George Barnabas - 04 - Fourth Attempt (38 page)

‘I’m so thirsty, I could kill a cup of coffee. Is there somewhere here we could go to get one?’

Sonia looked at her a little more sharply. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ she said.

‘Well, of course you have! And it’s important work. The trouble you had with — what did you say his name was? Ishmael — I can see you have to be close at hand. How about I go and fetch some coffee then and bring it here? I’m sure you could use it. There’s nothing that makes you feel a bit better than a decent cup of coffee.’

‘It’s not very decent in our canteen,’ Sonia Chambers said with a flash of what must be her usual brightness.

George laughed appreciatively at the joke, such as it was, and crossed to sit in the other chair, settling herself quite obviously for a long session. Sonia gave up stonewalling.

‘I suppose I could make you one,’ she said ungraciously. She got to her feet and went over to the corner of her office, where a small table held a kettle and the apparatus for making hot drinks. George, who had seen it as soon as she came into the room, relaxed even more. She had won, she told herself. Now, go easy, softly softly and all that …

‘It’s a nasty business this, hmm? About Tony Mendez?’ she said when Sonia had brought her a mug of coffee, which was
in fact very good, being filtered rather than the usual dust and hot water.

‘What — what exactly happened to him?’ Sonia stirred her own coffee with jerky movements, staring hard at George all the time. That policeman did say it was murder, but …

‘Overdose of alcohol,’ George said succinctly. ‘Collapsed on duty and died soon after.’

Sonia closed her eyes. ‘Oh dear,’ she said weakly. ‘I suppose that is always a risk, even after so many years.’

‘What is?’

‘That the control will slip. That’s what the AA total-abstinence types say, that it’s more likely that people allowed controlled drinking will slip back than that teetotallers will, but I always say — and our people here say — what’s the difference? If they’re going to drink then they are, and there’s not a bloody thing we can do about it. It’s not us who cure them, they have to do it for themselves. We can only stand by and help them while they try to do it.’

‘Yes,’ George said. ‘But that’s true of all medical care, isn’t it? What was it that French war surgeon had on his epitaph? Paré his name was. Ambroise Paré. “I dressed his wounds. God healed him,” or something like that. Replace the word God with nature or whatever you like, and it’s true of everything we do.’

‘Oh, philosophy, is it? Bit early in the day for that I’d have thought.’ Sonia had regained a little of her spirit now and at last stopped stirring her coffee and began to sip it. George congratulated herself. She’d managed to chip away some of the woman’s defences. Now to see how far she could get over them.

‘So, tell me, what sort of work does go on here? I may work at the next-door hospital as it were, but I don’t know very much about you and I suppose I should.’

Sonia shrugged. ‘Oh, the usual stuff. We have wards for mental handicap, or rather learning difficulties as you have to call it these days, though if you tell the parents of some of
our people who weigh fifteen stone and have to be carried everywhere, who are doubly incontinent and have to be spoonfed and have the minds of ten-month-old babies that they just have learning difficulties, they’ll spit in your eye.’

‘And they’d be entitled to,’ George said warmly. ‘All that dumb PC stuff drives me crazy.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Sonia retorted, softening by the moment. ‘Then we have a certain amount of long-term psychiatric illness which just can’t be put out into the community; severely damaged burnt-out schizos who just can’t cope and a few very labile manic depressives who don’t respond well to drug regimes and need a lot of ECT.’

‘And people with addictions,’ George said softly.

‘Yes.’ Sonia tightened a little.

George risked pushing her. ‘Mostly alcohol?’

‘No, that’d be too easy! We get a lot of drug-users: heroin mainliners and people trying to get off crack and a few who’ve overdone the ecstasy. You know, the usual mix. Well, I
suppose
you know. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? What’s your speciality? Are you just a police surgeon or do you —’

‘I’m a pathologist,’ George said. ‘At Old East. I do forensic work for the local nick — Ratcliffe Street — but I also look after ordinary path, stuff for the hospital, or quite a lot of it.’

Sonia nodded, understanding. ‘Yeah, I see. So we know some of the same people.’

‘If they work in both hospitals, sure,’ George said, trying not to hold her breath in over-hopefulness.

‘Well, we do see a few from there. The registrar from General medicine does regular checks on our long-stay people, makes sure they’re in good general health,’ Sonia said. ‘He’s here quite a lot —’

‘Yes,’ George said, very casually. ‘And what about Dr Klein? And Dr Corton?’

Sonia rode over her, pretending not to hear. ‘And we have someone from the gynae. unit from time to time to check over some of the girls in the mental handicap wards. A lot of
them have IUDs because they can’t be trusted on the Pill. Of course it’s imperative they have contraception, and they have to be checked. We haven’t had an unwanted pregnancy here for the last five years. Not bad, eh?’

‘Not bad at all,’ George said. ‘But what about Dr Klein? Why does he come here? He doesn’t have anything to do with mental handicap, does he?’

Sonia was silent for a moment. ‘No,’ she said flatly.

‘Then why does he come?’ She still sounded relaxed and calm, but there was a steeliness there. She was determined that Sonia Chambers was going to tell all she knew.

Sonia looked back at her so thoughtfully that George could almost hear the ratchets in her brain turning over. Sonia was trying to calculate how much to say and what she could get away with; George was quite certain of that, and she deliberately relaxed her own shoulders. She had to be as casual and offhand over this interrogation as she could be, in case the woman realized that that was what it was.

There was another silence and then Sonia sighed. Clearly she had made up her mind that there was little she could do but answer. ‘He’s doing research,’ she said. ‘Into addiction.’

‘I know,’ George said. ‘Not that he came here to do it, but that he’s been at it some time. He’s looking for some sort of enzyme effect that leads to rapid dependency, especially in teenagers. If he finds it he could be on to a major breakthrough in therapy. Maybe even, one day, a pharmacological remedy.’

Sonia stared and set down her coffee cup with a little rattle. ‘You know that?’

George opened her eyes wide. ‘It’s no secret. Most of us — the consultants at Old East — know about the research that goes on in the Institute. Some of us know more than others. I’m one of the researchers’ advisors, so I know more than
most. I help them sort out their presentations to the funders, all that sort of thing.’

Sonia was visibly relieved. ‘Oh, well then! You’ll understand what it’s all about!’

‘I think so. But explain what he does here so we can see if there are any … problems about it. Then when you go to talk to Gus — Superintendent Hathaway …’ She left it hanging delicately in the air and felt the flash of fear that attacked Sonia, or rather smelled it. It was as vivid as a burst of spirit from a newly opened bottle.

‘He’s, er, he’s checking out some of his theoretical work,’ Sonia said carefully. ‘As he says, you can’t do it all in test tubes and on a computer. Now and again, you have to deal with real people, with real symptoms.’

‘I see,’ George said slowly. ‘Real people. You mean he investigates patients? Examines them and —’

‘Yes,’ Sonia said quickly. Too quickly? George thought perhaps so. ‘That’s what he does. Examines patients.’

‘Is that all?’

Sonia’s lids covered her eyes and she looked down at her coffee cup. ‘Pretty well.’

‘But not entirely.’

‘He takes some blood sometimes,’ Sonia said after a moment. She lifted her lids again and looked at George with apparently limpidly honest eyes. ‘Stuff like that’

I’ll bet, George thought. There’s more to this than she’s saying. Try a new tack.

‘What about James Corton?’ she said bluntly.

‘Jim?’ Sonia was visibly pleased at the change of subject. She sat up a little straighter, and even crossed her legs again. ‘Oh, young Jim, bless him! Well, he helps us with our ECTs.’

‘Indeed? How?’

‘Well, they have to have an anaesthetic, you know, before they have their treatment. In the old days we used to give it to people when they were conscious, but these days we’re
fussier. Now they have a mild general anaesthetic and then their shocks.’

‘Yes, I did know they did that, though I can’t pretend psychiatry is something I’m that well up in. But I thought the psychiatrist himself, or whoever administered the shock, was the one who looked after the anaesthesia? Just a little intravenous valium or something of that sort.’

‘I don’t know all the details, I’m a social worker, not a nurse, of course.’ She seemed to lift her shoulders in pride. ‘But I do know Jim wanted to improve his experience and skills, so he comes here to do it.’

‘Improve his —’ George stopped and stared at her. James Corton was one of Old East’s junior anaesthetists, admittedly, but he should be experienced enough not to need to go moonlighting elsewhere to do what sounded to her like very simple forms of anaesthesia. There was more than enough complex work at Old East on which he could hone his skills, she thought. Why should he care about a few intravenous jabs and airway monitoring? She frowned. It was very puzzling. Another idea came to her and she lifted her chin and looked very directly at Sonia.

‘Is Jim paid for the anaesthetics he does?’ she said softly, ‘Is that why he does them?’

Sonia went scarlet and George thought, that isn’t embarrassment! It’s something else. Relief almost. ‘Heaven’s no! Of course he isn’t! This is an NHS hospital. We couldn’t ask people to pay for their relatives’ anaesthetics and we certainly don’t have a budget. Oh, no, Jim isn’t paid.’

It was the slightest of emphases she put on the word, only the most fleeting of giveaways, but George knew, suddenly, exactly what had been happening here at St Dymphna’s — as far as one part of the puzzle was concerned, that was. The second part she would solve by going and talking to the man himself.

Now she said softly, ‘I see. So …’ And she repeated Soma’s words exactly, including the slight emphasis she had put on
one word. ‘So, it’s “oh, no,
Jim
isn’t paid”, which suggests that Dr Klein
is
involved in paying. Well, well. But who is doing the paying, Miss Chambers? And above all, who gets the payments?’

George had to take a cab back to Old East, since she had arrived at St Dymphna’s in Gus’s car, and she sat in the back sightlessly watching the streets outside pass by, trying to collect her thoughts. I need to do some writing, she told herself, get it all clear that way. Maybe tonight when Gus gets home and we pool our information? She felt the delicious tingle that came when she and Gus were well set on a case that was beginning to crack. The cracks so far were very fine, and it might be tough to prise them apart, but they’d do it somehow.

There were two people she had to investigate, she told herself. But which one first? Maybe she wouldn’t have a choice; it could depend on who might be accessible. Well, fair enough, but one thing was certain. She had to clear her decks of other preoccupations first so that she could concentrate with uncluttered attention on the investigation. That meant calling in at the lab to catch up with any work and news and making sure they were all comfortable about how they were to spend the rest of their day.

She found the place in a mini uproar. Louise was perched miserably on a tall stool in a corner of the big lab, sodden with tears, her head shoved against Jane’s bosom, who was crooning and trying to soothe her while at the same time throwing angry glares at Sheila. She, in her turn, was arguing
fiercely with Jerry, who was, unusually for him, getting more and more agitated. The usually easygoing Alan was shouting at both of them and as George walked in, her face a picture of amazement, he was the first to see her and throw his hands up in eager surrender.

‘Thank God you’re back,’ he cried. ‘See if you can get any sense out of this lot and settle them!’ And he turned away from the hubbub to go over to his wife, who was still holding on to Louise.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ George called above the noise of Sheila and Jerry’s shouting match. They both stopped yelling, whirled and looked at her with almost comical synchronicity.

‘He won’t listen!’ Sheila roared then. ‘I don’t care what he says, this was deliberate and it was aimed at me. Everything else has been, so why is this different?’

Not to be outdone, Jerry shouted at the same time: ‘She just won’t listen. I told her this time it was a genuine accident, that it was an oversight by the cleaner and no harm was intended to anyone —’

‘Shut up!’ shouted George. She glared at them and even took a menacing step forward. They duly shut up and stood looking sulkily at her but both were clearly still steaming with rage.

‘Jane.’ George looked at the little group in the corner of the lab. ‘You tell me what happened. Oh, Louise, for heaven’s sake, honey, stop crying so that we can hear ourselves think! What happened, Jane?’

‘Louise slipped and fell,’ Jane said. At the sound of her own name, Louise started to wail even more loudly and Jane half hugged her, half shook her. ‘Now, Louise, do stop. You’ve been X-rayed and no harm’s been done. If you just relax, then the painkillers they gave you in A & E will take over and you’ll feel much better. The taxi’ll be here soon, I’m sure, and you can go home.’

‘What
happened
?’ George cried, her own voice rising so that
she contributed as much noise as any of the others, and Alan shook his head in exasperation.

‘All right, I’ll explain,’ he said crisply. ‘Jane, love, help Louise out to the corridor, will you? Jerry, take the stool with them so that Louise can sit down when she gets there. Wait with them till the taxi comes. It shouldn’t be much longer. I’ll explain it all to Dr B.’