Surgeon at Arms (24 page)

‘We’re all in a bit of trouble,’ muttered Lord Cazalay.

‘You saw in the papers this morning about Fred Butcher?’ Arthur continued. It’s the beginning of something. People have been nosing about where they shouldn’t, making trouble. Mind, I’ve always acted in good faith, always. But you’ve got to cut a few corners these days. I’ll have to lie low for a bit. I thought if you changed my face it would all be a bit easier to avoid the publicity.’

Graham sat staring at him. ‘You mean, you’re a crook and you want me to alter your appearance to escape your just deserts?’ As neither visitor said anything, he continued, ‘Well, I shan’t play the outraged citizen. I’ve had a few requests of a similar nature in my time. I’ll only tell you the whole idea is reprehensible, and ask you to leave at once.’

‘I’ll make it well worth your while, honest I will,’ Arthur repeated hopefully.

Graham got up. ‘You could never do that, Mr. King.’

‘Just a moment,’ Lord Cazalay interrupted. ‘We’re none of us shining with innocence. You seem to have forgotten the few favours I’ve done you. That foreign currency for your villa. It would look pretty nasty if it came into court, wouldn’t it? They’d hand out a stiff sentence for a fiddle on that scale. You’d go to jail, wouldn’t you? And your medical authorities would have a few words to say about the matter, too. They’d hardly let you go on practising after that.’

‘You mean you’re blackmailing me?’ demanded Graham.

‘Blackmail? I don’t know what that means. Business is run on a system of favours done and granted. Persuasion is necessary from time to time.’

‘Get out.’

‘I’m not going to let you take this high-and-mighty line,’ Lord Cazalay continued more confidently. ‘For your own good, Graham. You won’t do yourself any harm, tidying up Arthur. You get dozens of people coming to have their faces altered, you said so yourself. You aren’t to know he’s in any trouble. Not yet. In a week or two it’ll be a different matter. You’re going to do this, my boy. I’m not given to idle threats. You’ve known my family long enough to realize that we get what we want. Either you do something for Arthur, or the details of your little currency transactions end up on the desk of the Director of Public Prosecutions.’

‘Get out,’ Graham repeated.

‘No, I shan’t get out. Sit down and think it over. I’ll give you five minutes.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

GRAHAM WAS STARTLED how old Denise looked. Then he remembered she had been ill. As she opened the front door she stared at him with surprise, quickly trying to find a smile.

‘Could I see John?’ Graham asked at once. ‘The Clinic told me he’d gone home.’

‘Yes, of course, Graham. Come in. How are you keeping?’

‘Oh, pretty well.’

‘The weather’s ghastly, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, ghastly.’

‘And all this dreadful austerity we’re supposed to put up with.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Graham.

He came into the cold hall of the Bickley’s flat overlooking Regent’s Park. It was barely an hour since his confrontation with Lord Cazalay.

John was in the sitting-room, reading the evening paper and tickling the dog. He stood up as Graham entered, saying amiably enough, ‘An unexpected pleasure. Or have you come for a contribution towards the damage the boys did to that restaurant?’

‘I won’t stay a moment.’ Still in his overcoat, Graham looked pointedly at Denise.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee or something?’ she asked with great reluctance.

‘Please. That would be very kind.’ As the door shut he turned to John and said, ‘I wonder if you’d stuff a case for me? Tomorrow morning.’

John knocked his pipe on the fireplace. ‘I expect 1 could squeeze it in, if it’s early enough. Has everyone else let you down?’

‘It’s a special case.’ Graham hesitated. ‘It calls for a great deal of discretion. I’m going to do it at that little nursing-home place out at Ealing.’

‘Graham! ’John laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you’re branching into the abortion racket?’ Seeing Graham’s troubled expression, he added seriously, ‘But what is it? Some actress with a secret scar? Stella Garrod all over again?’

‘Oh, it’s a much nastier business than the Stella Garrod affair. I’ve got myself into a bit of a mess.’

John raised his eyebrows. Hardly the first time. At

Graham’s age, he really should start to learn. Perhaps Clare was right about the maladjusted child.

‘A woman, you mean?’

‘No, not this time.’

Graham explained about Arthur King.

‘I see,’ said John calmly when he had finished. ‘So you’re going to do the case?’

‘I’ve no alternative, have I? I was a fool having anything to do with that Cazalay bastard. He tried to bring me down once before. This time he’s going to make a proper job of it.’

‘But if you do it, and the fact comes out in the papers, it’s going to look pretty nasty for you.’

‘Perhaps nothing will come out.’

‘These things generally do.’

Graham looked more uneasy, and said, ‘It isn’t the first time, you know. Before the war I did a couple of patients like this. I had my doubts about them, but didn’t delve very deeply. I just blinded myself to the fact they were a pair of crooks. I was disgusted at myself afterwards. I don’t want to repeat the experience, quite apart from risking my neck. But if I don’t... why the hell did I buy that villa, anyway? I’ve never had a chance to use it.’

‘I don’t think I can really give the anaesthetic for you, Graham.’

‘No, I didn’t expect you would. It was selfish of me to ask. I wanted the moral support, I think, that’s all. I’ll see what I can do under local. Probably I can manage more than I expect. We get spoiled, with good general anaesthetics always available from experts like you. Some of our more unfortunate brethren manage to run a flourishing practice in cosmetic work under locals. The ones who get themselves struck off for advertising.’

‘Won’t you take my advice and not touch this case, Graham?’

‘You mean to substitute the certainty of trouble with the law for the possibility?’

‘It’s two sorts of trouble. The operation would spoil everything you gained for yourself during the war.’

‘What did I gain? A knighthood. For services to publicity.’

‘You know that’s not true.’

‘Not completely so, perhaps. But it’s near enough to the mark.’

‘I was speaking to Clare about you two or three weeks ago,’ John remarked unexpectedly.

Graham looked at him sharply. ‘I thought she’d disappeared off the face of the earth?’

‘She’s at the Kenworth. Children’s ward sister. I do a list there once a week.’

Graham made a wry expression. ‘How is she?’

‘Very well. She likes her job.’ John paused and added, ‘Do you want to see her again?’

‘She’d hardly want to set eyes on
me,’
Graham told him impatiently.

‘I’m certain she would.’

‘No, that’s ridiculous. Not after the way I treated her.’

‘Is it ridiculous? You’d know. You’ve had more experience of women than me.’

Graham stuck his hands in his trousers pocket and started pacing the room. ‘Everything’s wrong, isn’t it? You see things differently as you go through life, and often enough you realize all the time you’ve been seeing them wrong. When I was young I could see the way ahead, and I tramped up it not caring overmuch how I muddied my boots. Things didn’t go all that smoothly —Maria, all that fuss. But I got where I wanted. In the war I didn’t really want anything for myself and I was happy. Now I’m trying to worship my old gods, but they don’t represent anything any more. They’re like native idols discovered in some jungle. Incomprehensible, frightening to look at, make you wonder at the simplicity of the people who venerated them. I’d got no proper sense of values. The war imposed one on me.’

‘Graham, you’re making yourself sound a horrible type,’ smiled John.

‘Well, I am. Though let’s hope it not because I can’t help it, but because I try to be.’

‘Because you think it’s smart?’

Graham shrugged. ‘I can’t even contemplate meeting Clare again. Not at this particular crisis in my life.’

‘She might be glad to help you. She did during several others.’

‘I suppose she loved me.’

‘You loved her, surely?’

‘Deep down, I told myself I didn’t. It was the same with every woman I’ve got mixed up with. I never wanted to give myself to them completely. At the age when you can face these things, it’s too late to rectify them.’

Denise appeared with the coffee.

‘Graham wanted to discuss a case he’s doing tomorrow, darling,’ John explained.

‘I’m not doing it,’ said Graham briefly. ‘I’ve decided it’s inoperable.’

He’d forgotten about Denise and her coffee. He then had to sit down and make conversation of some sort while he drank it, and she always made dreadful coffee, anyway.

TWENTY-FOUR

HAILEYBURY HAD HARDLY SHAVED when Graham arrived the next morning at his house in Richmond. His sister, who had seen six years’ service in the A.T.S., had returned to offer the same dutiful devotion to her brother as to her King. She showed Graham in to the cold sitting-room, which was filled with models of railway engines. Graham sat in his overcoat, looking at them in puzzlement. He supposed Haileybury had constructed them all with his own hands. A strange secret for a man to have.

‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Graham.’ Haileybury appeared in his usual blue suit.

‘And I’m sorry to have telephoned for an appointment so early. But I have some news. I have decided to accept your kind offer of a job.’

Haileybury inclined his head silently. ‘That is good news indeed. It is all I will say, but I think you will understand how I feel. The new project is very near to my heart.’

‘On one condition.’

‘I’m sure any reasonable condition can easily be met.’

‘I don’t know if this one can. The condition is that I stay out of jail.’ Haileybury looked at him blankly, wondering if he were joking. ‘I’ve been involved in some currency deals. About five thousand pounds’ worth of French francs. If it comes to light, I’ve had it. I’ve reason to expect it might.’

Haileybury put the tips of his fingers together and blew on them. The noise still irritated Graham.

‘I see.’

‘It’s all mixed up with Cazalay and your unfortunate friend Fred Butcher. You know a fine rumpus is blowing up.’

‘I see,’ Haileybury repeated.

‘Of course, the very fact I’ve misbehaved might be enough for you to withdraw your offer. I’d quite understand that’

‘Could you explain the details?’

‘I gave Cazalay a cheque for five thousand pounds and he gave me the francs. He wants me to do a job on one of his little crooks to stop the police recognizing him. I won’t. It’s as simple as that. So Cazalay will cook my goose.’

‘But what on earth were you doing with all this foreign money?’

‘Oh, I haven’t it hidden in a biscuit-tin, bricked up in the chimney, anything like that. I never actually handled it. Cazalay bought me a house in France.’

‘I see,’ said Haileybury again.

Graham rose. ‘That’s the situation, Eric. If I don’t land in abject disgrace over the next few weeks I presume you’ll take me on?’

Haileybury made an accommodating gesture. ‘I’m only sorry you should find yourself in such a predicament.’

‘It isn’t my first,’ Graham told him. ‘But, whichever way it goes, it will be my last.’

He couldn’t face operating or seeing patients. He rang Smithers Botham and a couple of nursing-homes, putting his day’s work off, excusing himself with illness. He walked the shabby streets of London, hardly noticing where his feet took him. He found himself in Piccadilly, not far from Half Moon Street, and turned towards the Cazalay family’s old town house. A hole in the ground. As he started walking northwards the rain began to fall. It was the same route he had taken thirty years before, tramping home through a thunderstorm to his father’s home in Hampstead after he had first met Maria. On that walk he had decided three things—to become a plastic surgeon, to grow rich, and, more immediately, to ditch his fiancée Edith. He had done all three, and ended up with nothing but the prospect of prison. He plodded on. It wasn’t so easy to walk these days. Well, your arteries and joints had to grow stiff some time, it was inevitable. At least you were saved the effort of struggling against it, as he’d had to struggle against tuberculosis in his youth.

He decided to make for the house in Hampstead. It was still standing, but horribly dilapidated. It had been turned into flats before the war, now there seemed to be a dozen families living in it, with washing forgotten and soaking in the front garden. The professor would hardly have countenanced that, Graham told himself. He wondered what his father would have to say of his misdeeds, personal and professional. Perhaps the old boy would have the chance to give him a celestial wigging soon. He had rather let down the family. Even the piss-prophet didn’t get himself locked up.