Death on the House (Edwin Scott Crime Trilogy Book 2)

by Felix Bruckner

  Adam's face was flushed; he was beaming with enthusiasm and excitement; normally so cool and self-contained, I had never seen him so animated before:

  “I've got a job on the Orient Line as a ship's surgeon ... well “ship's doctor” really – shouldn't actually involve any operating ... I start next Monday, that's 5th July ... I'll be on dock duties first in the Port of London, then Southampton – it's usually about two or three weeks, just time to get my uniform made up ... We'll sail all around the world – India, Australia, Japan ... Haven't decided how long yet: may be gone six months, maybe a year or even two. I'll send you each a post-card to let you know how I get on ...”

  Part Two

  July 1960

  1

  Thursday, 1st July: Adam Fenchurch had left: he had taken his replacement around the wards, and, by mid-morning, I saw his old Ford Popular, fully laden, pulling out of the hospital gates. The drizzle of a gloomy day closed in around him. I felt sad that he was gone.

  My room was in a single-storey prefabricated building, situated to the east of the road between the main hospital gate and the car park. During the day, I had, from my single window, a pleasing vista of a lawn sweeping down-hill towards the trees which screened the Bedford Road – ash, horse chestnut and sycamore. To the right ran a narrow overgrown track, the nurses short-cut into town. If I felt lazy, I could avoid walking to the sitting-room and passing through the French windows, simply by climbing through my own window; I was then able to sunbathe on the small patio just outside, where was kept a stack of deck-chairs covered by a tarpaulin.

  The small room was as yet almost empty of my belongings. There was a moderately comfortable single bed against one wall, and next to this a bedside table with a lamp and a telephone. To one side of the window stood a table and a wooden chair, and beneath it gurgled a radiator, which I had now switched off. For extra warmth in winter there was a two-bar electric fire mounted on the wall. In a corner of the room was fixed a wash-basin with a wall mirror and a shaving light. A small wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a book-case were ranged around the walls which were papered in drab orange and pink stripes. The curtains had probably matched the walls when they were new, but now I couldn't tell. There was a small square of multi-coloured carpet on the floor, with wood-coloured linoleum showing around it. A rubbish bin, half-full, perched under the wash basin, and an empty ash-tray was placed (for guests) on a corner of the table.

  My few personal possessions hardly enlivened the place: my suitcase stood next to the wardrobe; on one wall was a poster of Brixham Harbour (the venue of a long-forgotten holiday) featuring fishing boats and a sun-set in faded primary colours; I had screwed a hook into the edge of a book-shelf, and dangling from this was a pair of standard police hand-cuffs, a trophy from the case of the Whitechapel Slasher – a treasured possession presented to me by Detective Chief Inspector Charles Butter himself.

  Adam's successor, Dr Cottar's new house physician, sat in the grey-blue padded armchair in the centre of the room. It was nine o'clock in the evening, dusk was drawing in, and my bedside table light was switched on, though the curtains were still open. In his hand he held a balloon of Cognac, and he was examining his surroundings with exaggerated interest. He was tubby with a gingery thatch and the suggestion of a moustache on his upper lip. The top button of his white coat was fitted into the second button-hole, so that the coat appeared rumpled and hung unevenly. He seemed nervous, and sweated copiously in the dim warm room. He looked very young. This was his first house-job.

  Outside, the wind was shaking the trees; sheets of water were blown against the window-panes, and cascaded down the outside, giving to the darkening vista a submarine quality; the large rain-drops pattered like a demented tap-dancer on the flat roof of the doctors' quarters. My guest had brought neither raincoat nor umbrella; no doubt he would get soaked, when he made his way back to the annexe at the end of his visit. I was on call, but had had only one admission all day; as I sipped my brandy, I felt relaxed and confident. I reflected on my first evening with Adam, when I had started at St Peter's only four weeks ago.

  Claud Guillam had been in Jill's year at St Thomas', the year below Adam Fenchurch, and was rather in awe of the latter. He wasn't surprised to hear of Adam's plan to become a ship's surgeon:

  “It's just the sort of thing he'd do ... Throw away his career on a whim ... He was brilliant as a student – won several of the prizes ...” There was a long pause, while his mind meandered over his own student past, before he continued.

  “I noticed you have some courts. What's the tennis like here?”

  “Russ is a demon, Olly's OK. I play a little myself ...”

  I sat on a hard chair, facing him, my elbow resting lightly on the deal table, a bottle of Biscuit Cognac beside it. The dark-gold liquid was filling the room with a potent vapour.

  “When I was finishing medical school, the James Bond books were much in vogue,” I resumed after a further pause, unconsciously echoing my first conversation with his predecessor. “Have you read From Russia with Love or Thunderball?”

  “I don't read popular fiction, Edwin; I like the French classics – Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Guy de Maupassant ... Some I have read in the original French – the phrases are so beautiful, so elegant! Something is always lost when they are translated, don't you think?”

  “What about Alexandre Dumas?” I tried tentatively.

  He snorted with amusement and mild contempt. When he resumed, his voice gathered strength, became more assertive, though I noticed there were still some drops of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip.

  “... Music? Well I enjoy Chopin, of course, but I prefer Gabriel Faure' and the Impressionist composers – Debussy, Ravel ... The Guillams have been living in England for centuries,” he confided after another long silence. “Though the French side of the family – the Guillaumes – still reside in Provence, around Arles ...”

  His voice droned on soporifically; I stifled a yawn, but was quite content. He caught me appraising his gingery hair.

  “My colouring I get from my mother who is Welsh ...”

  He continued talking about Southern France, the Camargue, the Rhone Valley; then his English forebears in Herefordshire. To my mild surprise, he didn't seem to want any sort of briefing about St Peter's, the doctors, the working practises or the locality. He appeared unusually self-centred for one so young, so inexperienced.

  The telephone rang, bringing an end to his monologue. I was suddenly fully alert.

  “Emergency patient just arrived on Ward Four from casualty, Dr Scott.”

  “Thanks, Ernie. I'll be right over.”

  We drained our glasses. I put on my white coat, slipped the stethoscope into its pocket; I ushered Dr Guillam out, wished him “Goodnight” and locked the door; then, covering my head and shoulders with a raincoat, I hurried into the stormy night.

  I'm driving behind the funeral cortège, but can't keep up with the hearse and other cars – they gradually disappear into the distance as my car engine coughs, splutters and stops. I reach the grave as the coffin is being lowered in. As I throw earth onto the coffin lid, I hear a banging. The lid bursts open, and Jill struggles to climb out – her frizzy-brown hair is dusty and covered in cobwebs, but a skull replaces her face ... The scene dissolves, and I am on the roof of the Children's Hospital with panoramic views over London. On a deck-chair lies Paula Howard; she is smiling up at me, and pulling down her bikini top to reveal her perfect white breasts. As I try to approach her, I feel myself held back. I turn my head, and find Belinda Peach grasping my white coat, her face covered in tears.

  “What about me?” she wails.

  She is joined by another, ghostlier form with prominent fangs. Together they attack my throat, sucking out my blood – vampires ...

  The scene dissolves again, and I am now in a large dark house. Uncle Peter slowly descends the huge staircase, holding a black silk scarf in both hands, a sad expression on his face: “I've just been attend
ing to my old mum ... I'm sorry we'll be losing you, Edwin, you'll have to go back to The London ... They need someone straight away ... No time to pack ...”

  I awoke, bathed in perspiration, my heart pounding painfully, a gnawing ache in my neck and the pit of my stomach.

  2

  Monday, 5th July: “He was on to 'the Link', the outside liaison officer who was the only man in London he might telephone from abroad. Then only in dire necessity.

  'This is 007 speaking. This is an open line. It's an emergency ...Pass this on at once. 3030 was a double, working for Redland.

  'Yes, dammit, I said “was”. The bitch is dead now.”

  I shut Casino Royal, the book that Adam Fenchurch had recommended, the first of Ian Fleming's Bond stories though I had only got around to reading it now. I mulled over the plot and the somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion, laid the paper-back aside, and turned off my bedside light. Moments later the phone rang.

  “Casualty officer here, Dr Scott. Gather you're on call for medicine ... I've got a haematemesis here ... Sending him over to Ward Ten right away ...” And the phone disconnected.

  The patient had been put to bed in a side-ward, and I could smell him before I was even through the door.

  “Mr Horatio Tupper aged forty-six ...” the staff nurse handed me the notes. “Pulse seventy-two, blood pressure one hundred and twenty over eighty ...”

  Though clad in fresh ward pyjamas, he was filthy, with long matted hair and long black finger-nails. No attempt had yet been made by the nursing staff to clean him up.

  “Well, Mr Tupper, I gather you have vomited up some blood. Tell me about it ...”

  His voice was deep and cultured, not at all what I had expected. The history emerged succinctly, yet with an attention to detail which suggested it was well-rehearsed: he had had upper abdominal pain for the last six weeks, especially when hungry, getting worse; this evening he had vomited some coffee grounds with the remnants of a late lunch, and then again some brighter blood in casualty. Now he felt faint. He was, unfortunately, homeless.

  “Am I about to die, doctor? Am I about to meet my maker?”

  “I'll just take a blood sample for haemoglobin, group and cross-match,” I addressed myself to both the staff-nurse and the patient.

  “You do what you have to do, Doctor Scott. However, I must warn you, I don't want any black or coloured nurses looking after me ... Can't stand the dirty coons taking over the hospitals, soon be taking over the whole country ...”

  “Watch your language, Mr Tupper ...” I flushed with rage, but after a moment managed to regain control of myself. “You're not too clean yourself ...”

  A junior nurse was despatched to pathology with the sample, the pathologist having been alerted and brought in.

  “Now I'll examine you; then I will be able to tell you more.

  He was haemodynamically stable, skin warm. The abdomen was soft, but he flinched melodramatically when I pressed over the epigastrium. All other systems were normal on examination. I couldn't assess skin pallor because of the coating of dirt, but there was no evidence of anaemia from his conjunctivae.

  I inserted a cannula into a vein in the left fore-arm, and put up an infusion of dextrose saline solution which I ran in slowly to keep the vein open, in case he needed blood urgently at a later time.

  “Well, you appear to have a bleeding gastric or duodenal ulcer, Mr Tupper. It may well stop spontaneously, but we'll need to keep you in for observation, investigate you, start you on medical treatment, and be prepared to transfuse you or transfer you to the surgeons if the condition deteriorates. I'll write forms for a barium meal, liver function tests, a repeat blood count, and a chest X-ray, which you can have tomorrow ... Put him on an hourly pulse and BP chart, please, Staff, and see if you can get him cleaned up. Then pass a naso-gastric tube down into his stomach, and aspirate hourly to check if he's still bleeding. I'm off to bed now, but ring me if his condition deteriorates. Goodnight.”

  Politely, I turned down the nurse's offer of cocoa and toast.

  3

  Tuesday, 6th July: The salmon pink Austin Healey Sprite was very low on the ground giving an exaggerated impression of speed, as we travelled down the London Road to St Ippolitts in the evening sunshine. The village was hardly more than a high street with a pub and a few shops, from which branched smaller roads at right angles. Brian Root's cottage was at the end of a terraced row, with fields beyond. The thatch on its roof looked as though it needed repair, and the front garden was overgrown and weed-strewn.

  He parked in the road, revved the engine and switched off the ignition. We sat for a moment in the sudden silence, the soothing tick of the cooling cylinder-block helping to slow my still-racing pulse; then he climbed out in one fluid movement, and waited somewhat impatiently for me to follow suit.

  There was no hall, and we strode straight into the main living room. The place was in disarray.

  “My housekeeper – Mrs Bottomley – has been away on holiday. Back tomorrow,” he explained, in mitigation.

  He pointed out the kitchen through a small arch, and the single bedroom, bathroom and loo upstairs.

  “Come outside, Edwin, while I prepare dinner ...”

  A French door led into the small back garden; he seated me on a wrought iron chair at a round wrought iron table, painted black – they appeared in good condition, contrasting with the long grass, thistles, dandelions and stinging nettles which had taken possession of much of the place.

  “An occasional cow gets in through the gap in the fence, but usually leaves spontaneously if I wait. Have some claret while I cook – it's Chateau Haut Brion, 1935; I still have a few bottles from Berry Brothers; I prefer it to Lafite, and even Chateau Mouton-Rosthchild ... It's so soft and subtle ...”

  I was used to good wine: Dad brought home the occasional bottle, a gift from work. But this was quite out of my league – a colour like old bricks, with a golden brown meniscus, and a miraculous perfume.

  “Like a beautiful woman,” Brian Root's eyes were closed, an expression of ecstasy on his face.

  He sipped, nodded a few times; then rose to deal with the meal, leaving me alone with my drink. It was indeed magnificent. I savoured it whilst I watched the rim of the sun sink over the horizon in the west. The birdsong gradually stilled ...

  He was back before I had finished my glass: he had removed his jacket and waistcoat, and I glimpsed red braces behind the frilly apron. We entered the cottage together. He had prepared a steak with a Chasseur sauce, sauté potatoes and tiny peas. To my surprise, I found he was an excellent cook. We finished the bottle. In the background his gramophone played classical music as we talked: Handel's Water Music, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (belted out on the organ).

  “Don't your neighbours object?”

  “I only have an old lady on one side, and she's deaf as a post.”

  For the meal, he had resumed his perfectly-cut grey suit; a light blue tie seemed to match his pale-blue eyes. He turned off the central ceiling light, and in the subdued illumination of the table lamp, I could no longer make out the expression on his face. His voice was surprisingly sonorous, but his clipped Etonian accent appeared exaggerated in the dark, and brought back uncomfortable memories of Michael Ffrench and Mick O'Malley from medical school.

  He got up to clear the table, but wouldn't let me help; in the kitchen, momentarily lit up, I could see the dishes piled up untidily in the sink.

  “Mrs B. will deal with these when she returns.”

  In a moment he was back with biscuits and cheese – Stilton and Wensleydale – and a bottle of Dow's 1929 Port.

  “You should enjoy this, Edwin: it's the last of my supply ...”

  I sipped it, and was transported. I couldn't imagine why I was being favoured with these riches.

  “Sorry you had to cover for me in out-patients the other day ... Something cropped up, something I needed to deal with in rather a hurry ...”

  I was too startled to reply, a
nd no more was said on the subject ... After a long pause, he resumed the conversation.

  “What's your opinion of this suit? Believe it or not,” he continued before I could reply, “I share a tailor with Sir Humphrey Golding – Gieves and Hawkes in Savile Row; I see his Rolls outside the shop, occasionally, and we meet in the waiting room once in a while; they're my father's tailors of course ...”

  Sir Edgar Root, QC (Brian's father), was a successful London barrister; Brian's mother, Kathleen, had played the clarinet in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra before she married, and Brian recollected with a smile coming down unexpectedly after his first term at Cambridge, and finding Sir Thomas Beecham at dinner with his parents. His brother was following in his father's footsteps – in chambers in Middle Temple – and appeared to be making his name. Meanwhile big sister was comfortably established in a solicitor's practice in Cambridge.

  When we had disposed of the cheese board, he cleared the table, ushered me (still clutching my glass of port) to a deep scuffed leather armchair, and turned over the stack of vinyl LP's. The music was drowned out by the noise of the grinder, as Brian ground the fresh coffee beans. He started the percolator – perched on a ledge by his store of records – and sat down again.

  “I'm the black sheep of the family: not interested in Law. An Irish streak in me, like my mother. From her I get my love of classical music and jazz. Pater did persuade me to follow him to Cambridge – King's College. For want of a better subject, I studied Medicine. Loved King's – the splendid fan vaulting of the chapel, the lawns, the space ... Did you know the college was named after Henry VI, not Henry VII (who built most of the chapel), let alone Henry VIII? But I did love it there, the musical tradition, and even my early pre-clinical studies. Believe it or not I was considered a high flier at one time – even won a couple of prizes – before I “got in with the wrong crowd” and was almost sent down ...”