Death on the Table

by Rayner, Claire

  He straightened up then, and turned, and she shrank back against the ventilator housing, fear rising high in her throat. She saw the glint of his eyes above the faint white glimmer of the mask, and something about them made her think, wildly, ‘But I know you—it’s——’ and then he moved and the moment of recognition went, melting into her fear, and she didn’t know who it was who had covered his escape to this far roof by dragging her with him, found nothing familiar in the body that bulked under the green gown, the shape of the head under the tight fitting cap.

  ‘Please——’ she didn’t realise for a moment that it was her own voice, hardly realised she had anything to say. ‘Please let me go——’

  The figure turned and stood very still for a second and then shook its head, and moved towards her again, and she pulled away, scuttled round the side of the ventilator shaft housing in the sort of terror that makes an animal run even when it knows there is no escape.

  ‘No—no, please, whoever you are—please, no——’

  The figure stopped then, suddenly, and again she caught the faint glitter in the eyes, as they looked at her. And almost instinctively she knew what to say, what the brain behind the mask and cap was weighing up.

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ she said breathlessly, and her words were snatched from her mouth by a gust of wind and tossed back like an echo. ‘I don’t know—no one knows—not the addict, no one. Let me go, please—let me go——’

  The conviction in her voice was intense. She knew that, listening to herself in a queerly objective fashion, feeling her own hands as they clung to the wood of her perch, feeling the ache in her arm where she had been cut.

  And it did convince him, for he turned then, and moved away from her, back towards the coping at the edge of the roof.

  She watched him almost in a dream, saw him leaning over the coping, looking downwards, was aware of the careful consideration he was giving to the situation. And as she leaned, spent and sick, against the frail wooden planks she became aware of something else, and watched almost casually, almost as though it didn’t concern her.

  She saw first one head appear, and then another, over the edge of the roof on the far side, the engineers’ department side, the way she and her captor had come themselves. She saw them move, become part of total figures, saw them come closer to the figure that leaned so thoughtfully over the edge of the parapet. She saw that one of the silent stalking figures was Barney and wanted to call his name, to show herself at him, but again she couldn’t move. She just stood there breathing painfully and deeply and watching in a state of remoteness.

  It happened with the inevitability of an organised beautifully choreographed ballet. As the leader of the two figures—Spain? yes, Spain—hurled itself forwards, towards the rubber booted legs of the figure by the coping, the figure turned, and saw, and moved sideways sharply, swinging out with one leg at the head of his nearest assailant. But he missed, and swung there wildly on one leg for a moment, silhouetted in mad pattern against the sky, and then he fell. And there was a thick cracking sound as he hit something.

  Lucy thought he had gone over the edge, so sharply did the silhouette disappear, and the shock of the idea brought movement back to her. She flung herself forwards, and shrieked, ‘Barney!’ and he was there and caught her, and held her very close and tight and she put her face against his chest and went on saying, ‘Barney——’, but more softly, with a sense of safety and peace that she had forgotten could exist.

  But Barney moved after a few moments, and with one arm held protectively round her moved over towards the huddle of figures by the coping, for more men had arrived, more black shadows bulking against the lesser blackness that was the sky.

  A light danced, and Lucy saw Spain’s capable square fingered hands move forwards, saw the huddled figure of the gowned man against the coping, saw the light shift, and fix itself on the face.

  Spain put his hand out further, and hooked one finger over the top of the mask, and pulled it downwards, over the nose, so that it hooked under the chin like some incongruous ruff.

  The eyes were half open, and staring bleakly upwards, and the face was quite blank. It was odd to see him lying there like that, so blank and silent, Lucy thought vaguely, letting all these people hang over him, staring at him like this, pulling him about. Not like Jeff Heath at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE had been crying, but now she felt better, though her eyes were hot and swollen, and her throat hurt because of the way she had held it constricted trying to keep the stupid tears back. But now she felt better, and warmer too, for she had been so cold.

  It was daylight now, broad daylight, and the hospital was bustling and moving around her. She could hear the distant clatter of bowls and basins as the night nurses did the morning’s rounds of washings and dressings, could smell the distant fragrance of bacon and toast as the kitchens got into gear for breakfasts which would have to be served in half an hour. It was six-thirty, and the day’s work was well under way.

  The door swung open, and the night nurse came in, and smiled at her.

  ‘I brought you some breakfast, Sister. Nothing much—just a boiled egg and some toast and tea but you need it——’

  ‘I couldn’t——’ Lucy said a little fretfully, but the girl took no notice.

  ‘You could have it in the office if you’d rather. It’s a bit lonely in the side-ward here——’

  ‘Oh—well, thanks, I’ll stay here, I think. I must look an incredible mess, and I’d hate the patients to see me like this.’

  ‘You don’t look your normal self, I must say,’ the night nurse said cheerfully. ‘So have it here. Now, Sister, if you want any more, just give me a ring, will you? I’m just doing breakfasts in the kitchen, so I won’t be far away——’

  ‘Thanks awfully,’ Lucy said and smiled gratefully at her. ‘You’re very good—all I want now is Bar—Dr. Elliot and some news. Will you watch out for him and send him straight in here?’

  And the night nurse nodded and went away, leaving Lucy to her breakfast and her shakiness, for she still felt decidedly unlike her usual self.

  It had all been such a hubbub. Spain and his men had started to pick up Jeff, to get him down from the roof, but he had come round from the blow on his head, and started to fight back with a sort of despairing violence that distressed Lucy more than she would have thought possible. But they had controlled him—of course they had. There had been a good half dozen men against him. What hope had he had?

  And then Barney had led her away, carefully guiding her feet down the long swaying fire escape to the courtyard far below, and she had clung to him, and wept, and she didn’t know whether it was because it was all over, or because she had been so frightened before, or because it had been Jeff, for Jeff had been a sort of friend, and she had liked him——

  They had cleaned her arm and dressed it in Casualty, after putting several stitches in the gaping wound, and she had watched Colin Jackson’s flat careful fingers putting them in and told herself over and over again, ‘—Jeff did this. He would have killed me, if he’d felt he had to, just as he killed those other people. Three people he killed, and would have killed again. Jeff did this——’ But she couldn’t really believe it.

  Colin Jackson had insisted she go and rest, and when she had flatly refused to go to the Staff sick bay had grudgingly agreed she could go to her own side-ward, for the police-woman had left it now and she could rest there for a few hours.

  Barney had promised to come to her, as soon as he could.

  ‘But I’ve got to find out what’s what, Lucy,’ he had said sombrely. ‘Jeff is—was, I suppose, now—my friend. I’ve got to go and find out. I’ll be back, Lucy——’

  And she had wept, and then dozed fitfully and then woken and wept again, and now she felt a little better. And the toast smelled good and the satiny brown shell of the egg on the prettily laid tray did look inviting——

  She ate everything, all the toast,
and the last scrapings of marmalade and butter and emptied the teapot completely. And as she poured the last cupful and liberally sugared it, the door opened and Barney came in.

  She looked up at his white face with the heavy violet shadows under the grey eyes, and mutely held out the cup and saucer to him. He sketched a smile at her, and took it, and drank greedily, saying nothing.

  The little night nurse put her head round the door, and nodded approvingly and went away to come back with another egg and more toast and marmalade, and another pot of tea and he in his turn demolished a big breakfast, as they sat in companionable silence.

  Watching him, his squared shoulders hunched a little over the tray he held on his lap as he sat there in the big armchair opposite her own, she felt warm and safe again. The fear of the night, the misery of the morning caused by the knowledge that Jeff, their friend Jeff, had been the man Spain had jocularly called ‘our Bloke’ and caught like a rat in a trap, all evaporated. While Barney was there, all was very right in Lucy’s world.

  He looked up then, and caught her eye, and smiled at her, and she saw a smudge of yellow egg yolk on his chin, and she felt tears of sheer happiness boil up in her throat.

  ‘Oh, Barney!’ she said, and the tears spilled over and smudged her dirty cheeks. ‘Oh, Barney, I do love you so much.’

  He put the tray down on the floor, and lifted his weary body from the chair, and came over to her, and she stood up, and put her arms round his neck, and kissed his tired eyes and big eggy chin and stubbled cheeks and then his warm mouth, and wept again, and laughed too. And Barney laughed too, a soft excited sort of laugh and held her very close and kissed her till she was breathless.

  Then he sat down again, and pulled her down to sit curled on his lap, her head fitting comfortably into the curve where his neck met his shoulder. They sat in silence for a long time, and then Lucy said, almost dreamily, ‘What happened? What did you find out?’

  He moved then, uncomfortably, and she put out a hand and stroked the arm that was resting around her, and he relaxed again. But when he spoke his voice was sombre.

  ‘He talked a lot, down there in Cas. I’ve never heard him talk so much. Just went on and on, and that bloody Spain just stood there and stared at him as though—as though he were a specimen on a slab. It was funny. It was just the sort of look I’ve seen on Jeff’s face when he was doing a post mortem. Remote, you know? Academically interested, but not thinking about the—the body he was working on as though it had once been a person. I wonder. Maybe it was because of being a pathologist that he could do it?’

  ‘What?’ Lucy was bewildered.

  ‘I’m sorry—I went off at a tangent. I mean, I wonder if it was because Jeff was a pathologist that he could be a murderer? Path people—they spend so much time dealing with specimens and bodies—maybe they lose their feeling for people as people—I don’t know——’

  ‘He did do it all then,’ Lucy said flatly. ‘I’ve been sort of hoping that——’

  ‘That it wasn’t him, even though he sprang the trap. I know. I felt the same. But it was him. It’s—sickening isn’t it? A friend——’

  He seemed to brood for a moment and then said with a defensive sort of note in his voice, ‘Not that he could help it, really. Oh, hell—that’s stupid. Of course he could help it. What I mean is, he had tremendous provocation.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it? Or don’t you want to talk about it anymore?’ It was odd how attuned she felt to Barney’s feelings. She felt a reluctance in him to talk about it but at the same time a sort of need to get the information out, into the air.

  ‘Of course I’ll tell you about it,’ Barney said after a moment. ‘Though it’s hard to know where to start.’ He sat very still for a long pause, thinking, then he said, ‘It goes back a long way, really. Jeff’s not a natural born doctor type—I mean, there was no family tradition of academic success, or work that involved helping people. No family at all, to speak of. His parents were divorced just before his birth apparently, and there was never much effort made to hide from him the fact that he was unwanted—had never been wanted. His father never saw him, and his mother had done her damnedest to get rid of him, both before he was born and afterwards. Can you imagine what sort of a mother would actually tell her child a thing like that? Anyway, she did—frequently. He had a lousy time as a child.

  ‘But he was bright—well, we all knew that—and worked like a crazy thing at school, and scraped and saved and got himself to University and then medical school, working as a waiter and a navvy and Lord knows what else. It was extraordinary, Lucy. I’ve known him all this time and I never knew a thing about him. He was just taciturn old Jeff who never said much to anyone—and this morning, down there in Cas., he talked and talked as though he couldn’t stop. It all came pouring out——

  ‘Anyway, he was doing his first houseman job—and that was in Pathology, because he said he never really liked people all that much. He always preferred the—the separateness of the laboratory—that was how he put it, the separateness—well, he was working there, and one of the secretaries in the department got pregnant. Spain asked Jeff if it was his doing——’ Barney’s face darkened. ‘Of course, only Spain would ask a question like that.’

  ‘Be fair Barney. He has to do his job,’ Lucy said a little weakly, but Barney ignored that.

  ‘Anyway, she asked Jeff to abort her. He didn’t want to—not because he had specially strong opposition views on abortion, but because he just didn’t want to get involved. But she went on and on at him, and said what sort of life would the baby have anyway, illegitimate and completely unwanted—and apparently it was that that sparked a response in him. The woman had hit on the one thing that coula make Jeff do as she wanted.

  ‘Well, he agreed. He agreed to go to her flat one evening and aborted her—or attempted to. The thing was, she wasn’t pregnant——’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s right. She wasn’t pregnant. Poor Jeff—you have to pity him. The poor devil had taken the woman at her word, and believed her. Anyway, he was furious when he discovered it—as much with himself for not taking steps to be sure she was pregnant before he agreed to meddle with her—and then she told him why. She’d provided a witness—had him hiding in the room, and he’d seen the whole thing—and had a tape recording. It was a frame-up—isn’t that the term? A frame-up.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Drugs,’ Barney said succinctly. ‘The witness was Quayle—and the woman who wanted aborting though she wasn’t pregnant was Roberta Vickers.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Lucy said, and felt a sudden twist of pity for Jeff that made her want to cry again.

  ‘He had a thriving drug-pushing set up already,’ Barney said bitterly. ‘But something had broken his supply line. And his girl friend was working in a hospital, so between them they cooked up this scheme. This all started five or six years ago——’

  ‘Has—had Jeff been involved with them all this time?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It wasn’t money they wanted for their blackmail. Nothing so simple—they knew that wouldn’t do them any good because Jeff hadn’t got any. A resident’s pay doesn’t go far.

  ‘Anyway, he paid up what they did want. He systematically stole drugs for them, heroin, cocaine, some morphia and a lot of amphetamine. And they got richer and richer and he got more and more desperate. Of course he’s been lucky to get away with it all this time, but he’s had four resident posts in the time, and he got out of each hospital long before anyone spotted what was going on—but here it was different. He stayed here longer than he’d ever been anywhere else because the Royal was his own medical school—and he had a chance of a better job. Old Simon Towers—the senior consultant pathologist—he retires next year. There was every likelihood of Jeff getting the post. Well, we all knew he would. He’s a bloody marvellous pathologist and it was a foregone conclusion he’d get the job.’

  ‘And that meant he had to stop his drug stealing——’ Lucy said.


  ‘Of course. He’s no fool—he knew someone’d spot it sooner or later. And when Quayle developed an ulcer, he had his chance. He told Quayle to come and see Sir James, made sure he’d be admitted here, and worked out how to get rid of him. Only it all went wrong.’

  ‘You’d think Quayle would have more sense than to come so near someone so—someone who hated him so much. He put himself in a very vulnerable position, didn’t he?’

  ‘I thought that too—and I said so to Jeff this morning. He’s an extraordinarily clear-eyed bloke in some ways, you know. He said Quayle saw him as two people—the drug thief he employed was one of them, and as such to be—well, manipulated, despised, used as Quayle saw fit. But Jeff was still a doctor—and Quayle had that rather naïve attitude to doctors so many lay people have. That doctors aren’t like ordinary people when they’re doing their doctoring. Am I explaining this properly? I hope I am—but it just never occurred to Quayle that Jeff, in his doctor’s hat, could bring himself to harm a patient—even if that patient were blackmailing him. And there was another thing, Jeff said. Quayle saw nothing intrinsically wrong in what he did, or what he made other people do in order to satisfy his needs. From his point of view, the blackmailing of Jeff was a straight business deal and just didn’t affect Jeff as a doctor.’ Barney shivered slightly. ‘Quayle really was a revolting man. He deserved what happened to him——’

  ‘You can’t say that, Barney. However awful someone is, they—well, they have their reasons. People who didn’t know would say Jeff was a terrible person for doing what he did. But he had his reasons.’