by Laura Wilson
‘Wanted to keep it quiet, sir. Bad for the hospital’s reputation if it got out – and after all, they were dead, weren’t they? And he wasn’t sacked, he left. The Administrative Department said he’d been called up and it was all above board.’
‘Had they seen his papers?’
‘They couldn’t find any record of those, either.’
Stratton raised his eyebrows. ‘I see. Have you got his last address?’
‘Yes, sir. And I asked one of the local coppers to check with the landlady. A Mrs…’ Ballard leafed through his notebook, ‘Barnard. She said Todd left on the twenty-fifth of June. Told her he’d got a job up north somewhere.’
‘She didn’t know exactly?’
‘No, sir. But she seemed to think he was exempt from the call-up because of bad health.’
‘Did she indeed? Well, that does make it sound as if he left under a cloud for some reason or other. Of course, it doesn’t explain why the photographs were tucked under Byrne’s blotter. Unless he just happened to keep them there.’
‘Odd place, though, sir. And one of them was at his house.’
‘Yes…And we need to get to the bottom of this missing morphine, too.’ Stratton sighed. ‘I suppose it means taking the rest of those floorboards up, but we’ll need a general search, as well. I’ll see who I can round up for that, and then I’d better go back to the mortuary and see Higgs – find out if he knows anything about Todd, or if he’d seen him do anything…’ Stratton rolled his eyes, ‘unusual to the dead.’
A further application to Lamb, who had now added deep, rumbling sighs to his bearing-up repertoire, resulted in permission to take Piper, Watkins and Policewoman Harris with him to the Middlesex.
After another dismal encounter in the Administrative Department, Stratton took his search party, now augmented by the old porter, to Matron Hornbeck. To his relief, she proved far more helpful than old Fishy upstairs, and agreed to conduct an inventory to make sure that no other phials of morphine had gone missing. After issuing instructions, Stratton felt confident enough to leave the others to pull up the rest of the floorboards in the corridor and conduct a search, and went to find Sister Bateman. When she had confirmed that Fay had been sent to the basement operating theatre with a set of notes on the evening of Dr Byrne’s death, he thanked her and went down to the mortuary.
‘They’re sending us that Dr Ferguson for the time being,’ said Higgs, nodding approvingly. He was squatting against the wall in the main mortuary room, holding one of Stratton’s cigarettes pinched between his thumb and forefinger so that it pointed into his palm. The harsh, greenish light on his wizened features and jockey’s frame made him look like the Artful Dodger a week dead. ‘He’s coming over this afternoon. And Miss L’s agreed to stay.’
Stratton, opposite him on the only available chair, said, ‘That’s good. I wanted to ask you about Sam Todd.’
‘What about him?’
‘Did he talk much about himself?’
Higgs sucked on his cigarette and stared into space for what seemed like several minutes, two very thin trickles of smoke emerging, eventually, from his nostrils. ‘Not a lot. But I never give him my life story, neither. What’s he done?’
‘Nothing, so far as we know. What did he tell you?’
‘Said he’d been moving about a fair bit – that’s why they only just cottoned to him for the call-up—’
‘That was the reason he gave?’
‘Yes. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Long time, mind, but then they didn’t get onto the older ones until a year or so back.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Dunno. Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? Something like that, I reckon. They’ll have all them details upstairs though, won’t they?’
‘Did he tell you anything else?’
‘Not that I recall…’ Higgs took another drag. ‘Wait, though. He said he’d worked for the government. Some department or other.’
Stratton made a note. ‘Where was that?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest…’ Higgs gave his earlobe a pensive tug. ‘No. If he did tell me, it’s gone.’
‘Was it in London?’
‘I should think so. He told me he used to live at Shepherd’s Bush.’
‘When was that?’
‘Before he come to work here, he said. But he was a good bloke, Inspector – one of the best we’ve ever had here.’
‘How did he get on with Dr Byrne?’
Higgs looked mildly surprised. ‘Same as anyone. You knew Dr Byrne a bit, didn’t you? More time for the dead than the living. We was used to it.’ Exhaling, he added, ‘I miss him, you know. A real expert, he was. Best pathologist we’ve ever had.’
‘Did you ever notice Todd behaving strangely with any of the bodies?’
‘What, dirty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never. Nothing like that. I know the sort of thing – we had a bloke like that when I was working at Southwark, years ago. Found him at it. Reported it straight away. I won’t have nothing like that in my mortuary.’ He glared proprietorially towards the sheeted shape that lay on one of the slabs, as if daring some invisible pervert to lay a finger on it. ‘And Dr Byrne would have had him out on his ear.’
‘And as far as you know, Dr Byrne had no reason to be in any way dissatisfied with Todd’s work?’
Higgs shook his head. ‘Anything like that, and you’d have known about it, Inspector, straight away. Dr Byrne always respected the dead, and he expected everyone else to be the same…I don’t understand, Inspector. Has Todd done something wrong – I mean, I don’t see how he could have had anything to do with…Well, with what happened. He’s gone, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton heavily. ‘He’s gone. And you haven’t heard from him since?’
‘No. I mean, I liked the bloke, but I don’t see why he’d write to me.’
‘Who would he write to?’
‘I don’t know. He never mentioned anything about personal matters.’
‘And you never asked?’
Higgs spread his hands. ‘None of my business, was it?’
If two women had worked together for almost three months, Stratton thought on his way back to West End Central, they would have got to know all about each other – provided they liked one another, of course. That made him think of Jenny and Doris. He’d arrived back late the previous night having had rather too much in the Swan, and Jenny had ticked him off about making a racket, which had led to another whispered argument. She thinks she’s doing the right thing, he told himself, but it’s ridiculous. We can’t call our home our own. Mrs Ingram would have to go – he’d make it plain this evening.
Higgs had said that Todd had worked in a government department – could be quite tricky to find out about that. Since the war, they’d tended to be pretty tight-lipped about disclosing information, even to the police, and of course any suggestion that one of their employees might have been using a false name would be bound to cause a flap about security, which would make things even worse. Stratton turned over an idea that had popped, unbidden, into his mind the minute that Higgs had said that he didn’t know the name of the department: to ask Colonel Forbes-James of MI5. Their last meeting, back in 1940, hadn’t been an easy one: Forbes-James had made it clear that if Stratton ever disclosed, or voiced his suspicions about, anything that had happened during that particular investigation, his career would be over before he could blink. In a futile attempt to salvage a scrap of pride, Stratton had indicated that he knew something about Forbes-James that could sink him, too – not that he could prove it, of course. Straight afterwards, he’d wished he hadn’t done it, but there had been no repercussions – in fact, DCI Lamb had been forced, with very bad grace, to commend him. And now, he thought, perhaps – without Lamb’s knowledge – he might be able ask for Forbes-James’s help…
Turning it over in his head, he made his way to the station, passed Arliss, who was leaning on the front desk jawing with Cudlipp, and went
to find Ballard, who was in the Charge Room, attempting to referee a slanging match between two irate prostitutes, both of whom Stratton recognised from his days on the beat: Big Red and Little Annie.
‘She says I give her the money, but I never!’ shouted Annie. Squaring up to the bigger woman, she screamed, ‘I wouldn’t give yer the steam off my piss, you dirty thieving cow!’
Big Red, whose hair was an improbable shade of magenta, and who had, at that moment, a face that almost matched it, yelled, ‘Don’t you put your filthy hands on me, you lying bitch! I wouldn’t wipe my arse with your money – I’d catch something!’
‘That’s enough!’ Stratton grabbed hold of Big Red’s arm. ‘Either you keep civil tongues in your heads, or you take it outside and we’ll have the pair of you for disorderly conduct.’
‘Ooh, DI Stratton,’ said Big Red, with a horrible attempt at coquetry. ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ she simpered. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand my feelings.’
‘No time for that, I’m afraid,’ said Stratton. ‘But I know a man who will.’ Striding back to the door, he yanked it open and bellowed, ‘Arliss!’
PC Arliss lumbered reluctantly down the passage. ‘Sort this out, will you?’ said Stratton, gesturing at the two women, who were, despite Ballard’s efforts to separate them, still trying to claw each other’s faces. ‘I need Sergeant Ballard to come with me. That’s it,’ he added, as Arliss, groaning, advanced on the pair. ‘Come on, Ballard.’
Leaving the three of them glaring at each other, Stratton and Ballard headed towards the office. ‘I’d have put my money on Red, sir, but the other one’s quite a scrapper.’
‘I take it you haven’t had the pleasure of our Annie’s company before, Sergeant.’
‘That I haven’t, sir. It was quite an experience.’
‘Now you know what’s been missing from your life all these years…’ Indicating that Ballard should sit down, Stratton settled himself behind his desk.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Ballard gratefully, pulling out his handkerchief to wipe his face.
‘Now, how did you get on? Anything to report?’
‘’Fraid not, sir. Records no help at all. One Sam Todd born 1914 – he’s a miner, works in Wales, somewhere I can’t pronounce – one born in 1917, family emigrated to Australia in twenty-eight, and that’s it.’
‘Any chance he came back?’
‘Looking into it, sir. Might take a bit of time.’
‘Fair enough. Well, Higgs didn’t have much to say for himself – nothing irregular about Todd’s behaviour. Said if Dr Byrne had known, he’d have told us about it.’
‘Unless Todd had something on him, sir.’
‘That’s true…’ Stratton rubbed his jaw. ‘Leaving aside that possibility for a moment, Higgs also said that Todd told him he used to work in a government department.’
Ballard frowned. ‘That might be a bit tricky, sir. They don’t give out information at the best of times.’
‘No, they don’t. And I don’t want to involve DCI Lamb unless I have to. However, I’ve had an idea how to find out about that.’ Rummaging in his desk drawer, he came upon the photographs he’d deposited there the previous day. Fishing them out, he said, ‘You know, this chap,’ he tapped the picture of Todd, ‘looks familiar, but I can’t think why.’
‘You’ve seen him, sir.’
‘I know, but I don’t think it’s that.’
‘Well, he’s pretty ordinary, sir. I didn’t remember him, and I interviewed him.’
When the sergeant had left, Stratton looked again in the drawer and, at the bottom of a mound of papers, found what he was looking for. Painfully aware that his motives in taking this course of action were decidedly mixed, he hesitated for a few minutes – the length of a cigarette – before picking up the telephone.
‘TATE GALLERY 2346, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
After a moment, Stratton heard the number repeated by a clipped, aristocratic female voice.
‘I wish to speak to Colonel Forbes-James, please. It’s Detective Inspector Stratton, West End Central CID.’
Fifty
‘I’m sure he thinks I took it.’ Fay sat hunched over the corner table in the Regent’s Park pub, chewing her bottom lip. Her teeth, Dacre noticed, were white and even.
Looking into her worried brown eyes, he said, ‘It was an accident. I told him that. There’s no reason for him to suspect you of anything.’
By dint of a bit of judicious hanging about outside the Men’s Surgical Ward – where he’d been disconcerted to find the floorboards being taken up – he’d managed to see Fay on her own and arrange a meeting for the same evening.
‘I was sure he’d just find the stuff,’ said Fay. ‘I thought it would be there. I was almost certain that I pointed out the right place – where we collided, I mean.’
‘I told him it was an accident, Fay.’
‘I’m sorry he bothered you,’ said Fay, miserably. ‘He asked me who I’d bumped into, and I had to tell him.’
It clearly hadn’t occurred to her that he might have pocketed the phials. All she feared was that she might be at fault, or blamed. Silently blessing both her and his own good judgement – she had not once reproached him for the incident at the Clarendon – he said, ‘You didn’t bump into me, I bumped into you. And you were quite right to say.’
‘It was chaos all day,’ said Fay, ‘with those floorboards up. Sister Bateman was beside herself.’
‘Has she been giving you a rough time?’
‘She blames me.’
‘Would you like me to have a word with her?’
‘Oh, no! It’s very kind of you, but it would just make things worse. She’d think I’d been…you know…running to you for sympathy. It’s bad enough already with all the other nurses talking behind my back. I don’t suppose they mean to be nasty – well, not all of them – but it’s so hard to concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing…’ She blinked a few times, and stared hard at the grimy surface of the table.
‘Fay…’ Dacre hadn’t expected this. When he’d pocketed the morphine, he never meant that she should be suspected of the theft and, now that she was, he was taken aback by the intensity of his feelings: long-buried guilt rising up inside him, as if a shipwreck was surfacing in all its terrible devastation. For a moment, it seemed overwhelming and he knew that it wasn’t only about Fay, but about his father, his mother…everything he’d ever done.
He groaned, and Fay looked at him in surprise. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to burden you with all this.’
‘Heavens…’ Forcing a smile, Dacre made a supreme effort and suppressed the rising tide of his emotions. Such things must not be allowed to interfere, not now, not ever. ‘I’m very glad you have. Who better? Remember what we said about being honest with each other? Besides, you’re having a horrible time, and it’s entirely my fault. It was just a sudden twinge…my head.’ He fingered his bruised temple. ‘I meant to take an aspirin before I came out.’
‘I think I might have some.’ Fay rooted in her bag. ‘You were going to tell me what happened to your face…Here.’ She produced a small bottle and shook two tablets into her palm.
‘What a good nurse you are.’ Dacre knocked them back with the last of his drink. ‘Well…’ He told the story of the half-witted pregnant girl and her mother, imitating all the voices and adding a few touches of his own. By the time he’d finished, she was laughing so much that she had to wipe her eyes.
‘Oh dear…How extraordinary that the woman hadn’t realised – even if the daughter didn’t know what was up, you’d think…’
‘I know. The woman never imagined that her daughter might be pregnant, because she wasn’t the full ticket. Somehow, people never seem to imagine that the mentally defective have any sort of sex urge.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps someone took advantage of her.’ Fay looked upset. ‘If that’s true, it’s a vile thing to do.’
‘Y
es,’ said Dacre soberly, ‘it is. Particularly as a girl like that wouldn’t know the difference between right and wrong. Not that I can pronounce on that,’ he added, hastily. ‘People in glass houses, and so on.’
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ said Fay, dismissively. ‘It’s not the same at all. But…’ Suddenly, she was looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘The mother should have looked after her better. Kept an eye on her. With so many soldiers about.’
‘I think that was why she was so angry. With herself, I mean. Except that she didn’t know she was, and she seemed the sort who’d always tend to blame someone else. It was just unfortunate that I happened to be the bearer of the bad news. Anyway…’ Seeing that Fay’s cheeks were flushed, Dacre decided to change the subject. ‘How about another drink? If we’re going to become regulars, I ought to butter up the barmaid, don’t you think?’
Fay, who had her back to the bar, turned to glance at the bony, lank-haired female of indeterminate age who was, at that moment, listlessly polishing a glass with a grubby-looking cloth. Turning back, she gave Dacre a doubtful look.
‘I shall compliment her,’ said Dacre.
‘On…?’
‘That’s something of a poser,’ he admitted. ‘I know – I’ll pretend she’s you. Then it’ll be easy.’
Satisfied that Fay’s flush was now one of pleasure, Dacre got up and took their glasses to the bar, returning a few minutes later with more drinks.
‘Heavens,’ said Fay. ‘What did you say to her?’
‘That’s my secret. You’ll have to wait and see. Cheers!’ They clinked glasses and Dacre made Fay laugh again by telling her about the old man who’d come to Casualty that afternoon with a bandaged hand and his wife carrying the severed top of his forefinger in a jar of vinegar. ‘Completely pickled. She’d preserved it, thinking we’d be able to sew it back on. They were so disappointed. After we’d fixed him up, she said she wanted to take it home with her. I expect it’s in the middle of the mantelpiece right now, under the King.’
‘Oh, dear…’ Fay held his gaze for a moment, bright-eyed and cheerful, and then her smile wavered and her face turned serious.
