‘That’s one of the points I’ve picked up. Every food or drink that has carbohydrate in it is given a value that is taken off the total the patient is allowed for the day. Does it say how many grams of carbohydrate there are in Carlsberg?’
‘Ninety four calories, six point seven grams of carbohydrate in half a pint of Export Lager.’
‘There you are, then. A hundred grams of carbohydrate according to this book is 1,000 calories. Though it doesn’t seem to work out like that with your beer.’
‘Perhaps it averages out at that, Chief.’
Masters looked at a chart in his book for a moment. ‘Maybe it does. Fifteen ounces of cauliflower and two ounces of orange both have five grams of carbohydrate.’ He turned the pages again. ‘Ah. Here we are. “The different foodstuffs vary weight for weight in the calories they produce, and a doctor, when planning a diet, should take caloric needs for heat and energy into consideration as well as carbohydrates and proteins.” That sounds clear enough. So we know they can substitute half a pint of Carlsberg Export for three ounces of orange or a pound and a half of cauliflower. Interesting.’
‘Here’s a dietitian saying they can eat near normal diets.’
Masters grunted. He was in the middle of an article about young diabetics on insulin. The diet for these people was said to be much more liberal … no need to measure caloric intake as long as carbohydrates were balanced by injections … take plenty of proteins and reasonable amounts of fat … remember soft drinks, beers and sweet wines contain sugar which must be counted when working out the diet … fortunately, dry wines and spirits contain negligible amounts of sugar and may be taken in moderate quantities by the young diabetic who does not need to watch calories … and so on.
Masters began to feel he was getting the hang of it. A youngster like Sally Bowker could eat a diet adequate to fulfil her appetite and energy requirements just as long as she took sufficient insulin to counteract it. He put down the pamphlet and relit his pipe. He was still sitting there thinking when Brant found them. Masters said, ‘I’ll keep these. I’ll read a bit more later. Would you mind going up to my room and putting them on the dressing-table?’
Hill did as he was asked. He rejoined the others as they were getting in the car. Masters directed them to Sisson’s house.
‘Will the doc have finished his surgery by now?’ Hill asked.
‘Possibly. But it doesn’t matter if he hasn’t. I want a word with his receptionist.’
Masters found the surgery door locked. Obviously patients had to arrive before ten. After that the door was locked and the last visitors were allowed out, one at a time, and the door relocked behind them. Masters pressed the bell. There was no response, so he pressed again. Still no answer. He was about to ring a third time when an elderly man let himself out. Masters stopped him from pulling the door shut behind him.
‘You’ll not be allowed in there.’
‘You think not?’
‘I know not. She’ll be after you.’
‘She?’
‘That young woman. Reg’lar spitfire she is. Treats you like a criminal. If the doctor wasn’t so good he wouldn’t have no patients. She’d drive them all away, she would. Stands at the door with a stop watch in her hand waiting to bolt up, she does. It’s a job of work for her. Nowt else.’
‘Thanks for the warning. I’ll take my chance.’
‘Well, you looks big enough to take care of yourself.’
The old man went slowly down the steps. Masters stepped into the hall. As he did so a woman dressed in a near imitation of a nurse’s uniform came out of the second door on the right of the passage. ‘You’re too late to see the doctor,’ she snapped. ‘Pull the door to behind you as you go.’
To her surprise Masters continued towards her. ‘You heard what I said?’
‘I could hardly fail to. But I chose to ignore it.’
‘Surgery ends at ten.’
‘I’ve no quarrel with that.’ He stood towering over her. ‘In fact, that’s why I came at this time. So as not to interrupt Dr Sisson in the middle of his business.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Not a patient. Detective Chief Inspector Masters. I believe you and I have spoken on the phone, Miss …?’
‘Oh, the policeman.’ She was sharp featured with pale, gingery hair, showing wispy under her cap. Her eyes were yellow, under faint ginger brows. The eyelashes were almost non-existent, and her fact was pale with a sprinkling of freckles. Her body, fairly thin, was nevertheless well proportioned under the spotless, well-ironed uniform. Her legs and feet were neat, and she stood proudly, like a turkey cock at dawn, nothing abashed by his presence and size. There was the same sneer in her voice that he had detected over the phone. ‘The doctor has still got three patients to see.’
‘Never mind. I’ll wait.’
‘And then he has his domiciliary visits.’
‘No doubt. I’ll still wait.’
‘In that case the waiting-room door is behind you.’
‘Not in there. I’d like to speak to you, Miss …?’
‘Don’t keep calling me Miss. My name is Nurse Ward.’
‘Very good, Nurse Ward. Can we use your room? I see it has Receptionist written on the door, so I presume it is your room.’
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘It really would be a pity to spend a nice afternoon in a stuffy police station when ten minutes now would suffice.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Yes.’
The affirmative took some of the wind out of her sails. Simply because she hadn’t expected it. For a moment she stared at Masters. Then: ‘Policemen can get into trouble for using threats.’
‘Can they for threatening to ask you to accompany them to a police station? Think again, Nurse Ward. And stop being obstructive or I’ll begin to think things about you you won’t like.’
‘More threats?’
‘Certainly. People who put difficulties in my way during a murder inquiry find life made difficult for them in their turn. I’m a mean man, Nurse Ward. A mean man.’
As he knew she would, she turned and led the way into her room. Here the doctor’s metal filing-cabinets lined one wall. A yellow varnished desk with a staggered row of prescriptions for collection occupied the centre of the room. In one corner was a white wash-hand-basin with a pedal bin below it. A row of shelves held pharmaceutical samples, and a small table an electric kettle and cups. She sat on the chair at the desk. He took the other one.
‘Now, Nurse Ward, let’s discuss Sally Bowker.’
‘Her medical facts are professional secrets.’
‘But not her movements, her personality, her gaiety and so forth. She was an extremely popular girl, I understand.’
‘With the men, perhaps.’ She sounded prim: something more than disapproving.
‘Not with her own sex?’
‘Hardly. When she couldn’t leave the men alone.’
He paused a moment to consider this. There was a decided amount of nastiness here. He switched his line.
‘You’re not married, Nurse Ward?’
‘You can see I’m not. But I can’t see what that has to do with Sally Bowker.’
He said blandly, ‘Can’t you really? Now you’re a trained nurse … you are, aren’t you?’
‘S.R.N.’ It was said proudly, with a toss of the head.
‘Exactly. Well, your training has been not only professional, but vocational, too. That means you’re interested in people and, no doubt you’ve learned a good deal of psychology in your time. Am I right?’
‘If you mean I can see as far through a brick wall as the next person, you’re right.’
‘Good. Now, you’re an exact replica of Sally Bowker in many ways …’
She set her face. ‘I don’t see how you make that out.’
‘You’re a young, attractive, unmarried woman, earning your own living. Miss Bowker was the same, I believe?’
The flatt
ery seemed to soften her, ‘Attractive, but not much character.’
‘I see. You’ve just made my point. I would expect a girl like you, like Miss Bowker in many respects, but with professional training to back up your female intuition, to be able to give me a better insight into this girl’s character than any man. Men, I suppose, were attracted by … what? Her prettiness?’
‘That’s it exactly. And her disgustingly forward manner.’
‘You mean she deliberately made a play for other men although she was engaged to be married?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean.’
‘I’d like to know about it. You see, now you’ve told me she was a fast young lady, it opens up all sorts of possibilities. It may mean that some man …’
‘You’re not suggesting Dr Sisson …’
‘Dr Sisson what?’
‘Was in any way responsible for her death.’
‘No. Certainly not. Should I?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Nurse Ward, are you worried about Dr Sisson?’
‘No.’
‘But Sally Bowker did make a pass at him?’
She nodded. ‘Every time she came.’
‘And last Saturday morning?’
‘Worse than ever.’
‘Would you tell me how you know? Were you present?’
‘I’m always on hand when the doctor examines women. It is part of my duty.’
‘You go into the surgery with them?’
‘Not into the surgery. The surgery is directly opposite the waiting-room. Directly opposite here is the examination room. It communicates with the surgery. The door between the two rooms is kept open. It is my job to be in the examination room whenever a female patient is in the surgery. Then, of course, if the examination room is used, I’m on hand.’
‘Do I take it that this procedure is as much in the interest of the doctor as the patient?’
‘It is for his protection.’
‘In case some woman accused him falsely of unprofessional conduct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it usual practice for the nurse receptionist always to be within hearing-distance?’
‘Dr Sisson is a young, unmarried man.’
‘So you made this arrangement personally—without direct orders from Dr Sisson?’
‘His orders are that I should be present when any woman patient is examined. How am I to know which will be examined and which won’t unless I’m always there?’
‘I see your point.’ Masters was inclined to think that this very strict interpretation of her duties was more to enable Nurse Ward to keep her eye on the doctor than for the doctor’s protection. She was keen on him herself. He was sure of that. ‘Sally Bowker made some flippant remarks to him last Saturday?’
‘Flippant? She arrived here in a mini-skirt that was positively indecent. In bare legs and sandals. She flounced into the doctor, lifted her skirt so that he could see everything she’d got on—what little there was of it—and asked him to look at some lumps she’d got on the tops of her thighs.’
‘Lumps?’
‘They were nothing. Lots of diabetics get them. On the injection sites if they use one spot too often.’
‘Why use one spot?’
‘Because the skin and tissue gets hard and numb and so it’s less painful to inject on the same spot. But when they do it too often they raise lumps.’
‘Permanent ones?’
‘They go away if left alone. She knew that. She just used it as an excuse for … for displaying herself. There’s plenty of room on anybody’s thighs for injections, but if you’re the type that won’t wear anything but a mini-skirt, showing all you’ve got, you’ve got to inject very high up all the time. The lumps she showed Dr Sisson were almost … well, all I can say is that the underclothes a respectable woman would wear would have covered them completely.’
Masters nodded. In his mind’s eye he could see young, attractive Sally Bowker, with her long, languid legs holding up the side of her skirt to show the edge of a little bikini pantie. The sort of picture that intrigued him vicariously; that would set the pulse of the young doctor—in love with her—racing; and would anger this nurse—so little older in years than Sally Bowker, but decades older in prudery—in love, in her turn, with the doctor, and jealous that he should be granted, in so guileless a fashion, this intimate view of another woman’s charms. He felt he had now got Nurse Ward so worked up, so indignant, that she would continue to talk if he led her carefully.
‘What happened? Did the doctor advise her what to do?’
‘Dr Sisson was very correct.’
‘And that was the only incident?’
‘Not by any means. She asked him about having children.’
‘You mean that as a diabetic girl, about to be married, she wanted to know whether it would be safe to have a family?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there anything wrong in that?’
‘What she actually said was, “Brian says the first thing he wants to do after we’re married is give me a baby. Shall I let him or are you going to suggest the Pill?” ’
‘What was Dr Sisson’s reaction?’
‘He told her what every diabetic woman knows.’
‘Which is?’
‘That though there may be an hereditary factor in diabetes, it is unlikely that it will emerge in the children when only one partner to the marriage is diabetic, particularly if there is no history of diabetes in either family.’
‘You know all about it.’
‘I should. I’m trained. I have worked in a diabetic clinic.’
‘Of course. With Dr Sisson?’
She nodded.
‘You left hospital service specifically to become his receptionist?’
‘He advertised. I applied. He knew my work and chose me out of quite a large number of applicants.’ There was pride in the voice. But he knew she’d got it all wrong. When opening a new practice, Sisson had wanted efficiency to get the business off the ground. Nurse Ward was fooling herself into thinking that he had chosen her for her personal attraction. There would be no point in enlightening her.
‘After the doctor had given his advice on having children, what next?’
‘He renewed her prescription for insulin and told her to make an appointment with me for four weeks time. As she was leaving the surgery she said to the doctor, “Brian will be thrilled to know he can give me babies. He’s a keen businessman you know, and his one fear has been that he wouldn’t have a son to carry on.” Disgusting.’
‘Forthright and very modern, perhaps. But was it so bad? After all, a doctor’s consulting-room is a sort of confessional. A place where patients bare their souls and minds as well as their bodies.’
‘Not to the point where they try to … to seduce the doctor.’
‘You felt that was what she was trying to do?’
‘Of course she was. Showing herself off and all that talk about being given a baby. Why couldn’t she say having a baby?’ She looked at Masters under lowered eyelids. ‘There’s a nine-month difference between the two. Being given a baby is a sexual act and nothing to do with the doctor. Having a baby is giving birth and that is his concern. Not the other.’
Masters got to his feet. ‘Thank you for telling me all this. It helps, you know, to realize just what sort of a person the victim was. By the way, did you see her again after she made the appointment?’
It seemed to Masters that Nurse Ward hesitated a moment before she answered, ‘No.’ It was an unequivocal answer, with none of the supporting words of explanation that he would have expected from the average person.
‘Can I see the doctor now?’ he asked.
‘Wait here. I’ll see.’
She went out, smoothing her unruffled dress as she went. He could imagine her halting in the passage to finger the stray strands of hair into place before knocking on the doctor’s door. She was back almost immediately. ‘Dr Sisson will see you in a few moments. He
has nearly finished with the last patient.’
She filled the electric kettle and plugged it in. From a wall cupboard she took sugar, milk and instant coffee. ‘Is Dr Sisson engaged to be married?’ Masters asked.
She slopped the milk. The question had caught her off balance.
‘No. He isn’t.’
‘I have always understood that it is desirable for a doctor in general practice to be married. The patients like it. But I suppose a lot of women would find the life of a doctor’s wife these days very wearing …?’ It was a question. He wanted her to react. She did.
‘Not if they understand the problems.’
‘Could they? Before experiencing them, I mean?’
She turned and faced him. ‘A nurse would. The correct wife for a doctor is a nurse. To help him, understand him and his work …’ She didn’t finish. She turned back to the coffee making, as though aware she might have said too much.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Masters said.
A moment or two later he was being shown into the surgery by Nurse Ward, who was carrying a small tray with two cups of greyish-looking coffee on it. Sisson was in his shirt sleeves, and although the window was open there was a faint smell of ether in the air. Sisson said, ‘I’ve about ten minutes in which to drink this, then I must be on my way.’
Nurse Ward left, closing the door behind her. ‘I want a bottle of insulin,’ Masters stated. ‘Can you give me a prescription for it?’
Sisson gulped at the hot coffee. Grimaced because he’d burnt his mouth, and put the cup down. ‘Quite honestly I don’t know the form in cases like this,’ he said. ‘Strictly speaking I can’t prescribe except for genuine need. Where police demands fit into the picture I just can’t say. As far as I know there’s nothing laid down to cover these circumstances.’
Masters, sipping his coffee, said, ‘I don’t want to snarl up the works. Would a pharmacist sell me a bottle?’
‘Unlikely. Although I don’t know. Insulin isn’t a scheduled drug. It’s just one of those items a chemist doesn’t expect to sell over the counter, and so he wouldn’t provide it except against a prescription.’
‘Perhaps just a note from you would do the trick. I’d pay cash.’
Sick to Death Page 5
