by Laura Wilson
Sister Radford frowned for a moment, then her face cleared. ‘Of course – Dr Ransome must have told you.’
‘Told me…?’
‘About Dr Dacre being one of the last people to speak to…’ she lowered her voice dramatically, ‘poor Dr Byrne.’
‘Oh? When was this, exactly?’
‘The afternoon before he…before it happened. Dr Byrne came up here—Isn’t that why you’ve come to see Dr Dacre?’
‘Well,’ Stratton prevaricated, ‘with cases like this, we do need to make sure…’ This being said in the reasonable tone of one professional person appealing to another for discretion, Sister Radford said briskly that she quite understood and would fetch Dr Dacre straight away.
Stratton gazed about him at the rows of people waiting, with patient resignation, to be treated. Hearing their low murmurs, punctuated every now and then by a hacking cough, and seeing the grey, worn faces, running noses, lank hair and drab, patched clothing, soiled by brick dust, the rough attempts at bandaging cuts and wounds with anything to hand – the only real touch of brightness being the occasional angry red of a boil or sore – he thought, we can’t go on much longer. None of us can; we’re exhausted – there’s no colour or spirit or jollity left. How can we bring up our children in a world like this? Monica and Pete, he thought, could quite well round on him one day and say, ‘Why should we listen to you?’ and he wouldn’t have an answer. After all, their generation could hardly do worse than his, or the one before it – two world wars and half the country in ruins…Thinking of the children reminded him of his and Jenny’s argument last night, over the fact that that bloody woman was stopping at their house. He could see her point about Mrs Ingram having no friends and relations, but all the same…He agreed with Don that she ought to go to the bin, but Jenny had seemed so on edge, so…what was the word…fragile, that was it, that he was glad he hadn’t pushed it. They’d have to discuss it again later. Stratton turned his mind to why Byrne had wanted to speak to Dacre. If it were a case of negligence, like Reynolds’s, which had resulted in the death of a patient…He heard someone say his name and looked up to see a dark-haired young man of medium size standing before him, white-coated, with a stethoscope around his neck and a bruise on his temple. ‘Dacre.’ The man smiled and offered his hand. ‘Sister Radford said you wanted to see me.’
‘Inspector Stratton, CID. I can see you’re busy, so I’ll try to keep it brief.’
‘Be glad of the respite, to be honest.’ Dacre grinned. ‘Rather a full house.’
‘What happened there?’ asked Stratton, indicating the bruise.
‘Bit of an altercation, I’m afraid. A rather large lady with a powerful left hook who took exception when I told her she was about to become a grandmother.’
‘Ah,’ said Stratton. ‘And the father?’
‘Heaven knows. The mother-to-be wasn’t entirely with us, if you know what I mean.’ Dacre tapped his head with a finger.
‘Don’t I just.’ Stratton found himself grinning in response. People – women – would like this chap, he thought. Not because of self-confidence or urbanity or matinée-idol looks – the charm was the self-deprecating type. ‘Oh, well.’ Dacre shrugged. ‘One born every day. How can I help you?’
Stratton, realising that he should be taking the lead, collected himself by clearing his throat and said, ‘I understand that you were involved in a bit of an accident a couple of days ago, when some morphine went missing.’
Dacre frowned. ‘Accident?’
‘Upstairs. A rather attractive nurse by the name of Fay Marchant.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Dacre smiled. ‘Couldn’t forget her in a hurry, could you? It’s just that rather a lot’s happened in the last forty-eight hours, Inspector. Let’s see…Well, we bumped into each other – entirely my fault, I’m afraid – and she dropped the things she was carrying. A tray, with a hypodermic syringe and morphine. I found one of the phials – smashed to pieces – but the others disappeared, and we thought they must have gone under the floorboards.’
‘We pulled them up to have a look,’ said Stratton, ‘but we couldn’t find anything.’
Dacre raised his eyebrows. ‘Very thorough. But I don’t understand why they weren’t there. I mean…’ he looked baffled, ‘there’s nowhere else they could have gone.’
‘You didn’t pick them up?’
‘Heavens, no! If we want morphine, all we have to do is…’ he held out his hand and made an eager schoolboy face, ‘please, Sister…We don’t have to pinch the stuff.’
‘And you’re sure they went into the crack between the floor and the wall?’
‘Pretty sure. To be honest, I was rather distracted by meeting the lovely Nurse Marchant, Inspector, and I’m afraid I took advantage of the situation by inviting her out for a drink with me that evening.’
‘She didn’t tell me that,’ said Stratton, privately acknowledging that, in Dacre’s shoes, he’d have done exactly the same.
‘Well, she wouldn’t. It’s strictly against the rules, you know.’ Dacre grinned again. ‘A very nice time we had, too. But I’m sure you’re not a bearer of tales, Inspector. I’d hate to get her into any trouble.’
Stratton, thinking of Sergeant Ballard and Policewoman Gaines, and pleased that Dacre hadn’t taken the both-men-of-the-world line, said, ‘No, of course not. But it doesn’t solve the problem of where the morphine ended up.’
Dacre looked thoughtful. ‘I haven’t been here long, but I think the building’s taken a fair old hammering – not necessarily directly, but all this,’ he looked skyward, ‘does tend to make the old foundations shift about a bit. There might have been a crack below the crack, if you see what I mean.’
‘Possibly,’ said Stratton, ‘but there was a hell of a lot of dust down there, and I would have thought…’
‘You’re probably right. But short of taking the whole place apart…As I said, my attention wasn’t fully on the matter, so I suppose they might have just rolled away and been picked up by someone else. It’s not impossible. I know it doesn’t sound good, and I’m sorry not to be more help.’
‘Oh, well…’ Stratton gave a deliberately heavy sigh. He wasn’t so drawn in that he’d failed to notice Dacre’s assumption that Stratton thought he’d stolen the morphine phials rather than just pocketing them accidentally and forgetting about them. And he’d begun to feel that there was something not entirely right behind the easiness of manner – the man was holding his gaze for just a fraction too long. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘the other matter.’
‘Other?’ Dacre frowned.
‘I understand that Dr Byrne came up here to speak to you on the afternoon before his death.’
‘Oh…yes. Yes, that’s right, we did have a few words.’
‘Why was that?’
‘A medical matter.’
‘Which was?’
Dacre hesitated, staring at his shoes, then smiled in a rueful, schoolboyish way. ‘You might not wish to hear this, Inspector.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It was about a testicular torsion.’
‘A what?’
‘Well, without going into too much detail, it occurs when the cord that takes blood to the testicle becomes twisted, which cuts off the supply. Prolonged torsion can result in the death of the testicle and surrounding tissue, which is what happened in this case, I’m afraid. It’s agonising, of course, no fun at all, and—’
‘Right. I get the picture,’ said Stratton, hastily. He’d started to feel sick fairly early on in Dacre’s description, and definitely did not want to hear any more. ‘And Byrne spoke to you because…?’ he prompted, not at all sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
‘I’d never seen one before, you see – the poor chap was in terrible pain, but I hadn’t quite appreciated the urgency of the situation. Of course, the testicle had to come off – gangrene, you know, although they did manage to save the other one – and I’d asked Dr Byrne if the dead one could be kept, so that I coul
d have a look at it. Then, next time, I’d be—’
‘Next time?’ asked Stratton, faintly. ‘Does it happen often?’
‘Only to children and young men – usually under twenty.’ Dacre gave him a sympathetic look. ‘No need for you to worry, Inspector, although a hard blow in the right place might—’
Stratton, who was fighting the impulse to clutch his groin, held up his hand.
‘Sorry,’ said Dacre. ‘But as I said, I was worried, because obviously it’s important to get the diagnosis correct, and—’
‘You can say that again,’ said Stratton, adding hastily, ‘but please don’t. How did Dr Byrne seem to you?’
‘It’s difficult to say. I’d only met him once, you see. He certainly didn’t seem agitated or anything like that. Inspector, are you all right?’
‘I think,’ said Stratton, who was unable to rid his mind of the vile images Dacre had conjured, and horribly aware of what could – surely to God – only be a sympathetic pain between his legs, ‘that I’d better get some fresh air.’
‘Good idea. Don’t worry, it’ll pass off.’
‘Thanks,’ said Stratton. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’ Stuffing his notebook in his pocket, and clapping his hat on his head, he made a hasty exit and, hurrying outside, leant against the nearest wall and took deep breaths, while focusing his attention as hard as he could on an ancient poster – FOR YOUR THROAT’S SAKE, SMOKE CRAVEN A – on the opposite side of the road. ‘No fun at all,’ he muttered to himself. That was what Dacre had said. ‘Christ!’
After several minutes, the feeling that he was about to puke receded enough for him to light a cigarette and make some jottings in his notebook. He suddenly had a feeling that the whole business was like a game of chess in which he was ignorant of the moves. Was he missing something obvious? If so, what the hell was it?
He glanced at his wristwatch. Half past five. He’d had more than enough for one day. He’d collect Arliss, look into the station to see how Ballard was getting on with tracing Todd, then go home for supper and an hour on his allotment. Fuck this, he told himself: I’ve earned a bit of peace and quiet.
Then, with a sinking heart, he remembered Mrs Ingram. Peace and quiet was exactly what he wasn’t going to get, at least not in his own home. It would have to be the allotment, then the pub. He was buggered if he was going to have another evening like last night.
Forty-Eight
Dacre felt pleased with his performance. His deliberately elaborate description of the symptoms of testicular torsion had done its job even better than he’d expected. Besides, Inspector Stratton had liked him; he could tell. After the shock of going into a public call box yesterday evening, and discovering that GER 1212 was, indeed, the number of West End Central police station – he’d put the receiver down pretty sharpish when he heard that – he’d spent a profitable couple of hours rehearsing exactly what he would say when interviewed, and it had all come out word-perfect, with just the right amount of spontaneity.
He watched the big policeman out of sight, then spun on his heels to face the rows of waiting patients. ‘Now then,’ he sang out, ‘who’s next?’
A couple of hours later, Dacre had finished work and returned to his lodgings. Apart from his failure to understand plumbum oscillans, which earned him a very funny look from Dr Ransome, he’d had an unexpectedly good day. It wasn’t in his medical dictionary – which he’d removed from his special hidey-hole in case a full search was instigated – but, when he discovered that plumbism was the medical term for lead poisoning, a dim recollection of chemistry lessons at school allowed him to work it out: swinging the lead. Malingering. Of course.
Guessing that Fay would come off duty at about the same time as he did, he’d wondered if he ought to nip upstairs to talk to her, but decided against it. It wouldn’t do to make himself conspicuous – for all he knew, Inspector Stratton might still be sniffing about the place. He’d see Fay tomorrow. He wanted to hear about her interview with the inspector. There was no reason to imagine that their stories hadn’t matched, but it was best to check. Besides, it would give him something to look forward to – it was high time he had her to himself again. Constantly thinking about her was distracting him, and that was no good at all. She must be secured, he thought, properly, and the quicker that happened the better, although, after the fiasco at the Clarendon, he’d need to go carefully with the sex stuff.
On his way home, he’d stopped at a café for a supper of tea and sausage rolls, and now he was settled in his single armchair with his pitifully thin pillow doubled up at the small of his back, a bottle of beer and glass to hand, and the Psychological Medicine textbook in his lap. He’d been reading for a couple of hours – some of it mundane, obvious, some fascinating, when he came upon a section about delusions and found something that made him laugh out loud.
French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras (b.1873, Verdun-sur-Garonne), gave his name to the Capgras delusion. First described in a paper in 1923, using the term ‘l’illusion des sosies’ (the illusion of doubles), this is a rare disorder in which a person believes that an acquaintance, usually a family member, has been replaced by an imposter of identical appearance, despite recognising familiarities in appearance and behaviour. It is most commonly found in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Less often, it may be the result of trauma to the head (brain injury)…
He read about the Capgras’s patient Madame M., who insisted that her entire family had been replaced by imposters, then put the book down and took a swig of his beer. Whatever the opposite of Capgras Syndrome might be, everyone – sane or otherwise – in thinking that he, the false doctor, was real, was suffering from it. That should be Dacre’s Syndrome – or, more properly, it should be called by his original name. He mouthed this silently for a few moments, the sheer audacity of it making him laugh again.
There was no mention of how the Capgras problem might be treated. Perhaps nobody knew. If there could be people out there who thought that real people were imposters, then perhaps he – well, Dr Dacre – was just as real as a ‘real’ doctor, after all. What a strange idea…But then, even by his own standards, he’d had a pretty strange week. Stratton, he thought, was persistent, but he wasn’t a mind reader, and as long as he suspected nothing, then he, Dacre, would be in the clear. He’d fooled him, hadn’t he?
Psychiatry was definitely the way forward. He’d be capable of understanding others in a way that no ordinary person could hope to do. In comparison to him, ordinary people were blindfolded and blundering. He could break new ground. Father of modern psychiatry – that sounded good. Bringer of a new dawn in the understanding of the human mind…No, the human spirit. That sounded better. He’d become a professor. He’d be revered, consulted by committees and governments, decorated…
Dacre leant back in his chair and closed his eyes, enjoying the image of a medal conferred by a grateful monarch, and, watching with pride and decked out in furs and finery, Fay – Mrs James Dacre, wife to the eminent professor…
How could he have thought he’d be content with being a mere doctor? This, he thought, clutching the psychiatry textbook, this was the future…Away from the Middlesex with its meddling policeman to a place far from filthy old Euston Road, to live in a fine detached house with a couple of acres of garden, and Fay, his wife, by his side. The sooner he started laying plans, the better. The first step would be to tell Fay that he was asking his ‘wife’ to divorce him. Better leave it for a week or so, though, wouldn’t do to spring it on her too soon…
Forty-Nine
‘Not much luck tracing Todd, sir, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh?’ Stratton, who had just informed Ballard about the progress – or lack of it – made the previous day, squinted at the sergeant through the dusty, smoke-clouded shaft of morning sunlight that had managed to penetrate the dirty office window.
‘According to the hospital’s Administrative Department,’ said the sergeant, ‘he was born in May 1912, which makes him thirty-two years
old.’
‘Why isn’t he in the forces?’
‘Call-up deferred on compassionate grounds, apparently.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t know, sir. They couldn’t find the information.’
‘Well, there must have been something official.’
‘Yes, sir. To be honest, they were rather vague about it. I got the impression they’d lost the document.’
Stratton shook his head in disgust. ‘That’s just what we need…Anything else?’
‘Well, I’ve discovered that there were two Samuel Todds born in May 1916. One in Gravesend – died at two years old – and one in Bristol. He was killed on active service in 1941, when the Repulse went down.’
‘Nobody else?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, you’d better try the rest of 1912, and, if nothing comes up, 1910 to…I don’t know…1918, just in case. He might have falsified the date for some reason.’
‘Yes, sir…Or – it’s just a suggestion, sir…’
‘Go on.’
‘It might not be his name at all, sir. After all, it’s happened before. There was that chap we arrested a couple of months ago who was passing himself off as an RAF flight lieutenant, and the bloke last year who said he was a brigadier.’
‘Oh, yes. Thompson, wasn’t it? But he was mad as a hatter. And in any case, even if he’d been normal – impersonating a member of the services is one thing, but why would anyone want to lie in order to become a mortuary assistant, for Christ’s sake?’
‘An unhealthy fascination with corpses, sir?’
‘Interfering with dead women, you mean…Jesus, that’s all we need. I suppose it might explain why Byrne hid those photographs – the call-up story was eyewash, and he’d sacked him for improper behaviour but he was keeping them just in case…but why didn’t he say anything to us?’
