Десмонд Бэгли - The Spoilers

‘Did you prosecute?’

‘Don’t be a damned fool,’ said Hellier violently. ‘I have a reputation to keep up. A fine figure I’d cut in the papers if I prosecuted my own daughter for theft. I have enough trouble with the Press already.’

‘It might have been better for her if you had prosecuted,’ said Warren. ‘Didn’t you ask yourself why she stole from you?’

Hellier sighed. ‘I thought she’d just gone plain bad — I thought she’d taken after her mother.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘But that’s another story.’

‘Of course,’ said Warren. ‘As I say, when June came to me for treatment, or rather, for heroin, she had been addicted for nearly two years. She said so and her physical condition confirmed it.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Hellier. ‘That she came to you for heroin and not for treatment.’

‘An addict regards a doctor as a source of supply,’ said Warren a little tiredly. ‘Addicts don’t want to be treated — it scares them.’

Hellier looked at Warren blankly. ‘But this is monstrous. Did you give her heroin?’

‘I did.’

‘And no treatment?’

‘Not immediately. You can’t treat a patient who won’t be treated, and there’s no law in England which allows of forcible treatment.’

‘But you pandered to her. You gave her the heroin.’

‘Would you rather I hadn’t? Would you rather I had let her go on the streets to get her heroin from an illegal source at an illegal price and contaminated with God knows what filth? At least the drug I prescribed was clean and to British Pharmacopoeia Standard, which reduced the chance of hepatitis.’

Hellier looked strangely shrunken. ‘I don’t understand,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘I just don’t understand.’

‘You don’t,’ agreed Warren. ‘You’re wondering what has happened to medical ethics. We’ll come to that later.’ He tented his fingers. ‘After a month I managed to persuade June to take treatment; there are clinics for cases like hers. She was in for twenty-seven days.’ He stared at Hellier with hard eyes. ‘If I had been her I doubt if I could have lasted a week. June was a brave girl, Sir Robert.’

‘I don’t know much about the... er... the actual treatment.’

Warren opened his desk drawer and took out a cigarettebox. He took out a cigarette and then pushed the open box across the desk, apparently as an afterthought. ‘I’m sorry; do you smoke?’

‘Thank you,’ said Hellier, and took a cigarette. Warren leaned across and lit it with a flick of his lighter, then lit his own.

He studied Hellier for a while, then held up his cigarette. ‘There’s a drug in here, you know, but nicotine isn’t particularly powerful. It produces a psychological dependency. Anyone who is strong-minded enough can give it up.’ He leaned forward. ‘Heroin is different; it produces a physiological dependency — the body needs it and the mind has precious little say about it.’

He leaned back. ‘If heroin is withheld from an addicted patient there are physical withdrawal symptoms of such a nature that the chances of death are about one in five — and that is something a doctor must think hard about before he begins treatment.’

Hellier whitened. ‘Did she suffer?’

‘She suffered,’ said Warren coldly. ‘I’d be only too pleased to tell you she didn’t, but that would be a lie. They all suffer. They suffer so much that hardly one in a hundred will see the treatment through. June stood as much of it as she could take and then walked out. I couldn’t stop her — there’s no legal restraint.’

The cigarette in Hellier’s fingers was trembling noticeably. Warren said, ‘I didn’t see her for quite a while after that, and then she came back six months ago. They usually come back. She wanted heroin but I couldn’t prescribe it. There had been a change in the law — all addicts must now get their prescriptions from special clinics which have been set up by the government. I advised treatment, but she wouldn’t hear of it, so I took her to the clinic. Because I knew her medical history — and because I took an interest in her — I was able to act as consultant. Heroin was prescribed — as little as possible — until she died.’

‘Yet she died of an overdose.’

‘No,’ said Warren. ‘She died of a dose of heroin dissolved in a solution of methylamphetamine — and that’s a cocktail with too much of a kick. The amphetamine was not prescribed — she must have got it somewhere else.’

Hellier was shaking. ‘You take this very calmly, Warren,’ he said in an unsteady voice. ‘Too damned calmly for my liking.’

‘I have to take it calmly,’ said Warren. ‘A doctor who becomes emotional is no good to himself or his patients.’

‘A nice, detached, professional attitude,’ sneered Hellier. ‘But it killed my June.’ He thrust a trembling finger under Warren’s nose. ‘I’m going to have your hide, Warren. I’m not without influence. I’m going to break you.’

Warren looked at Hellier bleakly. ‘It’s not my custom to kick parents in the teeth on occasions like this,’ he said tightly. ‘But you’re asking for it — so don’t push me.’

‘Push you!’ Hellier grinned mirthlessly. ‘Like the Russian said — I’m going to bury you!’

Warren stood up. ‘All right — then tell me this: do you usually communicate with your children at second hand by means of letters from your secretary?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Six months ago, just before you went to America, June wanted to see you. You fobbed her off with a form letter from your secretary, for God’s sake!’

‘I was very busy at the time. I had a big deal impending.’

‘She wanted your help. You wouldn’t give it to her, so she came to me. You promised to write from America. Did you?’

‘I was busy,’ said Hellier weakly. ‘I had a heavy schedule — a lot of flights... conferences...’

‘So you didn’t write. When did you get back?’

‘A fortnight ago.’

‘Nearly six months away. Did you know where your daughter was? Did you try to find out? She was still alive then, you know.’

‘Good Christ, I had to straighten out things over here. Things had gone to hell in my absence.’

‘They had, indeed!’ said Warren icily. ‘You say that you found June a job and set her up in a flat. It sounds very nice when put that way, but I’d say that you threw her out. In the preceding years did you try to find out why her behaviour had changed? Why she needed more and more money? In fact I’d like to know how often you saw your daughter. Did you supervise her activities? Check on the company she was keeping? Did you act like a father?’

Hellier was ashen. ‘Oh, my God!’

Warren sat down and said quietly, ‘Now I’m really going to hurt you, Hellier. Your daughter hated your guts. She told me so herself, although I didn’t know who you were. She kept that damned patronizing secretary’s letter to fuel her hatred, and she ended up in a sleazy doss-house in Notting Hill with cash resources of three shillings and fourpence. If, six months ago, you’d have granted your daughter fifteen minutes of your precious time she’d have been alive now.’

He leaned over the desk and said in a rasping voice, ‘Now tell me, Hellier; who was responsible for your daughter’s death?’

Hellier’s face crumpled and Warren drew back and regarded him with something like pity. He felt ashamed of himself; ashamed of letting his emotions take control in such an unprofessional way. He watched Hellier grope for a handkerchief, and then got up and went to a cupboard where he tipped a couple of pills from a bottle.

He returned to the desk and said, ‘Here, take these — they’ll help.’ Unresistingly, Hellier allowed him to administer the pills and. gulped them down with the aid of a glass of water. He became calmer and presently began to speak in a low, jerky voice.