Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

She dabbed on some antiseptic and then plunged the needle in.

‘Jesus.’

A woman in a white coat appeared in the room while he still had his finger pressed to the piece of cotton wool the nurse had placed over the injection mark.

‘Superintendent Diamond?’

He didn’t respond. Who wanted to socialise at a time like this?

‘I’m Christine Snell. I don’t think we’ve met.’

The nurse put a Band-Aid over the injection and said, ‘I’ll leave you with the patient, Doctor.’

He said to Christine Snell, ‘You’re a doctor?’

‘That’s why I’m here. How’s Steph, by the way?’

Another friend. His thoughts took a lurch towards paranoia. Steph’s friends, between them, had him over a barrel.

She said, ‘Your blood pressure is slightly on the high side. We shouldn’t neglect it. Do you smoke?’

‘No. And the answer to the next question is yes, the occasional one.’

‘So how do you cope with stress?’

‘What stress?’

‘Overwork.’

‘Underwork, in my case.’

‘Potentially even more stressful. It kills a lot of people. Have you got any hobbies?’

‘Like collecting beermats?’ said Diamond. ‘You’re trying to catch me out, Doctor. No, I don’t do anything you would call a hobby.’

‘Maybe you should.’

‘I’ll think it over,’ he conceded. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if the nurse just now got an exaggerated reading.’

Her eyes widened and the start of a smile appeared.

‘Not that,’ said Diamond. ‘I was annoyed. Doesn’t that increase it? I can’t help feeling I was fitted up for this. I came here because of the cat-bite, but last night, before I was bitten, Steph was on about my blood pressure.’

The smile surfaced fully. ‘Do you know what Kai Lung said?’

‘I’ve never heard of Kai Lung.’

‘I think I have it right,’ said Dr Snell.’ ‘It is proverbial that from a hungry tiger and an affectionate woman there is no escape.” Seems rather apt, in your case.’

While Rose and Ada were waiting to speak to Dr Whitfield, a refreshment trolley came by and Ada’s hand, quick as a lizard, whipped two doughnuts off it and into her bag, unseen by the woman in charge. ‘Elevenses,’ she said in justification.

‘Does that count as a meal?’

‘It’s over two hours since breakfast.’

The breakfast the foreign girl Hildegarde had cooked to Ada’s order had been enough to fortify Rose for hours yet. She could still taste the delicious bacon.

Bizarrely, the appointments secretary was announcing something about eggs.

‘That’s you,’ said Ada.

‘Me?’

‘Rose X.’

‘Dr Whitfield will see you now,’ said the secretary. ‘Room Nine, at the top of the stairs.’

‘Stairs. I knew it,’ Ada complained.

‘You don’t have to come with me.’

‘I do. Someone’s got to fight your corner.’

The door of Room 9 stood open. Dr Whitfield got up from behind his desk to greet them. He was shorter than he looked from the level of a hospital bed. ‘Have you got it back yet?’

Rose shook her head.

‘Not even a glimmer?’

‘Nothing at all. This is my friend Ada Shaftsbury.’ Ada’s hand must have been sticky from the doughnut, because after shaking it Dr Whitfield took a tissue from the packet on his desk. ‘So how can I help you?’ he asked after they were seated.

‘We’d like to speak to the lady who found me.’

Dr Whitfield was slow in responding. He made a performance of wiping his hand and letting the tissue drop into a bin. ‘I doubt if that would help.’

‘I want to know exactly where I was found.’

‘I told you. In the car park.’

‘Yes, but I’d like the lady to show me where.’

‘Not possible, I’m afraid. She doesn’t work here. As I think I explained, she’s the wife of a patient.’

Buoyed up by Ada’s substantial presence, Rose said, ‘It’s a free country. I can ask her, can’t I?’

‘I really can’t see the point in troubling her,’ Dr Whitfield said.

This was too much for Ada. She waded in. ‘Troubling her? What about my friend here? What about the trouble she’s in? Hey, doc, let’s get our priorities straight before we go any further. This is your patient asking for help. She wants a face to face with this woman, whoever she is. She’s entitled to know exactly where she was found and what was going on at the time.’

‘I don’t think there’s any mystery about that,’ Dr Whitfield started to say.

‘Fine,’ said Ada, ‘so what’s the woman’s name and address?’

‘Look, the lady in question acted very responsibly. She came straight in and got help. It was as simple as that.’

‘So what are you telling us?’

‘I’m saying I don’t want her put through the third degree. She’s an elderly lady.’

‘Tough tittie, doc.’ Ada rested her hands on his desk, leaned over it and said, ‘You think my friend would duff up the old lady who came to her rescue?’

He gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Not at all’

‘Well, then?’

Dr Whitfield must have sensed he wasn’t going to win this one. ‘If it’s this important, I suppose it can be arranged. But I think it might be wise to speak to Mrs Thornton alone.’

Pointedly excluding Ada, he said to Rose, ‘I suggest if you want to meet her that you come back this afternoon. She visits her husband every day between two and four. See me first and I’ll introduce you.’

Progress at last.

‘There’s something else, Doctor.’ Rose spoke up for herself. ‘I’m puzzled about this head injury. I’ve examined my head. I can’t find any cuts or bruising.’

‘Neither did I,’ said Dr Whitfield.

She frowned, unable to understand.

‘It doesn’t follow that you had a crack on the skull at all,’ he went on. ‘You get concussion from a shaking of the brain. A jolt to the neck would do it just as easily.’

‘You mean if I was struck by a car and my head rocked back?’

‘That’s exactly what I had in mind.’

Rose prepared to leave.

‘There’s something else I should mention,’ the doctor said. ‘When you get your memory back it’s quite on the cards that you still won’t remember anything about the accident. It may be a mystery forever.’

‘I hope not.’

‘It’s a common effect known as retrograde amnesia. The patient has no recall of the events immediately before the concussion happened.’

‘I could accept that, if I could only get back the rest of my memory. This has gone on for three days already. Are you sure there isn’t permanent damage to my brain?’

He put his hand supportively over hers. ‘Nobody fully understands how the memory works, but it has a wonderful capacity for recovery. Something will make a connection soon, and you’ll know it’s coming back.’

She and Ada went downstairs and walked in the grounds. Through the trees they could hear the steady drone of traffic on the motorway.

Rose felt deeply disheartened. ‘What am I going to do, Ada?’

‘Talk to this old biddy who found you.’

‘I’m not pinning my hopes on her.’

‘She’s your best bet, ducky. Like he said, something will make a connection. Who knows what talking to her might do?’

‘Of course I’ll talk to her now it’s been arranged. All I’m saying is that I don’t expect a breakthrough. What do I do if I draw a blank with Mrs Thornton?’

‘Talk to the press and get your picture in the paper along the lines of CAN YOU HELP THIS WOMAN? With looks like yours, you’ll get some offers, but I won’t say what kind.’

‘I don’t want that.’ They strolled past some patients in wheelchairs. She told Ada, ‘I’m sorry to be a misery-guts. It’s become very clear to me how much we all rely on our memories. You’d think what’s past is finished, but it isn’t. It makes us what we are. Without a memory, you don’t have any experience to support you. You can’t trust yourself to make decisions, to reason, to stand up for your rights. My past started on Tuesday morning. That’s the whole of my experience, Ada. I don’t have anything else to work with.’