Iceline

by Martyn Taylor

Jill Darling made her final rounds before finishing her shift. The report chart hanging at the foot of the bed remained nameless. He had barely moved all night, so she and her colleagues had eased him from time to time, checking his dressings and the links to the array of monitors ranged alongside the bed. The lack of a name slid a barrier between her team and the patient. The first stirrings of a tired headache mustered behind her forehead and she knew it was time to go home, a comfortable bed awaited her for the next few hours, then she would stir herself and sort out the daily chores. She handed her charge over to the next team, passing on the scarce details of the new arrival and went off for the day. Jill had her fleece jacket unzipped as she left the hospital and walked towards the sea front. The air was cool and a thin mist hung around the hills and as the encroaching heat of the sun stirred at tendrils already rising upwards as the air currents shifted, traffic trundled through the town. Delivery trucks shunted goods to the shops and holidaymakers made for the ferry terminal. The walk would clear her mind and she would be ready when she finally curled up and dragged the duvet over her head to go to sleep. A playful breeze from the bay tugged annoyingly at the strands of hair where they spilled out from the bungee on top of her head. She patted them away, dropped her head and jammed her hands deep into her pockets, trudging stolidly along the path. This one wasn't going to be easy. Someone was missing him, probably tormented with worry. She stopped and looked at the low outline of Kerrara across the bay. The bare masts of yachts riding at their moorings nodded and clinked gently on the incoming tide and the wash from the Cal-Mac ferry as it backed away from the quayside and swung its head around to sail out to the islands via its first call at Craignure on the Isle of Mull. The island's contours providing a backdrop to Jill's view of Kerrara. Pondering as she walked into the Harbour Café and ordered tea and a toasted teacake and while she waited put her head in her hands. She needed to see and feel people around her for a while. The café went about its business serving breakfasts for the commercial drivers, fishermen filled up after a night in the boats and a family of four tucked in, filling themselves before they filled up the car for the long drive south. She watched them for a moment, wondering if they had already been travelling for a couple of hours, driving to the ferry terminal at Craignure and crossing over from Mull. Frustratingly, the activity around her couldn’t overpower her own thoughts. The recurring distress, was that too strong a word, discomfort lacked something, disturbing may have been closer to the mark, but somehow she couldn't find the one she desired. Distress was the one she hung on to. It was the lack of a name. How do you talk to somebody like that without a deep connection? All she wanted was his name without waiting until he regained consciousness. He would be holding the door open for them, inviting them in. Jill Darling realised she was staring at the grey-green waters of the harbour with intense concentration. The tea and teacake arrived and she drank and ate without looking back at the sea. She needed rest, finished her drink, settled the bill and wrapped the remaining half of the teacake in the serviette and took it with her. She wandered around the harbour, heading for the streets of grey stone tenements where she had her flat, but stopped on the quayside and watched the activity for a while as she finished the teacake. An opportunist gull landed close by and wandered in her direction. Cocking its head as it approached, it eyed up the tasty morsel with a hopeful glint that at least part of it would soon be arcing through the air. It wasn't wrong. Jill Darling broke the last piece into two halves and lobbed one at the bird. The gull swallowed it with a couple of gulps and after a derisory flick of its wings when it realised that there was nothing else hauled itself into the air and dropped down to the water.

  The bird put a smile on her face and she went home, climbed the worn steps to her third floor flat. Locked the door behind her, went into the bathroom and stripped naked, showered, rubbed herself dry with a coarse towel and within fifteen minutes she was under the duvet. The curtains at the window were drawn from the night before, with only an inch of light showing between them, throwing the room into a warm gloom, but with a strip of brightness which would inch around the walls as they day progressed. This was Jill's alarm clock. Moving around in her sleep she would eventually find the duvet pushed aside and as the bright strip fell on her face to wake her sometime in the early afternoon. Sleep came easily, but dreams came too. She slept well and woke slowly. Four and a quarter hours had passed and but for the stiffness in her back which would soon pass, she felt relaxed and refreshed. Jill swung her legs off the bed and reached for a dressing gown draped over a bedside chair and wrapped it around her, tying the belt tightly around her waist. Barefoot she padded through the flat to the kitchen and, tugging open the door of the fridge, examined the contents. Half a dozen eggs, sunflower spread, a motley selection of vegetables including a split tomato, two half-used peppers and the remains of a bunch of salad onions. An opened quarter pound block of red Cheddar and a couple of mushrooms completed the roll call and she threw together a cheese and mushroom omelette. All was going well in the culinary department when the telephone rang; Jill let the answering machine take it. She put the omelette on a plate, picked a knife and fork from the drawer, a bottle of brown sauce from the cupboard and went into the living room where the red indicator light of the machine winked irritatingly as it waited for its recording to be replayed. She settled on the settee and swung her legs up underneath her bottom and pulled the dressing gown over her calves. She speared a piece of the omelette with her fork, lifting it to her mouth as she pressed the play button, “Hi Jill, Jack Cocker here, I'm trying to get hold of Rob Maclean, I've tried him at home, but there's no reply. Hope you don't mind, but I thought if you see him first, get him to call me. I got something for him." Jill pondered the message, wondering where he had got her number from, but then remembered that she had given it to him herself when he had visited last summer. Jill had found the Canadian a likeable sort of bloke and had no problem handing him her number. He hadn't used it much, the two men having a common interest via their work and Jill had been mentioned in passing. Jack had made the charming error of assuming that there was something between Jill and Rob, until she explained that they might have kissing cousins on his side of the pond, but it wasn't really the done thing here. She put her food down and reached for the receiver and a notebook and pen, punching the number recall code and jotted down the number and resumed her meal. Eventually she cleared the plate put it on the floor and redialled Cocker's number. It rang three times before the handset was lifted and she heard the familiar voice, but not quite how she remembered it. There was a deeper gravelly cast she thought hadn't been there before. "Jack Cocker speaking, what can I do you for?" She smiled, one of these days she would take his words in the vernacular and offer him a price and see what he had to say about that. "Afternoon Jack, though it probably isn't over there, it's Jill."

  "Jill?"

  "Jill Darling, Rob's cousin."

  "Ah, that Jill, the cousin who doesn't kiss," He thought that was a damn shame, "how you doing girl."

  "Me, fine, just great. Working hard, sleeping too little and not partying enough."

  "Me too, life's a bitch isn't it." He agreed, "Rob still not around?"

  "No, not seen him for a couple of days, but that's not unusual. He's been working overtime a lot. Sorry, you haven't got him, but you have got me."

  "Not complaining." He said and settled himself more comfortably on the floor. He thumbed the mute switch on the T.V. remote, then changed his mind and switched it off. The screen went blank and he lay on his back and gazed at the ceiling. "Life treating you OK then, apart from the usual worries."

  “Yeah, usual grumbles, so what did you want that rogue of a cousin for? Anything in particular?"

  Cocker stretched his back muscles, his voice altering slightly as he spoke. "No, bit of a chat that's all. I usually give him a call if something odd turns up, comparing notes really."

  "I could do with someone like that myself sometimes."

&nbs
p; "Sounds like you got a toughie. “Cocker probed gently and Jill thought, why not? "It could be, I suppose you would call him a John Doe, is that it, a person without a name."

  "Yeah, but they're not usually breathing by the time we get to them."

  Jill Darling curled her legs up under her chin and wrapped her arms around them, holding the receiver against her ear. Folding herself into as small a ball as she could. "This one is, but he's a bit of a mess. Someone did him some damage and left him for the birds." Her voice was tired. "God knows what, but he upset somebody."

  "Careful Jill, keep your distance, you know the trouble with getting too close."

  "Jack thanks, but I know, I've seen it before." She replied. Cocker chuckled; there had been an easy rapport between them from the start. "Not to you, eh?" He asked flatly. Jill Darling was silent for a moment or two and acknowledged his question.

  "No," she said, her voice quiet.

  Cocker's voice became serious. "Listen, just get a grip. You're flesh and blood like the rest of us. There is no guarantee that you're not going to fall if a patient comes in that's a bit cute. Heck, we have a similar problem. Think about it, you get folks on a boat in trouble and you drag a nice looking girl out of the ocean and you're the hero. It's possible they could fall for you and if she's cute enough, then there is a temptation and some of us do fall. You owe it to that guy not to get wound up."

  "It's not that,” She said, “Jack I need a name, a handle of some sort, something to get a hold of. Then I can see him as a person, at the moment I'm stumbling." She said. Jack Cocker nodded his head; he had known a similar feeling when they recovered a body from the water. He had felt like that when they brought Billy back home to his folks. There were times when he found coming home to an empty flat was desperately hard. He said. "I may be a couple of thousand miles away, but I'm still at the end of a phone. If it helps give me a call and we'll talk, or chuck me an e-mail" Jill Darling found she was smiling at his offer and realised the sincerity of it. "I know Jack, Thanks I appreciate it."

  “That’s OK; the distance might make it easier."

  "So what did you want Robbie for?" Jill asked, steering the conversation away from her troubles. "Nothing much, just wanted to compare notes. There was an unusual twist to what we found. The book's logging it as a maritime accident, down to equipment failure." Jack explained, "Matter of fact it was an aqua-lung cylinder."

  "A diving cylinder," remarked Jill, "Ugh, Jack. I hope it was all over fairly quickly?"

  "It looked pretty quick," he said, "they wouldn't have lasted long anyway, it can be cold out there in the Atlantic, even at this time of year, so they would have been unconsciousness before too long."

  "And then they would have drifted away without noticing it," Jill said gently. "Well, I suppose there are worse ways of going."

  "Yeah, look; do me a favour. When you see Rob ask him to check something for me."

  "OK, what are you looking for?"

  "Ask him the last time they had a high pressure cylinder blow up, any sort of cylinder."

  "Got that,” She said, picking up the pad and pen again, scribbling a note. “Are you backing a hunch?"

  "Maybe, look I was thinking if there's a clutch of incidents there may a duff batch of cylinders.”

  "And if there isn't?" She could almost see the shrug that Cocker made.

  "If it's one off, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree." He said. "It was the way it blew apart. I always thought they split when they burst, but this one broke in two and went in opposite directions. Boat looked like it had been bombed and the two guys on board never stood a chance. We’re waiting for the forensic guys to finish."

  "Are you checking on the cylinder on your side?" Jill probed.

  Cocker responded. "Not yet, but I will do, first chance I get."

  "What makes you think there might be a connection with over here?"

  "Well, there were some American made cylinders imported a few years ago, came with what’s called a slingshot pillar valve; it was shaped a bit like a kid's catapult. The real hitch came with the specification for re-testing, from what Robbie told me some of the dive shops refused to fill or test them because they weren’t marked up exactly like the British ones. There was a worry that the wrong pillar valve might be fitted, something to do with the thread sizes not being the same.”

  “OK, I’ll get him to nose around, he’ll enjoy that, poking around digging stuff up and I will torment him until he rings you.”

  Cocker mumbled agreeably and the conversation faltered; rather than struggle for something to say Jill wound things up. "Jack, thanks for chatting, I've got things I need to do before I go back to work tonight, so I will have to say cheerio for now and maybe I'll catch up with you later."

  "OK; Take care Jill."

  "I will, all the best Jack."

  "And you too." Jack Cocker replied with surprising feeling and replaced the receiver. She's a right kind of girl, he thought and over two thousand miles away, or maybe he was just hoping she was because it eased the loneliness. Jack Cocker crawled on to the couch, facing the leather upholstery and closed his eyes, with hardly a breath he fell asleep and a growling snore was the only sound in the room.

  Jill put down phone, the pad and pencil and took her plate and cutlery into the kitchen. She dumped them in the sink, pushed in the plug and ran a couple of inches of hot water from the tap. Added a squirt of washing up liquid and left the pots to soak. She dried her hands and slipped back into the bathroom to complete her grooming.

  *****

  Chapter Six