Chameleon (32 page)

The inspector continued his recap. 'He was a large man, heavily built.'

Sue nodded.

'If you forget about the hair and the moustache can you think of any man you've come across recently who has that build?'

Sue shook her head and said, 'I've been thinking about that a lot but no, I can't think of anyone. I hardly know anyone in this city!' she added.

'And you sir?' the policeman asked Jamieson. 'Does that description mean anything to you?'

'Not off-hand.' said Jamieson with a shake of the head.

'Strange,' said the inspector. 'It's pretty clear this man was not our celebrated ripper. He wasn't too interested in your wife at all, apart from using her as a tool to get at you. For some reason he wanted to get at you very badly sir. Can you think why anyone should feel that way?'

'No Inspector. I can't.'

Phillip Morton came in to the room and insisted that the interview come to an end. Sue had to be allowed to sleep. The policemen didn't argue. They thanked Sue and Jamieson for their co-operation and left. Jamieson had a few moments alone with Sue before he too left the room and returned to the residency with Clive Evans.

'You look as if you could do with a drink,' said Evans.

'I could do with ten,' replied Jamieson.

'We could go out?'

Jamieson did not take much persuasion. 'Good idea,' he said.

Jamieson had downed two large whiskies before he noticed that Evans was drinking only orange juice. 'You don't drink?' he asked.

'Nothing stronger than this,' replied Evans tapping his glass, a legacy of Chapel days in the valleys.

Jamieson smiled. 'Very wise.' He drained his own glass.

'Let me get you another,' said Evans.

'Not if you're not drinking,' protested Jamieson but Evans ordered a whisky for him anyway. 'You have had one hell of a day. Call it medicinal. Half our patients do.'

Jamieson accepted the drink and admitted to himself that the whisky was doing him good. He had been under almost unbearable stress for the past few hours and now, for the first time, he felt himself start to relax.

'What are your plans now?' asked Evans.

'When Sue feels better we'll go back to Kent and have some time off together. Ideally, I'd like to take her away on holiday somewhere. We'll see. Either way we should be gone by the end of the week and I can't say I'll be sorry to see the back of this place.'

'The hospital or the city?'

'Both.'

'I can understand that,' said Evans. 'You have not had the easiest of times.'

'None of us have in this mess.'

'Well, it's over now,' said Evans.

'Thank God,' said Jamieson. 'Damn, I meant to check on the re-sterilising of the instruments and dressings from Gynaecology.'

'It's all right, I did it. Every single item has been autoclaved and returned under fresh seal.'

'Thanks,' said Jamieson. 'I wish you would let me buy you a drink.'

'You can send me some strawberries from Kent when the season arrives,' said Evans.

'That's a promise.'

Surgery recommenced in the Gynaecology Department of Kerr Memorial on Wednesday with a full operating schedule designed to make inroads into the waiting list. There were no post-operative problems at the end of the day or on the following two days and by the time Jamieson and Sue came to leave the hospital on Saturday morning everything seemed to be back to normal. Hugh Crichton saw them off and wished them well and, holding a document case over his head with one hand to protect his skull from the rain, he held the driver's door open for Sue to get in. Jamieson's arm, although out of the sling, had not recovered sufficiently for him to undertake the strain of a long drive.

Jamieson looked back as they drove through the hospital gates and then looked at Sue. 'Feel good to be going?' he asked.

'Do you really need an answer to that,' said Sue.

As they sped south on the motorway Sue said, 'Have you had any more thoughts about the man in the wig?'

'A lot of thoughts but no answers,' replied Jamieson. 'You?'

Sue paused while she concentrated on finding a suitable moment to pull out and overtake the lorry in front. When they were safely past she said, 'I think he was homosexual.'

'What makes you say that?'

'He put his hand up my skirt at one point.'

'And that makes him homosexual?'

'He did it to frighten me - and he did - but I could see from the look in his eyes that he got no kick out of it. He could have been twisting my wrist.'

'Maybe you should tell the police that.'

'It's not exactly evidence is it? And maybe it's not even important. It doesn't help to explain why he hates you or why he wanted to hurt you so badly.'

'I suppose not.'

'Does it worry you?'

'Of course,' said Jamieson. 'Particularly because I don't understand it. I can't imagine what I could possibly have done to make someone feel that way about me and yet, someone obviously does.'

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes then Sue asked, 'When will you go to see the Sci-Med people?'

'I'll go into London on Monday if that's all right with you? The sooner I make my report the better.'

'Of course.'

It continued to rain on Sunday but it did not prevent Jamieson and Sue from having their planned walk. They put on waterproofs and Wellingtons and enjoyed the smell of wet leaves as they walked along the lanes, arms wound round each other. They timed it so that they would be in the village of Bridge around lunch time and so would have time to enjoy a meal at their favourite pub. But despite their almost exaggerated attempts to restore normality to their lives it was becoming apparent to both of them that it was something that was going to take time. The nightmare of Kerr Memorial Hospital was not going to fade away readily.

Their conversation, once punctuated by comfortable silences was now the subject of awkward ones, when one of them knew that the other had strayed off to brood on some happening of the past few weeks. At one point Jamieson had to admit that thoughts of the man who had abducted Sue were haunting him. 'You know what worries me most,' he said. 'It's the fact that the reason this man hates me so much must be in some way tied up with the events at the hospital. I hardly met anyone at all outside the hospital apart from a couple of Italian waiters when I went out to eat - and the tip wasn't that bad.'

Sue smiled at Jamieson's attempt to lighten the conversation but she persisted. 'But surely no one could possible blame you for the deaths at the hospital,' said Sue.

'I hope not,' said Jamieson. 'But maybe someone thinks I should have been able to do more. I should have been able to clear the matter up sooner and they blame me for the death of their wife or daughter?'

'Doesn't sound plausible,' said Sue, shaking her head decisively and Jamieson had to agree.

'You don't think he might still try to get at you do you?' asked Sue with a worried note in her voice.

'No, of course not,' said Jamieson. He met Sue's gaze and saw an accusation in her eyes. 'All right,' he said. 'The truth is I have no idea; he may do; there's no way of predicting anything unless we know what lies behind it.'

'That's more like it,' said Sue. 'Don't bullshit me.'

'Dr Jamieson is here for his debriefing,' said Miss Roberts into the machine at her elbow. A disembodied voice replied, 'Send him up.'

'Jackson will show you the way,' said Miss Roberts.

'It's all right, I remember,' said Jamieson turning to head for the lift.

'No, that's not allowed,' said Miss Roberts, loudly at first to stop Jamieson and then more apologetically, 'Visitors must be accompanied at all times in the ministry. It's a rule.'

Jamieson acceded with a smile and waited for the uniformed man to escort him. They exchanged pleasantries about the weather in the lift and Jamieson learned that Mr Jackson had spent his summer holiday in Torquay. The weather had been 'mixed'.

'Good to see you,' said Macmillan when Jamieson entered the room.

Jamieson shook hands with him, using his left hand and did the same with Drs Armour and Foreman.

'I haven't done that since I was in the Boy Scouts,' joked Armour.

'You had a bit of a rough time up north I understand,' said Macmillan.

'My wife had a rougher one,' said Jamieson.

'Bad business,' said Foreman and the other two concurred with nods and sympathy.

'Still no idea why he wanted to get at you?' asked Foreman.

'No, but my feeling is that it had something to do with the affair at the hospital. It must have done.'

'Why?' asked Armour.

'Apart from the fact that I hardly met anyone outside the hospital during my stay up there I think that there was more to the infection problem than I managed to find out. There were lots of loose ends that I didn't manage to tie up. I suspect some of them were quite important.'

'But the circumstantial evidence against the man Thelwell was as strong as we could have hoped for,' said Macmillan.

'I agree,' said Jamieson. 'But I still worry.'

Macmillan gave a wry smile and said, 'We have to be pragmatic about it I'm afraid. If the infection problem at Kerr Memorial has been cleared up our job is dome and that's an end to it.'

Armour said, 'Perhaps I might just add that there has been no new murder in the city in the last ten days,' said Foreman. 'It may be a little premature but it's looking good.

'I agree,' said Armour. 'We may never know the whole story but if both problems have died with this man Thelwell then that must be good enough for all of us.'

'Very good sir,' said Jamieson.

Macmillan got to his feet and Jamieson took this as his cue to do likewise. 'I'm sorry your first assignment for Sci-Med has turned out to be so demanding and traumatic for you Doctor, you must have a little break before we think about asking you to help us with anything else.'

'A little time alone with my wife would be nice,' replied Jamieson. 'We haven't seen much of each other over the past few weeks.'

'Of course,' said Macmillan. 'By the way,' He held out a brown envelope. 'This is the lab report you asked for from the Sci-Med lab. You had left Leeds before we could get it to you.'

Jamieson was puzzled. He said, 'I only asked for one lab report and I got that.' He took the report out of the open envelope, one handed, and read it. It was an analytical report on the
Staphylococcus
that had caused the second outbreak of post-operative infection at Kerr Memorial. 'Strange,' he muttered. 'I don't remember asking for this.' He looked at the photo-copy of the request that was stapled to the report and saw who had. It was signed M. Lippman, pp Dr S. Jamieson. Moira Lippman had sent cultures of the organism and made the request.

'Mystery cleared up?' asked Armour.

'Yes, thank you,' said Jamieson, still puzzled but not wanting to discuss it further. He put the report in his pocket.

'We'll be in touch,' said Macmillan.

Jamieson had more than two hours to wait for a train that would stop at Bekesbourne Halt, the tiny station within a mile of his home at Patrixbourne. He didn't mind because he was in no hurry and it gave him time to consider why Moira Lippman had made the request to the Sci-Med lab. Had she just been anticipating that he himself would want such an analysis? After all he had sent the Pseudomonas there, or did she have a good reason of her own? Something to do with what she had found out? Jamieson found the notion exciting but there was no point in trying to decipher the report in his pocket in the dirt and damp of a railway station. He would wait until he was at home and had all his reference books to hand.

The train bound for Dover stopped at Bekesbourne Halt and waited briefly while Jamieson got off along with two women who had obviously been on a shopping expedition to London. The women were weighed down with plastic carrier bags but seemed in remarkably good spirits as Jamieson followed them slowly down the stairs to the road outside. They headed off towards Bekesbourne while he turned right and walked up the road past a hop garden to Patrixbourne.

'How did it go?' asked Sue.

'All right. They're happy as long as the infection problem is over.'

'As you said yourself, it's a matter of priorities,' said Sue.

'What have you been doing with yourself?' asked Jamieson.

'Cleaning!' said Sue. 'We've been away so long that the house is filthy.'

'You shouldn't be doing that just yet,' said Jamieson softly. 'It's too soon after...'

Sue stiffened as he touched her and half turned away. 'It's over and done with and I'm fine,' she said in a tone that brooked no further discussion. She turned and walked through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. 'Why didn't you tell me the police were watching the house?'

Jamieson was taken aback. He considered pretending that he did not know what she was talking about but capitulated first. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I suppose I didn't want to alarm you. I just thought it might be a good idea if someone kept an eye on you today when I was away in London and you were here on your own. I arranged it through Sci-Med.'

'Next time tell me,' said Sue sharply. 'Agreed?'

'Agreed,' said Jamieson sheepishly.

'If that man at the end of the lane this morning had not looked so much like a policeman I might have thought he was ... someone else entirely.'

'Oh God, I didn't even consider that,' said Jamieson. 'I'm so sorry. It was thoughtless of me.'

Sue dropped the teaspoon she had been holding and put her hand up to her face.

Jamieson came up behind her and put his arm around her. He sensed that Sue was still under great strain.

Sue recovered quickly and continued with the coffee. 'Tell me all about today,' she said as she led the way back to the living room, carrying the coffee cups on a tray.

'There was one strange thing,' said Jamieson. He told Sue about Moira Lippman's request for a Sci-Med analysis.

'And she didn't say anything to you?' said Sue