Barbara Cleverly - Not My Blood

“We came here for Spielman, not to put Bentink’s psyche under the microscope,” Joe reminded them.

“We may not know what we’re looking for, but we ought to make a serious start and stop casting about like a pack of masterless hounds,” was Gosling’s suggestion.

“Just one more ward,” Joe advised. “Keep your heads down. We’ve still got company! And we do know what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the Lethal Chamber,” he said grimly.

“Don’t be mealy mouthed! The Killing Room, in blunt old Anglo-Saxon,” Dorcas said. “We won’t find it anywhere close to these scenes of well-regulated medical care.”

“Where’s she taking us, sir?” Gosling wanted to know as they left the Edith Cavell Ward and their pace along the corridor accelerated.

Dorcas stopped, looking about her, and spoke urgently to them. “We’ve been given free rein, so he’s very confident we’ll find nothing. But I’m not wandering into this maze completely clueless. Think of the architecture-flat roof, so nothing over our heads. Modern, so no archaic features like cellars and basements. It’ll be on the ground floor with easy access to the rear for entry and disposal. Away from public and patient areas. Only one way to go. The animal research lab. No casual enquirer would go into that menagerie out of choice.”

Minutes later they stood surveying cages and operating benches in a very long room, empty and scrubbed clean. White tiles and chrome pipes gleamed. The air was redolent of pine-scented disinfectant.

“Nothing here,” Gosling said, running a careful eye around the walls. “All activity abandoned, you’d say. A dead end.”

He jumped, startled, to find a green-coated technician had appeared at his side.

After a soft cry of recognition, Dorcas seized the stranger by the sleeve and drew him forwards. “George, Joe, this is someone I know. It’s Adam. He’s one of the animal stewards. He cares for the creatures in their main quarters in the village and presents them here in the holding cages ready for experimentation and … clears up afterward.”

“Miss Joliffe!” The red-haired boy could not have been more than seventeen. He had eyes only for Dorcas, and his pale, sharp features flooded with relief. “I saw you come. My letter? You got it?”

“I did, Adam. That’s why we’re here. Thank you. Wheels in motion. These two gentlemen are inspectors from London. They’ll know what to do. Not much time. What have you to show us?”

“We should be all right. I watched the boss take off in his Rolls for the station a quarter of an hour ago. You were tracked as far as Cavell Ward. Then Matron decided you were a waste of time, gave up, and went for a cuppa.” He looked anxiously behind him. “Or else she passed on the baton.”

“I don’t believe we were followed this far,” Joe said.

Adam gave an uneasy grin. “Don’t be too sure. You didn’t see me . Nobody sees a bloke in a green coat pushing a trolley. And I’m one of a dozen. So prepare for a swift bailout. There’s a back exit. You needn’t cross Matron again.”

“This is where the boss torments baby animals?” Joe said, looking about him at the cheerless cages with dismay.

“Sir!” Adam turned an anxious look on him. “That’s bad enough, but it’s worse than that. Tell him, Miss Joliffe!”

“Yes, Miss Joliffe,” Joe said invitingly, turning to her with a politely enquiring expression. “You’ve got our attention! Something you’ve been working towards for quite a while. Perhaps you’ll tell us why you’ve lured us to this charming spot?”

“I told you about the experiment that was abandoned. There were six of us students present to witness the torment. You can’t imagine what an inferno of pain and screams this room was! Afterward, three of the students went away to write up notes, and three of us stayed behind.”

“It took courage, sir,” said Adam stoutly. “I was proud to hear them speak out!”

“We faced up to the professor and demolished-at the time we thought we were demolishing-his experiment in no uncertain terms. We gave him what for, Joe.”

“Ouch! And his response?”

“He demolished us . All three of us. Sacked us on the spot. ‘Leave the hospital at once!’ What’s more, he told us we lacked the qualities to be students of psychology in his university and he was going to have the Chancellor strike us off.”

“But you didn’t leave it there?”

“No. I went straight to Sir James and told him everything. He listened. He laughed at me and explained that no laws of any kind had been broken and that his brother-in-law had a point. This was a scientific field of enquiry. He thought I was being overemotional, but he was sympathetic. He talked to people, and the upshot was that all three of us were quietly reinstated. We never came back here, of course.”

“Until today.”

“Adam had seen the whole grisly scene, and afterward he helped me.”

“With information, sir. And I warned her as how there were other things-worse things-no students ever clapped eyes on, and she gave me her address at the university.”

“Three weeks ago I got a note from Adam. I rushed round to James to show him, and he was shocked. He’d suspected his brother-in-law was capable and probably culpable of unpleasant behaviour-”

“Hold it there, Dorcas. Why suspected? Who had alerted him? Did you ask yourself? Bentink doesn’t go about with A for Arsehole branded on his forehead.”

“He didn’t say, but I believed him when he said he’d no idea how far it went. He could hardly take on Bentink, the most respected psychologist in the country and a director of a prestigious hospital with royal funding. The British Establishment will do anything to avoid a hint of a scandal. You know that, Joe; you’re a part of it. You and Gosling, both. James thought the best plan was to attack this … this … cancer with a scalpel. He spoke with Commissioner Trenchard, and they decided to get the evidence-clandestinely if necessary-then face him with his iniquity and force him into a discreet resignation at the least, the gun and the brandy on the terrace with MI5 to witness it at best.”

“Heavens!” Joe said. “What on earth did you put in your letter, Adam? That resulted in me -an honest copper-being shoved down this rat hole like a ferret?”

White-faced and earnest, the boy squared up to him. “I need this job, sir. I don’t go getting into mischief lightly. The animals, I get too fond of ’em. I know that, and I can hide it-master it, needs must. If I weren’t here, looking out for them, there’s those who aren’t too particular. But what I can’t stomach is the children, sir.”

“Children?” Gosling exclaimed in disgust. “They allow children to come down here? What are they thinking of? It’s not a zoo!”

“You haven’t understood, sir!” Adam’s anguish was hobbling his tongue. He struggled to force out: “Animals are not good enough for his purposes, it seems. He’s moved on to humans. Children.”

“He’s not the first, Joe. There are rumours that Pavlov himself was not content to experiment with dogs. He worked on children.”

“Pavlov? But he’s Russian! This isn’t bloody Russia!”

“Come and have a look next door, sir. That’s where it all goes on.”

Adam went to the far side of the room and produced a key from his pocket. He slid aside a chrome panel to reveal a keyhole.

“Ah. The Locked Door! A touch of the Gothick at last in this monument to modernity!” Gosling’s light remark covered his fear and incredulity, Joe thought.

The space beyond proved to be a suite of three rooms. The two smaller ones were study and filing space for documents. The largest was evidently the operating theatre, though Joe struggled to find a different word, a word to encompass the horrors he sensed had occurred in this grotesque space.