by John Harvey
“Not at all costs, Superintendent. There is no sense of anything having been covered up. And as for this hospital, I can assure you that, cheek by jowl, our record in these cases compares very favorably with others of a similar size.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“The number of operations that are carried out …”
“Please”—Skelton spread his hands—“Mr. Salt, even if such issues were my concern, you would not have to convince me that what you say is true.”
Salt cleared his throat and stretched out his legs, drawing them back up again towards his chair.
Skelton glanced over at Patel and nodded.
“The operation to remove Mr. Ridgemount’s gallbladder, sir, the anesthetist was Alan Imrie and his assistant was Amanda Hooson.”
“Correct.”
“At the time of the operation, Tim Fletcher was attached to you as a junior houseman?”
“I believe … I should need to check to be … Yes, yes. I suppose it’s possible.”
“The surgical ward in which Mr. Ridgemount was a patient, Karl Dougherty was a staff nurse on that ward.”
“He may have been. I’m sure you know that better than I.”
“Dougherty, Fletcher, Hooson—after the last of these, at least, why didn’t you come forward?” Skelton asked.
“I had never drawn the connection you are suggesting.”
“Never?”
“Superintendent, Dougherty may have been one of the nurses who cared for Mr. Ridgemount. During his time at the hospital, so would a good many others. And as for Fletcher, I can’t imagine that his contact would have been more than peripheral.”
“So you never thought it might be relevant—what happened to Ridgemount?”
“What he alleges happened.”
Skelton looked at the consultant keenly. “He made it up?”
“An operation, Superintendent, it’s a traumatic thing. It has been known for patients to hallucinate, for their imaginations to distort what actually happened under the anesthetic.”
“And you’re saying that’s what happened in Ridgemount’s case?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”
“It’s also a possibility that he was telling the truth.”
“Yes.”
“Ridgemount,” said Patel, “he was threatening legal action also.”
Bernard Salt nodded. “At one time.”
“Against yourself, the senior anesthetist, and the health authority?”
“So I believe.”
“You’ve no idea, sir,” asked Patel, “why the action was dropped?”
“None. Although, my supposition at the time was that whoever had been advising him didn’t consider his case strong enough to take to court. Either that, or he changed his own mind about what actually happened.” Salt made a point of looking at his watch. “Gentlemen,” he said, rising to his feet, “I am in danger of being late for theater.”
“The anesthetist in charge that day,” Patel said as they were passing through the door, “Imrie, wasn’t he also involved in the cesarean section? The case that was settled out of court?”
“I believe he was.”
“If we wanted to speak to him?” Patel said. “He no longer appears to be on the staff of the hospital.”
“Eight months after the Ridgemount operation,” replied Salt, turning in the corridor to face the two policemen, “when legal action was still threatened, Alan Imrie committed suicide.”
Instead of going directly to the operating theater, Bernard Salt went to Helen Minton’s ward, where she was just finishing hand-over.
“I assume this is more of your dried-up spite. Dragging this wretched Ridgemount affair back into the open.”
Helen Minton arched her back and stood her ground. “I thought telling people of your inadequacies as a man was not enough. I thought they should understand how far the same inability to face the truth or to accept your responsibilities is present in your professional life as well.”
While this confrontation was taking place, a zoology student named Ian Bean, fresh back from a field trip to Robin Hood’s Bay, walked into Skelton’s station and asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the Amanda Hooson murder inquiry.
Less than an hour later, Ian Carew was released from police custody without charge, thirty-two hours after he had been arrested.
Forty-two
“Whatever you do or don’t do,” Ridgemount said to his son, “don’t be forgetting the split peas. One thing I don’t want, come back out of breath from pedaling up that hill, find the peas have gone to mush, bottom of the pan burned out. Am I understood?”
“Umh,” grunted Calvin, headphones pushed tight inside his ears. “Urn, umh, umf.” What he liked about those old bands like Black Sabbath, when they hit a rhythm it stayed hit.
“Calvin!”
Calvin’s eyes widened and he swayed out of his father’s reach. Headphones were going to be removed, he’d do it himself.
“You hear what I said?”
“Split peas, watch ’em. Satisfied?” Sound squeaked from the headphones that dangled from one hand.
“Listening to that garbage the whole time, turned up loud as it can go, be deaf this side of twenty-one.”
“Better than being a fool.”
Calvin started down the stairs to his room, his father standing by the front door, pointing his finger. “Take care, boy. Just you take care.” Whether he was still going on about the peas, or meant Calvin’s mouth, Calvin didn’t know.
“Whatever else we’ve done on this one,” Skelton said, “we’ve not exactly covered ourselves in glory. The Assistant Chief’s already had the Senior Consultant Anesthetist on the phone talking about undermining public confidence, asking where the virtue is in unnecessarily tarnishing professional reputations, causing additional distress to the relatives of the dead.”
“Imrie?”
Skelton nodded.
“Not much concern about the poor bloody patient in all that lot.”
“Closing ranks, Charlie. We know about that as well as anyone. A copper stands accused, one of the public brings a complaint, nine cases out of ten, what’s the first thing we do? Get the waggons round and form a circle. Keep the buggers out. Doctors, they’re no worse than any others.”
“Maybe, sir.”
“All I’m saying, Charlie, if we are close to something, let’s not screw it up. Take care. Just take care.”
“Right,” Resnick said. “Kid gloves.”
David McCarthy had promised Resnick fifteen minutes, no more, a meeting in the brasserie on High Pavement, across from St Mary’s Church. Around the corner, in Commerce Square, the first of the old Victorian lace factories was in the hands of the developers and would soon be architect-designed studio apartments, luxury condominiums, a gymnasium, a pool, a sauna.
Resnick had met McCarthy once before and recognized him as he came in, a slightly hunted look, briefcase in one hand, portable telephone in the other. He was finishing a call as he came through the door.
“So,” McCarthy said, carrying his glass of Aqua Libra over to the corner Resnick had staked out, “why the renewed interest in this old chestnut?”
Briefly, Resnick told him.
McCarthy leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. Cuff links, Resnick thought, noticing the solicitor’s pale blue shirt, thought they were a thing of the past. Like those daft suspenders for men’s socks.
“You’re not, of course, asking for anything that might be considered privileged information?”
“What I want to know,” Resnick said, “why was the action dropped?”
“Client’s wishes.”
“Not your recommendation?”
“Absolutely not. We had every chance of building up a good case.”
“If anything, then, you’d have been encouraging him to stay with it?”
“Financially, it would have served his interests best.”
“But not in othe
r ways?”
McCarthy took a drink, glanced at his phone as if it were about to ring. “A similar situation to cases of rape, balance out the distress a client is put through reliving the experience in court against the potential gains. Here’s a man, held down, physically violated, and powerless to do anything about it at the time. How much does he want to talk about it, describe it, have what he believes to be true attacked, even ridiculed? No, he decided enough was enough.”
“Nothing to do, then, with Alan Imrie’s death?”
“Imrie?”
“The anesthetist.”
McCarthy pursed his lips. “I’d forgotten.”
“You can’t remember Ridgemount talking about it at the time?”
“No,” the solicitor replied after some moments’ thought, “he would have been aware of it, I’m pretty sure of that. But, no, I can’t recall him mentioning it. As far as I know, it didn’t affect his decision.”
Resnick nodded. McCarthy sampled the well-publicized delights of Aqua Libra. Libra, Resnick thought, anything but what it was. “The other personnel involved in the operation,” he said, “even though they weren’t named in the suit, you’d have determined who they were?”
“Right down to whoever pushed the trolley in and out.”
“You’d have told your client the names?”
McCarthy fidgeted with the mechanism of his briefcase’s double lock. Some people used the first digits of their phone number as the combination, others their wife’s birthday.
“I can’t see why I should. No, I don’t think so.”
“Not if he’d asked? Straight out.”
“I don’t know.” His telephone rang and he picked it up almost before the sound could register, listened, nodded a couple of times and told the caller he would ring right back. “I really don’t recall his having done so.”
“The names though, they would have been around, committed to paper? It couldn’t have been out of the question for him to get a look at them without you realizing. At some point he would have had the chance to write them down, make a photocopy even. What I mean is, he could have known who they were, as you say, even the porter wheeling the trolley.”
“Yes,” said McCarthy. “That’s right. That’s reasonable to assume.”
His portable telephone rang and Resnick got to his feet. “You don’t have to rush off,” McCarthy said, one hand over the mouthpiece. “I’m okay for another few minutes.”
“Enjoy them,” Resnick said. “Do the concise crossword. Dismantle the phone.” He touched McCarthy lightly on the shoulder in passing. “Thanks for your help.”
Great thing about the way the house was so high up, built near the crest of a hill, even his own room below stairs, there was no way in which he was overlooked. Except from the garden and who was likely to be standing out there in the garden? His father, maybe, but his father was off somewhere, hopefully getting back into being a fetcher and carrier, bringing home something good for their dinner.
Calvin stretched back on the bed, rearranging the pillows a little, get them really comfortable. This new stuff he’d got, Jamaican, the kid who’d sold it to him had said, but Calvin knew enough to know that didn’t mean a thing. It was good, though. Good stuff. Good shit. So good, in fact, he thought he would have another joint. Sometimes, lying there, instead of smoking, he would masturbate, thinking, maybe about the woman who worked in the ice cream van in the park. Sitting inside surrounded by all those Cool Kings and Juicy Fruits and Raspberry Torpedoes. Got the radio tuned to the pirate reggae station. White overalls: he was certain she didn’t have anything more than some skimpy kind of stuff underneath. Often, in the park, he would choose a spot where he could see her clearly, sprawl there listening to his music, watching what she did. Never once, she paid him any heed, gave any sign she knew he was even there. But Calvin knew enough to know different.
The tape in the stereo came to an end and Calvin swore and then realized he had his Walkman next to the bed. All he needed now was another tape from his bag and a light and hey! What was that Robert Plant thing? “Stairway to Heaven.”
Pretty soon, eyes closed, singing along at the top of his voice to Twisted Sister, himself and Dee Snider duetting, except that Calvin kept forgetting the words, getting them wrong, especially in the verses, getting it right for the chorus. Eyes shut tight. Take another hit, that’s it, hold it there and suck it down. Arms spread wide. Sing, you crazy bastard, sing! Calvin didn’t hear the first tentative taps at the window, only when Divine’s fist banged against the frame did Calvin sit up with a jolt and see the man’s cock-eyed face grinning in.
Whatever condition he was in, Calvin knew enough to understand this wasn’t the window cleaner, come knocking for payment.
Panicked, he jerked the headphones clear and threw them across the room, pinched out the joint with his fingers and pushed it from sight. Perhaps no one would notice, figure he was resting there enjoying Bensons King Size? Another of them rattling at the back door now, that fool with a plaster the size of a fist stuck to his face, still grinning like he’d woke up and suddenly it was Christmas.
Calvin wafted the air on his way down the room. Quicker to respond, he could have bolted up the stairs and out into the street, made off on foot, but what the hell, what did he have to run for anyhow? Englishman’s home was his castle, right?
The underside of a boot struck the door, low by the jamb, and it shook.
“Hey!” Calvin yelled. “Hey!”
He unlocked and they came in, forcing him back out of the way, not exactly pushing him, never using their hands, the one with the plaster making straight for the bed, easing the last inch and a half of his joint out into the light.
“Home grown?”
“Old Holborn,” Calvin said. “Cheaper to roll your own.”
“Sure. And I’m Mike Tyson.”
Shit! thought Calvin. You’re not even the right color.
The other one was flashing his card. “Detective Constable Naylor. This is Detective Constable Divine.”
Divine grinned some more. He was having a good time. The inside of the kid’s room smelled like some of the parties he used to go to when he was nineteen, twenty. Wherever he was getting his stuff, it was bloody good.
Naylor had spotted the sports bag on the floor and was making a beeline for it.
“Man,” Calvin said, “you got a warrant to come busting in here?”
“We didn’t bust in,” Divine said. “You let us in.”
“That or stand there and watch the door kicked in.”
“You didn’t invite us on to the property?” said Naylor.
“Damn right!”
“That’s okay, because we’ve got a warrant.”
“Like fuck you do!” said Calvin and wished he hadn’t because the bigger of the two looked as if he might be about to belt him one.
Kevin Naylor took the warrant from his pocket and held it in front of Calvin’s face.
“What you expect to find anyway?” Calvin asked. Naylor and Divine were exchanging glances over the bag, lying on the floor between them.
“That’s my stuff,” Calvin said. He could hear the whine sneaking into his voice and hated it but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. “That’s my personal stuff.”
“Show us,” Divine said.
“Huh?”
“All you have to do,” said Naylor, “unzip the top, pick it up, and turn it out on the bed.”
Calvin didn’t see where he had a lot of choice.
He held the bag over the bed and they all watched the contents tumble out. Old rolled-up copies of Kerrang!, maybe ten spare sets of batteries for his Walkman, EverReady Gold Seal LR6, must have been twenty to thirty cassettes, most of them pristine, Cellophane-wrapped, stickers still in place, HMV, Virgin, Our Price.
“Kid’s a collector,” Divine said.
“Yes,” said Naylor, “bet he’s got the receipts too.” Two of the T-shirts that now lay on the bed were also in their origin
al wrapping, several others that he’d pulled and worn for a few hours and then rejected. A red-backed exercise book in which Calvin had copied the lyrics of his favorite songs, one day, he’d figured he’d start to write his own. All he wanted was the inspiration. A little more time.
“Shake it,” Divine said.
“Hmm?” Calvin looked back at him blankly.
“The bag. Shake it some more.”
This time it came rolling out of the corner where Calvin had desperately been trying to hold on to it with his thumb. Naylor lifted up the plastic bag, the kind Debbie used to buy in Tesco to keep his sandwiches fresh. He sniffed at the contents and passed it across to Divine, whose attention had been drawn to the bundle of tapes.
“Whatever,” he asked, perplexed, holding up a copy of John Denver’s Greatest Hits, “are you doing with this?”
“That shit,” said Calvin. “I don’t play that shit. I just sell it again.”
“Right,” said Divine, now holding the bag of marijuana, “to buy shit like this.”
“Hey,” said Kevin Naylor, moving towards the door, looking upwards. “Does anybody else smell burning?”
Ridgemount had smelt it too, even before he’d eased himself off the saddle and wheeled his bike over the pavement, trailer behind it full with potatoes, onions, ten pounds of bruised Bramleys that he was going to simmer down into apple sauce. Honest to God, Ridgemount thought, I knew it. I just knew it. One thing I asked that boy to do, one thing and he can’t even do that. He was sliding the key into the front door lock when Patel came up behind him and spoke his name.
“I don’t want to buy anything from you,” Ridgemount said, “I don’t want anything on credit and right now I can’t stop to discuss the Bible, because my nose tells me there’s a small emergency going on in my house. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
But Patel showed him his warrant card instead.
“I’m sorry,” Ridgemount said, “I have to deal with this first.”
