The Price of Butcher's Meat

9

Dennis Seymour wasn’t good with hospitals. When his twin daughters were born, he’d managed to witness the arrival of the first, but by the time the second emerged, he was lying on the floor, receiving treatment himself. So it was with no great enthusiasm that he’d made his way to the Avalon and asked to be directed to intensive care.

Shirley Novello had shown no reluctance to be relieved. The only hope she could offer of anything to dilute the boredom was a warning that Gordon Godley had appeared and asked if he could have a few minutes with the patient.

“Sounded harmless, but the nuts often do,” said Novello. “I sent him packing, but keep an eye open. Never trust a man with a beard; he’s usually got something to hide.”

“Means I’m there with a chance then,” grinned Seymour, stroking his chin.

“Oh no. Clean shaven’s worse. Means you’ve got nothing to hide. Cheers, Dennis.”

Since then he had sat on a hard chair in the corridor with nothing to occupy him but the beep from the life-support system to which the still figure on the bed was hooked up. The arrival of a nurse to check that all was as it should be came as a welcome relief. She was rather pretty and he tried to flirt with her, but she was young enough to regard a man in his thirties as a lost cause and merely looked embarrassed. When she appeared again some fifteen minutes later, he tried the poor-old-man approach and asked if there was any way of getting a cup of coffee.

She pointed down the corridor and said, “Visitors’ lounge, third on the right, help yourself.”

She went into the room. Based on her previous visit, she’d be in there for several minutes, so Seymour wandered off along the corridor. The visitors’ lounge was unlike any hospital waiting room Seymour had ever been in. His feet sank into a thick piled carpet, a scatter of richly upholstered armchairs invited him into their depths, along one wall ran a rack of up-to-date newspapers and magazines, and on an antique sideboard against the opposite wall rested a plateful of what smelt like freshly baked scones and a state-of-the-art percolator.

Used to pressing a button and watching a plastic cup fill with brown sludge, Seymour was still puzzling over the mechanics of the device when the door opened and the pretty nurse looked in.

“Bet you’re good with cars though,” she said as she made him a cup of delicious coffee.

“Yeah, keep getting head-hunted by Ferrari, but I don’t care for their team colors.”

He reckoned it was quite a good line but he only got a polite, slightly puzzled smile. He helped himself to a scone and made for the door. It opened and Hat Bowler came in.

“Hi, Dennis. Might have guessed I’d find you stuffing your face. My uncle not bothering you, is he, miss?”

The nurse laughed out loud and said, “Is there a police convention here they didn’t tell me about?”

“No, I’ve just been sent to make sure this guy’s doing his job. Also I’m looking for someone. Bet those bright blue eyes don’t miss much. Ever see her around?”

He put the edited photo into the nurse’s hand then made himself a cup of coffee with an ease that even more than the nurse’s reaction told Seymour he was getting old.

The nurse said, “I think it could be Miss Bannerjee. She was a patient when I started a year ago, but I didn’t really know her, as she moved on not long after I came.”

“Moved on? You don’t mean she, you know, died?” said Hat, mouthing the last word lugubriously.

“No, of course not. I mean she left,” said the nurse, laughing.

“Thank God for that!” said Hat, laughing with her. “Had me worried for a moment. So she was discharged, everything in working order? That’s great. I expect they’ll have a forwarding address in the office.”

“I expect so,” said the nurse. “Though there might be a problem. If I remember right, she wasn’t discharged as such, more sort of like I said…left.”

“Left? You mean like…disappeared? Here one moment, gone the next? Indian rope trick?”

“No, don’t be daft! I think her family decided she should go, there was a bit of bother…. Look, I shouldn’t be talking to you about a patient really…”

“You’re not, ’cos she’s not a patient, is she?” said Hat triumphantly. “Anyway, if you’re talking about the rumors about her and Dr. Feldenhammer, no one pays any attention to that sort of thing. Happens all the time with doctors, and with policemen too. I mean, here’s you and me talking away, all innocent, but if someone decided to start spreading a rumor that I really fancied you, there’s nothing we could do about it, is there? Specially ’cos a rumor like that would be really easy to believe. I’ve just heard it myself and I’m starting to believe it!”

It was ludicrously corny, but that didn’t stop it from working, thought Seymour half enviously. Another couple of minutes of this should be enough for Bowler to have extracted everything she knew about the rumored relationship between Feldenhammer and Miss Bannerjee.

Time to give him a free run.

“Best be getting back,” he said.

He stuck the scone in his mouth to free a hand to pick up a newspaper. That might win him a few precious minutes in the fight against boredom.

As he reached the intensive care unit door, he glanced through the glass panel and suddenly boredom seemed a condition devoutly to be wished.

There was someone in there, stooping over the recumbent figure on the bed, his hands hovering over her head.

It was Gordon Godley.

Dropping his cup and newspaper, and letting out a bellow of, “Hat!” that Dalziel would have been proud of, Seymour pushed open the door and rushed in.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, grabbing hold of the man and dragging him away.

Godley offered no resistance.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Really. It’s okay.”

“It better had be, you bastard,” grated Seymour, pushing the man up against the wall and holding him there with one hand on his chest, the other ready with clenched fist to deliver a disabling punch if he tried anything.

Hat Bowler burst through the door, followed by the pretty nurse.

“You need any help there?” demanded Bowler.

“No. I’ve got him,” said Seymour, irritated to realize he was much more out of breath than Godley. “Just check that she’s okay, will you?”

He glowered at his unresisting captive till the nurse said, “Everything looks fine. No harm done.”

“Good,” said Bowler. “Well done, Dennis. You got him before he had time to do anything.”

“Thank Christ for that,” said Seymour, shuddering to think of Pascoe’s reaction if he’d been too late.

But Mr. Godley was shaking his head.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “It felt like I had plenty of time.”

“For what, you bastard?” demanded Seymour, alarmed once more. “What were you trying to do to her?”

Then the nurse cried, “Look!”

He turned, fearful of what he might see.

Clara Brereton had opened her eyes. They were moving rapidly, taking in the room, the people there. She brought her fingers up to the tube down her throat as if she wanted to speak.

The nurse said, “I’ll get a doctor,” and pressed a button on the wall by the bed.

Seymour looked back at Godley.

The man was smiling and nodding his head.

“There,” he said. “I knew I’d had time.”