Gilgamesh

by Jo Bannister

  “What happened?”

  I told him what I had heard and what I had seen. Even if the crouched and running figure was indeed the gunman, it amounted to very little. I had heard a rattle, a crack, a clatter, and a clang, and seen a dim figure run for the cover of the hedge.

  “Was the French window open before the shooting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did they speak, or did he fire first?”

  “I didn’t hear.”

  “Is there anything missing, do you know?”

  “I don’t, John, I’m sorry. I’ve been in here before, but I couldn’t say—”

  But there was something different, even though it took me a minute to realise what. There was too much wall showing. “There used to be a picture over the desk there. An old brown thing—a horse, of course. I couldn’t swear it was there this evening. They may have taken it down, for cleaning or something. You’d need to ask Ellen.”

  “A picture. About how big?” He watched with growing scepticism while my outstretched arms sketched dimensions. “I imagine you’d have noticed if your running man had been carrying something that size.”

  “I would, and he wasn’t. Listen, shouldn’t you set up roadblocks or something?”

  “I should,” he said heavily. “And I have. How long after the shooting did we get your call?”

  “It must have been a few minutes. Neither of us—Ellen or me—realised it was a shot. It was only when I went to leave that I found—” I swallowed. “But if the man I saw was the gunman, he was still here after I called. I’m sorry, I don’t know which way he went.”

  “Never mind; by then we had cars in the area. They may have him boxed up, even if they don’t know it yet. If they find his car, we’ll be getting somewhere. I don’t suppose you heard a car?”

  “Sorry.”

  The gravel spat again and it was Harry. He looked as though he’d had a hard day, and it wasn’t over yet. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said somewhat testily. “It wasn’t me that got shot.”

  He checked with John Martin what had already been done and discovered. He had me go over my meagre contribution again. Then he nodded. “OK. Well, I don’t think there’s much more you can do here. Do you want to go on down to the hospital? I dare say Ellen could use the company.”

  Outside the last of the sun had gone, and as I walked to my car, the last of the afterlight died out of the sky. We looked as if we were in for a long, dark night

  Chapter Two

  Skipley General Hospital squatted in brick and Nissen-hut confusion at the foot of The Brink, beside the ring road. As I drove down the hill the street-lights greeted me, twinkling pink and prettily in the dip. It was the closest Skipley ever got to picturesque.

  The girl at reception remembered me. “Dr. Rees, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t any more, on either count, but I didn’t trouble to update her. “I’m looking for Mrs. Aston. Her husband was admitted with a gunshot wound.”

  She nodded. “She’s in matron’s office.” Since the Sex Discrimination Act, hospitals don’t have matrons; they have chief nursing officers and the like, but chief nursing officers always live in matron’s office. “There’s a policeman with her.”

  There was something very faintly objectionable about the way she said it. I think she’d remembered that last time I was in this hospital I got their pathologist arrested. I found a condescending little smile and ran it up the flagpole. “That’s all right, I’m broadminded.”

  Ellen looked up when I opened the door, with that same compound of hope and fear that used to tear me up when I worked in hospitals. She thought I was bringing her news, and half of her wanted it quickly in case it was good and the other half didn’t want it at all for fear it was bad.

  “It’s only me, Ellen.” I went quickly and sat down beside her.

  She had half risen at the sound of the door, twisting up out of her seat. Now she dropped back into it, her hands falling into her lap, her head bowed, her shoulders folded round her breasts. Her fair hair was tangled, her face a desolation, bereft even of tears. It seemed incredible that only an hour had passed since she and I had been giggling over David’s wine.

  Sergeant Ross nodded me an acknowledgement from the desk on which he had parked his posterior. He was the ideal relative-sitter, a policeman with all the vital attributes of a teddy bear.

  I said to him, “Any news?”

  He shook his head. “He’s in theatre at the moment. We’re just waiting to hear how he got on.”

  I nodded. There was no point in probing for details with Ellen there. The full picture would come later. For the moment, I knew all I needed to do my job, which was not David but his wife. I took one of her hands and held it, saying nothing. After a few minutes she turned towards me, also without speaking, and buried her face in my sleeve, and clung to my arm as to a lifeline, while great racking sobs tore out of her throat.

  I held her tight while the storm peaked and began to pass. After that we just leaned together on the settee, our arms round one another, because the comfort of touch was all that either of us had to offer. For Ellen it was little enough. She was a woman of twenty-seven with a run-down farm, a big run-down house, and all her energies and commitment invested in a business that made no sense without David; and David, if he lived, would likely be a cripple all his days. If he couldn’t ride. I didn’t see how they could keep Foxford, so Ellen was going to lose her home as well.

  The door opened again, and this time it was news. Grace Markham had been the surgeon: that was good news in itself. She had come straight from theatre, pausing only to shed her gown and gloves.

  “The operation went very well,” she told Ellen. “The bullet’s out, and he seems to be responding well. I think he’s out of danger. He’s a strong, fit young man; you’ll be surprised how quickly he starts recovering.

  “What we can’t know yet,” she went on in the same careful tone, steering a cautious way round the shoals of premature optimism and undue despair, “is exactly how much damage has been done. The spine is affected, but the spinal cord appears to be intact. I think we have to expect an initial paralysis below the waist, but I’m hopeful it will be only temporary. It could last a matter of days or a few weeks; it could last months and still right itself eventually; or there could be some permanent loss of function.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be more definite. We’ve learned a lot about treating spinal injuries, but we still find it very difficult to make an accurate early prognosis. All I can tell you is that I’ve seen people with worse injuries walk out of my office, and one ran.”

  It was about all she could say. The fact that doctors are gradually accepting that patients and their families have a right to be told what’s happening to them is good but no answer to the fact that sometimes doctors don’t know. She had told us the best and the worst. Only time would supply the truth.

  Ellen said, “Can I see him?” Her voice was full of tears, but for the moment I think all she knew or cared about was that she still had a husband, not a funeral to arrange.

  Grace smiled. She looked tired. I doubt if there are many occupations more physically, mentally, and emotionally draining than surgery. “Just a peep. He won’t know you’re there, not yet; come back in the morning when he’s feeling a bit more human.”

  I gave her five minutes, then went to post-op to collect her. She was standing in the corridor, watching through a glass screen. I don’t know what she could see: all I could see was a confab of monitors chattering over a vaguely human shape under a blanket. If I hadn’t known, I don’t think I’d have recognised it as David.

  That hit harder than I expected. I’d seen a lot of vaguely human shapes under blankets in my time, and quite a few under shrouds, and mostly I had seen them in terms of treatment proceeding or failed. This wasn’t the first time I had seen a friend in this position either, but it was still revealing how very different it felt to be personally rather tha
n professionally involved. It was a reminder, and a reminder was sometimes necessary that all those vaguely human shapes that held a professional interest for people like me represented a personal disaster to their families and friends. Alienation is something doctors have to fight against, even ex-doctors.

  I had told Sergeant Ross that I would take care of Ellen. When I had her installed in the car, I asked where she wanted to go.

  She thought abstractedly for a moment. “Home?” It was more a question than a decision.

  I started the engine. “Yes, I think we should go there first. Harry will want to know how David is, and how you are. He may have some questions for us too. After that, you have three choices. You can stay at Foxford, though from experience I suspect you’ll have the patter of size-11’s round the place most of the night. I can drive you over to your mother’s. Or you’re very welcome to come to us for the night. Harry’s going to be tied up till tomorrow, so I’d be glad of the company. But it‘s just up to you, what you feel like doing.”

  She thought for a minute. Covertly I watched her face. Already she was getting some sense of balance about what had happened, a perspective. What had happened was profoundly shocking—to me, and so inevitably much more to her—perhaps particularly because of the utter pointlessness of it. No one gets shot for a Victorian hunting print and the sort of money David would have had in his cash-box. But already Ellen was finding ways of dealing with it. Perhaps she was facing the future; perhaps she was postponing that until she knew more of what the future held. Whatever, she was back in control.

  I had known her a little over a year. I had valued her friendship, enjoyed her warmth, her spontaneity, her pragmatic sense of humour. I had known that under the well-scrubbed good looks, like a cover girl for Horse & Hound, she was a sensible woman. I had not until now realised how strong a woman she was. In the split second of a bullet’s flight her life had changed. Perhaps she didn’t yet know how radically. But she’d cope with it. Ellen Aston might be down, but she sure as hell wasn’t out.

  “No, I want to be home,” she said. She managed a smile. “I’ll put up with the Harry Marsh Formation Clumpers. I’ll phone Ma from there, let her know what’s happening. Clio, can I push your kindness a bit further? Will you stay over? Just tonight. I don’t want to have breakfast alone tomorrow.”

  I squeezed her hand, glad to be able to help. “Of course I’ll stay. Can I have the four-poster?”

  “If you don’t mind sharing it with twelve generations of woodworm.”

  We were back at Foxford just after midnight. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree; there seemed to be a light burning in every room. Policemen were distributed almost as liberally.

  I left Ellen in the drawing-room calling her mother, and went to look for Harry in the study. I didn’t want Ellen following me in there. Scenes of crime tend to be bloody, and even more than the blood and the chalk marks, the immediacy of the sorroundings, their very familiarity, is an unexpectedly forceful reminder of what has happened. I thought I was over the shock, but David’s chair still on its side in front of the desk where he had fallen with an intruder’s bullet in his back knocked the wind out of me all over again.

  “Harry, we’re back.”

  He looked round. Now he was working, he seemed to have got his second wind. The greyness had gone out of his face. “Clio? How’s David?”

  I made a helpless little shrug. I didn’t really know how to answer. “He’s alive. He seems to be out of danger.”

  “Good.” Harry was watching me closely. He knew there was more.

  “His spine’s damaged. They can’t say how badly. He may walk again. He may ride. But Harry, I don’t think he’ll ever ride competitively again.”

  I heard the catch in my voice and turned away. If there’s one thing a Detective Superintendent needs less at the scene of a shooting than his own wife, it’s his own wife blubbing on his sleeve. I’d spent the guts of two hours being strong for Ellen; now I needed someone to be strong for me. But it couldn’t be Harry, or not here and now.

  He made a moment for me though, his great bear’s arm round my shoulders steering me back into the hall. “Come on, love. The main thing is he’s going to be all right.”

  “All right? What does that mean?” I was tired, not far from tears, and taking it out in anger. “He’s alive. He’s paralysed from the waist down. He may get some use in his legs, he may not, but he’s never going to have the strength and sensitivity to do his job again.

  “At ten o’clock last night he was in contention for a place on the British team at the World Three-Day Event Championships. After this, he may manage a morning’s cub-hunting if the MFH takes things easy, but he’s never again going to ride a class horse at speed over an international course. It’s over. If he still has a career, it’s going to be training other people to ride in competition. All right? Well, he isn’t going to die of what’s been done to him. But it isn’t going to leave him much of a life either.”

  I had forgotten where I was, had let my voice rise in bitter stridency. They could probably have heard me in the attic. Ellen could certainly hear me in the drawing-room. She came out now, and if she was pale, she was also composed. She took my hand much as I had taken hers a couple of hours before.

  “Clio, I know what this means. It probably means the end, near as damn it, of the life we’ve had. It’s been wonderful, for both of us, but there are other lives; if we can’t find one that suits us, we’ll make one. We have our home and our farm; but even if we have to give them up, we’ll still be all right. My husband is alive. You don’t know him as well as you imagine, Clio, if you think that David in a wheelchair is going to be a cripple.”

  She made me ashamed. I couldn’t look at her.

  She patted my arm. “Harry, I’m just making some coffee. Have you time for a cup?”

  The drawing-room was an oasis of calm. With the door shut you could almost forget the activity all around The thick walls and the thick old windows kept it at bay. Forgetting the reason for it was harder.

  Over his coffee Harry said, “What did you hear, Ellen?”

  “Almost nothing,” she said. Remembering filled her eyes and thickened her voice. “A noise—a crack?—and something falling. I thought he’d knocked something over; I didn’t even go to see what. It was only when Clio was leaving, minutes later—” She couldn’t go on.

  There was no need to. Harry knew what had happened when I went to leave. He asked gently, “Did you hear the other noise?”

  “Other noise?” She thought for a moment. “There was another noise, more from the yard than the house. Metallic—like a horse kicking an oil drum.”

  “Could it have been one of the horses?”

  “I don’t think so. They were all bedded down then, and there’s nothing metallic in the stables for them to kick against.”

  “What else could it have been?”

  She tried to think. Nothing came. “I’m sorry, Harry, I hardly noticed it. We were talking, I wasn’t paying any heed to the yard. I didn’t know it would matter.”

  “Of course not, how could you? Don’t worry, you’re doing fine. The next thing is going to be working out what’s been stolen. When you’ve finished your coffee, I’d like you to come into the study and have a look round. He doesn’t seem to have been anywhere else, though we’d better make sure. The cash-box is empty. The desk drawers have been forced and obviously rifled. Was there anything of value in the study?”

  “Apart from my husband?” She said it with a smile. “Yes, but it wouldn’t fit in the cash-box, even though £37 and change left a fair bit of space. Is the painting gone?”

  Harry looked at me. “Clio said there used to be a picture in there. Well, it’s gone now. Was it valuable?”

  “I imagine so,” said Ellen. “It was a Herring.”

  I blinked at her. “Pardon?” I could not, of course, hear the capital letter.

  “John Frederick Herring,” she explained. “You know, t
he racehorse man. He painted every Derby winner between 1827 and 1849, and every St. Leger winner from 1815 to 1846. Gilgamesh was a great Thoroughbred stallion of the 1850s; that painting was one of the last commissions Herring accepted. He died in 1865.”

  Chapter Three

  So that was it. David Aston had been put in the hospital and his career ended not by a real horse, full of pride and good living, trying to jump higher or further or faster than nature intended, which was something that they all risked, but by a horse of oils and canvas, under a dirty varnish, that had run its last race more than a century ago and then been immortalized for its doting owners.

  I must have seen it a dozen times, chatting to David while he made up his entries and wrote cheques to his feed merchant or ambling after Ellen while she whizzed round with a duster, but I’d never really noticed it. Certainly I had never appreciated it. All that came to mind now was an overall impression of brownness: a brown horse in a brown landscape under a brown varnish in a brown frame. It hadn’t looked valuable. It hadn’t looked like anything much.

  At least not to me, but then I was a Londoner until I married Harry; matters rural, and particularly equine, were a closed book to me. Soon after I met Ellen, she invited me to Badminton to watch David ride, and I’m sure it was all very impressive, but the only truly memorable part of the experience for me was the mud. You wouldn’t believe how much mud there was. Several corgis disappeared in it and were never seen again.

  “Was it insured?” asked Harry.

  “Oh yes,” said Ellen. “I don’t know for how much, but it’s on the inventory of effects that came to David with the house. I don’t know how long it’s been in the family, but I know David’s grandfather had it. Is that what they came for, do you think?”