Forests of the Night (11 page)

fourteen

How long I'd been in the blackness I didn't know but as I began to emerge once more into the light I was particularly aware of two things: Gene Krupa was practising a drum solo on my head and I was lying in a bed, the mattress of which was made out of concrete granules. I lay for some moments staring at the grey ceiling above me trying to get a hold back on my life.

Firstly, I told myself, let's be logical. Logical? I responded to myself somewhat heatedly, how can you get logical with that mad drummer belting away on your bonce? Just put him to the back of your mind, I replied smugly. He's already there, I snapped, and he's beating up a storm!

This surreal and groggy intercourse was interrupted by the arrival at my bedside of a woman in a nurse's uniform. That must be because she is a nurse, I told myself. And on this occasion I agreed with myself. And that must mean that you're in a hospital, I added with authority.

‘Ah, you're awake. That's good,' the woman in the nurse's uniform said, turning my head gently to the side so she could examine the back. Gene Krupa upped the tempo.

‘Mmm, you're still leaking a bit but it's not too bad. This dressing can stay on for now.'

‘Leaking?' I asked, my mouth dry and cobwebby.

‘You've had a nasty bump on the head, Mr Hawke, but we've X-rayed you and there's been no serious damage done. We've put a few stitches in just to make sure your brains don't drop out.' She smiled. ‘You'll feel a little disorientated for a day or two but there's nothing to worry about. It's the usual after effect of concussion.'

‘Can I get up now?'

‘No you cannot. If you did, you'd fall down. You need a good night's rest before you'll be fit enough to get dressed.'

A dreadful thought suddenly struck me. ‘What time is it?'

‘Time?' she seemed nonplussed by this request. She consulted her watch clipped to the bosom of her uniform. ‘It's half past eleven.'

‘At night?'

‘Of course.'

‘Oh, bugger!' I cried.

‘Now then, Mr Hawke, we won't have any talk like that in here.'

‘I'm sorry, Nurse,' I said, closing my eye to the pain and disappointment of the real world. She wasn't to know that I'd gone and done it again. I'd left Eve in the lurch for the second time. Whatever was a worse consistency than mud, my name was it. Briefly, I had a vision of Eve sitting alone at a table in Lyon's Corner House, repeatedly sticking a hat pin into a little male figure fashioned out of a doughnut. That doughnut man was me.

The nurse's voice broke my wild reverie. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea perhaps.'

‘I suppose a double whisky is out of the question.'

She gave me a smile. ‘It is. You'll have a big enough hangover in the morning without the help of Mr Johnnie Walker.'

‘A cup of tea it is then and some water please. I'm very dry.'

‘I'll see what I can do.'

My Florence Nightingale bustled off and as she did so I saw that there were screens around my bed. I was isolated from the rest of the ward. Perhaps my concussion was contagious.

When the nurse returned sometime later she had a cup of tea, a carafe of water and a plate of biscuits. ‘I've brought you some bourbons,' she said with a grin. ‘You strike me as a chocolate bourbon man.'

I smiled back. ‘I'm more of a Kentucky bourbon man.'

We struggled together to get me into a sitting position. She was on the plumpish side and not particularly pretty, but somehow in my bedraggled state I found the closeness of her very sensuous. She smelled of lavender and her skin was smooth and warm. She aroused a spark in me which in my current mental state should have been dormant. Acting on impulse, I kissed her on the cheek.

‘Now, now, Mr Hawke, don't you start something you know you definitely can't finish,' she warned me with a twinkle in her eye.

‘Sorry, Nurse.'

‘I should think so too. Now drink your tea, eat your biccies and then get a good night's rest.'

‘I will, I will, but before you go could you tell me how I got here. I presume this is Charing Cross Hospital?'

She nodded. ‘Are you sure you want to deal with this now?'

‘I'm sure,' I said, biting on a bourbon.

‘A chap brought you in. Says you were hit from behind and he managed to scare off the attacker before he could do any more damage. He then dragged you into casualty. Luckily you weren't far away.'

‘What was this chap's name?'

She shook her head. ‘Don't know. He disappeared before anyone could get his name. Just a passer-by I guess,'

‘I guess.'

‘Looks like you'll never get to know who your good Samaritan was.'

After the nurse had gone, I tried to remember the moments just before I lost consciousness but my brain wasn't up to it. But one thing was clear to me. If Mr Samaritan hadn't acted as he did, I could easily be in another part of this hospital, on a slab with a white sheet over my face.

*   *   *

It was a different nurse who roused me from my dreamless slumbers. She was grey-haired and elderly, no doubt brought out of retirement for the duration. She had ‘no nonsense' written all over her severe features. ‘Now then, I'm Nurse Williams and I'm here to change your dressing, young man, so no fuss please. Sit up, lean forward and let me get on with it.'

I did as I was told. With gentle, nimble fingers she removed the pad from my wound and laid it in a dish on the bedside cabinet. It was curved and crusted with dried blood, like a small scarlet crab.

‘Oh, that's coming along just fine,' she murmured, as she applied the new dressing to my wounded bonce. ‘You'll live.'

‘I'm glad to hear it.'

‘Right, that's me done. Breakfast in half an hour and the doctor will be on the ward around ten.'

‘That's all very well,' I said with a grimace, ‘but I don't think my bladder will wait that long.'

‘OK, I'll get one of the duty nurses to provide you with a bottle.'

‘No, no. I'd like to … to go on my own.'

She tut-tutted me, but grabbed a dressing-gown from the bedside cabinet. ‘Let's see if you can stand up before you try to wee, eh?'

My body felt as though it hadn't been used for a decade and my head throbbed as though it might explode, but with Nurse Williams's help I got myself out of bed and was able to stand more or less erect.

‘How do you feel?' she asked, as she held the dressing-gown for me to navigate my arms into it.

‘I'll manage,' I said through gritted teeth. I did feel rough, but I was determined not to be incapacitated by a bump on the head, however nasty. I couldn't wait around for the doctor to suggest I stay in hospital another day. I had things to do – a murder to solve. I had to get out of here. Nurse Williams guided me towards the lavatories. I felt part zombie, part geriatric and I certainly excited some interest with the other patients who gazed at me over their well folded linen sheets thinking I'd escaped from a Boris Karloff movie.

‘I can make my own way back,' I said, on reaching the frosted door which announced ‘Gentlemen's Lavatories'.

My guide nodded and left me to it. Once I had relieved myself, I took a gander at my mug in the mirror over the sink. I looked like I'd been on an all night bender for a week. My skin was pale and blotchy and there was a dark ring under my good eye which made me look as though I'd been using one of those joke telescopes that have a sooty substance round the eyepiece. I swilled my face in cold water and dampened down my unruly hair. If only I could have shaved and cleaned my teeth.

I stretched and bent over, trying to rev up my body engine. It responded nicely but my head still felt as though someone had sliced off the back of it. By the time I emerged on to the corridor, I was feeling a little more human. I tried to put a spring in my step as I passed by my fellow patients but they had lost interest in me.

Once behind the screens, I searched for my clothes. My best suit, mud-stained and torn at the knees, was crumpled up in the locker by my bedside cabinet, as was the rest of my clobber. Like a ballet dancer in slow motion I dressed myself, grimacing and groaning softly in the process. Never has it taken a man longer to put on his underpants and trousers – or tie up his shoes. Every time I bent over, my head pounded and my vision blurred.

After what seemed hours, I was ready to make my escape. Peering out from the screens, I could see no members of the medical Gestapo in view, so I slipped out quietly and made my way towards the exit doors. One old cove caught sight of me as I hurried by stiffly and he turned to a fellow patient in the next bed with the news, ‘I think that chap is doin' a bunk.'

A bunk is what I did and I felt better for it. I hate hospitals and I hate being cooped up anywhere. I followed my nose until I saw a sign which gave various directions. I headed for the children's ward.

There was a new porter on duty outside the boy's room. He eyed me suspiciously, as well he might.

‘I've come to see Peter,' I said lightly with a smile.

‘Have you now? And who might you be?' His expression, glum and wary, never changed.

‘I'm a friend.'

‘Bit old for being a friend of the nipper in there, ain't you?'

‘The police have given permission for me to visit him. Inspector Llewellyn arranged it.'

‘Did he now?'

‘Yes. You could ask sister.'

As luck would have it, just at that moment the door of the room opened and a man I took to be a doctor emerged. Well, the white coat and stethoscope rather gave the game away. He looked at me with the same degree of suspicion as the porter. ‘What is it, Whittaker?' he asked the surly sentry.

‘This … gentleman says he wants to see the boy.'

The doctor gave me a further examination. ‘You look as though you've been in the wars yourself.'

‘A little case of concussion, that's all. I'm fine.' I repeated my request and when I mentioned David's name and Scotland Yard, the doctor smiled and nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I know about you.'

‘So, can I see Peter?'

The doctor bit his lower lip. ‘I suppose so, but he's still not properly conscious. The fever has worsened. He's having it rough, poor lad.'

‘He will pull through, won't he?'

‘It's unlikely that he won't.'

This circumspect reply did little to reassure me.

‘Come on then, just for a minute.' The doctor ushered me into the room and then I followed.

Standing by the bedside, I gazed down at Peter, his face flushed feverous red and shiny with perspiration, his head lolling from side to side as he mumbled something. It saddened my heart to see the poor lad in such a condition. I knelt down by him. ‘What is it, old chap?' I said softly.

His eyes flickered open. ‘I saw him … I saw him,' he croaked. I couldn't tell whether Peter was responding to my question or not. His brow contracted and his mouth tightened as though whatever was going through his fevered mind frightened him. ‘I saw him,' he said again, his voice clearer this time. ‘Blood … blood … blood on his hands. I saw him.'

‘Who did you see? Peter? Who did you see?'

He leaned forward, his eyes staring fixedly at me. ‘Tiger Blake,' he said. ‘I saw Tiger Blake.'

fifteen

This time I did take a taxi. I reckoned that the trek back to Hawke Towers would just about do me in, so within minutes of leaving the confines of Charing Cross Hospital, I was in a jaunty taxi being chauffeured to my home. I also had managed to pick up a paper and I skimmed it during the journey for news on the Palfrey/Palmer case. I found what I was looking for in a small item on page four. The police had now arrested ‘the prostitute's boyfriend, Samuel Fraser, an actor, and charged him with her murder. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Knight assured reporters that he was confident of a conviction when the case came to trial'.

So the thick-headed, short-sighted, blinkered bombast had followed his huge proboscis, the one with the blocked nostrils, and gone for the obvious suspect and got an easy arrest. Case closed and a pat on the back for Knight. That was really bad news for Fraser. There would be no more official police investigation into the case with the result that the real culprit would get away. No doubt he or she would have read the news with a great sigh of relief. So, Johnny, boy, I told myself, it really was up to you now to nail the bastard. Easier said than done, of course for I had to admit I was really little wiser than old Dirty Knight. Those puzzle pieces were growing in number but not in clarity. I wondered if Mr Gordon Moore aka Tiger Blake really fitted into the frame. It certainly seemed that he was one of Pammie's clients. And what about Peter's fevered utterances about seeing Tiger Blake with blood on his hands? Of course, he'd watched the film a few nights before and it was probably images from the movie which had stayed in his mind. But I'd seen it, too, and I knew there was no scene in which Tiger had blood on his hands.

Once I got home, I brewed myself a strong cup of tea and rustled up some slices of toast and devoured them with the savage voracity of a cave man who hadn't eaten a breast of pterodactyl for months. After a wash and shave, and a soothing Craven A I was beginning to feel half human again. I examined my dressing with the use of two mirrors. It was dry with no sign of blood seeping through the gauze, so I was obviously on the mend. I grinned back at myself in the mirror. A cock-eyed Boris Karloff stared back at me with the same grin.

Then I planned the rest of my day. There were a few things I wanted to check out. Again, I would have to use a taxi. I still didn't feel energetic enough to tramp across London. I looked in my wallet: the Palfrey advance was gradually dwindling. Still, I would survive.

I got a cab to Regent's Terrace and walked along to the building where Pammie Palmer had her flat. As I suspected, there was no policeman on duty now. With the case being closed, solved, done and dusted, and the hangman polishing his rope, there was no need to keep the flat under surveillance. I went inside the building, rode up in the rickety lift to the third floor and knocked innocently on the door. I knew there would be no reply but I had to check. After my third attempt, I felt happy. It was good to know there was an empty flat there waiting to be scrutinized.