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

by Felix Bruckner

  Whilst I walked wearily back to my room, I glanced across the car park: streaks of orange, mauve and pink cloud in the east were brightening against a pearl-grey sky. I exulted. This is what I went through medical school for. This is what Medicine is all about! Perhaps I could snatch an hour or two of sleep before I had to get up again.

  14

  Tuesday, 31st August: Ernie always seemed to know where I was, and the phone rang in the doctor's dining-room just as I was finishing breakfast. I was in a rush for Dr Middleton's ward round, and was worried the call would make me late.

  “There's a Mrs Pritchard on the line for you, Dr Scott ... Says it's a personal matter.”

  My mind went blank – I couldn't place her.

  “Put her on, Ernie ...” There was a pause, then a click.

  “It's Eileen Pritchard, Edwin ...”

  The slight catch, the soft voice, the intonation were uncannily like her daughter's, and I was jerked into another world. My heart was suddenly pounding in my ears.

  “I'm due to visit Jill when I come down to London on my week-end off, Eileen ... er, that'll be next Friday ...”

  “I'm afraid Jill died in the early hours of this morning ...”

  I felt faint, my vision blurred, and Mrs Pritchard's voice seemed to come from a long way away. I sat down heavily on the chair by the phone.

  “Are you still there, Edwin? I must go ... Lots of phone calls to make ... I'll let you know the time and place of the funeral ...”

  “I'm so terribly sorry, Eileen ...” I was saying when the line went dead.

  Part Four

  September 1960

  1

  Tuesday, 7th September: Fred was functioning again – the fault had turned out to be nothing more than a blocked carburettor. I had feared I might be late, so had arrived ridiculously early at the cemetery off the Lower Richmond Road. Whilst I waited patiently in my car in the small car park, the drizzle ceased, and, from behind a black cloud, a bright ray of sunshine illuminated a nearby headstone, causing the white marble to blaze with fire. My mind went back to my marriage proposal in midwinter isolated from the world on a cold bench in Hyde Park, to our blissful holiday in Alassio ... to her pale wan face, the brave smile and her weak, almost despairing grasp in the ward at St Thomas' Hospital, with the blood dripping steadily into her vein ...

  Eventually, the hearse and funeral procession arrived from the Pritchards' home in Putney. I watched them disembarking from their cars, and then got out to join them. Although it was Tuesday afternoon, I had, on this occasion, managed to get time off work from Uncle Peter, who had shown unusual sympathy when I had explained the reason. I made my way to Eileen and Neville Pritchard to express my sorrow and condolences.

  Altogether there were about two dozen mourners, all in black. Neville kept his composure, as we shook hands. Eileen wore a veil over her pill-box hat; when she lifted this to allow me to kiss her, I could see the tears coursing down her cheeks. They introduced me as “Jill's fiancé” to the relatives and friends immediately around them, but their names floated over me, and I made no attempt to retain them. The Pritchards had assumed that I couldn't get away, when I had failed to show at their home before the cortège left; now they registered a mixture of surprise, pleasure and irritation.

  After a brief ceremony in the chapel (“A promising career as a doctor cut tragically short ...”), I followed the coffin on a rather lengthy journey to the grave-side. Neville acted as a pall-bearer, the other three being members of the undertakers' staff, distinguished by their immaculate black uniforms and tall top-hats. To my surprise, Eileen grabbed my arm, and clung onto it like a limpet, almost dragging me along by her side.

  I stood in silence, while the polished oak coffin was lowered slowly into the grave, but my eyes blurred with tears.

  “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, ...” intoned the anonymous voice of the anonymous priest.

  My handful of earth rattled on the coffin lid. I choked back a sob. I would never see that lovely, sadly-smiling face again. My wonderful Jill was gone forever.

  2

  Thursday, 9th September: The music shivered on the air, and I was back in Alassio with Jill, inhaling her perfume, feeling her soft warm body in my arms.

  “ ... The melody haunts my reverie / And I am once again with you / When our love was new / And each kiss an inspiration. / But that was long ago / Now my consolation is in the stardust of a song. / Beside a garden wall / When stars are bright /You are in my arms. / The nightingale tells his fairytale / A paradise where roses bloom./ Though I dream in vain / In my heart it will remain / My stardust melody / The memory of love's refrain ...”

  I felt the familiar thrill coursing down my spine, as Stardust cast its magic spell. Long after it had concluded, I remained in my arm-chair, listening to the silence, immersed in bitter-sweet memories. Finally, I roused myself, levered myself out of the chair and turned off the gramophone.

  I'll see if anyone is in the doctors' mess, or failing that, I'll watch the television for a while.

  As I entered the sitting-room, the sun was setting outside, a soft, golden light over the trees visible to the west through the open curtains. The room was dim, and I switched on the light: I felt a momentary shock of surprise to find a female figure perched on an easy chair, her legs under her, a book in her hand. She wore a pale blouse buttoned up to her neck, a black skirt, and large horn-rimmed glasses; a plait hung over her left breast in a single corn-coloured rope, almost as far as her waist. I took a moment to recognise her:

  “Hi, we met two or three weeks ago in the corridor ... I'm Edwin, one of the HP's ...”

  “Sorry. You must have thought me very rude on that occasion, Edwin ... But I was absolutely soaked, and feeling very sorry for myself ... Yes, I'm the second anaesthetic SHO, Ginny Lund ...”

  Her voice was very low, soft, melodious, with a slight hesitation which I found attractive. I was quite prepared to forgive any inadvertent rudeness from our previous encounter.

  “You look very comfortable there, Ginny ... What are you reading?”

  “Tolstoy ... Anna Karenina ...”

  “Way over my head, I'm afraid ... I'm into James Bond and Sherlock Holmes ...” My words petered out. My mind was wandering, returning to Jill's funeral ...

  “Well, I'm enjoying it, anyway ...”

  She raised her book and resumed her reading, leaving me with my thoughts.

  3

  Saturday, 11th September: It was a warm afternoon, and the sun shone from an azure sky. A few cotton-wool clouds wafted gently by. I sat in a deck-chair outside the doctors' common room, the window open in case the telephone rang.

  “... Indeed so distorted were their features, that save for his black beard and stout figure, we might have failed to recognise in one of them the Greek interpreter who had parted from us only a few hours before at the Diogenes Club ...”

  My perusal of The Greek Interpreter was interrupted by a distant roar from the football stadium a quarter of a mile away. Hitchin Town were playing at home – had they just scored?

  Before I could reach the climax of the tale, the phone rang. With a sigh, I shut the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and went inside.

  “Scott here ...”

  “Ah, there you are, Dr Scott. I have Dr Michael Cumberbatch on the line ... Says it's urgent.”

  “Dr Cumberbatch here, Dr Scott. I have a very sick man – Mr Simon Hancock, aged twenty eight. Gasping for breath ... Don't know if it's cardiac or respiratory ... They're carrying him into the ambulance as we speak ...”

  “Could they take him straight to Ward Eleven, please. We'll be ready for him ...”

  “Many thanks.” The phone went dead.

  I rang the ward, and then asked Ernie to see if there was anyone in the X-ray department. I was put through to the duty radiographer, who was in the process of developing films of a fractured femur for Casualty. She agreed to stay in case Mr Hancock needed an urgent chest X-ray. Next I spoke
to Steve Bolton at his home.

  “Phone me again when you've had a chance to assess him. I can get in by the time his chest films are ready.” He was childishly proud of his new sporty Sunbeam Rapier.

  I was a little out of breath myself, by the time I reached Ward Eleven, from my sprint across the car park. The patient was being admitted to a side-ward, still holding on to the hand of his wife, a pretty waif-like creature who looked no older than sixteen. I was reassured by the presence of the charge nurse himself, Henry Mitchell – a small soft-spoken man, the antithesis of Stan Pollett – who was taking charge of the case. I allowed Mrs Hancock to remain at the bedside while I examined her husband; he was unable to talk because of his distressed breathing – his respiratory rate was forty per minute, his lips were blue.

  “It started two hours ago ... He suddenly started gasping for breath ... felt a pain on the right side of his chest. Never had anything like this before ... We've only been wed a month ...” and she was overcome by torrents of silent tears.

  Mr Mitchell connected the patient up to an oxygen mask as soon as I had finished examining his mouth, lips, conjunctivae, and checking his jugular venous pressure.

  While Mrs Hancock continued to hold his left hand, I took his pulse at the right wrist: one hundred and twenty per minute, regular, poor volume. The neck veins were distended, even though he sat bolt upright; blood pressure was one hundred and five over sixty-five; heart sounds were distant. The trachea and heart were pushed to the left. The apex of the right chest was hyper-resonant to percussion, and over this area breath sounds were markedly diminished: the patient had a tension pneumothorax. (Briefly, I checked the abdomen and nervous system – OK.)

  “It's an acute pneumothorax,” I informed the charge nurse tersely. “Let's get him straight to radiology ...”

  I completed the form for a chest X-ray (AP and right lateral); “Diagnosis: Right pneumothorax”. The rest of the form had already been filled in by the nursing staff. The patient departed on a trolley, his wife still, limpet-like, attached to his left hand.

  “I'll be over in ten minutes, Edwin ...” Steve's voice was reassuring. “Get them to lay up a trolley with a chest trocar and cannula, an indwelling catheter; oh, and we'll also need an underwater drain ...”

  “Already done,” murmured Henry Mitchell.

  We were scrubbed, gowned, and wore masks and gloves. X-rays had confirmed a large pneumothorax – air in the pleural cavity from a ruptured lung bulla. I had explained the condition to Mrs Hancock, and persuaded her to wait in the visitors' waiting room, next door, while we took off the air and relieved the pressure.

  The patient sat bolt upright, the front of the chest painted with iodine and draped in towels. The skin over the area of maximal resonance – the space between the third and fourth ribs in the mid-clavicular line – had been infiltrated with local anaesthetic by the registrar. Now he made a small nick in the skin with a scalpel, and inserted the wide-bored trocar and cannula a short distance; when the central trocar was removed, there was an out-rushing of air. Immediately, I pushed through the rubber chest catheter; Steve removed the cannula, inflated the balloon at the tip of the catheter to hold it in position, and pulled back gently to check that it couldn't slip out. The other end of the catheter was now connected through a short piece of glass tubing to a long rubber tube; this ended in an underwater seal in a large bottle, which stood on the floor under the bed. Another length of glass tubing emerged from the cork at the mouth of the bottle, to equalise the pressure (or to be attached to a pump, if the chest needed more active evacuation). Immediately, air could be seen bubbling through the water. Quite quickly, the patient's breathing slowed and became more comfortable. I could see that he looked happier, even through the oxygen mask. For the first time he smiled.

  “Thank you both, doctors ...”

  “I'll call in your wife, Mr Hancock ... Give her the good news ...”

  “You've no doubt started a TPR and blood pressure chart, Mr Mitchell, and arranged for the patient to be specialled ...” added Steve Bolton.

  The charge nurse nodded, and we followed him out of the side-room.

  “Would you and Dr Scott like a cup of tea?”

  4

  Sunday, 12th September: The sun was shining pleasantly though there was a light chill in the air: autumn was approaching. I had met Olly and Daniel in the mess sitting-room at three o'clock, and now we headed for the tennis courts, picking up Belinda Peach from the staff-nurses' home on the way. Valerie Stoppard was off sick with a mild touch of flu'. We chatted while the gynaecology senior house officer adjusted the net. We had decided that I would again partner Belinda, while Olly and Dan would play together.

  We were all clad in tennis whites, but Daniel's shorts and shirt hung on him as though on a scarecrow; his white legs, I noticed, were virtually hairless. He bounced about on the other side of the court, and busied himself with stretching exercises for his legs, neck, and back. I thought he looked ridiculous.

  We knocked the ball about a bit to warm up; I spun my racket; Olly correctly called “rough” and opted to serve, while we stayed at our end with our backs to the sun. Olly served gently, and both played dolly shots from the other end of the court. This is going to be child's play, I thought. We won the the first game easily – Belinda was in great form. She served well in the second game, and we were soon two-love up.

  To my surprise, Dan turned out to have a fierce cannon-ball service, and I had great difficulty returning it over the net, let alone into their court. He advanced to the net whenever he had the opportunity, and we found we couldn't pass him or lob the ball over his head. Olly and Daniel won the first set seven games to five. We stopped for a break.

  This time my parner and I were hot, and felt harried from the battering, while the other pair looked cool and relaxed. Belinda had brought a wicker basket in which nestled glasses wrapped in linen napkins, a Thermos-flask with chilled lemon and lime juice and a packet of chocolate biscuits; we sat on a bench outside the courts to consume our snack.

  “How's the car, Daniel?” I enquired. “Have you raced her yet?”

  “I'm still practising ... quite rusty yet – that's me, not the Maserati ... I've taken her down to Brand's Hatch and driven around the circuit a few times ... Not too many scrapes ... getting better ... Mackie Patterson – the husband of our gynae sister – is a splendid mechanic. He's been tuning the engine for me, and getting her generally into fine shape – surprising how she's improved under his ministrations ... Hope to race her in earnest in about a month ...”

  I learned that he was being bank-rolled by a wealthy widow, domiciled in Monte Carlo, whose chief interest in life appeared to be motor racing. How he had come across her he refused to say. However, he hoped that if he made a good show over the rest of the racing season, she might buy him a second car ...

  “My brother is coming up from Portsmouth, and Mackie has promised to help me in the pits at Brands Hatch, so I shall have a team behind me ...”

  We finished our refreshments, Belinda packed the used glasses, napkins and Thermos into her basket, and we returned to the court. Here Olly and Dan beat us comfortably 6-2 in the second set.

  Belinda gave us all a sweet smile, and we separated. On our walk back to our rooms to clean up, I was deeply immersed in my thoughts, and hardly spoke a word to Olly or Dan. I had had to revise my opinion of Daniel Ellington: in spite of his strange appearance, he was certainly no buffoon.

  5

  Tuesday, 14th September: Did I leave my light on? I was returning to my room after dinner. Outside, it was very dark, the moon and stars blotted out by heavy cloud. I opened the door, and there, immobile in the centre of the room, stood Theresa Milton in a trench coat belted at the waist. There was a long silence, while we appraised one another. At length she spoke.

  “Oh, Edwin, I'm so miserable ... Since Brian dumped me everyone seems to have turned against me – even Russ Potter won't give me the time of day. Many of the other si
sters are married, and I can't socialise with the nurses. I'm so lonely ...”

  Her face puckered, and she burst into tears. I came across the room, held her awkwardly and patted her back, feeling inadequate, dimly aware of the wet on my collar.

  “Please take me for a drink. I'll go mad if I don't have some company – I can't stand another evening of watching television in the sisters' home or sitting alone in my room.”

  “All right, er Theresa ...” What else could I do?

  While she waited, I changed from white coat into sports jacket and duffel coat.

  As we passed through the hospital gates, I heard the first distant rumble of thunder. We turned right, and she preceded me up the narrow paved track which led to the pub's car park. We passed three street lamps on the way, but they cast only a feeble light through the leaves of the densely packed trees. I inhaled the scent of damp leaf mould. Crab-apples, acorns and conkers crunched underfoot; the world seemed to be holding its breath; then there was a blinding flash of lightning and another peal of thunder, nearer this time; I felt a few drops of rain. We quickened our pace.

  Into my mind popped a scene from the film The Spiral Staircase which I had seen when I was just thirteen, and which had terrified me ever since: The serial killer stands behind a massive tree, hidden from the heroine, slipping on his gloves behind his back, waiting to pounce!

  Then we were through the doors of the saloon bar, into the welcoming warmth and light. The Rose and Crown was only half-full, though it was already twenty to nine. Perhaps the threat of the storm had deterred some customers. I liked this place: comfortable, modern, hospitable, not too noisy, not too brash, a far cry from the Jacobean and Victorian hostelries of Whitechapel, and the modish pubs of London's West End. At the bar I bought my companion a schooner of sherry, and for myself a pint of best bitter; then returned to sit with her at a small corner table.