Blood Will Tell

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘Oh, good grief, I am sorry. I’ll settle down and behave, I promise. Where would you suggest I go first?’

  ‘What is your main interest? Painting, sculpture? Porcelain, pottery, glass? European, Asian?’

  I could hardly tell him my main interest was in killing time. ‘I’m not really sure. Such an embarrassment of riches …’ I remembered in time not to wave my hands around again.

  ‘Here’s a gallery guide, then. Note that flash photography is prohibited, but you can take pictures without flash in most galleries. Just ask any guard if you have questions.’

  I didn’t have a camera with me, and if my tiny, antiquated flip-top cell phone was able to take pictures, I certainly didn’t know how. I smiled at the nice young man, clutched the floor plan and headed up the stairs, because how could one see that magnificent flight and not climb it?

  I’m sure the art on display was wonderful, but its setting was so superb as to overwhelm the paintings. I wandered from one gallery to the next, marvelling at a carved plaster ceiling here, a stained-glass window there, an inlaid floor, an elaborate lintel.

  I was in such a state of artistic satiation that I forgot about everything else until my phone rang, to my embarrassment. I’d neglected to turn it off, a thing I always try to be careful about. I ducked around a corner and eventually fished the thing out of my purse. It had stopped ringing by that time, so I looked at the display, which showed a number my phone didn’t recognize. Almost certainly Tom Grenfell. I was really going to have to program him in. A quick check of the floor plan showed me there were no lavatories on this floor, or indeed on the main floor. I’d have to go outside, or all the way down to the lowest level, to find a place where I could ring back and talk without disturbing everyone else. There was, it appeared, only one elevator, several galleries away. I headed for the staircase without a thought to its beauty, but only its utility as the most direct way out.

  If it hadn’t been for the railing, I couldn’t have saved myself. At least a foot wide, it afforded no handhold, but I was leaning on it for support as I went down the stairs at the nearest approach to a run I could manage.

  The shove came from one side, not directly in my back. Again I was fortunate. A direct push would have sent me somersaulting down those marble steps, and I would almost certainly have been dead by the time I hit the bottom. The shove against my shoulder pushed me hard against the railing. I was leaning on it already. My body spun to meet my hand and arm, and I found myself on my front, slipping down the glassy marble as if it had been an oiled slide and I a small naughty boy. I fetched up against the broad flat marble post at the bottom, teetered there for a moment, and then slid inelegantly to the floor.

  I’m sure a degree of pandemonium must have ensued, but to tell the truth I missed most of it. I wasn’t exactly unconscious, just somehow not quite there for a while. When I was once more aware of my surroundings, someone had spread a blanket over me and was taking my pulse.

  ‘Who pushed me?’ I croaked.

  Nobody took the slightest notice. ‘Did you hit your head?’ asked the pulse-taker.

  ‘No. I don’t think so. It doesn’t hurt. Someone gave me a shove—’

  ‘Are you dizzy at all?’

  ‘Of course I’m dizzy! I have mild vertigo, and I’ve just taken a wild ride. Look, someone needs to look for—’

  ‘Look straight at me, please.’

  I glared at her. She shone a flashlight in each eye. I put up a hand to shield them, growing more irritated every moment.

  ‘Probably no concussion,’ she said briefly. ‘No broken bones. She should lie still for a while, in view of her dizziness and confusion. I don’t think she needs to go to hospital, if you’ve a quiet place where she could stay for an hour or so.’

  I sat up and threw off the blanket. ‘I do not need to lie down, and I am not confused. How many times must I tell you that someone tried to push me down those stairs? If I’m not dead, it’s no fault of his. Help me up; my titanium knees don’t like getting up off the floor.’

  ‘Now, now, you shouldn’t—’

  My fury helped me to stand up on my own, if awkwardly. ‘Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do! And don’t treat me like a child.’ I patted my pocket. ‘Where’s my phone?’

  ‘We found this, madam,’ said the nice young man from the reception desk. ‘I’m afraid it’s seen better days.’

  It was in pieces, shattered beyond repair. As I might have been if all the saints hadn’t been looking after me. I muttered under my breath words I don’t usually say out loud.

  ‘Someone call my husband.’ I gave them his mobile number. ‘Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt. He’s attending the police conference at St Stephen’s College, if he doesn’t answer his own phone. Tell him to get here as soon as he can.’

  Though, of course, by now it was far too late even to attempt a search for whoever had tried to kill me. He’d have mingled with the crowd and vanished before anyone had any idea it wasn’t a simple accident.

  The museum people and that nurse or doctor, or whatever, were quite sure it was an accident and I was merely raving. I sincerely hoped that among the painful bruises I was certainly developing was one that would show the mark of a homicidal hand.

  I still felt dizzy, and every part of me felt sore, but I was not about to let that officious medical person dictate what I would do. ‘I will wait for Alan right here,’ I said firmly, ‘and I would rather stand than sit, thank you, unless there’s a well-cushioned chair somewhere. I fell rather hard on my sit-upon.’

  Turning my head carefully to avoid making the dizziness worse, I looked at the stairs. Somehow they didn’t seem nearly as attractive as they had earlier.

  The nice young man materialized again, pushing before him an upholstered chair he had found somewhere. Like my phone, it had seen better days. The cushions were a bit lumpy, and the wood of the legs was scuffed. ‘From the staff room,’ he said. ‘It’s a trifle ratty, but it’s comfortable.’

  I collapsed into it gratefully to wait for Alan.

  It wasn’t a long wait. In fact, he appeared before I thought it possible, charging in the front door of the museum rather like a raging bull.

  ‘Don’t hug me, love,’ I warned. ‘I don’t think there’s a square inch of me that doesn’t hurt. How did you get here so fast?’

  ‘I was down at King’s. When I tried to call you and got an “out of service” message, I was sure something was wrong, and went looking for you.’

  ‘It might have meant I’d forgotten to charge the phone,’ I pointed out, serene again now that he was there.

  ‘But it didn’t. Dorothy, what happened?’

  ‘Someone tried to push me down the stairs. No one here believes me, but that’s what happened.’

  ‘She was running down the stairs,’ said the officious medical person with a sniff. I had hoped she had left.

  ‘You saw the incident?’ said Alan in a voice that ought to have frozen her solid.

  ‘No, but I talked to several people who did.’

  ‘And you are an employee of the museum?’

  ‘Certainly not, and I don’t care for your implication. I walked into the museum, saw that there had been an accident and offered what assistance I could.’

  ‘You are a doctor, or a nurse?’

  She sniffed. ‘I am trained in first aid.’

  ‘As am I. May I ask why you took the word of passers-by about what happened to my wife, rather than her own word?’

  ‘Well! Anyone could see that she was raving. She was disoriented and in pain, and, by her own admission, dizzy.’

  ‘She is also an excellent witness, and an entirely truthful person, as I have reason to know. I don’t know if she told you that I am a senior policeman. Did it occur to no one to investigate this so-called accident?’

  ‘Well, really! I was trying to be helpful!’

  I was actually beginning to feel a little sorry for the woman, annoying though she was. ‘Alan, I w
as just a little woozy at first. I suspect that by the time I said anything, whoever did it was long gone. But I wasn’t running. You know I don’t run anymore. I was hurrying, I admit, because – oh! Alan, Tom tried to call me. I’m sure it was him, and I couldn’t talk to him in here, so I was trying to get outside, and now my phone’s smashed to bits and I don’t have his number and—’

  ‘All right, darling, all right. We’ll sort it out. The question now is what to do with you. Can you walk?’

  ‘Not very far. Nothing’s really wrong with me, but I’m a mass of bruises and pretty uncomfortable.’

  ‘Then let’s get you back to St Stephen’s in a taxi.’

  ‘Um – if you wouldn’t mind, sir.’ It was the nice young man again. David something, I saw on his name badge. ‘When there’s any kind of accident here at the museum, we like to have a doctor see the victim, just to make sure there are no serious injuries. We can have someone take your wife to the doctor we prefer to use, unless …’

  Alan studied him. He must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he nodded. ‘As we live in Belleshire and know no doctors hereabouts, that will be fine. I was going to have someone at college recommend a doctor, but this is quicker. Dorothy?’

  ‘Fine with me.’ I was suddenly very tired.

  The doctor poked and prodded. I yelped. He pronounced me unharmed except for all the bruises, and tried to prescribe some pain meds, which I refused. ‘I can’t take them. They make me sick. I’ll just have to cope, with the help of ibuprofen.’ All I actually wanted to do was lie down on a soft bed with a mild sleeping pill and drift away to a place where I didn’t hurt all over.

  ‘You’ll be stiff as a board when you wake up,’ said Alan when I told him.

  ‘I’ll be stiff as a board no matter what I do, and at least I’ll have an hour or two of respite. I’ll deal with the outcome later. Just get me to bed, Alan.’

  He grinned and gave me his best imitation of a leer, but I hurt too much even to smile in response.

  I didn’t take a pill, after all, but I still slept away the afternoon. I was, as predicted, so stiff when I woke up that I could barely move. Alan was there.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be doing something official?’ I tried to sit up.

  ‘I’ve explained to the conference chair. I’m not letting you out of my sight, my dear, so you may as well resign yourself to my company. Do you think you could get into a bathtub? Hot water would help.’

  ‘Maybe if I had a shower first to loosen things up a bit. Oh, Alan, I do hurt!’

  ‘I hurt just looking at you. Those bruises ought to be in the Guinness Book of Records.’

  ‘I always did bruise easily. I don’t even want to look at myself. I don’t think I can get out of this blasted bed without help.’

  Alan was as gentle as a big man can be, but I was panting from the effort by the time he got me upright. He gave me his arm to get to the bathroom and then helped me out of my clothes; I couldn’t manage by myself. Pulling off my shirt, he paused and then turned my back towards the mirror.

  ‘Dorothy, do you have a hand mirror with you?’

  ‘A little one in my purse. But I told you I don’t want to look at myself.’

  ‘You’ll want to see this.’

  ‘Alan, I’m cold!’

  ‘I’ll only be a moment.’

  He rummaged in my purse and came back with the tiny round mirror. ‘Look at your left shoulder blade, or just above it.’

  I looked, and gasped. There, in tasteful shades of red and purple, was the distinct image of a palm and five fingertips.

  EIGHT

  ‘Proof!’

  ‘It looks very much like it to me. And if it won’t offend your sense of propriety, I’m going to snap a picture, just for the record.’

  ‘Nothing very improper about a back. Be my guest.’

  He took a quick couple of shots with his mobile. ‘Now, into the shower with you before you add hypothermia to your other woes. Do you need assistance?’

  ‘Just stepping over the edge of the tub. But aren’t you going to do something about this?’ I tried to gesture with my head towards the revealing bruise, and let out a yelp as sore muscles protested.

  ‘I’m going to phone Superintendent Barker while you’re in the shower. I talked to her earlier, while you were asleep, but I want her to know about this evidence.’

  ‘Isn’t she still at the conference?’

  ‘She is. I told you I’m not leaving you. She can come here. Someone’s tried to kill you once. I’m not giving them a second chance.’ He turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature. ‘OK, one leg. Steady! T’other leg. There you are, darling. Give a shout when you need to get out.’

  The hot water was wonderful. I wasn’t able to do much actual washing; twisting was painful, and the pressure even of a washcloth on the bruises was a bit much. There wasn’t a lot of healthy skin between the purple patches, but I did my best and trusted to the water to sluice away most of the grunge.

  I turned off the water, wrapped myself in the bath sheet that Alan had left on a convenient hook, and was about to try to extricate myself with the aid of the grab bar when Alan came back into the steamy bathroom.

  ‘Ready for that bath now?’

  ‘Alan, I can’t. I do feel much better, but the idea of sitting on hard porcelain …’ I shuddered. He surveyed the relevant portion of my anatomy and nodded.

  ‘I take your point. Let me help you into your nightie and dressing gown, then. Superintendent Barker is on her way over with some lunch for both of us, if you can bear to sit long enough to eat it.’

  ‘Oh, you missed your lunch, didn’t you?’

  He grinned. ‘Too busy rescuing a damsel in distress. Now, if you’ll just move that arm a little – there you are. Warm enough?’

  ‘Toasty, thank you.’

  His phone tootled. ‘That’ll be the superintendent, I expect, wanting me to let her in.’

  It wasn’t. I could hear the agitated male voice myself, though not what was being said. Alan’s responses were limited to variations of yes and no.

  He chuckled as he put the phone back in his pocket. ‘Young Tom. Did you hear?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘He’s just heard from his aunt about your fall and is somewhat distressed. He wanted to come over, and I said he could. If you’re not too terribly uncomfortable, I thought we could have a conference, the four of us.’

  I headed back to the bathroom for more ibuprofen.

  When all were assembled, the room, though a nice one for two people, seemed crowded. Alan insisted that I take the one chair, well padded with pillows. Alan and Elaine perched on the beds while Tom sat cross-legged on the floor in a position I hadn’t been able to assume for at least thirty years.

  ‘Now,’ said Elaine, when Alan and I had eaten our salads and crusty rolls, ‘Alan tells me you were pushed down the stairs, and have the bruises to show for it.’

  ‘It certainly looks like a handprint to me. Alan can show you a photo. I do bruise easily, or it might not have come through so clearly. I doubt my attacker took that into consideration.’

  ‘But, Aunt Elaine, what are you doing about it? It’s perfectly obvious that someone’s trying to kill Mrs Martin because of what she knows about whatever’s going on in the Hutchins Building, and here we sit talking about bruises.’

  ‘Simmer down, boy! Nothing’s perfectly obvious, as you put it, except a bruise. It could have been an accident.’

  I shook my head. ‘I was pushed, Elaine. Hard.’

  ‘Were the stairs crowded?’

  ‘Moderately, I think. That’s why I was edged right up against the railing. I was trying to hurry, to get to a place where I could phone, and the way was clearer over there at the side. Besides, I thought it would be easy to slip on all that marble, so I wanted to be careful.’

  ‘And some rude person wanted to push past you, and pushed your shoulder to get you out of the way. And then when he saw the disaster
that resulted, he got out of there as fast as he could.’

  Tom and Alan and I began to protest. Elaine held up a hand. ‘I don’t believe it happened that way, either. I believe it was deliberate. But you do see that my scenario is just possible.’

  I kept my mouth shut. Tom glowered. But Alan slowly nodded his head. ‘You’re quite right, Superintendent.’

  She gestured impatiently. ‘Elaine. Or am I to call you “Chief Constable”?’

  ‘Elaine, then. And tying the incident to the Hutchins business is a stretch.’

  ‘Damn it all, what other reason could anyone have for trying to kill a nice lady like Mrs Martin?’ Tom was getting red in the face.

  ‘Again, I don’t say you’re wrong,’ said Elaine with maddening calm. ‘I don’t say we shouldn’t approach an investigation from that angle. I do say we can’t regard anything as obvious at this stage.’

  ‘You are going to investigate, then?’ I shifted in my chair. The effect of my shower was wearing off and the pillows weren’t much help. If my bones and muscles were capable of moaning, they’d be setting up quite a chorus.

  ‘Certainly! Disappearing bloodstains in a college are one thing. An assault on a visitor in my city is quite another. The Fitzwilliam is on my beat, Dorothy. It won’t be simple, because their CCTV isn’t working just now, so there won’t be any firm evidence. But believe me, they’ll cooperate to the hilt with anything I want to do.’

  I got it after a second. ‘Because the alternative is an accident for which they might be sued.’

  ‘Precisely. You look terribly uncomfortable. Should you take a painkiller and go to bed? We can take our consultation elsewhere.’

  ‘I can’t take pain pills, at least not the kind that really work. And I want to be in on this. They’re my bruises, after all. But I admit I can’t sit here much longer.’

  They tucked me into bed, with all the pillows the room afforded. ‘I feel like some Renaissance monarch conducting a levee.’

  Alan bowed. ‘Would your majesty care for some coffee? Or tea?’