Pestilence (13 page)

Saracen left A&E at seven. He stopped at an Off License on the way home to pick up some wine and found the experience less than cheering for he always found such places depressing at night. After a slow saunter along the wine shelves he decided on a litre of Valpolicella and joined the check-out queue behind a man in dungarees carrying a six pack of beer and a very small woman, almost lost inside a purple mohair coat. The woman hugged a half bottle of port to her breast as she counted out the exact amount from the clutches of her purse and paid without comment. Saracen hard to work hard to stop himself imagining the woman’s life. For the moment he had enough troubles of his own.

He felt better after a bath and a change of clothing and made a conscious effort to free his mind from thoughts of the hospital before setting out to have dinner with Jill. He was pleasantly surprised that the prospect of spending the evening with Jill made him feel so good and wondered about it as he drove. What were his feelings about Jill Rawlings? It was something he hadn’t given much thought to until the night they had dined with Alan Tremaine and his sister. After that evening he had found himself thinking about her quite a lot. There was something about her that disturbed him but not in an unpleasant way. It wasn’t just that she was attractive and fun to be with. There was something more, a feeling that he was reluctant to define for the moment but it made him think of his days with Marion.

Saracen slowed as he arrived at the street and crawled along the kerb till he came to the right number. Jill answered the door and kissed him on the cheek. Had he come by car? she asked. Saracen said that he had and was scolded. “You should have left it. What you need is to relax and have a few drinks. Still, you can always leave it and get a taxi home if you feel inclined. I’ll bring it to the hospital in the morning.”

Saracen settled himself on the sofa and said with a smile, “I offer no argument.”

Jill poured the drinks and joined Saracen on the sofa. “I take it it’s this Myra Archer business that’s getting you down?” she said.

Saracen nodded.

“Would you like to talk about it? A trouble shared and all that.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

Saracen told her all that was on his mind.

“You’re convinced that Myra Archer’s death and Leonard Cohen’s are linked?”

“Absolutely. I must have disturbed the men who had been sent to move Myra Archer’s body on the night I got clobbered.

Jill sighed and shook her head.

Saracen shrugged and said, “So there you have it, two dead on arrival, both bodies transferred out of the hospital as quickly as possible on the pretext of the refrigeration having broken down. Chenhui Tang knows what has been going on but she has a nervous breakdown and finishes up in Morley Grange on Heminevrin. Any ideas?”

“Did the patients have anything in common?” asked Jill.

“Not that I can see. A woman in her late fifties who has spent the last twenty years in Africa and a man in his sixties who has never been out of the country. It’s hard to spot a connection.”

Jill nodded and said, “How about blood and tissue types?”

Saracen smiled as he followed the line of Jill’s thoughts. “Are you going to suggest that Garten has been selling bodies for spare parts?” he asked.

“Just an idea,” said Jill. “Not on huh?”

“Not on,” agreed Saracen. Cohen had been dead for some hours before he was brought in. Transplant organs have to be fresh and, apart from that, Myra Archer had a Salmonella infection; that would have ruled her out. Besides, removing organs is a job for experts not butchers in Dolman’s cellars.

“So who else would want the corpses?”

“No one,” replied Saracen. “I think Garten was trying to cover up something about their deaths.”

Jill looked sceptical and said, “Possibly with the Archer woman, because of the ambulance nonsense, but not with Leonard Cohen. You said yourself that he had been dead for several hours before he was brought in? What could Garten possibly have to cover-up?”

“I don’t know,” Saracen confessed. “But I want to take a look at the death certificates, particularly Myra Archer’s.”

“Do you think Garten signed it without a PM being done?”

“Who else?”

“How will you get your hands on it?”

“Timothy Archer.”

“Her husband? But won’t that upset him all over again?”

“Could do,” agreed Saracen. “I thought I might play it by ear, go see the man, find out how he is before I start prying.”

“I have another suggestion to make,” said Jill.

“Go on.”

“I suggest that we forget all about it for the rest of the evening and start by having another drink?”

“Agreed.”

“Take your jacket off,” said Jill as she got up to re-fill their glasses. Saracen did so and loosened his tie before resting his head on the back of the couch and closing his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t realised how tired he was. Jill came back and smoothed the hair along his forehead before sitting down.

Saracen looked up at her and smiled.

“Dinner won’t be long,” she said. “I hope you are hungry.”

“Ravenous.”

The meal was interspersed with a lot of laughter; the wine was good and the food delicious. Saracen knew that it had been a very long time since he had felt so much at ease and said so. “I’m glad,” said Jill softly. When they had finished he offered to help with the washing-up but Jill insisted that they leave it and have more coffee. Once again Saracen didn’t argue and let out a sigh of contentment as he sat down on the sofa again. “That was the best meal I’ve eaten in ages,” he said.

“Where do you usually eat James?” Jill asked.

“At the flat.”

“What?”

“Tins of this, packets of that, you know.”

“Fast and easy, I know. There’s not much incentive to cook when you live on your own.”

“Have you always lived on your own?”

“I was married once,” replied Jill.

“I didn’t know.”

“No reason why you should. We were divorced five years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Getting divorced was like being reborn.”

“That bad?”

“Looking back I think our marriage was doomed from the start, in fact, I can’t think why Jeff ever married me in the first place. He came from what’s laughingly called a ‘good family’ i.e. his father was a solicitor meaning he was making a fortune out of other people’s misery. My dad worked in the steel mill. His mother always made it plain that she thought I wasn’t good enough for her son but when you are twenty years old and in love things like that don’t matter. It’s only later you begin to see things more clearly.”

“Was your husband a lawyer too?” asked Saracen

Jill smiled and said, “No, he didn’t have the brains. Jeff was in ‘creative advertising.’ At first I tried to share his ambitions and help him all I could but he grew more and more remote and, one day, it suddenly dawned on me that I embarrassed him, my background and my being a nurse embarrassed him in the presence of his smart new friends. My Jeff, my hero, my knight in shining armour was turning out to be exactly the same as his mother and father, a pathetic little snob.

Every time he failed to get promotion he would blame it on my social short-comings and grow even colder towards me until I couldn’t stand it any more. One night I just snapped and told him exactly what I thought of him and his cronies with their gold medallions and Gucci shoes. I think I may have suggested that the intellectual capacity to design a bean can was just about what they could rustle up between them.”

Saracen smiled.

“You were married too?”

Saracen nodded and said, “I think you could say I had much the same experience. My wife’s family never felt I was quite worthy of their daughter.”

“Must be something about the medical profession,” said Jill.

“Lowest of the low,” agreed Saracen.

“Would you like another drink?” asked Jill.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Is there anything you would like?”

Saracen turned and looked at Jill sitting beside him and said, “I want to kiss you.”

“I’m not complaining Doctor,” said Jill.

Saracen leaned over and kissed her softly. He ran his fingers lightly round the line of her cheek bone and felt her shudder slightly. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

Jill sighed unevenly and nodded. She said, “I’m sorry, it’s been so long.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have…”

Jill looked into his eyes and smiled. “Oh yes James Saracen,” she said, “Oh yes, you most certainly should.” She put both her hands behind Saracen’s head and pulled him towards her.

Saracen felt a passion, stronger than he had known for many years, grow within him. He felt Jill’s tongue enter his mouth as he cupped his hand over her breast and sought her nipple with his thumb. Her back arched to press herself to him. “God how I want you,” Saracen murmured.

“I’m still not complaining Doctor,” murmured Jill. Saracen lifted her gently from the couch and looked to the two possible doors. Jill smiled and pointed lazily over her shoulder with her thumb. “That one,” she said.

With all passion spent Saracen buried his head in Jill’s hair while her fingers soothed the back of his neck in a circular motion. “There, there my gentle James Saracen,” she whispered. “I only hope you feel as good as I do.”

Saracen laughed and kissed the side of her neck. “I’d forgotten it could be that good,” he murmured.

Jill’s arms tightened around him a little. “I’m glad,” she said.

After half an hour or so of nuzzling tenderness Jill said, “Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think we should shower together.”

“You do?” smiled Saracen.

“Uh huh,” replied Jill, running her fore-finger down Saracen’s upper arm.

Saracen gave in to Jill’s giggled demand that she be allowed to soap him all over. She recited nursery rhymes as she applied the suds with the palms of her hands with a gentleness that made Saracen’s skin tingle. “You’ve got hard thighs my Prince,” she murmured, her fingers kneading them as she watched his face. Saracen groaned with pleasure as Jill’s hands continued their odyssey over his body.

“And strong arms…”

Saracen tilted his head back to rest it against the wall. Jill’s hands moved over his chest. “I want to know every inch of you… How tall?”

“Six one,” groaned Saracen.

Jill took his now erect penis into her soapy hands and said, “I can see that you are not Jewish…”

Saracen drew Jill towards him and brought his mouth down hard on hers but suddenly he froze. He pulled away. “But Cohen was,” he said slowly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Would you say that someone with a name like Leonard Cohen was Jewish?”

“Almost certainly,” replied Jill, bemused by what was going on.

“Have you ever known a Jewish male not to be circumcised?”

“Well, I’ve not examined them all but no.”

“The body they showed me at Dolman’s was that of an uncircumcised male. It was the right age but the wrong religion. They didn’t show me Leonard Cohen at all. They switched the bodies!”

“Maybe they just took the wrong body out of the fridge?” suggested Jill.

Saracen considered that but then said, “There were only four and three of them were women, the two from Skelmore General and a Miss Carlisle who was being buried at noon. Don’t you see? Leonard Cohen’s body wasn’t even there.

Chapter Six

The phone rang. “I think you better get in here,” said Tremaine’s voice.

“What’s up?” asked Saracen.

“Chenhui Tang. An ambulance has just brought her in.

“What?” exclaimed Saracen.

“She’s in a bad way. She fell from a window at Morley Grange.”

“How the hell…”

“I don’t know any of the details. I just thought you should know.”

Saracen was at the hospital within ten minutes.

“She’s in Intensive Care,” said Tremaine.

Saracen nodded and backed out through the swing doors to hurry along the bottom corridor to the IC suite. As usual he was aware of the sudden rise in temperature when he entered. Clothes and covers were a dispensable encumbrance in IC. Naked patients were easier to deal with, easier to keep electrodes attached to, tubes inserted into, shunt needles in place.

There were three patients in the Unit which was equipped to accommodate six. One was being ventilated artificially and the intermittent hiss of air and the click of the change-over relay interrupted the soporific calm of the place, breaking up the regular flow of soft bleeps from the cardiac monitors.

Chenhui, her head swathed in bandages lay in an apparently deep and peaceful sleep. Saracen thought how like a little girl she looked, her body so frail, her skin so smooth, marred only by a recent graze along her left cheek bone. The sister in charge came up and stood beside Saracen. “Severe skull fracture,” she said quietly.