Deep Sleep

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘Yes, of course. Took him to Casualty, too late, I think. Can’t have been very old, looked older. Left him there, comatose. Bit of a mess.’

  She knew then the purpose of the call. In the face of meaningless, wasteful death, Bailey became angry, bewildered, moved for a while at least, in a fog of grief and fury.

  ‘Want to come over? Or shall I come to you?’

  ‘My car’s warm. And I’m dressed.’

  ‘Get a clean shirt then, see you in ten minutes. Drive carefully.’

  The instruction was lightly given. Bailey drove with a racer’s flair, but careless speed was a symptom of rage. She knew him, she thought, fairly well, when he was not a stranger. Began to guess how it took the cold breath of tragedy, the casual brutality of his own native streets, to bring Bailey back out of the doldrums and into life.

  Kim enjoyed working alone in the shop. Pip chose lunchtimes to leave her in sole control, since it was only then that the morning trade from the doctors’ surgeries dried. Between ten and twelve, there would be a steady stream of people, clutching their sheets of prescription paper which they handed over to the pharmacist together with a small fee in return for lotions, potions and pills. Pip stuck the prescription forms on a stake, like a short order cook in a kitchen, and they dealt with them in sequence. Kim could do everything but dispense direct to the public until her admission to the Pharmaceutical Society, which was imminent. Patients and customers did not understand when she said, ‘Come back later, I can get it ready for you, but Mr Carlton has to check it, sorry.’ ‘Why?’ they said. ‘Well that’s the way it is, I’m afraid,’ for another month, and as far as she was concerned herself, the time would not be too soon. This morning she felt as if she had taken the soporific cough medicine which had such an exaggerated effect on her, but recognising that she was simply tired did nothing to help her cope with the effects, which were, irritation, an acute awareness of Pip’s bossiness, and something she could only describe as a longing to escape, simply to something different. That mesmeric building site and all the rubbish in the streets, she told herself; rubbish creating ghosts which only died with the early-morning rumble of the cement mixer over the road, all these sights and sounds which made her feel imprisoned, while logic would tell her this was not imprisonment at all. Kim was not given to introspection: there was no time. This extra awareness of everything was unusual. Tom had been sweet this morning, making up for his previous sourness in that way of his, showing her some treasure picked up from the street. A wire helmet, someone’s idea of fancy dress which she had not appreciated. And then Daniel, scheduled to appear for the school run, had failed to materialise.

  All of this together created the disaffection, rising slowly after Pip went off to see some drug firm representative and left her alone. Facing her at the counter, a small old lady was shaking her prescription and trying to proffer gifts in a bag.

  ‘For Mr Pip,’ she kept saying. ‘He’ll want these, he will, he will.’

  ‘Want what?’ Kim asked, irritated by the customer’s insistence and her own inability to help. ‘What will he want?’

  ‘These,’ said the woman, her voice sinking as if about to impart a disgraceful secret, but still clutching the brown paper bag. ‘This stuff. He said I had to bring it back if we had too much, and now, poor sod, he doesn’t need it.’ She leant forward, confidentially, beckoned Kimberley towards her with one crooked finger. ‘And I found some other stuff too. From when Dad died.’

  ‘What?’ said Kim, desperately seeking clues, but already guessing. Pip had so many devoted, but harassed ladies, often old, not necessarily wise. He delivered to them in person, their medicines and their support stockings; they shared secrets and jokes to which she could never be party, jealous with his influence and his popularity, never letting her near so many of his own favourites, she suddenly realised with shock. Nor near those who crept in like this specimen, armed with something rattling in a bag. Leftover potions, the sort of poisons and medicines all members of the public were encouraged to take back to their pharmacist if any of them should prove surplus to requirement. Especially those few, termagant carers of the terminally ill, who were armed, for a short time at least, with the worst of the poisons. Heroin, perhaps, morphine sometimes, milder derivatives more often. Old-fashioned remedies in new-fashioned capsules, delivered as a last-ditch or very short-term remedy for those in acute pain or near the end, those who would not or could not get in the ambulance. The last brigade who thought of the hospital as their grandfathers thought of the poor house. There were a few round here. Survivors of a war, remembering desolation still, persons to whom the welfare state meant nothing more than access to a doctor who should never be bothered because doctors were too important to be bothered. Or the Asians, to whom care of their own in whatever state was a matter of intense pride along with a fear of hospital. They did not leave each other, these people, and though Kim did not understand them she had come to admire them for their dogged, obdurate, sometimes stupid courage. They waited, they obeyed, they gave heroin obediently to their dying, took any advice which meant he or she would not leave home, accepted the death. And then, like this scarf-swathed woman, who trusted Pip as she would have trusted God, continued to obey local customs and brought back the remnants of the medicine. Looking at the face, resigned, shrewd, trusting, all in one, Kim felt humble. Despite her qualification in pharmacy, she felt stupid and ignorant.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ she ventured, more kindly. ‘I think I remember. You looked after your uncle, cancer, wasn’t it. You wouldn’t let them take him in … I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ said the woman brusquely. ‘But I don’t want this stuff in the house. The cat might get it. And I want some medicine for myself. Night Nurse, it’s called. Got a prescription from the doctor.’

  ‘Do you want capsules, or the linctus?’

  ‘Linctus, I said. The other doesn’t work.’

  It was on the tip of Kim’s tongue to say, you don’t actually need a prescription for any kind of cough linctus and the capsules are made of exactly the same thing, but, sensing that anything prescribed by the doctor would be preferable to something bought over the counter, she simply wrapped the bottle carefully and presented the parcel like a prize. In turn the woman handed over her own.

  ‘Morphine, he said it was. Fat lot of good it did too.’

  On her way out of the shop, the woman dislodged an arrangement of toothpaste with her bag on wheels. She carried on regardless, letting the tubes cascade to the floor behind her and Kim moved forward to tidy the mess, stopping as she realised she was still holding the paper bag. The possession of it made her feel guilty, as if she had just intruded on some secret, and when the door sounded to let in another customer, she started, stuffed the packets back and retreated behind the counter without looking to see who was coming in. With the bag still in her hand and cheeks slightly flushed, she faced the customer with an air of confidence. Smiled in relief.

  ‘Dr Gupta. Nice to see you. Did you want Pip for something, only he’s not here.’

  He turned on her his bird-like, nut-brown face, then looked back towards the street, and jerked his head to where the woman could be seen standing on the pavement, uncertain where to go next. ‘Poor soul,’ he said. ‘No one to look after now. Should have been a nurse. Now, what did I want?’

  Kim laughed at him. Dr Gupta was sanguine, incessantly busy, frequently vague, and rarely came to see the pharmacy which served his patients and his practice. When he did, it was always for a purpose, such as giving a word of warning about one of the patients who was not above playing doctor and pharmacist off against one another in order to obtain the medicine he or she privately thought appropriate. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘I remember. Daniel. I’m a bit puzzled about Daniel.’

  ‘Why? Isn’t he well?’ Dr Gupta looked surprised and consulted his watch as if the dial could give him important information.

  ‘You could say unwell. Dead, actually.
Didn’t you know? But then there’s no reason for you to know. Hospital phoned me this morning. Someone brought him in. Methadone overdose, they think. Or he might have taken tranquillisers along with his methadone, lethal sort of mixture. Obviously fell over, which didn’t help. Large haematoma on the back of his head, but not fatal. Only the methadone. What bothered me was where he got the extra that pushed him over. I know it wouldn’t be here, but it did occur to me that Pip might know if he was going somewhere else.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was shocked, felt close to tears. Daniel had flitted in and out of their lives like a wraith, but he was still Daniel and the abruptness of his departure was difficult to comprehend. Kim slipped into the dispensary and pulled out Daniel’s record. A daily collection of oral methadone, without fail. Nothing untoward. She came back to the counter slowly.

  ‘He can’t have got it from here. We order his stuff exactly as we need it. You know how strict they are. Dan only had his regular amount this week, same as usual. We never have a surplus microgram of anything on the premises. Pip says it’s too risky even if it wasn’t illegal. That’s the one thing he stresses. Keep the barest minimum of poisons.’

  Even as she spoke, one eye on the paper bag beneath the counter, Kim knew she was not telling the truth. Somewhere on these premises, Pip could easily have a cache of poisons, little bits of heroin, physeptone otherwise known as methadone, morphine. Returns, they were called; all those little bits brought back after the funeral, like today’s offering; tranquillisers no longer needed, a selection of drugs given to the chemist for safekeeping. Pip always handled all of that: she had been excluded, but what he did with the surplus, Kim never knew. They abided by the strictest of rules with everything ordered, but on the disposal of returns, there was no real control.

  ‘What’s more,’ she said, putting conviction into her voice, ‘we’ve been looked over by the police recently. Since Mrs Carlton died, you know.’ She remembered that, too. The officers had teased her, never ventured into the sanctum of Pip’s back dispensary. He had steered them away and she had helped.

  Dr Gupta sighed. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. I didn’t think he could have got anything from here, that’s not what I was asking. Pip’s far too efficient. Did he go anywhere else, that’s what I want to know? Could he have bought it from a friend, for Christ’s sake? Makes no difference now, anyhow. Get Pip to ring me, will you? Not that I like to bother him. Poor fellow. Poor Margaret. He must miss her.’

  She had been thinking ill of Pip this morning, but just then she felt the more familiar loyalty, remembered what he had told her. ‘Oh, he keeps as cheerful as he can. But didn’t he have a lot to put up with? I mean, I never knew she was an addict …’

  Dr Gupta cocked his head at an angle in another, puzzled look at his watch. ‘Addict? You must be thinking of someone else. Margaret Carlton? Treated her for ten years. Hypochondriac maybe, always hoping there was some magic drug to improve her life, fascinated by pharmacists on that account and willing to try anything, but addict never. The idea. Anyway, you won’t need any more methadone for Daniel. Sorry about that.’

  He was a little man, on little plump legs. As he raced for the door with characteristic speed, he dislodged the toothpaste stand she had just re-erected. She watched him go. Sat down to think, leaving the stock, with the promises of perfect dental whiteness, littering the floor. Teeth did not seem to matter. Daniel’s teeth, cleaned intermittently, had been yellow, but Daniel’s eyes inquisitively bright. Always seeking, always curious, knew his own dosage to the last detail. Not a careless man for all his other afflictions, only occasionally sly. Kim wanted to weep for him but found herself dry-eyed.

  Bailey found the unfamiliar police station slightly intimidating. Not because he was walking down a yellow corridor of the kind which was quite familiar to him, or knocking on a door and entering a room which was almost a carbon copy of his own, or finding himself afflicted by awkwardness; all of that was par for the course. What unnerved him was that tic in his left eye which told him he was breaking one of his own rules, perhaps pulling rank a little, something a good leader of men did not do. Never interfere in another man’s case without wishing on yourself a very cold shoulder, and do not let curiosity rule the head. Instinct is a dirty word. He knocked and entered Inspector Collins’s office, feeling every inch the interloper he was. Honesty was the only way out.

  ‘Sorry, Jack. Got a minute?’ Detective Inspector Collins looked up from his telephone, replaced the receiver in its cradle and stood up. There was no need for that. Between his own rank and that of his visitor, the difference was less apparent and far less abused than lower down the line. No one saluted any more and good riddance.

  ‘Listen, this case you have. Margaret Carlton. I’ve got two interests to put on the table. One, my sergeant, Perry, is married to the woman who works in Carlton’s shop. I went to pick him up from there last night and found a chap in the street, which you might hear about, so I thought I’d tell you first. I want to know about this man and I gather he was a customer of your Mr Carlton. Secondly, you’re dealing with Miss West in the CPS, with whom I live, most of the time. Which means I have no right to know anything about the whole bloody business, even what I do know, but I want to know. You can tell me to fuck off if you like. Or I might be able to help. If you like.’

  The delivery was brusque, the patter swift. The timing, by accident, was perfect. Collins felt he was swimming in treacle. His face, almost as severe, but younger than Bailey’s own, broke into a smile.

  ‘Sit down, Geoffrey, will you? I was just about to report to your lady friend. About an alibi.’

  For one absurd minute, Bailey thought the man was talking about himself.

  ‘Whose alibi? No one’s accused of anything.’

  ‘Carlton’s alibi for the night his wife probably died. I’ve decided I don’t like this sedulous little bastard. Too keen to please. Can’t stand people with blameless lives. Forty years looking after his mother, then looking after a wife. No wonder he was staying in a hotel the night she copped it. Being wined and dined by some company making contraceptives. But if he’d wanted, he could have got home overnight with no one to see. Plenty of time. In theory.’

  ‘In theory. Why do people who make contraceptives give dinners to chemists?’

  ‘Why do you think? So next time I buy a rubber, which I don’t have the luck to need, I’ll know some shopkeeper has been given a perk to sell it to me. Funny line of business, pharmaceuticals. The clean end of dirty.’

  Bailey grunted, grinned.

  ‘As if we can talk,’ he said, ‘about dirty and clean. Tell me, this pharmacist, did he …?’

  ‘What? Murder his wife? Naa. No chance. Something funny, though. I’ve been trying to find someone who knows anything about chloroform, but they’re all dead. I don’t understand any of this. Does your lady friend think he did it?’

  ‘Seems so. From a long way off. And I think she’s also found some bloke who knows about chloroform. You’re right. Doctors in that category have to be pegging on a bit.’

  ‘Shame. She did seem, your lady … Miss West … She’s not a Ms, is she? I always get worried when they call themselves Ms. Sounds like a wasp. Anyway, she did seem to have got a bee in the bonnet.’

  Bailey felt more than a little guilty. Talking about Helen felt like treachery, but needs must: he was loyal, but pragmatic.

  ‘Well, yes, she has a bit. The bee in the bonnet I mean, but she has this uncanny knack of being right.’

  ‘Bangs on about work a bit, does she, if you’ll excuse the expression?’ Collins was frankly curious about what it might be like to live at such close quarters with one of the legal breed, even an attractive one like that. Solicitors were funny animals, best lodged in a zoo, on display for purely educational purposes.

  ‘Well, she likes work, you know. Very conscientious. And anyway, you know, women … All the same.’ Again he felt more than a hint of treachery. Never mind: Helen would understand; she was a pragmati
st too. Collins laughed.

  ‘Yes. Women. Ever asked yourself why we say bee in a bonnet, never bee in a trilby? Or a titfer? Or a helmet? Because only women wear bonnets. Obvious isn’t it? And go on like that. Anyway, thinking of proof, fancy a pint? I’ll tell you all I know. You’re welcome. Shouldn’t take long. I could write it on the back of a postage stamp. And none of it secret. Women.’

  Bailey thought of his own office and the longing for a pint grew steadily. The CID room in his station was taboo, struck with a fever peculiar to the time of year and quite equal in fervour to that of a newly formed murder squad. Fourteen detectives, including three women, were discussing, with all the intensity and argument of a parliamentary debate, the final details of the Christmas party to be held next day. Bailey was not supposed to know. He liked Collins.

  ‘Fine. I tell you what, since it’s so close, why don’t we take in the pub on Herringbone Parade? Close enough, could be useful.’

  ‘Bloody awful place, but OK, if you insist. The beer’s not bad. Only the people.’

  There were no signs of conventional Christmas weather as they left, lowered themselves into Collins’s car in a back yard identical to the gloomy area behind Bailey’s almost identical station, and drove the half-mile to Herringbone Parade. Collins left his Ford Granada parked on a yellow line, saying, ‘Oh stuff it’, as he hauled himself out of the driver’s seat and led the way at a fast trot towards the Lion and Unicorn, last remnant of old architecture on one corner. He was obviously having a bad day, Bailey thought, whereas he himself was beginning to have a fairly good one. As days went, and up until now, this one had ranged from tedious to downright dull. Part of him envied Collins, a man still allowed to ask questions, still relatively free of the endless meetings which came with managerial rank.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Collins asked when they were safely ensconced. ‘About the people?’

  Bailey privately thought Collins was wrong about the pub, which was, frankly, nice, with its etched glass and brass rails around the bar, worn chairs badly covered in plastic disguised as leather, a flowered carpet faded by dirt and use into something his own eyes found entirely acceptable. The reason for the dirt was easily apparent. Outside, it was market day, and although a subdued market day, where the awnings on the stalls flapped in the wind and the cold bit through clothing, the road was dirty. And this was a pre-war pub, an unbombed island surviving rebuilding, made for a time when pubs weren’t supposed to be clean. Hats and scarves carried indoors with the inevitable refrain, ‘Brass monkey weather, this. Fucking cold …’, but none as dirty as the navvies playing cards in the corner. Now they, Bailey thought, were really dirty, coated in mud from head to foot, yet indifferent to the fact as if what they wore on the front of their donkey jackets was no more than one extra layer of insulation. Mud and dust flaked round their feet where the working boots could not be distinguished from the trouser cuffs. He looked at them, drinking casually, beer with spirit chasers, three rounds each and back to the mud. Only an hour to work that off. Steady drinker though he was, Bailey knew he could not compete. He and Collins were both conspicuous because of their suits. He saw the latter adjusting his tie, caught his eye and grinned.