Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

“I’ll keep her in the barracks,” I said. “Senior Sister Garson doesn’t even need to know.”

She turned around to look at Biddy, seated in the open luggage hatch. The collie had her face tilted up into the wind and her eyes closed in an attitude of uncomplicated bliss.

“Good luck with that,” she said.

That night, when the coast was clear, I sneaked Biddy into the ward.

“John,” I said, “you’ve got a visitor.”

I began to find my way around. I started to make home visits and I took the time to meet the island’s luminaries, from the priest to the postman to the secretary of the Grazing Committee. Most of the time Biddy rode around with me in the back of the Riley. One night I went down into town and took the dog into the pub with me, as an icebreaker. People were beginning to recognise me now. It would be a while before I’d feel accepted, but I felt I’d made a start.

Senior Sister Garwood told me that Donald Budge, the undertaker, had now removed the infant body for an appropriate burial. She also said that he’d complained to her about the state in which he’d found it. I told her to send him to me, and I’d explain the medical realities of the situation to a man who ought to know better. Budge didn’t follow it up.

The next day in town Thomas Tulloch came to morning surgery, alone. “Mister Tulloch,” I said. “How can I help you?”

“It’s not for me,” he said. “It’s Daisy, but she won’t come. Can you give her a tonic? Anything that’ll perk her up. Nothing I do seems to help.”

“Give her time. It’s only been a few days.”

“It’s getting worse. Now she won’t leave the cottage. I tried to persuade her to visit her sister but she just turns to the wall.”

So I wrote him a scrip for some Parrish’s, a harmless red concoction of sweetened iron phosphate that would, at best, sharpen the appetite, and at worst do nothing at all. It was all I could offer. Depression, in those days, was a condition to be overcome by ‘pulling oneself together’. Not to do so was to be perverse and most likely attention-seeking, especially if you were a woman. I couldn’t help thinking that, though barely educated even by the island’s standards, Tulloch was an unusually considerate spouse for his time.

Visits from the dog seemed to do the trick for John Petrie. I may have thought I was deceiving the Senior Sister, but I realise now that she was most likely turning a blind eye. Afterwards his breathing was always easier, his sleep more peaceful. And I even got my first words out of him when he beckoned me close and said into my ear:

“ Ye’ll do. ”

After this mark of approval I looked up to find the Constable waiting for me, hat in his hands as if he were unsure of the protocol. Was a dying man’s bedside supposed to be like a church? He was taking no chances.

He said, “I’m sorry to come and find you at your work, Doctor. But I hope you can settle a concern.”

“I can try.”

“There’s a rumour going round about the dead Tulloch baby. Some kind of abuse?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some people are even saying it had been skinned.”

“Skinned?” I echoed.

“I’ve seen what goes on in post-mortems and such,” the Constable persisted. “But I never heard of such a thing being called for.”

“Nor have I,” I said. “It’s just Chinese whispers, David. I saw the body before Donald Budge took it away. It was in poor condition after a long and difficult labour. But the only abuse it suffered was natural.”

“I’m only going by what people are saying.”

“Well for God’s sake don’t let them say such a thing around the mother.”

“I do hear she’s taken it hard,” the Constable conceded. “Same thing happened to my sister, but she just got on. I’ve never even heard her speak of it.”

He looked to me for permission, and then went around the bed to address John Petrie. He bent down with his hands on his knees, and spoke as if to a child or an imbecile.

“A’right, John?” he said. “Back on your feet soon, eh?”

Skinned? Who ever heard of such a thing? The chain of gossip must have started with Donald Budge and grown ever more grotesque in the telling. According to the records Budge had four children of his own. The entire family was active in amateur dramatics and the church choir. You’d expect a man in his position to know better.

I was writing up patient notes at the end of the next day’s town Surgery when there was some commotion outside. Nurse Kirkwood went to find out the cause and came back moments later with a breathless nine-year-old boy at her side.

“This is Robert Flett,” she said. “He ran all the way here to say his mother’s been in an accident.”

“What kind of an accident?”

The boy looked startled and dumbstruck at my direct question, but Rosie Kirkwood spoke for him. “He says she fell.”

I looked at her. “You know the way?”

“Of course.”

We all piled into the Riley to drive out to the west of the island. Nurse Kirkwood sat beside me and I lifted Robert into the bag hatch with the dog, where both seemed happy enough.

At the highest point on the moor Nurse Kirkwood reckoned she spotted a walking figure on a distant path, far from the road.

She said, “Is that Thomas Tulloch? What could he be doing out here?” But I couldn’t spare the attention to look.

Adam Flett was one of three brothers who, together, were the island’s most prosperous crofter family. In addition to their livestock and rented lands they made some regular money from government contract work. With a tenancy protected by law, Adam had built a two-storey home with a slate roof and laid a decent road to it. I was able to drive almost to the door. Sheep scattered as I braked, and the boy jumped out to join with other children in gathering them back with sticks.

It was only a few weeks since Jean Flett had borne the youngest of her seven children. The birth had been trouble-free but the news of a fall concerned me. Her eldest, a girl of around twelve years let us into the house. I looked back and saw Adam Flett on the far side of the yard, watching us.

Jean Flett was lying on a well-worn old sofa and struggled to rise as we came through the door. I could see that she hadn’t been expecting us. Despite the size of their family, she was only in her thirties.

I said, “Mrs. Flett?” and Nurse Kirkwood stepped past me to steady our patient and ease her back onto the couch.

“This is Doctor Spence,” Nurse Kirkwood explained.

“I told Marion,” Jean Flett protested. “I told her not to send for you.”

“Well, now that I’m here,” I said, “let’s make sure my journey isn’t wasted. Can you tell me what happened?”

She wouldn’t look at me, and gave a dismissive wave. “I fell, that’s all.”

“Where’s the pain?”

“I’m just winded.”

I took her pulse and then got her to point out where it hurt. She winced when I checked her abdomen, and again when I felt around her neck.

I said, “Did you have these marks before the fall?”

“It was a shock. I don’t remember.”

Tenderness around the abdomen, a raised heart rate, left side pain, and what appeared to be days-old bruises. I exchanged a glance with Nurse Kirkwood. A fair guess would be that the new mother had been held against the wall and punched.