by Simon Clark
He held it up to get a better look.
Ben’s thumb.
‘Is it…you know?’ asked the workman.
David nodded. ‘The thumb. There’s no sign of the fingers, unfortunately.’
He returned to his audience. As they watched, he began to wrap the severed thumb in cling film.
Stevo in his black hat said, ‘Aren’t you going to wash it first?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? It’s covered in shit and stuff.’
‘You must never wash a severed limb. The hospital staff will take care of that.’ He looked at the teenage girl. ‘How’s our patient doing?’
The girl flushed, pleased. ‘His breathing’s slowing down…so’s his pulse,’ she added quickly.
‘You didn’t touch his wrists?’
‘No. I checked the pulse in his neck.’
‘Well done. Thanks.’ He shot her a smile; she blushed again, looking pleased with herself.
A good kid. Not like Stevo who sounded as if he was trying to pick a fight in a bar rather than show concern for his injured workmate.
‘You’ve got to wash it,’ he insisted, ‘just look at the state of it.’
‘Trust me, it’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure you’re a doctor?’
‘Yep, I’m a qualified doctor.’ He gave the man a bright artificial smile. ‘Now, if you’d kindly hold this for me, sir.’
He took Stevo’s hand and placed the severed thumb — now securely wrapped in cling film — in his palm. The torn thumb-nail, looking like a fragile seashell, showed through the transparent plastic; at the point of amputation, strings of meat were now sandwiched between cling film and skin.
As Stevo’s eyes glazed David took the thumb back, wrapped it in his clean handkerchief, then carefully laid it amongst the ice cubes in the plastic bag.
Stevo watched the thumb nestling amongst the ice. His face paled; a second later he folded up onto the pavement in a dead faint.
‘Hell’s bells,’ said one of the man’s workmates. ‘What shall we do with him, Doc?’
‘Leave him.’ David suppressed the grin coming to his lips. ‘He’ll come to in a moment.’
He wrote the injured man’s details — name, date of accident — on the back of his train ticket which he slipped into the bag with the thumb. They’d need the information in Casualty, when the ambulance — speak of the devil! — got him there. Blue lights flashing, the ambulance roared up the access road to the station. Seconds later the fire engine followed.
Now, at last, it was plain sailing. Within moments the injured man was stretchered into the ambulance; David handed over the bag of ice, complete with thumb, to the paramedic. He wished they’d managed to pull the fingers from the drain, but at least they had the thumb. Microsurgery was advanced enough probably to save the thumb, and with that all-important opposable digit, evolved by man and monkey alike, the injured man shouldn’t be too handicapped in what he could do.
The ambulance roared away, siren whooping. The firemen turned their attentions to scooping more muck from the drain, but David doubted they would have any luck finding the fingers.
Stevo was sitting on the pavement, looking decidedly nauseous; he wiped his sweating face with the black jeep hat.
The other workmen thanked David and wanted to shake him by the hand, but he showed them his own bloody hands. Instead they slapped him on the back and promised to buy him a beer if they bumped into him in any of Leppington’s thirteen watering holes.
With the live show over, the crowd had dispersed. Now David was left alone to retrieve his bag. He picked it up, realizing the handles were going to be pretty badly smeared with blood and drain silt. What the heck, it had felt good to be a useful cog in the great engine of humanity again.
As he crossed the market square in the direction of the hotel, he wondered just what had got hold of the man’s hand in the drain and snapped off his fingers and thumb like they were breadsticks. No rat had done that.
As for the bite marks on the man’s hand…
They couldn’t possibly have been inflicted in the drain. David Leppington had no doubts at all. Those bite marks had been made by a human being.
CHAPTER 6
It was almost two in the afternoon by the time David Leppington actually made it into the hotel’s lobby. The reception desk backed onto the curving wall that carried the dramatic sweep of the staircase. The receptionist, a tall woman with hair so black it carried tints of blue, was busy talking to a man.
The man, in shirtsleeves, wore a cellarman’s apron; he was holding a couple of new, shining steel padlocks in his hands.
‘Are you sure, Miss Charnwood?’ he was saying.
‘Positive, Jim.’
‘But the old padlocks are sound as a bell.’
‘Well, I’m asking you to fix another two to the door.’
‘The door in the basement?’
‘That’s the one, Jim.’
‘I’ve still to bring up the empties.’ The cellarman wasn’t refusing, but it sounded like a job he wanted to put off — to the Twelfth of Never if possible.
‘The empties can wait,’ the woman told him with an air of cool authority. ‘You put those new padlocks on for me.’
‘As well as the old ones?’
‘Yes, as well as the old ones, Jim. And I’ll make you a nice coffee…an Irish Coffee when you’ve done.’
The cellarman nodded as the receptionist listed more jobs.
David took the time to let his eyes rove round the lobby. It was a hotel that had seen happier days. But it looked clean enough; it certainly wasn’t seedy. The carpet was a plush yet muted purple; the tall windows were draped with velvet curtains, again in purple. If anything, it looked like a Victorian undertaker’s.
‘Dr Leppington?’
The receptionist gave David a welcoming smile.
He returned the smile. ‘Good afternoon. I made a reservation by fax last week.’
‘Welcome to the Station Hotel. I’m Electra Charnwood, the proprietor.’ The woman, smiling broadly, came out from behind the desk and held out her hand in a gesture that seemed almost masculine.
‘Sorry, I’d best not.’ Smiling, he put down his bag and held out both hands.
‘Good heavens, it’s not often a man comes into the hotel with blood on his hands.’
She wasn’t shocked; she smiled in a way that seemed peculiarly knowing. ‘Hurt much?’ she enquired.
‘It’s not mine, fortunately, but this trip’s turning out to be something of a busman’s holiday.’
‘You’re a surgeon?’
‘No,’ he smiled good-naturedly. ‘A lowly doctor — strictly dicky backs and cholesterol levels.’
‘Yuk, that does look messy,’ she said breezily, looking at the hands. ‘You must wash. Follow me.’
‘Eh, thanks…but not the kitchen.’
‘You’re the doctor. There’s a sink in the utility room — no food’s prepared here.’
She held open the door, standing so he had to pass under her arm as if it were an archway. He was tall, but she was sufficiently statuesque to allow him to pass underneath without having to stoop too much.
‘Do you have any disinfectant?’ he asked, watching her turn on the taps for him.
‘Will neat alcohol do?’
‘That’ll be perfect.’
‘Nasty stuff, blood. Especially these days.’
‘Better safe than sorry.’
‘I remember in my youth —’
She talks like she’s all of ninety, he thought, but she can’t be much past her mid-thirties, although her clothes make her look older. She was dressed all in black with an ankle-length skirt that lent her an Edwardian look as if she was on her way to a period costume party.
‘I remember in my youth,’ she was saying, ‘if a friend cut themself you often obliged by sucking the dirt out of the wound.’
‘It wasn’t a good idea even then. Are you sure you want to use that?’ Th
e woman was unscrewing the top from a bottle of vodka. ‘Believe me, you wouldn’t want to drink this. It’s industrial alcohol. You see, I had to take over the running of the hotel in one heck of a hurry when my father fell ill,’ she explained. ‘In those days I was as green as I was cabbage-looking. I got fleeced more than once. On one occasion I bought twenty-four bottles of vodka from a dodgy wholesaler — of course, it wasn’t really vodka at all. You’d probably go blind if you downed a couple of these with your tonic.’
She poured the clear spirit onto his hands as he held them over the sink.
As he washed them clean she said admiringly, ‘Hell of a mess. Did you save a life?’
He smiled and briefly ran through what had happened across near the station.
‘Something bit him?’ she echoed.
‘One of the workmen thought it was a rat.’
‘Some rat.’
‘The injury wasn’t consistent with a rat bite. Also one of the other workmen swore blind he’d never seen a rat in the area.’
‘Oh, believe me, Dr Leppington, there are rats aplenty round here. They pour into the hotel every night.’
He looked at her, surprised by her frank admission. Then he saw the smile on her face.
‘Oh, I take it these come scurrying in on two feet?’
‘Correct, doctor. Their natural habitat is the public bar where they look for a mate,’ she continued. ‘But unlike rats that take a partner for life, this species of rat is only looking for one-night stands.’
He looked at her face, wondering if he heard the bitter tones of firsthand experience. But she seemed quite nonchalant. She tipped more of the counterfeit vodka onto his hands. ‘That sufficient?’
‘That’ll be fine. I’ll finish off with soap.’
‘Paper towels are in the dispenser.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Need anything else?’
‘No.’ He smiled. ‘Clean as a whistle.’
She appraised him with her blue eyes for a moment. At last, just as he was starting to feel uncomfortable, she said, ‘So: you’re a Leppington?’
‘My father lived here. In fact, I was born here.’
‘But you didn’t stay?’
‘My parents moved when I was six.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘One of the lucky ones who managed to escape, eh?’
‘My father was a biochemist. He went where the work was.’
‘Liverpool?’
David nodded as he balled the paper towel and pushed it down into a basket. ‘But I never acquired the Scouse accent.’
‘So what brings a Leppington back to his ancient stomping ground?’
‘Curiosity. I haven’t seen the place since I was six.’
‘And not everyone has a town named after them?’
‘Well, I’m not sure if it isn’t the other way round.’
‘Oh, believe me,’ she said, ‘your ancestors gave the town its name.’
‘Apparently they were a feisty bunch.’
‘They certainly made their mark on the place.’
‘I take it they’re not remembered with tremendous affection?’
‘It depends on who’s telling the story.’ She toyed with a strand of that glossy blue-black hair. ‘Angels to some people, devils to others.’
As David rolled down the sleeves of his shirt he said, ‘When I told an old guy that my name was Leppington he looked at me as though I should have a stake hammered through my heart.’
She smiled. ‘He’s probably sharpening one at home right now.’
‘You think I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to find the locals walking up the street with burning torches, brandishing pitchforks and baying for my blood?’ A joke, but he wondered if there was some antipathy that ran deep.
‘A thousand years ago, perhaps. But today, Doctor, I’d steel yourself for nothing more lethal that a couple of cold stares.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
Her smile broadened. ‘Seriously, I don’t think you should worry. The real reason why the Leppingtons dropped in the local popularity poll was because the Leppington family sold off the slaughterhouse. A shady character took it on, but he wasn’t interested in making money
on the meat market. He raided the pension funds, then legged it to Monte Carlo.’
‘So it’s not really our fault — the Leppingtons’ fault?’
‘The locals have got to blame somebody.’ She said it carelessly. ‘All clean? Good. I’ll check you in, then I can show you to your room.’ David followed Electra back to the reception desk. He knew little about his family’s history — at least, the Leppington side, that was. It just wasn’t mentioned. Now he had this gut feeling that he would find out more soon enough. From outside, there came a grumble of thunder as a chilling rain began to fall on Leppington town.
CHAPTER 7
1
All right, David, he told himself sternly. Don’t put it off any longer. It’s time you staked this particular beast through the heart.
He dumped his bag by the hotel wardrobe, then sat on the bed.
Rain crackled against the window.
He pulled Katrina’s letter from his pocket, opened it and quickly read the few lines written in brown felt-tip. He read it with one hand over his mouth — an involuntary reaction to distress or unhappiness. Because to put your hand against your lips is to recreate the sensation of the mother’s breast against the infant’s mouth; for adults as well as children it’s a way of comforting yourself. David would have recognized the action from his work on human behavioural psychology as a medical student. But this letter was a great leveller — now he was just another unhappy human being needing comfort.
When he’d read the letter twice, deliberately ignoring the fly Sello-taped in the top left-hand corner, he stuffed the letter into the drawer.
Why don’t you tear the damn thing up and flush it?
Because I know I need to read it again before I destroy it.
Snap out of it, David. Why do you have to play the messiah? Why do you have to absorb the suffering of others?
It was an old argument he replayed inside his head each time one of Katrina’s letters landed on his doormat.
He looked out of the hotel window, wondering whether to take a hard walk up into the hills, in the vain hope sheer speed would shake Katrina’s ghost off his back — yeah, as if it would, David Leppington. Admit it, you’re a haunted man.
The market traders were packing away as the rain fell harder. He saw the access road where just a couple of hours before he had fought to get the workman’s hand from the drain. He thought about telephoning the local hospital to get an update on the man’s condition.
So you can play the two-bit messiah again? And take some of the man’s pain away from him and into you? Is that why you became a doctor? Not to heal. But to steal other people’s pain? As if you’re some kind of vampire? Instead of blood, you feed on their suffering?
Oh, give it a break, Leppington, he thought sourly. Katrina’s letters always had this poisonous effect on him. Come on, for heaven’s sake, you’re a nice guy. Be nice to yourself for a change.
He moved across to a chest of drawers where there was a courtesy tray complete with kettle, sachets of coffee, jiggers of UHT and a little Cellophane pack of biscuits.
Now…my prescription is: forget the letter.
Easier said than done.
Katrina West had been his first real love. At school they’d been inseparable: did homework together, ate lunch together. And, eventually, slept together — his first real sexual experience. It had been a mind-blowing weekend in August when his parents had gone away on holiday, leaving him at home.
That was when being home alone could really be fun.
Katrina had come up with some plausible excuse for her parents and they’d spent an extremely hot and electrifying eighteen hours in his single bed. They’d both been seventeen.
Seventeen. That’s an old man when it comes to losing your
cherry, he’d thought. Better late than never. God, he’d walked tall the days following that duck-breaking weekend.
After school they’d gone their separate ways: he’d headed north to Edinburgh to study medicine. She went up to Oxford: she’d been the academic star of Loxteth High School — photo in the paper; met the mayor; opened a Summer fete — the works.
Within six months it had all turned to crap.
One day a letter arrived at his hall of residence from Katrina’s mother saying that Katrina had suffered a nervous breakdown; he still remembered the letter verbatim. Obviously in a state of shock, Mrs West had written in a series of staccato sentences resembling an old-fashioned telegram. Katrina’s in hospital. Very poorly. We’re very worried.
And that’s where Katrina had stayed ever since. After months of tests and detailed observation the psychiatrist had eventually diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia.
Often schizophrenia is treatable with chlorpromazine, and more rarely with ECT. In Katrina’s case it was a deep-rooted son of a bitch. All the symptoms were there: the delusions, the hallucinations, both audio and visual; she heard voices; she was convinced a shadowy figure that was part man, part animal followed her constantly. She created her own magical defence systems against attack from the beast-man: that was, she always wore blue, she had to brush her teeth in a very specific way (up and down six times, then from left to right three times while saying the word ‘blue-blue-blue’ over and over). If she didn’t follow these ritualistic measures she’d be terrified to the point of mania and would have to be sedated. After a while, she began to suffer from the delusion that the beast-man was her boyfriend, David Leppington. That he’d undergone some kind of evil transformation. That he wanted to drink her blood and eat her heart.
