No Escape (15 page)

“I'm sure it would,” Jane agreed. “Living in London is terribly expensive.”

“It's no wonder she got in with the wrong lot,” Mrs Burgess said. “We only saw him once—before—before the accident, that is. But once was enough. Father agreed with me.”

“Who was that?” Jane asked.

“Why, Mr Stone, of course,” Sheila's mother said, looking very straight at Jane. “Only I mustn't say anything, must I, seeing he's a friend of yours?”

“Did he tell you that?”

“How else would I know? He was here the day after it happened, asking a lot of questions. Very upset he seemed, I must say. But I don't trust that sort. Too friendly by half.”

“He is
not
a friend of mine,” Jane said, “and I entirely agree with you.”

She told Mrs Burgess about her first meeting with Gerry and about his subsequent behaviour. She did not describe the party in Tom's studio.

“He even had the nerve to ask for some small trinket of hers as a memento,” Mrs Burgess said, indignantly. “I had to tell him the police had all her things, suitcases and all. They only sent them back to me today.”

She pointed at the bed where Jane had already noticed a pile of clothes and then, opening a drawer, took out a box that Jane recognised and from it drew a string of white beads.

“These were round her neck when they found her,” she said. “Now I've seen you and heard your opinion of Mr Stone and know what you tried to do for Sheila I'd like to give you these. I couldn't bear to keep them. We've decided to offer the clothes to the Red Cross. After all she did and taking her own life, too, we don't feel we want to be reminded—”

“All
she
did?” Jane said, astonished at the bitterness and even hatred in the woman's voice. Then she understood.

“You mean those art photographs, don't you?”

Mrs Burgess made a noise expressing both contempt and disgust.

“Art doesn't have to be filth,” she said. “To my mind you can have art without the—er—the altogether—”

“So you can,” said Jane, stung into argument. “But the nude can be an object of art, too. All the greatest painters in the world, and sculptors, have used naked figures in their works.”

She checked herself, knowing she could never alter the Burgesses' views on this matter. No wonder Sheila had refused to live at home. This house and these people explained nearly everything.

“That may be so,” Mrs Burgess answered. “I don't care much for pictures myself, nor figures in stone, either.”

She drew the chain of white beads through her fingers, then held it out to Jane.

“I'd like you to have them, Miss Wheelan,” she repeated. “I only wish she'd met up with you again sooner than she did. She needed a nice friend and she never found one, poor child.”

So she was a nice friend, was she, Jane wondered, following Mrs Burgess soberly down the stairs again. In spite of their difference of opinion. Perhaps almost because of it. The intricacies, the more delicate shades of snobbery were beyond her.

Mr Burgess and Tim were discussing rugby football over a glass of beer. They had clearly found Sheila a topic of limited interest.

Mrs Burgess, slightly flustered, found Jane and herself a cup of tea and as soon as the various beverages were drunk Jane said they had a long way to go and had better start back at once.

“You were a hell of a time upstairs,” Tim said, after a silence that lasted until they were clear of the town. “Was Ma Burgess upset or something?”

“No. I think they've got over the shock.”

“He has, certainly.”

“I think they've disapproved of Sheila for too long to feel great sorrow for her now. She obviously hated her home.”

“Can you blame her?”

“Not really. All loving care and no real affection or understanding. Mrs Burgess gave me these.”

She pulled the beads out of her bag. Tim glanced down at them.

“What are they?”

“Sheila's. She was wearing them in the train. They hadn't fallen off because she had them inside her jumper, Mrs Burgess said.”

“How odd. Or do girls often wear decorative necklaces out of sight.”

“Rather odd. If they were pearls, real ones, I might wear them like that for safety in travelling. Not ordinary white poppets.”

“White what?”

She broke the string of beads to show him how each head fitted into its neighbour.

“Useful, because you can have them any length you want,” she explained. “Have you really never seen poppets before?”

“Not consciously.”

Tim said no more about them until, much later in the day, after dining with Jane, he dropped her at the door of the flats. Then he said, quite suddenly, “About those beads. I remember now Sheila had white beads on in bed. When I was taking that plaster off—”

“They got in the way, you mean?”

“By no means. They were up round her neck. Quite a short strip of them. Not a ruddy great chain like you have there.”

“I told you. That's the whole point of poppets,” Jane said.

She pulled the chain out of her bag, demonstrated their mechanism once more and poured them back again. Then thanking Tim for a lovely afternoon and evening she turned away towards the front door.

He did not follow her. But after he had got back into the car he waited for a few minutes before driving away. He wanted to see the lights go on in the flat and know that she was safely home. Also he had remembered something more about Sheila's beads. It puzzled him, but he would have to wait until the morning, he knew, before he could set his mind at rest.

The second patient to be ushered into the X-ray Department the next morning by the nurse in charge of the waiting hall was Gerald Stone.

Jane was walking across the reception room of the department, on her way to take orders from Miss Gleaning when he came in. She stopped dead when she saw him, her heart racing.

Gerry grinned at her, swung out his left arm, which was in a sling and said, “Tripped myself up. It's my wrist.”

Miss Gleaning, who had been directing the first patient to the cubicles, turned her head.

“Tell Susan I'll use the number one room for that man. What's this? Query Colles, query scaphoid? They don't seem to have got very far. Take a straight film and get it done at once. They'll want him back in Casualty.”

“Yes, Miss Gleaning.”

The shock of his arrival had passed. Jane said, coldly, “Will you leave your coat and jacket in the second cubicle, please, and come back here.”

“I don't think I can manage,” he said, gently. “Won't you—?”

“Nurse will help you,” Jane said, moving away to give Miss Gleaning's message to Susan in the next room.

When she went back into the reception room she found Gerry sitting in a chair against the wall. The nurse had gone back to the waiting hall.

“Come this way, please,” Jane said. He got up and followed her meekly.

She settled him on the table, took his arm gently from the sling, rolling up his shirt sleeve above the elbow. She saw that the wrist was slightly swollen, but there was no displacement of the bones, no marked bruising. He made rather too much fuss over the way she moved his arm to place it in the right position for the picture.

“How did you do it?” she asked, presently.

“Tripped on some steps. Put my hand out to save myself. Ouch! Have a heart!”

“Sorry.”

She stepped back, swung the apparatus into position, arranged the correct exposure. Another girl came into the room.

“Miss Gleaning said she'd like me to see this.”

“Yes, Audrey.”

Had Miss Gleaning noticed the recognition? Probably. And had sent Audrey to put a stop to any unprofessional exchanges. The Gleaning could not know how grateful she was, Jane thought, laughing inwardly.

She instructed her junior carefully, took pictures in two positions, and removing the exposed films, went to the door.

“Will you take this patient back to his cubicle, please, Audrey,” she said. “He will need help with his jacket. I shouldn't bother about his overcoat. He'll have to go back to Casualty when we've got the result.”

She went briskly across reception to the entrance of the dark room. As she moved along the passage she heard Miss Gleaning say, “Audrey!” and a second later Gerry's voice.

“I can manage. Honestly. I'll just sling it round me.”

Jane got to work. The bones came up clear, sharp-edged. She was holding the two films on their frames, trying to identify the small wrist bones, when she heard a movement behind her and swung round. Gerry stood there.

“You can't come in here!” she said, tensely. She was very angry.

“Why not? It's my wrist, isn't it?” He moved closer, holding out his good hand.

“Patients are not allowed—”

“Oh, come off it! Listen. I must see you, Jane. There are things I must say to you. I've tried to get in touch. You were always out.”

“Not my fault. You didn't leave any proper message or anything.”

“I know. I can explain that. Look, when can I see you? Quick! Tell me!”

She had to get rid of him. Apart from anything else he was holding up the work. She ought to be taking the next case.

“All right,” she said. “I haven't got my diary here so it may be no good, but the day after tomorrow, evening, about six?”

“That'll be fine. I'll call for you.”

“Give me your phone number. In case I can't make it.”

He hesitated. But before he could answer, Miss Gleaning's voice, raised, was calling for Jane and a few seconds later she appeared in the dark room in person.

“Well!” she said, standing very stiffly in the doorway.

“This patient wanted to see the film—” Jane began.

“Have I done wrong?” Gerry asked. His voice was polite, confident, unrepentant, disarming. Miss Gleaning drew a deep breath.

“You must know perfectly well we can't have patients interfering with the work,” she said, more mildly than Jane would have thought possible. “Come with me, please.”

She stood aside for Gerry to pass out in front of her. Turning to Jane she said, “Let me see.”

She took the two frames, held them up, stared at them intently. “I should say a totally negative result,” she said in a low voice. “Wouldn't you?”

Jane nodded.

“I'll send him back with a note suggesting a possible scaphoid. They'll put him in plaster. Serve him right. Impudence.”

She was gone and Jane, after another look at the negatives, hung them up to dry. You couldn't really tell in the dark room if there was any bone injury or not. Dr Milton, viewing them properly, would have to give his opinion. Poor old Gerry. He hadn't won out on this, thanks to Miss Gleaning. Serve him right, as she'd said. But he certainly had damaged his wrist slightly. She wondered how this had really come about.

At the end of the morning she went to Casualty to see if they had reacted as Miss Gleaning hoped. Just as she expected G. Stone's wrist had been enclosed in a plaster and an appointment had been made for him to attend the orthopaedic surgeon's out-patient clinic in two days' time.

Two days from now. Her date with Gerry was on the same evening. She went on to find her lunch, thoughtful, not a little afraid.

But before this, in the middle of the morning, Miss Gleaning had sent her up to Alexandra Ward about a requisition form that had come down unsigned. Jane saw that Sister was busy at the end of the ward with one of the senior consultant physicians and his houseman. Presently, as she waited outside, occasionally taking a look through the glass upper panels of the double door, she saw the houseman move from the group at the bedside and walk briskly down the ward.

As he passed through the door, Jane accosted him.

“Do you mind? This form—it isn't signed. Miss Gleaning sent me up—”

The young man turned the paper in her hand without taking it from her.

“Not me,” he said. “Not one of my beds. Try Ferguson. Or Sister will tell you.”

He was gone, leaving Jane to shower curses impartially on all staff, both nursing and medical.

But the consultant's round had come to an end. He and Sister were pacing solemnly back down the ward, looking neither to right nor left, ignoring patients who smiled and waved and those others who leaned forward, half out of their beds, hoping to ask the question they had wanted to put since the last visit, but had had no chance to utter while the technical words flew backwards and forwards between the doctor and Sister over their prostrate, uncovered bodies. The consultant now deliberately ignored all overtures. He had already spoken briefly to all his patients in the ward, confirmed their treatment, or revised it; encouraged them by assurance of progress or exhorted them to have patience. Until he was quite out of their hearing he would not give his views or his orders to Sister.

Jane knew this. She stood back as the pair left the ward.

“Just carry on, Sister,” the consultant said, hardly pausing in his stride. “Mrs Winthrop's going downhill fast, isn't she?”

“Yes, sir. Her daughter knows. She comes up very regularly. She and her husband will be glad when it's over. They had her like this, in their own home, off and on, for five years.”

“Good for them. You can tell them there won't be any ‘off' this time. I give her a week, at most.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sister gave Mrs Winthrop forty-eight hours. She had watched her face during this last examination. Her expression confirmed the outlook, which was without hope. She had not been deceived by the physician's bland manner. So now she would stop fighting; she would allow herself the peace of acceptance.

“That wretched young neurotic next door upset her a lot, didn't she? While she was in.”

“Miss Burgess? Yes. I think she did. She was a very disturbing factor in the ward all the time she was in. Even if it was only a few days.”