George Barnabas - 04 - Fourth Attempt

by Claire Rayner

  ‘The way I —’ George began, but Sister Chaplin shook her head.

  ‘That was all she said and of course I didn’t ask her to say any more. In fact I dropped the subject as I don’t like talking about the medical staff. And I know that Sheila — well, we all know Sheila.’

  ‘Yes.’ George looked up at her. She had a friendly look on her face, but there was, George thought, another look behind the agreeable mask; a considering stare. Is she wondering whether I wanted to poison Sheila? Ye Gods. She opened her mouth to speak but Sister Chaplin hurried on.

  ‘So she took one and chewed it up as I tidied her bed and she made a face and said, “My God, that tastes disgusting! It’s so bitter! Is she trying to tell me something?” And she made as though to spit it out. I thought she was feeling sick and held out a kidney dish, which was just as well, and she spat out the chocolate. But she’d swallowed some and her eyes began to water and she said, “It’s burning, oh, my God, it’s burning,” and began to retch.’

  ‘She looked ghastly.’ Jerry was speaking now, with a certain note of relish in his voice. ‘I’d just arrived to visit her, on my way to lunch, you see, and I was saying, “Greedy old you, let me have one,” when she started to choke and be sick. It was awful.’

  ‘We got the matter sorted out quickly.’ Sister Chaplin was all calmness again. ‘We put out a crash call and various people came, including Mr Selby. He says he thinks it might be nicotine from the smell.’ Sister wrinkled her nose at the memory. ‘I could only smell a rather fishy sort of odour, but he seemed to be quite certain it was nicotine. Said he’d smelled it before, so we did the fastest stomach washout we could, though she was vomiting so hard it was very difficult — and of course we wanted her to vomit, best thing for her. Then her pulse went into a very rapid mode, so Mr Selby gave her some intravenous atropine and diazepam, as I said, because she started to convulse. We set up the heart ABC monitors as there wasn’t a bed available in ITU, and they sent us a special nurse for her. It was all sorted in a matter of half an hour or so.’ There was a note of pride in her voice at her ward’s efficiency, as indeed there was every right to be, George thought. And she said as much.

  ‘She was lucky you were there and saw what happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Chaplin said in the same even voice. ‘I think she was. If I hadn’t been there, able to act quickly, I doubt she’d have survived. It seems to me there was a lot of poison in the chocolate.’

  ‘But who would send her such a thing?’ George cried. She turned and stared at Jerry. ‘You can’t think I would!’

  ‘I did wonder,’ Jerry said candidly, after a moment. ‘I mean, she’s been driving you up the wall one way and another, hasn’t she? Sheila can be a real vixen when she gets in the mood and she’s been in it a long time now. But then I thought, and I’ve been thinking it ever since, that you’re not the sort to kill people, you just bawl at ’em. You might even throw things or hit them if you got mad enough, but you wouldn’t go in for killing. And even if you did, if you really wanted to polish someone off, you’d do it well, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t go in for something as daft as this, where you could be caught out by the first person who came along, because you’d signed the poison with your own initials. It doesn’t make sense, not with someone as clever — and as well informed — as you are. So I’m sure it’s not you.’

  He stopped and looked at Sister. She gazed back at him and then he grinned at George a little shamefacedly. ‘Though I have to tell you, Dr B., there’ll be enough people around here who will believe it. You know what they’re like.’

  ‘Yes,’ George said. ‘I know what they’re like. But meanwhile thanks for your vote of confidence. Even if it is a bit back-handed.’

  He had the grace to look embarrassed, then mulish. ‘You shouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t want an answer. You know I don’t lie.’

  ‘Only when it suits you,’ George snapped. Her anger was rising now and making the cold sensation go away. ‘Which it has from time to time.’

  The phone on Sister’s desk tinkled and she answered it with all her usual crispness. ‘Ballantyne, Sister speaking. Oh, hello, Mr Selby.’

  She listened and then switched her eyes to George. ‘She’s here now, sir,’ she said. ‘Mmm? Oh, I’m sure she will. Just a moment.’ She handed the phone to George.

  ‘George?’ She tightened at the sound of Peter Selby’s sleek voice, which he had cultivated to sound like melted butter mixed with honey. (‘One must hold one’s own with one’s patients from the opera world, mustn’t one?’ he had once said to George at a Christmas party when in the confiding mood engendered by several glasses of the Professor’s white wine. ‘I spent hours practising how to speak when I was a young chap. But it’s been worth it, hasn’t it?’ It had.) ‘This is a nasty turn of events, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t send those chocolates, if that’s what you wanted to know,’ she said. Her own voice was harsh. ‘I imagine that’s what you wanted to talk to me about?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said soothingly. ‘I never dreamed of it. I would not consider such a thing possible. It’s a very nasty hoax played out on both you and Miss Keen. It could have been a disaster, but as it is, small harm’s been done. Sister coped splendidly. Quite splendidly. I — er — I just wanted to ask you … Hmph.’ He stopped and George stared at the opposite wall and waited. She was damned if she was going to prompt him. He had quite obviously considered such a thing as an attack by herself on Sheila as perfectly possible, which was a horrible fact for her to contemplate. He harrumphed again, then said, ‘Well, my dear, what do we do now?’

  ‘Now? Get her fit again, I imagine. She seems to be doing all right.’ Sister Chaplin had gone out of her office, probably back to the ward to see Sheila, and George lifted her brows at Jerry in query. He understood at once and went after her. ‘I’ll see Sheila myself in a moment. I imagine you’ll be back again to see her today?’

  ‘Of course. As soon as I’ve finished my list. I’m in main theatres,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m on the spot here, George. You must understand that, of all people.’

  ‘By all means notify the police, Peter,’ she said evenly, recognizing his unspoken question immediately. ‘It is right and proper that you should if you are concerned about your patient. I will, of course, be notifying them myself and taking all the evidence we have here to them. The chocolates, the wrapping, the contents of the kidney dish she spat into, all of it.’

  ‘Oh, you won’t be doing the forensic work on them yourself?’ He spoke with an artlessness that did not deceive her for a moment.

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I will not. It will go to another pathologist, of course. You needn’t worry that I’ll be covering up any signs of my criminal actions.’

  ‘My dear!’ he cried. ‘I didn’t for a moment think —’

  But she’d hung up on him.

  By the time George left Ballantyne Ward, Sheila was well and truly on the mend. She’d had the narrowest of escapes, clearly ingesting only a very small amount of the nicotine (if that was what it was: it certainly smelled like it) and responding well to Sister Chaplin’s prompt treatment. But every time George contemplated what might have happened she felt sick. The toxicity of nicotine was high, and there was no doubt there had been enough in the chocolate Sheila had eaten to kill her. And was there still some in the other sweets? Had whoever prepared this revolting thing filled every one of the dozen liqueurs with it? She shook her head in disbelief. No one could be that stupid, could they? This was the stuff of silly TV movies or old-fashioned mystery novels. And then she thought bleakly. Well, I suppose people have to get their ideas from somewhere. She remembered again the way Sister Chaplin had looked at her, the sound of Peter Selby’s voice on the phone, and the way Jerry had admitted he’d reacted. Please, she found herself praying to the God she knew did not exist, please let everyone else think the way that Jerry did eventually, that if I was going to kill someone, I’d make a better job of it… />
  She called Sister Chaplin and one of her nurses and asked them crisply to help her bag the evidence to give to the police. ‘I need some heavy plastic bags,’ she said. ‘And labels. Then I can arrange for someone from Ratcliffe Street nick — police station — to pick them up and take them to the other lab, over at East Ham. So, if you’ll watch, please, so that you can verify that the chain of evidence is established and that I handled them properly —’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Sister Chaplin said. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Nor can members of my staff.’

  George stared at her. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I rather think one isn’t supposed to touch anything in cases like this? That it should be left to the police? I’m sure you know the right things to do, but under the circumstances …’ She let the words hang in the air and George felt her shoulders slump.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said dully. ‘Of course, you’re quite right. Do whatever you think is necessary.’ And turned and went.

  She was sitting in her office in the lab when he arrived. She’d gone straight there, refusing to answer when Jerry tried to speak to her as she left Ballantyne Ward, and had slammed the door to sit at her desk with her hands folded to wait. The only way she could contain her anger was by being very still indeed. When the phone rang she didn’t move to answer it, letting it trill its urgency until someone in the main lab realized she wasn’t going to pick it up, and took it themselves. Once or twice they rang her on the intercom but she ignored that too, and eventually they got the message and gave up.

  She heard murmured voices outside her door at one point and tightened her shoulders, preparing to send them packing if they tried to come in, but they — whoever they were — clearly thought better of it and went away. She heard cars start up outside as the senior people left and then the revving of Jerry’s motorbike and felt a moment’s pang. It would have been comforting to talk to someone about all this, someone who understood, and Jerry had always been a good guy. But she steeled herself and let him go and sat on.

  At seven o’clock she heard him. The outer door clattered and banged and his footsteps came pounding down the corridor. Then her door burst open and Gus was there, glaring at her.

  ‘You daft ’aporth! What sort of bloody mess have you got yourself into this time? And why the hell didn’t you call me yourself, right away? I’ve only just got back to the nick and heard what’s going on. I mean, ducks, if you’re planning to top someone, at least ask me for some professional advice before you do it!’

  7

  The best thing about Gus, she decided, was the way he could make things dwindle down to normal size. Sitting alone in her office, with her rage at being so appallingly misunderstood at boiling point, the situation had seemed horrendous, unmanageably huge: she was suspected of attempted murder by everyone. There she was alone with the whole world against her. But it had all been, she now realized as she sat beside Gus in his comfortable old Austin Van den Plas, a childish overreaction.

  ‘You must have been feeling really crappy,’ he said as he switched on the engine and let in the clutch with all the tenderness of a mother caring for a newborn infant.

  She blinked at him. ‘Eh?’

  ‘You should ha’ seen your face.’ He laughed, a low fat little sound in his throat. ‘Like they was about to drag you off to the nick and lock you up for the rest of your natural. White as the proverbial you looked when I walked in.’

  ‘Well, what do you expect?’ she said. ‘Sheila coming out with these wild accusations is one thing, but people believing them is another.’

  ‘Who believed ’em?’ he said reasonably, easing the wheel to get them out into the heavy run of traffic as they reached the main road. ‘You told me Jerry didn’t.’

  ‘He didn’t believe that I wasn’t capable of it. Just that I’d have made a better job of it if it had been me.’ She glowered. ‘To be thought even capable of such a thing — it’s humiliating.’

  He pondered. ‘Is it? I’d ha’ thought it was more of a put-down if no one could imagine you doing anything like that. This way at least you know that they don’t think you’re a wimp.’

  ‘You’re a lot of comfort!’

  ‘Of course I am.’ He swivelled his eyes to look at her, laughing. ‘You’ve cheered up no end since I got to you, and you look a proper colour again. I’m the best comfort you’ve got, one way and another.’

  She slid into silence because she couldn’t deny it. I’ll give them all a run for their goddamn money, she thought. I’ll show them what I’m capable of and what I’m not. I’ll soon sort out who really sent those lousy chocolates to Sheila and then watch them squirm!

  Gus pulled up outside Ratcliffe Street Police Station, arranging the car gently against the kerb with a precise two inches between the wheel hubs and the kerbstones, and got out. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get it over and done with. Then I’ll buy you a slap up tuck-in, eh? You could do with it.’ Not waiting to see if she followed, he ran up the steps to the big double doors of the entrance.

  He let her give her statement to another officer, one of the sergeants, a pleasant woman who looked as though she’d been poured into her uniform, it fitted so snugly. George was grateful to see her. To have been faced with one of the CID team she knew well would have been painfully embarrassing.

  ‘I’m Sergeant Friel,’ the woman said, smiling. ‘Mary Friel. We met in court a couple of months ago, d’you remember? That drowning case?’

  ‘Oh,’ George said and felt her face redden. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Nice to see you again.’ Dammit all, he might have found a stranger to deal with this, she thought wrathfully. He’s got about as much sensitivity as a rhinoceros on heat sometimes. The bastard. ‘I’m only giving a statement to make things easier for Gus,’ she said defensively. ‘I mean, it’s nothing to do with me, really. But I just got caught up in a case —’

  ‘Of course,’ Mary Friel said calmly, and sat down at the desk. ‘Now make yourself comfortable and we’ll get through this in no time.’

  George’s irritation made her stiff at first and Sergeant Friel had to ask a lot of questions to get the story out of her. But eventually she finished and pushed the statement sheet over the desk for George to read and sign.

  She checked it carefully. There in neat handwriting was a clear and simple account of the way she had been told that Sheila Keen was taken ill after eating a liqueur chocolate, and the course of events once she reached the ward where Sheila was. She had left out nothing, including her attempt to bag up the evidence and the fact that she had been balked by Sister Chaplin, because Gus had told her she must be completely honest about it all. It hadn’t been easy to say those things to the moonfaced sergeant, but she had been dogged about it, even describing her conversation on the phone with Mr Selby and his anxiety that the matter should be reported to the police.

  That’ll show them too, she’d then thought obscurely. I got it all to the police before they did, didn’t I? I’d hardly have done that if I’d been part of what happened.

  She read on:

  The background to this event is as follows: in my department (the pathology service at the Royal Eastern Hospital) we have for some time been under considerable pressure of work and I have had cause to reprimand Miss Keen for various reasons, including her tendency to waste time in gossiping with other members of staff. We had a disagreement about this last week, on Thursday 1 June, at one in the afternoon, which occurred in the middle of the laboratory. There were a large number of witnesses to this disagreement which became somewhat heated at times. [Ye Gods, George thought, this woman’s version makes me sound like a real dumb plodder. I don’t talk this way, I know I don’t!] During this altercation I became heated and told Sheila I’d be glad to see the back of her if I could. She said I could not sack her since that decision was in the hands of Mr Matthew Herne, the Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, to which I responded that in that case I would have to find some other way to shut her u
p and I would if it was the last thing I did. I now realize this remark could have been misconstrued and I regret it. It was made in the heat of the moment and was not intended to carry any sort of threat to Miss Keen, although she later behaved as though she believed that I had threatened her. When her car caught fire in the car park and she was taken into the hospital as a patient, she seemed by her behaviour to imply that she believed I had played some part in that accident, which was absurd since I was not there when the car caught fire. I do not know why the car caught fire. I do not know whether it has been examined yet for a cause. I did not speak to Miss Keen about her attitude but put it down to her reaction to her experience.

  ‘It reads rather — well, stiffly, doesn’t it?’ she ventured, but Sergeant Friel shook her head.

  ‘They all say that,’ she said. ‘But I only do it the way we’re supposed to. I can’t put in every “er” and “um”, can I? It has to be fit to give in evidence in court if necessary. I’m sure you understand that.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ George said. After a moment she took the pen Mary Friel was offering and signed the statement. She’d heard enough of these documents read out in open court to know that the sergeant was right: lawyers and judges could only cope with this sort of turgid expressionless stuff.