Kelly swung himself out of the horizontal and leaned earnestly forward.
“Jimmy,” he said, “I can explain everything.”
Tone and cliché were equally unexpected.
“You’re nuts,” he said. “Occam’s razor slices through. One single hypothesis accounts for the whole Heath Robinson structure: J. Pibble is bonkers. Even Scotland Yard have realized this, though they are politely covering up for their ex-chum; but when they learn that the said Pibble has been larking around with a professional confidence trickster without letting on to anyone, they’ll be sending a squad of psychiatrists down here at the double. You try telling them that I’ve done Posey in, and what’ll they say? Seriously, Jimmy, you’d better go and see a mind bender. None of the ones here—they’re useless. Leave it to me and I’ll get in touch with a guy. But for God’s sake keep your trap shut in the meanwhile, because if you go spouting like this you can get yourself into all kinds of trouble. Me, too. My horrible profession is like a whispering gallery—mutter a rumour one end of it and you find it’s being bellowed about at the other.”
“I don’t think I can tell the police,” said Pibble. “As you say, they wouldn’t believe me. If something were to show up in the autopsy which set them asking questions, I’d—”
“She was very roast, poor bitch. Medium rare, at least.”
“Yes.”
Kelly was relaxing. He looked strangely content, a man who has had a tiring and difficult day but has dealt with it all to his satisfaction.
“I’ve never believed in retributive justice,” said Pibble. “But I believe in deterrence.”
“Oho! All over London there are brilliant young medicos on the verge of major breakthroughs, blocked by the silly superstitions of one female?”
“No. I think you are dangerous. I expect you always were, but that working with these children has brought it out.”
“First I’m a cunning assassin, planning my dirty deed in tiny detail; then I’m the sort of idiot who does a job and finds he has to do it all again, and has to be deterred.”
“The risk will seem less. It always does. I’m not talking about Mrs. Dixon-Jones—it’s that child who died. Suppose someone were to question Silver and your nurses and perhaps that matron who left? Ivan and Doll, too. Then I think one would have enough evidence to show to the BMA. It doesn’t sound to me as though they were sufficiently friendly to you to try to cover up for you.”
Kelly’s tired face went white. His head jutted forward on his neck and his hands clenched and unclenched.
“You’re mad,” he said. “You want to smash me because your own life’s smashed. Look, Jimmy …”
His eyes flashed a couple of times round the room. Pibble wondered whether there was any kind of a weapon in this bleak non-space. A doctor in the familiar maze of his hospital ought to be able to find ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits. A pill, a needle …
“Suppose it were true,” Kelly burst out. “It’s not, but suppose it were. What good would you do by mucking around with the way things have come out? The kids would be without a proper doctor, anyone who knew how to cope with them, so you’d probably lose a few while the new idiots were learning. All my work would go for nothing, and it’s important work; it might be years before anyone stumbles on the clues I found; nobody’s going to pick up where I left off, because everything I’ve done would be discredited. And you’d be in a jam, too, Jimmy. You’ve been keeping quiet about Ram because if you let on you’d lose your whack of the lovely lolly Mr. T. doles out—and now everybody would know if you start raking about …”
“I’m not going to take the job,” said Pibble. Kelly sat silent, his hands still unconsciously strangling emptiness.
“I’m not going to go raking about, either.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Perhaps I ought to. As you say, I’ve fixed myself over Ram Silver. And, again as you say, more harm than good might come of it. So I’ve got to try and fix things so that you don’t start treating your patients like laboratory monkeys again, and also (I suppose) so that you don’t take it into your head to eliminate the people who might be able to give evidence against you. I can’t think of a perfect solution, so the best I can do is this. Mr. Thanatos is prepared to set the children up in a new home somewhere. I think he’ll keep Silver on, though he knows all about him, and I think he’ll keep you on, too. He very much wants to know the truth about what happened, and I’ve said I’ll tell him provided he puts somebody of Mrs. Dixon-Jones’s calibre and integrity into the place as secretary. I am fairly sure he’ll keep it to himself. He’s the type who likes to know secrets, and keep them. But if you try to pull a fast one on him, he’ll smash you. I don’t think he’s God—though he does—but he’s quite powerful enough to do that. And if I tell him that he’s financing a future Nobel winner, he’ll—”
“Jimmy, you won’t tell him anything. Or anyone else. It’s all in the mind. Your mind.”
Pibble shook his head.
“Most of it can no longer be proved, but they aren’t imaginings. Things like the way you shut up when I asked you about biopsies, and your reaction when I said, ‘No more McNair.’ And your acceptance that Mrs. Dixon-Jones probably did take that lighter with her. Then there’s everything Silver told me in the cedar tree, and the way he told me. Do you seriously want me to press him any further? Or the nurses? But even if I were still in the police force, and in charge of this case, I don’t think I could prove that you killed Mrs. Dixon-Jones. But if something shows up to persuade the police that it was murder and not suicide, then I’ll have to tell them what I think. After all, they might latch onto someone else—Silver’s got a motive, with all Mr. Thanatos’ money being channelled through her hands—but if they are satisfied, and if I can come to an agreement with Mr. Thanatos, then I’m going to keep quiet.”
Kelly looked at him, opened his mouth, and shut it again.
“I hope Kelly’s Theory is valid,” said Pibble. “That would be something saved. I hope you manage to prove it by decent means. But I think you should give yourself a definite deadline, and if you haven’t finished by then you should pack it in and get out of this atmosphere. Get away from the cathypnics. I’ll try to explain to Mr. Thanatos about—”
“Screw him. Screw you. You think you’re God, too, don’t you, Jimmy? Well, if you are, so’m I.”
He whisked himself upright and started for the door. “See you,” he said.
The door slammed.
Drearily Pibble got to his feet and rubbed the stiffness out of his hams, wondering what else he could have done. He saw now how deeply he had fallen into the trap of the oracles; by believing them, he had brought all their prophecies to pass. Like Oedipus. Rue, no doubt, had toyed with the idea of fire, but it had needed Pibble’s news to make the flames real. And Pibble’s news was not news, for Gorton had never come—was not coming—and so there was no cause for Mrs. Dixon-Jones’s fury. Even the corporate terror of the cathypnics had been Pibble’s own, unnecessary terror, caught and amplified. And how had he, hardened to years of horrors, been suddenly so gothically afraid? Was it, perhaps, an outwelling from his subconscious, a desire for terror, because that would mean that he was caught up in his own world once more active and useful and respected by men doing the same job? Your fault, the child had whined in the ambulance.
As if the guilt squatted in the room, and he could away from it he ran to the door, only to pause again in corridor outside. If that was true, then Rue could be right, and he was imagining murder for much the same reasons. For a moment he was tempted to go to one of his old friends with the whole story; if it could be proved, the guilt would be less. But they, too, every one of them, had cases in the shadow of their conscience—some old woman found dead in her kitchen, a child who had “wandered” to the flooded gravel pits—where they were helpless. And they were still active coppers.
As he turned toward the stem of corridor which would eventually bring him back to the bustling hospital he saw a round shape mooning toward him, a girl with her eyes so heavy that they were almost shut, and even at her slow pace she wavered from side to side until she brushed against the wall and began to waver back in the opposite direction. Still, she was making progress—away from the ward of waking children and towards that of the still ones. Her feet were bare; she wore striped pyjamas, the top half covered with a hairy sweater.
“Hello, Marilyn,” said Pibble. “Where are you going?”
“Warms go there,” she whined. “Lovely in there.”
“No,” said Pibble, “Come back to your friends. You aren’t ready to go in there.”
“Lovely in there.”
But she allowed herself to be turned round when he took her doughy hand, and led back into Ward P. Ivan was talking to the fat woman just inside the door.
“Hiya!” he said. “What’s up?”
“I found Marilyn wandering outside,’ said Pibble. “Didn’t I, Marilyn?”
“Shove off,” she said.
Pibble used his free hand to gesture toward Ward Q at the same time made a grimace of disapproval.
“Shove off,” said Marilyn again.
He saw that Ivan was looking at him coldly, and the fat woman with real enmity.
“You heard what the lady said,” said Ivan taking child’s other hand. “Beat it.”
“OK,” said Pibble. “Good night.”
The last thing he saw as he turned away was the child beginning to smile.
About the Author
Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.
The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: Skin Deep (1968) and A Pride of Heroes (1969).
A collection of Dickinson’s poetry, The Weir, was published in 2007. His latest book, In the Palace of the Khans, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.
Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1971 by Peter Dickinson
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-5040-0368-1
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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