John Pritchard - Night Sisters

And some of it was missing.

Another post-mortem. More puzzles for the pathologists. Because Johnston too seemed to have undergone recent surgery. Brain surgery. Which came as quite a surprise, because the only medical history he’d had with us was one of drug addiction. A policeman who’d spoken to him a week or so before the accident reported that he’d seemed rational enough – yet after what had been done to his cerebral cortex, he’d have been practically a walking zombie, driving that car by sheer desperate instinct alone. There was another finding, too. Though the trephine and lobotomy seemed at one level to have been sophisticated – even audacious – there was indication once again of a certain crudity. And evidence that it had been carried out under conditions that were far from sterile.

‘Another backstreet job?’ Mike had wondered cheerfully. Me, I was just waiting for the tabloids to pick up on it all with screaming POLICE HUNT DERANGED DOCTOR headlines. And what had Johnston been muttering? Something about doctors, ‘fucking doctors … still after me. Still coming …’ Except he hadn’t called them doctors but something else – a more specialized term he could only have picked up from professionals.

Clinicians. He’d called them clinicians. A cold word. But I’d wondered why its mention made me shiver.

Three

The phone rang as I was typing in the third name.

Startled despite myself, I reached over the keyboard for it, spilled the last of my coffee, and was still swearing as I brought the receiver to my ear.

‘If I’d wanted the Scatology Department,’ Mark said mildly, ‘I’d have dialled 221.’

‘I think that’s Pathology you’re thinking of, Dr Drew,’ I pointed out with completely informal formality: still checking to see whether I’d managed to get any over my uniform. ‘And by the way, where are you?’

‘The on-call room.’

Which was just up the corridor. ‘So why didn’t you just shift your bulk round here, you lazy sod?’

He grinned: his voice was full of it. ‘It’s what the telephone was invented for. But I might stagger round in a minute, if you insist.’

‘I won’t hold my breath.’ After a pause I added: ‘You guess where I was?’

‘And what you were doing.’ Some of the banter had faded from his voice. ‘Why don’t you let them rest in peace, Rachel?’

That left me nonplussed for a moment. Then: ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know. Always poring over the same cases. You know you couldn’t have saved them – and the police have got nowhere. So what are you looking for?’

Silently, I had to admit I wasn’t sure. Certainly the deaths had been bizarre enough to have a morbid fascination of their own – but it wasn’t just that. Something about these particular cases still gave me the strangest feeling. A dull, persistent niggle of unease: like a slow, dripping tap in the darkness of my mind.

He took it upon himself to break the lengthening silence. ‘I’ll be round in a minute. See you.’

‘See you,’ I echoed, absently, as he hung up. I’d already guessed that recent events had a lot to do with my digging now. Jenny’s baffling fate; my own close encounter. A week’s inactivity to brood. And the cases had been weird enough to start with; but now, almost despite myself, I was beginning – just beginning – to wonder who the hell was really out there.

The third death had shaken me the most; and that a week or so before Jenny’s own murder. That was a night when the drip … drip … drip … had strengthened briefly to a startling, chilly trickle.

ALISON SCOTT

The full admission summary was unfolding onscreen as Mark stuck his head round the door, then came over to sit in the chair next to mine: wearing his sterile greens like pyjamas, his white coat unbuttoned over them. I gave him a sidelong glance: he hadn’t shaved yet, but otherwise looked quite fresh – his sandy hair tidied and brown eyes clear. Then again, he, at least, had had the best part of a night’s sleep. He returned my look, eyebrows innocently raised – then followed my gaze back towards the screen. Our proximity was relaxed enough: no hidden agendas. I think he knew I rather fancied him, but he was spoken for already. A purely professional relationship, then – but we liked and trusted each other a lot. And worked together well.

Alison Jane Scott, twenty-two years old, known prostitute, self-admitted with suspected post-operative infection. Died in department 02:20.

This one had been the least messy, but in its way the most shocking of all. She’d wandered in just after midnight, looking dazed and haggard. Complaining of a high temperature, sweats; an unpleasant discharge. An examination revealed she’d recently undergone a gynae op of some kind, and it seemed she’d developed an infection.

She wasn’t wilfully unco-operative most of the time; just listless, staring back at me or Mark (he’d been on that night as well) with dull, wary eyes. But when it came to the matter of the operation itself, she’d refused point-blank even to acknowledge it had taken place. Mark had pushed her a bit, clearly suspecting an illegal abortion, but got nowhere. And I’d had the distinct impression, as she’d relentlessly stonewalled, that her silence was born of fear: that the prospect of even mentioning her op was so frightening as to be quite simply unthinkable. It was looking more and more like a backstreet job. I assumed the person who’d performed it had threatened her – terrified her into silence.

I’d been right, too. In a way.

Anyhow, at length we’d given up trying to find someone we could pin the blame on, and Mark decided to get a second opinion from the gynae registrar. While he was out of the cubicle, I rechecked her pulse, and was making conversation in a perfunctory sort of way when her hand suddenly shot out and grasped my wrist: squeezing so tight it hurt. I turned in surprise – and the look in her eyes killed my word of remonstration stone dead. Her face was ashen and gleaming with sweat: I tried to tell myself it was the fever, but those haunted, hunted eyes assured me otherwise. Worst of all was the cold intelligence in them: the fact that she knew exactly what she was saying made the words that followed all the more unnerving.

‘Tell them I must be cremated,’ she whispered. ‘As soon as possible – so there’s nothing left for them.’

Somewhat taken aback, I’d opened my mouth and shut it again, before managing: ‘Don’t be silly – maybe a few days on the gynae ward and a course of antibiotics, and you’ll be fine. Nothing to –’

‘Forget it. They’re here. They’re here already. And I can’t run any more.’ She looked at me earnestly. ‘Just leave me alone – or they’ll do for you too.’

There was a pause. ‘How do you mean?’ I asked carefully.

Her patience snapped then: there was an edge of hysteria in her tone. ‘You stupid bitch, just leave me alone! Please …’

I kept very calm. ‘Who is it you’re afraid of ?’

‘Them. The Clinicians.’ Her voice had faded to a dry whisper again. ‘Can’t you feel them?’

Clinicians. Again that word. And though I didn’t answer her question directly, it did indeed occur to me that the temperature in the cubicle had altered. It hadn’t dropped, exactly; but it had … subsided. The air felt cooler on my skin. As I stared at her, I realized it was becoming cold.

‘Clinicians: you mean doctors?’

‘I mean Clinicians. Now for fuck’s sake leave me be.’

‘All right,’ I relented, ‘I’ll just go and see how the doctor’s getting on. Back in a minute, okay?’

I found Mark writing out an X-ray request form over by the desk. ‘You know that woman in cubicle two … ?’