An Empty Death

by Laura Wilson

  ‘That’s not the point! If Reynolds was in the habit of doing that sort of thing, then this blackmailer – who may or may not exist – might know of other women he’s operated on.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘For all we know, this Nurse…’

  ‘Marchant, sir.’

  ‘Marchant…for all we know, she’s in it with this Dr Dacre. One of them must have pocketed those drugs.’

  ‘That would point to Dr Byrne as the blackmailer, sir. And if Byrne killed Reynolds, why didn’t he tell us that the death was an accident, sir? He was the one who first suggested searching the bomb-site for suspicious material. From what I know of Dr Byrne, sir, I’d say he’d be far more likely to report such a finding than to try and profit from it. And he had photographs of the man Todd – one of them was in a hidey-hole at his home. That could be a result of pictures getting muddled up – a mistake – but on the other hand, it might be that Byrne knew something about him or was suspicious for some reason.’

  ‘And you say the Marchant girl has been seeing this man Dacre?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Also,’ said Stratton, reluctantly, ‘I did see Nurse Marchant on the night Dr Byrne was killed. She was in the mortuary corridor. I bumped into her on the way to speak to him.’

  ‘Then what are you playing at, man? You see a pretty face and a nice pair of legs and your brain turns to porridge. Bring her in!’

  ‘And charge her with what, sir?’

  ‘Charge her with procuring an abortion and keep her overnight. That should soften her up a bit – and I’ll interview her myself in the morning, see if I can’t get something out of her about this Dacre chap and what he’s up to.’

  Balls, thought Stratton, as he went to fetch his hat. Balls and bugger and fuck. He should have guessed how Lamb would react, but what else could he have done? He hated those sorts of conversations – it was like throwing all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle up in the air and hoping they’d sort themselves into a recognisable picture on the way down. Then you had to try to make it stick together by bullying people…The worst thing was, though, Lamb had a point – he did have a tendency to treat people’s faces as the index of their souls, at least where women were concerned. Like most men, he supposed. How much we depend on appearance and trust, he thought. Even if it’s your job to be suspicious, you still depend on those things.

  Fifty-Six

  Dacre glanced at his wristwatch: ten to six. Fay would be finishing her shift. If he nipped upstairs, he might just catch her. Having Inspector Stratton and his policemen sniffing about the place all day made him nervous, and he wanted to know if she’d been interviewed again. Not that she could tell them anything about him, but he didn’t want her involved. He needed to see her, reassure her – after all, it was his fault about the morphine – and make a date, as well. He’d take up some notes to make it look official, in case someone noticed. He tucked a set of notes under his arm and strode through the Casualty waiting area with a purposeful air. He was almost at the doors when Sister Radford appeared. ‘Dr Dacre, would you come? There’s a boy with a nosebleed, and it won’t stop. We’ve tried everything, and Dr Ransome’s not—’

  ‘Of course, Sister.’ Dacre gave her an apologetic smile. ‘I’ll be straight with you, but I’m afraid I really must answer a call of nature first.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course.’ This evidence that doctors had bladders too caused the sister to flush slightly, as he’d known it would. ‘But the notes…’

  ‘Oh, yes. Don’t know what I was thinking of.’ Dacre handed them over. ‘All at sixes and sevens, I’m afraid, but don’t worry, I shall be right back.’

  Damn, he thought, as he took the stairs three at a time. Still, it wouldn’t matter, as long as his conversation with Fay didn’t look too intimate – he rounded the corner, and was about to walk down the Men’s Surgical corridor when he saw her emerging from the ward with Inspector Stratton. Flattening himself against the wall, and hoping like hell no-one came up the stairs and spotted him, he watched as the big policeman took told of Fay’s elbow. It wasn’t done roughly, and Fay wasn’t resisting, but there was something about the gesture that told him that she was being taken away…He’s taking her to the station, Dacre thought. He’s going to charge her with stealing the morphine, or…God, if it was something to do with Reynolds – and there was that business of her bumping into him in the mortuary corridor on the night of Byrne’s death…Dacre’s stomach lurched. Surely, he thought, they weren’t going to charge her with murder? He shuddered, feeling sick. They couldn’t…‘Oh, Christ, no,’ he muttered, peering round the corner at their retreating backs. It was all his fault, he’d got her mixed up in it…His girl…

  Fay couldn’t have heard him – too far away – but perhaps she sensed that someone was watching, because she suddenly looked round, and he saw, in the split second before he withdrew, that her face was stark white, rigid with fear. A second later, he heard footsteps running up the stairs, and one of the Casualty probationers came pounding towards him, her eyes wide with alarm.

  ‘Oh,’ she panted. ‘Dr Dacre, please…Sister Radford sent me to find you. It’s the boy – there’s blood everywhere, and—’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Dacre, severely.

  ‘Sorry, Dr Dacre, but Sister Radford says it’s urgent.’

  ‘I’m coming. Tell Sister Radford I shall see her in a moment.’

  Left alone once more, Dacre leant against the wall and took several deep breaths, trying to compose his thoughts. He’d have to go and look at the boy, and then…then what? He peered round the corner into the corridor once more, but Stratton and Fay had gone. One thing at a time, he told himself. He couldn’t go chasing after them – the last thing he wanted was a public scene, and if he didn’t return to Casualty immediately, Sister Radford might smell a rat. He’d finish his work, then go to the station and tell the big policeman…tell him…what?

  It was no good. He couldn’t think straight, not now. First things first: the boy with the nosebleed. Then he’d work out what to do about Fay. I am Dr Dacre, he told himself as he went downstairs, sounding one word in his mind each time his foot touched a step: I. Am. Dr. Dacre. I. Am. Going. To. Treat. A. Patient. As long as I do not panic, everything will be fine.

  An agitated-looking boy of about fourteen was sitting on the edge of a bed. The instant Dacre saw him, his whole attention was concentrated. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so much blood – the boy’s face, clothes and hands and the surrounding linen were soaked in it. Nurse Dunning, who stood over him, ineffectually pinching his nostrils with her fingers, was gloved in blood to the elbow, and her once white apron looked like a slaughterman’s. A pail containing bloody swabs in the corner showed that either she, or Sister, had already tried stuffing the boy’s nose, but to no avail.

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ she said, ‘it’s not working. If I hold it too tight, he chokes.’

  ‘Are these the notes?’ Dacre indicated some blood-spattered pages at the end of the bed.

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’ Nurse Dunning automatically moved to hand them to Dacre, but he forestalled her.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t let go of him.’

  Picking up the notes, Dacre saw that – blood aside – they were almost blank. ‘Charlie Mortimer? That’s you, is it? Don’t try to speak, a nod or shake will do.’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘How long has he been bleeding like this?’ Dacre asked Nurse Dunning.

  ‘He came in about quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘And the bleeding hasn’t let up at all?’

  ‘No, Doctor.’

  Charlie Mortimer made a snorting noise. His eyes bulged, and he started coughing. Dacre passed Nurse Dunning a bowl. ‘Let go for a moment.’ She did so, and, instantly, as if a tap had been turned on full, there was a violent gush of blood.

  Charlie ceased to splutter, and, lifting a hand to wipe the blood away from his mouth, attempted to speak.

  ‘What is it?’ said Dacre.
>
  ‘B-Bl—,’ the boy began to splutter again.

  Nurse Dunning tutted.

  ‘Bl-bl—’

  ‘Bleeder?’ asked Dacre, triumphantly, and Charlie Mortimer, looking relieved, nodded vigorously. ‘He’s a haemophiliac, Nurse. Put your fingers back on his nose, and keep them there.’ Putting his head round the screen, he bellowed, ‘Sister!’

  Sister Radford appeared from behind one of the other screens to join him.

  ‘Yes, Dr Dacre?’ she asked, reprovingly.

  ‘This boy’s a haemophiliac. Why wasn’t it on his notes?’

  ‘We didn’t know, Doctor. He didn’t tell us.’

  ‘I imagine that’s because you were too busy pinching his nose to give him a chance,’ snapped Dacre. ‘This needs cauterising immediately if we’re to have any chance of stopping it, and he’ll need blood.’

  Sister Radford blanched as if she’d just lost a couple of pints herself. ‘I’ll send for Dr Colburn at once.’ She departed, moving faster than Dacre had ever seen her move before.

  Dacre returned to the cubicle. ‘Right, Charlie, we’ll get you sorted out. I’ll need to take a sample of your blood, so that we can make sure it’s compatible with the blood you’re given…Do you know if anyone came with him, Nurse Dunning?’

  The nurse, who had clearly heard the fiercely whispered conservation on the other side of the screen, stared at him in alarm. ‘Mother?’ said Dacre. ‘Father? Anyone?’

  ‘I think he was on his own, Doctor.’

  Charlie Mortimer, whose skin – where it was not bloodily crimson – seemed to be growing paler by the minute, nodded.

  ‘How long were you bleeding before you got here? Hold up your fingers.’

  Charlie hesitated, then held up both hands, then his left hand again, then waved it to-and-fro in a give-or-take gesture.

  ‘Fifteen minutes or so?’

  A nod.

  ‘Do your parents know where you are?’

  A shake.

  By the time Dacre managed to get a note of the boy’s address, a porter had arrived with a wheelchair. A few more minutes brought Dr Colburn, and Charlie Mortimer, nose still firmly clamped by Nurse Dunning, was taken away for treatment.

  Left alone in the cubicle, Dacre pulled the screen back into position and sat down on the end of the bed – the only part that wasn’t either soaked, or splattered. He was trembling, limp, and drenched in sweat, as if some inner dam had broken. Relief, fear, exhaustion: everything seemed to flood him at once.

  He straightened up as Sister Radford put her head round the screen. ‘I’m very sorry, Dr Dacre,’ she said meekly. ‘I can assure you it won’t happen again.’

  ‘Please don’t apologise, Sister.’ He gave her a weak smile. ‘I’m sorry I was so brisk, but those things…Well, they’re rather dramatic. If I’d known how serious it was, I wouldn’t have left, but in the event you acted very swiftly so let’s hope all’s well.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor. Thank you.’ Sister Radford looked at him with new respect, and left the cubicle.

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered, and put his slippery palms to his soaked forehead. ‘Oh, Christ…’I’m not pretending anymore, he thought. I acted on instinct – but instinct with knowledge. I didn’t have to sneak away and consult a book: I knew what to ask, what to do. I have, in all probability, saved a life. I am real. This is who I am – I’ve been working towards this moment all my life.

  He sat on for a few minutes, staring down at the blood on the sheet: a large stain, surrounded by spatters and smears. There was some on the screen, too, and on the wall tiles beneath the dado. Now, he must save Fay. He must go to the police station. Dacre’s mind, usually so agile, seemed to have seized up, and all he could think of was her terrified face as Stratton took her away, of how frightened she must be.

  He had to rescue her. He must fetch his hat, and go down to the station. Yes, that’s what he must do. He was a doctor, and Fay was going to be his wife. Stratton must listen to him. He didn’t know yet how he would persuade the big policeman – he’d work it out on the way. But somehow he would make him see that Fay was innocent. And if that failed…Well, he’d managed before, hadn’t he? He’d find a way.

  Fifty-Seven

  Dacre crossed Oxford Street and walked through Soho, heading for Savile Row. His body was humming like a tram wire, but he had no idea what he was going to say when he got there, and, as he grew closer, nothing presented itself. Finally, on the corner of Poland Street and Broadwick Street, he halted and stood staring around him, biting his lip. A couple of tarts were chatting on one corner, beneath a torn poster of the Squander Bug, a satanic-looking insect whose bloated body was covered in swastikas. Diagonally opposite, men were going into the Railway pub. It’s all very well for them, Dacre thought: they may have lives that let them in for a gutfull of boredom and misery, but at least they knew what was going to happen next, which was a damn sight more than he did. He must think himself back into control. It was all a matter of psychology. Reynolds, Byrne, the morphine…It must have something to do with one, or both, or all, of those. If it was only the morphine, he could admit he took the phials himself…but what reason could he give? That he was in pain because of the bruising he’d suffered at the hands of Mrs Parker? Inspector Stratton had seen the marks, but nobody needed morphine for mere bruises. He’d have to up the ante a bit…cracked ribs. That would do it. Of course, an X-ray would prove that they were nothing of the sort, but Stratton would be bound to take the word of a doctor. And they were painful, especially if people were moving about, and of course he had to keep working. ‘Didn’t want to let the side down, Inspector,’ he murmured to himself. ‘In the eyes of the public, doctors aren’t human. We don’t get ill – or rather, we’re not supposed to. Feeble. Very poor form.’ He’d say he’d only taken small doses, to keep him working and allow him to sleep. Yes, that sounded plausible enough, especially if admitted ruefully, with the right amount of awkwardness. It ought to do the trick, except…

  Wait. He’d pinched the morphine before the business with Mrs Parker, hadn’t he? That was going to be more difficult to get out of. ‘You see, Inspector, I just pocketed them. Absent-mindedness, I suppose. And, as I believe I told you, I was rather distracted by Nurse Marchant, not to mention the business with the torsion – that was why I’d gone upstairs in the first place, because Mr Hambling wanted to see me about it.’ Mention of the torsion, he thought, had worked so well before – Stratton had practically turned green before his eyes – that it was bound to forestall further questions. Given the seriousness of the matter, Stratton would undoubtedly ask why Dacre hadn’t mentioned all this when asked before. What should he say? ‘Well, Inspector, as I said, I’d used some of it by that time’ – here, the cracked ribs would come into play – ‘and I was rather…I am sorry, Inspector. I know that it’s a serious matter. When I realised that Nurse Marchant might get into trouble, I was horrified, because really, this is entirely my fault…’ The plausibility of this, thought Dacre, would rely far more on the way it was said than the substance. He practised again, mouthing the words to himself, trying out different hesitations to give a convincing demonstration of charming muddle-headedness, as he crossed Regent Street and turned down Burlington Street towards Savile Row.

  By the time he opened the door to West End Central, he was feeling exhilarated by the challenge ahead. He couldn’t alibi Fay for the night of Byrne’s death, but if he admitted taking the morphine, surely the fact that Stratton had bumped into her in the mortuary corridor that night would pale into insignificance? As for Reynolds, there wasn’t anything he could do about that, because he (or, rather, Dacre) hadn’t been working at the Middlesex at the time…Unless she’d been somewhere with Reynolds on the night of his death, before…Dacre shuddered. He didn’t want to think about that. It was a miracle that no-one had seen him, because then he’d have had some explaining to do.

  He’d rescue Fay, and she’d be grateful. Of course she would. He’d apologise to her
, over as nice a dinner as could be got, for not owning up before, and he’d say he really hadn’t dreamt she’d be in such trouble, and she (from relief as much as anything) would be bound to forgive him immediately.

  An ancient policeman with a pendulous lower lip, who surely would have been retired but for the war, stood behind the desk. Approaching, Dacre caught a whiff of rancid hair oil, and, coming closer, took in the man’s ponderous air and dull eyes, the whites of which were an eggy yellow. ‘I’ve come to enquire after a Miss Fay Marchant,’ he said. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Why would you want to know that, sir?’

  ‘I’d like to speak to the policeman who brought her in – Detective Inspector Stratton. It’s a matter of some importance.’

  ‘DI Stratton has left, sir. If you wish to speak to him, I suggest you come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Might I speak to Miss Marchant?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘But she is here, is she?’

  ‘Are you a close relative, sir?’

  Dacre almost said yes, but realised that this lie would seem horribly suspicious to Stratton, who would undoubtedly hear of it. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, sir.’

  Stupid old fool, thought Dacre, you’ve as good as told me she is here. That must mean, he told himself, as he thanked the desk sergeant and left the station, that they’re planning to charge her with something in the morning.

  He wasn’t going to let that happen. He needed to go somewhere and think. Retracing his steps in the direction of the hospital, he went into the Black Horse. If the friendly barmaid was on duty, she’d see he got a drink – or several.

  She was on duty. Four brandies down, he felt his mind begin to clear. All of this was Stratton’s fault. Why couldn’t he just leave things alone? What he, Dacre, had, was too precious not to be fought for. All his life, he’d been working towards this, and now some bloody flatfoot was trying to take it all away – take Fay from him, maybe even take Dacre, and leave him with nothing. Worse than before, because now he’d had a taste of how his life ought to be. And the thought of Fay in some filthy cell, surrounded by prostitutes and God knows who else, made him furious. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It wasn’t right, or fair. Nobody ever gave him anything – all they did was try to take it away. Well, he wouldn’t have it. He’d fight for it…More than fight, if he had to. He’d done it before, hadn’t he? Well, then. He’d damn well do it again.