by John Brunner
–Poor woman! Shoulders uneven like that … Must have broken a collarbone when she was a kid, and it was neglected or badly set. And him, too, the man in the shabby jacket: the way he holds his arms over his belly … Ulcer. Yes, an ulcer.
And came close to stopping dead in his tracks as he realised:
–I don’t know these people. I never had any training in medicine. So how the hell…? Of course. I’ve seen the same before, haven’t I? Carter-Craig, who had to retire early from the first school I taught at: he used to hold his arms that way when his ulcer was plaguing him. And that boy I was at school with myself, Freddie Grice. His shoulders were uneven and when he grfew up he must have come to look pretty much like that woman. Funny I should think of him, though. Must be the first time in–what?–fifteen years.
And, as he discovered he was able to make similar rational guesses about the other patients he passed, waiting for medicine to be issued over a dispensary counter, he was momentarily disturbed.
–Could this have something to do with the VC Morris gave me? I mean, I don’t usually think like this, don’t usually pay so much attention to everybody I see … Still, if the main result of taking VC is to increase your empathy, that can definitely not be bad. The world’s terribly short of it. Morris and I were agreeing on that last night.
Then his puzzlement was chased away by something else as he drew level with the main entrance foyer of the building. On arriving with Billy he had spotted a separate casualty entrance, so he had not come in this way. Here now was a fat cheerful woman handing to a nurse seated at a table a little blue chit bearing the symbol of the National Blood Transfusion Service, and saying as she did so, “Haven’t done this for years, you know! If I’d realised, I’d have come along sooner. Makes a bit extra for Christmas like, don’t it?”
And the girl was exchanging the blue voucher for a five-pound note.
He had known there was a blood-donation session in progress; a sign at the casualty entrance informed would-be donors that they had come to the wrong door. But …
Catching sight of him, the seated nurse looked a question.
“Since when have they been paying for blood in this country?” he demanded.
“Oh, it’s a new idea,” the nurse answered. “Seems not enough people will give blood if they don’t. We were having to buy plasma from abroad. So they said to start paying.” She pulled a face. “Can’t say I fancy the look of some of the people it pulls in, I must admit!”
“Good grief,” Malcolm said inadequately. “Ah … how much?”
“Oh, five pounds a pint. I mean half-litre.”
The idea haunted him all the time he was in the toilet, and finally he gave in.
After all, there was something so horribly appropriate about it.
“Fry, Malcolm Colin … Do you happen to know your group, Mr Fry? No? You should, you know. Everybody should. But testing for that will only take a moment … Ah, you’re O positive, the commonest group. So that will probably go straight to the plasma centrifuge. But don’t worry, we’ll pay you anyhow! There’s always a great demand for plasma over Christmas: road accidents, kids cutting themselves on knives they’ve just been given, drunken housewives getting burned as they take the turkey out of the oven … Sit over there, please, and wait until the nurse says she’s ready.”
V
–So what was all that about Maurice Post?
By dint of skimping (he admitted it to himself) on his least urgent patients, Hector Campbell had caught up on the day’s list by his regular quitting-time. Being so harried, though, he was already driving out of the clinic’s car-park before he recollected the mysterious phone-call from Kneller.
–But he works at Gull-Grant. Why in the world should the director be “anxious to get in touch with him”?
He hesitated. Then, with sudden decision, he turned right instead of left as usual towards his home. Maurice lived on the edge of Hampstead, barely a mile north of here. It would take only ten minutes to go ring his bell and ask if he would like a pre-Christmas drink, and if he were not in little time would have been wasted.
–But it’s all very strange!
Though he and Maurice had been at school together, Mrurice was the older by three years, so only membership of the school’s Science Hobby Club had brought them into regular contact. There had been a lapse of a decade when they completely drifted apart. Coincidentally, however, Maurice’s former doctor had retired at the time he moved to Hampstead, and on learning that his new address was in the catchment area of the clinic where Hector worked, he had opted to continue with National Health treatment rather than the private care the government would have preferred someone in his position to choose. Since then, he and Hector had met a dozen times a year, at parties, at the latter’s home, or for a spur-of-the-moment drink together.
Hector was not entirely clear about the nature of Maurice’s work at the Gull-Grant Institute. Though he had taken a course in biochemistry as part of his medical training, he was baffled by the obscure language of the scientific papers from internationally respected journals which Maurice now and then showed him with shy pride. He had, however, gathered that his old friend was regarded as a leading authority on the structure of complex organic molecules, and had developed valuable new methods of handling viruses in vitro.
–And his boss doesn’t know where he is? Ridiculous!
They had last met the previous week, when Hector had been resigned to a dull evening of baby-minding because his wife was attending a charitable committee-meeting. Maurice had invited himself over, and they had passed a pleasant couple of hours chatting. Memory replayed fragments of the conversation, like bad tape full of wow.
“Can there have been a gloomier Christmas than this since 1938? How many people out of work–two million, isn’t it? And this crisis brewing in Italy, and the government making all these threats about jailing strikers, which I believe a lot more readily than most of their promises! And all the time inflation running wild: people walking because they can’t afford bus-fare, the shops full of goods and nobody buying anything even though it’s nearly Christmastime, just wandering around and staring with those pitiful looks of envy … You’ve seen ’em!”
–Pleasant? No, not exactly. We spent too much of the time commiserating about the mess the world is in. But it was a splendid bull-session, anyhow.
At which point in his musing he reached an intersection and slowed to glance left and right despite being on the major road, for although the snow had stopped this area, unfrequented and poverty-stricken, had not been sanded and the streets were slippery. There, in a narrow cul-de-sac where most of the houses were empty and the front yards sprouted boastful signs about impending redevelopment which had never taken place: a police constable, an ambulance rolling to a halt, and–a specially bad sign–a group of a dozen kids and a couple of women clustered together, watching in silence. Plainly they were very poor. His practised eye noted with dismay the symptoms of osteomalacia, nutritional anasarca, and what, given the fearful price of fruit and vegetables this winter, could all too easily be scurvy.
–Some child hurt playing a dangerous game in one of those vacant houses?
He jumped out of his car, shivering in the bitter wind, and shouted as he approached the policeman, “I’m a doctor! Anything I can do?”
Carrying a blood-red blanket, the ambulance men were heading for a drift of snow piled against a stub of broken wall.
“I’m afraid he’s past hope, sir,” the constable said.
“A tramp dead of exposure?” Hector hazarded.
The policeman lowered his voice. “More like murder, sir, if you ask me.”
“Murder!” Hector echoed, more loudly than he intended, and one of the kids overheard, a snot-nosed brat of about ten.
“Yeah! ’Ad ’is ’ead beat in, just like on the telly!”
And crowed with cynical laughter.
“Get out of it, you lot!” the constable shouted, and continued to Hector,
“Though I’m afraid he’s right. See for yourself.”
He pointed, and for Hector the world came to a grinding halt. He heard himself say faintly, “Maurice!”
“You knew him?” the policeman demanded.
“He’s–he was–one of my oldest friends! I was on my way to call on him! Oh, this is terrible!” Hector stooped at the corpse’s side, and his last faint hope that he might have been mistaken vanished as he looked more closely at the frost-pale features. Swallowing hard, he said, “His name was Post.”
“Yes, I found a letter on him with that name,” the policeman began, and broke off as, to the accompaniment of a chorus of jeers from the children, a white car with a flashing blue light on top rounded the corner. “Excuse me, sir. Here comes CID now.”
Having performed his rôle as corpse-identifier and relinquished the rest of the grisly task to the experts, Hector stood by feeling numb cold spread up from his soles to match the frozen sensation in his mind. He barely heard what was being said, the consensus that Maurice had been hit very hard with something blunt, that he had probably been killed elsewhere and his body dumped, very likely last night, that it was no use photographing footprints round it because the kids had trampled the snow … Yet somehow he could not summon the energy to get back in his car and go home.
And then, unexpectedly, another car roared to a halt and two men emerged, one in his fifties with a grizzled beard, the other plumper and somewhat younger. With a shock, Hector recognised a face he had often seen in scientific magazines Maurice had lent him.
“Professor Kneller!” he shouted.
The bearded man checked. “Who the …?”
“I’m Hector Campbell! Maurice’s doctor!” Hurrying over to him.
“Good lord. We spoke on the phone this morning. Well, this is my colleague Arthur Randolph, and … You mean it is Maurice that they’ve found?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, my God.” Kneller let his shoulders slump. “Did they find anything on his body?”
“What sort of–?” Hector began, but he was interrupted as the senior police officer at the scene strode to meet them.
“Professor Kneller? I’m Chief Inspector Sawyer. We’ve had a positive identification from Dr Campbell here, so–”
“Did you find anything on his body?” Kneller snapped.
Sawyer, startled, blinked rapidly several times. “Well, a few odds and ends. My sergeant’s made up a list. Sergeant Epton!” Turning.
And the sergeant brought them a printed form with half a dozen lines of neat writing on it, which Kneller scanned hastily. Passing it to Randolph, he shook his head.
“Have you looked in his wallet? It could have been in there,” Randolph said.
“There’s no mention of a wallet,” Kneller grunted.
“That’s not surprising, sir,” Sawyer put in. “Either this was, as they say, murder in pursuit of theft, or else someone threw his wallet away to make us think it was.”
“It is murder? You’re sure of that?”
“There’s a vanishingly small chance it might have been an accident. I wouldn’t bet money on it, though.” Sawyer, sharp-featured and lean, looked grim.
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to search this whole area,” Kneller said. “Very thoroughly indeed!”
“Looking for what, sir?”
“Probably a container of capsules, little yellow ones the size of a rice-grain.”
Hector took a pace forward. “But that sounds like Inspirogene. I prescribed it for Maurice myself. What makes it so special?”
Sawyer glanced at him. “A drug, Doctor?”
“Not the kind you mean,” Hector said. “It’s for asthma and other allergic complaints. Professor, why in the–?”
Randolph cut him short. “Wilfred, we must search his home. He may have left a note or something.”
“Yes, of course. Inspector, we’ll have to go there right away. I see his keys were found on him. Bring them along.”
Sawyer, clearly disconcerted, answered, “I’m afraid everything from the body will have to go to the forensic people, sir.”
“Damn!” Kneller stamped his foot. “Well, if you come to his home with us, can we legally break in?”
“There’d be no need for that,” Hector interposed. “His landlady lives downstairs. I’m sure she’ll have a key. And she’s elderly and almost never goes out.”
“Fine! Come along, Inspector–but order a search of this site first.”
Obstinately Sawyer said, “You’ll have to give me a reason!”
“I can’t! Not without wasting time! Simply take my word that … Well, for one thing, if these kids got hold of what I’m talking about, there’d be hell to pay.”
“Sir!” Diffidently from the young constable. “The body did look as though someone had searched the pockets. And these kids are a rough lot. Wouldn’t put it past ’em to …” He ended on a shrug. With a sigh, Sawyer gave ground.
“You come too, Campbell,” Randolph said. “You knew him and his habits better than us, I imagine. We’re likely to need your advice.”
“Oh, Billy! Thanks!” gasped Ruth as she ducked into the hallway of Malcolm’s home, followed by a blast of freezing air. Setting down the heavy bag of shopping she carried, obviously her last pre-Christmas purchases, she went on, “Are you okay?”
Touching the bandage around his head, Billy answered with a sour grin. “As well as can be expected. They didn’t even, have to put stitches in.”
“Thank goodness for that! Uh–is Malcolm in?”
“I don’t think so. I just knocked on his door and got no answer. I passed out when I came home from the clinic, you see, because of the shot they gave me, I guess, and when I woke up a few minutes ago I came down to say thanks, and … Mind out, Ruth.”
Descending the stairs carrying luggage, embittered Len Shaw, oldest of Malcolm’s lodgers. Pushing by, he said, “Merry Christmas!” In a tone suggestive of afterthought.
“Is Malcolm expecting you?” Billy went on.
“Not exactly. I … Well, it may sound silly, but I make a point of not seeing him every day.”
“And of not having a key to this house,” Billy said acutely. “Too much like permanent, hm?”
She gave him a sharp suspicious glance.
“No, Malcolm hasn’t been talking about you to me! But … Well, I’ve seen the change you’ve brought about in him, and I think it’s great. You know what a state he was in when I arrived, a month or so after his wife walked out with the kids because he’s unemployed. Even if he was just my landlord, he struck me as a nice guy, and I was worried to see him so miserable. And then you showed up, and ever since … Say, can I ask a personal question?”
“I won’t promise to answer, but go ahead.”
“You’re single, right? Well–why the hell?”
Ruth bit her lip. “If you must know,” she said after a pause, “by accident. Fatal-type.”
“Oh! Like–uh–a car-crash killed your fiancé?”
“No, a train-crash killed my father. And left my mother crippled. It meant I couldn’t go to university, and when she did eventually die … Well, it seemed too late for children, and that to me is the reason for being married. But I’m doing okay. I have a steady secure job, because of course I had to have one, and I don’t think I was cut out to be a wife.”
More luggage being carried down the stairs: Reggie Brown, the dreadfully earnest student of archaeology, helping devout Mary with her bags. More insincere cries of “Merry Christmas!” And a renewed blast of cold wind down the hallway.
“Are you going away over Christmas?” Billy asked as the door shut.
“Yes, I’m visiting my brother in Kent. What about you?”
Billy shrugged. “Oh, I’ll stay home. I don’t have any kinfolk in England, you know, and all my friends are around here. Besides, after what happened this morning I don’t feel too much inclined to celebrate a Christian feast.”
“It was terrib
le, wasn’t it?” Ruth said. “They were like wild beasts! I really thought for a moment they were going to kill you.”
“Wouldn’t have been the first time a Jew got killed for being Jewish, would it?” Billy grunted. “I’ve run across them before, you know. Once we caught one of them planting a gas-bomb–I mean a petrol-bomb–in the section of the bookstore where we keep sex-counselling books and medical texts. And there’s a clothing store I pass every morning and evening that closed down after they smashed its windows half a dozen times. They’d found out it was catering to gay people. That made me really hate their guts. Not that I could afford the prices the shop was charging, but even so …”
“You mean you–?” Ruth began, looking at him with wide eyes, and broke off. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Billy spread his hands. “I don’t noise it around, but I don’t make a secret of it, either. It’s the way I am and I feel I’m entitled to live with it.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Ruth hesitated, then turned to pick up her shopping-bag again. “Well, I mainly called in to ask after you, and if Malcolm isn’t in–”
From behind the closed door of Malcolm’s room came a sudden crash: a plate or saucer smashing.
“But he is in!” Billy exclaimed, and swung around to try the door-handle. Unlocked, the door swung wide.
And there was Malcolm at the breakfast-counter dividing the kitchenette from the rest of the room, very pale and swaying visibly as he tried to kick into a pile the fragments of the plate he had dropped. The light in the room was very low; the radio was playing softly; the TV was on, but not its sound, and everywhere books lay open untidily.
On the breakfast-counter were two bottles of wine: one empty, one newly opened.
“Hi,” Malcolm muttered. “Sorry, Ruth. I heard you come in, but I just didn’t feel up to … Oh, damn! I’m very drunk, I’m afraid. It seems to help.”
