“Follow again, von after de oder - bend ze knees, unt lean out into ze hill. Iz easy …”
Inge followed confidently and quickly - too quickly! She couldn’t hold the turn: she soared over her ski-tips, plunging head over heels in a flurry of snow; one ski flew off; the ski-sticks sailed in the opposite direction; she lay still - ashen-faced, and biting her lip to stop the tears. Her lower leg was at an unnatural angle. (Fractured! I diagnosed instantly.)
Maxie skied over to her, examined her briefly; without further comment, he disappeared to summon the “Blood Wagon”. In a miraculously short time, they arrived: three expert skiers, towing a large sledge with first-aid equipment; the patient was given an injection, a splint was applied to her leg; she was covered in warm blankets, strapped to the toboggan; soon, she was being whisked smoothly and silently down the steep slope.
We were all considerably shaken, and watched the cavalcade until it disappeared behind a copse of fir trees. No one was keen to resume the descent. Max remained inscrutable:
“If vee vish to get back to Kitzbuhel, vee must ski down. Vee take slowly … in many stages, Ja?”
I felt very vulnerable, as - zig-zagging madly - I followed the straggly procession down the steep slope: I realized I was in danger of losing my nerve completely. After a long half-hour, we emerged - still apprehensive - in the courtyard of a solitary but welcoming inn; gratefully, we followed Maxie into the warmth.
Inside, it was rather gloomy, with only two small side lamps burning; the place was completely deserted; however, a log fire crackled cheerfully in the open hearth, and Tyrolean music played in the background; pine tables and chairs were scattered around the spacious room, with multicoloured rugs on the floor, and the obligatory snow and mountain scenes in crude oils on the walls.
At the sound of our entrance, the main lights came on, and a young girl appeared behind the counter to serve us; I ordered a large, scalding-hot glass of Jagertee - tea with rum and cinnamon: as the fiery black liquid warmed me, my shivering gradually abated. Slowly the conversation increased in volume; our faces became flushed, from the warmth of the room and the salutary effects of the alcohol.
Twenty minutes later, Maxie led us out of the inn, to a small path which tumbled down the hill.
“Now vee vill all schuss down to ze bottom!”
And with a flash of his skis he was gone; the whole group followed him in close formation, skis parallel, knees bent, sticks pointing behind us; filled with Dutch courage, I exulted: the wind fanned my face as I travelled ever faster, straight down the track, eyes fixed on the back of the figure ahead; all too soon, I emerged, tingling with excitement, in a clearing at the foot of the hill - sitting on my bottom to bring myself to a halt! Bob was behind me, though skiing a trifle more sedately; we hung about, talking loudly, in our euphoria and relief. Maxie stood a little apart, with mixed feelings of guilt and pride.
No-one mentioned Inge …
I lay wide awake in the darkness, snug under a thick duvet. My distant dream from the Chislehurst Caves came back to me: Poor Inge, I wonder how you are progressing …
My thoughts returned to Jenny James, and thence to the Whitechapel murders. The first death, the prostitute, had appeared truly random, a continuation of the Jack-the-Ripper killings. However, the next two seemed to centre on the London Hospital and its staff. I had known both: Jenny, of course, had been my girl-friend, my love; and I had become quite friendly with Mandy Royston when we had performed together in the Christmas show. I pondered over the identity of the Slasher. Is he trying to incriminate me? Perhaps he’s someone close to me, someone with a personal grudge. What about that psychopath, O’Malley? He certainly wishes me harm, has already hurt me quite badly, has even landed me in hospital; however, I doubt he’d be as subtle as this! Then what about Michael Ffrench? He dislikes me, despises me. Yet would he hatch so convoluted a plan just to get at me? Would he commit murder? My mind swirled round and round. I even considered my close friends: what about Sebastian, Bob, Malcolm, what about Pete Jackson, Dave Wallis, David Feldman? I had never thought of them as suspicious, let alone sinister. But however can one tell?
This is madness, I thought. I must stop, get some sleep. In the next bed I could hear Sebastian’s slow rhythmical breathing; he, at any rate, was deep in untroubled slumbers …
Maxie disappeared from the ski-slopes, to be replaced by Bernhard (“Call me Bernd”), a handsome, deeply tanned thirty-year-old, with excellent English: he was reputed to be the top teacher on the slopes, and he stretched the group, without scaring us to death; soon, our Stem-Christie turns were the envy of the piste (or so he told us). We skied on the Hahnenkamm Mountain and on the Horn (on the opposite side of the valley), exhilaration tinged with just a touch of fear. Occasionally, we would glimpse Inge - looking healthy and relaxed, leg in a walking plaster, but agile on her crutches - observing our descent.
Throughout our time in Kitzbuhel, Michael Ffrench had been torn between Fiona’s upper-crust accent and her menial position - whether to address her, or not! In the end, he merely blushed and averted his gaze whenever they met. Meanwhile, by the end of our stay, Malcolm Conway bore the smug expression of a sphinx: it was he who had finally enticed the fair Fiona to his bed …
All too soon, our holiday was over. We were tanned, fit and happy. With a guilty start, I realized (as I climbed into our coach for the journey home) that I had given hardly a thought to Jill during the whole ten days.
Monday 17th March: I found the last empty seat in the theatre. Once again, the audience was in festive mood, as it awaited the popular forensic medicine lecture on Drink-driving.
Dr Struthers breezed in at exactly one o’clock, formally dressed as usual; there was an expectant hush.
A slide appeared on the screen, of a big saloon car wrapped around a lamp post:
“He got into the car dead drunk - and he was pulled out dead!”
He started with some dry statistics on deaths on this country’s roads, and the percentage of those with elevated blood alcohol levels.
“This talk is aimed at you, future members of the medical profession: How to avoid disgrace … and worse, from excessive intake of alcohol, on the highways of the United Kingdom. As a socio-economic group, the medical profession has the highest intake of ethyl alcohol and tobacco, of any in this country. Now, tobacco doesn’t do anyone any harm [sic]; but alcohol certainly does, and you must know how to mitigate its effects, in your contact with Society - and especially with the Police!”
He advised, if at all possible, to abstain from driving if drunk.
“Get a friend or chauffeur to drive you, or take a taxi. However, if this is not feasible …”
He coached us on the tongue twisters used by police surgeons to accentuate slurred speech, when testing drink-drivers:
“British Constitution, Royal Artillery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Leith Police Dismisseth Thee … Try repeating these in the bath.” There was a flurry of note-taking from the audience.
He brought volunteers on to the stage to demonstrate just how difficult it was to walk along a straight chalk line - heel to toe - without swaying or losing their balance. “It’s rather like walking a tight-rope, even when stone cold sober …”
I noted that Michael Ffrench had kept well back from the front row - he had learnt his lesson in our first Biochemistry Lecture!
“You must practise these manoeuvres whilst you are sober, until you are perfect - and then you will be able to perform them when you are inebriated! If taken to a police station, suspected of being drunk in charge, you must opt for a blood test for alcohol, rather than a urine sample. The sample is taken by a police surgeon, who might not arrive for several hours, during which time your blood ethanol level will have fallen. In the meantime, remember to drink plenty of water, to flush out as much alcohol as possible through the kidneys, though this is likely to have but a marginal effect …”
Next came a slide of the Queen Mother, smiling, a
nd shaking hands with a policeman:
“Always be courteous and friendly …”
The final slide was a cartoon of a man with a stupid expression and his tie awry, trying to knock the helmet off a policeman’s head:
“Never antagonize the police - always endeavour to keep them as your friends.”
Dr Struthers finished to broad smiles and enthusiastic applause. Another tour de force.
Chapter Twenty Two - April, 1958
Tuesday, 1st April: It was three am: the usually busy thoroughfare was completely deserted, the police patrol having passed half an hour before.
For the past month we had been discussing it, and the day had finally arrived: 1st April, 1958 - April Fool’s Day! Once again, I had joined the clandestine team dressed in blue overalls - in painting mode! Twenty yards down the road from the crossing, we set to work with cans of white paint - laying in rectangular blocks right across the Whitechapel Road; nobody passed, nothing interrupted us; after three quarters of an hour, we were finished. Now there were two zebra crossings outside the London Hospital! We waited.
In the profound silence, we could hear them some time before they arrived. At length, O’Malley and Platt appeared, pushing a gently squeaking trolley, on which perched a temporary bus stop from half a mile away: this was erected between the two crossings. Our work was complete. The equipment was cleared away, and the workmen disappeared in the direction of the students’ hostel.
Next morning, there was a satisfying amount of traffic chaos in front of the hospital; the motor horns could be heard even in the Old Lecture Theatre, where the whole of the second clinical year had been summoned for a special address from the Dean.
“I had the local police chiefs with me this morning, complaining of vandalism in front of our hospital. Naturally, I knew nothing about this, let alone who the culprits might be. Obviously they were not students from our college! However, when I wake up on 2nd April, I fully expect that all traces of this outrageous act will have vanished, like a bad dream …”
Friday, 4th April: I had been told to expect blood-and-thunder surgery, and this was exactly what we had got: on my first day, the Ear Nose and Throat senior registrar had performed a succession of tonsillectomies, using a wire snare; after each operation, the tonsillar bed had been packed with swabs to stop the bleeding, and the child was out of theatre within fifteen minutes; subsequently, I had seen the patients, back in the ward, gorging on ice cream to soothe their sore throats, delighted to have such an unexpected treat!
Now, the whole student firm had gathered in a small corner room in the out-patients’ department. The senior ENT surgeon, Mr Charles Whitgift, was half turned on his swivel chair to address us - a handsome white-haired gentleman, with a confident mien:
“The Almighty gave me these hands to operate, to heal the sick …” (Among the students, he was known as “God’s gift”.)
He wore an old-fashioned double-breasted white jacket that buttoned up to his throat and made him look like Hollywood’s idea of a fashionable dentist; as we watched, he attached to his forehead (by a broad elasticated band) a round concave mirror with a hole in the centre; a bright light shone over the patient’s shoulder, as he faced the surgeon, and this was reflected into the throat, or - through a small speculum - into the nasal cavity; Mr Whitgift would swivel the mirror on his forehead, so that his eye gazed directly through the aperture. Students came in pairs to stand behind him, and observe examples of quinsies, swollen nasal turbinates; and one case of naso-pharyngeal cancer.
“You must always sit the patient with legs together, and yourself with knees closed to one side of her: otherwise - if your knee were to get trapped between her thighs - she might complain to the General Medical Council.”
He clearly enjoyed teaching: he had a theatrical manner, and directed his mellifluent tones alternately towards the patient and the students (seated in a semi-circle behind him);
the patients were shepherded in by an aged sister with iron-grey hair and a hatchet face - which, however, softened to a smile whenever the great man glanced her way. Each consultation took about fifteen minutes; there was a mixture of adults and children - the latter sitting on their parents’ laps, wrapped in a blanket which pinioned their arms, only the head protruding; I had to admire the deft way the consultant dealt with each child: he left them no time to be afraid, let alone cry, before he was finished; thereupon they were ushered out, smiling and relieved.
Towards the end of the session, a middle aged woman came in, complaining of hoarseness. The surgeon sprayed her throat with cocaine local anaesthetic; then, through a laryngoscope, he showed us her vocal cords: only one cord moved when the patient said “Ahh”, the other side remaining flaccid.
“Paralysed left vocal cord, from a lesion of the recurrent laryngeal nerve - probably damaged during an operation on the thyroid gland …” He indicated an old surgical scar in her neck. The lady nodded.
I had thought I would be bored, but found the afternoon increasingly interesting: there was clearly more to Ear, Nose and Throat surgery (or “oto-rhino-laryngology” , as we had been taught to refer to it) than the Mickey Mouse specialty I had been led to expect by the general surgeons and some senior students; perhaps Mr Whitgift really was God’s gift to the National Health Service!
Sunday, 6th April: As I entered, I saw a group gathered around the Sunday papers in the lounge of the students’ hostel, chatting and laughing over a copy of the News of the World.
“Come and have a look at this, Edwin ,” called Joe Knowles.
I glanced over his shoulder; there was a picture of a dishevelled - though expensively dressed - lady, waving an umbrella. The headline screamed “EXPERT’S WIFE ASSAULTS POLICE”
And the text proceeded with obvious relish:
“Mrs Francis Struthers, wife of the eminent Home Office Pathologist, was reported to have struck a policeman with her umbrella, after her car was stopped yesterday at two o’clock in the afternoon, in a busy West End shopping area, because it was seen to be weaving about the road. When cautioned, she became abusive, and tried to knock his helmet off. She appeared to be drunk …”
Saturday, 12th April: I had last been here four and a half years ago. Le Coq Magnifique looked exactly as I remembered it: quiet understated luxury, same red and gold décor, same subdued lighting; we were all formally dressed, seated at a long table in an alcove, two steps up from the main body of the restaurant. I had brought nine guests: Jill, Sandy, Bob, Sebastian, David, Dave II, Pete, Malcolm and Chris.
Jill wore a stylish new cocktail dress in navy blue and cream, with a choker pearl necklace; her eyes shone as she listened to the conversation, sipped her drink, and surreptitiously clung to my hand under the table. However, it was Sandy who stole the show, in a full-length crimson dress, ruby rings, and gold necklace and bracelets; she used more make-up than usual, and her raven hair had been piled up in a French roll - giving her a most sophisticated air. Everyone held a glass of chilled Pimm’s and chatted amicably. In the background, a lone pianist “tinkled the ivories”.
It was my twenty-first birthday!
The elegant figure of Ronald Popescu, the restaurant manager (and our lodger in Oban Road) appeared silently at my shoulder.
“Good evening, Mr Scott,” he murmured discreetly. “Your father has prepared a special menu for your party: Prawn and avocado - Chateaubriand with Bearnaise sauce, Lyonnaise potatoes and asparagus tips - Baked Alaska (that is a sponge case filled with raspberries, strawberries and ice cream, and topped with meringue, browned and still warm)… And may I be permitted to wish you a very Happy Birthday. Bon appetit!” And he was gone.
The first course came and went, without disturbing the conviviality at our table. With the Chateaubriand came three bottles of Gevrey-Chambertin 1952 (“With the compliments of the House”), the smooth red Burgundy wonderfully complementing the rare steak.
The restaurant had filled steadily; now the house lights dimmed, and the cabaret began. Si
x scantily-clad ladies high-kicked to a small band, the music interrupted by only marginally muted conversation, the chink of glasses and the frequent clicking of cutlery. Their act was followed by a Frank Sinatra look-alike, whose name I didn’t catch; as he crossed to the microphone, there was a burst of enthusiastic applause from one table, until the occupants realised that this was not the original article, when it petered out self-consciously. Yet his performance was excellent, his timbre and timing perfect: he crooned Frank’s old hits, conjuring up feelings of happy nostalgia in his audience; his Night and Day evoked long forgotten memories of my own childhood, and brought a lump to my throat. At the end of thirty minutes, the acclaim he received from the entire audience was well-deserved ... Then appeared a ventriloquist, whose dummy spoke with a Lancashire accent, while he drank a glass of water; next came a magician in top hat and tails, with a silver-topped cane and a flock of white doves; and finally the chorus-girls were back into their high-octane routine, limbs perfectly synchronised, bodies glistening with perspiration. The show drew to a close amid modest applause, the floor lighting came on, and conversation resumed more loudly.
Our Baked Alaska had been a huge success. I finished my dessert, quietly excused myself to the ladies on either side of me, and made my way to the luxuriously appointed Gentlemen’s Toilet; as the door closed behind me with a soft sigh, I caught the sound of the band playing Happy Birthday. (What a coincidence: someone else has a birthday today … )
I returned to our table, to be met with hilarity and embarrassment, in equal measure; the band appeared to be in disarray.
In the Footsteps of The Whitechapel Slasher (Edwin Scott Crime Trilogy Book 1) Page 17