(1995) By Any Name (2 page)

‘He was found running barefoot and half-naked down a motorway?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s freezing out there.’ Elizabeth shivered. It wasn’t much warmer in casualty. ‘Anything else I should know?’

‘We gave him a full physical. There’s healed scar tissue from five old injuries.’ He glanced at the report in his hand. ‘Three exhibit the characteristics of healed bullet wounds; one in his right shoulder, one in his lower-right leg, and one in his upper-left arm. The other two, both on his chest could be knife wounds.’

‘You’ve X-rayed the bullet wounds?’

‘Yes and there’s characteristic signs of bone thickening. The police are working on his identity.

We’re admitting him, at least for tonight.’

‘You’ve advised the ward?’

‘Yes and because of the blood and tissue, the police are mounting a guard until they’ve made further enquiries.’

‘Tell the sister to prepare the private room next to her office. If we have to endure a police presence on the ward, Dave will want it somewhere that will generate minimum disruption.’

She pushed open the double doors that led through to the treatment cubicles. Two policemen were standing guard outside five. Elizabeth nodded to them before entering. She couldn’t fault Cooper’s caution.

The nurses who were swabbing the patient’s chest were both renowned throughout the hospital for their karate expertise.

‘Good evening, or should I say good morning, Dr Santer?’ one said when he saw her.

She acknowledged both nurses before turning to the patient. ‘Hello, I’m Dr Santer, the psychiatric registrar.’ Flicking through the notes Alan Cooper had handed her, she walked to over to the trolley the man was lying on. ‘And you are?’

The man stared at her. His eyes were cerulean blue, startling in their intensity and depth of colour, and very different from the pale-washed blue, so common to Anglo-Saxons. His hair was a rich blue-black, his skin tanned Mediterranean olive. His feet overhung the end of the trolley, and Elizabeth judged his height as several inches over six feet. His chest was finely muscled but not in a body-building fanatical sense. There wasn’t an ounce of excess weight on him.

She examined the bowls the nurses had been using.

Alan Cooper had mentioned blood and tissue – he hadn’t warned her it was brain tissue.

‘If you won’t tell us your name we’ll put out an appeal,’ Elizabeth prompted.

The man gazed at her for what seemed like an eternity to the nurses. But accustomed to dealing with the clinically depressed, Elizabeth was inured to periods of silence.

Eventually he made a brief unintelligible sound.

‘Yes?’ Elizabeth encouraged.

‘I – I – don’t – know,’ he blurted.

She laid her hands on his head.

‘There’s no cranial injury.’ Alan Cooper had followed her into the cubicle.

‘There’s no evidence of external trauma,’

Elizabeth concurred. ‘Does your head hurt?’ she asked the patient.

‘I – don’t – think – so.’ He spoke in quick staccato, accent-less tones as though he were mimicking an electronic voice.

‘Reflexes?’ Elizabeth inquired of Cooper.

‘Normal.’

‘How did you get here?’ She looked directly into the patient’s eyes. She knew the answer to her question from Cooper’s notes, but wanted to hear it from the man.

‘Ambulance.’

‘And before that?’

His face contorted with the effort of remembering.

‘What were you doing before you were in the ambulance?’ she repeated.

‘Running.’

‘Why?’

‘Bullets.’

‘Someone was trying to shoot you?’

He screwed his eyes shut.

‘Well, you’re safe with us now,’ she reassured.

‘I’ll give you something to help you sleep. We’ll continue this conversation in the morning.’ She scribbled a note at the bottom of the patient’s report before passing it to the senior of the two nurses.

‘Chloral hydrate to be administered on the ward. I’ll check him again when he’s settled in.’

‘You’re not going back home?’ Cooper asked.

She glanced at her watch. ‘There’s no point. I’ll be on duty again in another four hours.’

‘I feel guilty for dragging you out.’

‘Don’t.’ She motioned her head towards the door.

‘You did the right thing,’ she murmured when they were in the privacy of the office.

‘You think he’s suffering from amnesia?’ Cooper asked.

‘You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce he’s suffered some kind of trauma. And trauma-induced amnesia is more common than most doctors realise.’

‘He mentioned bullets. Could he be hallucinating?’

‘Did the police say anything about any shooting?’

‘No.’

‘Then he could be delusional. I’ll try to get more out of him in the morning. Has there been a public appeal?’

‘The police took photographs and mentioned a press conference.’

‘Let’s hope someone comes forward to claim him.’

‘The police are also searching the area for bodies.’

‘Given the amount of blood and tissue I saw, I’m not surprised.’

‘Funny to think he could be a murderer,’ Cooper mused. ‘Apart from the scars he looks normal enough.’

Elizabeth smiled. ‘What do you think a murderer should look like?’

A nurse knocked and opened the door. ‘One John West and two police guards gone up to the psychiatric ward.’

‘John West?’ Elizabeth looked at her in surprise.

‘He was picked up on the westbound carriageway of the M4 heading out of London, it seemed appropriate.’

‘And John?’

‘John West has got to be better than John Doe, for a live man, hasn’t it, Dr Santer?’

Elizabeth woke in the doctors’ rest-room on the top floor of the hospital just before seven o’clock. Stiff and aching, she swung her legs down from the coffee table she’d used as a footstool, rose from her chair and went over to the vending machine. She’d tried all the combinations the machine had to offer and, no matter which she settled on, the coffee invariably emerged grey, insipid and tasteless but the tea was even worse.

Succumbing to temptation she abandoned her diet in favour of hot chocolate. Clutching the plastic beaker, she switched on the television.

A clock filled the screen, its hands pointing to the hour. After a few seconds of cacophonous noise and dizzy computer hieroglyphics, a man who looked brighter and more alert than any being had a right to at that time of the morning, shuffled a sheaf of papers on the desk in front of him.

Arranging his features into a sombre expression that portended tragedy, he gazed directly into the camera and delivered the first item; a plane crash in Scotland. No survivors were expected to be found among the eight-man crew and ninety-eight passengers.

Long shots of a dark, wind-swept, snowy landscape strewn with wreckage, speckled with floodlights and the diminutive figures of rescue teams were replaced by a close-up of a blanket-swathed corpse on a stretcher. A sonorous voice droned in the background, detailing the time that the plane had gone down. A close-up of a news reporter followed.

Blinking beneath artificial lights, shivering behind his microphone, he bellowed in an attempt to make himself heard above the howling wind.

‘Yes, Peter, this is a terrible and shocking tragedy.

Everyone here has been moved by the professionalism and dedication of the rescue teams, who have worked throughout the night to recover bodies from the wreckage, and who continue to search in – as you can see – these impossible weather conditions… ’

The sound cut abruptly. The picture died.

‘Weather permitting, we’ll return to Mark live at the scene later. But for now we’ll go over to Westminster and the Minister of Defence. Minister, would you agree this is a tragedy of mammoth proportions for the government?’

‘Not only for the government, Peter, but for the country and the armed forces. I know I speak for the Prime Minister and every member of the cabinet when I offer my deepest sympathy and condolences to all the bereaved families. We must remember the victims of this crash were not only the leaders of our security forces, but family men who will be sorely missed on a personal as well as professional level.’

The camera cut back to the studio. ‘Minister, could you tell us if there will be an inquiry as to why so many high-ranking officers from the security forces were travelling on the same aircraft?’

‘I can’t comment on that question at this stage, Peter.’

‘Has there been any confirmation of an explosion on board the aircraft before it went down?’

‘It’s too early to discuss possible causes… ’ the minister continued to skilfully avoid giving a direct answer to the interviewer’s questions. ‘… it will take us some time to collate evidence as to possible causes of the crash… we are not aware of any recent threats from any known terrorist group… no, as yet no group has claimed responsibility… tragic as the situation is, it will not, and cannot be allowed to affect the international peace talks… ’

Elizabeth sipped her chocolate and wondered why the media bothered to arrange interviews with politicians who were incapable of answering a direct question.

The bulletin moved on to the next item; a general shot of an anonymous conference room was followed by speculation on the agenda of the various super-powers, and the possibility – or not – of a global scaling down of nuclear arms. The effect the air-crash and subsequent loss of senior security personnel might have on the conference was discussed against a still of an anonymous foyer that the delegates would presumably enter, the red carpet they would walk down, and photographs of various high ranking personnel…

‘Bloody well get on with it,’ Elizabeth urged impatiently.

‘Bloody well get on with what?’ Dave Watson, the hospital’s psychiatric consultant, and her immediate superior, walked in and made a bee-line for the coffee machine.

‘Get on with putting out our mystery man’s photograph.’

‘The amnesiac you admitted last night?’

‘You’re an early bird.’

‘I just finished reading the notes you put on my desk.’

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘The twins have been awake all bloody night. I escaped at six. I never thought I’d regard this place as a sanctuary but after home, it’s blissfully peaceful.’

‘Poor Anna,’ Elizabeth commented. ‘Where’s she’s escaping to?’

‘Bed, any minute now. I phoned the agency and asked them to send round a nurse.’

‘A kind and considerate father.’

‘Self-interest. Anna’s hell to live with when she goes without her beauty sleep. So, how is our new patient?’

‘Out for count the last time I looked at him.’

‘I see you resorted to the innovative and advanced remedy of knock out drops.’

‘Ssh!’

A police mug shot of John West filled the screen.

‘… Hospital staff have named the man “John West” because he was apprehended on the westbound carriageway of the M4. The police are appealing to anyone who recognizes him to come forward. If you have information, the number to ring is… ’

‘No mention of the blood and tissue splattered over him.’ Elizabeth switched off the TV.

‘No sign of injury other than his ankle?’ Dave checked.

‘None.’

‘Well, that should stop him from dashing up any other motorways for a couple of days.’

‘He wouldn’t get far if he tried. There are two policemen stationed outside his room.’

‘Public appeal should bring in something.’ Dave made a wry face as he sipped his coffee. He abandoned it on the nearest table. ‘Time I visited the patient to see if his memory has improved with the sunrise.’

‘What sun?’ Elizabeth tossed her own plastic cup into the bin.

‘It’s there. Somewhere above that grey sky and falling rain.’

‘I hate early morning optimists.’ She followed him out of the room and into the lift.

The hospital had been built in that great era of jerry-building, the 1960s. The planners, seeing no further than the outline of the box-like structure and the trees they’d sketched around it – that had never been planted – had located the psychiatric ward on the seventh floor. Three suicides in the first month after the ward opened had prompted the Health Authority to revise the original plans, but only to the extent of adding window-catches and locks that prevented the steel casements from being opened more than three inches, a modification that turned the ward into an oven in summer. However, the ill-fitting window frames ensured a plentiful supply of draughts in winter, and those, coupled with a lack of insulation on the flat roof, made it the coldest ward, no matter how high the thermostat. There was only one place colder in the hospital; the eighth and topmost floor that housed the canteen, staff rest-rooms and some of the administration offices.

The ward sister, who greeted Dave and Elizabeth after they entered using their pass keys, was wearing a thick cardigan and woollen tights in stark contrast to her thin nylon uniform.

‘Is the new patient awake?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘Awake, breakfasted, showered, dressed – and uncommunicative.’

‘Dressed?’ Dave questioned.

‘We found him a track-suit. The police have his jeans. He wasn’t even wearing a pair of joky boxers to make us laugh,’ the sister added. ‘The officers told me there was nothing in the pockets.’

‘He couldn’t have travelled any distance wearing only jeans in this weather. The police should have a name for us soon.’ Dave looked to Elizabeth. ‘Shall we go visit?’ He led the way. On either side of the corridor were glass panels that enabled the staff to check on the patients in the four-bedded wards. At the far end, nearest the ward office, two policemen were sitting outside a closed door nursing mugs of tea.

Dave walked past them and entered the cubicle they were guarding. It held a single bed. Another door next to the window opened into a tiny triangular shower room.

The photograph on the broadcast had prepared Dave for the man, but not for the power that emanated from the figure that rose from the bed when they walked in. He wasn’t uncommonly tall. Six foot two or three at most, but the muscles that rippled beneath the thin nylon track-suit, suggested coiled strength and his lean, raw-boned features, lent him the look of someone Dave wouldn’t want to tangle with, for all his own fitness training.