Ken McClure: Chameleon

Suddenly fists pounded on the outside door. 'Sue? Are you in there?' demanded Jamieson's voice from the other side of the door.

Evans straightened up and stood there silently, his eyes filled with uncertainty, the knife still raised in his hand. Sue still desperately fought for air against the constant desire to retch.

'Sue! Evans! Can you hear me?'

Evans stood like a silent statue until the footsteps started to recede up the steps outside. The knife in his hand slowly started to descend as he relaxed. It cut an invisible line through the air. He turned to look at Sue again, his pock-marked face a mask of venom. 'So he knows!' he hissed. 'The interfering idiot knows but he's too late!'

Sue stopped breathing altogether as she saw the knife in Evans' hand move towards her. Her silent scream was interrupted by a tremendous crash of broken glass as the window was kicked in. The sound continued as several more kicks were applied to remove all the glass from the frame. Evans left Sue and ran across the room in time to meet Jamieson coming through the opening. He swung the knife and caught Jamieson on the left shoulder, opening up a cut which blood welled up from and soaked through his jacket but no muscular damage had been done.

The two men circled each other, Evans making regular gestures with the knife to keep Jamieson at bay.

'You mad bastard!' whispered Jamieson. 'You crazy mad bastard!'

'You don't understand,' insisted Evans. 'She's evil. They're all evil. You've just been blinded to it by her looks. She'll destroy you in the end.'

Jamieson shook his head in disbelief at the deranged man he saw before him. 'All these deaths because of one nut case,' he murmured. 'Ye gods.'

Jamieson risked a quick glance at Sue and was so alarmed at the colour of her complexion, which was becoming blue through asphyxiation, that his concentration was broken. The excitement and panic brought on by watching the fight between Evans and her husband had made the rag in her mouth move backwards into her throat.

Evans took full advantage of Jamieson's lapse. He picked up the Ultra-Violet lamp that had been sitting on his work bench and threw it at Jamieson. It caught Jamieson high on the temple and sent him crashing to the floor in a haze of pain.

Jamieson was aware of Evans coming towards him. He groped desperately for anything near him on the floor that could be used as a weapon to defend himself against the madman. His hand closed round a long shard of glass that had fallen from the window frame.

At the very moment that Evans threw himself at him, Jamieson brought the jagged shard round in front of him and held it firmly upright using both fists. The full weight of Evans? body came down on it and a look of stunned surprise appeared on Evans' face. His body went completely rigid for a moment and then slowly relaxed into death.

Jamieson was pinned to the floor by the weight of Evans' body. He was utterly desperate to get to Sue but it took an eternity to free himself from the sprawling corpse lying on top of him. With a final desperate shove he managed it and got to his feet to stagger to Sue's assistance. She was unconscious and badly cyanosed when he cut away the handkerchief and pulled the gag out of her mouth. He felt for a pulse and failed to find one. In desperation he started to blow air gently down into her lungs. There was no response.

Jamieson was still continuing with mouth to mouth resuscitation when the police arrived and Ryan entered the flat. Ryan took in the situation at a glance and radioed for an ambulance before doing anything else. He approached the table and stood quietly at Jamieson's side. 'The ambulance is on its way. How is she?' he asked quietly. Jamieson shook his head as if to dismiss the question and continued as if he were in another world. In the background a policeman threw up as he opened the fridge.

Sue coughed and Jamieson paused, thinking it the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He exchanged glances with Ryan and his cheek muscles started to quiver as he watched Sue begin to breathe again on her own. After a few more minutes she opened her eyes. She appeared to look at Jamieson but then closed them again. Ryan knew as well as Jamieson that there was a question of brain damage, depending on how long Sue had been without oxygen.

'It's over my darling,' Jamieson whispered. 'You're safe now. No one is ever going to hurt you again.'

There was an agonising pause before Sue said, 'I seem to have heard that somewhere before.'

Jamieson let out his breath in a long sigh and Ryan smiled at him. Sue was going to be all right.

'It is my darling,' said Jamieson. 'We're going home.

Two days later, Jamieson and Sue left Kerr Memorial for the last time. Maybe it was the fact that the sun was shining, but it seemed to both of them that the hospital had become a friendlier place. Phillip Morton was the last to come down and say good-bye to them and with him he brought the news that the four remaining Proteus patients were responding well to one of the antibiotics sent up by the Sci-Med labs. They were expected to make a full recovery.

As they drove out through the gates, neither Sue nor Jamieson felt inclined to look back. Sue clicked on the car radio in time to hear a government spokesman assure his interviewer that screening procedures for hospital staff were entirely adequate and there was no cause for public alarm. Jamieson reached out and switched it off again.