Death on the House (Edwin Scott Crime Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  We halted outside the lavishly-gilded Casino, where we dutifully viewed the fruit machines in the entrance hall, and one or two of the passengers had a flutter. The main rooms appeared closed and empty at this hour, and no-one ventured further.

  “Bang goes my chance to break the Bank at Monte Carlo ...” A loud male voice with a broad Yorkshire accent informed the group. Jill and I exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Then we were back on board, and motoring. The sun indicated that it was approaching noon, and I was beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger. Half an hour later, we stopped on the Esplanade at Nice, where we were free for two hours to explore the town. We alighted.

  Grand luxurious hotels, painted a brilliant white, faced the turquoise sea. The exotic feel of the place was reinforced by the vista of palm trees, giant ferns, and a riot of pink, red and white tropical blooms. We stood on the promenade, gazing down onto the beach: sand had been imported to cover the pebbles and shingle; in this small expensive area, hundreds of expensively bronzed bodies sun-bathed. The ladies were startling in their brief bikinis, some face down on a blanket, their bras discarded, others on sun-loungers, watching their men, muscles rippling, performing gymnastics for an appreciative audience, us included. When we had seen our fill, and prompted by our stomachs, we went in search of food.

  We ignored the plush restaurants of the sea-front hotels, and made our way inland. On a narrow alley up a steep hill, we found a small bistro with tables outside shaded by an awning from the hot sun directly overhead. Here we ordered baguettes with prawns and baby octopus in a superb sauce on a bed of fresh lettuce, and we washed these down with a carafe of chilled white house wine. The meal, though inexpensive, was superb.

  I gazed over Nice, then into Jill's deep violet-grey eyes. I felt ridiculously happy. We conversed lazily, langurously ...

  We revisited last night's excursion to the night club. Initially, it had been a disappointment: we had arrived at ten-thirty, after a pleasant stroll on a balmy night under a full moon, a velvety sky with a frosting of bright stars. We were welcomed by a blue neon sign depicting a young lady with a cocktail glass, and letters spelling out Jimmy's Club.

  The cost of an entrance ticket had been exorbitant, even though it included a glass of flat, rather tepid champagne. Inside, the lights were dim, the place almost empty. A three-piece band (piano, guitar, saxophone) played and sang intermittently, each offering treated with wild enthusiasm by the sparse audience. I just about recognised Frank Sinatra's I did it My Way, and Elvis Presley's Love me Tender, Let me be Your Teddy Bear and Have I told you lately that I love you. Though the words were presumably English, the band sounded as though they were singing in Italian, disorientating me further ...

  The tempo changed, a single hoarse voice with saxophone accompaniment shivered on the warm evening air. I felt goose-pimples all over, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood erect.

  “Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely night / Dreaming of a song /The melody haunts my reverie / And I am once again with you. / When our love was new / And each kiss an inspiration. / But that was long ago / Now my consolation is in the stardust of a song. / Beside a garden wall / When stars are bright / You are in my arms. / The nightingale tells his fairytale / A paradise where roses bloom. / Though I dream in vain / In my heart it will remain / My stardust melody / The memory of love's refrain ...”

  It's 'Stardust', I thought. Wherever did that come from?

  “Let's dance,” Jill closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around me. We joined the solitary couple on the tiny dance floor, and merely swayed gently on the spot. Another couple took to the floor, chatting softly but animatedly in Italian; apart from occasional endearments (“cara mia”), I couldn't understand a word; yet the melodic Latin cadences charmed me, the time suddenly made magic. As the evening progressed, the place slowly filled, the dance floor becoming more intimate.

  “I'm so happy,” murmured Jill. “I get frightened that this happiness will be taken away from me ...”

  In the dim light, I could just make out the tears glistening in her eyes.

  “I can't wait 'till our wedding, darling Edwin. I want to be with you for ever ...”

  A lump came to my throat, and I held her tight. In retrospect, this evening became for me the essence of our Italian holiday; this was the moment that I would always remember.

  When our third glasses of flat warm champagne were empty, we left Jimmy's to the accompaniment of Elvis's It's now or never/ My love won't wait ... It was just after one o'clock.

  Outside, we bumped into Greta and Marianne, looking fabulous in long evening gowns, copious jewellery, their hair pinned up elegantly. We exchanged a few words, they entered and we began to retrace our steps towards the Hotel Roma.

  “I'm glad the girls didn't come earlier – I didn't want to share you,” she whispered.

  “Me neither, Angel ...”

  My eyes strayed from her face, down her throat, as she sat across the table, leaning towards me. She had undone the top buttons of her blouse, and now I found myself gazing down a deep cleavage at her wonderful breasts. She smiled mysteriously, and reached her hand to cover mine. The hint of gardenias wafted towards me. Then I felt her bare foot pressing against my shin, and exploring its way up toward my thigh. I was becoming aroused, and wished we were back at the hotel, away from prying eyes ...

  Suddenly I jerked awake: the coach, we would miss the coach! It was almost three o'clock. In my haste, we nearly left without paying the bill. Yet when eventually we mounted the steps into the coach – which waited sedately on the Esplanade – we found it was still only half-full.

  Our days had passed pleasantly. We sun-bathed, swam in the chill sea and dried off in the warm sun. We lunched on the hotel's terrace or private beach, and siesta-ed chastely in our separate rooms afterwards. We munched ice-creams; we hired a pedalo and pedalled it far out to sea, surveying the shore-line in the distance and marvelling at our daring. As the week progressed, we encountered new hotel guests, but the air hostesses had departed without us seeing them again. We ate royally in the hotel dining-room: Veau Milanese, Spaghetti Bolognese, Pasta alla Marinara; we drank Chianti in broad straw-covered bottles, Barolo, Asti Spumante, and, of course our favourite, Nebbiolo Spumante. In the evenings we sipped Martini and Cinzano vermouth at the bar – chilled, with a slice of lemon – walked hand in hand on the moist sand, or into town toward Jimmy's (but never again entering it).

  On the Thursday, we had taken the coach trip to Portofino; as we descended from the mountains, we saw the central square surrounded by opulent hotels, the harbour crammed with large luxurious ocean going yachts, gorgeous, tanned bikini-clad ladies displayed decorously on their decks – So this is how the other half live, I thought. We had decided against a trip to Genoa, the birth-place of Christopher Columbus. I wanted Jill for myself for the remainder of our holiday.

  On our last evening, we consumed our favourite meal – rings of Calamare (baby octopus) with spaghetti and a half-bottle of Nebbiolo spumante; then made our way up the wide marble staircase to our rooms.

  “Leave your door unlocked,” she whispered as we separated to pack ...

  I lay on my back on the bed in the dark room, thinking of Jill, the deep pools of her grey eyes, the secret smile as she caught mine straying to her cleavage in the café overlooking Nice, the frizzy auburn hair which framed her face, which even now she couldn't completely bring under control, yet which I loved so much. I thought of her on the beach sun-lounger: her large breasts under the chocolate-brown bikini top, her narrow waist and smooth flat stomach. I recalled the satin texture of her soft warm skin, as I anointed her shoulders, arms and back with sun-tan lotion.

  Time passed and I wondered if she was still packing, or whether she was now engaged in making her toilet, in washing and perfuming; but perhaps she wasn't coming!

  The door-handle moved, the door opened softly and then closed. A ghostly figure glided towards me, whilst I waited with bated breath; it paus
ed, and I heard a rustling as first her dressing-gown and then her night-dress fell to the floor; the aroma of gardenias wafted towards me; another pause, while my duvet was raised, and then she was beside me, her lips on my neck and wondering up to my mouth, her tongue probing mine, her fingers trembling slightly as she unbuttoned my pyjama jacket. I felt her cool soft breasts pressed against my chest. Her hand continued its progress down my abdomen, becoming increasingly insistent. I was fully aroused. Suddenly she stopped.

  “Have you got a Durex?” she whispered.

  I flushed in embarrassment, and could only nod.

  “Get on with it then ... I don't want a shot-gun wedding!”

  By the time I got back into bed, she was waiting to receive me ...

  7

  Saturday, 12th June: On the bench on Clapham Common, we had a lot to talk about – my new house job, Jill's feelings of anticipation and dread on starting at Tommy's (her old teaching hospital). We were both due to collect our degrees from the Queen Mother, at the Royal Albert Hall at the end of the month. I had hired a London University gown and mortar board for the occasion, which I would pick up on the morning of the ceremony. Naturally, Mum was thrilled – she was buying herself a whole new outfit for the occasion. Jill was presented with similar chores, but shrugged them aside.

  Most of all she wanted to discuss our wedding plans: we decided we would wait until we had both finished our house jobs – July or August of next year. Would we be getting married in a church? Did we want a white wedding? How many guests should we invite?

  We gazed into each other's eyes.

  “I've missed you so much ...”

  “Me, too.”

  It had been almost three weeks.

  I wake with a dry mouth and a splitting headache. The daylight hurts my eyes. I become aware that I am naked and that I am not alone. Sleepily she rolls over, and her warm soft body is on top of me. Who is this? It's certainly not Jill ... The scene dissolves and I find myself following a coffin through a large cemetery, tombstones disappearing into infinity. I stand in the warm rain, tears flowing down my cheek.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ...”

  I woke, disorientated, in my bed in Oban Road, with a feeling of unutterable sadness still upon me. Then I remembered that my week-end was drawing to a close. This was Sunday and I would have to return to Hitchin sometime today.

  8

  Monday, 14th June: I was back at St Peter's Hospital. The sun was streaming through my curtains, and I lay a while gazing at the dappled light on the ceiling. It was time to get out of bed; yet when I tried, I found I couldn't move, I was paralysed! Each time I endeavoured to raise my head from the pillow, there was a searing pain in my neck, which shot through the whole body. I lay there, in a panic, my heart pounding like a steam-hammer.

  Must phone for help, I decided eventually – but I couldn't reach the telephone.

  Think what to do: Cautiously I tried wiggling my fingers, then my toes; then flexing my elbows, and finally my knees – all moved normally, as long as I kept my neck absolutely still.

  So, not paralysed! My pulse rate slowly returned to normal.

  My neck's the problem – must have ricked it in my sleep.

  Slowly, oh so slowly, I rolled onto my side, away from the wall and facing into the room. Then, pushing down onto the mattress with my left palm, I raised my trunk, lowering my legs over the side of the bed as a cantilever, and found myself sitting up. The neck was painful and very stiff, but the rest of me seemed all right.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Cautiously I began getting dressed.

  St Peter's Hospital was built in the early days of the Second World War to accommodate patients from University College Hospital who were no longer acute problems, vacating their beds in central London for war casualties. It was sited in the extensive grounds of an old Victorian work-house, and approached by a curving road (lit by halogen lamps after dark), which served the neighbouring housing estate. A track within the hospital grounds headed straight down the hill from inside the main gates, emerging on the Bedford Road some hundred yards from the entrance to St Peter's Road; this served as a short-cut for successive generations of nurses. The hospital consisted of a series of single-storey prefabricated buildings, the main clinical area connected by an enclosed concreted corridor on the north side of the complex. The original work-house buildings which now housed the geriatric wards were situated on the west side; between these and the hospital car-park were the preliminary training school (PTS), the nurses homes, the dining-rooms and the kitchens.

  I finished my breakfast of coffee, toast and marmalade, pleased that my pain had receded substantially and that I could move my neck a few degrees. I made my way cautiously down the five steps from the old building which housed our dining-room, past administration and switchboard on the right, past the main doctors' quarters and across the car-park, heading for Ward Four and my ward round with Brian Root.

  Brian arrived his customary ten minutes late, as always elegant in well-cut light grey trousers and waistcoat under his open white coat, tall, slim, with tousled flaxen hair.

  “What's up with your neck, Edwin?” was his first question.

  “It's very stiff ... I can hardly move it ... woke up with it this morning. I've never had anything like it before.”

  “Give you the once-over at the end of the round – if you can hold out that long.”

  “I'll take you to see Ma Hislop in Physiotherapy; she'll sort you out.”

  We had finished our round in double-quick time; he had examined me in an empty side room in Ward Ten, feeling for tenderness, checking my neck movements, and then giving me a full neurological examination. He had diagnosed an acute cervical inter-vertebral disc prolapse, but was able to reassure me that there was no neurological deficit.

  We walked together past out-patients, down to the physiotherapy department, and found the Superintendent Physiotherapist in her office. Root introduced us, explained the problem, gave me a nod and a smile, and disappeared. Martha Hislop was a cheerful, plump, middle-aged lady, who treated her staff of four physiotherapists like a mother hen.

  “I've heard all about you from my girls, Dr Scott ...” and I wondered what she meant.

  “Come into this cubicle, You can tell me all about it, and then I'll have a good look at you ... Hm, I'm afraid Dr Root is right: you've got a nasty cervical PID. If you've the time, I can give you some treatment to ease it, but you'll have to return a few times before it settles completely ... Come and lie prone on the couch, now ... That's right, we'll just slip off your shirt ... You'll find these rays soothing, then we'll stretch the neck for you, and we'll finish with a little massage.”

  Her fingers were firm but remarkably gentle; while she worked, she continued with her soothing monologue. I came out of a pleasant trance, and was sorry that the treatment was over. Briskly she moved across to a storage cupboard, searched a while, and finally fitted me with a rigid collar.

  “Is that comfortable, Dr Scott? Try and wear it most of the time. You'll soon get used to it ... Can you come back next Thursday?”

  9

  Wednesday, 16th June: I was excited and somewhat apprehensive as I picked up the telephone:

  “Can you get me Dr Root, please, Ernie?”

  Ernie was our switch-board operator, who sat in his domain overlooking the car park, like a benign spider, the threads of his web extending over the whole hospital; he was small and lean, with a high forehead and thick pebble spectacles; nothing eluded him: he had an uncanny knowledge of the whereabouts of everyone on the premises.

  “You're in luck, Dr Scott. He came into the hospital just a few minutes ago ... heading for Ward Four ...” (There were rumours of a romantic entanglement with Sister Milton.) “Putting you through.”

  “Severe headache, high fever, stiff neck, classical petechial rash: I agree it's meningitis ... At this age they often catch it from kissing ... You'd better get on with the lumbar puncture, Edwin. I'll watch.�
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  I finished scrubbing, and joined Root and the staff nurse behind the screens. The patient, a youth of sixteen, lay hot and drowsy, curled up on his side with his back to me, draped in towels, spine painted yellow with iodine, a dark blue cross from my pen marking the spot for my entry. Though I had observed two or three lumbar punctures before, this was the first one I was to perform myself. I held my breath, and felt my heart pounding as I penetrated the skin and advanced the needle. There was a slight give in the resistance; I withdrew the stilette, and felt relief flooding over me as I glimpsed the bead of cerebrospinal fluid protruding from the end of the needle.

  “Now let's measure the pressure – and then try to collect samples in all three bottles for microscopy, culture and sensitivities. Well done, Edwin!”

  His voice was warm and encouraging, but I noticed with concern that the accompanying smile failed to reach his eyes.

  An owl hooted. The night was warm and the full moon cast long black shadows, as I crossed the car park.

  I had been chatting to some of my new friends in the doctors' sitting-room: Mr Imran Shah and Dr Abida Siddiqui the surgical senior house officers, Mr Russell Potter their registrar, and Dr Teddy Blayne the paediatric SHO. Apart from Dr Siddiqui who sipped lemonade, we had all been drinking whisky, a bottle hospitably provided by Potter, a big amiable Australian.

  It was now midnight, and I was on my way for my final check on the patients I had admitted today, before retiring.

  The staff nurse accompanied me around the dimly-lit ward. I could hear the regular breathing of the sleeping patients, an occasional cough or soft moan, and the rustle of sheets as someone turned over. In a half-whisper the nurse gave a short succinct report on each of my problem cases as we paused by their bedside. I examined the blood pressure, temperature, pulse and respiration charts, felt a pulse, and checked a patient's pupillary reflexes with my pocket torch. The atmosphere was informal and strangely intimate. We paused at the end of the ward.