Death on the Koh-i-Noor (Edwin Scott Crime Trilogy Book 3)

by Felix Bruckner

  “Anything to eat, gentlemen?”

  Before us stood a statuesque lady, a white hibiscus blossom in her raven hair, grass-skirted and garlanded, but otherwise totally bare above the waist. When I surveyed the room, I found that all the waitresses were thus attired. Christopher ordered for us:

  “No, we'll just have four lagers, please.”

  I watched, mesmerised, as she walked away, her large, beautifully-formed breasts (slightly lighter in colour than the rest of her skin) bouncing entrancingly.

  “Best if we paid after each round,” Christopher continued. “The prices are pretty steep here, almost as expensive as the Reef Hotel; awkward if we run out of cash ... The trick here, Danny, is to hold the cash close to you when you pay – make her lean over. Watch ...”

  She brought our drinks, and then had to stretch across the table towards Christopher, displaying her wares to perfection; I cringed. Piped chamber music played in the background, as we sipped the cold lager and relaxed, chatting about Hawaii, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour which brought the United States into the Second World War, and parochial ship-board matters. I bought the second round of drinks, but refused point-blank to make our topless waitress reach. I counted out fifty dollars, plus a ten dollar tip. I didn't think I would have enough for a further round ...

  As I surveyed the happy flushed faces of my companions, I contemplated the absent member of our group – Davey Goodenough (“Pronounced Goodenow ...”). Though he was undeniably handsome – tall, slim with curly light brown hair – had a languid charm, and was always impeccably dressed, he tended to play second fiddle to Christopher McFee, always stood in his shadow. I wondered if he sometimes resented this, wanted occasionally to be centre stage; but if so, he never gave any indication of it in my presence. What I found most surprising was his genuine affection for Jamie Cameron, given their very different backgrounds: while Jamie came from the slums of Glasgow, Davey had had a public school education (Winchester College, I'd heard), and was descended from minor aristocracy ...

  The conversation drifted around me, and I was feeling pleasantly drowsy, until I became aware of my uncomfortably full bladder; I rose abruptly, excused myself; swaying slightly, I floated across the room.

  The hallway was thickly carpeted in cream, and potted plants were dotted on occasional tables around the walls; the background music continued relentlessly.

  “Where's the loo?” I asked the doorman.

  “Lulu's upstairs. You got an appointment?”

  Once I had resolved the misunderstanding, he showed me to the luxuriously appointed lavatory, where I was able to relieve myself, as the Haydn quartet reached a crescendo. Returning, I came across Christopher on a pay-phone in the foyer. He finished his call and joined me on my way back:

  “Last chance of contacting my girl-friend in San Francisco, before we arrive there ...”

  From across the room, we could hear Jamie arguing with Danny; Scottish expletives tumbled over each other, as the normally taciturn Jamie gave vent to his anger:

  “You'd bloody outrank me!”

  They had been discussing Danny's increased responsibilities, since the death of Graham Parkin, the first radio officer; Danny Stone had requested the temporary rank of second radio officer, but hadn't yet heard the outcome.

  At the sound of the raised voices and swearing, a big Polynesian bouncer was approaching our table. This sort of behaviour wouldn't do at Lulu's!

  Instantly, Christopher rushed to defuse the situation:

  “Tone it down, chaps; no swearing here ... leave it for another time, okay?”

  He succeeded in mollifying them, and the bouncer withdrew.

  The conversation turned to my carpeting by Stephen Kipper, the chief officer, for staying too long at the Gala Dance.

  “The Kipper's a bit of a martinet ...”

  “But beneath his rough exterior, there beats a heart of gold ...”

  Christopher consulted his watch:

  “Drink up, boys; it's one-thirty ... Time to go ... Some of us have to be on duty tomorrow morning.”

  It felt quite chilly in my short-sleeved shirt, when we emerged into the night. Stars frosted the clear sky, and a full moon rode high at our sides. Taking a short-cut to the harbour, we descended a long flight of steep stone stairs, our footsteps echoing loudly in our ears; we found ourselves in a dark narrow alley, where we came to an uncertain halt. The scent of exotic blooms drifted up to us. In the sudden silence, five figures had emerged from the shadows before us, each clutching a baseball bat. They approached us, a big man in a singlet and shorts advancing purposefully towards me.

  “The shorty with the funny shirt is mine ...” he called hoarsely.

  He crouched slightly; his baseball bat dropped with a clang, and the blade of a flick-knife glinted evilly in the moonlight. There was a roar: out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Jamie surging into action; he swung his foot at his attacker's groin; I heard the thud as the heavy shoe made contact, and the simultaneous gasp of pain.

  Then my assailant was before me, aligning his knife with my left eye. The odour of stale sweat and halitosis swept over me; I noticed inconsequentially that he was as bald as a billiard ball, and the moonlight was reflecting brightly from his scalp. There was no time for further thought, let alone fear. Adrenalin galvanised me. As he lunged, I bent at the knees to lower my hips; I grasped his right wrist and fore-arm, swivelled, and leaned back into him to disturb his balance; as my body continued to rotate, I bent forward and suddenly straightened my knees; he flew over my head in an arc, landing on his back on the hard cobbles with a satisfying thunk – a perfect shoulder throw, seoinage!

  The tableau was frozen: my assailant lying motionless, blood trickling from his mouth; Jamie's man retching, on his hands and knees; Christopher, abnormally pale in the moonlight, mute, defeated, backed away from his adversary. The silence was shattered by a police whistle. The scene dissolved: my man was helped to his feet by his friends, and all five shuffled off sadly, leaving behind a knife and three baseball bats. Danny put away his whistle.

  “My dad's a cop. He makes me carry this whenever I go ashore ... That was brilliant, Edwin ... You a judo expert?”

  “Second kyu – blue belt, London Judo Society,” I mumbled modestly; but I was flushed with pleasure.

  “A kick in the balls ... they teach my kinda fighting in Shettlestone, the part o' Glasgae I come from.” No false modesty from Jamie Cameron.

  “Leave the weapons, chaps ... We'd best get straight back to the ship.” Christopher McFee had regained some of his composure. “No point in reporting this to the police. They might hold us for hours, and we could miss the boat's sailing ... Anyway, no-one's hurt, and we couldn't give a decent description of these men, could we?”

  “Peg-leg, patch over the right eye, jagged scar on the left cheek, missing the tip of the left middle finger ...”

  My sense of humour was returning, now that the danger appeared to have passed.

  Back in my cabin on board the Koh-i-Noor, I checked everyone over – hardly a scratch!

  “No need to bring this up with the captain, chaps,” Christopher warned us. “Only lead to difficulties ... Best forget the whole episode.”

  During the night I awoke, mouth dry, heart palpitating. I swung my legs out of bed, and padded in my bare feet to the bathroom for a drink of water; next I fetched the file from my Gladstone bag, took up my pen; after a few moments, I began to jot down my thoughts:

  “Has this attack been another murder attempt – on me? If so, how had they known where to ambush us? Had someone been following us all night? Well, Charles Hardcastle had had to sanction my shore leave, so he would certainly have known when I left the ship. Come to think of it, he had also known when I went ashore in Sydney and Tonga ... Whoever it was, there was at least one member of the gang left on board the Koh-i-Noor after the murder, and several more ashore – perhaps scattered around the globe. It seems increasingly likely that a major internation
al organisation is involved. But what's the racket? Is it drugs, guns, money (laundering or counterfeiting), diamond smuggling, the white slave trade? Drugs – cocaine or heroin – seem the most likely ... They think I am an undercover agent on their track, and seem determined to eliminate me before I get too close ...”

  So far I had been lucky, but I knew I was way out of my depth. This was no longer an academic exercise in deductive reasoning in the grand Sherlock Holmes manner ...

  Having transferred my thoughts to paper, I felt unexpectedly relieved. I replaced the file in my medical bag under the couch, returned to bed, switched off the light, and, almost instantly, returned to sleep.

  Sunday, 14th August: I had no duties today, so slept late. My cabin steward eventually woke me mid-morning; when he drew the curtain, the sun poured into my cabin. The rhythm of the ship told me that we were back at sea; we had set sail at seven-thirty, though I had remained asleep.

  Constanzio left my breakfast tray on the desk, and withdrew. Soon, the coffee aroma tempted me from my bunk; while I consumed the fresh roll with strawberry jam, and sipped my coffee, I reflected once more on the events of the previous night; I felt curiously detached, the terror banished; it had all happened in a different world.

  “I need a shower,” I thought, “before I can show myself on deck.”

  Enveloped in a world of steam, I relaxed and let my mind go blank; time stood still ...

  I froze: through the frosted glass, I could see the door handle turn. My heart thumped painfully in my chest, as the bathroom door opened slowly. I was naked, totally vulnerable; there was no escape; this time, they would surely kill me.

  The face was blurred, but there was no mistaking the diminutive form and the long golden tresses. It was Wendy!

  “I'm sorry. I did knock, but there was no answer ...”

  Though her voice was raised, I could barely hear her over the noise of the water cascading from the shower-head. I stood, mesmerised, while her clothes fell, one by one, onto the bathroom floor. The shower door opened, and she was beside me, the hot stream coursing down her face and between her breasts; she pressed herself against me; her arms encircled my neck; her mouth, hard against mine, suddenly opened, and I felt her tongue probing.

  After an eternity, we came apart, breathless. She spoke:

  “You asked me to come back, if the medicine hadn't improved my cough in three days ...”

  My heart continued its gallop, unabated., but no longer from fear.

  Monday, 15th August: The days were getting cooler, though the sun still shone brightly; the seas were rougher, the water appearing much greyer than in the South Pacific.

  For a time I was obsessed. Wendy filled my thoughts. I dreamed about her by day and by night ... For long periods I avoided alcohol – sticking to soft drinks – so that my senses would not be dulled. I was a different sort of zombie, as I strode the decks of the ship, my mind miles away.

  We met in the many bars of the Koh-i-Noor; we swam together in the Tourist Class swimming pool; we won or lost a few pounds at the roulette tables in the casino; we sat in the back row of the ship's cinema through two performances of Born Free (hardly aware of the stars, the actress Virginia McKenna, and the lioness, Elsa). Wendy even gate-crashed an engineering officers' pour-out in search of me – and was allowed to stay! I fitted my new social life seamlessly around my professional duties: crew surgeries, kitchen inspections, presiding at my tables for dinner; all my activities became somewhat hectic, but only medical emergencies were allowed to disrupt my new routine.

  Wednesday, 17th August: We leant over the rail, aft on A Deck. All was still, there was not even the faintest breeze. Threads of cloud were daubed a soft flamingo pink. The copper orb of the sun hovered on the horizon, before sinking swiftly into the sea; from azure, the sky turned to indigo, then violet, and finally a silky black; light fades quickly in a tropical sunset. I discerned no Great Bear Constellation in these Southern skies. However, in the darkness of the heavens, the ship's wake was mirrored in the phosphorescence of the Milky Way. Wendy shivered involuntarily, and gripped my hand. Gently, I kissed her ...

  The silence was interrupted by raucous laughter, as two couples erupted from the companionway. The spell was broken. Still holding hands, we headed for the lights and entertainments below-deck ...

  My mind was replaying in reverse the events of the evening with Wendy, as I approached my cabin: the slow intimate waltzes to subdued lighting in the ballroom, the winnings at the Casino, the darkness of the observation deck. I could still see the bright constellations circling in the heavens, feel the soft kisses on my lips. The ringing of my phone interrupted my thoughts as I turned the key in the lock. Slightly breathless, I lifted the receiver at the third ring:

  “Edwin?” Jo Flinders' voice held a hint of anxiety. “Please come to the hospital right away. We have a very sick lady of seventy-four. A diabetic with a bad heart. Her blood pressure is in her boots, and she's barely conscious ...”

  “What's her breathing like?” I interrupted.

  “Very heavy, very deep ...”

  “Okay ... Have a giving-set ready with normal saline, and a cut-down set in case I have problems getting a cannula into a vein ... I'll be right over.”

  I grabbed my Gladstone bag; I found Professor Pudding's blood glucose monitoring strips in a cupboard, and stuck them in my jacket pocket. Without pausing even to switch off the light or lock my cabin, I sprinted towards the ship's hospital ...

  “She's Muriel Hubbard, First Class passenger on a world cruise ...”

  I ignored the notes Jo was holding up towards me.

  The patient's eyes were half-closed, her breath was hissing through her teeth, and I could smell the strong sweet odour of acetone as soon as I entered the room: she was in diabetic pre-coma, lapsing into coma.

  Professor Gabriel Pudding was head of the Metabolic Unit , and a legend at The London, a diminutive dynamo with red face and ginger hair, crackling with energy. While I worked for him, he had alternately charmed and terrified me. As a parting gift, when he had learned that I was to become a ship's doctor, he had given me a supply of experimental impregnated plastic strips with which I could measure the blood sugar directly – I had felt like Jack, on his way home from market with a sack-full of magic beans.

  A litre bottle of Normal (0.9%) Saline Solution, connected to a plastic giving set, hung from a stand by the bed; the sterile trolley for intravenous cannulation stood next to it. Jo Flinders had phoned Roy Slater and Agatha Pitrose, and they arrived simultaneously, just after me; Slater wheeled a pharmacy trolley stacked with equipment – bottles of N Saline, 5% Dextrose, Dextrose Saline, ampoules of soluble insulin, potassium chloride for injection and by mouth, and strips to measure urinary sugar and ketones.

  “Okay, Mrs Hubbard. First I must get a needle into your vein, you need fluids, insulin ...”

  She was semi-comatose. I observed her thready pulse, her dry tongue, the loss of skin elasticity (all signs of severe dehydration).

  My thoughts had been racing in time with my pulse; now the world seemed to slow: my mind was suddenly ice-cold, concentrating on the matter in hand, detached from all else.

  Sister Pitrose indicated that the junior sister should continue to assist me.

  “Her pulse is 106 per minute, BP 90/60 mm of mercury, Dr Scott,” Jo reported.

  “We must hurry, or we'll lose her,” I whispered.

  I dabbed the skin with a spirit swab, and grasped the stainless steel butterfly indwelling needle. Now she inflated the blood pressure cuff to 80 mm Hg. Elderly veins have thick walls, are not well tethered, tend to move under the needle, and are difficult to enter, especially (as here) if the venous pressure is low; however, I was gratified to feel the needle slide in sweetly. I withdrew the spigot, connected a syringe loaded with saline, and saw a small quantity of blood enter the syringe. I pulled back the inner bevelled needle a few millimetres, and pushed the outer cannula down the vein up to the hilt – thankfully
, there would be no need for a cut-down. I detached the syringe, and replaced it with a three-way tap; I withdrew a small quantity of blood into a new empty syringe for testing; then attached the drip-set, and started the infusion. Now I was grateful for Professor Pudding's testing strips: the blood glucose level was very high, around 600mg/100ml – at the top of the scale! I injected soluble insulin 100 units slowly through the three-way tap. I aimed to infuse the first five hundred millilitres of fluid in half an hour, provided her heart would take it. I checked her jugular venous pressure – not elevated; rolled her onto her side and listened to the back of her chest – no crepitations at the lung bases; thus no evidence of heart failure at the moment.

  “Can you tell me about yourself, Mrs Hubbard?” No answer, only retching.

  I rolled her back, and concluded my quick check of her heart and lungs; her abdomen was soft, no abnormalities; her pupils reacted to light; all limbs seemed to move normally, and her reflexes and plantar responses were normal.

  “Could you please catheterise her, Sister, and start a fluid intake and output chart ... Potassium has passed from the cells into the vascular compartment, and has been lost in the urine; problems will arise when the insulin starts acting, reducing the blood sugar and ketones, and pushing the potassium ions back into the cells. Low serum potassium is dangerous, but giving it intravenously is very risky, high concentrations could stop the heart. Unfortunately we have no laboratory facilities to measure serum potassium levels on board the Koh-i-Noor, so the best I can do is to check the electrocardiogram, which will pick up the cardiac effects – low levels reduce the voltage of the complexes, and toxic levels increase the voltage. We will have to replenish the potassium orally, but only after the blood sugar is well on its way down ...”