‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I like my own skin far too well. I’m not one of your over-brave types, take it from me.’
‘But you are, you fool,’ he said and this time came around the desk to kiss her and did so very thoroughly. ‘Mmm. Like I said, really ripe Brie at its best, that’s you. I could eat you on toast without any butter. Do take care, George. If there’s anyone you’ve got any notions about, tell me, and I’ll —’
‘Yes,’ she said extricating herself and feeling a little flustered. Ridiculous at her age to be so thrown by a kiss. Still he really was — She shook her head and was stern with herself. ‘I’ll tell you, Gus. Now get out of here and let me get some of my other work done.’
‘Make sure you get them to check you over again in A & E,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the look of that bruise.’ He touched her face gently. She liked that.
‘You should see the other bruises I’ve got,’ she said lightly. ‘I checked in the loo. There’s one on my bottom that’d light up the world.’
‘I’d love to.’ He produced one of his most lascivious grins. ‘Just give me the chance.’
‘Some other time …’ She pushed him gently and this time he went, shrugging into his coat. ‘I’ll call you.’
‘No you won’t,’ he said as he reached the door. ‘I’ll come round to your place tonight — to see the old ladies. I miss ‘em dreadfully if I don’t see them most days.’ And he flicked his thumb and forefinger at his invisible hat brim and went.
By mid afternoon she’d caught up with the paperwork that was waiting by dint of sending Jerry over to the canteen to fetch her a pot of yoghurt and an apple for her lunch and working as she ate, keeping her head down over her desk and refusing to allow thoughts of either Gus or the case they were on to intrude. It was fairly easy to exclude thoughts on the case; keeping the image of Gus at bay was not so simple.
She could still smell the scent of his aftershave on her cheeks, left there when he’d kissed her, and it stirred her in a way that she found startling. She’d fancied men before, of course she had; indeed had to admit that one of her major problems was a distinct susceptibility to attractive men. She had had her share of lovers too. This one, though, was different. He was funny and serious at the same time, clever and surprising and energetic, but above all different, and she sat and stared unseeing at a PM report for a little while, thinking how very different indeed he was from any other man with whom she’d ever had a relationship. Different because of the obvious things, like his background, his speech, his tastes, but above all in his treatment of her. There were none of the usual tricks men used to get a woman into bed. Indeed, they’d gone no further than what he called snogging — which was tender and amusing and hugely enjoyable, she found, if not entirely satisfying, but that in itself added to her delight in him. He was teaching her the pleasures of delay, the joys of yearning and needing and having to wait. She was just reaching the stage where she wanted to get into bed with him so much that if he didn’t drag her there soon she’d drag him.
Then she shook her head at herself and tried to work. This time she managed it, and at three o’clock stretched, looked at her watch and decided to take a stroll around the hospital.
‘I want to see what’s going on, Sheila. There’s been a lot of action here today and I want to follow it up. So you be sure to stay here till I get back, OK? I’ll be here in plenty of time for you to get away as usual.’ And she went quickly, leaving Sheila staring resentfully after her because she had intended to do exactly the same thing herself until George had pipped her at the post.
George started her tour at the new Sickle Cell Anaemia Unit, finding with difficulty the almost hidden staircase that led to the set of rooms over the Pharmacy which Professor Hunnisett had provided for it. It was modestly signposted but she was amused when she saw the plaque at the foot of the staircase, which had, she assumed, been unveiled this morning by the footballer who had performed the opening ceremony.
‘This Plaque commemorates the opening of the First Choopani Unit for Sickle Cell Anaemia …’ she read and her lips twisted with laughter. First of all because of the wholly typical Choopani-ish self-confidence of the ‘First’, and secondly because he hadn’t been able to resist the personal glory of using his own name. And then she chided herself as she climbed the stairs. That attitude was too British by half, she thought pushing open the door at the top. I’ve been here too long if I’m starting to think it’s not perfectly reasonable for a man who’s worked his butt off to raise some money for a public service project to have his name on it. He would at home in the States, so why not here?
The smell of new paint was pervasive and she sneezed loudly. A round-faced Jamaican nurse put her head out of a door. ‘Did you want somethin’?’
‘Hi,’ George said. ‘I’m Dr Barnabas, pathologist here. I couldn’t come this morning, so I thought I’d kinda have a look round now. Is that all right?’
‘Fine by me,’ the nurse said. ‘Glad to show you — or would you rather Dr Choopani did?’
‘He’s still here?’ George was surprised. She’d have thought he’d have gone long since.
The girl grinned. ‘Well o’ course ‘e is! It’s ‘is unit, ‘n’t it?’ She had a broad cockney accent, much broader than Gus’s, and George warmed to her.
‘I think it’s the patients’ unit,’ she murmured. ‘If you ask him, he’ll tell you that, I’m sure.’
‘Wanna bet?’ the nurse said and pushed at a door at the end of the corridor. ‘You jus’ go and ask ‘im. ‘E’s in ‘is office, I got stuff to do ‘ere.’
Dr Choopani was sitting at a large and elaborate desk, on a leather chair that was so new it was shiny. There was another large leather chair facing the desk and the walls bore pictures of various kinds, many of them of Dr Choopani himself in various clearly important public activities with clearly important public persons.
He looked up at her when she came in and showed no surprise at all. ‘Good afternoon, Dr Barnabas. I am pleased to see you visiting us.’
‘No patients yet?’ George came in and looked around curiously. ‘This is all rather lavish!’
‘No, there are no patients till tomorrow when we have the first official clinic, and this office I have paid for out of my own pocket since I care a great deal for comfortable surroundings when I work. It does not come from the fund.’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest it did,’ George said. ‘I —’
‘Whether you did or not, that is the case.’ He got to his feet and came round the desk. ‘Now I will show you round the unit.’
He did, lecturing her at length about sickle cell anaemia, the way it was passed through the generations, the effects of a sickle cell trait on a family, the horrors of a sickle cell crisis and a great many more things about which she was already well informed. She tried at first to tell him that she had all this at her fingers’ ends and really didn’t need to be lectured like a first-year nursing student, but he ignored that and continued with his learned dissertation as though she hadn’t spoken. He was patronizing and irritating beyond measure but there was absolutely no doubt in her mind of his probity and his genuine interest in what he was doing. Here was a man who was exactly what he seemed, she told herself as she trailed obediently from room to room admiring as best she could consulting room couches, microscopes, charts and the other normal impedimenta of a clinical unit. There was no guile about him, which was what made him so difficult to like — he made no effort to present himself as an attractive modest person. He was pleased with his achievements — as he had the right to be — and saw no need to hide his pleasure. He didn’t care that everyone around him would be driven to distraction by that degree of self-satisfaction. But for all that, she thought, he had achieved a great deal. This unit was a good one — or promised to be — and his efforts would do a lot of good for a lot of people. But by the time she escaped, almost running down the staircase to the plaque at the bottom, she was certain that there was nothing
to discover from talking further to Dr Choopani about the murder of Harry Rajabani or of the Oberlander baby. If he had known anything he would, she was sure, have told her by now. It was his nature to do so.
She stopped at the foot of the stairs for a moment. Around her it was deep dusk; the days might be lengthening towards the spring as the New Year hovered in the wings, but there was small sign yet of that; darkness and dampness were everywhere and she shivered. She drew her flimsy white coat a little closer as though it might provide warmth.
She was still standing there, uncertain where to go next, when someone coming out of the Pharmacy door beside the staircase bumped into her in the gloom. She stepped back and said, ‘Sorry!’ quickly as though it had been her fault, but then, aware that it had not been, protested in a squawk.
‘So sorry!’ a voice said breathlessly. ‘I didn’t see you there — Oh, it’s you, Dr Barnabas!’
George peered and saw the other’s face and then laughed. ‘Cherry! I thought you were someone who was after me for the crumbs at the bottom of my pockets. It’s all a mugger’d get! What are you doing here?’
‘I had to pick up something for Dr Arundel from the Pharmacy. How are you, Dr Barnabas? Did you have a nice Christmas?’
‘Not bad,’ George said, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic about it, remembering how much Cherry had dreaded the holiday. ‘Was yours as bad as you feared?’
‘Worse,’ Cherry said, and lapsed into silence. She was walking away now, towards Red Block, and George went along with her, not caring much where she ended up. She was just prowling for news, after all. And now she thought of it, there was something she could talk to this girl about.
‘Well, it’s over now, or nearly,’ she said as cheerfully as she could. ‘Just New Year’s Eve to get through and then we can look forward to a bit of summer sunshine.’
‘Yes,’ Cherry said without enthusiasm.
‘And I hope we can get this case solved soon, too. It would be marvellous if we could get it out of the way before the New Year, wouldn’t it?’
Cherry looked at her over her shoulder. They were now in the better-lit part of the courtyard, and George could see how dark were the shadows under her eyes and on her temples, and felt a deep stab of pity for her. She was indeed wretchedly miserable.
‘There’s only a couple of days now,’ she said drearily. ‘You couldn’t.’
‘You never know,’ George said stoutly. ‘This morning at the demo — you heard about that?’
‘Of course, everyone did. There was no end of a row, wasn’t there?’
‘There was indeed — but it also gave us a strong lead to who might have been Harry’s killer.’
Cherry shook her head. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
George was taken a little aback. ‘Doesn’t it?’
Cherry shook her head again, more definitely this time. ‘It don’t make a ha’porth of difference. Why should it?’
‘I’m not sure …’ George said and thought for a while. ‘Except that maybe justice, you know and —’
‘Revenge,’ Cherry said and her voice was sardonic. ‘Much good that’d do Harry. I don’t give a damn now who killed Harry. It’s enough someone did. Chasing someone to kill them wouldn’t make it any better, would it?’
‘We don’t kill murderers any more, Cherry. But we do have to catch them.’
‘Why?’
‘To stop them doing it again!’
‘I suppose.’
‘And to find out how and why they did it and —’
‘You make it sound like a crossword puzzle,’ Cherry said, pushing open the door to Red Block and standing back. ‘But what good’ll it do me if I do find out? I’d still not have Harry.’
‘Cherry,’ George said. ‘I think you need help.’
‘Eh?’
‘You’re depressed. You’re entitled to be, of course you are. But you can be helped. Talking to someone about it, a counsellor —’
‘I don’t want a counsellor,’ Cherry said with huge scorn. ‘I hear the one up in our department and how she bleats on at these people. Counselling doesn’t do anything for you if what you want is a baby. And it won’t do anything for me when what I want is my Harry back.’ Tears collected in her eyes and began to run down her cheeks unchecked. She made no grimaces, showed none of the pain of weeping. She just let the tears roll.
George looked at her, nonplussed, and then did the only thing she could think of doing; she opened her arms and let Cherry creep into them, and she held her close, and let the wave of weeping end itself naturally when it was ready to. Then Cherry straightened her back, nodded, mopped her face and turned to continue her journey back to her department as though nothing had happened. And George followed her lead and went with her. There seemed little else she could do.
28
Sometimes, George was to think later, circumstances conspired for you rather than against you. That was what happened that dull December afternoon in Maternity. As she and Cherry came into the department, they could hear the sound of the television blaring out; the BBC was showing a blockbuster holiday-time movie and George could see all the mothers who were still in the ward (despite the usual heroic efforts to discharge many of the hospital’s patients for Christmas) collected in one bay, sitting on their beds and armchairs that had been dragged in, watching it. They had their babies on their laps and a couple were feeding them. They looked contented and happy. It was a pleasant sight, George thought. The staff who were on duty were there too, and all of them, patients and staff alike, were sharing the last of the Christmas chocolate biscuits and drinking cream sherry from plastic cups. George could smell the sweetness of them both as soon as she and Cherry pushed open the double doors.
It was evidently one of those rare days when a lull had hit the department and there were no labouring mothers at all. The door of the labour suite stood open and the lights were out, a rare enough event, and though there were some obviously pre-natal women amongst those watching the James Bond movie with such absorption, there was no suggestion that they were about to give birth. Everyone was relaxed, contented and quite unaware that anyone had come into the ward.
‘Nice for them,’ Cherry said as they walked down the corridor towards the Fertility Unit. ‘Must make a change from always rushing round the way they usually have to.’ They were passing the office door as she said it and almost automatically she turned her head and glanced in. ‘Even Sister’s watching that film —’
They were in fact past the office door when Cherry stopped short so suddenly she made George stumble, for she was immediately beside her.
‘Blimey!’ Cherry said and stared straight ahead.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ George had to speak up, for the TV sound was turned very high and the chatter of onscreen guns and the swoop of dramatic music filled the air with its ersatz excitement. Whether it was the film or Cherry’s behaviour or even a moment of premonition, George would never know, but the flesh on the back of her neck seemed to creep.
‘It’s that thing you did, making me stare at the wall,’ Cherry said, still standing motionless.
‘Staring at — oh, yes,’ George said and nodded. ‘When I was trying to help you remember.’ Her attention sharpened even more. ‘What’s happened, Cherry? What have you remembered?’
‘A basket weave.’ Cherry nodded at her suddenly, a very affirmative movement. ‘I said I could see a basket weave and the crumpled pages which had that sort of writing on — a sort of code you said it was.’
‘Well?’ George was almost on tiptoes, she was so tense.
‘I just saw it.’
‘What?’
‘The basket weave.’
‘Where?’
‘In here. Sister’s office.’
They both stood very still for a moment, looking at each other and then, slowly, Cherry turned and retraced her steps, with George following close behind. She stopped at the door of Sister’s office and stood ther
e, peering in.
Behind them, obliquely across the central corridor, the soft Scottish accent of Sean Connery chatting up one of his luscious heroines seemed to be absorbing every spectator. Certainly no one turned to look or seemed to be aware that the two of them were standing there in the corridor.
‘See?’ Cherry said softly. ‘Over there.’ And she jerked her chin towards the back of the office.
George looked. Cherry had indicated the battered old table against the wall with its overflow of papers from Sister’s desk, which was in the middle of the room. There was a rather battered old Olympia typewriter on it. Beside it there was a stack of flimsy metal trays built up into a tower, each tray held six inches above the other by spindly legs set in the corners. The upper trays were filled with more papers which showed clearly through the mesh of which the trays were made.
‘See,’ Cherry said again. ‘Basket weave.’
George squinted and understood. When Cherry had first used the term she had imagined something made of cane or bamboo or straw, rather like a hat; now she saw that the metal wire of which the trays were made was plaited together in the classic one-over-one-under style used for making so many fabrics out of fibres. She said, ‘Of course!’ loudly and turned to Cherry excitedly.
Cherry had glanced over her shoulder at the bay where everyone was watching TV, alarmed that the loudness of George’s voice might have attracted them, but still no one paid any attention and she relaxed a little.
‘I shouldn’t really go in here unless I’ve got files or something, Sister gets mad.’
‘Well, I’m here and I’ll say you did nothing you shouldn’t,’ George said, her voice lowered again. ‘Come on.’ And she set a hand in the small of Cherry’s back and pushed firmly.
Once inside they couldn’t be seen from the TV bay and they both relaxed. Cherry hurried to the rack of trays on the table and began to riffle through the papers in the top one.
‘Is that what you saw when you saw the basket weave in your memory?’ George said. ‘Stacked papers like that?’
Second Opinion Page 29
