It was full daylight, though very grey and still with a lot of mist, but she could see clearly; and found herself reading banners and placards which were bobbing and weaving above people’s heads.
‘FAIR DEALS FOR ALL!’ read one written in sweeping red capitals on a black board, and ‘NO SPECIAL CARE FOR IMMIGRANTS‘; yet another shrieked ‘BEDS FOR LOCAL PEOPLE BEFORE BLOOD BANKS FOR IMMIGRANTS!’ Others were more specific still: ‘NO MORE BLACK FAVOURITISM!’ and ‘REPATRIATE THEM NOW!’ jostled for space alongside ‘BLACKS GO HOME!’ and ‘BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH‘.
She stood very still, staring. There were other people like herself on the outskirts of the mob, staff arriving at Old East for work, and as she looked around she saw several conferring and then with a shrug turning and going. She caught her breath in anger. They were afraid of passing these damned picket lines and prepared to lose a day’s work; but what that could mean to the running of the hospital if enough others did the same seemed not to concern them. She wanted to run after them and castigate them for their cowardice, but knew she was being stupid. Better to find out why the pickets’ numbers were so swollen compared to the drooping lack-lustre lines that had been hanging around the place for months, and what the hell had brought them out this icy morning.
She began to push her way through, not caring whom she jostled, and several men — they were mostly men in the crowd — shouted at her and one grabbed at her arm. She turned a glare of such ferocity at him, actually baring her teeth in her fury, that he let go and drew back. Immediately though he recovered his aplomb and shouted after her that she was a scab, a stinkin’ nigger-lover, and spat; she felt the gobbet land on her sleeve and wanted to vomit. But she pushed on until she was nearly at the main gates of the hospital.
They were closed and standing in front of them were several uniformed police. She was hugely relieved to see them and called, ‘Hey, it’s me. Dr Barnabas!’ hoping to be plucked out of the hubbub and pulled safely inside; but they couldn’t hear her above the chanting and bawling that was filling the air and she had to push forward again.
Someone hit her. She felt the blow on the side of her head and it made her spin round, both arms up and flailing, her fists tightly balled in her thick gloves; and she hit out in retaliation and felt her right fist connect with something yielding. Certainly it gave way before her, then all hell broke loose. She was hit again, harder this time, and felt herself falling though she struggled hard to keep her balance; but the people around her instead of holding her up by their proximity seemed to be pulling away and making space for her to tumble. And she would have done, had a hard hand not clamped itself round her arm and pulled her upright again.
‘What do you think you’re up to, you daft object?’ he growled in her ear and she turned her head and squinted and it was Gus; she took a deep breath, hurled herself at him and held on tight.
She had to argue very calmly and at considerable length to persuade them to let her out of Accident and Emergency. Hattie was particularly adamant that she should stay quietly in one of the recovery rooms and then go home; but at last she managed to convince her and Adam Parotsky, who was on duty this morning, much to her relief (she felt he owed her some support and would therefore agree with her), she was not unduly damaged and well able to work.
‘OK, so someone spat at me, but it hit my coat and not me, so I won’t catch leprosy or anything from it! I’ve got a small bruise over one cheek — big deal! But I wasn’t knocked out, not for a second, and apart from feeling like the dumbest of dumb clucks for getting involved at all when I ought to have backed off and gone around the other way to my department, I’m just fine. See? Like a rock!’ And she held out both hands in front of her to show their steadiness and then quickly dropped them before Hattie and Adam could see the fine tremor that was there.
That she’d been alarmed and considerably shaken by what had happened was undoubted, but once Gus had arrived to pull her out and to bring some order to the chaos in Garland Street she’d begun to recover. Gus had delivered her to A & E, ignoring her protests, and had gone back to the gates to help the rest of the uniformed branch ‘get it all sorted’ as he’d somewhat grimly put it, and she felt fine, eager only to get out of the department and back to the gate to find out what was happening.
But there was no way anyone would let her do that so she had to settle for asking questions, and had agreed to stay where she was for half an hour at any rate, on the understanding that someone would tell her what the hell the row was all about, after all these weeks of such desultory picketing.
It was Hattie who obliged. The department wasn’t particularly busy; something George found odd at first, until Hattie explained.
‘The people picketing aren’t being hurt and apart from you no one’s been touched. The usual ambulances and walking wounded can’t get through to us so they’re diverting to whichever hospital they can get into. So I’ve plenty of time to look after you.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t need looking after,’ George said, swinging her legs down from the couch where they’d insisted she lie to sit with them dangling over the edge. ‘I’d kill for some of that poisonous coffee of yours, though.’
‘Hmm,’ Hattie said. ‘Bit of a stimulant … Oh, all right, all right!’ she added hastily as she saw the storminess appear in George’s expression. ‘But only one cup. It’s almost solid caffeine this morning. I’ll fetch some.’
‘You won’t,’ George said firmly. ‘I’ll drink it in your office like a civilized woman. Come on. You too. Adam.’
‘If it’s all right with Sister,’ Adam said demurely, looking at Hattie with wide eyes. ‘I wouldn’t want to — er …’
‘Isn’t it great?’ Hattie said, quite unaware of any mockery. ‘I’ve managed to train him to behave the way a junior houseman used to behave in the dear old days before the reforms and all this first-name stuff. Oh, come now, Adam! You don’t have to be so formal — this time. Later, we’ll go back to the good old ways. Right now, do you take your poison black or white?’
They sat in a comfortable huddle in the small cluttered office and George felt better by the moment as she sipped the bitter brew and revelled in it.
‘Now tell!’ he commanded. ‘What on earth is going on?’
Hattie sighed. ‘It’s the new Sickle Cell Unit,’ she said. ‘You’ve heard about it?’
‘I don’t think … Oh, yes, of course. That charity thing?’
‘You’ve got it; that charity thing. One of the local GPs got it going — raised a hundred thousand quid from the local Afro-Caribbean community to set up and run for three years a unit for the treatment of and research into sickle cell anaemia. I don’t have to tell you that they’re the ones who’ll use it mostly — which makes it extra good of Dr Choopani to do the fundraising.’
‘Why?’ Adam asked.
‘Because he’s Asian, not of African descent,’ Hattie said acidly. ‘So he personally isn’t at risk of sickle cell. Is he?’
‘But he must get a lot of black patients who are.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Hattie grunted. ‘He’s been making a special study of them for years. I make sure that any patient I get in here in a sickle cell crisis is told about him. Slowly all the local cases have ended up on his list. The local GPs persuade them all to go to him. Suits them, suits him.’
‘What’s all this got to do with the row out there this morning?’ George said. ‘Are you telling me that —’
‘I’m telling you that the local white population is up in arms. They only know because it was in last night’s local rag, that the unit’s being opened today by Jeremy Malti — the footballer, you know? I think he’s from a Nigerian family — and they’re screaming blue murder about preferential treatment for ethnic minorities when all the locals get a bad deal on the NHS. You can sort of understand it, I suppose. They’ve had to close half of the geriatric unit for lack of money. It just makes no sense to them.’
‘But you said the unit was f
unded by a charity appeal!’ George said.
‘So it is. Try telling them that. The unit’s going to be sited here, so as far as they’re concerned it’s a National Health thing.’
‘Well, why hasn’t someone explained all that to them? Maybe once they understand properly, they’ll —’
‘Oh, George, for a clever woman you can be awfully slow!’ Hattie said irritably. ‘Of course there’ve been attempts to explain. The Professor’s been out there speaking to them — or at any rate he tried to just after he came back from the BBC, he did the Today programme about it — and they made such a row he had to call the police. And the Chief Exec’s tried — Matthew Herne — and they laughed in his face. They don’t want to be told! It’s not just the ordinary locals out there, you know. It’s your actual rent-a-mob. People who want to make ructions for their own ends.’
‘Who?’ demanded George. ‘Who’d want to use a unit that’s been set up to help kids who go through hell, even die, for making whatdoyoucallems — ructions?’
‘Political factions,’ Hattie said and when George again demanded, ‘Who?’ just shrugged her shoulders. ‘This is a difficult part of London, George. We’ve got all sorts of tub-thumpers stirring up trouble round here: the National Front, new Nazis. It wouldn’t surprise me if we found out they were behind all this.’
It happened again. George had been thinking only about what had happened this morning; she had not been giving any thought at all to the dead babies or to the two murders she and Gus were investigating; but suddenly another large piece of the jigsaw moved, wriggled and slotted itself neatly into place.
‘Tell me again about how the unit was set up, how financed,’ she said urgently and Hattie stared at her.
‘What?’
‘I said — I have to know. It could be connected with — Oh, Hattie, if I promise to explain later, will you just answer my questions now?’ George begged. Hattie lifted her brows at her vehemence and then nodded.
‘OK, if you promise. What was it you wanted? How it all started?’ She reached for the middle drawer of her desk and pulled it open. It was a jumble of papers and notebooks and odds and ends of the sort that usually clutter a woman’s handbag. She rummaged in it in the same rather embarrassed fashion women with such bags do. ‘I keep on meaning to sort this bloody mess out, but I’ve been too hectic — Ah! Here it is! Look, here’s the first poster he did. Put it up in my waiting room and asked me to point it out to people. That was last — let me see — summer sometime.’
‘Who did?’
‘Dr Choopani.’
It was a crude piece of work: a black-and-white poster, smudged and crumpled from its time in Hattie’s desk drawer. It showed a small black child curled up in a posture of pain while an anxious mother hovered over him. In the background a pair of young black lovers yearned into each other’s eyes. The text read:
Do you care? If you are of African descent you MUST care. Sickle cell anaemia and Sickle Cell TRAIT could affect YOU and YOUR CHILDREN. We have to find a CURE for this dreadful problem, but cures take money. HELP US to raise the money we must have to provide RESEARCH. COUNSELLING, CARE and ADVICE on your chances of having a sickle cell baby gladly given. ADVICE on helping your child cope if he has a sickle cell crisis. All will be AVAILABLE. Call this number now. And PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY!
‘It’s not a very good poster. Not good at all,’ Hattie said judiciously. ‘Bit misleading in some ways — I mean, the genetic counselling bit. Anyway, he knew better than I did and told me so. I have to admit he was right. I said he should do a more professional-looking job but he said that’d make people suspicious and this one would work. And it did. A hundred thousand! I ask you! And he talked Herne and the Professor into letting him have that set of rooms over the Pharmacy at a really low rental and he’s got the whole thing up and running. Or almost. He’ll have staff in next week, he told me, and the first patient coming through the week after.’
‘But what’s he doing for pathology services?’ George said, diverted for a moment from her main purpose. ‘I’ve heard nothing about this!’
‘I don’t think anyone ever thought he’d pull it off, so there hasn’t been much talk about it. But he comes in and out of here a fair bit now, to tell me what’s happening. I think I’m the only one who’s really shown an interest, but then I would. We get the kids in crisis in here, you see. Anyway, he told me he had to have all specialist staff, specially trained. I suppose that includes pathology.’
‘Hmm,’ was all George said, then she looked again at the poster. ‘I wonder.’
‘Wonder what?’
‘Remember he was set on?’ George said. ‘One night at Gus’s — at a fish-and-chip shop. You patched him up, Adam.’ She looked at the young doctor silently sipping at his coffee. ‘Remember?’
‘What?’ Adam squinted at her and then nodded. ‘I remember the chap you helped me handle,’ he said. ‘You were great. He was a right — well, he wasn’t easy.’
‘He was Dr Choopani,’ George said.
‘Oh!’ Adam said and went back to his coffee.
Hattie looked interested. ‘He was beaten up? I didn’t know that!’
‘You were off duty. I don’t suppose you check the names of all the patients who were treated when you aren’t here.’
‘Not unless I have to. Why was he beaten up?’
‘Racist attack, he thought. So did I at first and then — Well, he doesn’t have an easy personality.’
Hattie snorted with laughter. ‘Easy? Do me a favour! He comes across as the most arrogant bastard who ever breathed. Which is a pity really, because he’s a nice fella when you get to know him. It’s just his manner. Way he was brought up, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’ George was still abstracted. Had her idea any logic? And yet, why not? It would be absurd to think that the hospital had a monopoly of common-sense people on the staff. Couldn’t it be that … Yes, she decided, it could. She lifted her chin and looked at Hattie beseechingly.
‘Hattie darling, it’s imperative, really imperative I go and talk to Gus before that bunch out there have been dispersed. He’ll get rid of them if anyone can, I know, and —’
‘Well, well!’ Hattie said, lifting her brows interrogatively. ‘Do I hear the voice of an admirer? One who sees Sir Galahad in a copper’s helmet? One who —’
‘Hattie, shut up. Just listen. I really do have to talk to him. We have a tricky case on and I think I have an idea about a clue. Please, Hattie. You helped me over the Oxford case, you and your Sam. Now be an angel and help again.’
Hattie looked uncertain. She’d enjoyed her inside seat in the Oxford affair; knowing what had happened before almost anyone else in the hospital had been great fun. Could it happen again?
‘Is this about Harry Rajabani?’ she said, setting her head on one side.
‘You’ve got it in one,’ George said. ‘I really do have to talk to Gus about it.’
Hattie leaned over and looked at her, put a finger on her pulse and pursed her lips. ‘You’re sure you weren’t knocked out at all?’ she said. ‘Because if you have even the hint of a head injury —’
‘I’m not stupid, Hattie! Of course if I had I’d tell you. Believe me, no. Now let me go, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Well, I suppose I’d better. You’ll only drive me bonkers if I don’t,’ Hattie said. She sat and watched George rush out of the department so fast that she almost galloped, then turned to Adam. ‘Time you were back out there,’ she said sternly. ‘High time.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ Adam said, all demure and biddable again, and grinned at her and went, leaving Hattie thinking hard alone in her office. There was something she’d just thought of that perhaps she should tell George and her Gus. Well, maybe later. When she had time.
25
By the time George reached the main entrance again, cutting across the courtyard to the ambulance entrance and pushing her way through the curious members of staff who had found excuses to come down from wards an
d departments all over the hospital to see what was going on, her idea had lost its shaky outlines and become a firm and crystalline conviction. She had to tell Gus, as soon as she possibly could, that the likelihood was that the murderer of Harry Rajabani was out there in that mob. If he had to arrest and question every last one of them, well, so be it; she was quite sure she knew now what had happened to Harry, and why.
Again she used her memory, trying to see the two men side by side: Harry with his classic good looks, the wide warm mouth beneath the proud, sharply defined prow of a nose, the liquid eyes and thick curling lashes that made them seem even more lustrous; and Dr Choopani, just as patrician in profile, just as handsome in his own much older way …
Her conviction shivered for a moment at that point as she stood in the shadows at the courtyard end of the ambulance entrance and peered through the mass of bodies for some sign of Gus. Dr Choopani had to be a good thirty-five years older than Harry. He still had his hair admittedly, but it was greyish and sparse compared with Harry’s springing close-cut curls. Then her spirits lifted and she assured herself that her hunch did make sense. Wasn’t it one of the clichés that racists trotted out all the time, the thing about not being able to tell black people apart? Maybe for some of them it was true. Their hatred of skins darker than their own made them incapable of looking on the owners of them as people like themselves with clear physical differences and appearances; with such an attitude, how could they be expected to see that Harry Rajabani and Dr Choopani were not in fact really alike at all? She stiffened her shoulders unconsciously as she stiffened her determination that she was right; Harry had been killed by one or some of these thugs now demonstrating against the new unit, confusing him with Dr Choopani. The Rag and Bottle had been crowded that night and wasn’t all that well lit at the best of times. And of course people there drank, which would profoundly affect their responses, never mind their intellect (or what passes for it, she thought waspishly). Someone had thought Harry was the man who had so successfully organized the local Afro-Caribbean community that he had raised a hundred thousand pounds for a special unit to deal with a disease black people suffered; and in their hatred of all such people they had chosen to kill the man who threatened by his actions to save black lives.
Second Opinion Page 26
