A Dead Man in Malta (4 page)

‘Half the island,’ said Laura. ‘I soon cleared them out!’

‘You didn’t sign
them
in?’

‘No need to. They weren’t going anywhere. Except out.’

‘Someone must have taken him into A and E, surely?’

‘We did,’ said Berto. ‘Umberto and me.’

‘Where
is
Umberto?’ asked Seymour.

Umberto was in one of the wards.

‘Always on the hop, you might say.’

This time he was hopping at the behest of one of the nurses, who wanted him to move a bedside locker.

Did he remember the afternoon the German had been admitted?

He did. Not only that, he remembered his descent in the balloon. Umberto had gone outside ‘for a moment’ to see the balloons and he had noticed that Mr Kiesewetter was coming down. He had watched the balloon until it had come right down into the water.

‘And I saw Frank get over there in his
dghajsa
and I thought: He’ll bring him over here. And he did, too. I thought he might be in bad shape. Well, you’d expect it, wouldn’t you, if he had come down from that height. But he seemed all right.

‘In fact, a bit too fresh, if you ask me. I went to help him and he says: “Take your hands off me, my man!” His man! Who the hell did he think he was talking to? I nearly gave him a cuff instead. But if I had, they would have nailed me to the front door by my bollocks, so I just said: “Hospital staff, sir. Just helping.”

‘“I don’t need help,” he said. “My balloon came down all right.”

‘“It came down into the drink,” I said, “and that might not have been all right.”

‘He pooh-poohed it. “It is neechts, my man,” he said, waving his hand dismissive-like. “To come down into the trees is worse. Or on to the rocks.”

‘“You came down in just the right place, sir,” I said. “Right in front of the hospital.”

‘“But I don’t need—” he starts up again. Glad to get rid of him, I was.’

He turned to Melinda. ‘What did the nurses do with him, love? Give him a syringe up the backside?’

‘I was just going to,’ said Melinda, ‘when Dr Docato stopped me. I think he was sorry afterwards that he had done.’

‘So who took Mr Kiesewetter to the room he was put in?’ asked Seymour. ‘After Dr Docato had looked at him? You, Umberto? Or a nurse?’

‘Dr Docato,’ said Melinda. ‘With the nurse on duty. Who was me.’

‘And I was sort of in attendance,’ said Umberto. ‘In case the bugger keeled over.’

‘You put him in the little room,’ said Seymour, ‘and then, presumably, Umberto, you left?’

‘As soon as I could,’ said Umberto.

‘And you, Melinda?’

‘I waited until Dr Docato had settled him down and left. And then I went in to make sure everything was all right.’

‘And?’

‘He snapped my head off.’

‘At some point the door into the corridor was locked, I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘When was that? After Dr Docato left? Did he lock it?’

‘No, I locked it. That was one of the things I was making sure was right.’

‘So that he wouldn’t be disturbed?’

‘As I explained to him.’

‘And then you put the key back on the board?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was the nurses’ office left empty at any point?’

Melinda considered.

‘If it was,’ she said, ‘it wouldn’t have been for very long.’

‘But it could have been?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think anyone could have counted on that. If that’s what you were thinking.’

‘That is what I was thinking. But I agree with you. It would have been too risky. But you see what that means, don’t you? If anyone went in, it would have been by the other door.’

‘Using the other key.’

‘Yes.’

‘If, of course, anyone went in at all. Have you thought that there might be another explanation? That he simply died of heart failure. From normal medical causes.’

But would three men have done so? In such a short space of time? The argument kept coming back to this.

The other two men who had died had been in general wards. There would have been other patients around them and Seymour couldn’t see how they could have been attacked in their beds without someone seeing. If they had been attacked.

One of the two had died during the night, which made an attack more plausible. He consulted Melinda about the arrangements for night nursing.

In the bigger wards there was a night nurse on duty all the time. She had a desk at one end of the ward, at which she sat when she was not being called to one of the beds. All the time?

Well, not quite all the time. At certain points during the night when things were quiet they would slip out to the nurses’ office for a quick cup of something.

Would these points be regular? That is, could the nurse be depended on to be absent at that time?

Melinda thought not. There were so many little things that might come up. You just went when it seemed the best moment.

Still, there was a point in the night when the nurse would be absent and an intruder might come in at that point?

Melinda was doubtful. They would have to be watching for the nurse to depart and where would they be while they were doing that? Anybody hanging about would be questioned by the nurse.

And how would they get in anyway? When Laura was off duty, Reception was manned by the porter on duty. But there were also, always, the nurses in A and E who worked in shifts and there was a certain amount of socializing if things weren’t too busy. And on the whole they weren’t busy. This was a naval hospital and the flow of patients, largely, was restricted. It wasn’t, said Melinda, like a big London hospital.

And what about the porters?

Berto and Umberto took it in turns to work nights. They didn’t mind working nights because there wasn’t usually much to do. They could have a nice chat with the nurses and the people on Reception, come in on the cups of tea, and have a good kip, which they couldn’t do at home because there were babies around and you were up half the night. Besides, said Melinda, they could call in assistance. Assistance?

Laura’s boy and his cousin. And young Fred from round the corner. And other members of the families of hospital staff. Seymour soon realized that there was a great web of family connections around the hospital. Jobs were not that plentiful in Malta and once you were in somewhere you had to do the best you could for other members of your family. It was open to abuse but it was also a source of strength. As here. For if someone fell down on the job, Laura was on to the family in no time and then the whole family was on the offender’s back. It was remarkable, said Melinda, how conscientious people became in these circumstances. So, no, there was no slackness in the system at nights. Indeed, it was the other way. For if Berto or Umberto should show signs of falling off, they would immediately be put right by young Peter or Johnnie, and that would be reported back to the family, too.

It reminded Seymour of the East End, where he normally worked. Step out of line, over a girl, say, and the next moment the sky would drop in on you.

And Melinda herself, he asked curiously: did she belong to a family, too? She certainly did; but they were up in Gozo to the north of the island, which was a long way away, and absolutely fine by Melinda, who had come down to Valletta for precisely that reason.

The impression Seymour was getting was that the human web of which the hospital was the centre spread a sort of protective film over the hospital. Everybody knew everybody—everyone was probably related to everyone—and the hospital was like not a Big Brother but a small brother whom everybody in the family had to watch over and see that it came to no harm. It was very effective. And yet somebody
had
breached the film.

If they had.

It was time, he thought, to home in on the most specific of the charges: that made by the sailors. He had arranged for them to be sent to the hospital and saw them one by one. The first was a Londoner named Cooper. He was the one who had volunteered the supplementary information about what he had seen one night in the hospital at Singapore. Seymour had hopes of him. He had evidently a propensity to say too much.

This morning, however, he was on his guard.

‘I’m not saying that’s what I saw,’ he said. ‘I’m saying that’s what I thought I saw.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Seymour encouragingly.

‘Yes. We went past that quickly.’

‘You could see into the ward, though?’

‘Yes. There was no door nor nuffing.’

‘And you looked in?’

‘Sort of glanced. As we were going past. I was going to give him a bit of a wave.’

‘To cheer him up?’

‘That’s right. Poor bugger needed it, with his jaw all wired up like that.’

‘You had called in on him earlier, of course?’

‘That’s right. We’d just dropped in to see how he was getting on, like.’

‘And how did you find him?’

‘All right. He’d had the wiring done that morning and his face was all swelled up. Like a football. He could hardly speak. We asked him if he’d like a fag and he just shook his head. But we gave him one all the same.’

‘Could he manage it?’

‘Not really. He had a puff or two and then put it by. Said he’d come back to it. So we knew he wasn’t feeling too good.’

‘But—how shall I put it—not too bad, either?’

‘No. We said we were going to look up a little nurse we knew and asked him, by way of a joke, if he’d like to come along. “You bet!” he said. We knew he was all right, really. Still, he didn’t come along. Tried to, but then thought better of it. “What’s the use?” he said. “With me face in a cage?”’

‘He seemed pretty all right, then. So were you surprised the next day that you heard—?’

‘That he was dead? You could have knocked me down with a feather! “What, old Bob?” I said. “Why, he seemed as right as rain when I saw him yesterday!” And that’s what Pete and Joe said, too. Right as rain! And then I got to thinking. “That’s how he was
then
,” I said. “What’s in your mind, Terry?” said Pete. “If he was fit as a fiddle one day, how come he was dead as a doornail the next? It don’t seem right. It doesn’t happen like that.” “No more it does,” said Joe.

‘So, as I say, we got to thinking. Went over it in our minds, like. And it was then that I remembered.’

‘What was it exactly that you remembered?’

‘Just a glimpse. That’s all it was. But there was this bloke bending over him with a pillow. Well, then we went on and thought no more about it till the next day. And then my mind went back.’

‘To what happened in the Singapore hospital?’

‘What I
heard
happened in the Singapore hospital. There were these blokes, see. And one of them was that heavy a snorer that the others couldn’t get to sleep. Night after night. It got them down. They tried everything in waking him up, putting a sock in his mouth, putting a peg on his nose—but nothing worked. And it went on night after night. And in the end it really got them down.
Really
down. So one of them says: “Look, either he’s got to go or I’ve got to go.” And they was that desperate by then that they said: “Look, give him a warning, and then if he still does it—” So that’s what they did. Put a pillow over his head. And …’

‘And?’ prompted Seymour.

‘Nothing came of it.’

‘Nothing came of it? He didn’t die? Then—’

‘No, no,’ said Cooper impatiently. ‘He died, all right. But there was no follow-up. Nothing happened. Like here. The docs signed the certificate and that was the end of it. No one heard nothing more.’

‘I see,’ said Seymour.

‘Happens all the time,’ said Cooper expanding.

‘When people are snoring—’

‘No. No. When they’re in hospital. People are dying all the time, and no one knows why. So they just cover it up. The doc signs the certificate and that’s the end of it. No questions asked. Finis, like it says in the Bible.’

‘Yes, but in this case questions
are
being asked.’

‘Ah, well—’

‘Partly because of what you said you saw.’

‘Not saw. Heard.’

‘But you said that you saw someone bending over Bob—’

‘Not saw: might have seen.’

‘With a pillow.’

‘Could have been a pillow. Might not have been. It was that quick.’

‘Are you sure that you saw anything at all?’

‘We-e-ll … All I’m saying,’ said Cooper, ‘is that there was something fishy about it.’

‘Right, well, thank you, Mr Cooper.’

‘Glad to help,’ said the seaman, getting up.

Seymour got up, too.

‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, ‘can I just confirm one point in what you said?’

‘Pleasure.’

‘You said you saw a bloke bending over him?’

‘Ye-e-s …’ said Cooper guardedly.

‘A bloke. Not a nurse.’

‘Some of the nurses here are blokes.’

‘Was it one of them?’

Cooper seemed for the first time genuinely to be thinking. He hesitated.

‘No-o-o,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘But a bloke?’

‘A bloke,’ said Cooper. ‘Definite.’

Equally definite was the second seaman, Corke.

‘Bent right over poor Bob, he was. A biggish bloke. Sort of hunched.’

‘Hunched?’

‘Like in the picture.’

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a comic paper. There, on the page, was a scantily dressed, implausibly nubile girl. And there, bending over her, was an implausibly grotesque, hunchbacked man.

‘Like him.’

Able Seaman Price, fair-headed, rosy-faced, and with a marked Somersetshire accent, had actually witnessed the original fight in the bar.

‘A mere bleedin’ tap!’ he said, in astonished tones. ‘That’s all it was! You’d have thought it was nothing. But the next day his face was all swelled up.’

They had taken him to the doc and the doc had said his jaw was broken.

‘And then they had put that wire right round his head. Sort of to keep the jaw together.’

He had said he was all right, though, and had reckoned that he could be out the next day. But when they went to see, the next time they were in, he was still there. The doc hadn’t got round yet. He had gone on with the others to find Suzie. He hadn’t really noticed anything on the way back. But Terry -