1 First Blood

by Claire Rayner

  ‘I said call me George, never Georgie. I hate that.’

  ‘Then settle for Dr B. On account of I find it easier. Look, Mike, down there, you see? There’s an alley marked “Private No Entry”. Slide in there. You can park in easy view of the back of the path lab and not be seen.’

  The car went further along the main road and after twenty yards or so turned left into the narrow street Gus had pointed out, and then turned left again and rattled a little as it went over the uneven surface of a very narrow entry. It was the way the mortuary vans came in, George realized, and was embarrassed that she’d never come out on this side of her department before. She’d just accepted that the mortuary vans bearing corpses had their own special entrance, and had settled for using the usual way in from the main hospital premises. That there was a back entry was obvious, of course, but she’d never thought about it before. Had the murderer? she found herself wondering as Mike manoeuvred the car into a dim space that gave them a clear view of the mortuary entrance. There was no reason why any of the senior hospital staff should ever come this way; maybe sitting here was a total waste of time, and whoever it was would try to get into the building from the other side.

  She said as much to Gus who sighed a little theatrically. ‘You must think I’m ever so stupid,’ he said. ‘Of course I know about the front entrance. Isn’t it the one I usually use? We’re here because we can’t park a bleedin’ great car on the other side where anyone wanderin’ by can see it, and because we’ve got a coupla fellas there anyway. Morley and Haggerty. They’re in touch with us.’ And almost as though they’d been listening a voice crackled over the radio.

  ‘We’re settled in, Guv. You too?’

  ‘We’re here. Now keep quiet and sit tight. If you see anything, give us the wire. But not otherwise.’

  ‘We’d sit if we could, Guv.’ The voice sounded plaintive. ‘Only there isn’t anywhere we can. It’s all right for some.’

  ‘Stop whingeing,’ Gus said. ‘And shut up.’

  The car settled into silence and George huddled down into the collar of her ski jacket. The heater had stopped running as soon as the car engine was switched off, and now the windows were beginning to mist over a little with their breath, and Gus reached out and partly opened the window on his side, letting in a blast of cold air.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Got no choice. No use being here if we can’t see anything. You all right back there?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Though I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing here.’

  ‘Same as us. A stake-out. Waiting to see if anyone turns out to pick up your bait. And I don’t know why you’re moaning. You’re the one insisted on being here.’

  She pretended not to have heard that and was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘Wouldn’t it speed things up if I went to the canteen and had supper and then very obviously went over the courtyard to the lab? I could tell anyone I met I’d be there, and –’

  ‘Oh, what a lovely idea! Maybe you ought to run up a flag on the roof to let everyone know you’re in residence, like the Queen does at Buckin’am Palace, eh? Be your age, Dr B.’

  She saw Matthew Urquhart’s shoulders move a little in the darkness and knew he had almost laughed and sat back again, furious. It had been a silly suggestion perhaps, but it was getting cold in here and it was already boring. She sneaked a look at her watch and was amazed. It was only half past six. She felt she’d been there for hours.

  They were there for hours. They ate the sandwiches, which were rather dreary. (‘From the canteen at the nick, Guv,’ Mike Urquhart told the disgusted Gus apologetically. ‘I didn’t have the chance to go down to the sandwich bar.’) They drank the excellent coffee. (‘I go to the trouble to make my own,’ Gus said smugly, ‘it wouldn’t have hurt you to make more of a try,’ at which injustice Urquhart looked as though he were about to burst into tears.) After that, nothing. If she spoke Gus hissed at her that they had to stay quiet, since they didn’t know who might turn up or where, and it was too dark to see very much with which to entertain herself. So she sat and breathed her little clouds of mist and watched them disappear and wondered if it would be possible to fall asleep in so cold an environment, and was sure that bored though she was, she couldn’t manage that.

  But at midnight, she woke from a half-doze to hear Gus whisper, ‘I’ve got to go for a slash. Hold the fort, Mike,’ and the door of the car opened quietly and he slipped out. She lay there against the back of the seat, not moving, still not sure whether she was in fact fully awake, and turned her head to stare vaguely out of the right-hand window beside her at the various shades of blackness which were all there was to see.

  Some of the darkness moved, shimmered, and became lighter and she thought dreamily, Gus, going for his pee, and wondered whether she ought perhaps to turn her head away or close her eyes, but that would be effortful and rather silly. One of the good things about being a doctor, and perhaps especially a pathologist, was no longer being bedevilled by the foolish modesty and embarrassment experienced by the majority, so she stayed as she was, still lost between sleep and full alertness.

  Until the darkness moved again and this time she thought, Not Gus. Doesn’t move like Gus. Not Gus. And knew whom she thought it was almost without thinking the name. It was as though he’d called her, shouted out, ‘Hi there, George! Here I am, it’s me, here I am.’

  She moved then with a sharp little jerk, sitting bolt upright and staring out of the window with her eyes narrowed to get in as much detail as she could and Mike looked over his shoulder and said sharply, ‘Whassa matter?’ and she knew that he too might have been half asleep.

  ‘There’s someone there,’ she hissed and he turned his own head to look where she was and then shook it.

  ‘It’s the Guv’nor. He’ll be back in a moment.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said and then the car door opened and Gus slipped back into place.

  ‘What’s up?’ He stared over his shoulder at George, frowning. ‘What –’

  ‘I saw someone out there.’

  ‘Me, probably. Obeyin’ the call of nature,’ he said. ‘A real lady wouldn’t have looked.’

  ‘Where were you? This side?’ She looked out again to the right. ‘Because that’s where I saw someone, and you wouldn’t have had time to get back on your side.’

  Gus was immediately alert. ‘You saw who?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said and somewhere in the depths of her mind her secret voice shouted, Goddamn liar, you know you do, but she ignored it. And anyway, she wasn’t sure, not to be certain sure.

  ‘Keep watching,’ Gus said and again slipped out of the car, so quietly she was hardly aware of the door opening. Obediently she sat peering out into the darkness till her eyes began to tingle and water; but she saw nothing else.

  Gus came back and leaned into the car, speaking in a normal voice. ‘Mike, there’s no one I can see. But the back door, I left it with a marker and the marker’s moved. Call up Morley and Haggerty, Morley to go in, Haggerty to stay where he is. You stay here, I’ll go in. Call in for more support on your own judgement. Dr B., you wait here.’ And he went.

  But she wasn’t going to agree to that. She moved as fast as he had and was out of the car and beside him almost before he’d turned round to move towards the back entrance of the mortuary. He looked at her and opened his mouth to argue, but then produced a half-shrug and went on, saying nothing. She followed him.

  The back door of the mortuary was closed, and in front of it, on the door sill, she could see a pale sliver that seemed to be a piece of wood. His marker, she thought, that had been disturbed? Probably; and then Gus slid his hand down the panels and stopped at the keyhole. ‘Arrogant bastard,’ he breathed. ‘Just left it here. Stay out, for God’s sake.’ He opened the door and slipped inside.

  And for a moment she obeyed, standing still on the step as the familiar smell of the place came out to her: the pineappley reek of the Festival disinfectan
t Danny used to clean the place; and rubber aprons; and formaldehyde; and, deep down, the ominous stink of death. She listened hard, but heard nothing.

  It was the silence which unnerved her. Had there been breathing or even the hint of movement from inside the long corridor ahead, she’d have been able to stay where she was, but the thick cotton-wool blackness was too much to bear. She moved with a sharp little action that was almost convulsive and went in, moving along the invisible corridor without any anxiety, for she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye: see the trolleys parked at the left-hand side; see the rows of crates of reagents and other bottled materials they kept there; the doors that led to the shower and Danny’s bolt-hole and the mortuary room itself; the rows of drawers on the right-hand side that stored the corpses; and beyond that the double-doored entrance to the lobby that led to the staircase. She imagined Gus ahead of her, visualized him moving a good deal less surely than she was herself towards the stairs, climbing them, feeling the chill that always came down from the building above, and trying to see who might be there ahead of him. And if it was who she thought she’d seen? What then? But it wasn’t to be thought of. She just had to follow and wait and see.

  When it happened it was so sudden and so loud that she felt her belly contract hard and for a dreadful fraction of a moment feared she’d be sick, or worse, but then she was running headlong into the blackness towards the noise.

  A light exploded into vivid life. She blinked and squinted ahead, and saw the door to the staircase lobby swinging. There was a movement beyond it and more noise and a loud shriek and she ran the last few steps with legs so shaky they felt as though they belonged to someone else. She pushed the double doors open by almost falling on them.

  Above her, about halfway down the stairs, there was Morley, belting as hard as he could for the bottom. At the foot of the stairs Gus was lying flat on his back, and shaking his head in confusion and trying to get to his feet; between the two of them there were two figures, one sitting on top of the other with an arm uplifted, and she stared at what seemed for an incredible moment to be a still life. There was no movement, just the whole scene imprinted on her retinae like a photographer’s flash light. She tried to blink, not knowing if she could, and slowly her lids covered her eyes and rose again and with the action came movement. Morley hurled himself down the stairs to the pair of people between himself and Gus; the arm of the upper of the couple came down and made a vicious crunching sound as it connected with human tissue; and Gus was up and reaching forward just as Morley got there and pulled the upper figure away, wrenching hard at the arm which had come up again and was once more trying to connect with the body beneath.

  Both men were shouting and then there were thudding feet from above and below as Haggerty appeared at the top of the stairs and almost leapt down to assist Morley, and Mike Urquhart came up behind George and pushed her aside to get to Gus. The new arrivals both had their radios clamped to them, which were chattering and rattling raucously as the men shouted unintelligibly into them; and then at last there was some sort of order. Morley and Haggerty were standing with their captive held hard between them, Urquhart was on his knees beside the figure on the ground which was producing loud and angry sounds and Gus was standing holding on to the bottom newel post of the stairs, swaying slightly and peering at the person who was staring back at him from between the two detective constables.

  ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Good God!’

  George stared too, and wanted to speak, but couldn’t. The chin that had dropped a little as Morley pulled on one arm lifted and the wide eyes looked directly at her over Gus’s head, and she felt icy shock fill every part of her. She was looking at Beatrice Dieter.

  From then on the noise was indescribable. Morley and Haggerty were speaking to Beatrice Dieter, cautioning her, asking her if she understood, but she stared at them woodenly, saying nothing at all; Mike was shouting into his radio for an ambulance while Gus roared at him not to be so stupid, they’d get a trolley over from the hospital main building; and the body on the floor went on bellowing as George, freed at least from the immobility into which shock had frozen her, was able to come and kneel beside it and touch with careful fingers the blood-spattered forehead.

  ‘Toby, you schmuck,’ she said, not knowing how the words were coming out of her. ‘Toby, you dumb sonofabitch, what do you think you were doing here on your own? Are you crazy or what? Don’t touch that, I’ll fix it. Wait’ She felt for his pulse, then ran her fingers over his head, terrified she’d find the sponginess that meant bony injury, but he was alert and far from behaving as though he had been knocked out; there was more rage than pain in the noise he was making. She took his shoulder and shook on it and bawled, ‘Will you shut up,’ as suddenly more police arrived, seeming to come down the stairs and along the corridor like a small tide.

  ‘It’s all your fault, you bloody idiot!’ Toby yelled at her. ‘All your fault. I came here to keep an eye on you and stop you getting your head stoved in and look at me, you stupid –’

  ‘I know,’ she shrieked back. ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll hit you myself. Leave that alone, damn you, keep your filthy hands down. I’ll fix it.’ And then there was an A & E trolley there and a couple of porters and they were pushing her aside as politely as it was possible to do and lifting him on to it.

  She went to follow them as they pushed the trolley out towards the entrance that led to the main hospital when behind her Gus said plaintively, ‘I was bashed too, you know.’

  She looked back over her shoulder. He had indeed been bashed: there were three sharp lines down his left cheek where he’d been scratched and blood was trickling from them. His forehead had a bulge on it that was beginning to turn blue, and there was a graze over one cheekbone. He lifted his brows in a self-deprecating gesture and said a little awkwardly, ‘What’s more I’d be grateful to get these scratches sorted as fast as possible. It’s almost certain, you see, that Beatrice Dieter is HIV positive and I’d as soon not take any chances.’

  31

  ‘Of course come in,’ Gus said, standing up and pulling out a chair for her. ‘It’s good of you to come in, seein’ I’ve been too busy to come to you. And I’m glad to see you on account of I wanted to say ta for getting my face sorted so fast. I was a bit bothered about the risks, and I won’t pretend I wasn’t.’

  ‘According to her it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway,’ George said and sat down. ‘Not that you needed to worry. I examined her very carefully indeed.’ She laughed then a little ruefully. ‘Arguing all the way, of course. But I did, and she had no injuries at all. There was no way any of her body fluids got into those scratches, so fear you not. You’re not infected, I’m quite certain.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that?’ He touched his face gingerly. The cheek was swollen now, and his eye was puffy above it. He looked very unappetizing and she smiled at him warmly. There was something particularly endearing about Gus Hathaway in this state.

  ‘No. You had a nasty time at her hands, and I’m the one who’s grateful you’ve not been damaged any further, seeing it was my fault you were exposed to the injury in the first place.’

  ‘I’d like to agree with you and make you feel bad, but I can’t.’ He shook his head. ‘There was no better way to sort this one. We could have gone on for ever fossicking about looking for evidence that put her in the right place at the right time and we’d never have found it. As it was you with your daft bait-trailing gave me the case on a plate.’

  ‘The way I gave you the murder in the first place.’ She couldn’t resist it.

  ‘Well, no need to go on about that,’ he said. ‘Listen –’

  She interrupted him. ‘I just came to say thanks for, well, thanks for being there that night. I know now if I’d tried to go for it on my own she’d have – Well, I don’t know what would have happened. And also’ – she tried to look severe – ‘also because you’ve not been available on the phone
when I’ve phoned, and the hospital’s alive with gossip – you should just hear Sheila – and anyway there’s a lot I want to know.’

  ‘Sorry about not being free to talk,’ he said. ‘But there it is, had to put the job first. Daft, ’n’t it? Anyway, you’re here now, so we can talk. And I’ve got questions, too, so listen. When you examined her, did you get the impression of a madwoman? I thought she was barking mad when I interrogated her. She looks at you so weirdly, and there’s something about the way she sits. Ramrod isn’t in it. On the tape she sounds cool enough but from where I was sitting …’ He shook his head. ‘Like I said. Barking.’

  ‘Oh, you’re wrong there. She’s sane enough. I’m not an expert in psychiatric pathology, I can’t deny – though I’m going to do some work in that field. It’ll be useful – but I’d say she was well aware of what she was doing, and that’s the definition of sanity. She’s got some mad ideas of course, but she’s not alone in that.’

  ‘Like HIV doesn’t cause AIDS?’

  ‘Yup. That was why she was so afraid her own HIV status would get out.’

  He sharpened. ‘She said that?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s obvious, isn’t it? Why else would she go to such lengths to keep it quiet? She wasn’t scared of the infection itself because she’d swallowed her husband’s theories hook, line and the rest of it. But she must have cared about it for other reasons – social, maybe? I don’t know, of course, but –’

  ‘There’s a good deal to this case that you don’t know about,’ he said, and grinned at her, and then winced as the movement hurt his stiff face. ‘Like for example how she found out she was HIV positive at all.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about that.’ She was annoyed with herself ‘But you’re right. Why on earth would such a woman get herself tested? Unless … Did she have an affair with Oxford? Is that how she got it? It seems unlikely, but maybe not.’ She brooded for a moment. ‘You never can tell about people’s sex lives. The most dreary-looking wimps turn out to be very exotic sexual athletes and gorgeous creatures who look like walking hormone banks are as potent and randy as – as dead fish.’