Unknown (14 page)

The woman, who had begun to look anxious when she saw him, visibly subsided. "I'll be all right now I'm home, Professor. But I can't stand any more of that ward. They're not all like you and the doctor here."

Sir Charles acknowledged Lesley's presence with a brief smile over the patient's head. "Perhaps we could talk again in a few days' time. I've got something new here which I want you to try. I think you'll find it will make a big difference. And we won't talk of hospital again in the meantime."

Lesley wondered how much he could know or guess of what lay behind this morning's critical attack.

Outside in the street, he handed her into his car. She expected him to ask further questions about Miss Robertson, but instead he started talking about the weather.

"It's another of those rare autumn days we sometimes get in October. The sea will be like a millpond this morning."

"Milky grey with a haze hiding Aran," she agreed.

He fell silent and she didn't interrupt his concentration. He seemed withdrawn now as though he had something on his mind.

The lights took an unconscionable time to change at the turn into the Broomielaw. Lesley fell to watching the sun glint on the river.

"I was wondering. Miss Leigh, if you would help me with a small matter one day next week."

"Of course, Sir Charles. At the nursing home?"

"No. Actually, it's a personal affair." He was having difficulty with his gear change. "You know that shop we pass on the way to Greylands? I bought a toy there the other day for my godson, but unfortunately, my housekeeper says the one I've chosen won't do."

"I know the shop. It's got lots of Wombles and things in the window - on the corner of Fern Street."

He nodded. "That's the one. Anyway, I was wondering if you would take pity on me. I've apparently picked something quite unsuitable for an infant."

"I'd love to," she said eagerly. "They've got some sweet little woolly lambs - or a big teddy bear. You could hardly go wrong with that." Her eyes gleamed with pleasure.

"There. I knew I was right. It's a job for a woman." They shot off to an uneven start as the lights changed at Stockwell Street Bridge.

"I just adore an excuse for browsing in toyshops." She settled back in her seat.

"I'm afraid they make me feel slightly uncomfortable," he said diffidently. "These ultra-smart young saleswomen always succeed in making me feel rather out of place. I tend to grab the first thing in sight and escape as soon as possible."

It was a revelation to Lesley to discover that he could have areas of uncertainty too.

"That's settled, then," he continued. "Shall we say next Wednesday? If we make an early start at the clinic we should get away about four. Already I feel mightily relieved." He slid into second for the turn into Argyle Street. "Perhaps we could sample the Rogano again?"

"You spoil me," she said impulsively, without stopping to think.

He glanced at her quickly and said nothing for a moment. "According to Mrs. Brent and the others, it's time somebody did." His face was in shadow, and she couldn't see his expression.

To her surprise he hadn't attempted to cross the river. Instead of making for the Fenham Moor Road, he turned right and was drawing up in the car ramp at Central Station.

"Have you got any money?" He turned with one of his rare smiles.

"Money? Not very much, I'm afraid." She fumbled in her handbag and produced fifty pence. "I didn't take time to -"

"Then I suggest you let me advance you the fare," he interrupted. "You've just got time to catch the ten-fifty to the coast."

Lesley flushed with astonishment. "But the ward round?" she asked.

"Oh, I think I can manage one day on my own." He gave his lopsided grin.

He helped her out on her side and she straightened her skirt.

"Come back with some of those roses they were talking about." He slipped a train ticket and a banknote into her hand. "Or my life clearly won't be worth living in that ward!"

Before she could recover her breath he had prised himself back into the driving seat and, with a wave of the hand, had accelerated out towards Hope Street.

She was in the first-class carriage moving slowly over the Clyde before she realised that he must have planned it before, he met her this morning.

When she reached Fairlie she didn't go immediately to her aunt's. She wanted to be by herself to sort things out, not be forced to make small talk and evade awkward questions. Her aunt was too perceptive. She would know straight away that sea breezes weren't responsible for this sparkle she couldn't quite quench in her eyes.

She sat on a rock at the edge of the tide. All around her sea birds circled and swooped. Gradually as she stayed motionless they regained their lost confidence and settled back to their task of foraging for food.

After a time her own fussings and frettings grew still. She, too, forgot the things which had been bothering her. Harry Dayborough and his threats receded. All the difficult decisions were left behind. Instead she basked in the glow of other thoughts. She took out her diary and doodled. She tried to tell herself that the morning's incident was a kind of oasis - that it meant nothing - but the magic kept breaking through. After all, he needn't have asked her to help change the toy. His secretary could have done it equally well.

She walked along the edge of wet sand and threw pebbles into the sea. Resolutely she banished the foolish notions from her mind and set about rebuilding the old castles in the air. She renewed her vows. Now more than ever she was determined to have one of his senior house posts. But, in spite of her probings and her efforts at rationalisation, she couldn't quite still the suspicion that somewhere along the way the dreams themselves had been changing.

"So you condescend to grace us with your presence at last,"

Harry Dayborough greeted her on her return to Ward Two.

"Now, Harry," Sister Bishop interrupted him. "You know that Sir Charles gave Doctor Leigh the day off. Just because it interfered with your customary round of golf, there's no need to take it out on other people."

"You keep out of this, woman. You'd be better employed rounding up that porter. Get something done about this confounded fuse." He drew Lesley out into the darkened corridor and slammed the door of the duty room in Angela Bishop's face.

"Becoming quite the teacher's pet, aren't you J" he sneered. "Telling tales out of school, I shouldn't wonder, as well."

"You can dispense with the sarcasm, Dr. Dayborough," Lesley said coldly. "I've kept my side of the bargain. Sir Charles isn't the only one who's obligated to friends."

The retort obviously stung him, for he gripped her arm till it hurt. "It's time someone took you down a peg or two. We'll just see if you're so cocky this time tomorrow."

"What do you mean?" She felt a sudden prick of fear. "I haven't done anything."

"We'll see," he laughed softly. "We'll see. I fancy you won't find today's favour continues."

He looked back at her silhouette from the end of the passageway. "Yes," he said softly, "it's definitely time we did something about you."

Bell, the night porter, raised his torch at the sound of the other man's voice. "Oh, it's yourself, Dr. Dayborough. I didn't see you standing there." He crouched again at the fuse box in the corner. "It's always a Sunday when one of these blasted things packs up - when you can't get a tradesman for love or money."

Harry Dayborough merely grunted. He brushed past the kneeling figure. The flashlight was sent spinning out of his hand. It spluttered and went out.

Bell leaned back on his heels in exasperation. Drat the man! This was the last straw. He began fumbling for his matches. As if things weren't awkward enough without that! His eyes followed the retreating outline. Not that you could expect that one to say he was sorry. A right nasty bit of work. He pitied the young lady who'd got on his wrong side a few minutes ago. He struck a match and began looking for his broken torch.

The
pink lab slip fluttered from the pages of the case sheet in Sir Charles Hope-Moncrieff's hands. It took an eternity to reach the floor. To Lesley it was like something from a silent movie. Nobody spoke.

With a barely perceptible nod, Sister Bishop instructed her junior to retrieve it.

The offending piece of prink paper now lay in the Chief's hand.

The silence continued while he scrutinised it. He turned it over and compared its results with those which Lesley had recorded on the case sheet.

Even from where she stood she could see that the two sets of figures exactly agreed.

"But these purport to be taken on capillary blood." He indicated the numbers in Lesley's neat, precise handwriting.

"Yes, sir."

The eyebrows were raised in unspoken query.

"I always do the counts on capillary blood," she said.

In the age that followed Lesley registered Angela Bishop's puzzled expression. In the background she saw Dayborough's insolent stare. Even the patients seemed to sense that something was wrong.

Sir Charles regarded her steadily for a moment, then carefully replaced the lab slip between the pages of the case sheet. He closed it and reinserted it in its folder.

He moved on to the next bed. The ward round continued.

Lesley found it difficult to keep her mind on the job. She didn't need to ask where the lab slip had come from. Any doubt which might have lingered had been dispelled by that flash of barely concealed triumph in Harry Dayborough's eyes. What baffled her was how he had managed to pull it off. For the signature she had glimpsed at the foot of the form was unmistakably her own. And the tests it requested were red and white cell counts. Yet never in the whole of her time at Fenham had she ever succumbed to that particular temptation.

She became aware of Sister's warning frown. Sir Charles was waiting for her to take down his notes. She began to dread the familiar walk along that interminable corridor to his car.

"It was your signature, wasn't it, Miss Leigh?" The question when it came seemed utterly objective.

"It appeared to be, Sir Charles."

"I did say I wished the counts done in the ward?" Relentlessly, he was bent on pursuing his enquiry.

"I'm not aware of having disobeyed your injunction."

"You're not denying that it was your signature?" He reiterated it like a procurator fiscal, painstakingly - and just as impersonally - determined to arrive at the truth.

"No, sir." Her voice was bleak.

They walked on in silence.

"I know you've been rather busy these past weeks, but I should have preferred it if you'd told me the truth." There was no mistaking the remote, formal tones. "I had thought that at least I could count on your integrity. Anything else between colleagues makes collaboration difficult."

There was a coldness in the voice which chilled her now. The remark itself was like a body blow. For a second she thought she was going to faint, but of course, things like that never happened when you needed them most.

He was so distant and withdrawn. There had been a note of finality in the last remark. If he'd been furious or upbraided her as he'd done on that previous occasion, she thought that it would have been easier to bear. As it was they were back on the old formal basis. Already she felt bereft of something special.

She stood back and watched his car roar out of the yard. As he negotiated the bend he didn't look back. He had omitted to give his customary wave.

At first her tears were of self-pity and then they gave way to those of baffled rage. This time Dayborough had gone too far. It was one thing to push her around as he'd done. She'd been willing to put up with a lot of that for Jim's sake. It was quite another to denigrate her falsely with the Chief. She didn't stop to ponder why she was so irate. All she knew was that this time she was going to fight back.

Lesley returned to the unit with quick angry steps. She threw open the duty room door and made for the case sheets already replaced on the window bench rack. Impatiently she flicked through them till she came to Miss Twill's. With trembling fingers she tore it open. The mortifying pink slip was no longer there.

"Sister, who's been at these case sheets?" She whirled round as Angela Bishop came into the room. "That lab slip with the blood count - I want to know where it is."

Sister Bishop surveyed her calmly. There was a glint of amusement in her eyes. "I was wondering when we were going to get some show of spirit from you."

Lesley hardly heard the remark. She grabbed the book of laboratory slips and riffled her way through the stubs of the past few days. The one for Miss Twill's blood glucose test had been carefully removed.

"It's been cut out with a razor." She was astounded. "Miss Twill's blood sugar - the duplicate's missing!"

Angela Bishop moved round her and sat down at her desk. "I warned you, Doctor. He's a dangerous man."

"But that was a top copy which he had in the case sheet." Even in her present state of mind it registered that both of them tacitly accepted that only Harry Dayborough could be responsible for this.

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, he had help with it."

"I'm going to see Kate Ritchie." Lesley moved in sudden decision.

Sister Bishop rose and put a hand on the door. "Wait a minute," she said quietly. "Let's think this thing through first. What you're saying is that they've taken a slip on which you requested a blood sugar estimation and substituted routine blood counts. If that's so, then one or other of them has copied your results on to it from the case sheet, and they've covered their tracks by removing the duplicate."

"It's no joke, Sister. Not some undergraduate prank. I can't just let him get away with it."

"It's Sir Charles's good opinion you're afraid of losing, isn't it?" Sister went on regarding her coolly.

Lesley coloured. "Is it so very obvious?"

"Why shouldn't it be?" Angela said briskly. "Everyone knows you want his senior house post."

"I suppose that's gone by the board now."