by Jane Shemilt
‘I’m not really sure what an open verdict means.’ She plays for time, marshalling her thoughts.
‘That the inquest can be reopened if new evidence is found and presented to the coroner,’ Jake replies.
‘So … evidence of suicide?’
‘Not necessarily. There could be evidence of death by misadventure, for example.’ His voice drops. ‘Or evidence of murder.’ He is motionless, staring at her as if he expects a reply, but words like these need space, a framing of silence.
Ed looks up. She reads sorrow rather than accusation, he is deep in grief. Jake is the danger, the friend but not the son. She says nothing, but Jake rebukes her angrily as if she had.
‘There is nothing concrete to suggest suicide. No note.’
‘I suppose there are cases when that kind of decision is reached suddenly, a desperate, last-minute thing …’ She is walking along an invisible tightrope, everything has to be balanced – too much weight on one side or the other and she will fall.
‘The coroner said that in a surprising number of cases, a note of some kind is found.’
She mustn’t point out that no note is not in itself evidence against suicide. She must place each step one in front of another with infinite care; the chasm on either side yawns.
‘You mentioned death by misadventure; a loss of balance near the edge of those cliffs – is that the sort of thing you mean?’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ Jake says. ‘I’ve thought about that a lot. I know he’d aged, but I’ve never seen him stumble, his balance was excellent.’ He has an answer ready for each point, like a tennis player who returns every ball, the kind that wins in the end.
‘He seemed so tired; less fit than he used to be …’ she says. Jake looks at her sharply, a glimmer of triumph in his eyes. She’s made a mistake; her words imply past knowledge, and maybe an agenda. ‘Albie told me they used to play squash, but that’s a while ago now,’ she adds. Her palms feel wet.
‘He was fine that morning, Beth. We were with him, he walked for miles to the whirlpool and back.’
‘He was drinking later, that might—’
‘He’s used to alcohol. I’ve never seen it affect his judgement. Have you?’
‘I wouldn’t know, I only saw him at a distance at parties, once a year.’
Jake allows a smile to cross his face, the kind that says you are lying You know far more than you are saying. You knew Ted by heart.
‘He didn’t drink much that evening.’ Ed looks up suddenly. His cheeks are wet with tears. ‘And he was happier that day; he’d cheered up a lot in the last few days before he died. He’d found these small bottles in the lab which he thought would clear his name.’
‘Small bottles?’ Beth turns to him with a puzzled little frown.
‘Vials containing the solutions that were used in those experiments; he thought they’d been tampered with. He said he could see where the tops had been got at but I didn’t bother to look.’ His voice breaks. ‘I didn’t listen, it’s my fault. It’s all my fault; if I hadn’t been in Berne when the trial began I might have seen something—’
‘It’s not your fault, Ed,’ Jake interrupts. ‘We’ve been through all that.’ He looks at Beth. ‘We need to find those vials.’ His voice is sharp with suspicion.
‘Of course.’ She nods, gesturing to the room. There is nowhere that she hasn’t looked.
‘Having the vials would have given him a reason to stay alive, you see.’ He comes a little closer. ‘Why kill himself if he thought he could clear his name?’
‘So many ifs.’ She stands quickly, a little giddily. ‘We seem to be going round in circles, with no real answers.’ Circles that are getting smaller, like an animal trap that tightens round the struggling victim. Jake doesn’t say any more. He has had enough of her now; she sees she is meant to get out of their way. ‘Search wherever you want, I’ll be upstairs if you need me.’
Her case is open on the bed where she began to gather her things days ago. Now Ed and Jake have come, she can finish packing. She’ll call Albie once they’ve gone. The silky underwear is still in its cellophane packets, bought when she thought her body could console Albie. That hope had evaporated as quickly as the mist off the sea on a hot morning. Through the open window the cliffs are a brilliant green against the sky, the almond scent of cow parsley comes up through the still air. As she folds a shirt, a high-pitched mewing unfurls in the silence like the distant cry of a baby. She half falls, half runs downstairs, turning her ankle, then hurries limping through the kitchen. Ed and Jake are rifling through Albie’s desk and don’t look up. She jogs painfully into the garden, searching the undergrowth, looking under trees, her breath hot in her throat. A baby here somewhere, alone and desperate for its mother. She stops to listen again, but the crying isn’t coming from the ground. Above her head two large buzzards float in the air, pale circles under each wing. Their calls are high-pitched, more like a cat than a baby. What madness overtook her? She puts a shaking hand to her mouth and limps slowly back to the house, meeting Ed and Jake on their way out.
‘Off already?’
‘To the hotel, we booked rooms,’ Ed tells her, his hand on the car door. He has been crying again, his eyes look sore. ‘Jake’s tired, he drove through the night. We’ll be back tomorrow.’
As she watches them drive away, she texts Albie:
Ed and Jake were here, looking for vials; coming back to search again tomorrow.
She replaces the phone in her pocket and returns to the house for a drink of water. She should eat as Albie said, but her left molar hurts when she chews. She used to look after her body as a soldier his weapons, but now she can’t remember when she last saw a dentist. There is a strange taste in her mouth, sweet, stale. Her teeth feel gritty, as if she had stuffed her mouth with rotten cake crumbs but was unable to swallow them down. She should go for a swim to clear her head, but the ocean encircles the house, a glittering army laying siege. She sits by the window while outside the buzzards slide in the hot air, watching and waiting for prey.
27
London. Summer 2018
There is a wood on the stage now; real-looking trees and a man stumbling about as if lost. There are no signposts and no one to guide or command. This man is on his own, for better or worse than he could possibly imagine.
He’s left the safety of his lair; a dangerous thing to do. Ask any animal.
Albie has a good view of the doors with his back to the windows. He’s waiting for Skuld in the lower-ground-floor café at the Royal Free Hospital. On a nearby table, a group of white-coated students lean together over cans of Coke. Their pockets bulge with pens and torches. They are eager and untidy; that stage where you think knowledge opens the world like the pages of a book. He watches where and how they sit, who talks and who listens, the little signs that indicate who the alpha male and female are, though in the end none of that will matter. They are destined for the same cages, the same wheels. They will have orderly lives; their dramas will be contained. They won’t pursue glory or revenge; when they sleep, their dreams will be pleasant.
Thunder rumbles. Beyond the large windows, the sky is black. Thunderstorms are predicted, unusual for July, but the weather has been unusual all summer. A group of nurses enter the café, the air rings with chatter and the clash of cutlery. The receptionist he spoke to yesterday promised to pass on his message; Skuld should appear soon. He’ll buy her lunch, she might tell him what she heard at the last consultants’ meeting if she was there. His mobile rings while he is scanning the queue by the canteen for a blond head, the slight figure.
‘Mr Shaw is up, he is feeling better and wants to go.’ Suria is his new registrar, keen to please. ‘Brian Thwaite’s fine, his tremor’s gone.’ As he listens, the café darkens, rain has started.
‘Good. They can go home now.’
‘Billy’s a little unsettled again this morning …’ She is hesitant, as though the bad news is somehow her fault. ‘He was fine overnight but
his temperature rose in the early hours; it’s thirty-eight point five now.’
‘Pulse rate?’
‘A hundred and forty.’
‘Vomiting?’
‘Not since admission. His discs are normal though he’s restless, it’s difficult to see them properly.’
‘Look again. Does the dome refill on pressure?’
‘Very slowly.’
‘Is his father around?’
‘Just his mum; she’s really worried.’
As Albie listens, lightning scrawls through the clouds, the students whistle and exclaim. He makes his decision; antibiotics will buy time for Jake to return with the hook of discussing an operation to remove the shunt.
‘Start an IV and take the microbiologist’s advice as to the best combination of antibiotics. See if you can contact Billy’s father, ask him to come in to discuss treatment options.’
‘I could organise theatre,’ Suria suggests eagerly. ‘I’ll put him first on the list and that way—’
‘The shunt isn’t blocked, Suria. Antibiotics will keep him safe for now. Contact Mr Valance please. I’ll review Billy later.’
He ends the call. There is a scent of burning, doubtless from the kitchens, but he thinks of lightning across the sky, bridges incinerating behind him. He looks at his watch. He’ll scan Billy in a few hours then remove the shunt if he’s no better. In the meantime his plan is defensible; antibiotics could work on their own.
‘Baird.’
He turns. A dumpy, white-haired woman carrying a cup of tea has approached from his left. The Scottish accent is familiar. A friend from home? A patient?
‘Baird McAlister, that ever was.’ Oblique hazel eyes behind pebble glasses scan his keenly. ‘You’ve forgotten me.’ She leans to kiss him, her cheeks as furred and wrinkled as overripe peaches. He catches the scent of formalin and chocolate and in that moment the nights in the Glasgow lab come back to him, the project on rat stress that he conducted despite the disapproval of the laboratory manager, who is standing before him now, a little fatter, but with the same quizzical gaze, a capacious satchel slung across her body like a shield. Hilary Jenks.
‘Hilary. What a surprise.’ He indicates the seat next to him. How could he have forgotten, even for a moment? Her reign had been trenchant.
She puts her tea on the table and sits, a plump cat, settling herself on her cushion. ‘Not exactly a surprise; I run the animal lab here nowadays. I heard you phoned so I knew where to find you. Couldn’t resist.’ Her eyes travel over him rapidly, frowning as if performing a risk assessment. She always was forthright. ‘Well, and what are you up to, laddie?’
‘I’ve been appointed acting consultant at the National Hospital in Queen Square and acting head of the lab at the Institute of Neurology.’ Acting. The understudy called in at short notice and still unsure of the plot. He manufactures a smile for his audience. ‘I’ve been very lucky.’
‘You’ve come a long way.’ Her lips tighten slightly. ‘As I suspected you would.’ Ambivalent congratulations, but it had always been tricky to read her. She’d hovered over his student project, attempting to restrict the hours he spent shining lights on rats, counting defecation as a marker of stress. She opposed the endless repetitions but his thoroughness had paid off; he’d achieved the project prize for that year which had set him on the path. He owes her a debt.
‘You’ve come a long way too.’
‘The Glasgow lab got closed down. A fire, made national TV.’ Her voice is almost proud.
More fires; memory stirs. Glasgow. Three years ago, flames leaping into the dark air, the drama of rescued animals relayed on the ten o’clock news; a researcher had died trying to salvage his work.
‘I’m sorry, Hilary.’
‘Don’t be. It was time for a move. Oxford first and then here about three years ago. I’ve got a great deal more responsibility now.’
‘And the family?’
‘Sven and I divorced, so I moved near our daughters.’ She smiles fondly. ‘We still keep rescue dogs.’
He recalls the little girls who watched him while they chewed their mothers’ brownies and waited for their father; the mongrel she kept under her desk.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmurs again.
Oh, we’re much better on our own, just me and my girls. And the animals, of course.’ Her next glance is probing. ‘I heard about those vaccine trials at the Institute. What happened there?’
‘I know very little about it. Ed Malcolm was running the lab for his father at the time. I was on the wards during the whole period.’
‘And the recent death of the Professor?’
‘A tragedy.’
‘He must have been under stress.’
He nods, glancing away. He’s not yet ready to discuss Ted with those who didn’t know him. They sip in silence before he leans forward. ‘It’s been good to catch up,’ he says, meaning it, ‘but I’m here because I was hoping to meet with your new lab assistant; her name is Skuld.’
‘Why would that be?’ The cat’s eyes glimmer.
‘The police are tracing everyone who worked with Ted for information on his state of mind.’ Where do these lies come from? he wonders. They appear as if ready-made from a store he never knew was there. ‘I promised I’d chat to Skuld on their behalf.’
‘Well, you can’t. She’s gone swimming, half-day.’ She pats his hand and rises. ‘Don’t look so woebegone, I’ll tell her you called. She’ll be in touch if she has anything to say.’
He kisses her, her cheek indents, more marshmallow than peach, a rough, sugared surface. She adjusts her satchel and waves him off.
It’s still raining. He turns right out of the hospital and begins to jog down Pond Street. It had been interesting to encounter Hilary again, unmellowed since the days she patrolled the lab in his teaching hospital, more challenging if anything. He’d felt warned off from Skuld, but he can guess where she’s gone for her swim. She told him she and her sisters swam in the ponds on the Heath and he can’t see her in the chlorinated water at Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre somehow – too conventional, too crowded. He turns left down South End Road then right on to the Heath. The grass and summer trees glow lime in the periphery; as he jogs his shoes become soaked and stuck with beech mast. Thunder is rumbling distantly, the storm moving further away. Halfway up Parliament Hill he branches off to the left, runs down to skirt the men’s pond and join the narrow gravelly path that leads towards Highgate. The light abruptly dwindles, filtering through meshed branches. The smell of wet earth is mixed with the metallic scent of pond water.
Three bikes are fastened together against the fence. The gate is locked. A notice, hung with rope looped over the post, states that no swimming is permitted in thunderstorms. He scales the fence awkwardly and jumps down, his landing muted by the pine needles which carpet the ground. Wet trees crowd close to the path, dark green water glimmers between the ivy covered trunks up ahead. He detects movement in the pond; heads floating as if disembodied: blonde, red and grey. A wildflower meadow runs alongside, partly hidden from the water by trees and bushes. He stands behind a willow tree, up to his knees in thin grass and wilting poppies, shivering in his wet clothes and feeling absurd. He should be at work, not huddled by the women’s ponds on the Heath in the rain, but he’s come too far to falter now.
It’s impossible not to pace as he waits and not to feel as he paces that he is becoming increasingly like Ted. He can see him as clearly as if he were treading the grass ahead of him, tall and vigorous as he used to be, phone clamped to his ear, turning and turning again, pausing to mouth a joke or pull a face. The sorrow is physical, a punch to his abdomen; he hadn’t accounted for this. In the heat of that night he hadn’t accounted for anything. He holds still, waiting for the pain to pass. After five minutes, the women swim to the edge of the pond and climb out. Skuld is distinguishable by her workman-like gait at odds with the fragile body. Verdandi’s movements are calm while Urth lunges abruptly for her towel. He watches
as they shed their black swimsuits, an uneasy spectator of Skuld’s white back tattooed with a curving snake, neat buttocks and small breasts lifting as she pulls on a tee shirt. They move off into the trees; he runs to the back of the meadow, pushing through brambles, his clothes hooking on thorns. By the time he has wrenched himself free, he is almost upon them where they sit on a rug in a clearing. They look round calmly, almost as if they’d known he was coming. He smiles; he’s beginning to be familiar with these girls, the air of mystery in which they cloak themselves, as though they have secret powers of some kind.
‘I hope you don’t mind me arriving like this.’
Skuld points to the rug. Little piles of wilted leaves are heaped in front of them, rolls of dark bread, cakes, apples. He shakes his head but takes it as an invitation to join them and sits next to her. Verdandi’s face glowers between the limp grey curtains of her hair, Urth’s brown eyes are lowered to her clasped hands; following her gaze he glimpses white fur, then two naked tails thread through her stubby fingers. Rats, white laboratory rats. He is astonished and outraged in equal measure. Urth places them gently on the ground, a nose lifts and twitches, pink eyes half close against the glare. The rats turn and scuttle through the arch made by her lifted thighs.
‘Jesus.’ He scrambles to his feet and takes a step into the undergrowth, but the rats have disappeared. ‘Where the hell did they come from? They won’t survive half an hour.’
‘Freedom,’ Urth says triumphantly. The word in her voice sparks the memory of a pub two years ago, the sisters celebrating the end of the day, or so he’d thought. He feels sick with anger. Had they been releasing rats back then? Bruce’s smug face flashes into his mind, the loss of his rats hits him with force. ‘My God, rats went missing from the Institute recently, my rats. Was that you as well?’