by John Collee
'She's my secretary.'
'Is she? No wonder you look so tired.' Stevenson paused, looking for a response. 'Cheer up, Alistair. When I was a girl it was considered bloody rude not to laugh at other people's jokes.' Kingsley smiled.
'Mind you,' said Elspeth Stevenson, 'at that time it wasn't considered very ladylike to want to be a doctor, nor to smoke these things.' She regarded the cigarette soberly. 'I've spent my life struggling against convention. Now, when I should be cashing in on it, I find that everyone else is behaving the same way. There you go. I'm not even very amusing any more. And I talk about myself too much.'
Kingsley patted her knee. 'Do you want to eat?'
'Certainly,' she said, 'but not in that upstairs place. It's full of sweaty squash players and infants falling on their arses.'
'Fine,' said Kingsley. 'We'll eat downstairs.' He helped her to her feet. The downstairs restaurant was twice as expensive as the canteen, but in compensation it was half as crowded and a good deal less noisy.
As they started on the second course, Kingsley steered Elspeth Stevenson around to the subject of her work.
'Young people never fail to impress me,' she confessed. 'I had a Swiss girl in yesterday who'd been in the country for two weeks and claimed to have fifteen contacts.'
'That's what I wanted to talk to you about.'
'You were one of them?'
'No. Contacts. I need to trace a chap. I wondered how to go about it.'
Stevenson loaded her steak with mustard, then popped it in her mouth.
'Who is he sleeping with?'
'No one,' said Kingsley.
'Come on,' Stevenson swallowed and sipped at her wine. 'Everyone's sleeping with someone . . . Except me,' she added on reflection.
'Just consider he's not sleeping with anyone.'
'Well he wouldn't be a patient of mine, Alistair. All our work is done on a postal basis. We ask about contacts then send them all a letter. It's a bit like the chain letters kids used to send to each other. You know, write to the six named on this postcard or all sorts of horrible things might happen to you.' She paused. 'With VD they sometimes do.'
Kingsley refilled her wine glass. 'That's a dead loss then,' he said. 'How else can I find the bloke?'
'What do you want to find him for?'
'I'd rather not tell you.'
Dr Stevenson looked at him over the top of her spectacles. 'I must say, Alistair, this is all very untypical. I always regarded you as a champion of honesty and open dealing. You're not contemplating a crime of passion.' ·
Kingsley laughed at the idea.
'I'm sorry to disappoint you, Elspeth. It's actually quite mundane. I just want to find a chap who I've only met once and I don't know how to go about it.'
'Well, you should get the police to help you. They're good at that kind of thing.'
Kingsley chewed ruminatively. 'The problem is,' he said eventually, 'I don't have any good reason for putting them to the trouble.'
'So lie to them,' said Stevenson happily. 'There's all sorts of medical reasons for wanting to find a chap. Tell them he's a typhoid carrier.'
'Now the one thing I don't want to start,' Kingsley told her, 'is a national crisis.'
Dr Stevenson agreed that the idea had its drawbacks and they dropped the subject. Over dessert he allowed her to reminisce about her continental relatives and their ill-fated attempts to sabotage her first marriage. But Kingsley found his mind flitting backwards at intervals to her suggestion for tracing Dhangi. The principle was basically sound. After they parted, he phoned to ask Jennings to start the list alone, and drove back via the central police station, an unimposing white office block on the edge of Inverleith park. The duty sergeant ushered him into a small, bare room with a window occupying one wall. Beyond the playing fields the delicate Gothic spires of his old school rose above the trees. Kingsley had no particularly fond memories of the place, but recently, driving past, he had felt more sentimental about it than he could ever previously recall. In comparison with his present situation, even recent events had taken on a halcyon, almost mythical quality – golf with Richard Short, that night on the hospital roof. Six weeks ago. It already seemed much more distant.
Inspector Cairney came in wearing a sheepskin jacket. He was a brisk, serious man with ruddy cheeks and a quiff of black hair across his forehead.
'Take a seat, Mr Kingsley.'
Kingsley moved away from the window and sat at the table. The inspector sat down opposite him. 'Now,' he said, 'I believe you're looking for this fellow who might have contracted . . .' – here he looked at the notepad in his hand – 'Hepatitis B.'
'That's right,' Kingsley told him.
'What is it?' said Cairney. 'Anything serious?'
'It can be.' Having embarked on the lie, Kingsley found that the specialist information at his disposal lent it a disconcerting ring of truth. 'It's an occupational hazard in the profession. It might be transmitted by the careless handling of blood samples. We've just learnt that a patient recently under investigation was a carrier of the disease. Dr Dhangi only visited our hospital briefly, but you can't be too careful.'
'No,' said Cairney. 'I dare say you can't.' He tipped back in his seat, leaning precariously against the plate glass of the window. 'My problem is this,' he said at length. 'I appreciate your concern over Dr Dhangi and obviously you need to get hold of him somehow, but contrary to popular belief it's very difficult to put your finger on someone who doesn't have a criminal record. We don't have a hell of a lot to go on.' Cairney itemized the points on his short fingers. 'You say he probably doesn't have a car, so Swansea won't be able to help us. He doesn't live locally, or have a fixed abode that you know of. He's foreign but, again, immigration don't really keep very close tabs on people. And you say your secretary's drawn a blank with both the British Medical Association and the local hospitals.' Cairney blew out his cheeks and showed Kingsley his square palms.
'Fair enough.' Kingsley's disappointment was tempered by relief. He had no talent for deception and was not enjoying it.
'Here's what I'll do,' said Cairney. 'I'll get one of our chaps to spend all day on the phone tomorrow ringing round the health services. It's possible your doctor left a forwarding address with someone else before he arrived here. There's one other possibility. If you come up with a description we'll mail it to places he might visit in Edinburgh, Indian restaurants and so on. I'm afraid that's the best I can do.'
'I appreciate it,' Kingsley said. 'Who do I give the description to?'
'We'll give you an identikit – see what you can do with that.'
'Thank you.'
Cairney left and returned shortly afterwards with a black box. Kingsley set to work with the strips of card but already his memory of Dhangi's features was clouded and obscure. He found a pair of hollowed cheeks which corresponded with his memory. He found a hooked nose and a pair of full lips. However, the final effect looked no more like Dhangi than any other face. Out of interest he attempted to construct a replica of Richard Short. At that point Cairney returned.
Cairney looked down at the table. 'Is that him?'
'No. I was just experimenting. It's an anaesthetist friend of mine.'
'Looks like a bloody psychopath.'
'He is.'
Kingsley made up for his lost time by working late at the hospital. He drove home that evening through the centre of town, over Hanover Street, then down past the floodlit art gallery, climbing again in the short, sweeping rise to the city's oldest quarter, a random conglomerate of bridges, cobbled lanes and endless black steps crammed into the Gothic contours of Castle Hill. He considered that in going to the police he could well have driven Dhangi further underground. In a city such as this a man could hide forever.
Chapter 13
Four days later Inspector Cairney called in at the hospital. Rhona showed him through to Kingsley' s office, still wearing the sheepskin coat. It was cold outside and the filamentous blood vessels which traversed the inspector's cheeks were
picked out in sharp relief. His eyes wandered round the office as he shook hands with Kingsley.
'I won't trouble you for long,' he said. 'Not much to report, but I've got some stuff here which might help.' Cairney picked up the Iona marble paperweight and examined it as he talked. 'I got in touch with immigration. They had a record of a Dr Acharya Dhangi who arrived here in April. Qualified pathologist. Working visit. Temporary resident's visa renewed once.' He looked up. 'Unfortunately there was no forwarding address.'
From outside there came a loud explosion, followed by a burst of hysterical children's laughter. Cairney walked to the window.
'It's good of you to make the effort,' said Kingsley.
'All part of the job,' said Cairney. 'Keeps me off the street. Liable to get blown up this time of year. Anyway,' he said, returning the stone to the edge of Kingsley's desk, 'the hospital phone calls were quite productive. He gets about, your Dr Dhangi. Since he arrived here he's been doing locum work all over the place.' Cairney returned to his notepad. 'Listen to this. He's worked in Brighton General Hospital for three weeks, Royal Southants for two . . . couple of weeks at Torbay Hospital in Devon, then on to Southmead Hospital in Bristol.' Cairney scanned down the list. 'Liverpool . . . Kingston General Hospital in Hull . . . Collingwood Clinic in Newcastle . . . ended up just recently at the Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow. That's just from tracing the references he gave. Never left a forwarding address, just headed off and popped up somewhere else a week later. Looks as though he was doing a tour of coastal Britain.' Cairney pocketed the notebook. 'So there you are. If you're really worried about him I'd just get your administration to put a circular round the hospital service. He'll probably turn up somewhere new in the next couple of weeks.'
Kingsley forced a look of optimism. 'Thank you,' he said, 'that's very helpful.'
'Well,' said Cairney, 'it's not a lot, but there's a good chance you'll find him.'
Rhona showed the detective out and Kingsley was left to gaze out of the window. He had no delusions that Dhangi would be moving on. The itinerant pattern validated the Indian's original story. And he claimed to have found what he was looking for in Leith. Also, on a much less rational level, there remained the feeling that Dhangi was nearby, deliberately out of reach. It was nothing more than an instinct, a premonition.
Since when had he believed in premonitions?
Chandra Mukesh was similarly unwilling to rely on his instincts and could think of several rational explanations for the vague paranoia which had beset him since the beginning of his study leave. A primary consideration was the fact that he had been obliged to spend the last three evenings in the airless library of the Douglas Calder poring over journals on immunology. Now, as he pulled the door closed and clattered down the fire-escape, the sense of impending disaster returned to plague him. He gripped the handle of his briefcase and focused his mind on the prospect of his research project. He still had no friends to speak of in Edinburgh, but his old colleagues in Manchester would be mightily impressed.
He was coming to the bottom of the steps. He still had to negotiate the narrow alley to Causeway Lane. He resolved that he would not have to run along it tonight. He slowed consciously and kept his eyes straight ahead, not noticing the gob of betel-stained saliva on the bottom step. He thought of his parents. He thought of Calcutta. He thought of winter in Kashmir. He thought of his sister in Bombay. Of her husband. Of summer on Juhu beach. Of his sister's children. He heard a sound and whirled around too late. Something exploded inside his skull and he crumpled to the ground.
That evening the Kingsleys had been invited out for cocktails in the New Town. Richard Short was there with Rhona, consorting quite openly now, but Short's displays of affection had a manic quality which suggested she had still not agreed to sleep with him. Kingsley managed to joke and banter with him. Everyone knew about Sheila's illness now and he realized they were making allowances for his ill-concealed neurosis. Sheila seemed to be coping well but when they were separated he noticed her public postures for the first time. She tended to keep the right leg crossed behind her left, or angled slightly to the side, or folded beneath her when she sat, as if she was now denying its presence.
They left early. The first round of anti-cancer injections had sapped Sheila's energy and now caused her increasingly frequent bouts of nausea. Driving home he looked across to her. Her face was contorted with pain. She noticed him looking at her and forced a smile.
When they got home she took two sleeping tablets and went to bed. Kingsley sat downstairs with the lights out, gazing out of the front window and listening to the trees. Dhangi was beginning to obsess him. He had now admitted to himself that Dhangi's outlandish claims may conceivably be valid, that he could convey, indeed had conveyed, the healing touch. In previously dismissing Dhangi, he had ignored, by his own mental inflexibility, a medical advance of astounding proportions. He had to find Dhangi not only for Sheila's sake but also to allay this growing sense of guilt.
He knew two things about Dhangi as a social animal: that he drank and that something attracted him to the dockland. He would begin his search with the Carriage Bar.
He left early the following evening, leaving Jennings to finish the operating list. As he passed the children's ward a nurse was putting paper Halloween decorations on the windows. Outside, Harbour Lane smelt of cordite.
At five minutes past opening time the regulars had already colonized the Carriage Bar – strung out along the dark counter in a thin, disconsolate line.
At length he caught the woman's attention.
'What will it be then?'
'I'm looking for an Indian chap called Dhangi.'
'Have you looked around?'
'I don't see him just now.'
'Well, he's not here then.'
She was called away to pull another couple of pints. Kingsley eventually retrieved her. 'I wondered if you knew the name.'
'What name?'
'Dhangi.'
'No, I don't know anyone called that.'
Someone put ten pence in the jukebox. Kingsley shouted above the noise. 'Maybe your husband knows him?'
The woman set her mouth in exasperation and called, 'Ronald, d'you know a customer called Dhangi?'
'Dhangi who?'
'That's his surname.'
'Never heard of him,' said the husband, without looking up. She made as if to leave. Kingsley reached across and grabbed her arm.
'Listen,' he said, 'I met him in here a while back. He usually wears a dark suit. His name's Achara . . . something like that . . . Dhangi. If you get him in here, can you give him this.' Kingsley handed her his card; she looked at it, then back at Kingsley.
'You a surgeon?'
'Yes.'
She looked across to her husband. 'Hey, Ronald, this one's a surgeon from the hospital.'
Ronald laughed, revealing his stained teeth. 'Carriage Bar's going up in the world.'
Kingsley left. Out on the street again the cold air pinched through his suit. He would return later and the next evening if necessary. Meanwhile there was the Anchor, the Sutton and the Duke.
For the next few days there was an effigy outside the hospital railings – an old jersey stuffed with newspaper. The head was a deflated leather football crowned with seaweed, the legs a limp pair of flannel trousers. The children who had made it would install themselves at three o'clock and start hustling the bus queue for pennies for the Guy. To Kingsley the leather face was a hideous parody of Dhangi's. He often saw Dhangi now. He saw Dhangi as a castaway sees mirages of land. Dhangi's face hung above him each morning as he lay on his back with Sheila moving restlessly beside him. Dhangi occupied the silence in his car on the way to work, and the dishevelled pathologist seemed to adopt the form of countless strangers, glimpsed in the bus queue, followed down the lane by the wrestling hall, tapped on the shoulder outside the Co-op. It was never Dhangi – just another vision to torment him.
At the Douglas Calder his waiting list began to leng
then. He left work at five-thirty each evening and returned home four hours later smelling of beer and cigarette smoke.
He was not aware of 5 November. His calendar was now drastically simplified to a record of the days available before Cullen's deadline. Richard Short, on the other hand, took advantage of the date to hold an impromptu barbecue in the gardens outside his flat. The high Georgian terraces stood back in silent disapproval as Short nipped backwards and forwards with a fish slice, turning the steaks and orchestrating the firework display. He had strung light bulbs round the trees. Above them the sky over the New Town was ripped with rushing, blossoming fire. Elspeth Stevenson helped herself to the punch. 'Did you invite Alistair Kingsley?'
'He said he wasn't free.' Short nibbled at the hot corner of a piece of steak. 'He's been a bit off recently.'
Elspeth Stevenson moved round to Short's side of the fire, shielding her eyes against the smoke. 'He's just worried about his wife.'
'No, really, he's different now.'
'He's just worried,' she told him.
At that moment Kingsley was hunched over a table in the Purple Rose tavern. He was in much the same position an hour later when he was woken by a persistently ringing bell which penetrated his confused dreams like an awl. He raised his head from his arms and looked up blearily.
'Time, please.'
'Sorry?'
'Drink up now.'
The barman was impatiently clearing glasses from the circular table where Kingsley's head had rested and hooking them over his fingers. He produced a cloth and tapped impatiently on Kingsley' s arm.
'Lift.'
Kingsley lifted his arms and found there was still a glass in his right hand. It was empty.
'I'll take that.'
'Thank you,' he muttered thickly.
'Thank you and good night,' the barman replied without sympathy, moving on to clear the next table.
The bell continued to ring. Kingsley belched. His own breath smelt of acetone and there was an unpleasant sweet taste in his mouth. He shuffled along the plastic bench until a space presented itself, then hoisted himself uncertainly to his feet. An area of stained glass resolved itself into the pub's door and Kingsley projected himself towards it, leaning on people and chair backs where they came within range. The door swung open and he stumbled out. Even after it had closed behind him the bell continued to echo in his ears. He staggered against some railings and fumbled to relieve himself, meanwhile taking great lungfuls of cold air. He remembered to feel for his wallet. It was still there. Bending forwards again to button his fly he encountered a searing pain in the middle of his forehead. When he straightened it subsided. The car keys were still in his pocket but he had no recollection of where he had left the car.