Second Opinion (6 page)

‘I’m Dr Barnabas,’ she said crisply. ‘And I think you’d be better off waiting outside. You don’t look too wonderful. Smells a bit in here, doesn’t it?’

The boy went even paler and closed his eyes for a moment and she said sharply, ‘Steady! Just lean on the wall and when you feel able, get out —’

‘Hey there, Dr B., you pushin’ my officers around again? Ain’t you got enough of your own people to bully?’

‘I do not bully!’ she said wrathfully, turning round, realizing at last to whom Harold Constant had been talking. ‘And well you know it, Gus! I was in fact showing the guy a bit of sympathy, which is more than you’d do for them. Look at him! He’s as green and sweaty as an old cheese. Let him go, for heaven’s sake.’

‘If he’s green and sweaty, all the more reason for him to stay,’ DCI Hathaway said, peering into the young policeman’s face. ‘Are you green and sweaty, Chester? Shame on you! You ought to know better. Stop it at once and settle down.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the young policeman said, staring woodenly
over Hathaway’s head, and George made a sharp noise of irritation through her teeth and turned back to the slabs.

‘OK. He’s your guy, you bully him your way if you must. But if he keels over don’t expect my staff to pick him up. You can do it yourself.’

‘He wouldn’t dare,’ Gus said amiably. ‘Would you, Chester? No. Knows better’n to do any faintin’ around me. I’d murder him.’

‘And I’d be glad to give evidence to that effect at your trial and see you well banged up,’ George snapped and the young policeman began to look a little better, clearly enjoying the sight of Detective Chief Inspector Hathaway getting his share, as he was later to describe the episode to his mates in the canteen at Ratcliffe Street nick. But Hathaway only chuckled, winked at Chester and went back to his talk with Harold Constant, who was looking far from pleased.

‘Three in one afternoon,’ Harold muttered to George as she settled to dealing with the first body. ‘Sorry to throw it at you in such a rush, but there’s some question of one of ‘em having had a heart attack before the crash and besides we think one of ‘em’s a bloke we want over a bit of naughty with other people’s cars. That’s why I’m here, o’course. Wouldn’t usually hang around a routine RTA, would I? No. Anyway, we have to know as soon as possible, so as to sort out the legalities. There’s some problem over the insurance, wouldn’t you just know, as well as someone wanting to sue —’

‘Which one?’ George asked as she pulled on her gloves and again flexed her heavy left hand. This would be her first adult PM since her return and dealing with a sizeable adult body was harder work than an infant’s, especially when there was rigor present, as there was in the bodies she now had to deal with. Stiff muscles in the corpse and weak muscles in the operator, she thought at the back of her mind, add up to a hell of a lot of hard work. Oh well, the
sooner I find out if I’m up to it the better. Like that young copper learning how to stand throughout a PM without passing out, I suppose. She looked up and caught Gus’s eye and he winked at her companionably. She smiled back involuntarily. Dammit, it is fun to see the old bastard again, she thought. She’d missed the laughs.

It was a long afternoon as she went doggedly through the three cadavers, but at the end of it the answers were clear enough and Harold Constant went off in a much more cheerful frame of mind.

‘I’ll let ‘em know, then. The chap in the Rover had the heart attack and that was why he swerved and hit the Nissan head on. That’s going to sort out a lot of trouble. The other passenger in the Nissan was all set to sue the survivor of the Rover crash for dangerous driving and she’s in no state to cope with anything, poor thing. She’s up in intensive care now. Ta, Dr Barnabas. Helps a lot to have this so clear and so soon.’

‘My pleasure,’ she said and turned to go to her shower and change of clothes, but Gus stopped her as the room emptied and Danny stowed away the bodies one by one, ready for the undertakers to collect.

‘Here, hang about a bit!’ Gus called in an aggrieved tone. ‘Haven’t set eyes on you this past month and there you are slopin’ off like I ain’t here! Do me a favour!’

‘Of course you’ve seen me!’ she said. ‘You came to visit me in Dagmar Ward.’

‘Oh, that.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘You can’t count that. You was in that flippin’ box and I had to stand outside and shout through the bleedin’ glass. That’s not visiting someone, is it?’

‘It’s the only possible way when the patient has an infection that could be nasty,’ George said. Although she wouldn’t admit it to him for the world, she did in fact agree that being shouted at through a double layer of glass was hardly satisfactory communication.

‘Well, fair enough. Glad to see you up an’ about, anyway. You quite fit again?’ He looked at her a little sharply and his voice had a gruff note, and she was touched. That his concern was genuine was undoubted and she smiled at him.

‘I’m fine, Gus. Just fine. And you?’

‘Oh, me, I’m as chipper as a mouse what’s broken through the larder door. More work’n we know what to do with and half the force off with ingrowing toenails —’

‘Ingrowing —’

‘Oh, they’ve got their bloody doctors to call it flu, but I know lead swingin’ when I see it.’

‘I’d like to see you with this current flu!’ George said. ‘You’d be moaning and groaning like a — like a —’

‘Yeah, well I haven’t got it, so you can’t. And you’re wrong. When I’m poorly, take it from me, I’m as good as gold. Give me a bottle of Scotch and the papers and I’ll get better so fast you won’t even miss me. So, any news around the place?’

‘News?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve only been back on duty a day or so! No time yet to collect all that’s going on. When I do, you’ll be the last to know, I promise.’

‘Mean cow,’ he said amiably. ‘Life blood to a copper, gossip is, and she won’t share it.’

‘I will when it’s necessary. Now, can I go and change?’

‘Into what? Fairy Fanny on a fir tree?’

‘Very funny. Oh, shit!’ She lifted both hands in the air and made fists of them. ‘I meant to talk to Constant. I bet he’s gone.’

‘Hang on, I’ll see if I can catch him for you,’ Gus said at once and went, his check overcoat streaming behind him and his curly hair bouncing in its usual energetic fashion. George followed him more slowly. It was unlikely Constant was still around, no need to hurry; but she had been warmed by Gus’s immediate willingness to find him for her. It
was
good to see him again, and maybe not just for the laughs.

As she reached the door of her changing room, Gus reappeared at the far end of the corridor with Constant in tow. The fat man was puffing a little and she thought with a stab of amusement that Gus, stocky and hard muscled as he was, looked, at a good four inches shorter, like a particularly self-important tug pulling a singularly heavy liner and she laughed.

‘What’s the rush?’ Constant was clearly aggrieved. ‘I have to get back to the office with this stuff urgently, you know.’

‘Which was why you was dallyin’ with Madam Sheila up there and having a nice little natter?’ Gus said and Constant threw him a murderous look. ‘It won’t take a mo’, will it, Dr B?’

Now George looked at him murderously. ‘It’s private,’ she said shortly. But Gus laughed.

‘Do me a favour, darlin’! Since when do you have private discussions with old Harold here? Don’t make me go jumpin’ to any conclusions. I will if you insist on whisperin’ sweet nothings into his ear.’

George turned her back, knowing from experience when to stop arguing with him, and looked at Constant, who was clearly itching to get away. ‘It’s not much, Harold,’ she said. ‘It’s the Popodopoulos baby — I’m still not happy about that one. I don’t think I can sign the certificate, you know. Will you tell Dr Porteous and —’

‘Oh that’s all right,’ Harold’s face had cleared. ‘That’s gone through.’

‘What?’ She frowned. ‘But I haven’t signed! I sent up the preliminary report and —’

‘That’s right. Cot death, yes? And Dr Porteous went ahead and settled it all with the parents. They wanted the funeral right away, it’s the way they do things in their church, apparently. They wanted to get it over and done with and Dr Porteous, being such a caring man’ — Harold almost smirked — ‘he agreed. So there’s no problem. Can I go now? I really must get back.’

‘But goddamn it all, I haven’t signed —’ George began but Harold shook his head.

‘Doesn’t matter, Dr Barnabas, you know that. It’s up to the coroner to decide, ‘n’t it? And on the basis of your preliminary report he agreed the funeral could go ahead. You haven’t discovered something new, have you?’ He looked at her sharply. ‘That’d make a difference, of course, if you had. It’d be a right mess if we had to stop the funeral, of course, but if you say there is something new …’

‘No,’ she said a little unwillingly. ‘There’s nothing to add to what I’ve already told him. It’s just that I’m not comfortable …’

‘Oh, well.’ Harold was clearly relieved as he turned to go. ‘If that’s all, no problems. Better be off. Thanks for all this stuff so quickly, Dr Barnabas, it’s a great help.’ And he was gone, pounding back along the corridor and panting his way up the stairs to the way out like a self-satisfied hippo.

‘And you said nothin’ interesting had happened,’ Gus said reproachfully. ‘What’s all this then?’

‘Like I said, nothing,’ she muttered irritably, turning to go into her dressing room. ‘No affair of yours, that’s for sure. ‘Bye, Gus. See you around.’ And she went in and closed the door firmly behind her. Bad enough the coroner had in effect dismissed her; no way was she going to give Gus the chance to do the same.

But when she came out, freshly scented with quantities of shower gel and body cream and her hair still curling damply from its quick shampoo — because she couldn’t bear the possibility that despite her precautions her hair might still smell of anything it shouldn’t — and went back to her office, there he was, sitting on the edge of her desk and shamelessly reading his way through a pile of her papers.

She snatched them from him and went round to sit down. ‘Haven’t you got a job to go to?’ she snapped, glaring at him.

‘It’s really great,’ he said admiringly. ‘The way you learn.
Another year or two around me and you’ll be talkin’ proper English, just like what I do. Yes, I
have
got a job to go to. I’ve gone to it. What’s this about a baby you wouldn’t sign a certificate for that the coroner’s shoved through as a natural death?’

‘It’s none of your —’ she began, but he stopped her firmly.

‘Listen, Dr B., I’m not going for that. You taught me good over the Oxford case, you taught me good and proper to pay attention to your notions. I said Oxford was a natural death and you said it wasn’t. I was wrong, you were right. Now you say this cot death’s suspicious and the coroner doesn’t —’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not the same, Gus, honestly. Last time was — well, that was then. This is — it was a baby in Maternity, found dead. The only thing that bothered me was that someone had stuck a note on the PM request form pointing out this was the third such death there in five months. I didn’t know about the other two on account of being off sick, and when I tried to find out who’d written the note, I drew a blank. No one seems to know. I haven’t asked everyone, though, and I dare say someone’ll tell me, and it’ll all turn out to be nothing. That was all, really.’

She stopped and thought a while, then continued a little unwillingly. ‘Except for the fact that this diagnosis of cot death is one I can’t handle. I mean, it’s not a diagnosis at all. It’s just a description of what happened, and it gives you no information on
why
it happened. And you know me, I can’t stand mysteries …’

‘You’re telling me,’ he said with some feeling. ‘Like I said, I remember last time. Look, doll, put it on the line. Is this a dicey one or not? If it is, I’ll have to look into it, though I hate these cases. You have to investigate the parents, and they suffer hell over it, poor devils.’

She looked at him sharply and then smiled. He was a good old soul, after all was said and done, she thought,
using his own sort of language inside her head. He means kindly.

‘I don’t know,’ she said candidly. ‘I’m possibly just making dramas where none exist, but there it is — the business niggles at me.’

‘Then listen to your niggles,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘What can you do about them?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t repeat the PM to see if there’s anything I missed, though to be really honest, I don’t think I did. It was my first case since getting back, so I was — well, that bit more aware of what I was doing, you know? I’m always careful, but this one I, like, walked on eggs. Even if I did manage another PM on the body — which I can’t get, seeing the funeral’s been given the go-ahead — I doubt I’d find anything.’

‘So this is an academic conversation?’ he said. ‘Just talk for the sake of it?’

‘I could dig out the notes of the other two, I suppose,’ George said, ignoring the little dig.

‘The ones the note mentioned?’ His voice sharpened. ‘The mysterious note?’

‘Yup. Those.’

‘Hmm! Will that be easy?’

‘Don’t know till I try.’

‘Will you try?’

‘I’m not sure …’ She knew she was prevaricating and so did he.

‘Come off it. You’re going to. And when you have, let me know what you’ve found out, right?’

‘Only if it’s significant,’ she said and he shook his head in exasperation.

‘Why? Aren’t we a team, for Gawd’s sake?’

‘When it suits you we are. If you prefer to keep me out then you do. Take that matter of the woman who’d been tied up in all those pairs of stockings back in the spring. And the man with the ankle bracelets, and the —’

‘They were different,’ he said loftily. ‘No medical input needed with them. But if you find there was hanky panky about the way those babies died, why, then —’

‘Why, then I’ll consider what I want to do about it.’ She got to her feet. ‘I have work to do, Gus. How’s about you?’

‘“I like potato chips, moonlight and motor trips, how’s about you?”‘ he sang but he got to his feet. ‘Yeah, I ought to get back. Check all the paperwork on this RTA. I shouldn’t ha’ been involved at all, really — it’s not one for CID, but traffic branch got their knickers in a twist over some insurance fuss, so there you go. And there’s me with my own work piling up, as the —’