Sister meant well, Jane thought, going back to her department, but she was really only papering over the cracks in a system that had failed. Too many unrelated minds had been exercised over the problem of Sheila Burgess. No one had tried quite hard enough, no one had fitted all the aspects of her case together. Above all, no one had really cared, except perhaps herself and Tim Long and neither of them had cared enough.
Tim went to the X-ray Department at the end of the morning to find Jane. He learned that she shared his own feelings of frustration and guilt and was comforted by this. His friends at the hospital had told him the night before, when he was on duty, that he was making a fool of himself. Or else suffering from wounded vanity in finding that the girl he had nobly rescued was so ungrateful as to finish what he had postponed for her.
Jane, too, was comforted and relieved to find someone who shared her haunting belief that Sheila’s death was not self-determined.
“I’ve got a film I found in her room,” she told him, eager to confide another source of her anxiety. “I haven’t told anyone about it, yet. Ought I to send it to her people or what? I meant to give it to her, but I forgot that evening I fetched her luggage—”
‘You were a bit preoccupied, I imagine,” said Tim drily.
“You mean Gerry Stone? I only met him that afternoon.”
“Quick work,” said Tim.
“About that film,” Jane’s voice held a warning. Tim accepted it, amused.
“Yes, what about it?”
“I’ve got it here. I wondered if it would show—”
He stared at her.
“Develop it, you mean? Isn’t it developed?”
“No. It’s a funny sort of spool. Trade kind, I suppose. I’ve never seen one like it in the shops and there isn’t even a maker’s name on it. Only a number on the strip of greeny-blue paper round it.”
“Blue! Perhaps it’s a blue film! By all means let’s develop it.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Jane was annoyed by his flippancy. “Nudes aren’t blue.”
“What a name for a song! Nudes aren’t blue, do you think that’s true? If only of you, tum, tum, ti-tum. Few, mew, queue—”
“Oh, shut up!”
“No, really, did she model for the nude?”
“Yes, she did.”
Jane was furious. She thought she had found an ally, but he was only a buffoon.
Tim shook his head at her, then laid a hand on her arm. “After the Gleaning is finished and the chaff distributed^—no, seriously—when the rest have gone home, this evening, stay on and I’ll come here, sixish. We’ll have a look at that film. It might be useful. The Law has been on to us, you know. Yesterday afternoon, actually. They didn’t lose much time after they found her body. I think the film will have to go to them. But we may as well have a peek for our own interest.”
“Yes. Before they come to me. I wonder why they missed me out yesterday?”
“It was all terribly hush-hush. They saw Foley and the other brass who had seen her, not even me, except about the river incident. I was told nothing. I got what I did from the evening papers.”
“Like me.”
Late that afternoon, when the department was empty, Jane lingered, putting in time correcting and checking the order of the files. Some of her junior colleagues, she knew, had a very poor grasp of the alphabet.
From time to time a nurse put her head round the door to ask for Miss Gleaning. Each time Jane said, “Gone home. Can I help you?” but each time the nurse disappeared. Twice Jane went out into the corridor where the chairs for patients led in a long row back to the main Out-Patient waiting hall. No one was sitting there. The stream had dried up for the day, she hoped; the evening’s accidents had not arrived yet.
Tim hurried in half an hour later than the time he had suggested, apologising cheerfully but giving no explanation. She did not expect any. Time depended on the work in that place, not the other way round.
She already had Sheila’s film in her pocket so she led the way into the dark room. This was by way of a narrow, angled passage, designed to cut off all light. Jane moved along it briskly, knowing every inch of the way in the black dark. But Tim, though he had been there often before, had to grope along, a hand on the wall.
Jane switched on a dim red light and Tim saw the row of sinks, the taps, the frames in which wet films were hung to dry, the rack above the sinks to which the frames were clipped. He stood back out of the way while Jane busied herself with preparing to develop the small spool in her pocket.
As the picture grew Tim moved forward to look over her shoulder.
“It seems to be a sequence,” Jane said, “but it isn’t ciné film. The figures— Oh!”
“Christ!” said Tim.
Obscenity was a word that had been in very common use for many years. Both of them had grown up with it and were not ignorant of its various commercial realisations. Out of normal curiosity they had both read smutty novels, but being neither prudes nor perverts had found them disappointing, good for neither a thrill nor a laugh.
But this was different. Jane did not need a print from these negatives to recognise the naked Sheila. Dogs in the street, cats on the roof, Sheila and this muscular unknown—
She was shocked, genuinely shocked for the first time in years. Medical training, medical knowledge, the scientific attitude of mind were all very well, she thought, but I like to have my demonstrations clean.
Her hands were shaking a little as she clipped the strip of film to the rack. She could not look at Tim.
“Blue as the summer sky,” he said. “I wasn’t far out, was I?”
Jane’s mind was working again.
“She must have stolen it,” she said. “She couldn’t bear them to have that record of her. So they killed her.”
“Let’s get out into the light,” said Tim. “The atmosphere in here is altogether too lurid.”
He took Jane’s hand in his and led her back into the cold bright light of the department. She was still shaking a little. He found her a chair, made her sit down and then moved away to switch on a table lamp with a long flexible stand. He bent it into a convenient position to examine the object he held in his hand.
“What are you doing?” Jane asked, trying to blot out the recurring pictures of Sheila and her partner.
“It’s the spool that film was wound on,” Tim answered. “Come and look.”
She went to him at once.
“Yes. That’s why the actual film seemed to be a bit loosely wound. There must have been something to stick it on, though.”
“Probably. The point is there is no slit going through the stalk of this spool. Why?”
Jane took it from him. Tim was right. This end of the spool could not be used with a new film. So what use did it have?
Tim said, sharply, “Without a slit through the middle it could be a container, couldn’t it?”
“Yes.” She looked at him, her lingering disgust showing in her face. “We’ll have to hand it over with the film to the police, won’t we? I felt there was something queer, nasty, about the man she worked for and more still about his partner.”
“Have you met them, then?”
She told him about the party, about her conversation with Gerry and the photographers. She told him about the emotional beatnik and her two odd encounters with him.
Tim let her run on. It was good for her to let off steam, he thought; hard luck on a girl to be let in for this sort of thing, common as it was and probably always had been in some form or other. Only just now it was made more obvious by fashionable publicity and the crazy idea that this sort of minority activity was more ‘real’ than the ordinary life of the majority.
When Jane had finished he said, thoughtfully, “’ D’you know, I think it’d be only fair to let Dr Milton in on this. After all, we’ve used his department for private sleuthing, haven’t we?”
“But Sheila’s dead! The police—”
“I know. I know. Wouldn’t it
be better all round if Dr Milton had all the gen and was behind you when you have to make a statement.”
“Me make a statement!”
“Naturally. How you got hold of the film. Why you didn’t give it back to Sheila. Why you didn’t burn it at once, undeveloped. They’ll think up some more questions than those, I expect.”
“You’re right.” Jane had gone very pale. She realised she had been very stupid. If she had given up the film at once to the police they might have prevented Sheila leaving the hospital. A very grim thought came to her.
“If I’d given it back to her she might not have been killed,” she exclaimed.
“You mean deliberately killed?”
Jane nodded. It was horrible, but very likely.
“I think so, too. I didn’t want to suggest it to you.”
Jane began to cry. She was still standing near Tim, the spool in her hand. He took it from her and put an arm across her shoulders.
“You mustn’t,” he said gruffly. “Look, I’ll see Dr Milton first thing tomorrow morning. He’s a good chap. He’ll know what to do. I expect we’ll have to have a positive of the film to identify the characters definitely—”
“I’m sure it’s Sheila,” Jane said in a muffled voice.
“O.K. but if it is I can identify her myself. You needn’t come into it again, except to say where you got hold of it.”
Jane nodded, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.
“Now,” Tim said, rather enjoying his role of chivalrous male consoler, “how about my driving you home?”
“Thank you,” she said, entirely subdued. “I’ll just get my things.”
She did so, leaving her white coat in the cubicle. She had to wait in the front hall for Tim while he collected a coat himself. His small car was in the Staff park; they walked there together.
At the flat Mary came into the hall directly they opened the door.
“At last!” she exclaimed, then seeing Tim, stopped.
“Mr Long drove me home,” Jane said, introducing him.
“You look as if you needed that,” Mary said. She turned to Tim. “Can we give you a drink?”
He smiled. It was a nice change to be with two friendly girls—well, one friendly and one distressed, but open to common sense—after the two chilly nurses he had been trying to cultivate.
They all went into the sitting-room. Jane sank into a chair, feeling desperately tired. Mary got out glasses and bottles.
“That man’s been here asking for you,” she said, handing Jane her drink. “Twice, actually.”
“What man?” Jane guessed, but before Tim she wanted to pretend surprise.
“Gerry something. He apparently turned up this morning, quite early.”
“How—? Oh, of course, it was Mrs Baker’s day.”
“Our twice weekly daily,” Mary explained to Tim, who was listening with interest and watching with amusement Jane’s growing confusion.
“Exactly,” Mary went on. “He asked when you’d be in and when I saw her at lunch-time she said she’d told him about five. I was back about five myself and found him on the doorstep. He wanted to come in with me but I said as you hadn’t answered the bell to him you must be out. I said I had to do a bit of shopping and might as well do it before I went in.”
“You mean you went away again and left him standing there?”
“Yes. I wasn’t going to have foot-in-the-door trouble and he looked capable of it.”
“Good for you,” said Tim, laughing. “He’d gone when you got back, had he?”
“I didn’t go far. Only to the shops round the corner. I saw his car go past, so I came home.”
Jane got up with a jerk.
“He’ll come back!” she said. “I know he will. To talk about Sheila. I don’t want to see him. I don’t trust him! I think he’s horrible! I—”
She was out of the room and they heard her own room door open and shut.
“Poor kid!” said Tim softly. “I’d better be getting along, I suppose.”
“No,” Mary said. “Don’t go. At least— Well, I think that man will come back and Jane is in no state to talk to anyone. We’ve got rather a dull meal coming up, but if you’d stay and share it—”
“I’ll go one better,” Tim said. “You fetch Jane and tell her we’re all going out to find a meal. Then bloody Gerry can ring his fingers off but he won’t get an answer.”
Mary smiled.
“Take Jane out,” she said. “It’s just what she needs. But I’ve got umpteen things I must sort out at home. I’ll put the hall light out and I won’t answer the bell.”
She went off and came back with Jane a few minutes later. The latter was looking very much better and had taken some trouble with her hair and face. On the way down to the main door of the flats she kept just behind Tim and when they heard footsteps on the path outside she gasped and moved closer still. Tim held her hand as the door opened, but it was only the tenant of the flat below the girls’. He nodded a greeting and passed them. Jane’s hand was still in Tim’s when they reached the car.
An hour later they were back in the flat, chatting happily, warmed by food and wine. But Tim stayed only long enough to see that Mary was all right and had not been frightened.
“He came again,” she said, holding out a small card to Jane. “He rang and rang and then there was a pause and then he dropped this in the letter box and went away.”
“How d’you know all that?” Jane said, taking the card.
“I crept into the hall in the dark and listened.”
Tim laughed.
“I don’t know what you do,” he said, “but you’d be a god-send to Scotland Yard.”
“She’s an economist,” Jane explained, but Mary was looking at her sternly and she went no further.
“What’s on the card?” Mary demanded. “Read it out.”
“It says he must see me and I must ring the number on the card. It’s a business card of some sort.”
“Will you?”
“I’m damned if I do,” she said violently, tearing the card in two.
“That’s the spirit,” said Tim. He stooped, collected the pieces of card and put them in his pocket. “Back to the treadmill,” he said, moving towards the door.
Jane saw him out of the flat. At the door she thanked him, fervently, with a little catch in her voice, but no hysteria.
“Pleasure,” said Tim He meant it. He felt on top of the world. “See you tomorrow. With Dr Milton present, of course.”
She made a face at him and shut the door. Tim ran down to his car, chuckling to himself. Before he drove off he looked at the card Jane had torn up. ‘Gerald Stone, director,’ it had on it, with an address in Chelsea. The same address, Tim wondered. Below that studio flat? An office, a cover-business, or the place of work of an innocent man, a friend of Sheila Burgess, deceased?
Chapter Ten
If Dr Milton was shocked by the film he did not show it, unless his very evident anger was a sign of outrage. He sat for several minutes quite still and silent, very pale, his mouth drawn in, his eyes blazing. Tim stood beside him, waiting for a rush of words that never came. All that did come from Dr Milton was a heavy sigh as he touched the buzzer on his desk and then spoke to his secretary in the next room.
“Get me Scotland Yard,” he said. “Say you want the Vice Squad.”
The secretary’s gasp was clearly audible. Tim nodded, to save himself from laughing, but Dr Milton paid no attention to him. When the call came through he simply asked that someone should be sent immediately to his department to receive information relating to the death of a former patient, Miss Sheila Burgess.
“Yes,” he repeated, “Sheila Burgess. No, I don’t want the divisional C.I.D. My information almost certainly concerns your outfit. If you don’t want to handle it, I shall go straight to M.I.5. I think it’s for you, but it might conceivably be for them. It’s international, anyway, I should think.”
Tim looked at the radiologist w
ith admiration and Dr Milton smiled.
“They bought that” he said. “I’ll call you when they arrive. I expect you have work to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
At the door Tim paused.
“Would you really be able to get in touch with M.I.5, sir? Just like that? Or do you know someone?”
“Of course not. Neither. I haven’t a clue. But it worked, which is what matters. And I don’t expect they’ll be disappointed when they see that spool. I’d like to open it myself but I think that might be a little rash.”
Tim went up to the wards and was soon totally absorbed in his cases. The morning passed without any call for him from the X-ray Department. But going to lunch at one he met Dr Milton in a ground-floor corridor.
“Oh, Long,” he said. “Those chaps came and took the thing away. Only stayed five minutes. Collected Miss Burgess’s notes, Miss Wheelan’s name and home address, your name—I couldn’t give them your address other than the hospital—and pushed off. There was no point in getting you down. They’d better play it their own way.”
“Yes,” said Tim. He felt deflated, but knew he had no right to be. It really was none of his business, except that it did concern Jane Wheelan closely and perhaps, in a small way, she had become his business. Or not? He thought of the very pleasant meal they had had together the evening before. She ought to know what had happened. He determined to find her after lunch and give her the news.
But when, after some trouble, he found her in the records room, looking out some files for Miss Gleaning, he learned that Dr Milton had already spoken to her.
“I suppose we had to give him the film,” she said, unhappily. “For Sheila’s sake I’d have liked to drop it in the incinerator straight off.”
“That would have been very dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Well, I gather Scotland Yard latched on to it with enthusiasm and took all our names and addresses.”
She wrinkled up her face.
“They’ve done more than that. I have to go to Scotland Yard after I leave here today. To make a statement on something. As if I hadn’t done that already.”
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