by John Collee
'Namely?' said Sheila.
'A place. A temple. I can't remember the name. He showed me a rock carving of it. It's part of their mythology. The thing is, it's identical to a back view of the Douglas Calder. And me – he recognized the scar on my hand – I'm part of their mythology. There's a prophecy about a healer. So he came here and somehow, I don't know how, he manages to impart this power to me. I phoned back to some of the hospitals he'd visited before this, asked them specifically if they'd noticed any unusual pathology results during his stay. Nothing. It's specific, to Leith, to me. God knows why.'
'Won't he explain things to you?'
'I've been trying to get hold of him for the last three days. He just wants to be left alone. And I'm frightened of scaring him off. He's not going to offer information about how this cancer cure works. And I know at the first whiff of his being implicated he'll be off like a shot. The secret with him.'
'What's he got to hide?'
'God only knows. The man's insane. He's totally without principles, without compassion. I think he killed Mukesh for the job.'
'No! He can't have!' said Sheila. 'Why would he want it?'
'I've got a week to find out. You see, it wouldn't stop the tide if you go back on the drugs. Ever since you came out of hospital, I've had to examine cancer patients, one or two every day. Next week they'll start coming back cured. Ten days from now it's going to be apparent that every cancer patient under Alistair Kingsley over the last fortnight has effected a spontaneous remission. The Douglas Calder's going to be swarming with reporters. I can't see Dhangi hanging around when that happens.'
They stood together for five minutes, maybe ten, watching the sea of city lights and the rushing sky above. Then the cold began to penetrate and they started down the hill again.
Chapter 19
Dalgleish's story broke two days later. Someone had pinned up the press cutting in the rest room of theatre south. Kingsley took it off the board – EDINBURGH WOMAN CLAIMS CANCER CURE – over a picture of Mrs Dalgleish. The Courier had obviously been chasing up patients recently discharged from his care. With Mrs Dalgleish they had hit the jackpot. She had given them a story about her breast tumour being injected – her own misinterpretation of the needle biopsy. Apart from that her claims were probably accurate.
Now, as he neared the outpatients, Kingsley could hear his patients – not the muted rustling of waiting-room conversations, something more threatening, more violent: the noise of a large and unruly crowd.
Kingsley approached the swing doors and opened them. He came up against a wall of backs and shoulders. Normally the patients sat in two phalanxes of seats on either side of a central aisle. There was space between the front seats and reception and a gap between the side seats and the wall. Now, above the heads in front of him, Kingsley could see none of this, the reception area itself was hidden from view by the crowd. They filled the seats and crammed the central aisle. They were packed two deep along the walls, falling over the side seats and pressed against the public health posters. From the far side of the room, above the clamour, there came the shrill, futile remonstrations of the receptionist on duty. Kingsley took a breath and pushed forwards in this direction. He had squeezed and jostled his way to the centre of the room before he was identified. At once his progress slowed. Faces swivelled round to look at him, talking, shouting. The abrasive discord of their voices increased in intensity. He continued to push down the aisle, hauling himself forwards by the metal backs of chairs. He reached the reception desk, breaking free of the clamouring patients, then climbed on to the desk and turned back to the crowd. People were standing on seats and heating pipes to gain a better view. He tried to call for quiet but his words vanished under the hubbub. He stood up, panting, and straightened his tie. The cacophony petered out and died.
'Now listen to this,' he thundered. 'This is a surgical clinic, not a pop concert, and I aim to keep it that way. There've been some rumours floating around recently which have obviously falsely raised some of your hopes. I'm sorry for those of you who have been misled. There is no treatment available at this hospital that cannot be obtained elsewhere.'
The noise of the crowd rose like a tidal wave to drown the words. Somebody was waving a newspaper, a woman at his feet, beetroot faced and crushed against the front of the desk, was protesting she'd come all the way from Cupar. Words emerged from the chaos in the centre of the room like gobs of steel from a smelter: 'experiments' . . . 'Dalgleish' . . . 'cover-up' . . . Kingsley bawled for silence again.
'You've all been misinformed,' he yelled.
He grabbed a newspaper from a hand in front of him and waved it like a baton.
'Mrs Dalgleish received no special treatment. I have no evidence to say she has been cured. 'This,' he brandished the paper, 'is all nonsense, complete nonsense. I'm not going to start this clinic until anyone without an appointment has left the waiting room. If you've booked to see myself or Mr Jennings, please stay. The rest of you will have to leave.'
The tide of protestations rose once more.
'I'm sorry,' Kingsley shouted above it. 'We can't see all of you. I won't see anyone who has not been referred here by the proper . . .'
But the small room continued to boil and the majority of his words went unheard. Kingsley climbed down from the desk top, trampling on the pages of the appointments book.
'Get the porters to come and clear these people out. I'll be back in half an hour when this has settled down.'
He left the receptionist with one finger in her ear shouting down the phone to the porters' room. Kingsley pushed through to the side door. A few patients followed him across to the back door of the X-ray department. He lost them there and doubled back towards the mortuary.
He ascended the short flight and peered through the small window in the mortuary door, criss-crossed with reinforcing wire. Cranley's coat hung on the hook opposite the door. The ashtray was filled with his crushed cigarette butts.
Kingsley rattled the handle. The door would not give. He hammered with the side of his fist on the glass. No response. He walked round the side of the building. Above his head one of the windows was fractionally open. He shouted up at it. 'Dhangi . . . Dr Dhangi, are you there? I'd like to speak to you.' There was no reply from inside. Kingsley waited a while, listening for the chink of metal on china, or the sound of a footstep. He glanced nervously down past the anaesthetics, towards the car park. No one had seen him come this way.
'Dhangi!' he shouted again, and waited.
He returned to the front door and beat on the glass with the side of his fist. Descending the steps again he wondered if he could risk going back to the main entrance for a key.
There was a noise and he turned again. The door had opened an inch, revealing a strip of Dhangi's blood-stained apron surmounted by the central sliver of his face – brow, nose and mouth.
'Mr Kingsley?'
Kingsley started towards the steps. The slit of the door closed fractionally.
'Please do not come here.'
'Christ, Dhangi, I've been trying to get hold of you for . . .'
'Please stay away.'
'I can't stay away,' Kingsley replied. 'Why should I? You've got no idea what's going on. A lot of people want to know what's happening.'
'Tell them.'
'I can't tell them. I don't know what to tell them. We've got to have a talk. Let me in.'
Again Kingsley started up the steps. Again the door narrowed.
'Not now,' Dhangi said. 'Please, not now.'
'What the hell are you doing in there?'
'Certain rites. It is not important to you.'
'Not important?' Kingsley exclaimed. 'It's absolutely crucial.'
'Please. Not yet. You would not understand.'
'Dhangi!'
No reply.
'Will you just talk to me – all right?' Kingsley implored. 'I'll meet you somewhere, anywhere.'
Dhangi's mouth opened slightly, as if he was thinking. There was
a smear of blood on his upper lip.
'This evening,' he said at last. 'I will come for you.'
Nervous and unsatisfied, Kingsley returned to the clinic. The waiting room had largely returned to normal. Two porters had sifted out the legitimate patients and were now herding a small knot of people away from the doorway.
He finished the clinic by five-thirty and returned to his office to wait.
Night. The Douglas Calder hummed. The neon lights hummed. And up on the roof the wind from the sea soughed through the ventilation shafts. In the basement the central heating throbbed. The porters' wireless hummed and crackled. The trolleys clattered and the blethering televisions filled every anteroom to every ward.
Offices occupied the east face of the hospital. All those lights were extinguished now, but for Kingsley's. In the night beyond, the caged sea lapped at the harbour wall.
Kingsley looked at his watch, then he leant forwards on his elbows again, drumming on the top of his desk Seven o'clock
A sound.
The handle of his room turned. The door opened and Dhangi's suit appeared, then the lower half of his face. His eyes remained obscured by shadow.
'Shall we go?' he said quickly.
Kingsley rose from his desk Dhangi turned and left the office. Kingsley followed him. They moved swiftly down the corridor, Kingsley lagging slightly behind, Dhangi glancing nervously around him as they walked. They crossed the central hall, then Dhangi turned down towards the physiotherapy department. Halfway there he stopped and drew a key from his pocket. They descended to the basement in silence, the naked bulbs throwing their silhouettes against the opposite wall. Their shadows mixed to form a thicklimbed spider that followed behind them. At the foot of the stairs Dhangi turned again. More corridors, ending finally in a blind alley. Dhangi stepped into a long, high room to their left. Kingsley followed and Dhangi closed the rotting door behind them. A dusty bulb was suspended from the ceiling. Miraculously it still worked. They were standing in one of the many mouldering cellars that supported the old buildings, running in a dark labyrinth from Constitution Street to below Harbour Lane, maybe further. This one lay somewhere under the main hall. Aluminium heating pipes traversed its vault. Kingsley looked around him. He had never visited these passages and was amazed at Dhangi's intimate knowledge of them.
Dhangi seemed to read his thoughts. 'It is written,' he told him. 'The whole building is described in detail.'
'I believe you.'
'Then you are learning.'
'I don't think so,' said Kingsley. 'I think I've just stopped asking questions.'
'That is the first step,' Dhangi said.
'Not the way I was taught.'
'It is said,' Dhangi said as he rechecked the door, 'that there are two paths to enlightenment – jnana – knowledge, and bhakti – devotion. But in fact the one cannot exist without the other. You cannot have knowledge until you are ready to accept it.'
'I came here for some facts.'
'I am telling you.'
'Look, Dhangi, I've got two alternatives. Either I try and get to the bottom of this thing myself or I wait till someone else decides to. If you want to keep a low profile you'd be better to cooperate with me!'
The nervous tic returned to Dhangi's cheek. He plucked at the back of one hand with his fingers. 'What do you want to know?'
'What happened to Chandra Mukesh?'
'Not that,' said Dhangi quickly.
'You killed him, right?'
'He died.'
'Did you kill him?' Kingsley persisted.
'What does it matter?' Dhangi shouted suddenly. 'I am here now, am I not? You have cured I don't know how many people through my actions. One dies, several live. Is that not good?'
'That's got nothing to do with it. You just asked me to accept you. How can I accept a psychopathic murderer? Tell me that. There's no way. No way!'
'I am not a murderer.'
'Well, how would you describe yourself?'
'I am a sadhu . . . a priest.'
'A priest,' Kingsley scoffed. 'What kind of a priest butchers his own people?'
'He was a Bengali – a fish-eater,' said Dhangi fiercely. 'He had defiled the sanctuary of Nigambodh Ghat.'
'I eat fish. Why don't you kill me?'
Dhangi breathed out heavily. 'Mr Kingsley, I tell you that it was necessary to do what I did. Those were the divine instructions.'
'You were only following orders?'
'That is correct.'
'That excuse has a particularly evil pedigree.'
'Ah,' said Dhangi, 'but what most of you Western people cannot understand is that it is not an excuse. It is a reason. Nothing can be accomplished without obedience. The gods say to kill this man in a certain way. I kill him. They say to meditate for so many weeks. I meditate. They say come to you. I come to you. They tell. I obey. You have experienced the results.'
'Exactly!' Kingsley threw his hand up, knocking the naked bulb. The frenzied shadows leapt around them. 'I experience the results. Which makes me directly responsible for your actions.'
Dhangi shook his head patiently. 'They are not your responsibility, Mr Kingsley. That is simply a figment of your own conceit. The responsibility is with the gods. You are merely a conduit of their powers, as I am merely an interpreter of their wishes.'
'I can't accept that.'
'You must.'
'But where does it stop, Dhangi? Answer me that? What else do you expect me to condone? What are you doing in the mortuary all day?'
'There are various devotions . . .'
'Don't give me that. What are you doing there?'
'I cannot tell you . . . there are certain necessary practices . . . It is still too early . . . it was by people who misunderstood these things that Swami Vitthalnath was murdered.'
'Do you think that's any consolation?'
'You need no consolation,' Dhangi flared. 'You are the chosen one. Believe only that. Through you the one true faith is reborn. When the full glory of your achievements comes to light the glory will be the glory of my gods, and you will be their Messiah, their representative on earth, by which the godless ones, the mlechcha, may be brought to salvation.'
Through the fading echoes the pipes clacked and rattled and from a distant, drier passage came the electric hum of a service tug – a thin filament of reality. Kingsley clung to it.
'I'm no Messiah, Dr Dhangi. I am Alistair Kingsley. I'm a surgeon.'
'No, Mr Kingsley. That is not what you are. That is merely your mask in this present life. You are not this body. You are not this mind. You are neither the sleeping, waking nor the slumbering self. You are that which continues during sleep and wakes up at dawn. That is what you are, Mr Kingsley. All the rest is illusion.'
'To hell with all that,' shouted Kingsley.
'That . . . that . . . that,' echoed the walls.
But Dhangi remained impassive and Kingsley's shout of rebellion rolled off into the muffling darkness of the passages under the sea.
Kingsley composed himself. 'Look here,' he said, 'the way I see it is this. You have the ability to impart something to me. You think the religious thing is an explanation in itself but I tell you there has to be a science to it. I want it to be analysed. I want you to agree to be experimented on. It's possible that people other than myself might manifest this power.'
But Dhangi was already shaking his head. 'Science,' he said. 'You are talking about science. I tell you this. Science is no more than an imperfect religion. You arrive at certain beliefs and immediately prove them right. By such study you can never find the truth. The cosmic truths we know by experience. They cannot be boiled in a test tube. I do not give you my gods to put them in your ovens, your jam jars. This is what called me from my study of medicine. That is what I finally learnt at the age of twenty-seven, is why I accepted diksha, and this is how I know.' He paused. 'I know you, Mr Kingsley. I know you from three or four lives back. I have brought you your destiny. Simply accept it.'
&nbs
p; He swivelled and marched across the irregular stone floor, then turned the door handle and let himself out.
Kingsley waited, listening to the pipes, to the pulse of the hospital. And after Dhangi's quick, erratic steps had faded and died Kingsley remained staring disconsolately at the moulding concrete floor. Stalemate.
Chapter 20
Over the next week it became apparent to Kingsley that stalemate was a wildly optimistic metaphor for his predicament. He was in fact overwhelmed, embattled. Dhangi remained sullen and intractable while, like a gathering typhoon, the evidence of Kingsley's supernatural ability mounted against him.
Cairney had one of his police constables stationed at the hospital's main entrance, but the task of vetoing all bona fide visitors and clinic attenders proved logistically impossible. More than once Kingsley found himself suddenly ambushed and harangued by some stranger in the corridor, until the porters, self-conscious in their new martial role, would usher them away.
Meanwhile, a local television feature presented two more cases of alleged cancer cure. The cases were carefully documented, with testimony from each patient's general practitioner guardedly supporting the claims. Kingsley's only reaction was to retreat further from the public eye, avoiding ward rounds, sticking within the hospital, to the confines of his office or the operating theatre.
Denied his quarry by every indirect route, Roland Spears decided it was time for more positive action.
Kingsley arrived at his office at eight-fifteen on Monday morning to find the door already open. He entered cautiously and turned to see a thick-set young man in a leather jacket snib the door shut behind him.
'Hello,' the man said quietly. 'Take a seat.'
'Do you mind telling me what you're doing in my office?'
'No,' said the stranger, 'I don't mind telling you that. I just felt that before the public start ripping this place apart we should have another little chat.'