down to close it on the other side so that the building would be secure after she left, but decided against it. There might be a good reason for this; perhaps a late-working cleaner or a porter who had nipped out for a moment and would be returning.

  She emerged into the narrow entry yard, which was just big enough to let a single ambulance through, a fact that caused many daytime hold-ups and much honking in the main road outside when new arrivals jockeyed for position with emerging vehicles, and stood there for a moment to catch her breath. It was still bitterly cold, for all it was now April, and she wondered mournfully if summer ever came to London. It had been a rare enough visitor to Inverness and sometimes she had yearned for the hot summers in the States; and for just a moment, in her sleepy state, in the chill of the dark dead watche
s of the morning, she yearned for home like a child wanting its mother and despised herself for being so silly. And walked out into the street beyond.

  There was a car parked a little way along on the opposite side of the road. She looked at it in surprise, because there was a shadow beside it that looked as though someone were there crouching down and peering in through the driver’s open window, and then the shadow moved and proved to be precisely that, and she stood very still against the wall in the darkness thrown by the concrete buttress that supported the wall beside the entrance, trying to be invisible. She didn’t know why, but she felt it would be politic not to be seen.

  She could hear a faint murmur now, so soft as to be almost a whisper. It wasn’t loud enough for her to hear words and certainly not to identify any familiar voice, and she had just decided that this was just a late-night reveller on his way home – though where he had come from heaven only knew, since there were no private houses along this street at all, or bars or restaurants or anywhere else a person could have come from at half past two in the morning – when the shadow stopped crouching and became an upright and recognizable figure. It looks like Professor Dieter, she thought, and peered again; and then the figure turned and moved away as the engine started, quietly because it was a big expensive car – a BMW possibly, though she couldn’t be sure in the poor light. The figure – yes, it was Dieter, she was certain of it – waved, and a hand came out of the driving window and waved back. She looked as the car passed her going westwards towards the middle of the city and saw the face of the driver clearly and frowned, trying to think who it was. She knew him, she was sure she did, but she had to scrabble in her memory for his name. Of course, Dr Neville Carr, the oncologist. She had little to do with him in the course of a day’s work and had only spoken to him in passing at various medical events and in the canteen; but she was certain it was he, and was amused at herself for being so suspicious of this little encounter. Clearly he had come in to deal with an emergency and Professor Dieter had been asked for a consult. Even he had to get up in the middle of the night sometimes. She was about to step forward out of her shadows and greet the Professor who was now walking briskly back towards the hospital entrance, but thought better of it. To have to explain why she was standing out here at two-thirty would be tiresome to say the least; better to let him go. And she waited until she heard the latch of the door to the medical school building click and went gratefully on her way to her own building and bed. It was dreadful, she told herself as she brushed her teeth and climbed shivering between the sheets, to become so suspicious. It’s as though everyone I look at, no matter what they’re doing, has become an object of my detection. I ought to leave all this to Gus and stop meddling, she thought drowsily. I’ll drive myself crazy if I go on this way. And yet, it was all so fascinating and exciting. She, who liked to discover the roots of everything, was tailor-made for detecting. ‘Tailor-made,’ she murmured into the darkness and fell asleep as abruptly as an exhausted child.

  It was later in the afternoon that her brilliant idea came to her. All morning she had been on the point of phoning Gus Hathaway to tell him of her great discovery and her identification of Matthew Herne as the murderer, but somehow she had been held back. There was always something else to do first, but now she had to admit it. She didn’t want to tell him. Not yet. It would be much more fun and infinitely more satisfying to give him something concrete to prove her elegant solution. It couldn’t be denied that all she had so far was based on what he would regard as much despised intuition. She knew it was nothing of the sort, but would he?

  Solid information, she thought. Real evidence. How the hell do I get that for him? What was it the police did when they wanted real evidence? She thought about that, about all the films she had ever seen of the police at work and how they collected evidence, and it was then that the beginnings of an idea came to her. A stake-out, wasn’t that what they called it? You set up a scene in which the people you expected to give you the evidence you needed operated without knowing you were there to watch and catch them. Would it be possible to do something of the sort?

  Her office door rattled and Jerry came in, walking backwards so that he pushed the door open with his rump. He was carrying a tray and on it was a plate with a large cake, which bore one fat candle in the centre and was iced with virulent pink fondant.

  ‘It’s my birthday, Dr B.,’ he announced. ‘And for birthdays in the lab we always have a bit of cake here in the boss’s office. It’s the only thing that keeps us going year by year. We always use this room to cut it and share it out and have a cuppa. Dr Royle quite enjoyed it. I hope you will too.’

  She stood up and looked at the cake and then at the people who were following him into her office; Sheila, of course, and Jane, the trio from the big lab, and even Peter, looking as morose as usual, but still there, and she laughed.

  ‘It wouldn’t make much difference if I objected, would it?’ she said. ‘Seeing you’re here. OK, OK, have your birthday cake. Who’s got a knife?’

  ‘Me,’ said Danny from the doorway, as he came in at last, carrying a very large PM knife. George looked at it in some horror and then at Jerry.

  ‘One of those? Ye gods, I knew working in a lab coarsened you but –’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he interrupted cheerfully. ‘It’s never been used for anything but our cakes and suchlike. We like to shock outsiders – that’s why we use it – but we tell you the truth. Now, who’s going to light my candle?’ He leered at George. ‘It’s no secret, Dr B. that I’d love it to be you.’

  Jane giggled and George went a little pink. She had successfully repelled Jerry’s tendency to flirt with her before she’d been in the place a week, but lately he was beginning to get a little uppity again. She looked at him straight-faced and shook her head. ‘Do it yourself, Jerry. Much more suitable.’

  He grimaced as Sheila snorted with laughter, and caught the box of matches Danny chucked at him. ‘If I’m not there when the loving begins, start without me,’ he muttered as he lit the candle, but George ignored him and turned to help Sheila who was now being efficient with a teapot and mugs.

  They ate and drank and laughed as Jerry chattered on in his usual way. George sat on the edge of her desk staring into space as she worked on the plan that had dropped almost fully fledged into her mind. A birthday celebration? Maybe. Unless she could think of any better or more logical reason; but she couldn’t. So it would have to be a birthday party. All she could do was look them all straight in the eyes and swear she’d been born in April and hope no one remembered her personnel file in which it was clearly shown that she had in fact emerged into the world in October.

  The cake finished and the teapot drained they began to trail regretfully back to work. George timed herself carefully: as Jerry collected the remains of his cake, she murmured, ‘Pop back, will you Jerry? I need a word.’

  He looked at her sharply and nodded and followed Sheila out of her office with the others, obediently reappearing five minutes later.

  ‘I need your help, Jerry,’ George said, ‘It was your bringing your birthday cake that made me think of it. The thing is, it’s my birthday next week –’

  ‘Oh! Really? Super. Lots more cake. I thought we’d have to wait till June and Sheila’s annual lie. She tries to take off an extra year every time, you know. She thinks we’ve all got the galloping amnesia. I’ll tell them. They’ll be delighted.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ she said firmly. ‘Because I can’t ask them all to the event I’m planning. I’ll have to ask you because you’re going to help me get it together, but don’t go getting any ideas in consequence.’ She sounded severe now. ‘If I ask you and not the others it doesn’t mean anything special. Understand?’

  ‘I can hardly do anything else,’ he said a little mournfully. ‘Still, it’s nice to be asked. Where is it?’

  ‘That’s the problem. I can’t entertain in my own home because I don’t have one yet, though I’ll be looking
for that soon. So I thought I’d get permission to use the Board Room for a private party. They do that sometimes, don’t they?’

  ‘Oh, yes. There’re always things happening over there. It’s a bit of extra cash for the hospital, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, I hope it isn’t too much extra cash,’ she said, thinking of her bank balance and wondering if it would survive. Detection could be an expensive hobby. ‘Anyway I’m determined to do it. A dinner party, I thought, for – oh, maybe twelve people.’

  ‘What and me too? Not just a thrash? That’s a bit – well!’ He was pink with gratification and she laughed.

  ‘Look, I can’t deny this is enlightened self-interest. I want some help and that’s why I want you. I’ve got a guest list in my mind.’ She went round to her desk to sit down and pick up a notebook. ‘How about … hmm.’ She pretended to think hard and then scribbled her list.

  ‘Kate Sayers and her partner. They’re good friends, and I owe them. I’ve had dinner at their place a couple of times. And Hattie Clements from A & E and her chap, Sam. They’re very nice too. And I think I’ll have to ask Prof. Dieter and his wife since they invited me and I owe them a return, and Dr Bellamy’ – Jerry flicked a glance at her face and snickered and she knew it but pretended not to – ‘and Mrs Oxford because she’s a friend of his and needs some cheering up, poor soul, after her husband’s death and perhaps … hmm, well, Matthew Herne. I think his wife’s a looker and you can flirt with her, since you like flirting so much. She’s an ex-model.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Jerry said gleefully. ‘Don’t we all? Look, it’s very good of you to include me, Dr B., but –’

  ‘I told you I need help. First of all, this’ll have to be catered. Are the hospital people any good?’