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

by Felix Bruckner

  “Can you fetch me a lime juice, Edwin?” She was staking her claim to me! With renewed optimism, a smile on my face, and a spring in my step, I joined the rapidly forming queue; I brought back two lime juices – alcohol was not served – and a small plate of Rich Tea biscuits. Across the hall I spied my three friends with three girls; they waved, beckoning me to join them, but I pretended not to see; I sat down next to Jill. Soon we were discussing books, and finding to our further joy that we shared the same literary tastes.

  “Have you read A.J. Cronin’s Hatter’s Castle?”

  “Rather … And what about The Citadel?”

  “Oh, yes, even better. Remember where the young doctor has to perform a tracheotomy on the child with diphtheria …”

  The interval came to an end, the lights dimmed, the music resumed; we danced, still engrossed in conversation, my earlier awkwardness long forgotten.

  “What about Conan Doyle?”

  “Oh, I adore Sherlock Holmes; my favourite story’s Silver Blaze in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:‘What about the curious incident of the dog in the night-time?’”

  “‘But the dog did nothing in the night-time.’”

  “‘That was the curious incident, my dear Watson ...’”

  As my euphoria evaporated and my mood became more sombre, I confided how poor I was at dissecting (especially the dogfish), and my purchase of Barraclough’s Primer of Zoology from Foyle's Book Store, in a belated attempt to remedy matters; I even confessed my mother’s part in the opening of our new school biology labs, without which I couldn’t hope to enter medical school …

  “Oh the Deadwood stage came a-rollin’ over the hill …” Doris Day was now in more ebullient mood, carrying me with her.

  Our conversation turned to music. During the quick-step I found myself boasting of the record player my parents had given me for my last birthday.

  “It’s fantastic – plays 78’s, 45’s, and L.P’s, and stacks six records at a time ...”

  I recounted last year’s school visit to Covent Garden where Kirsten Flagstad had sung Brunhilde – in Wagner’s Gotterdammerung. While the other boys fidgeted restlessly in their seats for the four hours of the opera, I had been totally engrossed; the outing proved to be a turning-point in my conversion to classical music …

  “I simply love Beethoven.” Jill had listened to my rambling monologue with remarkable patience, and now entered the discussion.

  “Yes. Isn’t he the greatest ever? My favourite’s his Eroica Symphony.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that; I think I prefer the Seventh: it’s less complex, more melodic … But tell me, Edwin, what’s your opinion of Mozart?”

  We dismissed Mozart summarily as boring and superficial; couldn’t see what everyone found in him. We discussed Schubert, and why he had composed a ninth symphony without finishing his eighth.

  “Perhaps all composers aim to complete nine symphonies – look at Bruckner, Dvorak, and even Beethoven himself.”

  I was sixteen and a half years old: the naïve thoughts and banal phrases sounded magical in my ears, the ideas emerging as though newly minted.

  “What about Johann Strauss? I gather they have a Viennese Night at the proms every year. It should be a wonderful experience.” And we agreed to go together next year – if we could get tickets ...

  The music slowed, and the lights dimmed; I noticed that her eyes were closed; once again her cheek brushed mine, the contact persisted – and we were dancing cheek to cheek; after a while she placed her arms around my neck, and I held her; we stayed in a “clinch”, gyrating gently, but hardly progressing forward at all. (Out of the corner of my eye, I observed the other couples “smooching” just like us.) I felt her body against mine, from hip to chest, deliciously soft … The spell was broken, all too soon, by the familiar rendering of Vaya con dios my darling …

  “Please take your partners for the last waltz,” came the disembodied female voice over the loudspeaker: it was ten to eleven …

  The lights blazed, and everyone headed for the cloak-rooms. “See you here in ten minutes,” murmured Jill. “There may be a queue.”

  As I entered the door marked “Boys’ Cloakroom,” my sweetly rhapsodic mood evaporated, and I became suddenly apprehensive.

  How can I see her home from Streatham all the way to Putney, and get home myself afterwards? I wondered, on the brink of panic. With real relief I saw the Musketeers – my three school-friends – who had collected together, and appeared to be waiting for me.

  I don’t even know where Putney is ...

  When I had explained the problem, there was a lengthy pause while they sought a solution.

  As always, Pitty (Brian Pitt) reacted first: “Why don’t you take her to Putney; then, from her home, phone for a taxi to bring you back to Clapham Common.”

  “It would cost the earth, and I’ve only got about a pound on me.”

  “All right then, when you get her home, ask her to direct you to a night bus – normal transport will have finished by then.” This was Johnny East’s solution.

  “But there may not be any night buses to Clapham from there, and she is unlikely to know where they stop, anyway.” I was not reassured.

  To my surprise, it was the usually taciturn Colin Thomas who had the last word on the subject:

  “Just walk her to the bus stop outside Streatham High, explain the situation, arrange to speak on the phone tomorrow, and kiss her goodnight.” I had not heard such a long speech from him in a month!

  Immediately new problems presented themselves: “How should I kiss her? A long kiss or a peck? On the lips? Mouth open or closed …”

  “Just see how it goes.”

  Somewhat comforted, I returned to the hall, leaving the other three Musketeers still debating among themselves; I stopped in dismay. The hall was empty, and a caretaker was already switching off the lights. I glanced at my watch – half an hour had elapsed since I had left Jill, and she had gone! I was mortified, heart-broken: my perfect friendship had ended almost before it had begun. Desperately, I searched around outside, but she had vanished. I had lost my soul-mate.

  Would I ever see Jill Pritchard again?

  “It's an all-girls grammar, in Streatham ...”

  “I know ...”

  “I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it. My friend Cherry tells me we'll be starting French in the second year ... Will you be coming home for Christmas, Eddie ... or New Year's Eve? Mummy says I can stay up until midnight for the occasion!”

  “I expect I'll be spending Christmas on the wards; they say it's quite jolly ... Remember the medical school's Christmas shows? The residents have a slot, and I'll probably be drafted in; after all, I'm an old hand ... But I'm told they won't let me out of the hospital during the whole of my six months' stint, Jane ... We're not allowed time off in teaching hospitals ...”

  “Sounds more like a prison than a hospital ...”

  She was taller, slimmer, and was turning quite pretty, I noticed suddenly. In a few years she would be as tall as me.

  “I remember when Lucky first came to us ...” Jane must have been only four. “She was like a small black ball of wool ... Remember, we took her for walks on the Common, past the Holy Trinity Church.”

  Her eyes turned dark and her lower lip quivered; she was on the verge of tears. After a momentary pause, her mood changed again, and she was once more the bright bubbly girl of earlier years.

  “You used to tell me stories of Super Jane and Chief Inspector Meredith of Scotland Yard ...” I recalled the pudgy little fist gripping my index finger as we rounded the church and I let our dog off the leash, the large green eyes and light brown hair, the sunny disposition that no-one could resist.

  “You could write a book of them, Eddie, but I'm not sure I would want to share them with other children ...”

  After a sumptuous lunch, further reminiscence and more questions about the future, I had been permitted to proceed to Whitechapel ...

  The surr
oundings were familiar, yet strange. I was back at the London Hospital, but seeing it with fresh eyes, from a different perspective: instead of the students' hostel and the medical school, my life would be confined to the two thoracic surgical wards (male and female), the doctors' quarters and the doctors' mess. Though I recognised the other housemen – who were in my year at medical school – most of them had been at The London for the last six months, and had formed into cliques; I was considered an outsider. Only Bob Parsons remained overtly friendly, though I did receive an occasional distant smile from Paul Harris (our child genius) who had got the prestigious medical unit house job, and Chris Platt whose rugby prowess had earned him the post of house surgeon to Mr Treves-Greene.

  When I arrived back at The London at the beginning of December nineteen-sixty, I discovered that my fears of death from overwork had been premature: it had indeed been decided that the thoracic surgical house job was too heavy for one person to manage, and the post had been split into two. I now shared the duties with Anne Baker-West: she would look after the senior surgeon, Mr Spencer Wellington, while I was allocated to the junior surgeon, Mr Geoffrey Taverstock.

  Dr Baker-West had just finished her house physician post at The London, and therefore knew the ropes. She was a tall gaunt patrician young lady with a plummy accent, who had always kept herself aloof (without ever being discourteous) when we were students together. Now she took it upon herself to show me around and make me feel at home. I had no wish to offend her, so I carefully kept from her the fact that I had been shown around already – by Rodney Webster – just eighteen days before. Anne presented to me a side I had never seen before – and would never have believed she possessed – kind, friendly, even sympathetic. She doubtless saw how overwhelmed and lonely I felt, and set about cheering me up. Her attitude was almost maternal, as she took me under her wing.

  “Your part of the job shouldn't be too arduous, er Edwin,” it was the first time she had called me by my first name. “Bugsy Taverstock has only two operating sessions here, and he has very few patients in the private wing at the moment. At the end of three months you move down to the Annexe at Brentwood, where you stay to the end of the house job ... There is no official time off during the six month stint, though you and I may be allowed to cover for each other for the occasional evening. We are expected to take our two weeks' holiday at the end of the post ...”

  Having been paid in lieu of holiday when I finished of my house physician's job, this meant that I would have no holiday for a whole year.

  The London Hospital was an old Voluntary Hospital in the East End of London, built in the middle of the eighteenth century. It had been taken over at the inception of the National Health Service, but was still run by a Board of Governors (headed by a House Governor). The broad façade was blackened by centuries of grime, but was well-proportioned and presented a noble appearance. The building dominated the section of the Whitechapel Road opposite the Underground Station. In addition to the main hospital, its patients were sent to an annexe in Brentwood in Essex, its fevers hospital in Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and its psychiatric hospital near Pentonville jail. Our accommodation housed thirty-five residents: the preregistration house physicians and surgeons, the president of the mess (the obstetric senior house officer, known as “the resident accoucheur”), the resident pathologist, and the anaesthetic junior registrar. We lived on the top two floors of a drab Victorian building, opposite the Medical College and next to the out-patients department. The large mess sitting room, which led into the billiard room, was in the main hospital building.

  My room was on the second floor of the doctors' quarters, overlooking the residents' car park. From my single sash window I could look over the old brick wall into the quadrangle at the back of the hospital, with views of the medical school tennis courts and the nurses' netball courts. The chamber was massive – about twenty foot by twenty foot – the floor covered with cracked linoleum. The ceiling electric light was switched on, as the room was gloomy both by day and by night, and was panelled in dark varnished oak; at one end was a narrow but surprisingly comfortable wooden bed, with a bedside table and lamp. Opposite this a gas-fire hissed and spluttered, managing to warm only the three or four feet of space immediately before it. Within this ambit, were ranged two arm-chairs and a faded red and brown rug. A hard chair was drawn up at the table by the window, which held another table-lamp. There was a cavernous built-in oak wardrobe with a creaking door, and a second oak cupboard door which concealed an old-fashioned wash-basin and mirror. Two fluffy white towels and a face flannel hung on a bar on the inside of this door. When I tested the taps the pipes banged alarmingly, but I was gratified to find that the water was piping hot! The single ceiling lamp, with its sixty watt bulb and tessellated cream and gold light-shade, gave out a warm light. Two hardly-decipherable prints of City scenes decorated the walls.

  After being shown into my room by a hospital porter and handed the keys, I had unpacked. My few clothes looked forlorn in the cavernous space of the wardrobe, and my two suitcases fitted easily in the bottom; my collection of records sat neatly on a shelf, and the gramophone found a home on the table. My slippers were by the bed, my pyjamas under the pillow, and my duffel-coat and dressing gown hung on a hook behind the door. I stood by the window, gazing at my little Morris Minor safe below in the car park, and reflecting on my anxious though uneventful journey from Hitchin, via Clapham.

  I picked a newly-starched white coat off the top of the bed, put it on over my jacket, rammed a stethoscope into one pocket, a notebook into another, and made my way to the door. It was time to see the thoracic surgical wards, and get to know my new patients ...

  Theresa Milton's trial was scheduled for June, nineteen-sixty-one, almost a year from the time I had started at St Peter's Hospital, and just after I had finished my house-job at The London. Jill and I would have been finalising our wedding preparations, I reflected ruefully. I had arrived in the heart of the City of London at the Central Criminal Court – the Old Bailey – by taxi, and my heart was palpitating almost audibly as I alighted and paid the driver. The court stands at the site of the medieval Newgate Prison, and was rebuilt after the Great Fire of London of 1666. I paused to view the famous bronze statue of Lady Justice which surmounts the dome of the building, a sword clasped in her right hand and the scales of justice in her left. (Contrary to popular opinion she does not wear a blindfold!) Inside, I gazed around the marble hall at the imposing staircase, the statues of monarchs and famous judges, and oil paintings of scenes from the blitz of World War Two. In due course I was called in to Court Number Three. I had been here before – indeed to this very court – to give evidence in the trial of the Whitechapel Slasher, yet I still found the place intimidating.

  I was given a hard time by Theresa Milton's barrister in the witness box: he suggested that I had framed his client, and that I was the Hitchin Strangler myself! It was only later I discovered that this was the famous Silk, Sir Edgar Root, QC – Brian Root's father. I wondered whether Sir Edgar knew that it was only a quirk of fate – Brian's banging the phone down on Tess in a fit of pique, and his subsequent arrest – which saved his son from becoming another of her victims. When it was evident that Sir Edgar's ploy had failed, the defendant was persuaded to change her plea to “manslaughter, while the balance of her mind was disturbed”; this was accepted, and she was committed to serve her sentence in Broadmoor Hospital where she was likely to spend the rest of her days.

  Meanwhile the police had reviewed a series of eight unexplained deaths at Poole General Hospital in Dorset, between nineteen-fifty-six and nineteen-fifty-eight, during the time that Miss Milton worked there. All the deceased had had intravenous infusions running at the time of their deaths, and all the fatalities had been unexpected. It was concluded eventually that the fatalities had been caused by insulin injected into non-diabetic patients; however no-one had come under suspicion at the time, let alone been charged.

  Brian Root was sentence
d to one year's community service and a course of rehabilitation for his drug addiction (which he received at the Priory Hospital in Roehampton). He worked his sentence with the Salvation Army, looking after the homeless people of London; then joined the International Red Cross who sent him to help with the victims of famine and civil war in Indonesia, Ethiopia, East Pakistan (later to become Bangladesh) and Central Africa. He married into minor aristocracy, with homes in Argyle, Monaco and Geneva. Eventually, he found himself back in the drugs trade – this time the Pharmaceutical Industry – rising to become chief executive of Glaxo, and culminating in a Nobel Prize for the development of a powerful, non-addictive, non-opiate narcotic drug.

  Bill Boyd passed his MRCP exam at the next sitting. He moved to the Whittington hospital as senior medical registrar, before becoming a consultant physician at Peterborough General Hospital in nineteen-sixty-three. He remained a bachelor, and died in a car crash on the Autobahn north of Dresden in nineteen-sixty-five.

  Steve Bolton became senior registrar on the Professorial Medical Unit at the new Charing Cross Hospital in Fulham. After three years, he emigrated with his family to Canada, to take up a consultant post at Toronto (Teaching) Hospital, where he set up a state-of-the-art renal unit.

  Olly Kumar transferred to the Hammersmith Hospital as registrar (and then senior registrar) in anaesthetics. He was appointed consultant anaesthetist to the Brompton Hospital in Chelsea where he joined a young cardiac surgeon in developing a pioneering open heart surgical unit; he showed himself to be a brilliant exponent of his art, and appeared to have a bright future. Suddenly he returned to Calcutta, where he had been offered the post of professor of cardio-thoracic anaesthesia; when he arrived, however, he discovered that the modern new unit whose pictures he had been sent was still on the drawing-board (and indeed was never built). He found himself in a marriage – arranged by his mother – to a wealthy Indian lady from a Brahmin family, whom he met for the first time on his return to his home town.