No Escape (22 page)

Jane led him to the Casualty entrance, the only open door in the hospital at that time of night. Looking at the clock on the wall at the entrance, she was astonished to see that it was only just after eleven. As before, when she had been with Gerry, time had seemed to stretch out interminably, but really had been no longer than she would expect.

She nodded to the porter as she went in and he nodded back. Gerry was just behind her. She heard the porter say, “One moment, sir—”

“Mr Stone is with me,” Jane said, stopping and speaking over her shoulder. “We're just going to X-ray to look at his film.”

Gerry was furious, but he said nothing. They walked on.

“That gag was not in the script,” he said, tensely, when they were out of earshot.

“I had to say something. It's true, isn't it? You do want to see your film?”

“I want to see the film you stole.”

So that was it. Sheila's film. Hadn't he guessed by now? When his activities had been so largely exposed? When that wretched young man had died?

“I did
not
steal a film. Ever.”

“You stole a film belonging to Sheila Burgess.”

“I found a film on the floor of her room. I meant to give it back to her. But she left the hospital too soon.”

“She was here for several days.”

“I tell you I forgot at first. How did I know then that it was important?”

“How d'you know now?”

They had reached the X-ray Department. Jane led the way in, switching on the lights, her heart sinking as she did so, for she had hoped to find the place occupied with some emergency, a junior staff using the apparatus.

“Give me that film.” Gerry said, stopping her as she moved away from the switches.

She was exasperated.

“You know perfectly well I haven't got it!” she cried. “You must know. Otherwise, why—?”

She stopped. His face terrified her. He caught her wrist.

“You killed Sheila Burgess!” he said, glaring down at her. “If you'd given her back the film she'd have been alive now. She was holding out on me at the end, but she'd have given up that film.”

“It was not my fault,” Jane answered. His accusation touched her never-quenched guilt, but beside his, her fault was negligible.

“You ruined her,” she went on, wildly. “You and your drugs and your beastly film and those poor silly clots who think it's smart and that miserable boy who wanted to tell me—
You
destroyed Sheila between you. I asked you on that boat and I ask you again now. When she finally defied you, did you push her into the river? You did, didn't you? You meant her to drown, to look like a suicide. You did, didn't you?
Didn't you
?”

She was on her own ground, she knew there were people awake and working, very near her. She imagined herself safe from direct attack. Already she had heard footsteps passing in the corridor outside the room. One scream would bring help. He wouldn‘t dare—

She had not yet understood Gerry's twisted mind, its vicious cunning. He let her go on with her accusations until she stopped, out of breath. Then he said, quite mildly, “I see I can't say anything to convince you I had nothing whatever to do with Sheila's death. I wanted her film because I wanted to protect her. Now show me the picture of my wrist and then I'll go home.”

Jane thought she had won. She did not believe him, but she thought her determination had put him off any intention he might have had of harming her. She got out the film, which the department held, since his notes had come back from Out-Patients marked ‘Did not attend for treatment.'

When he had looked at it and she had explained which of the small bones was the scaphoid and how difficult it was to detect a fracture in it, he nodded, handed back the film and walking away moved down the passage that led to the developing room.

“Come back,” Jane cried, following him. “That's not the way out. You can't get out that way.”

“And nor can you,” Gerry said, snatching her wrist and swinging her in front of him. “Nor will you ever—my dear.”

Jane shrank away from him, cursing herself bitterly. How had he known she would follow him? Why hadn't she made a dash for the outer door, into the corridor, away across Out-Patients to Casualty? Now it was too late. She had no doubt at all of his present intention.

He took a knife from his pocket. Seeing her mouth open to scream he smiled a little.

“It won't be heard,” he said. “I'm not going to use it on you, anyway. Unless you try anything stupid.”

He crouched away from her suddenly. He was fiddling with the power switch in the wall, his back to her. She dared not move. He had the knife. She had nothing.

Presently Gerry crossed behind her to the developing tank. He dropped into it the two long leads he had connected.

“Accidents will happen,” he said. “You will be found to have been electrocuted, but as I shall take away these leads, no one will know how you managed to do it.”

Jane flung herself towards the power switch but Gerry was too quick for her. He spun her round, caught her hands together and dragged her towards the tank. She saw that he was wearing rubber gloves. Even in her extreme terror, she noticed how they slipped on her skin as she twisted and turned in his grasp. At one moment she had freed herself, but Gerry, tearing off the hampering gloves, caught hold of her again and she knew that the struggle could have only one end.

But at that moment a clear voice called from the receiving room, “Miss Wheelan!”

Gerry froze, one hand flung across Jane's mouth. She saw the glint of the knife in the other.

“Miss Wheelan!” The voice was louder. “Where are you, Miss Wheelan?”

Footsteps sounded quite near.

“Who?” breathed Gerry, taking his hand from her mouth.

“My boss,” she whispered back. “He's coming in here.”

“Miss Wheelan!” The voice was nearer still. Dr Milton stood at the threshold, peering in. “Didn't you hear me call? What are you doing in here? Come out at once. I have a job for you to do—”

She obeyed mechanically. As she followed Dr Milton she glanced round. Gerry had disappeared. But she knew where he was. There was only one place where he could hide and that was below the tank just behind where she had been standing.

Outside in the lighted room Dr Milton was blinking, impatient.

“Come along,” he said, raising his voice. “Emergency—Fracture—”

Jane was astonished, bewildered, inclined to laugh hysterically at Dr Milton's quite ridiculous, unmedical mode of speech. But he had her by the arm. hurrying her across the room and out into the corridor. Garrod, with two other plain-clothes officers, was standing there.

They closed in round the pair.

“Back to the front hall,” Garrod said, briefly, turning away.

Dr Milton, still grasping Jane's arm, hurried her along. The other men stayed where they were, guarding the two doors into the X-ray Department.

“Now,” said Garrod, when they reached the main entrance. “Now, Miss Wheelan, is Stone in there?”

“Yes,” she answered. “He was just going to kill me.”

She swayed a little, feeling, in the midst of her surging thankfulness, a weakening in all her bones.

“Sit down,” said Dr Milton, helping her to a seat.

“Take your time, Miss Wheelan,” Garrod urged, not wishing her to faint, but anxious to hear her story as quickly as possible.

Jane smiled at him. She related her arrival at the tow-path, the events on the launch, quite uninteresting up to the moment when the river patrol played their searchlight over the boat.

“That put an end to the party,” Jane said. “They couldn't have faded quicker. Unfortunately just as Tim—”

She stopped. She had given him away, good and proper. Even now he must be waiting for her at the flat, if Mary had let him in.

“I must tell him I'm here,” she said, urgently. “I must ring him up at once!”

“Where d'you expect him to be?” Garrod asked, with a tight look on his face that frightened her. “Was he with you at this party?”

“Not exactly,” she said, miserably. “He came, but I didn't see him or speak to him until the mad rush to the shore began. Then he was just going to take me across in the boat he was in when Gerry jumped the queue to the one in front. I daren't refuse to go with him. Besides, you wanted me to—”

“I wanted no more interference from that young man,” Garrod exploded. “Serves him right what he got—”

“I don't understand,” Jane said, wildly. “He was going back to my flat to wait for me and see Gerry didn't start anything.”

“But he didn't do that at all. He thought he'd snoop a bit on the launch. He was lucky to get out of it alive.”

“Oh
no
!”

Jane had not heard the end of Garrod's complaint. She was on her feet, white-faced and trembling. A small party of men, two of them in the uniform of police car patrols, were moving along the corridor. Jane saw the figure between them, jeans and sweater and bare feet, hair still wet, plastered to his forehead, a dripping bundle in his hand.

She ran forward, her own recent plight quite forgotten. She put her arms round him and held him close.

“Oh, Tim, darling,” she said, half crying, half laughing. “Not
again
!”

Tim hugged her then and stroked her hair, for the tears had won and she was weeping most satisfactorily on his shoulder and all the others looking on, amused and a little touched, until Garrod barked out, “Dr Long, may I have your attention, please!”

“Surely,” said Tim, lifting his head, but not otherwise altering his position. “I'd like yours, too. I have positive proof of Winter's and Bream's drug smuggling—”

“That can wait,” Garrod snapped. “If you mean those plastic bottle buoys, our chaps picked one up at the mouth of the Thames, plus a load of dope, a week ago. Now listen to me.”

He explained that Gerry Stone was still in the hospital, that he was armed, probably with a gun as well as the knife with which he had threatened Jane. He explained what Stone had proposed to do to her, had planned all the time to do to her, and how Dr Milton had organised and carried out her rescue. It had been entirely Dr Milton's idea.

“I happened to be up here finishing an article I'm writing,” Dr Milton said, in his usual stiff way. “I needed some papers from my office. I wondered why the department was lit up though nothing was going on there. I went out again to make inquiries. The Superintendent met me and told me the position. They had followed Miss Wheelan here and the porter told them she had gone in with Stone. They were getting anxious.”

“So he's in there still,” Garrod said. “I've sent for reinforcements. I got men outside the windows as soon as the light went up in the department. He must know it's hopeless. But I gather from Dr Milton he could do a lot of damage if we tried to rush him where he's hiding.”

“Why not throw the main switch,” Tim suggested, inspired by the electrical details he had heard. “He'll think it's a power cut and that he can get out in the dark and confusion. Give him, say, three minutes, then switch on again and go straight in. I bet he'll be groping about in the department by then. You could rush him in the open, couldn't you?”

Garrod nodded. Actually he had taken the precaution to arm himself and his two chief assistants. He was unwilling to be guided by Tim, who had caused him so much trouble, but the young man's suggestion had a good deal of sense in it and he felt it was worth trying.

The night porter, who was enjoying the whole scene, as he said later, “more than what they gave on the tele,” now said, eagerly, “Shall I get Bert on the blower, sir?”

“Electrician,” said Tim. “I know him. Shall I go along?”

“O.K.,” said Garrod. One of the car patrol went with him.

A few minutes later the whole hospital was plunged in darkness. There were a few exclamations, a few distant cries and shouts, nothing more. Each ward and department had its own drill for power cuts. Tim and the night staff in the electrician's department saw that all the emergency lighting and heating was working satisfactorily. It took less than three minutes to check the various dials and make a few adjustments.

“Now switch on again,” Tim said, leaving at a run.

He was too late to hear the high-pitched scream that rang through the X-ray Department a few seconds after the lights came up. But he was there when the two police officers, Garrod and Dr Milton burst into the receiving room.

There was no one there.

When Jane had left the dark room with Dr Milton, Gerry stayed hidden under the tanks for several minutes, astounded by his ill-luck, furious, half afraid. It was not in his nature to accept failure of any kind, a handicap that had made him suffer more than once before in his life, a moral blindness born in him, ineradicable. Because of it he had not understood at all Jane's fundamental integrity, apart altogether from her trained principles of outlook and behaviour. His commerce with feebler spirits, such as Sheila Burgess, had blunted any power he might ever have had of assessing character. So, crouched in the dim red light of the developing room, he raged profitlessly, cursed at fate, tried to plan revenge. Until, cooling a little, he saw that his prime necessity was escape.

It was at this moment that the red light snapped off, leaving him in total darkness. This was the end. A power cut. The end? Why not a beginning?

He was not so ignorant of hospitals and their ways that he did not know there would be emergency lighting. But surely it would not apply on this occasion to a department out of action? He had not been deceived by Dr Milton's order to Jane. He did not believe in any emergency fracture. Whatever the doctor wanted with the girl, it had nothing to do with medicine. For no sounds of activity in the room beyond had come to him after the two had gone away. He was sure no picture was being taken. Besides, if it had, Jane would have been back in the dark room with a film to develop.