Death on the House (Edwin Scott Crime Trilogy Book 2) Page 7

  I discovered that Dr Kumar sometimes anaesthetised for the gynaecology team for simple D&C's.

  “Dilatations and curettages,” he translated for me.

  Now they spent a little time discussing one of the patients who had bled more than expected post-operatively. She had needed a lot of blood, and Mr Cavanagh had had to call in the consultant, eventually, to carry out a hysterectomy. Olly was shy and self-effacing, and most of the conversation was carried on by the gynae SHO in monologue in a loud voice – anything but shy and self-effacing.

  “What do you chaps think of the murder of the vagrant, Horatio Tupper?” I enquired of the room in general, just to change the subject. “He'd been one of my patients on Ward Ten – discharged shortly before he was killed ...”

  “Who'd want to murder a tramp like that?” Potter replied with obvious distaste after a pause, during which everyone took a sip of their whisky and Teddy continued puffing away contentedly at his pipe. “Must be some sort of nutter, some sort of psychopath ...”

  “D'you think it was someone inside the hospital – after all he was found within the hospital grounds – or was that simply a coincidence, an outside job?” Teddy enquired thoughtfully, almost wistfully. “Do we know if he had any enemies around here?”

  “Well, he had some outrageous racist views,” I ventured. “Just after he was discharged, Ernie was ringing around from switchboard. Apparently a Sikh gentleman in turban and beard was asking after Mr Tupper ... was most anxious to find him. I passed the information on to the police, of course ...”

  There was a buzz, and the wall lights flashed: blue, brown, white and green.

  “Damn, that's me ...”

  Daniel Ellington reached for the phone and listened briefly.

  “I'll be right over, thank you ... It's Ward Three – surprise, surprise ... Finish off the bottle, while I'm out, you fellows ... see you at supper!”

  At the door he swivelled round:

  “By the way, I was pleased to see you had a tennis court here ... Any of you play?”

  And without awaiting an answer, he was out in the corridor, his white coat flapping behind him like an albino bat.

  10

  Saturday, 24th July: We were alone in the breakfast-room.

  “Edwin!” My mother's voice held more than a trace of apprehension. “Can you come and have a look at Lucky? She seems to have something wrong with her leg. She's limping, and it's been getting worse over the last week.”

  I put down my coffee cup, and got up to examine the little Kerry Blue bitch who sat rather forlorn in a corner. She gazed back at me through large brown eyes from under her copious fur – as usual she needed a hair-cut. She got laboriously to her feet, and I noticed with some alarm that her tail drooped and wouldn't wag properly. She dragged herself towards me. This was not just a minor limp – her hind limbs were semi-paralysed. The morning sunshine seemed to dim, and the birdsong from outside became muted. Something very serious was amiss.

  Lucky gave a little whimper as she settled down at my feet and I gently fondled her ear. I felt guilty for not noticing her before, that all my thoughts this week-end had been for Jill.

  “I'm afraid she's soiled herself around the house for the last couple of days, Edwin, and even once in her little kennel. And she's always been so clean!”

  I knelt down, felt her hind legs and her vertebral column, as she lay obediently at my side.

  “There's some sort of cyst on her back, Mum. It appears to be attached to her spine ... I think she has a tumour; it's probably compressing the spinal cord, causing paralysis.”

  My mother burst into tears.

  11

  Sunday, 25th July: Sunday afternoon found us on the top deck of a red London bus, watching the sparse traffic through the window. The weather had turned cloudy and dark, and this mirrored our mood.

  On Dad's lap rested a stout rectangular wicker-basket. From time to time, we looked through its slits, and murmured soothingly to Lucky: she lay frightened but obedient, with only an occasional whimper declaring to the other passengers that the basket was occupied.

  We were on our way to Victoria, to take Lucky to the People's Dispensary for Sick animals. Our neighbour, Mr Arbuthnot, had told us about it – the only vets in London open on a Sunday. On the way, my father and I spoke hardly a word. As the raindrops started to spatter the window panes, I rose and pressed the bell. We had arrived. With a heavy heart I helped carry the basket down the stairs and off the bus, taking care not to disturb the sick animal.

  The PDSA Hospital was a new four-storey building near Victoria Coach Station. We sat in the waiting-room amid a dozen owners and their domestic pets in gloomy silence, broken only by an occasional soft growl or miaow, and a gentle word of reassurance from an owner. Lucky sat on Dad's lap, and gazed with brief interest at the other animals before again closing her eyes and feigning sleep. The hands of the electric wall clock moved painfully slowly around the dial, while we awaited our turn in the queue.

  “Lucky Scott?” The uniformed nurse called from the open doorway after what seemed an aeon of time. My father picked up our little Kerry Blue bitch, and I lifted the empty carrying basket by its handle; with a feeling of impending doom, we made our way past the frosted glass partition to the consulting room where the vet awaited us.

  12

  Tuesday, 27th July: There was a buzz, and the lights came up on the wall of the doctors' mess: blue, brown, red and green. We all looked up with varying degrees of misgiving, but it was Claud Guillam who rose from his arm-chair and picked up the phone.

  “Guillam here,” his voice was somewhat anxious and high-pitched. He listened for a short time, while all conversation ceased. Then:

  “Yes, I was expecting her – tell the ward I'll be right over.”

  He tucked his stethoscope into the pocket of his white coat, and was gone. As usual, in this situation I was left feeling relieved that it was he and not I who was on call.

  “Anyone for another drink?”

  This evening, Teddy Blayne, the paediatric SHO, was our host, and had provided the bottle of whisky. He was tall, lean and slightly stooped, with curly brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. Though he lived in when on call, he was married and had a baby daughter; they rented a small flat in a village just outside Hitchin, and his wife often brought their daughter to the hospital when Teddy was on call at week-ends. He was a pleasant, placid young man with a sunny disposition, totally unflappable. He was nearing the end of his current job, and was reputed to be revising feverishly for the Edinburgh MRCP in Paediatrics. He put down his pipe, and poured further generous shots for Russ Potter and Imran Shah.

  “Thanks mate.” Russ tended to exaggerate his Australian accent when relaxing in company. His white coat had been laid aside, and I could see that the strong arms emerging from his short-sleeved shirt were matted with dark hair. He was on his third glass of whisky, and smiled benevolently at the company. I was unsure whether or not he was on call.

  “You are most kind, Dr Blayne.”

  Shah was a squat, very dark Pakistani doctor with thick black hair and a surprising sense of humour. He was an excellent practical surgeon, but was apparently not very good academically: after several attempts, he had eventually managed to pass the primary FRCS exam, but he had already failed his final FRCS four times. He held up his glass to be topped up.

  “Tell me, does this excellent liquid contain alcohol?”

  “We must have a collection to buy a supply of booze for the mess,” Russ came to life again. “Or a book where we can sign for a drink – to tide us all over the long evenings. I'd gladly pay Doctor Siddiqui's contribution as she doesn't partake of 'the hard stuff' ...”

  Abida Siddiqui perched on a hard chair in a corner of the room, a gentle smile on her lips. She rarely contributed to the conversation, as her English was not perfect, but appeared to enjoy the company. She held an almost full glass of orange juice, from which she occasionally took a tiny sip. She was like a bird
– small and frail – and gazed short-sightedly around her through pebble-lensed steel-framed spectacles. A thick bun of black hair sat on the back of her head. She wore western clothes under a white coat which was buttoned up almost to the neck. In contrast to her compatriot, her skin was pale, almost white.

  “You are very kind, Mr Potter ...” She spoke for the first time.

  “I'll chip in a fiver ... Is that enough?” I was beginning to feel a little mellow from the drink.

  “What do you all think of the murder of the vagrant, Mr Tupper ...” I couldn't help recurring to this theme. “He had been an in-patient in Ward Ten, and discharged himself only a day or two before he was killed ...”

  “But who on earth would want to kill a no-account fellow like that?” demanded Imran Shah. “Most likely someone from outside, someone from his past ...”

  Once more I told of the tramp's extreme racist views, and described the Sikh gentleman who had been pursuing him. Shah professed himself fittingly irate, and, after some debate, a consensus was reached that this was indeed the past catching up with a rather unpleasant character – his end perhaps well-deserved! I leaned back, sipped more of my whisky and allowed the conversation to flow over me. Despite the sombre, rather grisly subject-matter, my depression lifted a notch.

  Lucky had been diagnosed as having cancer of the uterus, with spread to the spine. Before we had left on the Sunday, she had been taken to a ward on the second floor of the hospital so that she could have tests the next day. A subsequent exploratory operation had merely confirmed the hopeless prognosis; she had been tried on tablets, but her condition had gone rapidly downhill; she had been “put down” after two days, leaving a shadow over the whole Scott family. I had only heard the final news this morning.

  The discussion stuttered on around me, and finally fizzled out. At about half-past ten, with numerous “good-nights” everyone else drifted off to their rooms. I was left in my deep arm-chair mulling over the evening, thoughts intermittently returning to my little pet at the PDSA Hospital. She had played such a major part in my life – her departure would leave a huge void.

  At that moment, a round brown face with a bleary expression appeared from behind the door.

  “Hello, you may not remember me. I'm Olly Kumar, the new anaesthetic SHO ... Am I still in time for the party? I just lay down on my bed for a moment, and I must have dozed off.”

  “Come on in, Olly, and join me in a whisky, courtesy of Teddy Blayne. There's just about enough left in the bottle for one more glass ...”

  13

  Wednesday, 28th July: “Mr Thornton is forty-five. He has been under Dr Middleton's care for about six months with a duodenal ulcer – on antacids. I gather he has had some business worries recently. Last night he passed a black stool – a melaena – and today he has vomited coffee grounds on at least three occasions ...”

  Dr Forrester was one of the best of our local general practitioners, and the urgency in his voice over the telephone made me sit up and take notice.

  “... Now he's cold and clammy, and I can't record a blood pressure.”

  “Could you please send him straight to Ward Ten, Dr Forrester ...”

  “Thank you, Dr Scott. He's already waiting in the ambulance – he's on his way!”

  I clicked the receiver, and asked Ernie to ring my registrar.

  “Dr Root here.”

  “Hello, it's Edwin. We have an emergency coming into Ward Ten – haematemesis and melaena; old DU of ours apparently ... Sounds pretty bad.”

  “I'll be over in twenty minutes. In the meantime, try to get a drip up, Edwin ...”

  I notified the ward, left my supper plate half-finished, and rushed from the doctors' dining-room, aware of the commiserating glances of my colleagues on my back.

  My face and hair were damp, when I reached the men's medical ward, partly from my exertions, and partly from the fine drizzle that I encountered as I crossed the car park. The patient was in his pyjamas; he had just arrived, and was being transferred from the ambulance trolley to a bed next to the charge nurse's office (as both side wards were occupied).

  “This is Mr Thornton,” began the student nurse.

  “Yes, I know ...”

  He was semi-conscious; his skin was cold, clammy and as white as the sheet that covered him; a sheen of sweat stood on his brow and upper lip; his pulse was fast and thready.

  “Just check his pulse, and try and get a blood-pressure. Is someone laying up the blood transfusion trolley? I'll just speak to his wife, then I'll get scrubbed. Back in a minute.”

  “Mrs Thornton sat trembling and weeping quietly in the visitors room. She was a pretty woman, elegantly dressed, but her make-up was smudged with tears, and her hair was in disarray.

  “I'm afraid he seems very bad Mrs Thornton ... I'll try and get some blood into him straight away ... Must get back to him now ...”

  My heart lifted when I saw Stanley Pollett, the burly charge nurse, waiting by the laid-up trolley at the bedside, when I squeezed through the gap in the screens, my sleeves rolled up, hands scrubbed.

  “Blood pressure is sixty systolic, Dr Scott, can't get a diastolic reading; pulse is one hundred and thirty a minute.”

  “Can't find an arm vein for a venepuncture – I'll have to do a cut-down in the leg ...”

  “Cut-down set's already laid out on the trolley,” came Pollett's reassuring voice.

  “Can you send for three pints of Group O Rhesus negative blood from the Path Lab ... We haven't time for group or cross-match now – have to leave that until later ...”

  A nod from the charge nurse, and the student nurse was out of the ward at a trot, the doors swinging closed behind her.

  The drip stand with a bottle of normal saline connected up to the giving-set was wheeled down to the foot of the bed, while I quickly cleaned up the inner aspect of the patient's right ankle with iodine, and draped the area in sterile towels. I found the long saphenous vein just in front of the medial malleolus of the tibial bone. I hesitated a moment, took a deep breath, and cut transversely through the skin over the vein with a scalpel. I let my breath out in relief, when I found the vein, neatly exposed and intact. Rapidly I dissected out a short length with a pair of Spencer-Wells forceps, positioned catgut ligatures around either end; with the fine scissors I made a tiny V-shaped incision across the vein, taking great care not to cut right through it. I threaded the fine catheter through the aperture, and experienced a warm glow when I felt it pass up the lumen. I tightened the ligature on the vein over the catheter, and tied off the distal end with the other length of catgut. During the whole procedure I had lost hardly a drop of blood, mainly because of the patient's very low blood-pressure. I connected up the end of the drip, and ran the saline solution briskly through the catheter, before securing it and the rubber tubing with adhesive strapping to the skin of the lower limb. A cradle was placed over both legs.

  “I'm afraid they only had two pints of O negative blood ...”

  The student nurse was panting for breath, with one bottle in either hand – nevertheless triumphant.

  “My dear chap, absolutely splendid ...”

  Brian Root who was standing behind me, placed a hand on my shoulder, and evaluated the scene; I was not sure how long he had been there.

  “Let's check his BP again, while you tell me the story, and Stanley, here, puts up the blood. Then I'd better get hold of Russ Potter: he'll need to arrange theatre and anaesthetist, while you try to get some blood from an arm vein (when his blood pressure rises sufficiently) for haemoglobin, group and cross-match. Patient may need an emergency gastrectomy, and we'll certainly require a few more pints of blood for that ...”

  Part Three

  August 1960

  1

  Friday, 6th August: I had dropped in to visit Jill as soon as I arrived in London – straight from King's Cross railway station. Though situated on the second floor of St Thomas' Hospital, the old Nightingale ward was dark and gloomy. Through a window
I glimpsed the overcast sky. Jill lay in bed half-way down the ward. She was deathly pale, her lips almost white, a sheen of perspiration on her forehead; her normally frizzy hair was plastered down on her scalp. A second pint of blood was dripping steadily into her vein, having just been put up by staff-nurse, who paused to gaze at me with silent sympathy before moving on.

  I gripped Jill's hand, and gazed into her steady grey eyes. I felt sick with fear: the marrow puncture had confirmed the diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia. There was no cure! Our life together was over.

  She gave my hand an answering squeeze, and smiled bravely.

  “Darling Edwin, I'll always love you ...”

  My heart stood still.

  2

  Saturday, 7th August: I had not driven, since passing my test two years before. Recently, I had taken a further five refresher lessons – in and around Hitchin – and felt reasonably competent to drive again.

  Now we sweltered in the afternoon sun, and I wondered if we'd ever succeed. We had been to three second-hand car show-rooms, travelling across North London by bus: a very laborious process. From time to time, thoughts of Jill forced themselves into my consciousness, and I wished I had never embarked on today's project so soon after the devastating news. However, the arrangement had been made a fortnight earlier, and I did not think I could change it.

  I tried to concentrate on the work in hand: though Uncle Frank had advised on a Ford, which he thought would be better value, I had set my heart on a Morris. Unfortunately all the cars we had viewed were either too old, too battered or too expensive. Though I despaired of finding anything suitable, and was ready to give up, Frank remained cool, patient and focussed.