The Doctor

by Lisa Stone

  ‘Also present is Mr Joshua Smith, Dr Burman’s solicitor,’ Beth continued for the recording. ‘Do you agree that there are no other persons present?’

  ‘Yes,’ Amit said disparagingly.

  ‘So let’s start. Amit …’

  ‘Dr Burman to you,’ he snapped contemptuously.

  ‘Dr Burman,’ Beth said, ‘what can you tell me about Mrs Lynda Jones?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know her. No comment.’

  ‘Let me remind you. Mrs Lynda Jones was the elderly widow you kidnapped from St James’ Hospital on the 22nd December last year, while posing as her nephew.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ he snapped.

  ‘You put her in your car, where she subsequently died, probably from shock. You then drove towards Coleshaw – we can map the route you took from the CCTV cameras you passed. You didn’t go straight home though, because you had to dispose of Mrs Jones’ body, so you went to Coleshaw Woods, where you weighted down her body with stones and the jack from your car and dumped her in the quarry.’

  ‘Preposterous!’ Amit exclaimed. ‘I don’t have to listen to this nonsense.’

  ‘I’m afraid you do,’ Beth said. ‘The charges are very serious and there is a lot of evidence against you.’

  ‘Like what?’ he demanded. His solicitor threw him a warning glance.

  ‘Forensics have found traces of Mrs Jones’ DNA on the rear seat of your car despite you cleaning it with disinfectant. And your fingerprints are on the jack we recovered from the quarry. Someone matching your description can be seen on the hospital’s CCTV making two visits to St Anne’s Ward where Mrs Jones was a patient. A nurse remembers taking a phone call from you when – posing as Mrs Jones’ nephew – you made arrangements to collect her.’

  ‘It must have been someone else,’ Burman said arrogantly.

  ‘I don’t think so, because on the day you took Mrs Jones, you forgot her bag and left it under her bed. The lady in the bed opposite noticed and sent her son who was visiting at the time after you with the bag. He caught up with you as you were about to leave the ward. Both he and his mother remember you, and he has described you accurately. He says you seemed agitated and were sweating a lot. He has also described your eyes exactly. It’s very unusual to have completely different coloured irises, Dr Burman. It’s a wonder you didn’t buy yourself a pair of matching contact lenses before you began your crimes.’ Beth saw his fists tighten in anger as his forehead glistened with sweat. She knew he was only just keeping control.

  ‘Not me,’ he said stiffly. ‘I wasn’t even in the area.’

  ‘Really?’ Beth asked. ‘That’s odd, because the curator of the History of Surgery Museum distinctly remembers you going there on the morning you took Mrs Jones. The museum is only a short drive to the hospital.’

  ‘He must be mistaken.’

  ‘No, he’s not. Because we found an entry ticket to the museum for that day in one of your jacket pockets. Together with a receipt from the hotel you stayed in the night before. You really didn’t cover your tracks very well, did you? Probably because you are so arrogant you thought no one could touch you.’

  ‘Bitch,’ he snarled, leaning forward.

  ‘Careful,’ Matt warned him. His solicitor glanced at his client.

  ‘Let’s move on,’ Beth said, ‘to the charges of stealing drugs and body parts from St Mary’s Hospital.’

  ‘Ridiculous!’ Burman sneered. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Dr Burman, you worked at St Mary’s Hospital as an anaesthetist. Drugs on your shift have been going missing. You were responsible for signing out the drugs before an operation and then returning any that weren’t used after. There are big discrepancies going back nearly a year, always when you were on duty.’

  ‘If you had any knowledge of the workings of hospitals you’d know you can’t return drugs that have been opened, even though a fraction might have been used,’ Burman said.

  ‘I do know that,’ Beth replied. ‘It’s the same at any pharmacy. But these drugs hadn’t been opened. Here is a printout of the drugs that went missing on your shift compared to average wastage.’

  ‘I’ll need a copy of that,’ his solicitor said and Matt nodded.

  Burman shrugged dismissively. ‘So I made a couple of recording mistakes.’

  The arrogance of the man was unbelievable. ‘Too many mistakes to be human error,’ Beth said. ‘And why did we find drugs labelled St Mary’s Hospital in your garden shed?’

  ‘It’s a lab,’ he growled.

  ‘A nurse has come forward and made a statement saying she saw you slipping unopened drugs into your scrubs in the operating room on a number of occasions.’

  ‘She’s lying,’ he snapped.

  ‘I doubt it. It took a lot of courage for her to speak out and accuse a doctor. But not only did you steal drugs, you took away body parts without permission. Human organs that we found stored in your so-called lab. Apart from it being illegal, some of those organs were going to be examined for signs of cancer. Those tests haven’t been done, so it’s likely people will die because they don’t know they have the disease. And you call yourself a doctor!’

  ‘They would have died anyway,’ he spat defiantly.

  There was silence. His solicitor wrote something down. Then Matt asked, ‘Why would you want diseased organs?’

  Burman sneered at him as if his question didn’t deserve a reply. ‘No comment,’ he said contemptuously

  ‘For experimenting on?’ Matt prompted. ‘That’s what it seems you were doing from the evidence we took from your lab and office.’

  ‘One day those organs can be cured of the disease and used in spare part surgery,’ Burman said. ‘I was advancing medical science, making history, until you heathens stopped me.’

  ‘So you don’t deny you took those body parts?’ Beth said.

  Burman shrugged and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  ‘There’s water there if you want it,’ Beth said, referring to the polystyrene cups of water.

  Burman ignored her.

  ‘Let’s move on, then,’ Beth said. ‘Unlawful imprisonment of your wife, daughter and Emily King, first in your house, and then later Emily was kept in your so-called lab.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘You will also be charged with child abuse, causing grievous bodily harm to your wife, Alisha, and Emily King, and cruelty to animals.’

  ‘Child abuse! That idiot had everything she needed and more than she deserved,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ Beth said. ‘So Eva deserved to be kept a prisoner, confined to one room, denied an education, social interaction or medical and dental treatment, did she?’

  ‘I’m a doctor, I knew what she needed, and she had her mother for social interaction!’ His voice had risen. ‘As for using animals, scientists have been experimenting on animals for hundreds of years. How else is medicine to progress?’

  ‘Experiments on animals are carefully monitored,’ Matt said. ‘You need a licence and checks are made to make sure the animals don’t suffer. The ones you took very likely did suffer, and when you’d finished with them you dumped them in Coleshaw Woods.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Amit said.

  ‘Preserving fluid was found in the animals,’ Beth said, ‘the same solution that was found in the bottles in your lab. And the same solution you’d begun infusing into Emily King before you passed out, which ironically saved her life.’

  ‘That solution is common,’ he said agitatedly. ‘Taxidermists use it. I’m not taking the blame for those animals.’

  ‘I think you might have to,’ Beth said. ‘We’ve found a connection to Emily King. One of the dismembered animals found in Coleshaw Woods belonged to Emily King: her cat, Tibs. You had its collar and returned it to her, pushing it through her letter box with a note. I think it was at that time you decided to make Emily your subject so she too would suffer. But why pick on her? Because she was friends with your wife?’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Burma
n said. ‘Emily wanted to be part of my experiment.’

  Matt stifled a laugh and Burman’s solicitor wrote in his notepad.

  Beth continued. ‘At approximately seven-thirty on the morning of the day Emily disappeared, you saw Ben Johnston, Emily’s partner, leave for work. He told you he wouldn’t be home until late and you spotted your opportunity to kidnap Emily. You spent all day hatching your plan and getting everything ready, then that night at nine o’clock, threatening to harm Eva if Alisha didn’t cooperate, you made your wife phone Emily and ask for her help. Of course Emily would come, she was a nice person and liked to help people. She hesitated because her son, Robbie, was in his cot, but she was just popping next door for a minute and Eva needed milk. She told herself she wouldn’t be gone long. Once she arrived, you injected her with a sedative – stolen from St Mary’s Hospital – tied her up and forced her to write a letter to Ben, telling him she had left him. Then you took her keys and let yourself in her house, placed the note where Ben would see it and took her phone.’

  ‘All conjecture,’ Burman said haughtily. ‘You have no evidence for any of this nonsense.’

  ‘No?’ Beth said, savouring the moment. Now to bring him down. ‘When you forced Emily to write that note it left a perfect impression of all the words on the sheet beneath. We found the writing pad you used in your office. Also, your call history shows your landline was used to phone Emily at nine o’clock that evening. It was only a very short call – Alisha doing what you told her to and asking Emily for help, unlike her other calls to Emily when they chatted for some time. And if all of this wasn’t enough to convince a judge and jury of your guilt, Dr Burman, we also have Alisha’s statement confirming it.’

  Burman couldn’t contain himself any longer. ‘You’re lying!’ He thumped the table. The water in the cups jumped. ‘Alisha wouldn’t dare betray me. She knows what would happen to her and Eva if she did.’

  Silence, then Beth said evenly, ‘Alisha has betrayed you, Dr Burman. Her statement includes your abuse of her and Eva and the events that led to Emily being taken: you dropping the cat collar, your obsession with preserving life, how you lured Emily to your home, tied her up, injected her and kept all three of them prisoner. I dread to think what went through Emily’s mind as she faced being experimented on and certain death. You will be charged with manslaughter, kidnapping, causing grievous bodily harm, unlawfully disposing of a body, false imprisonment, stealing drugs and animal cruelty, all of which will result in a very long sentence. Dr Burman, you will be going to prison for many years, possibly for the rest of your life.’

  Unbelievably, Burman began to smile. His solicitor, Beth and Matt stared at him in amazement. ‘It won’t matter,’ he said. ‘Locking me up may slow research, but you will not stop me. I have signed up with ELECT. When I die, my body will be preserved until science discovers a way of giving me immortality, when I shall be woken up and continue where I left off.’

  ‘Wake up dead, more like it,’ Matt quipped.

  ‘You can sneer now,’ Burman said, his green eye glowing. ‘But science is nearly there. I shall have the last laugh when I am living and you two are rotting in your graves.’

  Chapter Sixty

  ‘Life, with a minimum of twenty years in prison,’ Emily repeated. ‘I am pleased. Not just because of what he did to me, Alisha and Eva, but to that poor woman he took from the hospital, and Tibs and the other pets. He’s a monster and deserves to be locked up.’

  Ben nodded. ‘The jury decided he was bad not mad, but I’m not so sure. He left the court shouting that he’d come back from the dead and get his revenge. Sounds pretty mad to me.’

  Emily squeezed his hand. ‘Thanks for going to court every day. I know it was difficult for you and Dad, but I needed to know what happened to me. I try to remember, but it’s a blank after you left for work that morning.’

  ‘The doctor said that wasn’t unusual following a trauma. In some ways it’s probably best you can’t remember.’ Ben kissed her cheek. ‘Anyway, I’m glad the trial’s over and Burman got what he deserved. We can start to rebuild our lives now.’

  Emily shifted position on the mound of pillows and tried to get more comfortable. She should be used to hospital beds by now: intensive care, then the high dependency unit and now this side room attached to the general ward, where she would stay until she was discharged. She couldn’t wait to get home and back to the comfort of her own bed.

  ‘The pathologist was good in court,’ Ben said reflectively, helping himself to another grape from the bowl of fruit on her bedside cabinet. ‘He explained everything very clearly to the jury. Some of them had never heard of cryonic preservation before. He said that the only reason you were alive was because Burman had lowered your body temperature to the point where you were in a state of suspended animation. Your heart was only beating once every twenty seconds. We came so close to losing you, Em. If Burman hadn’t fallen ill himself and passed out, you wouldn’t be here now.’ Ben’s eyes filled as they did whenever he talked or thought about what had happened. ‘I’m pleased he’s succumbed to that disease too, bad though that sounds.’

  ‘Alisha wasn’t in court to hear the verdict then?’ Emily asked, taking his hand.

  ‘No. As far as I know, she hasn’t been there since she gave her evidence by video link. I haven’t seen her next door either. The house is empty and up for sale. There are some estate agent pictures online.’

  Emily shivered. ‘Who’d want to buy that house with its history? And that lab.’

  ‘The police took away most of the contents of the lab for evidence. But I was wondering if we should move? Will we ever feel OK about living there, Em, with all those reminders next door?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s see how it goes. Once we have new neighbours we might feel differently.’ She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. ‘I wonder how Alisha and Eva are doing?’

  ‘I phoned Beth Mayes like you suggested, but all she would say was that they were safe.’

  ‘Poor Alisha. She had such a sad life. She won’t have long to live now, with that cruel disease. Her biggest fear was that Eva would end up in an institution. Burman used to threaten her with it.’

  ‘I know, Em, but there’s nothing we can do, and the social services will be involved now. You concentrate on getting well so you can come home. Robbie and I miss you dreadfully.’

  Emily’s phone vibrated with an incoming text message and she picked it up from the bed and read the message. ‘It’s Greg. He’s just heard the verdict and is pleased.’ She turned the phone so Ben could see, then she laughed. ‘I still can’t believe you really thought I’d run off with Greg. He’s a good friend but hardly my type.’

  Ben laughed too. ‘I thought that when I met him, but at the time anything seemed possible. We’ll have to invite him and his wife to dinner when you’re fully recovered.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  The door burst open and Robbie flew into the room crying, ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ excitedly. Ben helped him onto the bed and he snuggled beside his mother.

  ‘Thanks,’ Emily said to Ben’s parents as they drew up a couple of chairs.

  ‘It’s our pleasure. It’s the least we can do. So, now the trial’s over you’ll return to work?’ Richard asked his son.

  ‘Yes. I’ll go back tomorrow.’

  ‘Your mother and I, together with Emily’s parents, will continue to look after Robbie for as long as we’re needed.’

  ‘Thank you, Dad.’

  ‘So the jury saw through Burman’s lies and the bastard has been found guilty on all counts. I hope he rots in hell,’ Richard said vehemently.

  ‘He won’t have an easy time of it in prison for sure,’ Ben said. ‘A doctor convicted of all those crimes, including manslaughter and child abuse when he’s supposed to make people better.’

  ‘He deserves it,’ Many agreed, while Emily nodded and held Robbie closer still.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Sleaseford pris
on, like many prisons in the UK, was overcrowded and short-staffed. Processing new arrivals was a slow job and occupied staff whose time could have been better spent elsewhere in the prison. Burman’s arrival at Sleaseford was expected, but processing him took much longer than most new arrivals, which didn’t endear him to the staff, not at all. He came across as arrogant, clearly thought the prison officers were beneath him and believed he knew his rights and they did not – not an attractive combination. He complained continuously, refused to cooperate and objected to everything: being placed in a holding cell with others, the intimate body search and having his photograph taken for the ID card he was supposed to carry at all times. So the whole process was tedious and prolonged for all involved. Even when he got to see the medical staff, which he’d been demanding from the moment he’d arrived, he was rude and threatening.

  ‘You’re just nurses,’ he spat disparagingly. ‘I want to see a doctor!’

  ‘You will be able to see a doctor later if necessary,’ the senior nurse said. ‘Our job is to address any immediate health concerns you may have.’

  ‘I told that idiot at the desk, I have a rare genetic condition. If I suddenly die it’s important you contact an organization called ELECT straight away. That stands for Eternal Life Education Cryonics Trust. Have you got that? They will send a practitioner to prepare my body so my organs don’t deteriorate.’

  ‘Is this for organ donation?’ the younger nurse asked.

  ‘No, you silly cow!’ he fumed. ‘Just the opposite. It’s to prepare me for being transported to the ELECT facility, where I shall be preserved.’

  ‘Don’t speak to the staff like that,’ the lead nurse said. ‘But you don’t have to worry about transport. If you do have to leave the prison for any reason we will arrange it for you.’

  ‘Idiots!’ Burman shouted, and the prison officer positioned outside the medical room came in. ‘I want to see a doctor!’ he demanded.